Read Online The Toyotomi Blades by Dale Furutani - Free Book Online

people walking around on the street below me. Yet despite looking, acting, and sounding like everyone else, she was a minority because her ancestors were born in Korea. It’s a strange world, and one we make unnecessarily stranger by dividing people up into different types of minorities.
    In the afternoon, I took a cab back to the studio and met with a pleasant surprise from Junko. As soon as she saw me, she asked, “Where did you say you bought that sword?”
    “At a garage sale.”
    “And how much did you pay for it?”
    “A hundred dollars.”
    “When we leave the studio I want you to go with me to buy a lottery ticket,” Junko said.
    “Why?”
    “Because you must be incredibly lucky. That sword could be very valuable.”
    Stunned, I asked, “How do you know?”
    “Those news stories we found made me curious about who the swordsmith Kannemori was and why so many of his swords were stolen, so I did some research against some Japanese language databases. Those databases are more comprehensive than the English language databases we subscribe to. In the university database, I found an article about Kannemori swords that was printed in a scholarly journal in 1987. It described some unusual swords made by Kannemori in the early 1600s. It seems the swords were especially made for the Toyotomi clan. These blades have a design incised into the blades that actually weakens the sword and ruins it as a fighting weapon. Your sword has the same kind of designs as those described in the article. The article talked about blades at the Japan National Museum and in the hands of a private collector here in Japan. Those two had different designs on their blades and yours seems to be different still. If yours is a Kannemori blade it could be worth a lot.”
    “How could we find out for sure?”
    “I’ve already called the author of the article, Professor Hirota. He teaches Japanese history at All Japan University. He’s out of town right now, but his assistant said Professor Hirota would call me as soon as he’s back. He said the professor would probably be very interested. I’m going to ask Professor Hirota if he’ll look at your sword and see if it’s a Kannemori.”
    I don’t view myself as a greedy man, but I was unemployed and the prospect of a windfall from a garage sale purchase made my spirits soar.
    Junko was working on a videotape piece that gave the details of the murder I had solved, and she asked me to help make sure the chronology and facts were right. She was weaving news footage and stock pictures of Los Angeles together to illustrate the piece, which she said would take up three minutes of my twelve-minute segment. I secretly wished she would make a longer tape introduction, because the remaining nine minutes of live interview seemed like an eternity to fill.
    My enthusiasm for being on camera live was waning as I thought of all the embarrassing and disastrous possibilities. Mostly, I thought I’d freeze up and sit there grinning like an idiot while the hosts asked me questions in Japanese. Finally I confessed my apprehensions to Junko.
    She smiled and said, “Everyone gets nervous, but not too many people admit it, especially men. You’ll do fine. If you’d like, I’ll give you some hints.”
    “Dozo,” I said, using the Japanese word for please.
    “I thought you didn’t speak Japanese,” she answered.
    “Dozo represents a significant chunk of my Japanese vocabulary. I know some words, but I don’t know grammar. Plus, everyone speaks so fast, I can’t even pick out the few words I know.”
    Junko laughed. “When you’re beginning to learn a language, it seems like everyone is speaking really fast. It’s just that you haven’t adjusted to the rhythm of the language yet. After a while, it seems like people slow down and you can hear individual words, but it’s really because you’ve picked up an ear for a particular language.”
    “You should know. You speak several languages.”
    “Well,