Nick bowed in return. "Arigato, kandai na-sen."
"Yoroshii desu." The man turned away.
Nick got off at Tokyo Station and walked west toward the Palace grounds. The incredible Tokyo traffic was already building into a writhing mass of taxis, trucks, clanging trams and private cars. A crash-helmeted motorcyclist slammed past with a girl clinging to the pillion. Kaminariyoku. Thunder breed.
What now, Carter? No papers and no money. Wanted for questioning by the police. It was time to go to ground for awhile — if he had any place to go. He doubted that it would do him much good to go back to the Electric Palace. Anyway it wouldn't be open this early.
He sensed the taxi gliding to a halt beside him and his hand snaked inside the trenchcoat to the Colt in his waistband. "Sssttttt — Carter-san! In here!"
It was Kato, one of the three weird sisters. Nick took a fast look around. It was a perfectly ordinary taxi and there didn't seem to be any followers. He got in. Maybe he could borrow a few yen.
Kato huddled in her corner. She gave him a perfunctory smile and rapped a command to the driver. The taxi took off in the usual manner of Tokyo taxis, with tires screaming and the driver daring anything to get in the way.
"Surprise," said Nick. "I didn't expect to see you again, Kato. You are Kato?"
She nodded. "I am honored to see you again, Carter-san. But it is not of my seeking. There is much trouble. Tonaka is missing."
A nasty worm turned in his belly. He waited.
"She did not answer her phone. Sato and I went to her apartment and there had been a fight — everything is torn to pieces. And she is gone."
Nick nodded toward the driver.
"He is okay. One of us."
"What do you think happened to Tonaka?"
Her shrug was forlorn. "Who can say? But I am afraid — we all are. Tonaka was our leader. It is possible that Johnny Chow has her. If so he will torture her and make her lead them to her father. Kunizo Matu. The Chicoms wish to kill him because he rights back against them."
He did not tell her. But he began to understand why Matu was dead and how he had been so nearly trapped.
Nick patted her arm. "I will do what I can. But I need money and a place to hide for a few hours until I can make a plan. You can arrange this?"
"Yes. We go there now. To a geisha house in Shimbasi. Mato and Sato will also be there. As soon as they do not find you."
He pondered that. She saw his confusion and smiled faintly. "We have all been looking for you. Sato, Mato and myself. All in separate taxis. We go to all stations and look. Tonaka did not tell us much — just that you have gone to see her father. It is better, you see, that each of us does not know too much about what others do. But when Tonaka is missing we know we must find you for help. So we get taxis and start looking. It is all we know to do — and it worked. I find you."
Nick had been studying her as she spoke. This was not the Girl Scout of Washington and the plane. Geisha! He should have guessed.
At the moment there was nothing geisha about her but the elaborate hairdo. She had, he imagined, been working that night and early morning. Geishas kept weird hours, dictated by the whims of their various protectors. Now her face was still shiny with the cold cream she had used to remove the chalky makeup. She wore a tan pullover sweater, a mini-skirt and a tiny pair of black Korean boots.
Nick wondered just how safe a geisha house would be. Yet it was all he had. He lit his last cigarette and began asking questions. He did not intend to tell her any more than he must. It was best, as she herself had mentioned.
"About this Pete Fremont, Kato. Tonaka told me that you stole his clothes? These clothes?"
"That is true. It was a small thing." She was obviously puzzled.
"Where was Fremont when you did this?"
"In bed. Sleeping. We thought so."
"Thought so? Was he or wasn't he?" Something pretty fishy here.
Kato regarded him solemnly. She had a smear of lipstick on one shiny front tooth.
"I say thought so. We take his clothes. Easy, because his girl not there then. Later we find out that Pete is dead. He die in sleep."
Christ! Nick counted slowly to five.
"Then what did you do?"
She shrugged again. "What can do? We need the clothes for you. We take. We know that Pete die of wsuki, he drink, drink all the time, and that nobody kill him. We leave. Then later we go back and take body away and hide it so police not find out."
Very softly he said, "They did find out, Kato." Rapidly he explained his encounter with the police, leaving out the fact that Kunizo Matu was also dead
Kato did not seem very impressed. "Yes. I am sorry. But I know what happen, I think. We leave to take clothes to Tonaka. His girl come. She find Pete dead from alcohol and call police. They come. All then leave. We come back, not knowing police and girl have been there, and we take body and hide it. Okei?"
Nick sat back. "I suppose okay," he said weakly. It would have to do. It was wacky but at least it explained matters. And it just might help him — the Tokyo cops had lost a body and they might be a little embarrassed. They might decide to play it down, keep it quiet for a time, at least until they found the body or gave up on it. That meant that his description wouldn't be in the newspapers or on radio and television. Not yet. So his cover as Pete Fremont was still good — up to a point. With the wallet it would have been better, but that was gone forever.
They passed the Shiba Park Hotel and turned right toward the Hikawa Shrine. It was a district of apartment houses, with here and there a villa set back in its formal garden. It was one of the top geisha districts, where the ethics were rigid and the behavior discreet. Gone were the days when the girls had to live in a mizu shobai atmosphere, beyond the pale. Comparisons were always invidious — in this case especially so — but Nick had always thought of geishas as on a par with the very highest class of New York call girl. With the geishas far superior in brains and talent.
The taxi turned into a driveway that led back through gardens and past a pool and miniature bridge. Nick tugged the smelly trenchcoat closer about him. A bum like him was going to stand out a little in a high class gheisha house.
Kato patted his knee. "We will go to a private place. Mato and Sato will come soon and we can talk. Make plans. We must, for if you do not help now, cannot help, it will be very bad for all Eta girls."
The taxi rolled to a stop under a porte-cochere. The house was big and blocky, Western style, of stone and brick. Kato paid the driver and hustled Nick inside and upstairs to a quiet sitting room furnished in modern Swedish.
Kato perched herself in a chair, tugged down her mini-skirt and looked at Nick. At the moment he was helping himself to a modest drink from a small bar in one corner.
"You want take a bath, Carter-san?"
Nick held up the Scotch and peered through the amber. Lovely color. "A bassu would be number one. Have I got time?" He found a carton of American cigarettes and broke it open. Life was looking up.
Kato glanced at a watch on her slim wrist. "'I think so. Plenty time. Mato and Sato say, if they not find you, they go to Electric Palace and see if any message."
"Message from who?"
The slim shoulders moved beneath the sweater. "Who knows? Maybe you. Maybe even Tonaka. If Johnny Chow has her maybe he let us know, so to frighten us."
"Maybe so."
He sipped at his Scotch and watched her. She was nervous. Very nervous. She was wearing a single strand of small pearls and she kept gnawing at them, getting lipstick on them. She kept fidgeting in the chair, crossing and recrossing her legs, and he saw a flash of brief white pants.
"Carter-san?"
"Yeah?"
She chewed the nail of her little finger. "I like to ask you something. Yo'u not get angry?"
Nick grinned. "Probably not. I can't promise that, Kato. What is it?"
Hesitation. Then; "You like me, Carter-san? You think I am pretty?"
He did. She was. Very pretty. Like a sweet little lemon-colored doll. He told her so.
Kato looked at her watch again. "I am most bold, Carter-san. But I do not care. I am liking you now for a long time — ever since we try to sell you cookies. Most liking you. We have time now, no men come until evening, and Mato and Sato not yet. I would like to take a bath with you and then make love. You do?"
He was genuinely touched. And knew he was being honored. In the first instant he did not want her and then, in the next instant, he knew that he did. Why not? It was, after all, what it was all about. Love — and death.
She misunderstood his hesitation. She came to him and brushed her fingers over his face lightly. Her eyes were long and darkest brown and full of amber sparks.
"You understand," she said softly, "that it is not a business thing. I am not being geisha now. I give. You take. You will do?"
He understood that her need was great. She was frightened and, for the moment, alone. She needed comfort and this was what she understood.
He kissed her. "I'll take," he said. "But first I will take bassu."
She led him to a bathroom. A moment later she joined him in the shower and they soaped and scrubbed each other in all the fine and private places. She had a lily smell and her breasts were those of a pubescent girl.
She took him into an adjacent bedroom with a real United States bed. She made him stretch out, supine. She kissed him and whispered, "You be still, Carter-san. I do everything at first."
"Not quite everything," said Nick Carter.
They were sitting quietly in the outer room, smoking and regarding each other with satisfied affection when the door burst open and Mato and Sato came in. They had been running. Sato was crying. Mato was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown, paper. She extended it to Nick.
"This come to Electric Palace. For you. With a note. We have… have read the note. I… I…" She turned away and burst into tears, gasping, the makeup running down her smooth cheeks.
Nick put the parcel on a chair and took a note from the unsealed envelope.
Pete Fremont— we have Tonaka. Proof is in the box. If you do not want her to lose the other one come at once to Electric Palace club. Wait outside on curb. Wear the trenchcoat.
There was no signature, just the round stencil of a wooden chop done in red ink. Nick showed it to Kato.
"Johnny Chow."
He ripped the twine from the parcel with nimble big fingers. The three girls hovered, silent now, stunned, awaiting the new horror. Sato had stopped crying and had her fingers jammed into her mouth.
Killmaster had a hunch that it was going to be pretty bad. It was worse than that.
Inside the little box, nestling on a pad of cotton, was a bloody slice of rounded flesh with the nipple and aura intact. The knife had been very sharp and the user most skillful.
A female breast.