He spoke and gestured reassuringly and hurried off toward the rear of the restaurant.
The man in white waved the other men sharply away from him. He moved to the side of the foyer and put his hat and his briefcase, less fat now, on a black lamp table. He stood looking toward the rear of the restaurant, frowning and rubbing his white-gloved hands together. He looked down at them, and put them at his sides.
From the rear of the restaurant Tsuruko and Mori came, in colorful slacks and blouses, and Yoshiko, still in her kimono. Kuwayama hustled them forward. They looked confused and worried. Diners glanced at them.
The man in white curved his mouth into a friendly smile.
Kuwayama delivered the three women to the man in white, nodded to him, and moved aside to watch with folded arms.
The man in white smiled and shook his head sorrowfully, ran a gloved hand back over his cropped gray hair. “Girls,” he said, “a really bad thing has come up. Bad for me, I mean, not for you. Fine for you. I’ll explain.” He took a breath. “I’m a manufacturer of farm machinery,” he said, “one of the biggest in South America. The men who are with me tonight”—he gestured back over his shoulder—“are my salesmen. We got together here so I could tell them about some new machines we’re putting into production, give them all the details and specifications; you know. Everything top secret. Now I’ve found out that a spy for a rival North American concern learned about our meeting just before it started, and knowing the way these people work, I’m willing to bet he went back to the kitchen and got hold of one of you, or even all of you, and asked you to eavesdrop on our conversation from some…secret hiding place, or maybe take pictures of us.” He raised a finger. “You see,” he explained, “some of my salesmen formerly worked for this rival concern, and they don’t know—the concern doesn’t know—who’s with me now, so pictures of us would be useful to them too.” He nodded, smiling ruefully. “It’s a very competitive business,” he said. “Dog eat dog.”
Tsuruko and Mori and Yoshiko looked blankly at him, shaking their heads slightly, slowly.
Kuwayama, who had moved around beside and behind the man in white, said sternly, “If any of you did what the senhor—”
“Let me!” The man in white threw an open hand back but didn’t turn. “Please.” He lowered the hand, smiled, and took half a step forward. “This man,” he said good-naturedly, “a young North American, would have offered you some money, of course, and he would have told you some kind of story about it being a practical joke or something, a harmless little trick he was playing on us. Now, I can fully understand how girls who are not, I’m sure, being vastly overpaid—You aren’t, are you? Is my friend here vastly overpaying any of you?” His brown eyes twinkled at them, waiting for an answer.
Yoshiko, giggling, shook her head vehemently.
The man in white laughed with her, and reached toward her shoulder but withdrew his hand short of touching her. “I didn’t think so!” he said. “No, I was pretty damn sure he isn’t!” He smiled at Mori and Tsuruko; they smiled uncertainly back at him. “Now, I can fully understand,” he said, getting serious again, “how girls in your situation, hard-working girls with family responsibilities—you with your two children, Mori—I can fully understand how you could go along with such an offer. In fact, I can’t understand how you couldn’t go along with it; you’d be stupid not to! A harmless little joke, a few extra cruzeiros. Things are expensive these days; I know. That’s why I gave you nice tips upstairs. So if the offer was made, and if you accepted it, believe me, girls: there’s no anger on my part, there’s no resentment; there’s only understanding, and a need to know.”
“Senhor,” Mori protested, “I give you my word, nobody offered me anything or asked me to do anything.”
“Nobody,” Tsuruko said, shaking her head; and Yoshiko, shaking hers, said, “Honestly, senhor.”
“As proof of my understanding,” the man in white said, holding his jacket-front from him and reaching into it, “I’ll give you twice what he gave you, or twice what he only offered.” He brought out a thick black crocodile billfold, split it open, and showed the inside edges of two sheaves of bills. “This is what I meant before,” he said, “about it being a bad thing for me but a good thing for you.” He looked from one woman to another. “Twice what he gave you,” he said. “For you, and the same amount also for Senhor…” He jerked his head back toward Kuwayama, who said, “Kuwayama.” “So he won’t be angry with you either. Girls? Please?” The man in white showed his money to Yoshiko. “Years have been spent on this—on these new machines,” he told her. “Millions of cruzeiros!” He showed his money to Mori. “If I know how much my rival knows, then I can take steps to protect myself!” He showed his money to Tsuruko. “I can speed up production, or maybe find this young man and…get him onto my side, give money to him as well as to you and Senhor—”
“Kuwayama. Come on, girls, don’t be afraid! Tell Senhor Aspiazu! I won’t be angry with you.”
“You see?” the man in white urged. “Only good can come! For everyone!”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Mori insisted, and Yoshiko, looking at the bent-open billfold with its sheaves of bills, said sadly, “Nothing. Honestly.” She looked up. “I would tell, gladly, senhor. But there’s really nothing.”
Tsuruko looked at the billfold.
The man in white watched her.
She looked up at him, and hesitantly, with embarrassment, nodded.
He let his breath out, looking intently at her.
“It was just the way you said,” she admitted. “I was in the kitchen, when we were getting ready to serve you, and one of the boys came to me and said there was a man outside who wanted to speak to someone serving your party. Very important. So I went out, and he was there, the North American. He gave me two hundred cruzeiros, fifty before and a hundred and fifty after. He said he was a reporter for a magazine, and you made films and never gave interviews.”
The man in white, looking at her, said, “Go on.”
“He said it would be a good story for him if he found out what new films you were planning. I told him you were going to talk with your guests later on—Senhor K. told us you were—and he—”
“Asked you to hide and listen.”
“No, senhor, he gave me a tape recorder, and I brought it in, and brought it out to him when you were done talking.”
“A…tape recorder?”
Tsuruko nodded. “He showed me how to work it. Two buttons at once.” With both her forefingers she pressed air before her.
The man in white closed his eyes and stood motionless except for a slight side-to-side swaying. He opened his eyes and looked at Tsuruko and smiled faintly. “A tape recorder was in operation throughout our conference?” he asked.
“Yes, senhor,” she said. “In a rice bowl under the serving table. It worked very well. The man tried it before he paid me, and he was very happy.”
The man in white took in air through his mouth, licked his upper lip, allowed the air out, and closed his mouth and swallowed. He put a white-gloved hand to his forehead and wiped it slowly.
“Two hundred cruzeiros altogether,” Tsuruko said.
The man in white looked at her, moved closer to her, and drew in a deep breath. He smiled down at her; she was half a head shorter than he. “Dear,” he said softly, “I want you to tell me everything you can about the man. He was young—how young? What did he look like?”
Tsuruko, uneasy in their closeness, said, “He was twenty-two or -three, I think. I couldn’t see him clearly. Very tall. Nice-looking, friendly. He had brown hair in close little curls.”