Chapter 11

Akira pointed toward a wooden barrel that sat by itself on the workshop floor, with nothing around it for ten feet in any direction. “The water escape.”

Sanjay swallowed hard and strode to the barrel. He bent down and, without touching it, examined the wooden lid and the black calligraphy painted on the side. It looked like a wine barrel that had been compressed and adorned.

“What’s the matter with it?” I asked, looking for signs it had been damaged and seeing none. “It looks like a normal barrel.”

Sanjay shook his head. “First of all, this was never a normal sake barrel. Second, it would have killed Akira. Or me.”

“I never would have noticed the change until it was too late,” Akira said, “if he hadn’t moved it when he broke the escape mechanism.”

As I drew closer to get a better look, the large door in the back of the workshop began to move—or rather, seemed to move. It wasn’t the true door I’d spotted on my way in, but its reflection in a mirror. The workshop was the size of a small warehouse. Besides the door we’d entered, the only way in or out that I could see was a metal garage door large enough for a truck. Lane had gotten me in the habit of checking for exits.

“Hiro has gone way too far,” Akira said. “At least I had the diary on me, so he couldn’t get his hands on it.”

“We might have seen him today too,” Sanjay said before I could ask what diary Akira was talking about.

Akira’s bravado faltered. He looked rattled for the first time since I’d arrived.

“A man was dressed as a ninja,” I said, “spying on us while we were at the site that Sanjay thought would be perfect for your illusion.”

“When?” Akira asked.

“Right before we came here,” Sanjay said.

“He must have captured a kitsune of his own,” Akira said, “to be in two places at once.”

“We got lost,” I said. “No supernatural explanation necessary. He could have been forty-five minutes ahead of us.”

“You didn’t call to warn me?” Akira snapped at Sanjay.

“Why would I need to warn you? You already knew he tried and failed before.”

Akira shook his head and uttered what I was fairly certain wasn’t a complimentary word in Japanese, before switching to English. “That man doesn’t give up. I should have realized my security wasn’t enough. I have cameras at the doors.”

I wondered how many doors there were. The cavernous workshop created a distorted sense of space. There was something off-kilter about the whole setup.

“No guard?” Sanjay asked.

“A live guard would only bring more people here. With my locks, nobody should have been able to get inside.”

“Except another magician,” Sanjay said.

Akira nodded. “My followers have never gotten inside. They haven’t come close. Even the most devoted.”

“Followers?” I asked. “Do you mean your fans?”

“You find my English lacking?” he said.

“I’m sure it’s better than mine,” I said, disliking him more and more as the minutes went by. “Why did you call your fans ‘followers’?”

I expected a glib reply, but Akira didn’t respond. At least not with words. I caught a glimpse of pure sadness in his eyes. It was such a raw, unguarded emotion, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. But it only lasted a moment.

“My cameras have motion detectors,” he said, turning his attention back to Sanjay. “They send me a video of what sets them off.”

“You saw Hiro?” Sanjay asked. “You saw his face?” The desperation in his eyes was clear. He didn’t want his friend to be guilty.

Akira pulled up a video on his cell phone and held it out for us to see.

“The ninja,” I whispered. I looked more closely, but almost as soon as his face appeared on the screen, it was blacked out by a hand and the blackness of spray paint.

“It’s the same man,” Sanjay said.

“I can’t tell for sure,” I said, shaking my head. “Can you play it again?”

Akira obliged. Even with only one good hand, he had extraordinary dexterity in handling the phone and maneuvering his fingers over the screen.

“I agree it’s the same guy,” I said. “But we can’t see his face in the video, just as we couldn’t see it earlier today.”

Sanjay fidgeted with his hat. “I can’t tell if I’ve talked myself into it looking like Hiro or if it really does.”

“I got the closest look,” I said. “Does anyone have a photo of him?”

“I do,” Yako said.

I gave a start as I saw her standing next to me holding a tray with four cups and a tea kettle. The tea set looked like it belonged in a museum, but that wasn’t what had startled me. I hadn’t seen or heard her approach.

“Why do you have a photo of that traitor?” Akira asked.

Yako ignored him and picked up a hefty hardback book from a narrow oak bookshelf with fox bookends. She flipped through the pages as both men tapped their feet nervously.

“Here,” she said, holding up the image of a modern magic show poster.

I shook my head. “It’s been airbrushed. I can’t tell.”

“I wish I could send the police to arrest him,” Akira said. “They’d be able to prove it’s him.”

“But with the police presence,” I said, “your fans would learn the location of your workshop.”

“She’s quick,” Akira said, looking at me but speaking to Sanjay. “And with that small body, she’d fit nicely in false panels. Why isn’t she your assistant?”

“Yes, well, Jaya loves her job as an historian,” Sanjay mumbled. “Is that tea? I’d love some.”

Yako smiled and scooped a light green powder into the small handle-less mugs and whisked as she added a small amount of hot water. The powder and water formed a paste, which dissolved in hot water as she filled the mugs the rest of the way.

Akira didn’t thank Yako for the tea. He lounged against a wooden desk like a man without a care in the world as he sipped, but his face told another story. Like Sanjay, he seemed more worried about the sabotage than he was letting on.

“The question,” he said, “is what we do about the traitor Hiro. This has gone too far. As a nonbeliever he’ll ruin everything. We need to strike before he does.”

I didn’t like where this conversation was going.

Sanjay must have read my expression, because he motioned for me to calm down. He stepped away from us, out of Akira’s view.

“It’s not necessary,” Yako said.

I felt my phone buzz from my jacket pocket. Glancing at the screen, I saw a text message from Sanjay. He doesn’t believe what he’s saying. It’s a performance. P.S. Delete this text. P.P.S. Not kidding. Delete this.

Akira was a damn good performer in that case. I deleted the text and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

“I suppose you’re right,” Akira said. “I should be generous. It’s not surprising Hiro failed. I’m the one with the kitsune.”

“And your fox spirit led you to the real Indian Rope Trick,” I said.

Akira nodded, an arrogant smirk hovering on his lips. He handed me a glossy magazine opened to a full-page photograph of himself and Yako. This wasn’t the magic show poster, but a press photograph. I couldn’t read the Japanese writing, but it looked as if the two of them were inside a museum. From the cramped cases visible around them, it was a small one. A weathered old book was in Akira’s hands. No, it wasn’t a book. The text on the pages was handwritten. This was the diary he’d been talking about.

“Is that German?” I asked, squinting at the photograph.

“Dutch,” Yako said. “It was the writings of a Dutchman who lived here during the Edo period, when Japan was closed to foreigners.”

“Why wasn’t the Dutchman beheaded?” Sanjay asked. “I thought that’s what they did with foreigners then.”

“The Dutchman of Dejima was a great man,” Akira said, pointing to the poster for the show that hung on the wall behind him. It was similar to the one we’d seen at the train station, Akira in the center with three smaller figures hovering around him: a European sailor carrying a Dutch flag, a woman whose reflection was a fox, and an Indian man conjuring a rope to the sky.

“Actually,” I said, “the Dutch East India Company was the only European foreign trading power allowed access during that time through the artificial island of Dejima. He didn’t need to be anyone special to be granted access.”

Akira frowned. I’d known more about the subject than he thought I would.

“The man wrote of traveling to India before Japan,” Yako said, “and it was there he witnessed the Indian Rope Trick. He wrote down its secrets in this book.”

“Did the museum realize what it had?” I asked. It wasn’t uncommon for museums, especially small ones, to be overwhelmed and take years to catalogue their collections.

Akira’s frown deepened.

“The museum,” Yako said, “honors the tradition of cooking. Those were the pages they displayed.”

“Really?” Sanjay said. “There’s a museum dedicated to cooking?”

Yako laughed. “Kyoto is filled with hundreds of small museums, celebrating subjects such as tea, textiles, children’s dolls. We honor our history.”

“That’s enough history.” Akira snapped the magazine shut and tucked it into a drawer.

I resisted the urge to grab it back. I wasn’t done looking at the intriguing photograph. Why didn’t he want me to see it? It was clearly a staged photograph meant for the public. Was he worried that as a trained historian I’d notice it was fake? Akira had gone all out for this illusion, but there was no danger that I’d challenge the photo. I didn’t speak eighteenth century Dutch and knew nothing about the paper of the time.

“Is it the trick itself that’s a miracle,” I asked, “or is the miracle the way you found this historical trick lost to history?”

“You don’t believe me?” Akira sneered. “I hope Houdini-san told you what happens to people who don’t believe. If not, you should ask him. It is unwise to doubt me.”

“Yes, well,” Sanjay said, tossing his bowler hat onto his head, “it’s been great, Akira. I just saw that I missed an important call, so I need to leave. I’ll see you tomorrow. And I’ll tell you if anything strange happens on my end.”

Sanjay hooked his hand around my elbow and steered me toward the door.

“One moment,” Akira said.

We turned around at the door.

“Tomorrow,” Akira said, “I will show you the secret of the Indian Rope Trick.”

For once, Sanjay was speechless.

“Meet me at the performance site at noon,” Akira said to Sanjay. “My kitsune wishes you to be part of the illusion. The great Hindi Houdini will be performing the Indian Rope Trick with me.”

I pushed the inner door open and pulled Sanjay along with me. After the second door slammed behind us, I could still faintly make out Akira’s voice bellowing at Yako in Japanese. By the time we were a few steps away, I could no longer hear Akira. If not for the fox knocker, I wouldn’t have been able to determine which unmarked door led to the world of the magician and his fox spirit.