ISHIDO
Masao Masuto lived in Culver City, and for those unfamiliar with the geography of Los Angeles it may be said that while Culver City is only a few minutes by car from Beverly Hills, by property values and population it is a continent away. Masuto’s small, two-bedroom cottage was on a street of small cottages, differing only in the lushness and perfection of the shrubbery in front and the garden in back; for when he was not a policeman, when he was off duty, Masuto’s world was rather simple and contained. He had a daughter, Ana, aged seven, and a son, Uraga, aged nine, a wife, Kati, and a rose garden where he spent many pleasant and contemplative hours. The rose garden, surrounded on three sides by a wall of hibiscus, contained a world of forty-three different rose bushes, ranging from antique cabbage roses to ultrasophisticated, hybrid, scentless black and purple modern miracles of horticulture. Masuto knew each plant, its strengths, its weaknesses, its moment of bloom, and he was not beyond trusting that in their own way the plants knew him.
His wife, Kati, had been raised in the old-fashioned way. She was a small, lovely, timid woman, and although she had been born in California, she had led a sheltered life. She did not drive a car. Her ventures on foot to the supermarket and the few other places that demanded her personal attention were undertaken with trepidation. Her home was her world, and she lived there in constant anxiety about the strange and violent profession her husband pursued. It was a world she knew only from his reports of his work — carefully censored.
When he came into the house this evening, she greeted him with restraint, yet with the relief that was always evident. His bath was ready. He greeted his children, spoke a few appropriate words to them, bathed in steaming-hot water, then slipped into the kimono Kati had ready for him. Then he went into the tiny screened-off area that was his meditation room.
As a Zen Buddhist, he tried to find time for some meditation, regardless of how much his day pressed upon him, forty-five minutes if possible, and at least a few minutes if no more than that was available. He knew that five minutes of perfect meditation accomplished more than an hour of struggling with his mind, trying to tame an un-willing beast. Now he sat cross-legged for thirty minutes, then went to his wife.
They had tea, sitting on two cushions with a small, black enamel table between them. Masuto honored the pouring and drinking of tea in the old way, and Kati waited for him to speak about his day.
“A man was murdered,” he said finally.
Kati shook her head in horror and sympathy. She never understood how this man, who was her husband, could live and work with murder.
“I don’t judge, but he was a man who was responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. Death waited a long time before it welcomed him.”
“Did he suffer?”
“Less than those whom he killed,” Masuto replied.
“Then something else troubles you. You are troubled.”
“Oh, yes.” He smiled. “But you must not be troubled. It’s a small matter and very puzzling. Postage stamps.”
“Postage stamps?”
“About which I know absolutely nothing. Not the stamps one buys at the post office to mail a letter, but stamps that people collect with greed and passion.”
“But Uraga has a stamp album, which you bought for him. He bothers everyone for the stamps on letters from Japan.”
“Of course,” Masuto remembered. “And you recall why I bought it.”
“The packet of stamps that he received as a gift from my kinsman, Ishido. How simple. If you would know about stamps — then go to Ishido. They say that his stamp collection is worth many thousands of dollars.”
“Not so simple,” said Masuto. “I would have to humble myself, and that is something that does not come easily to me. Ishido despises my birth, my ancestors, and my occupation.”
“No,” Kati protested weakly.
“He is Samurai. My father was a gardener. He has never forgiven you for marrying me, and he has never forgiven me for being a policeman.”
“That is in your mind, not in his. You forget that he has lived in California for the past thirty years. He is not bound by the old ways. I have heard him speak highly of you.”
“And we have never been guests in his house. In all the years we have been married, we have not been guests in his house.”
“And did you invite him here?”
“Who am I to invite Ishido to my home?”
She refrained from observing that, for a sensible man, he could be both stubborn and foolish; she simply said that not only Ishido was proud, then followed it with that very Japanese expression, “So sorry, dear husband.”
Masuto was silent all through dinner. When he was silent, the children were silent. It was not the most pleasant dinner. When he had finished eating, he rose from the table, went to the telephone, and dialed a number. Kati listened.
He spoke in Japanese, and Kati smiled slightly. The servants in Ishido’s home spoke little English.
“I would speak with Ishido Dono. My name is Masao Masuto.”
A pause. He glanced at Kati, and she stopped smiling.
“A thousand apologies, Ishido Dono. I interrupt you at the worst of moments.… You are too kind. I am thoughtless, but this is a matter of my work and I need your assistance and your wisdom.… Of course. In one hour. A thousand thanks.”
Masuto put down the phone and said to his wife, “I will thank you to make no comment on what I have just done.”
“I love you very much,” she said. Then he smiled, and the children began to chatter.
Bel Air, while a part of Los Angeles, is if anything even more self-contained and more packed with wealth than Beverly Hills. It has its own private police force, which is called the Bel Air Patrol, and it has in its few square miles more castles, keeps, and baronial halls than one would find in a hundred miles of the River Rhine. Ishido’s home was high on a hill, and as Masuto drove that night up the winding road that led to the place, he reflected as so often before on the oddity that was America, where a samurai, once at war with these people, could in the same lifetime dwell in peace and luxury in their very midst, both welcome and respected. “Well, it is as it is,” he said to himself, which is a very Zen comment.
The single-story house was Japanese in style, surrounded by a wall of hedge and brick, glowing through its translucent walls. The doorbell was an ancient Chinese gong, and Ishido himself, clad in a black silk kimono, opened the door, a particular gesture of welcome. Masuto felt abashed by his own stubborn pride.
Ishido was a small man of about sixty, slender, with a round, moonlike face. “So pleased, so delighted,” he said, speaking in Japanese. “My kinsman honors my poor, humble home.”
“No, the honor is mine,” Masuto replied in Japanese, conscious of his bad accent but not to be outdone. “I am overcome. I do not know how to thank you for your graciousness.”
“My home is yours. You have been too long a stranger.”
Once inside, Ishido switched to English. He had a slight British intonation and almost no accent. He ushered Masuto into his living room, which was rather large, about thirty feet by twenty. It was furnished — or better said unfurnished — in the Japanese manner, with four splendid painted screens, cushions on the floor, low tables, a room for himself and his family. His study was in the Western manner; but it was a mark of consideration to take Masuto in here.
“You have a problem,” he said. “I am pleased. It has brought you to me.”
“I hesitate to burden you with it.”
“Is it police work?”
“Yes.”
“How fascinating! Tell me about it.”
“A man was murdered today. I am afraid that murder is my major province. You know I am chief of homicide in Beverly Hills.”
“No. I didn’t know. Fascinating. Who was the victim?”
“His name was Ivan Gaycheck.”
“Gaycheck? Really.” Ishido’s moon face remained expressionless.
“I see you know him.”
“I know him, but without pleasure.”
“Have you dealt with him?”
“Once. I found him rude and unpleasant. You know, Masao, his name is nondescript — Ivan Gaycheck. It means nothing, but it suggests a Slav or a Hungarian. He was a German.”
“Indeed? How do you know that?”
Ishido smiled. “I am right?”
“Yes.”
“His accent. I have an excellent ear for accents. Tell me, how did death find him?”
“Someone he knew well shot him in the forehead with a small twenty-two-caliber pistol.”
“Ah.” No judgment. Watching his kinsman, Masuto read nothing. Well, a man like Ishido was not to be read easily.
“Your conclusions are part of your police work?”
“Hardly a very brilliant part,” Masuto said. “We have the bullet and there was no sign of a struggle. The shot was at close range.”
“And since he dealt in stamps, you postulate that his death might be connected with stamps. And since I am a collector, you come to me.”
“But with apologies. I come only for information.”
“Nonsense, Masao — if you will forgive me. If a stamp is central to this murder, then every collector of consequence must be suspect. A collector is a unique type of personality. I have heard that you are a Buddhist?”
He appeared to have changed the subject aimlessly, but Masuto knew that a man like Ishido did nothing aimlessly or thoughtlessly. “I am Zen. The Soto School.”
“Ah so. A Buddhist seeks for meaning, in his way. A collector, a true collector, also seeks for meaning, very narrowly, very fanatically, but there are no ethical boundaries to his religion. Do you understand?”
Masuto nodded. They sat cross-legged, a low, polished teakwood table between them. Now a young woman appeared with tea things. She wore a kimono and obi and she was very lovely, but Ishido did not introduce her and Masuto knew that his wife was long dead. She set down the tray, poured pale yellow tea, and disappeared. Politely, Masuto made no inquiry. They sipped the tea, and then Ishido said:
“Therefore, I must be suspect.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You are my kinsman.”
“That is no reason. You must ask me whether, for a true collector, there is any stamp worth killing for. Of course, with such a man as Ivan Gaycheck, there could be a thousand motives. Was he connected with the SS? Surely you have inquired at Interpol?”
“Yes.”
“Then any Jew who discovered his identity would feel justified in an act of revenge.”
“I don’t think so,” Masuto answered slowly. “That kind of act of violence is not in their pattern.”
“But patterns change — as witness Israel.”
“Perhaps. But I have a simple mind. When a stamp dealer is murdered, I look for a stamp.” Masuto sipped his tea. “Now I will ask you — is any stamp worth an act of murder?”
“Who is to say what will prompt an act of murder? A man is killed in the street for a few dollars. You know that I was a colonel in the Imperial Army — war is a gigantic killing. Who is to say? My own passion is porcelain. I have always dreamed of owning a Bactrian horse of the T’ang dynasty — not the pottery horse, but that almost mythical T’ang horse which is said to have been made of Ch’ai ware, which they describe as being thin as paper, resonant as musical stone, and blue as the sky between the rain clouds. Does it exist? Rumor has it that there is one in Peking and another in the Imperial Palace in Japan — but that is only rumor. I have never spoken to anyone who actually saw such a horse. Would I kill for such a thing? But that would depend on so many circumstances. A man like Gaycheck — I might well kill him, but not for a stamp. I only collect Japanese stamps. Well …” Ishido paused, smiled, and sipped his tea. “Yes, one stamp. In the Dragon series. Two colors with an inverted center. But, you see, Masao — I already have it. So the question is academic.”
Masuto did an unforgivable thing. “Might I see it?” he asked.
Ishido stared at him evenly, his face reflecting Masuto’s own carefully controlled indifference. Then he nodded, rose, and went into another room. He returned with a small black album and opened it to reveal what Masuto considered a very ordinary stamp, the dragon in the center inverted.
“How much is it worth, if I may ask so improper a question?”
“You are a policeman,” Ishido said, his simple statement exiling Masuto from his world. “I bought it in Hong Kong twelve years ago. The seller was unsavory. I paid a thousand British pounds. At today’s inflated prices — well, over seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Still, Masuto did not go. He would not be invited back to Ishido’s house, so whatever questions he would ask must be asked now. Since he was a policeman and no more than a policeman, he would play the policeman’s role.
“Is this the most valuable stamp that exists?”
“Hardly. The land of my birth lacks that honor, but one does not judge a country or a person by the worth of his stamps. There is a stamp called the One-Penny 1848 Mauritius. Today, in perfect condition, it might sell for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I do not know whether any other stamp is more valuable.”
It was almost eleven o’clock when Masuto returned to his home in Culver City. Kati was waiting for him. “Was it pleasant?” she asked him. “Were you greeted well?”
“I was greeted well, yes. With great courtesy.”
“Oh?”
“I must make you unhappy, dear Kati. I came as a kinsman, I left as a policeman.”
“Oh, so sorry! Such a pity!”
“I asked improper questions. And as far as my manners were concerned — well, I am a policeman.”
“Who has ever complained about your manners?”
“Dear Kati.” He sighed and walked to the bookshelves, where he took down a volume of the Encyclopedia Americana — the fine set that he had bought for his children only a year ago and of which he was very proud. He riffled through the pages, and then handed the book to Kati. She liked to read to him. Not only did it relax him, it gave her a sense of participating in his thoughts. He pointed to a paragraph and asked her to read to him.
“Mauritius,” she began.
“No, dear wife — so sorry, but Ishido pronounced the word differently. He pronounced it Moreeshius. I am sure his pronunciation was correct.”
“Yes, yes. Moreeshius. ‘A densely populated island in the Indian Ocean about 550 miles east of Madagascar, is an independent nation within the Commonwealth of Nations. Its capital, Port Louis, also administers smaller island dependencies: Rodrigues, 350 miles east, and scattered coral groups, 250 to 580 miles away’” She paused. “The next paragraph is about population. Shall I read that?”
“No. And after that?”
“The land. Then the economy.”
“Are stamps mentioned?” Masuto asked.
“No, nothing about stamps. The next section is entitled ‘History.’ Shall I read it to you?”
“Only if it mentions stamps.”
“Nothing about stamps,” Kati said sadly. “But very interesting. Did you know that Mauritius was the home of the dodo bird?”
“The dodo bird is extinct.”
“You mean there are no dodo birds — anywhere?”
“I am afraid not.”
“How sad! But why are you asking about stamps — if it is something you can speak of?”
“Because there is a postage stamp issued in 1848 in that place called Mauritius that is worth in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
“A single postage stamp?”
“Yes, Kati.”
“But why? How can a tiny postage stamp be worth so much money?”
“I suppose because it is very rare. I would give a great deal to know whether one exists in Beverly Hills.”