Fukuda's hands were tucked into his jacket pockets. He withdrew his right hand just far enough to reveal a shimmering membrane of white silk that he rubbed between his fingers. "Cotton is most popular, but I find the touch of silk more calming." His eyes twinkled, testing Stake's reaction.
Stake couldn't stop himself from stammering, "Those aren't… Yuki's?"
Fukuda lost his twinkle immediately, exchanging it for a look of dismay. "What? Of course not!" It seemed to take him a moment to compose himself, after the rattling suggestion that he might fetishize an article of his own child's clothing. "Mr. Stake, in the community of Luzon, here in town, a man might savor the taste of dog. But he will not eat his own. And he will protect his dog from ending up on someone else's plate, too. Do you catch my meaning?"
Stake caught it only too well, but he wanted to pursue the matter and ask how his client would feel if he learned that one of these businessmen were right now wearing his daughter's used dainties, sold by Yuki to one of those entrepreneurs who in turn dispensed them through vending machines in subway stations, malls, and even in the washrooms of upscale nightclubs, but he decided not to poke the man about his hypocrisy. It was no different from a man having no qualms about a woman selling her body-so long as he had not sired that body. Anyway, they were now holding up traffic behind them, and needed to seat themselves at their own table instead of standing in the midst of these others.
The executive cafeteria of Fukuda Bioforms was smaller, more intimate than the one in which Stake had lunched with Yuki Fukuda. It was more of a restaurant, really, and once they were settled a wait staff served them their drinks and salads. Though Stake was sure the general cafeteria for the hordes of office drones and lab techs was considerably less swanky.
Hemmed in by tropical potted plants and subdued lighting, Fukuda and his guest hovered over their blood orange martinis until their steaks arrived. Fukuda had insisted on ordering for Stake, after first determining that he was not a vegetarian. He watched avidly as the private investigator cut off a tender chunk of filet mignon, popped it into his mouth and chewed.
"Mm." He nodded. "Mmm. Don't tell me- from your deadstock, right?"
"Oh, Mr. Stake, you ruined my surprise. Yes, it is. Wonderful, eh?"
"It really is. Very delicious. Thank you."
"Janice Poole phoned me to say that you had talked with her about the daughter of Adrian Tableau. And talk of that butcher Tableau put me in mind to treat you to something of a far better quality than the blobs he churns out at Tableau Meats."
"The consumer gets what he pays for, I guess." Mention of Janice Poole made Stake want to casually establish how well acquainted with her Fukuda truly was, but he knew it wasn't relevant to the matter at hand, and he couldn't say he was jealous enough, yet, to obsess over it. So instead, he focused on Fukuda's relationship with this Adrian Tableau. "Then you two are definitely not fond of each other."
"He's the one who seems to have a problem with me, though there's room in the market for us both. This is a hungry town, and we both ship our product as near as the city of Miniosis and as far as the planet Earth. But our client base is a little different. As you say, his products appeal to those with less discriminating tastes."
"And less money."
"Yes. Not that our products are overpriced, just of a higher grade. Well, I suppose that after the Alvine Products scandal and the closing of their plant, Adrian grew used to having the market all to himself for a few years."
"Do you think he hates you enough to have someone steal your daughter's valuable kawaii-doll? If not his daughter Krimson, then another girl?"
"It's a possibility. I was aware that his daughter had gone missing, but I never put that and the disappearance of Dai-oo-ika together until Janice brought it up to me in her call. Still, it's a pretty indirect way for Tableau to attack me, unless his daughter did it on her own purely out of spite."
"Yuki told me that a friend of Krimson's claims to have heard her on a Ouija phone."
"Bah." Fukuda waved his fork dismissively, one cheek bulging with his own bite of steak. "I'm not convinced about those things. And even if they do enable people to speak with the trace energies of the departed in some alternate existence, it isn't healthy. It isn't meant for us to throw stones into the well of souls, so to speak, in some irreverent form of play."
"Maybe we can learn from the dead."
"I'll find out about it firsthand one day. I can wait until then."
"I think the kids are less afraid of this stuff than we are," Stake observed. "More open-minded about the technology."
"Or more naive. Or it could be that being older, we're more uncomfortably aware of our own mortality."
Stake wanted to ask Fukuda about his wife, then, especially now that he knew from Janice Poole that she had been murdered. But that had no bearing on the matter at hand, either. How could it? As Yuki had warned him, her father had loved his wife dearly. Why upset him if there were nothing to gain from it?
"Well," Fukuda went on, "this is food for thought, anyway. Pardon the pun." He poked at his steak with his knife, looking pensive. "I should hope it wasn't Tableau behind it. I wouldn't want to imagine why he'd want that doll."
"I'll look into it. Though honestly, I think it's more likely that the daughter would do it on her own, instead of her father putting her up to it. But I don't want to make limiting assumptions."
"Mm," muttered Fukuda, digesting thoughts that tasted decidedly less appetizing than the meat he savored. He looked up at last and studied Stake's face. And smiled an odd, sad smile. "I don't mean to make you self-conscious about it, so perhaps I shouldn't mention it, but in the past few minutes you've started to take on a resemblance to me again."
Typically, Stake dropped his gaze. "Sorry."
Fukuda laughed. "Why apologize? I don't consider it a personal violation. As I've said, it intrigues me a great deal." His smile faltered, took on that melancholy aspect again. "But seeing you this way does fill me with a strange emotion. You see, I had a twin brother-James. He died some years ago."
Stake was plainly surprised. First Yuki's revelation about her mother, and now this. Was their family under some curse? But then, Punktown was a dangerous place. Even so, shouldn't the Fukudas' wealth have insulated them a bit better from that?
"I didn't realize," he said. "I'm very sorry to hear it." He didn't know what he should say, how much curiosity was prudent. He couldn't help it, though; it was his job, and thus his mind-set, to be curious. He asked, "Was he, uh, a fraternal twin or identical?"
"Identical. Like you're becoming."
"I'm not that good at this."
"Good enough. It's uncanny. So, this ability of yours must come in handy in your line of work."
"It's been useful. I can program faces into my wrist comp, like masks I carry with me." He tapped its screen. "It gets me in places. It gets people to talk to me when they might not otherwise. I control it the best I can. If my look starts to slip, I just stare at my comp again. And if I need to be me again, I have my own face in here, too."
"It's all so amazing."
"Sometimes I think what's more amazing is that people's cells are constantly being replenished, replaced, and yet they maintain their appearance. It's like they clone themselves over and over and over again. Right down to every last mole and scar."
"Hm. Yes." Fukuda prodded at his meat some more. "We are fascinating organisms, aren't we? The flesh is the ultimate clay; how could we as a species not want to mold it? We have tattooed it, pierced it, exercised to tone and build it, tanned it and tamed it. Modified it and improved upon it with bio-engineering." He wagged his head, then sipped his martini. Observed his guest as if contemplating himself in a mirror. "Is that all you've been, then, a hired detective? Was that your dream from an early age? A romantic, idealized sort of profession? Or did you just fall into it?"