“Recognize me?”
“Yeah. The rank threw me. You were a lieutenant back then, right? Lieutenant Cooper. That's right, I remember reading about you. You busted up an arms-smuggling ring in Afghanistan. You were on that CH-47 that got shot out of the sky by the Taliban. Yeah, I read about you.”
I ignored the wrath of the gods, poured myself sake, and tossed it down. The whole Afghanistan thing was still giving me nightmares.
“You're a bit of a hero,” she persisted, ignoring my body language. I was squirming. I've come to realize that there's not a lot of difference between a coward and a hero. The situation itself rather than a conscious decision often dictates a man's actions. I've seen heroes do cowardly things. And I once saw a man everyone thought was a coward rescue a dog chained to a booby-trapped 155-mm artillery shell. Both were killed when the device blew a swimming-pool-sized crater in the dirt. When I looked back on my service record, the moments recorded as glorious sparked only cold fear, loneliness, and a sense of point-lessness. And, of course, along with the cowards, many of the heroes I've known are also dead. Their heroism had done little or nothing to alter an outcome. Out of all this, one eternal truth has struck me — Death ain't real choosy.
“You okay?” I heard her voice as if from a distance. “Did I say something wrong?”
“What? No, nothing. What about you? Why the CIA?”
“My story's not nearly as exciting as yours, I'm afraid. I grew up in a Park Avenue apartment. Only child. Father was a banker, Mother a professional drinker — brandy with vodka chasers. Good schools. NYU, poli sci, psych, and languages.”
So much for first impressions being wrong. “That's where you learned Japanese?”
“No. We had a Japanese doorman. I fucked him on my thirteenth birthday when my mom was in bed with the bottle and my father was on some business trip. The doorman was the only one who remembered.” She forgot about the gods and poured herself sake like she was trying to forget. The drink brought back her smile. “You know, the best way to learn a language is on your back?”
The hand was on my leg again. “As for why the CIA,” she said, “I was recruited in college. My mother wasn't too happy about it but I think my father thought it was cool, something to brag about in the Hamptons.” She paused to drink her sake and a thought struck her. “I think their attitudes changed after 9/11.”
“Theirs and everyone else's,” I said. I knew there was a reason why I was still doing this gig and I'd just been reminded of it. I glanced outside. The snowflakes were settling onto the vehicles out in the street like goose down after a pillow fight.
A man appeared to detach himself from the moving press of people shuffling along the sidewalk. He stepped into the sushi bar and launched a smile at me that could have come from a Tommy Hilfiger catalog. I was about to tell him he'd confused me with someone else when he said, “Hey, I knew I'd find you guys here!”
“Bradley!” exclaimed Durban. She spun around on her stool a little too quick when she heard his voice, like she'd been caught in the act. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out who Bradley was. I wondered why he'd turned up after Durban had given him the brush-off. Maybe he didn't trust her. Maybe he wasn't as vacuous as he looked. Bradley was impeccably dressed in a black Brooks Brothers coat with a bronze silk scarf tucked inside the lapels. He wore the arrogance of an Ivy League fraternity house like aftershave. I just knew we'd get along — not. He dusted the snowflakes off his shoulders and sleeves and JFK-style light brown hair, then unbuttoned his coat.
“Got a drink there for me, Shell?” he said, avoiding any overt display of affection for his mistress. I wondered how he'd behave if he knew I knew. “So, you must be Special Agent Vincent Cooper. Good to meet you. Bradley Chalmers. I'm with State.”
Sure you are, Brad.
He held out his hand to shake. His white fingers were cold and wet, like pieces of sashimi.
“Call me Vin,” I said, playing along.
“So, how do you like Japan, Vin? It'd be nice, only there's so many Japanese, right?” He smiled at his own banality.
“Yeah, it's nice,” I agreed. It occurred to me that someone upstairs must have been listening, for a change. Here was my diversion. Whether I liked the guy or not, Durban's boyfriend and boss was my excuse to exit, stage left. “Well…” I said.
“Hey, where're you going?” Durban said with a frown.
“Yeah, c'mon,” said Prince Chalmers with zero conviction, “you can't leave now.”
“Appreciate the hospitality, folks,” I said, “but I got a report to write.” The requirement to keep on top of the paperwork was something everyone working for Uncle Sam understood, paperwork being a monster with an insatiable appetite for the world's forests. I caught a look from Michelle while the karaoke racket distracted her lover boss. It was the slightest pursing of those lips, the raising of an eyebrow and the suggestion of a shrug. It said, I'll shake this loser and then you and I can go wring some fun outta this town. Although I could have gotten it wrong and it might have been just plain, See you. I stood and the blood rushed to my feet, leaving my brain bobbing in a high-water mark of sake. I swayed a little.
“You want me to get you a cab?” asked Durban.
“No, I can manage.” I took a moment to center the bubble between the two black lines in my head before attempting further movement.
“I've arranged to have you picked up at your hotel at oh-six-thirty by a cruiser,” she informed me.
“Got it,” I said.
“You know where you want to go?”
I glanced outside. In the space of a few minutes, the snowfall had turned to blizzard. “Jamaica,” I said. “Say sayonara to Brady for me.”
“Bradley,” she corrected me, her hand on my forearm.
“Him, too.” I waved and headed for the sidewalk. I felt happy that something with Durban didn't get the chance to start… OK, maybe I'd feel happy about it in the morning.
FIVE
My body was still running on D.C. time, which explained why I didn't sleep much, and why at 0200 hours I felt like breaking for lunch. I watched a kung fu movie in my room and killed time till dawn reading over the briefing notes. Nothing stood out, and so my mind wandered to other more pressing topics such as replaying the last conversation I'd had with Anna. We were going nowhere, and so now we could go nowhere alone, without the inconvenience of having each other along for the ride.
I went to breakfast early. The buffet was deserted, a rare occurrence anywhere in Japan. I ate enough bacon to bring on colon cancer, plus two eggs, a couple of sausages, two hash browns, toast, and a whole cantaloupe. If I could go till dinner without having to face the local cuisine, the day's major mission was accomplished. I ate a cinnamon pastry as I rolled out into the foyer.
A police cruiser waited out beyond the end of a narrow strip of red carpet embossed with the Hilton's logo. Snow slush clumped across the vehicle's trunk, roof, and hood. The driver's window was opaque with water and mist. The window slid down and I got a wave. “Go ahead, make my day,” the now familiar cop said with a smile. I could have slugged the greeting out of the park, but I let it go. All I'd get back would be a blank look anyway, and what would be the fun in that?
The rear door sprang open. I tossed in my jacket and climbed after it. I'd need the jacket. It was still only just a couple of degrees above freezing. The cold immediately found its way through the scar tissue I'd accumulated in recent years from all the bullet and shrapnel wounds.
“Morning,” said Durban with the kind of singsong good cheer that makes me want to punch people, as she licked the froth off the underside of a lid of a cappuccino-to-go. “How'd you sleep?”