This time she managed a warm smile, “Socially? Well, that’s one way to put it, I guess.”
“I ought to be able to straighten it out for you between now and the time I go back,” he said earnestly. “Look, I’ve answered four questionnaires already on how to be a detective. I only have one more to go before I’m finished the course. And I’ve passed three of ’em, I know for a fact.”
They had reached the lower end of the Ginza already, were heading slowly back again.
“The first thing we’ve got to do is get you off the streets, otherwise you’ll be picked up in no time. Know anyone at all here you could hole up with?”
“Not a living soul. Bob Mallory was the only one. I just got off the Empress yesterday afternoon. I’ve a room at the Imperial—”
“No, you better not go back there. They’re either there already looking for you or they will be any minute. What about this Mallory — where did he hang out?”
“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me. He gave me an evasive answer when I asked him. Somehow I got the idea he didn’t want me to find out—”
He gave her another look. “It wouldn’t be much help, even if you did know. It’s probably the first place they’d look for you.” They drove on in silence for a minute. Finally he said, “Look, don’t be offended, but I’ve had a room since yesterday. It’s not much of a place — it’s run by a crazy darn’ Russian. But it would be somewhere for you to be safe in while I’m trying to see what I can do for you.”
“You’re swell.”
He gave the driver the address. It was a western-style building in one of the downtown reaches of the city, little better than a shack, really — clapboard under a corrugated tin roof. But at least it had wooden doors and walls. And windows with shades on them.
He said: “Wait in the cab a minute, I’ll get the Russian out of the way. Just as well if no one sees you going up.”
After he’d gone in, she caught sight of the driver slyly watching her in his rear-view mirror. She quickly lowered her head, but with the creepy feeling that he already knew she was white, even in the dimness of the vehicle’s interior. Hollinger came back and helped her out. “Hurry up. I sent him out to the back on a stall—”
Going up the unpainted wooden stairs — the place had an upper story — she whispered: “The driver saw I wasn’t Japanese. He may remember later, if he hears—”
He made a move to turn and go down again. The sound of the taxi driving off outside reached them, and it was too late to do anything about it.
“We’ll have to take a chance,” he said.
There was nothing Japanese about the room upstairs. Just a typical cheap lodging-house room, the same as you’d find the world over. An electric bulb under a tin shade. Flaked white-painted iron bedstead, wooden dresser.
She sat on the edge of the bed, wearily pulled off the white cap. Her golden hair came out and made her beautiful again. He drew up a chair, leaned toward her, arms akimbo, poised on his knees. He said, “What happened? Tell me the whole thing from the beginning. See if I can get the hang of it. Talk low.”
III
I hadn’t seen him (she said) in three years. We were engaged before he left the States. He came out to work for one of the big oil companies here. I was to follow just as soon as he’d saved up enough money to send for me. Then, when he should have had enough laid aside, he started putting me off. Finally I got tired waiting, booked my own passage, came out without letting him know. I didn’t tell him I was arriving until night before last when I sent him a cable from the ship. He met me yesterday at Yokohama.
He’d changed. He wasn’t glad to see me, I could tell that right away. He was afraid of something. Even down there on the pier, while he was helping me to pass through the customs-inspection, he kept glancing nervously at the crowd around us, as if he was being watched or something.
When we got here it was even worse. He didn’t seem to want to tell me where he lived. He wouldn’t talk about himself at all. I’d been sending my letters to the company-office, you see... I couldn’t make head or tail of it. This morning when I woke up there was a piece of white goods tied around the knob of my door — like a long streamer or scarf. When I happened to mention it to him later on, he turned the ghastliest white. But I couldn’t make him talk about that, either.
(Hollinger explained: “White’s the color of mourning in this country. It means the same thing as crepe.”)
I know that now (she went on)... I’ll spare you all the little details. My love for him curled up, withered, died. I could feel that happening. You can’t love a man that’s frightened all the time. Anyway, I can’t. Tonight we were sitting in one of the big modern restaurants on the Ginza. I happened to say: “Bob, this is deadly dull — can’t you take me to one of the more exciting places?” He didn’t seem to want to do that either — as though he were afraid to stray very far off the beaten path.
We argued about it a little — the girl who was waiting on us must have heard. Because not long after that he was called to the phone and as soon as his back was turned, this waitress came up to me. She hadn’t been able to help overhearing, she said. If I wanted to see the real sights, I ought to get him to take me to the Yoshi. The House of Stolen Hours, she said, was a very agreeable place. Then Bob came back. And although he’d looked scared when he went to the phone, he was all right now. He said there’d been a mistake — no call for him at all.
It never occurred to me that there could be anything prearranged, sinister, about this sequence of events — that it might be a trick to get us in an out-of-the-way place where we couldn’t easily get help.
Like a fool. I didn’t tell Bob where I’d found out about the Yoshiwara. I let him think it was my own idea. I had a hard time talking him into taking me there, but finally he gave in.
We were shown into one of the little rooms and told just where to sit, to enjoy the entertainment—
(Hollinger interrupted: “There’s something, right there. What difference would it have been where you sat, when you just unroll mats on the floor? Who told you?”)
The manager, I guess it was (she answered). He spread out one mat for me, pointed to it, and I sat down. Then he spread the one for Bob opposite mine, instead of alongside it. My back was to one partition, his to the other. They spread the tea things between us. Mine tasted bitter, but I thought maybe that was on account of drinking it without cream and sugar.
There was a lantern shining right in my face. My eyes felt small, like pinheads, and the lantern light dazzled them. I began to get terribly sleepy. I asked Bob to change places with me, so I’d have my back to the light. He sat where I’d been, and I moved over to his side.
Then — the — thing happened — a minute later. Even I saw a faint gleam of light, shining through the screen from the next compartment behind Bob’s back — as though someone had opened a slide and gone in there. A big looming shadow hovered over him, like a genie let out of a bottle in the Arabian Nights. Know what I mean? Sort of cloud like, blurred, bigger than life-size. Then it vanished, and the screen went blank. I was already feeling so numb, with a ringing in my ears. I couldn’t be sure I’d really seen it.