He sipped the bad Scotch that another waiter brought, smiling as he thought of how Benny Lopez would have enjoyed this part of the run. He must be sure to needle Benny with a report in depth on the club’s girls.
“Good evening, sir.”
He looked up. The girl was in a black evening gown; one scarlet rose was pinned between her breasts. Her hair was long and black and patent-leather-glossy; the face, neck and shoulders framed by the gown were purest ivory. The oriental features had a touch of Manchurian. Her eyes were a deep purple, almost black. She was stunning.
Brook rose. “Miss Ohara?”
“Yes.” She had a surprisingly deep voice for a Japanese.
“I’m Peter Brook. Please sit down.”
Kimiko Ohara found a cigarette in her beaded handbag. She waited for Brook to offer her his lighter, and sent twin jets of smoke to the table. “I have not seen you before, Mr. Brook. Who gave you my name?”
“Aleksei Krylov.”
Her fluid calm found its level almost immediately. “Oh? Aleksei is well?”
“Yes.”
“I have not seen him for two weeks.”
“He said you would understand why he couldn’t come here now.”
Kimiko glanced around quickly. “Aleksei sent you?”
“With several messages.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on Brook’s, smiling; he knew it was not for his benefit. “Do not tell me now. You must act like the others. Order a drink for me.”
Brook caught the attention of the waiter, and when he had gone off for Kimiko’s champagne cocktail, she smiled again. “I do not know how they do it in your country, Mr. Brook, but our cocktails — the ones the men order for us — are chiefly water. We are paid a commission on the drinks. This is how we earn our living.”
“It’s an international custom,” Brook assured her. “If I were a regular, there’s a question I’d be sure to ask. So I’ll ask it. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? And don’t tell me you haven’t heard it before.”
This time Kimiko laughed. “Many times. From foreign men, of course. This is Japan, Mr. Brook. What else can I do?”
“There must be other work.”
“No. At least none at which a woman can make so much money. We are hostesses for a few years, we save, and then perhaps we leave and open a small business. A bar, a dressmaker’s shop. It is very common.”
“Come on.” Brook sipped his whisky. “You’re not the least bit common, Kimiko. Perfect English, great looker — you’re a knockout, as if you didn’t know. Compared with you these other girls are frumps.”
She frowned.
“Frumps. Dogs. Ugly.”
“I think in your country — you are American, yes? — it would mean something. Here I am a woman like thousands of others. Tokyo has become very Western, but in these matters it is still a Japanese man’s city. That is why I hope sometimes to go to America.”
“I gather you and Alex have discussed it.”
“Oh, yes, many times.” She was too nervous.
“Then you’ll like my news.”
“Please. Not now.”
Brook said lightly, “We’re being watched?”
“I am not sure. I have had the feeling for some time.”
“You may be right. Sometimes it’s the best indicator. Where can we talk?”
“There is only one place that will not appear suspicious. You must go to my apartment. I will come there after my work. For a hostess to invite the man to her apartment is expected. A custom.”
“I understand.”
“No, you do not. It is a custom, but it has not been my custom. Now we will dance.”
“Whatever you say.”
“We must be natural. We dance, you buy me drinks. You leave after an hour. I will write down my address; you will take a taxi. I will give you my key. Wait for me there. If anyone is watching, it will seem very innocent.”
Brook grinned to himself at this Japanese conception of innocence. Or maybe they had the right idea. “Did Aleksei teach you all this, or was it part of your occupational education?”
“Please.” She seemed frightened. “We must not mention his name here.”
Brook said, “How about that dance?”
He thought of Benny again as he faced Kimiko on the floor, jerking to the music, twirling his hands, going through the motions of enjoying himself in the current mode. Benny thought it was great. Brook preferred the old-fashioned style, where a man could grab some flesh. As he watched Kimiko doing the shing-a-ling — or whatever it was — before him, her body writhing and flowing to the music, he found himself thinking that he wouldn’t have minded grabbing some of her flesh.
He could well believe that Krylov had got in over his head with her. She was worth taking risks for.
At sea Brook was blessed with a sense of navigation; he could estimate his position with fair accuracy even out of sight of land. In Tokyo’s labyrinthine night streets he became hopelessly confused. He made an attempt, as the taxi twisted and turned corners, to memorize their route, but he soon gave up. Aside from the fact that Kimiko’s apartment was somewhere on the outskirts, he was worse than at sea.
The taxi finally drew up at a large apartment building on a dark street. It seemed the only such building in a neighborhood of private homes. They had turned off a main street not long before and Brook thought he remembered how to get back there, at least.
He paid the driver and, following Kimiko’s instructions, climbed an outside stairway to the fourth story. Her apartment, like the others, opened on a balcony that ran the width of the building; another part of the building, with another balcony, paralleled it across a narrow space. He used the key she had given him and entered a miniature vestibule. There were several pairs of women’s shoes in a box just inside the door. He removed his own shoes.
He switched on the living room lights. It was a small room with an appealing and expensive look. Japanese touches had been applied to the Western décor. There was a kitchenette; in another direction stood a half-open door through which he could see into a small bedroom. The sliding windows opened onto the balcony.
Kimiko had said to make himself at home, so he mixed a drink for himself at the little lacquered sideboy. There was a stereo set and a collection of recordings, mainly from the States. He dropped a platter of the Tijuana Brass on the turntable, stretched out on a Japanese couch, sipped his drink, and peacefully enjoyed the music.
Turning over in his head what had happened so far on the Krylov run, he decided that he didn’t like it. His contact with the Russian had been too easy; was that it? He reviewed what Krylov had told him. For Krylov to be defecting because he had fallen in love struck a solid note — truer than if the Russian had claimed to be coming over for ideological reasons only. There were usually personal considerations in political asylum cases. General Levashev with his Marxist orthodoxy had to be counted a rarity.
Of course, you looked on all defectors with a suspicious eye; planting agents by having them appear to defect was hardly an exclusive ply of the KGB. All right, then, the motivation stood up. Then what was bothering him?
He decided that it was his alarm system. It had not often failed him — it had, in fact, saved his life more than once — but the trouble with it was that it gave no clues, only warnings. It said: Go slow, proceed with caution, with not a hint of what was wrong.
Not a comforting state of affairs. It was a little like indigestion. Some of the ingredients in the Krylov stew were acid-forming.
Krylov’s superiors apparently trusted him enough to allow him freedom of contact with Tokyo’s foreign community; now, suddenly, they had him under surveillance. Krylov had admitted it himself. Why? Had the KGB brass connected Wilkinson’s murder with Krylov? Or had they had Baldy taken out themselves? And if so, was his own cover already blown?