Sara Paretsky - Windy City Blues

“Was he American?”

Mr. and Mrs. Takamoku exchanged a look. “Japanese, but born in America,” she said. “Like Akira and Yoshio.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. It’s not an American custom.” I climbed awkwardly back to my feet. Mr. Takamoku stood with one easy movement. He and Mrs. Takamoku thanked me profusely. I assured them it was nothing and went to bed.

The next Sunday was a cold, gray day with a hint of snow. I sat in front of the television, in my living room, drinking coffee, dividing my attention between November’s income and watching the Bears. Both were equally feeble. I was trying to decide on something friendlier to do when a knock sounded on my door. The outside buzzer hadn’t rung. I got up, stacking loose papers on one arm of the chair and balancing the coffee cup on the other.

Through the peephole I could see Mrs. Takamoku. I opened the door. Her wrinkled ivory face was agitated, her eyes dilated. “Oh, good, good, you here. You must come.” She tugged at my hand.

I pulled her gently into the apartment. “What’s wrong? Let me get you a drink.”

“No, no.” She wrung her hands in agitation, repeating that I must come, I must come.

I collected my keys and went down the worn, uncarpeted stairs with her. Her living room was filled with cigarette smoke and a crowd of anxious men. Mr. Takamoku detached himself from the group and hurried over to his wife and me. He clasped my hand and pumped it up and down.

“Good. Good you come. You are a detective, yes? You will see the police do not arrest Naoe and me.”

“What’s wrong, Mr. Takamoku?”

“He’s dead. He’s killed. Naoe and I were in camp during World War. They will arrest us.”

“Who’s dead?”

He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know name.”

I pushed through the group. A white man lay sprawled on the floor. His face had contorted in dreadful pain as he died, so it was hard to guess his age. His fair hair was thick and unmarked with gray; he must have been relatively young.

A small dribble of vomit trailed from his clenched teeth. I sniffed at it cautiously. Probably hydrocyanic acid. Not far from his body lay a teacup, a Japanese cup without handles. The contents sprayed out from it like a Rorschach. Without touching it, I sniffed again. The fumes were still discernible.

I got up. “Has anyone left since this happened?”

The tall, bearded Caucasian I’d noticed on previous Sundays looked around and said “No” in an authoritative voice.

“And have you called the police?”

Mrs. Takamoku gave an agitated cry. “No police. No. You are detective. You find murderer yourself.”

I shook my head and took her gently by the hand. “If we don’t call the police, they will put us all in jail for concealing a murder. You must tell them.”

The bearded man said, “I’ll do that.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Charles Welland. I’m a physicist at the University of Chicago, but on Sundays I’m a go player.”

“I see… I’m V. I. Warshawski. I live upstairs. I’m a private investigator. The police look very dimly on all citizens who don’t report murders, but especially on P.I.’s.”

Welland went into the dining room, where the Takamokus kept their phone. I told the Takamokus and their guests that no one could leave before the police gave them permission, then followed Welland to make sure he didn’t call anyone besides the police, or take the opportunity to get rid of a vial of poison.

The go players seemed resigned, albeit very nervous. All of them smoked ferociously; the thick air grew bluer. Four of them stood apart arguing in Korean. A lone man fiddled with the stones on one of the go-bans.

None of them spoke English well enough to give a clear account of how the young man died. When Welland came back, I asked him for a detailed report.

The physicist claimed not to know his name. The dead man had only been coming to the go club the last month or two.

“Did someone bring him? Or did he just show up one day?”

Welland shrugged. “He just showed up. Word gets around among go players. I’m sure he told me his name-it just didn’t stick. I think he worked for Hansen Electronic, the big computer firm.”

I asked if everyone there was a regular player. Welland knew all of them by sight, if not by name. They didn’t all come every Sunday, but none of the others was a newcomer.

“I see. Okay. What happened today?”

Welland scratched his beard. He had bushy, arched eyebrows which jumped up to punctuate his stronger statements kind of like Sean Connery. I found it pretty sexy. I pulled my mind back to what he was saying.

“I got here around one-thirty. I think three games were in progress. This guy”-he jerked his thumb toward the dead man-“arrived a bit later. He and I played a game. Then Mr. Hito arrived and the two of them had a game. Dr. Han showed up, and he and I were playing when the whole thing happened. Mrs. Takamoku sets out tea and snacks. We all wander around and help ourselves. About four, this guy took a swallow of tea, gave a terrible cry, and died.”

“Is there anything important about the game they were playing?”

Welland looked at the board. A handful of black-and-white stones stood on the corner points. He shook his head. “They’d just started. It looks like our dead friend was trying one of the Takamoku josekis. That’s a complicated one-I’ve never seen it used in actual play before.”

“What’s that? Anything to do with Mr. Takamoku?”

“The joseki are the beginning moves in the corners. Takamoku is this one”-he pointed at the far side-“where black plays on the five-four point-the point where the fourth and fifth lines intersect. It wasn’t named for our host. That’s just coincidence.”

Sergeant McGonnigal didn’t find out much more than I did. A thickset young detective, he had a lot of experience and treated his frightened audience gently. He was a little less kind to me, demanding roughly why I was there, what my connection with the dead man was, who my client was. It didn’t cheer him up any to hear I was working for the Takamokus, but he let me stay with them while he questioned them. He sent for a young Korean officer to interrogate the Koreans in the group. Welland, who spoke fluent Japanese, translated the Japanese interviews. Dr. Han, the lone Chinese, struggled along on his own.

McGonnigal learned that the dead man’s name was Peter Folger. He learned that people were milling around all the time watching each other play. He also learned that no one paid attention to anything but the game they were playing, or watching.

“The Japanese say the go player forgets his father’s funeral,” Welland explained. “It’s a game of tremendous concentration.”

No one admitted knowing Folger outside the go club. No one knew how he found out that the Takamokus hosted go every Sunday.

My clients hovered tensely in the background, convinced that McGonnigal would arrest them at any minute. But they could add nothing to the story. Anyone who wanted to play was welcome at their apartment on Sunday afternoon. Why should he show a credential? If he knew how to play, that was the proof.

McGonnigal pounced on that. Was Folger a good player? Everyone looked around and nodded. Yes, not the best-that was clearly Dr. Han or Mr. Kim, one of the Koreans-but quite good enough. Perhaps first kyu, whatever that was.

After two hours of this, McGonnigal decided he was getting nowhere. Someone in the room must have had a connection with Folger, but we weren’t going to find it by questioning the group. We’d have to dig into their backgrounds.

A uniformed man started collecting addresses while McGonnigal went to his car to radio for plainclothes reinforcements. He wanted everyone in the room tailed and wanted to phone in the command in privacy. A useless precaution, I thought: the innocent wouldn’t know they were being followed, and the guilty would expect it.