“I am sorry,” the woman said at the sight of Brook. “I did not know you had company, Stark-san.” Her English was colored with the faintest accent, more European than oriental, Brook thought, although her eyes were slanted. Probably a Eurasian. She was quite impossibly beautiful. She wore the tight-fitting, slit-skirted cheongsam, of black silk, as if it had been invented for her; it molded her body like a cast. The mere sight of her stirred Brook’s manhood. Her dark hair came to her shoulders; there were reddish glints in it — a charming heritage, he thought, from her probably Celtic papa.
The fat man glanced up. “Oh, it’s all right, Jazz. Mr. Brook here. But I suppose we will be talking a bit of business.”
“I will go, then.”
“Don’t have to.”
“No, it was nothing of importance.” She lowered her eyes to Brook. But as she brought her head up again she gave him a most occidental onceover, from head to toe, pausing briefly at his chest and shoulders with unmistakable interest. He smiled at her.
She smiled back and left the room. The answering smile bothered him.
“What’s your pleasure, Brook?”
“Oh?” Brook turned to Stark. “Anything. Same as yours.”
“Whisky-soda, then,” said Stark, bustling behind the counter. “In your country whisky can mean several types. To us there’s only one, and only the bloody Scotsmen know how to make it.”
He came forward with two tall glasses. Brook said, “Thanks,” and sat down.
Stark loomed over him. “What do you think of Jazz?”
“The young lady?”
“Jasmine, really. Although that’s a name she took.”
“She’s very beautiful. Is she Mrs. Stark?”
Stark’s belly shook. “Not exactly. A very good friend. I’d probably go off my bloody wicket without her. I’m not complaining, mind you — Katori Spa’s a marvelous place. But a man like me does get lonely here. Jazz helps.”
“I’ll bet.” Brook looked about. “Quite a place you’ve got here, Mr. Stark.”
“Not mine at all,” Stark said. “I’m just the bloody resident manager. A salaried flunkey like the rest. And just as underpaid, I might add.”
“Then you don’t own the Spa.”
“Not likely! It’s the property of a cartel of bloody rich Japanese. They set this up for foreigners, so they wanted a foreigner to run it, and here I am. I’ve become identified with it, damn those Jap Scrooges! Up in Tokyo they don’t say, ‘Let’s go down to Katori Spa,’ they say, ‘Let’s go down to Toby’s.’ Not that I’m the only attraction, character though I am — good business, you know? We have everything here. Golf, swimming, yacht basin — girls, too, if they don’t bring their own, though we’re a bit careful about that.”
Brook laughed. “I’m sold, Stark. You don’t have to give me the pep talk.”
Stark roared, everything bounding. He waddled to the overstuffed chair and made himself comfortable, nuzzling his glass. “When you’re not naval architecting, what’s your pleasure?”
“Beg pardon?”
“I mean, what else are you down here for? Do you like girls?”
“Very much.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. You never know these days. What else, Brook?”
“Sailing. I understand you have your own boats.”
“How right you are. Very good class, too — designed and built here. The Tsuru class — means ‘crane.’ Seventeen feet long and frisky as a virgin, or so the sailing lads tell me. Race every Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. Trophies at the end of the season, and all that. Nicely organized, if you’ll pardon the puff.”
“I hope I can get in some sailing. It might be profitable for my company to have these Tsuru boats, or any other good class, for that matter, built over here to export to the States. Cheaper labor costs, for one thing. I’d like to try out your boats. In a race, if possible.”
Stark nodded and tilted his glass. Brook permitted himself to look anxious. “I’m sure we can arrange it, Brook. What the club members do is list their names for the races each week, a skipper and one crewman to a boat. But there’s always somebody funking out, so the chances are good of getting on. See here, why don’t we amble down to the basin and have a look?”
“Fine,” Brook said promptly.
“Just leave your whisky,” Stark said. “We’ll get another there.”
The fat man held on to Brook’s arm all the way down the winding path through the rocks and trees past the guest cottages. Brook pumped him openly; Americans had a notoriously long nose for other people’s business, and it would have been out of the character he was playing to act otherwise. Besides, if the plan he had formulated was to go through successfully, a working knowledge of Katori Spa’s manager might be helpful.
Stark babbled on about himself happily enough. His first sight of Japan had been as a member of the Aussie army when the Australian forces had taken part in the Occupation. “I was scrawny then,” the fat man laughed, “believe it or not.” He had been a mess sergeant. “That’s what began to fatten me up.” After his discharge he had worked at resort hotels — everywhere from Istanbul to Acapulco, he said — winding up in Tokyo, where he landed the managership of Katori Spa; by that time he had acquired a managerial reputation, it seemed. The Japanese owners appeared pleased with him, and they had given him to understand that the job was his for as long as he wanted it.
“If those bloody Japs think I could stand this life for the rest of my days, they can think again. Too bloody dull for my taste. But then there’s Jazz, and I’m not quite ready to dump her. She’s got a way of making a man feel like the big joss.” His Japanese lantern of a face wrinkled in a leer. “Aside from her other talents.”
“Is this place her home, Stark?”
“She’s living here, if that’s what you mean. She’s part Chinese, part Irish, part Portuguese, and God knows what else. No family, all dead or scattered to hell knows where. Raised in Macao, you know, speaks half a dozen lingoes. Drifted to Japan a few years back and claims she likes it. I suppose she thinks what she’s got with me is permanent.” He shrugged his mountainous shoulders. “So far it is,” Stark said, and winked, looking suddenly like a frog.
Brook tucked the information about the girl away.
Stark showed Brook through the yacht club, proudly pointing out the sundeck with its pedestaled binoculars, and introduced him to several of his Japanese assistants and workmen. At the basin breakwater Brook looked over one of the sailboats and counted a dozen others on moorings in the harbor.
They finished their tour in the club bar. Stark ordered two Scotch-and-sodas and pointed to the blackboard on the wall. “There’s the race lineup for Sunday. They won’t all be here, Brook; you can step in right enough.”
“Jones, Hakayama, Sirois, Christiansen, Echeveria — sounds like a rollcall at the United Nations,” Brook said. Each name had a boat number after it.
“The whole bloody international crowd. We’ve even got a real live Soviet Roosian.”
“Is that so?” Brook said.
“That’s the bloke right there. Krylov. Nice chap as Rooskies go. He’s with their embassy in Tokyo. Practically commutes here every weekend. Absolutely hooked on sailing. No one’s ever told him it’s a capitalist sport, I suppose.”
Brook responded with the laugh Stark expected. “Whose name is that under Krylov’s? His crewman?”
“Right. Quackernack, Jan Quackernack. A Dutchie with some oil company here. He and the Roosian get on pretty well, so they always sail together.”