“Yes—I mean, no! Oh, but you wouldn’t understand.” Iishino grew angry and more agitated as he spoke. “You don’t know what it is to be so lonely that you would do anything to be accepted. You’re just like everyone else who shuns and ridicules me!”

Hastening to placate the interpreter, Sano saw a way to learn the motives behind the murders. “I do understand,” he said. “I know how cruel people can be, no matter how hard we work or how much we deserve respect.”

“Yes. Yes!” Responding to Sano’s genuine sincerity, Iishino nodded vigorously.

Sano edged between the interpreter and the door. “Did Director Spaen also mistreat you? Is that why he died?”

Iishino’s face crumpled. “I thought he was my friend.” The gun dipped, and Sano wondered if he should grab it. No, not yet … “Oh, I know he was obligated to be polite to me—especially since I helped sell his private stock of goods. But he was always so nice that I thought he really liked me. I thought a barbarian could appreciate me the way my countrymen didn’t. I was so happy,” Iishino wailed.

He took a hand from the gun and wiped tears off his cheeks. Sano moved closer, summoning his nerve. “But then, that night at the cove, I realized I’d only been fooling myself,” Iishino continued. “We’d just brought the boat into the cave—Spaen, Commander Nirin, and I. We were waiting for Liu Yun to bring the gangsters. I was so excited; I laughed and hugged Spaen and said, “We make the best partners in the world, you and I—though of course, you Dutch are not as smart as we Japanese.”

Iishino smiled through his tears in remembered pleasure; he didn’t seem to know he’d offended his “partner.” Then his expression darkened, and he lifted the gun. “Spaen sneered at me, then said I was a piece of dung who wasn’t fit to lick his shoes, and if not for the smuggling, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me at all! I saw that our friendship was all in my imagination, my imagination. He scorned me—just like everyone else!”

“I was hurt, then angry. To be rejected even by a barbarian!” Indignation flared in Iishino’s eyes. “He was wearing his gun—I kept it in my office on Deshima, and let him have it for games with his whore, and whenever he left the island. When he turned away, I grabbed it and shot him.”