“Plenty of time for that,” Brook said. “Right now we’d better start making arrangements.”
“Not yet, Mr. Brook,” Krylov said. “Not quite yet. There are several points that must be laid down first. Let us call them conditions.”
“All right. Shoot.”
“Perhaps we need that long story after all,” Krylov said. “At least its denouement. There is a difference between thinking of taking such a step and actually taking it — a very great difference, my friend. For each temptation a man succumbs to, he resists a hundred. This is not romanticism, it is a fact of life — anyone’s life. And when the contemplated act has such enormity as this, there must be a more immediate temptation than ideology.”
“Oh,” Brook said. “A woman.”
“Yes,” Krylov said. “I fell in love.”
“Oh?” Brook said again.
“You smile. Do not smile like that at me again, Mr. Brook, Ever.” There was a thickness in Krylov’s voice, a furry savagery, that raised Brook’s hackles. “Do you think we do not fall in love in the Soviet Union? I assure you we are as intense and energetic in such matters as the Italians, and with much greater depth. And sometimes with catastrophic results. That is what has happened to me. I have managed to fall in love beyond reason. Her name is Kimiko. She is a hostess at a nightclub in Tokyo. She is — beautiful. I have no other word.”
“You don’t need one,” Brook said. “I’ve seen her photo. It’s in your folder. I apologize, Alex. We thought it was one of those things. We didn’t know it was serious.”
“Your people are thorough.”
“So are yours.”
“Yes. Well. Then you know. It would be impossible for me to take Kimiko back to the Soviet Union. It would not be permitted. Besides—” he hesitated, then laughed “—I already have a wife in Moscow. Her uncle is high in one of the ministries. We made a marriage of convenience many years ago. She resembles a Mongolian pony — stubborn and bad-tempered. I will not miss her, she will not miss me. She will no doubt say that I am insane and a capitalist spy, and that she was about to denounce me.”
“So you figured you can take Kimiko with you to the United States.”
Krylov nodded. “The Japanese government would not grant me asylum, I think; they are anxious to promote good relations with the Kremlin. So it was this that finally settled the matter in my mind. Therefore my conditions: For me to come over to your side, your side must agree to bring Kimiko Ohara to the United States. It must be arranged so that we can remain together. Secondly — if you will forgive the capitalist note — the means for a comfortable existence in your country must be provided for us.”
“What do you mean by a comfortable existence, exactly?”
“So. We bargain.”
“No. I have to know what you have in mind.”
“Whatever it is you are paid by your government per annum, plus fifty percent.”
“All right. You know, Alex, I can’t agree to your conditions. I can only pass them along. You understand that.”
“Of course.”
“Now, for arrangements—”
“No,” said Krylov. “I will not discuss the matter further until I am given assurances that my conditions will be met.”
“Fair enough,” Brook said with a frown, “but it complicates our problem. I mean, we might not have another chance to talk alone like this.”
“Granted. It will be difficult. If we tried to sail together again I think it would be once too much. They are watching me — of late more closely. It could be that they already suspect my loyalty. So that it will not do to plan, for example, on my walking into your embassy and asking asylum. I would almost certainly be killed before I reached your doorstep.”
“Then why don’t you—?”
“No,” Krylov said. “My conditions first.”
“All right, all right.”
“Then there must be a plan, and it will have to be a clever plan.”
“I’ll come up with something.”
“Very well. When will you know the answer?”
“It shouldn’t take more than a few days.”
“Then let us plan to meet here at Katori Spa next Saturday. We shall have to be careful. I must ask that you do not make any attempt whatever to get in touch with me before then, either yourself, through an emissary, or by any sort of message.”
“Understood.”
“One thing more. You must see Kimiko for me. Under the circumstances it would not be wise for me to go to her nightclub again. It must look like a mere passing affair — it is quite important that my people should believe that it is over. You must tell Kimiko to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. She will understand. We have discussed it many times.”
“You’re sure it’s wise to let her know so much, Alex?”
Krylov shrugged. “I would stake my life on it. In fact, Peter, that is what I am doing.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. The boat behind them was gaining. Krylov reached forward to push the boom of the mainsail out another inch.
Brook adjusted the jib and glanced toward the finish line, which extended from the committee launch to an orange buoy, and beyond it to the breakwater that jutted out from shore. In the distance he could just make out Volodya’s dark suit on the jetty. There were twin glints of reflected sun in the area of the man’s eyes. Krylov’s shadow had a pair of binoculars trained on their boat. He hoped fervently that the man was not a lip reader.
Chapter 6
Brook strolled into the main room of The Golden Obi. The lighting was dim, reek hung in the air, soul music came from the bandstand. At a circular bar topless go-go girls were disjointing themselves. Waiters and serving girls scurried about. Couples convulsed on the dance floor. Others sat at tables wearing glittery paper hats.
A waiter brought Brook to a small table well out of things. Brook ordered a drink and the waiter asked if he would like a hostess. The waiter was a young man who spoke classroom English — a college student working nights, Brook guessed.
“You have a hostess here named Kimiko Ohara?”
“Ah, so,” beamed the young man.
“I’d like her.”
“Miss Ohara entertains a customer now.”
“I’ll wait.”
“May be very impossible, sir.”
Brook tucked a thousand-yen note in the young man’s hand. “But not absolutely?”
The waiter gave him the national grin. “Not absolutely, sir, no.”
Brook cased the club as he waited. Most of the customers were Japanese, with enough foreigners about to make him inconspicuous. Nearly all the men’s companions were club hostesses; in places like this, one didn’t bring his own woman. A majority of the hostesses wore Western party gowns, a few kimonos; Brook noticed that these girls tended to gravitate toward the older Japanese. The hostesses came in all shapes and sizes and degrees of attractiveness. To Brook’s eyes, some were pigs. The theory, he supposed, was that you could never foretell a customer’s esthetic standards. From the general air of pleasure, it seemed soundly based.