She whipped the car to the right, stood on the brakes, stopped the car on a hundred-yen coin, and switched off the engine.
Lifting his head from his knees, Canning said, “Jesus! I only asked you to slow down—”
“We're here,” she said brightly.
“What?”
“The Hotel New Otani.”
Dazed, he glanced up just as the uniformed doorman opened the door of the Subaru. The man leaned in, smiled at Canning, offered a hand to help him out of the low-slung little car, and said, “Konnichiwa, sir!”
Afternoon, yes, Canning thought. But was it good? And could it be the same afternoon that he had got off a plane from Honolulu? So much seemed to have happened in the frenetic company of Miss Tanaka. Days seemed to have passed. “Konnichiwa yourself,” he said.
As they followed the doorman and Canning's luggage into the hotel, Lee Ann took his arm and said, “We don't have to register. I've done that already. We're traveling as Mr. and Mrs. J. Okrow. I figure that once The Committee's agents know they've lost you at the Imperial, they'll start checking other hotels — but not for married couples. And if they manage to get their hands on the hotel register — well, the name Okrow sounds Western to the Japanese desk clerk at the Otani, but it probably will sound Japanese to most Westerners.”
“It does to me.”
“You see!”
“You think of everything,” he said, genuine admiration in his voice.
“I try to,” she said, beaming up at him and squeezing his arm in a fine imitation of wifely pleasure and devotion.”
The room she had booked for them was attractive and spacious. Two double beds dressed in white chenille and boasting dark caned headboards were set against one wall. A matching caned nightstand stood between the beds and held a twin-necked lamp, a telephone, and menus from the hotel's restaurants. On the other side of the room, there was a combination desk-dresser with a wall mirror above it. There was also a color television set on its own wheeled cart. Two Danish-style armchairs stood on opposite sides of a small round coffee table. The wallpaper was pebble-textured and cream-colored, except for the wall opposite the windows: that was decorated with an abstract brown and green and white mural of mountains and bamboo fields. In the bathroom — with separate tub and shower stall, sun lamps, and bidet — there was a full bottle of whiskey and another of vodka standing on the makeup counter. A small refrigerator hummed to itself in the niche under the sink, and it was stocked with a variety of soft drinks.
Taking off his jacket, Canning said, “You must think I'm a real boozer.”
“I like to drink, myself.”
“The agency never bought me whiskey before.”
“You haven't been playing it right.” She sat down in one of the armchairs and folded her hands in her lap. “You like the room?”
Hanging his jacket in the foyer closet, Canning said, “Well, it isn't as nice as the George V in Paris or the Sherry-Netherland in New York. But I suppose it'll do.”
She was looking quite pleased with herself. “We've got to spend the next sixteen or seventeen hours in here. Can't take a chance of going out to dinner or breakfast and being spotted by your friends from the Imperial. We'll have food sent up. So… If we're going to be imprisoned, we might as well have all the comforts.”
He sat down in the other armchair. “We're going to Peking in a French jet?”
“That's right.”
“Tell me about it?”
“Didn't Bob McAlister tell you about it?”
“He said you would.”
She said, “It belongs to Jean-Paul Freneau, a very classy art dealer who has headquarters in Paris and branch offices throughout the world. He deals in paintings, sculpture, primitive art — everything. He's a valued friend of the Chairman.”
Canning made a face. “Why would the Chairman maintain a close friendship with a rich, capitalistic French art dealer?”
Lee Ann had the rare habit of looking directly at whomever she was talking to, and now her black eyes locked on Canning's. A shiver went through him as she spoke. “For one thing, now that China is at last moving into the world marketplace, she needs contacts with Western businessmen she feels she can trust. Freneau has helped to arrange large contacts for the delivery of Chinese handicrafts to the Common Market countries. More importantly, Freneau has helped the Chairman to buy back some of the priceless Chinese art taken out of the country by followers of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949. Every time some wealthy Nationalist puts a piece or a collection on the market, Freneau is there with the highest bid. He's the agent for Red China in its attempt to keep the Chinese heritage from being spread throughout the private collections of the West.”
“And why is Freneau so willing to cooperate with the CIA?”
“He isn't,” she said. “He's cooperating with Bob McAlister. They've been friends for years.”
“When do we leave?”
“Tomorrow morning at nine.”
He thought for a moment. Then: “I guess the only other thing is the list of names. The three agents we have in China.”
“You really want me to go through that now?”
He sighed. “No. I guess tomorrow on the plane is soon enough. But I do want to know about you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“You're a surprise.”
“How?”
“When McAlister described Tanaka… Well, I didn't think…”
Her lovely face clouded. “What are you trying to say? That you don't like working with someone who isn't a nice lily-white WASP?”
“What?” He was surprised by the bitterness in her voice.
“I am as American as you are,” she said sharply.
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It isn't your ethnic background that bothers me. I just wasn't expecting a woman.”
Gradually her face unclouded. “That's exactly Bob McAlister's sense of humor.”
“So tell me about yourself.”
“If we're going to sit here and jabber much longer, I want a drink.” She stood up and took off her trench-coat. She was wearing a red silk blouse and a long black skirt, and she looked better than any woman he had ever seen. “Can I get you something?”
“Whatever you're having,” he said.
She came back from the bathroom a few minutes later and handed him his glass. “Vodka and orange soft drink.”
He clinked glasses with her in a wordless toast. After he had taken a good swallow of the concoction, he said, “Once in the car and then again just a few minutes ago, you got very hot under the collar when you thought I was questioning your Americanism. Why so sensitive?”
Hesitating for a moment, pausing to sip her drink she finally said, “I'm sorry. It's a problem I have, a psychological problem I understand but can't lick.” She took another drink. She seemed unwilling to say anything more, then suddenly explained it with a rush of words that came almost too fast to be intelligible: “My mother was Japanese-American, and my father was half Japanese and half Chinese. He owned a small shop in San Francisco's Chinatown. In 1942, about the middle of May, they were taken from their home and put in a concentration camp. You must know about the camps where Japanese-Americans were kept during World War Two. They called them 'assembly centers' but they were concentration camps, all right Barbed wire, armed guards, machine-gun posts guarding them… They spent more than three years in the camp. When they got out, after V-J Day, they found my father's store had been stripped of merchandise and rented to someone else. He received no compensation. They had also been evicted from their home and lost their personal possessions. They had to start all over again. And it wasn't easy — because banks and businessmen just weren't in the mood to help any Japanese-Americans.”