Impatiently the sailor reached into his shirt and showed the Colt. "You gets it when I gets the money."
"Bu'rret, p'rease?"
A filthy rag from the man's trouser pocket revealed a dozen or so cartridges. "A bargin's a bargin and me word's me word." The sailor reached for the money but before he could take it Hiraga's hand closed.
"Not sto'ren, yes?"
"'course not stole, come on for crissake!"
Hiraga opened his fist. Greedily the coins were grabbed and examined carefully to ensure they were not clipped or forged, all the time the crafty eyes darting this way and that. When he was satisfied he passed over the Colt and bullets and got up. "Don't get caught with it, matey, or you'll swing, 'course it's stolen." He leered and scuttled away like the rat he resembled.
Hiraga hunched down as he went back to the comparative safety of the Japanese village-- safe only so long as the riffraff and drunks did not decide to rampage. There were no police or sentries to protect the villagers. Only an occasional naval or army patrol passed along their main street and these men rarely took their side in any ruckus.
It had taken Hiraga many days to arrange the purchase--naturally he could not ask Tyrer's assistance. No one in the Yoshiwara possessed one. Raiko had said queasily: "Only gai-jin have them, Hiraga-san, so sorry.
Dangerous for civilized person to be caught with one."
Akimoto said with a grin, "If my cousin wants one, then get him one, Raiko! You can do anything, neh? For payment I will take you to bed without fee..." He ducked as she threw a cushion at him, laughing with him.
Raiko said, fanning herself, "Ah Hiraga-san, so sorry, I beg you to take this naughty man away, two of my girls have already demanded a day off to sooth their yin from the onslaught of his yang..."
When they were alone, Akimoto said seriously, "Perhaps you should change your mind, forget the gun.
Let me try and persuade Ori to meet us here."
Hiraga shook his head, glad for the company of his good-natured cousin. "Ori has a gun, he will use it against us the moment he sees us. I have tried every way to snare him out of Drunk Town and failed. If I ambush him with a gun, there, it will seem a gai-jin did it. Any day he will try to get at that girl again and then I'm finished here."
"Perhaps he will tire of waiting. Every man in the village has been told to watch out for him, and no one is to sneak him in by sea."
"Who dare trust a villager?"' Akimoto said heavily, "Then when you get a gun, let me do it." He was much bigger than Hiraga. Not recognizing him when he arrived, he too had cut his hair in similar fashion.
Eventually Hiraga had accosted the sailor on the beach, pretending to be a visiting Chinese trader from Hong Kong and had struck a deal, his only proviso that the gun should not be stolen. But of course it would be stolen...
Akimoto was waiting for him in their dwelling in a village alley they now rented by the month.
"Eeee, Cousin, please excuse me," he said laughing, "no need to ask if you got it, but you look so funny in those clothes, if our shishi comrades could see you..."
Hiraga shrugged. "This way I can pass for any of the gai-jin coolies, wherever they come from.
All kinds of gai-jin and coolies dress like this in Drunk Town." He eased himself more comfortably, sore in the crotch. "I cannot understand how they can wear such heavy clothes and cramping trousers and tight coats all the time--and when it's hot, eeee, they're terrible, and you sweat a fountain." While he talked he checked the action of the Colt, testing its weight, aiming it. "It's heavy."
"Sak`e?"
"Thank you, then I think I will rest till sunset." He loaded the revolver, swigged some sak`e and lay down, pleased with himself. His eyes closed. He began to meditate. When at peace he let himself drift. In moments he slept.
At sunset he awoke. Akimoto was still on guard. He looked out of the tiny window. "No storm or rain tonight," he said, then pulled out a scarf and tied it around his head as he had seen low-class gai-jin and sailors do.
Suddenly Akimoto was filled with dread. "And now?"
"Now," he said, hiding the gun under his belt, "now for Ori. If I do not return, you kill him."
Most villagers on the streets did not recognize him, the few who did bowed nervously as to a gai-jin and not a samurai as they had been ordered. In his European attire to most gai-jin eyes, he would be just another Eurasian or Chinese trader from Hong Kong or Shanghai or Manila the quality of his clothes and bearing foretelling his position and wealth: "but never forget, Nakama-san," Tyrer had warned him continually, "however rich you appear, smart clothes won't protect you from harassment or insults from riffraff if you go alone into Drunk Town, or anywhere."
The first time he had gone looking for Ori, the moment the shoya had told him Ori had disobeyed him, he had stormed into Drunk Town wearing his Tyrer clothes. Almost at once he had been cornered by a rowdy group of drunks who surrounded him, jeering and cursing him, then started to attack. Only his skill in karate, still an unknown art to gai-jin, had saved him and he had retreated seething, two broken heads and another man crippled in his wake.
"Find out exactly where Ori is! At once," he had told the shoya. "What he's doing and how he's living!"
The next evening the shoya drew a rough map: "The house is here, on this corner facing the sea, near some wharfs. It is a drinking-sleeping house for very low persons. Ori-san rents a room, paying double I was told. Very bad that place, Hiraga-san, always full of evil men. You cannot go there without a special plan. It is important he is sent away?"' "Yes. Your village is at risk with him here."
"So ka!"
Two days later the shoya told him that, in the night, the Ori house had burned down, the remains of three men had been found in the ruins.
"I was told "the native" was one, Hiraga-san," the shoya said easily.
"A pity the whole foul area was not destroyed too, and every gai-jin in it."
"Yes."
So life became calm again. Hiraga continued to spend time with Tyrer, content to learn and to teach, unaware how vastly important and informative his knowledge was to Tyrer, Sir William and Jamie McFay. For half a day he had gone aboard the British frigate with Tyrer. The experience had shaken him and made him more determined than ever to find out how these people he despised could invent and make such unbelievable machines and warships, how such despicable people of such a tiny island, smaller than Nippon--if again Tyrer was to be believed --could have acquired the vast wealth necessary to possess so many ships and armies and factories and, at the same time, rule all sea-lanes and much of the gai-jin world.
That night, he had drunk himself to insensibility, his mind disoriented, uplifted one second, in the abyss the next, his kernel of belief in the absolute invincibility of bushido and the Land of the Gods badly mauled.
Most evenings he would spend with Akimoto in the Yoshiwara, or their village haunt, planning and sharing his gai-jin knowledge though keeping the extent of his disquiet hidden, but always strengthening his net around Tyrer, toying with him: "Ah so sorry, Taira-san, Fujiko contract take many weeks, Raiko hard trader, contract expensive, she have many c'rients, many, so sorry she busy tonight, perhaps tomorrow..."
A little over two weeks ago, to Hiraga's fury, the shoya had discovered Ori had not died in the fire: "... and oh so sorry, Hiraga-san, but I'm told now Ori-san has become suddenly wealthy, spending money like a daimyo. Now he has several rooms in another drinking house."
"Ori rich? How is that possible?"' "So sorry I don't know, Sire."
"But you do know where his new house is?"' "Yes Sire, here, here is the map, so sorry th--"' "Never mind," Hiraga had said furiously, "tonight burn him out again."
"So sorry, Hiraga-san, that is no longer easy." The shoya was outwardly penitent, inwardly just as furious that his first and immediate solution to the mad ronin had not achieved the purpose he had paid for. "It is no longer easy because this house is isolated and, it seems he has many bodyguards, gai-jin bodyguards!"
Icily Hiraga had considered the consequences.
He sent a honeyed letter to Ori by one of the villagers who sold fish in Drunk Town, saying how delighted he was to hear Ori was alive and not dead in the dreadful fire as he had heard, also that he was prospering and could they meet in the Yoshiwara that evening as Akimoto also wanted to discuss shishi matters of great importance.
Ori had replied by letter at once; "Not in the Yoshiwara or anywhere, not until our sonno-joi plan is done, the girl is dead and the Settlement burned. Before that if you, Akimoto or any other traitor comes near you will be shot."
Akimoto said, "He knows the fire was not an accident."
"Of course. Where would he get money?"' "Only by stealing it, neh?"' Other messages only brought the same answer. A poison plot had failed. So he had bought the gun and made a plan. Now it was time and tonight perfect. The last rays of sunset guided him across No Man's Land and along the fetid streets that were pocked with dangerous potholes. The few men who passed him, hardly looked at him except to curse him out of the way.