He was still going strong when the cab pulled up at Kimiko’s apartment building. Brook jumped out with gratitude. He paid the fare, added a tip, and was about to turn away when Danny Boy said, “You want I wait for you, Auschwitz-san?”
“No, no. I’ll be here quite a while.”
“Maybe she not home,” Danny Boy said.
“Maybe who’s not home?”
“Girl you go see.”
“How do you know I’m going to see a girl?”
Danny Boy showed his rotten teeth. “Why else man come Nerima-ku this time night? You go see if girl home. I wait.”
Brook shrugged and climbed the outside stairway to Kimiko’s door. There was no answer to his knock. He knocked again, waited again, consulted his watch. It was still early; she probably hadn’t yet returned from The Golden Obi. He supposed he ought to ride around in Danny Boy’s cab for another half hour or so, and come back.
On the off chance he tried the door; to his surprise the knob turned in his hand. He pushed the door open.
Beyond the entryway the lights were on in the living room. He could see Kimiko Ohara lying half on her side on the floor, head twisted toward the coffee table. She was in her dressing gown. The gown was open to her thighs and he saw the curve of one naked buttock.
Brook shut the door behind him noiselessly. He knew what he would find, and he found it.
He stooped over her and touched her shoulder and her face flopped his way. It was a congested blue. Her eyes bulged and that vital tongue was stuck out at him. The gold obi cord was biting into her neck, knotted neatly at the nape.
Chapter 9
He undid the slipnot and tested the carotid. It was the routine exercise in futility. Whoever had strangled her knew his business. She was dead and already turning cold.
He straightened up with a surprising feeling of regret. This one was like smashing a valuable vase. Also, Kimiko had died in terror. There goes my imagination again, he thought. Choking to death, the revolt of the body at the fundamental denial, never failed to leave the expression one had died with. She had probably not had time to realize what was happening until the gold cord was ripped from her gown and snapped around her throat. He shrugged. Well, she was nothing but meat now. If he was queasy, it was because he could still smell her in the apartment.
Brook searched. He did it thoroughly, overturning cushions, raising the sofa, moving the Japanese pallet in the bedroom, going through drawers and closets. Absolutely nothing. A pro, all right.
He left no traces of his search.
He went over the floors to make sure he had dropped nothing, not even a thread. Then he backtracked to the entryway and the front door.
He did not glance at Kimiko again.
He opened the door a crack and held it there. A red light was rotating against the side of the building. It was the flasher on a parked police car.
He heard feet running up the outside stairway.
Brook slipped out, low, and ran doubled over to his left, away from the stairs. Just ahead the balcony turned a corner. As he ducked around it he heard the running steps arrive at the fourth-floor level. Had he been spotted? He deliberately put out of his head the question of who had called the police and why.
The extension of the balcony ended a few feet around the corner. He risked a look over the parapet. He was four stories above the court; too far to jump.
He considered the gap between his balcony and the neighboring wing of the building, making haste slowly. The balcony there was slightly below him. The distance across was — what? — eight feet. More than he could jump from a standing start? But he would be jumping downward. The parabola would help. Maybe.
Brook balanced himself on the parapet, flexed his knees, and hurled himself across. His hands slammed against the concrete, stunning his fingers. He exploded with effort, a surge that was as much built-in habit as muscle. His fingers held. Then his toes found a foothold in a curlicue of the concrete, and he was able to push himself up, hook an elbow over the parapet, and vault to safety.
He could hear men’s voices speaking excited Japanese on the balcony across the court. A hand flash probed his way. He reacted at once, but he was too late. Before he could fall flat, his face was caught in the beam.
Brook ran. Behind him a voice called: “Matte! Matte!” That, he supposed, meant that he must stop. The hell with you, little yellow brother, Brook thought; and he kept sprinting toward the stairs.
But he knew that he was in for big trouble.
Brook emerged in a street he had not seen before. It was a typical side street of the Tokyo residential neighborhoods, narrow and dark and lined by low walls of pitted lava stone. He ran, away from the area. When he came to a street that veered to his right he took it, ran a block, and turned left again. He made several such maneuvers, always working away from Kimiko’s apartment house.
At last he stopped running and changed to a brisk walk.
He had been walking for ten minutes without meeting anyone when he came to an embankment. A narrow path ran alongside. He made out a railing on top of the embankment and to his left the lights of what seemed to be a railroad station. Tokyo was crosshatched by suburban rail lines; any one of them should take him back to midtown.
He headed for the station.
And stopped.
Headlights had appeared a hundred yards ahead. They were coming from the station.
A police car? For a breath he considered running back to the street from which he had just emerged. But he dismissed it. No flasher; it was not a police car. And the station, if he could get there undetected, was his best bet. He continued walking, making no effort to stay in shadows. Let the occupants of the approaching car see him. There was nothing remarkable in a foreigner’s walking toward a station in the early hours. Most of the bar girls lived in these districts.
The car was coming close. It did not accelerate. That was an encouragement. Brook slipped into the relevant mood. He was an American finding his way back from a bit of after-midnight poontang. He found himself thinking of Kimiko the last time he had seen her alive and panting. His step slowed, became languid; he felt himself smiling.
Just as it seemed that the car would pass him it stopped, not five feet away. Brook was preparing to spring to his right and race for the railroad embankment when a familiar voice called from the car, “Auschwitz-san. Where you want go now?”
It was Danny Boy, leaning out displaying all his bad teeth.
“Maybe you get in,” the Japanese flower boy grinned. “Fuzz near this place. Many-many. Tak’san!”
Brook abruptly got in. Gears ground, the taxi shot off.
“Okay, Danny. How did you find me?”
“Lucky you,” Danny Boy said. “I know street Nerima-ku very good. All bring you near station.”
“How did you know the cops were after me?”
Danny swung his cab onto another street. “I see fuzz come apartment. I see you jump. Why you jump if you not trouble with fuzz?”
“Good thinking,” Brook said dryly. Then he said, “How come you’re sticking your beard out?”
“Huh?”
“For all you know you’re making yourself an accessory to a crime.”