LITMIR.BIZ

      The next series of interviews revealed very little beyond what was already known. The man in the white shirt, polka-dot tie, blue blazer, and now wearing trousers—Yamaguchi by name—explained that Manabe had just entered the bath area as he was leaving the bath. An exact time could not be ascertained, but Yamaguchi mentioned that he noticed it was "about twenty after eleven" when he was dressing. To demonstrate the reason for his observation, Yamaguchi pointed to his gold Rolex watch. Accepting, then passing on Manabe's tennis racket to someone else, seemed perfectly normal in a club where tennis rackets abound.

      "I would like to say a final thing," mentioned Yamaguchi. "You should know that Manabe-san is, er, was, one of the nicest people I've ever met."

      The man Kawamura first met wearing jockey shorts and a spectacular bandage on his elbow was now dressed in a complete tennis outfit upon which the word "Nike" appeared on every conceivable surface—from shoes to headband. He was, he said, distantly related to Manabe—his grandfather had married Manabe's father's cousin. Kawamura and the man could not work out the exact relationship, but that was frequently the way in Japan. The man went on to explain that of all his relatives, no matter how distant, Shig Manabe was the warmest and most genuine.

      Theodore Bitman, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, had also been in the locker room at the approximate time of Shig's death. Bitman, it developed, had been something of a competitor of Shig's—at least in business. Bitman arrived in Japan in 1963 as a Mormon missionary. He was fluent in Japanese, and at some point after the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, he decided to broaden his horizons and serve both the god of conversion and the god of mammon. Bitman was a well-known commentator on Japanese television regarding "things foreign," but he also ran a flourishing business exporting pearls and jewelry from Japan to the United States. Bitman Pearls were not as well-known as Mikimoto Pearls, but at least in Japan the company ranked higher in status than Manabe's company.

      "He was one of the most trustworthy individuals I've ever known in business," announced Bitman during the interview with Kawamura.

      "But you were rivals," said Kawamura.

      "Makes no difference," answered Bitman. 'The market is the world. We each just had a little part of it."

      Bitman did not notice anything unusual in the locker room. He was changing into his tennis gear when "Forrest ran screaming from the bath." His role in the matter was confined to attempting to calm Forrest before "another foreigner made an ass of himself' in front of the Japanese.

      The interview with the dapper man wearing a cravat under his paisley shirt produced the same results. Shig Manabe was one of the nicest guys in the world, nothing seemed unusual in the locker room, and passing a tennis racket along from one person to another was the "most natural thing in the world." The dapper man, who had obviously spent a great deal of time in the States, tended to amplify his remarks with random words in English—a habit Kawamura found irritating.

      The court manager, who had met Kawamura on the steps at the entrance to the club, and who had later been mopping up the area around the bath, was either "checking the practice board," "settling a dispute regarding court usage," or "confirming tournament standings in the clubhouse" when the nasty business was occurring. He had been nowhere near the locker room at the time.

      The most interesting interview of those deemed to have been in the locker room at the time of Manabe's death was the last one. Takashi Sakai was the other half of the now defunct Silver Foxes partnership. A robust and somewhat aggressive man, Sakai was at sixty-eight the same age as Manabe. The two of them had spent their early grade-school years together in Yokohama. They had been playing tennis together off and on for nearly fifty years

      "Nice man? That bastard would call foot faults on himself," Sakai stated. "And the fool would always give the benefit of the doubt on line calls to our opponents."

      "I gather you knew him well," suggested Kawamura.

      "Knew him well? All my life. That whoremaster's son would never stand up and fight for himself."

      "But if you..."

      "He always swayed with the wind. He thought that was the way to survive," amplified Sakai.

      "But if you..."

      "He'd hit a killer shot, and that peddler's dog would apologize to our opponents."

      "But if you..."

      "He once walked away from a fight when someone said something about his American wife. I would have clobbered the pig-brain for saying that, even though I hate Americans."

      "Did you and Manabe-san argue a lot?" asked Kawamura.

      "Argue a lot? Of course. Today, for example, he didn't chase a single lob. That blowfish smoked too much. We lost because of him."

      Kawamura and Sakai stared at each other across the desk.

      "To answer your previous question," said Sakai at last. "No, I didn't notice a thing in the locker room."

      "Nothing?"

      "Nothing. And to answer the question you didn't ask, if anyone really wanted to kill him, it would probably be me."

      Kawamura and Sakai stared at each other. Finally Sakai turned his head and looked out the manager's window at the nearly deserted courts.

      Then the remaining Silver Fox took off his thick glasses, put his head down on the desk, and began to cry.

      CHAPTER 6

      Weekend evenings at the Tokyo Lawn Tennis Club were usually quite relaxed. Anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred members would normally sit around, discuss the day's games, tell funny stories, eat, and quench thirsts developed as the result of hours spent chasing around on the courts. To put this in perspective, although the club boasted some of the top Japanese and foreign players in the country, more bottles of beer were typically consumed annually than cans of tennis balls.

      On this Saturday evening, however, there was nothing but gloom. A couple-dozen members sat quietly, watched Captain Kawamura's methodical investigators going through their routines, and discussed Shig. Dusk had emptied the ten outdoor clay courts.

      Kawamura could feel the awkwardness and tension as he walked around watching his men take measurements and photograph every conceivable feature in the clubhouse. Kawamura secretly knew that all the measurements and photographs in the world could not possibly determine what happened upstairs in the locker room, but investigative routine was well spelled out in the manual, and his superiors would expect to see the results of these labors in the file.

      A foreigner, speaking English with a heavy French accent, broke the ice.

      "Please, monsieur I'inspecteur, if you could tell what it is that happened to Manabe-san? He was a friend to all of us."

      The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

      "I am not a, mesher lonspec... ah," replied Kawamura crisply in English, "I am only a police captain."

      'Then, mon capitaine, what was the circumstance in the bath?"

      The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

      "Our investigations are still... continuing," answered Kawamura.

      To the Japanese members he added, in Japanese: "We have no clear idea what happened."

      The other members silently looked at Kawamura.

      "Manabe-san was a very nice man," said one of the Japanese members after a moment.

      CHAPTER 7

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