Guess Who’s Coming to Kill You

Chapter 6

Brook strolled into the main room of The Golden Obi. The lighting was dim, reek hung in the air, soul music came from the bandstand. At a circular bar topless go-go girls were disjointing themselves. Waiters and serving girls scurried about. Couples convulsed on the dance floor. Others sat at tables wearing glittery paper hats.

A waiter brought Brook to a small table well out of things. Brook ordered a drink and the waiter asked if he would like a hostess. The waiter was a young man who spoke classroom English — a college student working nights, Brook guessed.

“You have a hostess here named Kimiko Ohara?”

“Ah, so,” beamed the young man.

“I’d like her.”

“Miss Ohara entertains a customer now.”

“I’ll wait.”

“May be very impossible, sir.”

Brook tucked a thousand-yen note in the young man’s hand. “But not absolutely?”

The waiter gave him the national grin. “Not absolutely, sir, no.”

Brook cased the club as he waited. Most of the customers were Japanese, with enough foreigners about to make him inconspicuous. Nearly all the men’s companions were club hostesses; in places like this, one didn’t bring his own woman. A majority of the hostesses wore Western party gowns, a few kimonos; Brook noticed that these girls tended to gravitate toward the older Japanese. The hostesses came in all shapes and sizes and degrees of attractiveness. To Brook’s eyes, some were pigs. The theory, he supposed, was that you could never foretell a customer’s esthetic standards. From the general air of pleasure, it seemed soundly based.

He sipped the bad Scotch that another waiter brought, smiling as he thought of how Benny Lopez would have enjoyed this part of the run. He must be sure to needle Benny with a report in depth on the club’s girls.

“Good evening, sir.”

He looked up. The girl was in a black evening gown; one scarlet rose was pinned between her breasts. Her hair was long and black and patent-leather-glossy; the face, neck and shoulders framed by the gown were purest ivory. The oriental features had a touch of Manchurian. Her eyes were a deep purple, almost black. She was stunning.

Brook rose. “Miss Ohara?”

“Yes.” She had a surprisingly deep voice for a Japanese.

“I’m Peter Brook. Please sit down.”

Kimiko Ohara found a cigarette in her beaded handbag. She waited for Brook to offer her his lighter, and sent twin jets of smoke to the table. “I have not seen you before, Mr. Brook. Who gave you my name?”

“Aleksei Krylov.”

Her fluid calm found its level almost immediately. “Oh? Aleksei is well?”

“Yes.”

“I have not seen him for two weeks.”

“He said you would understand why he couldn’t come here now.”

Kimiko glanced around quickly. “Aleksei sent you?”

“With several messages.”

She reached across the table and put her hand on Brook’s, smiling; he knew it was not for his benefit. “Do not tell me now. You must act like the others. Order a drink for me.”

Brook caught the attention of the waiter, and when he had gone off for Kimiko’s champagne cocktail, she smiled again. “I do not know how they do it in your country, Mr. Brook, but our cocktails — the ones the men order for us — are chiefly water. We are paid a commission on the drinks. This is how we earn our living.”

“It’s an international custom,” Brook assured her. “If I were a regular, there’s a question I’d be sure to ask. So I’ll ask it. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? And don’t tell me you haven’t heard it before.”

This time Kimiko laughed. “Many times. From foreign men, of course. This is Japan, Mr. Brook. What else can I do?”

“There must be other work.”

“No. At least none at which a woman can make so much money. We are hostesses for a few years, we save, and then perhaps we leave and open a small business. A bar, a dressmaker’s shop. It is very common.”

“Come on.” Brook sipped his whisky. “You’re not the least bit common, Kimiko. Perfect English, great looker — you’re a knockout, as if you didn’t know. Compared with you these other girls are frumps.”

She frowned.

“Frumps. Dogs. Ugly.”

“I think in your country — you are American, yes? — it would mean something. Here I am a woman like thousands of others. Tokyo has become very Western, but in these matters it is still a Japanese man’s city. That is why I hope sometimes to go to America.”

“I gather you and Alex have discussed it.”

“Oh, yes, many times.” She was too nervous.

“Then you’ll like my news.”

“Please. Not now.”

Brook said lightly, “We’re being watched?”

“I am not sure. I have had the feeling for some time.”

“You may be right. Sometimes it’s the best indicator. Where can we talk?”

“There is only one place that will not appear suspicious. You must go to my apartment. I will come there after my work. For a hostess to invite the man to her apartment is expected. A custom.”

“I understand.”

“No, you do not. It is a custom, but it has not been my custom. Now we will dance.”

“Whatever you say.”

“We must be natural. We dance, you buy me drinks. You leave after an hour. I will write down my address; you will take a taxi. I will give you my key. Wait for me there. If anyone is watching, it will seem very innocent.”

Brook grinned to himself at this Japanese conception of innocence. Or maybe they had the right idea. “Did Aleksei teach you all this, or was it part of your occupational education?”

“Please.” She seemed frightened. “We must not mention his name here.”

Brook said, “How about that dance?”

He thought of Benny again as he faced Kimiko on the floor, jerking to the music, twirling his hands, going through the motions of enjoying himself in the current mode. Benny thought it was great. Brook preferred the old-fashioned style, where a man could grab some flesh. As he watched Kimiko doing the shing-a-ling — or whatever it was — before him, her body writhing and flowing to the music, he found himself thinking that he wouldn’t have minded grabbing some of her flesh.

He could well believe that Krylov had got in over his head with her. She was worth taking risks for.

At sea Brook was blessed with a sense of navigation; he could estimate his position with fair accuracy even out of sight of land. In Tokyo’s labyrinthine night streets he became hopelessly confused. He made an attempt, as the taxi twisted and turned corners, to memorize their route, but he soon gave up. Aside from the fact that Kimiko’s apartment was somewhere on the outskirts, he was worse than at sea.

The taxi finally drew up at a large apartment building on a dark street. It seemed the only such building in a neighborhood of private homes. They had turned off a main street not long before and Brook thought he remembered how to get back there, at least.

He paid the driver and, following Kimiko’s instructions, climbed an outside stairway to the fourth story. Her apartment, like the others, opened on a balcony that ran the width of the building; another part of the building, with another balcony, paralleled it across a narrow space. He used the key she had given him and entered a miniature vestibule. There were several pairs of women’s shoes in a box just inside the door. He removed his own shoes.

He switched on the living room lights. It was a small room with an appealing and expensive look. Japanese touches had been applied to the Western décor. There was a kitchenette; in another direction stood a half-open door through which he could see into a small bedroom. The sliding windows opened onto the balcony.

Kimiko had said to make himself at home, so he mixed a drink for himself at the little lacquered sideboy. There was a stereo set and a collection of recordings, mainly from the States. He dropped a platter of the Tijuana Brass on the turntable, stretched out on a Japanese couch, sipped his drink, and peacefully enjoyed the music.

Turning over in his head what had happened so far on the Krylov run, he decided that he didn’t like it. His contact with the Russian had been too easy; was that it? He reviewed what Krylov had told him. For Krylov to be defecting because he had fallen in love struck a solid note — truer than if the Russian had claimed to be coming over for ideological reasons only. There were usually personal considerations in political asylum cases. General Levashev with his Marxist orthodoxy had to be counted a rarity.

Of course, you looked on all defectors with a suspicious eye; planting agents by having them appear to defect was hardly an exclusive ply of the KGB. All right, then, the motivation stood up. Then what was bothering him?

He decided that it was his alarm system. It had not often failed him — it had, in fact, saved his life more than once — but the trouble with it was that it gave no clues, only warnings. It said: Go slow, proceed with caution, with not a hint of what was wrong.

Not a comforting state of affairs. It was a little like indigestion. Some of the ingredients in the Krylov stew were acid-forming.

Krylov’s superiors apparently trusted him enough to allow him freedom of contact with Tokyo’s foreign community; now, suddenly, they had him under surveillance. Krylov had admitted it himself. Why? Had the KGB brass connected Wilkinson’s murder with Krylov? Or had they had Baldy taken out themselves? And if so, was his own cover already blown?

Not likely, he thought. Still, the possibility had to be kept in mind.

Halfway through the flip side of the album the apartment door opened.

It was Kimiko. “Hello. You look comfortable.”

“It’s a comfortable place.” He got up, sipping his drink.

She stepped out of her high heels, put aside her stole of Thai silk, and went to her bedroom, saying that she would only be a moment. He watched her ooze across the room. It was a pleasant sight, like watching a good sailboat on a heaving sea.

They were always sexier with their shoes off, he thought. He felt the familiar surge in his groin. Whoa, boy! Not this one.

She came out in a black kimono-like dressing gown secured at the waist with a gold cord. She had wiped her face clean of makeup; it gave her little face a classic simplicity. She picked up his glass and went to the sideboy for a refill. She made one for herself.

“I am so glad you came, Mr. Brook. At night, home from the club, I am lonely. Now that I do not see Aleksei, it is even worse.”

“I hope I’m not too poor a substitute,” Brook said.

“I think I am very glad you are here.” She brought the drinks back to the coffee table, set them down, and seated herself beside Brook. He became instantly conscious of her body and the illusion of perfume. Only a robot would have been immune to her. He had to make an effort to keep his mind on his work.

“You speak wonderful English,” he said. “Where did you learn it?”

Kimiko laughed. “I was an orphan, raised in a missionary school. I am sure the Sisters would be unhappy if they knew I am a hostess at The Golden Obi. But as I explained, it is difficult to do anything else.”

“That’s where Alex met you?”

“Yes. It was the usual thing in the beginning. He came one night with a party of Japanese and foreign diplomats. I was assigned as his hostess — we have a number system for the girls. But after that Aleksei came often, always asking for me, and soon we began to see each other regularly. He is really one of the nicest gentlemen I have ever met.”

Brook looked at her. “That’s a funny way to talk about someone you love.”

Her frown puzzled him. “They spoke of love at the mission school, too. I am not sure I understood it in quite their meaning. It was the same with their reglious teachings. Everything they taught us seemed not of my world. I’m afraid I am hopelessly of the East.”

“Are you trying to say that you don’t really love Krylov?” He had not foreseen this at all.

“Oh, I will be very good to him,” Kimiko said quickly. “It is not important to love.”

“But if you don’t love him, why Krylov? Why not somebody else? You must have dozens drooling over you.”

“I have had other lovers, yes. And, as you say, there are so many men always available. But Aleksei offers what I really wish. He will make it possible for me to leave Japan. It is my country, but it is so difficult for a woman with amibitions. I studied fashion design, you know. As a designer in Japan I would be working for a Japanese woman’s pay, which is very little. I think in America it will be otherwise.”

“Why don’t you just go to the States on your own?”

“It takes a great deal of money, Mr. Brook, which I do not have. And there are visa problems — you must have an American citizen’s sponsorship, must you not? No, I shall let Aleksei take me there.”

She said it all very matter-of-factly, and Brook almost chuckled. So the great Krylov was being taken! It was a joke he must remember to tell Benny, who would appreciate it. Well, it was really no business of theirs. There was little or no chance of trouble after the pair got to the States. Love or no love, Kimiko would carry out her part of the bargain; that was the oriental way.

But it did put a different light on what was going on in his groin.

She had turned to examine Brook. “But you have a message from Aleksei.”

“Yes. He says you’re to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. The word will come in a week or so. Arrangements are being made.”

“You are helping him?”

“I’m acting as a go-between.”

“How good of you, Mr. Brook.” She put her hand on his thigh.

He pretended not to notice; things were happening. “You must be careful not to tell anyone, Kimiko. Alex thinks it’s wiser not to see you; his people are watching him. He wants you to sit tight, be patient.”

“That is a hard thing,” the girl said. Her voice was suddenly soft. She leaned toward him. “To be patient, I mean. It is even harder when a girl is lonely.” Then her arms were around his neck and her tongue was prying his mouth open.

It took Brook by surprise in spite of everything. But he had been trained too well to lose his head. If circumstances had been different he would have tried to resist her. But he was not sure of anything. The thing to do, his instinct told him, was to play along.

It was a pleasure. Her tongue, her body, wriggled with life; her fingers kept stroking the back of his neck; she kept pushing at him like an animal seeking warmth. He slipped his hand under her gown and pulled it open, cupping her breast, kneading it, letting nature take its course.

The night air was cool but not sobering; Brook’s blood still raced. It had been a rare bout. Love, shove — Krylov was a lucky bastard.

Kimiko had pressed him to stay, but he had explained that it was best for him to leave while it was still dark. She had knelt to kiss him goodbye. It was an hour before he could tear himself away.

There were some departments, he thought, in which FACE training missed badly. How to walk away from that. When I get mine, he thought, it’s going to be through a girl like Kimiko.

He walked the empty street, hearing the whisper of his own shoes and nothing else. It was just before dawn. He would be able to find a taxi, Kimiko had said, on the main street a few blocks away.

Brook suddenly heard a run of thin high musical notes. It seemed to be coming from a side street ahead. It was a dark little phrase that made a union with the night.

It startled him at first. But then, from somewhere in his memory banks, he found the answer: he had heard it once before in Tokyo. Someone had explained that it was the call-in-trade of a noodle vendor, made on a fluty little instrument called a... he could not remember the Japanese word.

A yellowish light appeared from around the corner and came bobbing toward him. A moment later he made out the shape of the vendor’s tall handcart. The yellow light was a lantern hanging from the canopy.

Brook suddenly felt hungry. He had had no dinner, and Kimiko had given him a great deal of exercise. Why not? FACE instructors were always preaching the desirability of conforming to local customs abroad. He had sampled soba more than once; the steaming noodles in their savory sauce were delicious. By God, Brook thought, I’ll stop that clown and have a bowl. He could already taste it.

By God, Brook thought, I won’t. I’ll be the hero I wasn’t up in Kimiko’s apartment. Controlling this kind of appetite had been thoroughly covered in FACE training, and in that course he had scored high. I’ll get something to eat at the hotel, or in some all-night joint nearby. He was long overdue at the hotel; the message he was expecting from Benny Lopez might have been waiting for him there for hours.

The noodle vendor’s cart was coming close.

From habit he inventoried the cart and the stocky man pushing it. Short cotton curtains hung from the canopy, each printed with a Japanese character; a small tin disc nailed to one post had a number on it — 76495 — probably a license. There were eight bowls stacked on a rack and three ladles hanging from a crossbar.

The noodle vendor looked up at him and grinned. Brook nodded and grinned back.

He continued walking.

In the next slivered second he was throwing himself violently to one side. The stocky man with the towel twisted about his head rushed by.

That was when Brook saw the overgrown icepick in the man’s fist.

He had no time to thank his stars, his sixth sense, and his reflexes. The lunge had been close, too close. The man would not catch him unprepared a second time.

He dropped into a half crouch, balancing, and waited. He had very little time to wait. The man was extraordinarily quick. In the light from the lantern on the cart Brook saw the Japanese face clearly. It was hard and brown and might have been hacked from driftwood. The man held his weapon knife-fighter style, thumb and forefinger in a controlling grip where the haft met the blade. He had whirled at the end of his rush and was on his way back in almost the same motion.

He’s a fool, Brook thought, for all his experience. He should have waited for an opening. He expects to catch me off balance.

Brook pivoted and sucked his belly in like Benny’s toreador. The blade flashed past a half-inch from his belt. He caught the man’s knife arm with his left hand, wedged his shoulder into the man’s armpit, and heaved. The man shot forward under his own momentum. The blade fell to the pavement.

But he was back up and charging even as Brook reached for it. Brook had to grapple with him.

One part of him heard windows sliding open and excited Japanese voices.

The little guy knew a lot. With skillful locks and arm maneuvers he kept Brook tied up, unable to throw a chop. He tried the obvious tricks, kicking around Brook’s ankle to trip him, trying to stamp on his instep; and one or two that were not so obvious, like knuckle-jabbing at pressure points on the neck, elbow, torso. The battered wooden face straining against Brook had a weapon of its own, an overwhelming smell of garlic. It bothered Brook more than the rest of him.

Brook kneed him. It was not well done; it only sent the Japanese reeling back. But it gave Brook the split second he needed to scoop up the stabbing weapon. When he straightened the little man was backing away. For a moment the Japanese went into a crouch and began a circling movement. But it died after a short arc, and he stood still.

“Now we answer questions,” Brook said. “Who are you? Who sent you to kill me?”

The man stared back. If he was afraid, he did not show it, or perhaps his face could no longer show anything. He was backed against his cart.

“You understand English,” Brook said. “I know you do. Who sent you?”

The man grinned. Brook was not deceived. A Japanese grin did not necessarily indicate humor or friendliness. This man grinned like a hyena.

“Okay,” Brook said. “We’ll play it by your rules.”

He gripped the blade ready to lunge, heard something behind him, and spun around. What he saw almost made him laugh. There were two Orientals dressed like the noodle vendor but with surgical masks tied around their mouths and noses — straight out of a psychedelic turn-on. One of the newcomers stood a little forward of the other; he held what looked like a spray can of bug-killer in his hand.

The can hissed and a milky mist enveloped Brook’s face. The mist grew, and the street, the world, began to move in slow circles. Space-monster colors glowed. Then Brook heard a very highpitched buzz, like the sound of a microscopic bee. It seemed far away and it seemed in the very core of his head.

Then there was nothing.