The Case of the Poisoned Eclairs: A Masao Masuto Mystery by Howard Fast Page B

to exist in a condition of total interest in what he does.”
    Masuto sat up and stared at his wife in the darkness. “Kati dear—in one evening?”
    â€œThere is another meeting on Thursday. If you forbid me to go, things will be very unpleasant for both of us.”
    â€œI would not dream of forbidding you to go. What right have I to forbid you to do anything?”
    â€œNone,” Kati said smugly.
    Nevertheless, although Masuto awakened at six-thirty, Kati was already up and in the kitchen, dressed in her white and yellow kimono, looking very lovely and preparing breakfast. Masuto kissed her on the back of the neck, just below the thick knot of her black hair.
    â€œWill you have eggs?” she asked him.
    â€œNothing this morning. I must go to the zendo this morning and meditate with Roshi Hakuin. I have some questions, and possibly he will be kind enough to answer.”
    â€œThe children are still asleep. How can you leave without seeing the children? I am sure they’ve forgotten that they have a father.”
    â€œThen you must remind them.”
    â€œMasao, I’m so afraid. You walk with death always. If it reaches out and touches you—”
    â€œNothing will happen to me, Kati.”
    â€œThen why is there a bandage on your chin? What happened?”
    â€œJust a scratch. It’s nothing.” He kissed her again. “I must go.”
    It was almost seven o’clock, yet he could not leave without looking at his roses, without walking once through the rose garden. Next to his wife, his children, and meditation, the roses were the most precious part of Masuto’s life. A month before, he had received a rooted cutting of an old-fashioned cabbage rose from a distant relative in New Jersey, with a promise that the blooms would be six inches across. The first buds had just appeared. He wanted to dust them, but they were still wet with the morning dew, and reluctantly he left them.
    The zendo was in downtown Los Angeles. At this hour, the streets would be quicker than the freeway, and Masuto drove down Pico Boulevard to Normandie Avenue. The zendo was a cluster of old wooden buildings that the students of the roshi had purchased and reconditioned. About forty families lived in the cluster that comprised the zendo, husbands, wives, and children—a kind of communal development that existed only in Los Angeles.
    Masuto parked his car and walked to the meditation room, a long room with a polished wooden floor and two rows of pillows and mats. The room was actually two rooms joined together, the windows replaced by Victorian stained glass, picked up at auctions and flea markets. Roshi Hakuin sat at the far end of the room, a small, elderly Japanese man in a saffron-colored robe, sitting cross-legged, his eyes on the floor, while on either side, stretching down both sides of the room, sitting cross-legged on the pillows, were about twenty men and women in their morning meditation. One was a Burmese, two were Korean; the rest were Caucasian.
    The room was filled with a soft, gentle morning light that diffused through the stained glass windows.
    Masuto removed his shoes. He was about to take off his jacket when he realized that if he did, his revolver would be revealed. A zendo was no place to enter with a visible revolver. It was bad enough to enter with a concealed weapon. So he kept his jacket on, walked in his stocking feet to the unoccupied pillow closest to the roshi, sat down cross-legged, and began his meditation.
    On by one, the others completed their meditation and left. Presently, only Masuto and the old Japanese master remained in the zendo. The roshi had finished meditating and was watching Masuto. Masuto put his palms together reverently, bowed his head, and waited.
    â€œWelcome,” Hakuin said, speaking in Japanese. He was never one to waste words.
    â€œThank you, Roshi, so grateful,” Masuto replied, also in Japanese.
    â€œFor