18
Well, this day has certainly squatted and left a ripe turd on Daigo's doorstep, hasn't it?
He stares out after the retreating shinobi, boots all but rocketing down the dusty footpath. Daigo turns his gaze to the three dead men sprawled outside his shop. Probably not a dozen ryō between all their purses. At least their guns will cover the cost of burying their sorry carcasses.
Daigo wipes at a nostril and grunts. Fucking pain in the ass, is what it is. He descends the steps and shuffles out into the dooryard. He trails behind him a litany of muttered, half-coherent curses.
He stands over Benzo Ichikawa's corpse. The highwayman's throat has been removed all the way to the bone. That distinct undulation of vertebrae through the pulped flesh, like the backs of white whales through a red sea. An entire galaxy of blood surrounds the dead man, already drying black in the dirt and the hot sun.
Daigo leans forward, rattles deep his sclerotic throat, and spits on Ichikawa's upturned face. The gray glob lands on the bridge of the bandit's nose. Ichikawa's pinched eyes still hold that last wash of anger and incomprehension.
It occurs to Daigo that, when he tries to move Ichikawa's body, it's likely that the man's head will try to come off. Oh, good. That will be fun.
That fuckin' greenhorn owes Daigo a sight more than a gold chip and a fistful of ryō, by thunder.
And yet . . .
Still staring at Ichikawa and the spittle oozing its way down his nose, Daigo begins to wonder at the shinobi's business in Tokusei. Ninja make a habit of avoiding the city due to the curse or bad air or whatever-the-hell-it-is that saps them so. Daigo ain't seen a shinobi come through his dooryard in almost a decade. So, why now?
And why Daisuke Kurosawa?
He supposes that the stranger could have been lying about his ignorance of the city and of the Kurosawa underboss. It's hard to tell, after all. Some of those folk go their entire lives without letting a single word o' truth pass their lips. It's all but their written creed, so far as Daigo is concerned.
However, he didn't scent that off the stranger at all. There was something almost guileless about the man—as if he found secrecy a painful concept. And yet the dude was absolutely shinobi. No mistaking it.
But Daisuke Kurosawa? The man couldn't pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. Why bring in someone as expensive as a shinobi to whack the guy when you could hand a junkie a scattergun and get the same result? Why bring in a ninja at all if the guy's going to end up sicker than a broke-dick dog within a few days?
Benzo Ichikawa stares up at the sky. Daigo stares at Benzo Ichikawa. A bottlefly swoops down and performs a few reconnaissance turns above the dead man's forehead.
Daigo's heard the rumors, of course. All that tension startin' to build up in the streets. Kurosawa boys throwing weight on some of the independent operations. Ozu lieutenants calling in favors from outside the territory. Now, Hayato Ozu wouldn't be foolish enough to put out a hit on a Kurosawa underboss. But who else would have the kind of dosh to purchase a shinobi contract?
Unless it's not a hit at all, Daigo muses. He scratches his chin and turns his eyes to the empty porcelain sky. At which point, he may as well give up any speculation whatsoever. The situation's already muddy to the point of bein' a godsdamned quagmire.
But then comes the most important question, independent of all motive or circumstance: Just who needs to know that the stranger is on his way to Dokusei?
. . . Oh. Oh! Daigo's back and shoulders go rigid with the realization. He knows exactly who needs to be informed. He knows just what channels need to be opened—and he must do so now. The opportunity may already be sifting through his fingers.
With a hop and a spin, Daigo Shimura starts back toward the interior of the Traveler's Rest. He summons a stumbling approximation of a sprint from his varicose legs. He allows a grin to congeal upon his lips.
The dead men can wait. He has flares to send up. Messages to scrawl. Favors to tally. Remuneration to calculate.
This could work out quite well for him after all.