‘She’s his girl friend. No maybe about it.’
‘She’s probably got the flu, picked up some nose drops,’ James said.
‘Maybe not,’ George said. ‘Lookee here.’
The garage door was slowly rising.
‘Take it,’ Eliza said. ‘Block the driveway so she can’t get out.’
James threw the Olds in reverse and backed crazily down the street. He screeched to a stop in front of the driveway just as the Mercedes started out. Eliza was out of the car on the run.
Jonathan Caldwell was in the car with Ellen Delaney. Ellen Delaney put the stick in reverse and headed back into the garage, but Eliza ran alongside the car and into the garage before the door swooshed shut.
There they were. A Mexican stand-off. Caldwell, who had once been a middleweight boxer at Harvard, glared at her through the windshield, his ice-blue eyes afire with anger. Eliza glared back.
‘You’re trespassing,’ he said finally his voice trembling with rage.
‘Mr Caldwell, do you know who I am?’
‘I know who you are,’ he said flatly.
‘Mr Caldwell, nobody’s heard yon side of this mess. I’ll make a deal. I’ll give you five minutes. You can say anything you want.’
‘And if I refuse?’
Eliza stared at him and said nothing for a moment. Then she smiled. ‘You wouldn’t do that. You’re too smart to pass up five minutes of free air time.’
He nodded toward his girl friend. ‘She’s out of it. It’s just you and me.’
‘You got it.’
When the garage doors opened up again, a minute or two later, the boys were facing it. George had the video camera on his shoulder and James was plugged in and they were ready to shoot. They knew their Eliza very well.
2
At the same time that Eliza was interviewing Caldwell, it was night in Japan.
Kei guided the old Toyota up a gravel road, winding through a row of wind-bent pine trees, and when he peaked the mountain, the city of Tokyo twinkled below them, fifteen miles away, like a constellation reflected in the sea. They were in a parking lot filled with Mercedes and Rolls-Royce sedans, American limousines and, here and there, a Z series Datsun. The building was round and triple-tiered and very contemporary, constructed of teak and redwood that had been steam curved, with balconies that spanned half its circumference and jutted out over the cliffs, facing the city. The main entrance was on the opposite side of the building, and as Kei pulled up, the largest Oriental that Gruber had ever seen emerged from the entrance, itself a massive twelve-foot-high teak door, several inches thick and trimmed in royal blue. The doorman, who helped Gruber out of the back seat, was built like a prize fighter and dressed in a classic gi of black silk.
‘I park, come right back,’ Kei said, and drove around to the side of the building, squeezing the four-door in between two large black European limos. He was slender and agile and handsome in a stoic way, and he wore American jeans, Nike sneakers, a dark-blue raw-silk blouse, and a black headband to keep his thick black hair in place. He was maybe twenty-seven or -eight and crowding five-six.
When Kei returned, Gruber was standing in the shadows near the entrance. He was obviously angry. Gruber was a large man who kept himself in perfect physical condition, his waist tight and trim, his back as straight as a post, his graying brown hair neat and militantly close-cropped. Kei felt tension emanating from Gruber like an electric charge; his skin was as gray as lead and one could almost see, reflected in his lifeless eyes, a lifetime of killing without remorse or feeling.
‘Look, I don’t like the vay dis iss sizing up,’ Gruber said in a low, flat monotone, barely concealing his German accent.
‘You understand my meaning? Don’t leave me alone like dat.
I am on alien ground.’
‘Hunh?’ Kei said.
Goddamn, Gruber thought, fighting his thin temper, it’s always difficult dealing with Orientals. ‘You, me, stay togedder, now on. Okay? You understand dat?’
‘Sure,’ Kei said. ‘Now, you understand this, this is private club, some Japanese, mostly Americans and Europeans who live in Japan. I have guest letter, very hard to get, pay twenty-five thousand yen, you gimme fifty bucks American, that’s twelve thousand yen, so you owe me another thirteen thousand, right?’
‘I told you, if dis girl knows Chameleon and I get vat I need, I’ll triple what you get, eh. Three times, okay? Dat’s anodder thirty-nine thousand. But only if I find Chameleon. If it is a vashout, nutting.’
Kei nodded. ‘Agreeable. You listen good now. There is show on inside, but we have no time for that.’
‘What kind of show?’
‘I tell you there is no time for show You wanna see show, we come back some other time, you must go to the baths, take steam bath to prepare you for the massage. The maiko who massages you, she will be the one.’
‘Maiko? Vat the hell’s dat?’
‘She is training for geisha.’
‘An amateur, eh. Does she have a name?’
‘Her name is Suji. She knows what you want. She will start the talk, hai? So you will know it is her. You just listen. But must hurry, before show is over. There may be crowd after show. Suji will not talk with others there.’
‘So, vy de steam bath? I do not even like de steam bath.’
‘This is very traditional club, even though pretty crazy, too. It would be an insult, to skip the steam.’
Gruber muttered something in German and followed Kei into a small, low-ceilinged anteroom that was simple and elegant. The muted lighting came from a globe lantern that hung over either end of a priceless antique desk, its facade covered with hand-carved scroll work. An Oriental rug lay before the desk, and in the tokonama, the small alcove behind it, was a magnificent floral arrangement. The geisha who sat behind the desk was just as elegant, a diminutive woman, no more than twenty, a single jade ring on the small finger of her left hand, her mouth a splash of red in her chalk-white painted face, her night-black hair braided to one side and held in place by a splinter-thin pin with a delicate jade handle. She wore a kimono of pure white silk with a startling, blood-red obi that matched, perfectly, the colour of her lips. And when she spoke, her voice was as delicate as wind chimes.
‘Konbanwa.’
Kei nodded and returned her ‘Good evening.’
She smiled and nodded back. ‘Tegami o onegai itashimasu.’
‘Hai.’ Kei produced a letter and handed it to her.
‘Domo arigato gozaimasu.’
‘Do itashimashite.’
She read it slowly.
Somewhere in the vastness of the club, behind walls and doors, Gruber could hear the slow, solitary beat of a taiko drum, and there was a delicate scent of incense in the air. And while Gruber tried to keep his mind n business, he found himself uncontrollably stirred by the place, by a sensual promise he could not ignore.
This is business, he said to himself. The pleasure can wait. And yet the odour, the slow rhythmic thump of the drum, the beauty of the young geisha, kept chipping away at his concentration.
When she finished the letter, she looked at Gruber for a moment and then asked Kei, ‘Kochira wa Gruber-san desuka?
‘Hai.’
She folded the letter and slipped it into one of the desk drawers, looked briefly at Gruber, and with the vaguest of smiles, nodded toward another door, pressing a button under her foot as she did. The door clicked very quietly. Kei opened it and ushered Gruber into Takan Shu.
The only light in the enormous space seemed to come from near the ceiling, but it was so subtle, so subdued that it took Gruber a few moments to adjust before he could study the interior of the club. It was an arena, a. plush arena in a large circular room towering sixty feet to its flat ceiling. The core of the main floor was a small stage and, stretching out from it, like ripples in the water, were tiers, circular rows, like giant steps rising one above the other, to a point perhaps halfway to the dome. There were no windows. Each step accommodated several bays separated only by small tables. There were no lamps and no lights on the walls, and in each of the bays were deeply piled futon, thick down quilts normally used for sleeping. Most of the alcoves were occupied, some by a single couple, some by as many as six people. Their faces were hazy apparitions in the dim light.