The rest of Bladeville was like the front window, only more so. A knife-filled glass display case ran the length of the store; every kind of edged weapon imaginable festooned the wall behind it.
Bladeville. No kidding.
He motioned Jack to follow and led him through a door at the rear marked NO ADMITTANCE. He flipped a switch and the lights came on, illuminating row upon row of Japanese swords—long, short, medium—all racked on the wall in scabbards.
Jack glanced up and around. No security cam in here. A quick look over his shoulder showed no second cam in the retail area.
"My collection—Masamune, Murasama, Chogi, Kanemitsu, whoever. You name a classic swordsmith, I've probably got one."
"This is a special katana, Mister O'Day."
"Call me Tom."
"Okay, Tom. This katana was stolen recently and I'm trying to get it back for the owner."
O'Day's eyes narrowed. "You a cop?"
"Would Abe send a cop? I'm private. Just wondering if anyone's tried to sell you a damaged katana recently."
O'Day flipped off the light and they returned to the store section. He stepped behind the counter and began Windexing the glass top. Jack positioned himself with his back to the cam.
"Can't imagine anyone buying damaged when you can get them in pristine shape. Unless it's a signed Masamune or Murasama."
"Not signed by anyone, I'm afraid. And it's sort of moth eaten."
His hand paused—just a second—in mid-wipe, then continued polishing.
Jack wondered if O'Day had seen it or been offered it. If so, a good bet he might know who had it. But he said nothing. Better to approach from an angle.
"You mean rusted out in spots?"
"The owner says it's not rust, just defects."
Now the polishing stopped as O'Day looked at him. "You wouldn't happen to have a picture of this katana."
"Sure do." Jack pulled the photos out of the breast pocket of his shirt and slid them across the counter. "Not great quality, but they give you an idea."
O'Day looked, froze, then snatched them up. His hands shook. Without taking his eyes off the photos he reached behind him, found a four-legged stool, and dropped onto it.
He let out a barely audible, "Oh, shit!"
"What's wrong? You've seen it?"
"The Gaijin," he said to himself. "The fucking Gaijin."
Interesting…
"Yeah. That's what I'm told those doodles mean, but what's the big deal?"
He glanced up at Jack. "The fucking Gaijin Masamune, my man. This is the fucking Gaijin Masamune!"
"Is 'fucking' really part of its name?"
"This sword is legendary. And it all makes sense now. It all makes sense…"
"Well, that makes one of us. Has anyone approached you about—?"
"The story goes that early in the fourteenth century a wandering gaijin warrior commissioned Masamune to refashion his heavy dirk into a kodachi—a kind of short sword. He said the metal in the dirk had fallen from the sky in a blaze of light and he wanted it transformed into something more graceful. He left, saying he would be back. When Masamune began to work with the metal, he found it the strongest steel he'd ever encountered. He made a kodachi with an edge like no other."
Jack didn't care about where it had been in the past; he wanted to know where it was now.
"Yeah, but—"
O'Day went on like he hadn't heard Jack. Maybe he hadn't. Jack had a feeling the only way he could shut him up was blunt-force trauma.
"Masamune waited years for the gaijin to return but he never did. Thinking him dead, Masamune melted down the kodachi and added more steel—his finest steel—but the two metals never fully mixed. The katana that resulted had a mottled finish. Though its blade was beautifully resilient, and took an edge like no katana he had ever seen, its finish embarrassed him."
"Fine. He was embarrassed. I'm sorry for him. Now—"
"Because he was so embarrassed, he didn't sign it on the nakago as he often did—"
"The what?"
"The tang, the butt end inside the handle. Instead he engraved it with 'gaijin.' " O'Day pointed to the ideogram in the close-up photo. "He locked it away and prayed the gaijin wouldn't return. Finally, as he neared the end of his life, he gave it to a samurai who'd done him a service. No one ever knew who that samurai was and the so-called 'Gaijin Masamune' became something of a legend—supposedly stronger and sharper than anything Masamune had ever made. The story was known only to experts and collectors, and a lot of them thought it was a just that—a story. That all changed in 1955."
Jack had to admit he was interested now.
"What happened?"
"The Peace Memorial Museum opened in Hiroshima. And on display was this naked katana blade. Its tsuka—handle—was missing and the blade was riddled with holes. It had been found at ground zero, right where the Aioi Bridge used to be. It had the gaijin ideogram engraved on its tang."
"Could have been a fake."
O'Day scowled. "Aren't you listening? It was found at ground zero. It should have melted. But it didn't. Only some of it melted—the regular steel that Masamune had added to the gaijin's. The gaijin's steel resisted the heat. Remember the part about the blade's mottled finish? That was because the Earth steel, instead of blending with the steel that had 'fallen from the sky,' formed discrete pockets. So when it melted away, the remaining gaijin steel was left riddled with defects."
Despite knowing the answer, Jack said, "I gather it's no longer in the museum."
"No. The place opened in August, the sword was gone by mid-September."
Jack now knew what museum Naka was hiding from. But he couldn't have stolen it—not unless he was a lot older than he looked. Must have been his father.
"That brings us back to the reason I'm here." How to put this? "Look, you're known in certain circles as a guy who provides a service for goods of uncertain origin."
Well, that was better than just coming out and calling the guy a fence.
O'Day gave him a mean look. "What are you saying?"