"Anybody ever tell you you've got a crummy sense of humor." I wasn't smiling as I reached to take it back. Her crack annoyed me and I'm afraid I showed it. Some things you don't kid around about. "That's a modern foundry that turns out crappy—"
"Don't get testy. I'm only reading. Right there." She pointed to some very faint English engraved into the metal.
"Christ!"
I grabbed it back and held it under the light to look. No mistaking. There it was, plain as could be.
That's when I finally realized the thing was a copy. A goddam replica of the original. Okay, a remarkably good one, but a fake nonetheless.
How did this get in my closet?
Could somebody have broken in and . . . ?
Suddenly it hit me. The robbery. Whoever had lifted my records must have also pulled a switcheroo on this katana, leaving this piece of Nagoya junk and disguising the deed by replacing the original grip and tsuba hand guard. I'd been too loaded to notice.
I wanted to crack the goddam fraud over my knee like in the movies, but you don't do that with a samurai sword, even a phony modern one. So instead I flung it down on Jo's Italian-marble floor and headed back upstairs to check the others. What in hell had happened? Had they cleaned me out after all. My God, thousands . . .
I began yanking down swords, starting with the aforementioned centerpiece of the collection, scrutinizing them in the light. But after about half a dozen proved to be all right, I started calming down. Nothing else seemed to have been touched. Well, what the heck, I thought. It wasn't exactly a crippling loss. Finally I grew a little ashamed of myself and sheepishly wandered back down, collecting the ringer off the floor.