The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(69)

“I wouldn’t know,” Sato said, but he looked away as he said it. “Anyway, back to the mask—I recently saw one for sale that was not quite as old or quite as nice as this one. The guy wanted three grand for it.”

“Is there a black market for this kind of stuff?”

“Sure, for the ultra-rare pieces. Men all over the world are enamored of the samurai and their culture. Wealthy men like expensive toys. But the average bozo thinks samurai and ninja are cool, too. So, a common thief might take that mask or a sword or dagger just because it excites him, not because he understands the historical or monetary value.”

He went to a blank spot on the weapon wall and tapped a finger on the brass plaque. “This was a kubikiri tanto, a head-cutting knife from the middle of the Edo period. Rare. Valuable. The blade is seven to eight inches long, with the cutting edge on the inside of the blade. This would have been carried by a high-ranking samurai, who had the honor of removing the heads of slain enemies in the field as trophies. A hard-core martial arts movie groupie might know what it is. But it’s rarely seen in Western collections, so a knowledgeable thief would definitely want it.”

Kovac rubbed a hand across his forehead and sighed. “Well, why should this be easy?”

“One of the things that makes Lucien’s collection stand out,” Sato said, “is that he got his hands on these things most Westerners couldn’t. It’s a small collection, but the quality is special. He traveled and studied extensively in Japan and China when he was younger—an opportunity that allowed him to make connections. Money talks louder than tradition to some people,” he muttered.

Sato clearly didn’t approve of Chamberlain having these things. Kovac wondered if that disapproval stemmed from jealousy or bigotry, or loyalty to long-dead ancestors. Ken Sato was as American as anyone, but the blood of ancient Japan ran in his family. He talked about Westerners like he wasn’t one.

“What’s the most valuable thing in the collection?” Kovac asked.

“There are three swords that are worth low five figures apiece,” Sato said, going to the center section of the display wall, where the long swords were mounted one above another all the way to the ceiling, some with matching shorter blades directly beneath them. “The top three here.”

It would have required a ladder to get them down from the wall, Kovac noted. Not burglar-friendly. The lowest one in that section was gone. The only long sword that was missing was the sword that had been used to murder Sondra Chamberlain.

“The samurai carried a pair of weapons called daisho,” Sato said. “Individually: The long sword, katana, and the shorter weapon, wakizashi. The katana was the iconic weapon of the samurai. Bushido—the warrior’s code—says the samurai’s soul is in his katana. The wakizashi was for stabbing in close combat. It was also the weapon used for seppuku—ritual suicide.”

“Like hari-kari?”

“Harry Caray was a baseball announcer,” Sato said with the thinnest edge of condescension. “Hara kiri. It refers to the act of slicing open one’s own abdomen.”

“That’s harsh.”

“Death before dishonor.” Sato indicated a blank spot on the wall at about eye level. “That’s the blade that’s missing here: a wakizashi. A nice one.”

“Did Chamberlain do anything with this stuff besides collect it?” Kovac asked as he looked through the glass doors of a cabinet at the collection of various types of nunchucks and throwing stars. “Did he know how to use any of it?”

“Lucien was all about possession—possession of knowledge, possession of things, possession of people,” Sato said, not quite able to keep his disgust at bay. “Possession of the position of power . . . It’s such a bad joke that he tried to possess all things samurai but had no true grasp of Bushido.”

“But did he know how to use a sword?”

“He liked to say he did.”

“Do you?”

Sato gave him a long, narrow look, trying to decide if this was some kind of trick; trying to decide if he should play the game. The tiniest of unkind smiles turned just the very corner of one side of his mouth.

“It would be helpful to know if our bad guy was familiar with the weapon or was just hacking away,” Kovac said. “If he knew what he was doing would there be a pattern to the wounds?”

“If we’re talking about a trained swordsman, yes.”

“And how would that go?”

Sato said nothing as he weighed his choices. Then he turned and chose a sword from the wall, unsheathed it, and set the black lacquered scabbard aside on the credenza. He took a stance in front of Kovac, taking a moment to carefully position his grip around the handle of the katana and test the weight of the weapon in his hands. His expression grew hard and dark as he looked down the length of the blade.

“The katana is made for slashing,” he said quietly as he flexed his wrists, raising and lowering the tip of the sword methodically. “The first strike would be an overhead cut.”

He raised the sword over his head and brought it down slowly, at a slight angle, aiming for the place where Kovac’s neck met his shoulder. He stopped just shy of touching him.

Kovac stood stock-still, never taking his eyes off Sato’s.

“When a katana was made, it was tested by cutting through the limbs of prisoners,” Sato said. “Or they would pile corpses one on top of another to see how many bodies the sword could cut through in one slice. A good blade could cut through three bodies in a stroke, flesh and bone. An exceptional blade—as many as seven.”