The Moving Blade Read online

  THE MOVING BLADE

  Praise for The Last Train, the first in the Detective Hiroshi series

  Solo Medalist Winner New Apple Awards for Excellence 2017

  Winner Crime Fiction Beverly Hills Book Awards 2017

  Winner Best Mystery Book Excellence Awards 2017

  Gold Award Literary Titan Book Award 2017

  Finalist Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2018

  Top Ten Self-Published Books 2017 The Bookbag

  Silver Award IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards 2017

  Silver Award Feathered Quill Book Award 2018

  Finalist Book Readers Appreciation Group (B.R.A.G.) 2017

  Finalist IANB of the Year Awards 2017

  Finalist EPIC eBook Awards 2018

  Semi-finalist Booklife Prize 2017

  “A five-star detective read. It is unique, intriguing, and will hook the reader from beginning to end.” Reader Views

  “For anyone who loves crime and cop novels, or Japanophiles in general, this is a terrific thriller.” Blue Ink Review

  “This exotic crime thriller is a lightning-fast chase to the finish line that’ll leave hearts pounding and pages turning.” Best Thrillers

  “A well-paced and absorbing mystery, with quick action and a look at urban life, an utterly page-turning adventure.” Foreword Reviews

  “An absorbing investigation and memorable backdrop put this series launch on the right track.” Kirkus Reviews

  “Gripping and suspenseful, this fast-paced thriller unfolds on the streets of Tokyo, where a clever and cold-blooded killer exacts revenge.” Booklife Prize

  “Mystery readers will relish the progress of a detective torn between two cultures, the reader of Japanese literature will truly appreciate the depth of background.” Midwest Book Review

  “Tokyo comes to vivid life in this taut thriller, an unrelenting portrayal of a strong female character and the heart-pounding search to find her.” Publishers Daily Reviews

  “The Last Train is nothing short of electrifying, a masterpiece that combines action with humor and suspense.” Readers’ Favorite

  “The Last Train is a fast-paced thriller that skillfully exposes readers to the seedy urban side of Japan and leaves readers anxiously waiting for the next novel in the detective Hiroshi series.” Feathered Quill

  “Written from knowledge rather than research, he knows a lot more than he has any need to tell us brings the city gloriously to life.” The Bookbag

  “The story behind Michiko Suzuki is compelling and engaging, you can’t help flipping the pages to see what she is going to do next and find out why her victims were chosen.” Literary Titan

  “Pronko truly knows how to use the setting in the read, exploring the many facets of the city to maximum effect. The Last Train is a gripping read, and leaves you really wanting to dig into the next book in the series.” Self-Publishing Review

  “A heartfelt, thoughtful ode to a strange and beautiful city, in the way that so many classic detective novels are. Lyrically written, with plenty of suspense.” IndieReader

  “I would definitely recommend it to crime and murder mystery fans, especially those with an interest in Japanese culture.” Online Book Club

  Praise for Pronko’s Writings on Tokyo Life

  Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo

  Gold Award: Readers’ Favorite Non-Fiction Cultural

  Gold Award: Travel Writing Global E-Book Awards

  Gold Award: Non-Fiction Authors Association

  Gold Honoree: Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards

  Silver Medal: Independent Publisher Book Awards

  Indie Groundbreaking Book: Independent Publisher Book Review

  “Pronko is an insightful author capable of seeing a deeper beauty in everything he writes.” SPR Review

  “Vividly captures the depth and beauty of Tokyo, bringing to life the city and the lifestyle.” Reader’s Favorite

  “This book sparkles and succeeds as a love letter of sorts to Tokyo. The author’s writing is a joy to read, with wonderful phrasing and vivid descriptions.” OnlineBookClub.org

  “This is a memoir to be savored like a fine red wine, crafted with supreme care by a man who clearly has fallen in love with his adopted city.” Publishers Daily Reviews

  “Each of his essays brought me closer and closer to an appreciation of the complex and complicated place Tokyo is.” Reader’s Favorite

  Also available by Michael Pronko:

  Beauty and Chaos: Slices and Morsels of Tokyo Life (2014)

  Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo (2014)

  Motions and Moments: More Essays on Tokyo (2015)

  The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi Series Book 1) (2017)

  The Moving Blade is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents all come from the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  The Moving Blade

  By Michael Pronko

  First EPUB edition, 2018

  ISBN 978-1-942410-17-1

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2018 Michael Pronko

  First English Edition, Raked Gravel Press

  All rights reserved worldwide. This book may not be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without written permission from the author.

  eBook Formatting by FormattingExperts.com

  Cover Design © 2018 Marco Mancini, www.magnetjazz.net

  ***

  For more about the Detective Hiroshi series and Pronko’s other writing: www.michaelpronko.com

  Follow Michael on Twitter: @pronkomichael

  Michael’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pronkoauthor

  Contents

  Praise for Pronko’s Books

  Also available by Michael Pronko

  Copyright

  THE MOVING BLADE

  Epigraphs

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  About the author

  THE MOVING BLADE

  by Michael Pronko

  Raked Gravel Press 2018

  It is said the warrior’s is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways.

  「先づ武士は文武二道と云ひて二つの道を嗜む事是道也」。

  Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

  宮本 武蔵『五輪書　地之巻』

  For the striking sword, th
ere is no mind. For myself, who is about to be struck, there is no mind. The attacker is emptiness. His sword is emptiness. I, who am about to be struck, am emptiness.

  「自分の刀の動きを気にすれば、自分の刀に心をとられ、打ち込む瞬間に気を使えば、それに心をとられ、自分の心の在りように気を使えば、自分の心に心をとられてしまいます。このようなことでは、自分自身は抜殻のようなもので、なんの働きもできません。」

  Takuan Soho, The Unfettered Mind

  沢庵 宗彭 不動智神妙録

  Chapter 1

  Hideyasu Sato rarely took jobs involving foreigners. They usually lived in tall apartment buildings, kept little cash and had bad taste in valuables. But this job was pitched as an easy in-and-out with good pay and a light load.

  Getting into the house was, as always in Tokyo, a cinch. He slid a small tension wrench into the keyhole of the kitchen delivery door, levered it up, poked in a rake pick, and after a few tickles, the lock plug spun loose and he was in.

  The homeowner had just died, so Sato timed the break-in during the funeral—the best time to rob anyone in Tokyo. After the long ceremony, cremation took an hour or so, depending. Since the owner was famous—Bernard Mattson was a name even Sato knew—the post-funeral chitchat by bigwigs would give him a further cushion.

  Sato left his shoes by the door and stepped into the stately, old house in the Asakusa shitamachi “lower town” district of eastern Tokyo. The kitchen had surprisingly few modern appliances and looked a little like he remembered his grandmother’s in the countryside—spacious, simple, functional.

  Walking into the living area, Sato admired the exquisite wood beams and intricate wood paneling. A tatami-floored room in Japanese style, empty save for a scroll, statue and vase, opened to the right. The main living room was Western style, with parquet floors that were wide and open, with a sofa, chairs, tree-trunk table and Japanese antiques.

  Sato found the bookcase-lined study, and sat down at the computer to copy the two files he’d been hired to retrieve: “SOFA” and “Shunga.” It would be easy to download the files to two USB drives and erase the computer before carrying the drives across town, but the computer was old and slow, the fan whirling loudly as he downloaded the files. All around him, the wood frame house creaked like an old man’s bones.

  When he’d downloaded one file on each of two separate USB drives, he pulled out a DVD to wipe the computer clean. He rebooted and waited while it worked its magic. He turned off the computer. Waited. Turned it back on. A small arrow pulsed at the bottom of the empty, grey screen. Pressing the keys and clicking the mouse had no effect. It was wiped clean.

  As he rose, Sato could not help but look around, impressed at the offset shelves, paulownia tansu chests, and bamboo-sleeved pot hook dangling from the ceiling. His grandmother had cooked with one of those. Many things in the room could be resold, but from the long shelves along the wall, he pocketed four easy-to-carry netsuke carvings: a smiling frog, a tanuki raccoon-dog, and two of couples locked in sexual embrace. The netsuke were like ivory diamonds—compact and easy to sell.

  On the way out, Sato surveyed the kitchen. It was hard to guess where a foreigner would tuck away cash, if at all, but he went with instincts honed by years of breaking in Japanese homes. Inside an old tea cabinet, he found a cherry-bark box with a false bottom concealing a thick wad of ten thousand yen notes.

  Not so different, Sato chuckled to himself as he stuffed the money in his pocket next to the netsuke and USB drives. He slipped on his shoes, closed the door, exited through the garden and walked away as if he had lived in the neighborhood all his life.

  It wasn’t until he was changing trains in Ueno that he noticed the foreigner. Over the years, Sato had been tackled, punched, stabbed and slapped so his ear drum burst, but by following his most basic rule of never stopping, he always got away. He couldn’t run like a young man anymore, so he’d doubled up on caution. Now, he had something new—a gaijin trailing him through Tokyo.

  He’d noticed him on the train, but many foreigners returned from Asakusa on the same route. This foreigner, though, wasn’t checking his cellphone for directions or looking at his camera photos. He was staring out the window at the subway walls, too patiently, too attentive to nothing.

  Sato got off in Ueno and glanced back to see the foreigner riding the escalator a dozen steps behind. He was so tall he had to duck under the metal ceiling panels. His hat hid his face and a black leather coat stretched to his calves. Sato hurried to the Yamanote Line platform without looking back.

  When the train got to Tokyo station, Sato could see his head jutting over the crowd like a giraffe. All that milk and beef, Sato thought. It was trying to get milk and beef that pushed him into housebreaking fifty years ago. So, Sato decided to follow another of his rules—stay on the train. The rush hour crowds in the stations made it easy to lose anyone.

  The best plan was to ride all the way to Shinbashi, hurry up and over and down to the next platform for a train back towards Tokyo Station, and push into the middle of the jam-packed car just before the doors close.

  At Tokyo Station, he glanced back down the long, steep escalator of the Chuo Line.

  The foreigner was gone.

  As he rode up, Sato texted the address of the house in Asakusa to the crew waiting to get in, describing what was there and estimating how long they had to get in and out. He was glad to leave the heavy stuff to the Koreans and Chinese. They were younger, quicker and stronger. Braver, too, he had to admit. He was never sure where they hocked what they carted off, but that wasn’t any of his concern. He trusted them for his cut, which was always sent promptly through automatic bank transfer.

  At Shinjuku Station, Sato followed another of his rules and steered himself to the densest middle of the crowd. Outside the station, he blended in with the pedestrians hunkered deep into their coats against the winter wind, moving at their pace.

  A bit more caution couldn’t hurt, he decided, so he turned into the Isetan department store. The first floor was crowded for a perfume sale with neatly dressed Japanese women sampling scents. Sato slipped through the medley of aromas and down a stairway to the tight-set basement counters selling tea, jam, cheese, pickles, miso and dried fish—a maze no foreigner could manage. Sato zigzagged past middle-aged women sniffing out daily bargains as salespeople called out their wares in booming, froggy voices. At the back of the basement floor, the underground market ended at a door into a bland corridor with stairs up to Yasukuni Dori Street.

  He finally stopped in the fresh air outside and lit a cigarette by a display window of fall fashions. He looked back and forth from the mannequins in their put-on poses to the glass doors he’d just exited.

  He smoked all the way down to the filter. Maybe he was being too cautious but that was better.

  People flowed around him on the sidewalk, so he huddled close to the big window to wiggle one of the USB drives into the cigarette pack for safekeeping.

  He decided to smoke one more. When he finished, no one had emerged. Lost him, his instincts told him as he ground out the butt, smug he still had the knack.

  Halfway downhill towards Golden Gai, he stopped to buy cigarettes at a small tobacco stand wedged into a four-floor building. He slid a thousand-yen bill under the glass counter and looked back the way he came. As the old woman gave him change, he caught her rheumy eyes set deep in her furrowed smoker’s face—and quickly looked away. She was old and her cheeks hung from her head like worn saddlebags.

  Sato stood there and tamped the fresh pack, then pulled out a few of the cigarettes, slipped the other USB drive in and tossed out the couple cigarettes that wouldn’t fit into the gutter.

  He walked on to a narrow intersection a few blocks down, and turned onto a small street cramped with beer crates, Styrofoam fish boxes, and plastic trashcans. Some of the spotlights from the tall nightclubs on the main street had clicked on, but it would stay dark
and deserted in the arm’s-width alleys of Golden Gai until customers started arriving much later.

  Sato turned into a narrow dead-end with a patchwork of bars not much wider than their doors and stopped in front of the Pan-Pan Club. It was far ahead of the rendezvous time and Sato recited another of his rules: Never rush things.

  But this time, he broke it. It would be better to get rid of whatever was on the USB drives and go have a drink and a good meal with the cash he’d lifted. Sato knocked on the door—the only one not slathered in thick paint or handwritten signs. He got no answer.

  Before he could knock again, he sensed someone behind him. He fumbled for the handle of the stiletto inside his jacket and plucked the metal baton from his waistband, turning around with both hands ready.

  “Hand me the files,” the foreigner commanded in fluent Japanese. His tall, lean frame blocked the trickle of light from the alley beyond. A single overhead bulb cast their shadows in opposite directions.

  Sato was surprised by how well he spoke Japanese, by how he knew about the files, by how he had, in fact, tracked him across the city, and managed to confront him right at that spot. How could this have happened? He’d never been cornered before.

  “It’s just easier if you hand them over,” the foreigner said. He held out his left hand and reset his feet and shoulders. His leather coat gleamed in the dim light.

  Sato reached into his jacket for the drive-wiping DVD and tossed it onto the pavement between them. When he bent over to get it, he’d kick the foreigner in the head, stab him, and take off. The sides of the small bars were only a step away, so he’d have to be careful getting past. Fifteen years ago, he could have done it. Thirty years ago, it would have been as easy as picking a lock.

  The DVD shimmered on the dull gray of the concrete, but the foreigner did not even glance at it. From a sheath inside the front flap of his coat, the foreigner pulled a tanto sword as long as his forearm. Together, sword and arm could reach the walls of the cramped cul-de-sac encircling them.

  Sato clicked the stiletto and telescoped the baton with a flip of his wrist. The sword whirred and Sato jerked sideways as the sword crashed into the door above his shoulder, splintering the cheap wood.