“You don’t have to tell me about it.”
“You asked. What am I supposed to do? Say no, I’ll walk?”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care what?”
“You can sleep with whoever you want.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s a slut. You want to be careful.”
“She’s your friend.”
“My friend is a slut.”
“You ever sleep with her?”
“I’m a woman, for God’s sake.”
“So?”
“No. If I had, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“So you might have?”
“No, Morgan. She’s aggressively heterosexual.”
“And what about you?”
“Not aggressively. You’re a jerk.”
“I didn’t sleep with her. I just went in for a drink.”
“I don’t care — why not?”
“What? Because.”
“Because why?”
“Miranda …”
“I don’t care.’
“I didn’t.”
“Good.”
“Well, it’s been a relief getting this off my chest — the fact that I didn’t sleep with your former best friend.”
“She was never my best friend. Adults don’t have ‘best’ friends.”
“Former not-best friend.”
“Lost your sex drive?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“It’s about delayed gratification, Miranda. At my age patience is an aphrodisiac.”
“Or an excuse.”
He looked at her. Her smile was enigmatic, flirtatious, or derisive. It could go either way. “Miranda …” he said with wary affection. “Miranda …”
“You could do better than her, Morgan. Do you want the rest of your croissant?”
A voice called from the walkway, and a man emerged out of the shadows. He walked toward the pond, his eyes intent on penetrating the surface reflection.
“Hello, it is Mr. Nishimura,” he said without looking at either of them. “My goodness, Detective Morgan, you are right. They are nishikigoi, very wonderful.” Reluctantly, he turned to Miranda. “I am Mr. Nishimura. We talked on the telephone.”
She stood, took his proffered hand, and bowed slightly from the waist. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Nishimura.”
He bowed deeply. “It is a most honourable occasion.”
She bowed again, wondering how far political correctness had to go.
The man remained upright and grinned. “Eugene Nishimura,” he said in a voice cadenced in irony.
She laughed. “Well, Mr. Eugene Nishimura. Do you even speak Japanese? Where are you from?”
“Your Mr. Morgan saw through me immediately yesterday. People who pay great sums for fish want all the trimmings. I’d dress like a geisha if it sold koi.”
“And your life history, Mister Nishimura?”
“Toronto, like Detective Morgan. Parents both born in an Alberta internment camp. Keep calling me mister and we’ll leave that in the past. My grandparents were from British Columbia, same town, all four of them — Tofino. They fished before the war. On a clear day they imagined they could see their ancestral homeland across the Pacific. My great-grandparents were, or some of them were, from Niigata Province. Thus, I have a genetic link to the koi ponds of Japan. And what about you?”
“Small-town Ontario. Waldron — in Waterloo County.” Turning toward the koi, she asked, “What do you think?”
“These are some of the best I’ve seen. I buy in Japan once a year. I do speak Japanese a little. I learned at Berlitz, and from my wife. I’ve seldom seen better fish even there. Better, but not a lot better. There’s the Doitsu Showa you brought to me, Detective Morgan. In here he doesn’t stand out. This is an amazing collection, amazing. He must be one of the smallest. The Budo Goromo is smaller. There’s nothing else less than twenty inches. We should do an inventory. Look at that Matsuba — the Gin Matsuba.”
He pronounced the g hard, as in go. Morgan had been saying the g as in gin, like the drink.
“Which one is that?” asked Miranda.
“The purist might find him vulgar,” Nishimura explained, pointing to a fish hovering just below the surface, about two feet long, a deep lacquer red with reticulated scales edged in black. “He’s a living gem, a huge oriental pine cone transformed into the finest jewellery. He seems to radiate soft light from inside — a perfect example. My goodness, you have to love these fish. What a collection! Most people specialize in one or two varieties. He’s got a gorgeous cross-section, the best of everything. Look at that dragonfish. Look at that Tancho.”
Nishimura was ecstatic, as if he had discovered a treasure hidden from the world. “Tancho,” he explained to Miranda, “see the red disk on the head? The rest of the fish is white and black. See how crisp the colour is? Asymmetrical but perfectly balanced. It’s black with white, not white with black. Except for the red on its head. Look, a perfect blood moon with a bolt of black running down onto the nose. My golly, what am I doing prattling on?”
“Don’t stop,” said Miranda.
“I think the Tancho Showa is the single most outstanding fish here. That old-style Showa is stunning. It must be pushing three feet. I’ve never seen such a big koi outside Japan. There was one in England that died at a show — legendary, a new style, more white. There might be a few in the southern states this size —”
He interrupted himself to look around. “See those stanchions in the ground?” He indicated low concrete posts nestled unobtrusively into the landscape near the pond walls. “You wouldn’t get fish this size if the pool wasn’t heated in winter. He’s had someone bring the walls in to make a giant cocoon, and warm water pumped through from the house, maybe a heater to heat the air, no expense spared. If you want me to manage these guys, I’ll do it. His winterization people don’t know about fish. You know, you can’t have fish like this without word getting out unless you’re obsessively private. Obsessive compulsive. And rich. Fish people like to compare notes. You should read some of the chat lines on the Net. Fish people are gregarious. This guy’s an exception.”
“His name was Robert Griffin,” said Miranda.
“Never heard of him,” said Nishimura with a trace of admiration.
“So what do you think it’s all worth?” asked Morgan.
Nishimura shrugged.
“C’mon, Eugene. A hundred thousand?”
“Yeah.”
“More?”
“A lot more. I’ll do a complete inventory. Look at that Sushui!” He pointed at a striking fish with a dark zipper down its back set against pale blue, and large mirror scales along the sides, with a brilliant orange belly that only showed as it carved the water in slow, complementary arcs in response to another blue fish, also with a flashing red belly, and scales edged in darker