He stared at her. It was all flooding back now. He rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. "I know it's a stupid question — but where am I?"
Her smile vanished. "In Tokyo, of course."
"Of course. Where else. Where are the gruesome threesome — Mato, Kato and Sato?"
"They have their work. They are doing it. I doubt that you will see them again."
"I think I can bear that," he muttered.
Tonaka knelt on the futon beside him. She ran her hand over his forehead and stroked his hair. Her hand was as cool as a Fuji brook. Her soft mouth brushed his, then she pulled away.
"There is no time for us now, but I will say this. I promise it. If you help my father, as I know you will, and if we both live through this, I will do anything to make up to you what I have done. Anything! That is understood, Nick?"
He was feeling enormously better. He restrained the impulse to pull her slim body down atop his own. He nodded. "Understood, Tonaka. I will hold you to that promise. Now — where is your father?"
She stood up and moved away from him. "He lives in the Sanya district. You know it?"
He nodded. One of the worst slum areas in Tokyo. But he did not understand. What was old Kunizo Matu doing in such a place?
Tonaka guessed his thought. She was lighting a cigarette. She Bung the match carelessly on the tatami.
"I told you my father is dying. He has cancer. He has come back to die with his own people, the Eta. You knew he was Burakumin?"
He shook his head. "I had no idea. Does it matter?"
He had thought her beautiful. The beauty vanished now as she scowled. "He thought it mattered. He left his people long ago and passed as a non-Eta. Now that he is old and dying, he wants to make amends." She shrugged fiercely. "Perhaps it is not too late at that — this is certainly the time for it. But he will explain all that to you. Then we will see — I think now that you had better take a bath and get cleaned up. It will help your sickness. We have a little time. A few hours until morning."
Nick stood up. His shoes were missing but otherwise he was fully clothed. The Savile Row suit was never going to be the same. He did feel grimy and had the beginnings of a stubble. He knew what his tongue must look like and he did not want to face it. There was a distinct taste of ditch digger's glove in his mouth.
"A bassu might just save my life," he admitted.
She pointed to his crumpled suit. "You'll have to change clothes anyway. That will have to be gotten rid of. It's all arranged. We have other clothes for you. Papers. A whole new cover. My lather worked it out, of course."
"Father seems to have been very busy. And just who are 'we?' "
She threw a Japanese phrase at him that he did not catch. Her long dark eyes narrowed. "It means Militant Women of Eta. It's what we are — wives, daughters, mothers. Our men won't fight, or very few of them, so the women must. But he will tell you all about that, too. I'll send a girl about your bath."
"Hold it a minute, Tonaka." He was hearing the music again. Music and vibrations, very faint.
"Where are we? Where in Tokyo?"
She flicked ashes on the tatami. "On the Ginza. Under it, rather. This is one of our few safe hideouts. We're in a sub-basement under the Electric Palace cabaret. That's the music you hear — go-go and girls. It's nearly midnight up there and the joint is jumping. Now I really must go, Nick. Anything you want…"
"Cigarettes, a bottle of good hair of the dog and to know where you got your English. I haven't heard a 'prease' now for a long time."
She could riot repress the smile. It made her lovely again. "Radcliffe. Class of '63. Father didn't want to raise his daughter to be an Eta, you see. Only I insisted. But he'll tell you about that, too. I'll send the things. And the bassu girl. See you soon, Nick."
She closed the door behind her. Nick, who was nothing if not adaptable, squatted in Oriental fashion and started thinking it out. There would, of course, be all hell to pay in Washington. Hawk would be getting the torture chamber ready. He decided to play the cards as they had fallen, at least for the time being. He could not contact Hawk at once, not tell the old man that his wandering boy had wandered to Tokyo. No. Let the boss have his apoplexy. Hawk was a tough, stringy old bird and it wouldn't kill him.
Meantime Nick would see Kunizo Matu and find out what it was all about. Pay his debt to the old fellow, get this whole infernal mess straightened out. Then would be time enough to call Hawk and try to explain.
There was a tap on the door.
"Ohari nasai." It was fortunate, as long as he had to be' shanghaied, that he spoke the language.
She was middle-aged with a flat placid face. She wore straw getas and a gingham house dress. She carried a tray with a bottle of whisky and a package of cigarettes on it. Over her arm she carried a huge fluffy towel. She gave Nick an aluminum toothed smile.
"Konbanwa, Carter-san. Here are things for you. Bassu is ready now. You come hubba-hubba?"
Nick smiled at her. "Not hubba-hubba. Drink first. Smoke first. Then maybe I won't die and can enjoy bassu. O namae wa?"
The aluminum teeth glinted. "I Suzy."
He took the bottle of whisky from the tray and grimaced. Old White Whale! About what you could expect in a place called the Electric Palace.
"Suzy, eh? That figures. You bring a glass?"
"No grass."
"That figures, too." He twisted the top off the bottle. The stuff smelled bad. But he needed one, just one, to get him off and running on this — this whatever it was mission. He held out the bottle and bowed to Suzy. "Your health, beautiful. Gokenko wo shuku shimasu!" And mine, too, he muttered under his breath. He had a sudden, sure knowledge that the fun and games were about over. From now on in the game would be for keeps and the winner kept all the marbles.
Suzy giggled, then frowned. "Bassu ready now. Hot. You come fast or be cold." And she flapped the big towel suggestively in the air.
It was of no avail to explain to Suzy that he could scrub his own back. Suzy was boss. She popped him into the steaming tank and took over, giving him a bassu her way, not his. She missed nothing.
Tonaka was waiting when he got back to the little room. There was a pile of clothing on the bed mat. Nick regarded the clothes with distaste. "What am I supposed to be? A bum?"
"In a way, yes." She handed him a battered wallet. It contained a thick wad of crisp new yen and a great many cards, most of them limp and dogeared. Nick riffled hastily through them.
"Your name is Pete Fremont," Tonaka explained. "You are sort of a bum, I suppose. You're a free-lance newspaper man and writer, an alcoholic, and you've been on the beach in the Orient for years. Now and then you sell a story or an article in the States and when the check gets here you go on a binge. That's where the real Pete Fremont is now — on a binge. So you don't have to worry about that. There won't be two of you running around. Now you had better get dressed."
She handed him a pair of shorts and a light blue shirt, cheap and new, still in their cellophane packets. "I had one of the girls buy these. Pete's stuff is pretty filthy. He doesn't take very good care of himself."
Nick dropped the skimpy robe Suzy had given him and got into the shorts. Tonaka watched impassively. She had, he remembered, seen it all before. No secrets from this kid.