Non-Stop Till Tokyo (18 page)

“Not good enough,” said Yoshi. “You’re not doing it.” I stared at him. He blinked defiantly back at me. “I said no. You’re not going to wander round Tokyo unprotected—”

“No. She won’t,” said Chanko.

“Because you’re going to protect her?” demanded Yoshi. “Like you did this morning?”

“Hey!” I snapped.

“No. Come on, Chanko-san is far too obvious—”

“Not in Tokyo, and anyway—”

“What’s Yoshi-san’s alternative?” asked Chanko, very low and cutting through our raised voices. “Are you going to be Kerry’s backup? Or do you plan to put on a dress and hang around Roppongi instead of her?”

Taka and I each sucked in a breath, but Yoshi was already leaning forward, scarlet-faced. “Maybe Futotcho-san should leave the thinking to people who have brains instead of muscles.”

“Maybe Yoshi-kun should come up with some ideas, not have women taking care of him,” snarled Chanko.

“Shut up, both of you. We’re on the same side, remember?” It didn’t look like they agreed with me. Yoshi had called Chanko a blimp; Chanko had effectively called Yoshi a little boy; neither of them was backing down. “Yoshi, it’ll be much easier for me and Sonja to look for an American man in Roppongi than it would be for you. We need to find him.”

“No, we need to get you out of the country,” said Yoshi. “Kechan, I’m telling you no.”

“You got a right to tell her that?” demanded Chanko, and he didn’t say it courteously.

“Shut up and listen,” I told them both. “We can let the yakuza walk all over us while we squabble, or we can do something about this. I’m doing something. Anyone who isn’t with me can say so now. Taka?”

“Hey, beautiful, you know me. I’m always up for a laugh.”

“This isn’t a joke!” shouted Yoshi, his voice cracking. “After what they did to Noriko— What do you think they’ll do to you, Kechan?”

“What else will they do to Noriko?” I demanded. “What about you? Do you think this is going to stop? Damn it, Yoshi, do you think I’m going to leave you alone?”

He put a hand over his mouth, his face working. I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, honey. But the only thing I can do for Nori-chan now is try to find this bag, and I’m starting with this boyfriend.” I stopped and swallowed. “I want to see her.”

“No,” said Yoshi and Chanko in chorus, then glared at one another.

“No,” repeated Yoshi. “You can’t. They know where she is. They’ll find you for sure. And she won’t know you’re there…and… You don’t want to see her like she is now. Believe me.”

I pushed myself to my feet. “Am I sleeping in the small room, Taka?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, sure—”

“I’m going up. The rest of you, just shut up, okay? Or kill each other quietly. I don’t want to hear it.”

The small study room was full of Taka’s computer crap, with a single futon mattress folded in the corner. I put on my coat, switched off the light and curled up in the cold and dark. There were voices from downstairs, but not shouting. I didn’t really care that much anyway.

After a while, I heard a heavy tread, and the door opened a crack.

“Hey, Butterfly.”

“Go away.”

“Can I put the light on?”

“No.” I sat up and clutched the coat round me. “Where do you get off talking to Yoshi like that? And don’t say he started it.”

“You know, for someone who isn’t your boyfriend, he’s sure protective of you.”

“He’s my friend. He’s had to watch Noriko…”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”

“Well, can you show your sympathy by not picking a fight with him?”

“Butterfly, the guy wants to stake his claim, that’s between you and him—though what the hell you’d see in a snotty little shrimp like that—anyway, point is, whatever’s between you is your problem. He stops me doing my job, or decides to start handing out a hard time, that’s my problem. Okay?”

I banged my head gently against the wall. “Would you do me a favour?”

“What?”

“Would you tell Yoshi you understand that he’s being aggressive with you because he sees you as a sexual predator threatening his woman?”

“No.”

“Well, I wish you would, we could do with the laugh. He’s gay, Chanko, and you know that’s not easy here. Which is why that crack about wearing a dress was seriously ill judged.”

There was a short pause.

“Shit.” It sounded heartfelt. “You could have told me.”

“Nobody’s business but his.”

“Yeah, but… Ah, shit. I thought he was being a jackass.”

“I don’t suppose you made a great impression either.” I wrapped my arms round my knees. “Honest answer, Chanko. What are our chances? I mean, I’m going to do this anyway, because I don’t have a choice, but…what are the odds?”

I should have put the light on, I realised. Although I’d have put a few thousand yen on his face being unreadable.

Finally, he said, “Look, we’ll talk to your friend, okay? See where we stand. Then think. I guess I better go talk to Yoshi-san.”

He cleared off, and I curled up on the futon again.

I thought and fretted and dozed, and finally got myself moving. The prospect of going out as myself was too unpleasant to contemplate, plus I wanted to practise, so I dressed in a short brown leather skirt and a low-cut lace-up top from my hastily assembled bag of tricks, combed out the blonde wig and tied it into a high ponytail, applied pale foundation and put on the eye makeup with a lavish hand. It looked sufficiently Russian to be getting on with.

I tripped downstairs and found the men watching the news in silence. It didn’t hold anyone’s attention when I walked in.

Taka said, “Whoo, Mama!”, more out of habit than interest. Yoshi was far too used to my transformations to do anything but give me a tired grin. Chanko looked around, started to offer a greeting, gave the most spectacular double take I have ever seen, and fumbled his can of beer, almost dropping it on the grey floor tiles. The others collapsed in laughter, and I felt absurdly pleased with myself.

“Holy crap,” he said in English. “Kerry? Whoa.”

“Chanko say
konbanwa
!” giggled Taka hysterically. His English had always been excruciating and hadn’t improved. “This person Kerry,
ne
? Big dumb ass!”

“Shut up, Taka. Okay, that is impressive.” Chanko heaved himself off the floor for a closer look, reaching out a hand but not quite touching me. “Your face looks, I dunno, different.”

“Oh, I just shaded round the cheekbones and Westernised the eyes a bit,” I said offhandedly. “Nothing to it. Are we going out or what?”

Taka, in a display of efficiency that someone else was probably behind, had got “one of his boys” to check out the old couple’s little
izakaya
where I’d arranged to meet Sonja, and ensure she hadn’t been followed. The owners had either turned away all the other customers, or more likely didn’t have any, because when I walked in, there were only two people in the dingy, black-wood interior, both nursing glasses of beer with expressions of distaste. One was a tall, busty European woman with an athletic physique, a black leather minidress and a mane of scarlet hair falling halfway down her back, and the other was Japanese, with a heart-shaped face, dressed in pink and peacock blue, and standing five feet tall in four-inch heels.

“What the—?” I hurried over to them, cursing myself and Sonja equally as we hugged. “Minachan, it’s wonderful to see you, but what the hell is she doing here, Sonja?”

“Never mind that.” Minachan ducked sideways to peer round me. “Kerry-chan, have you shaved a bear?”

Either that was a proverb I didn’t know or— I swung round to see Chanko stooping under the low black-beamed ceiling and dangling strip-lights, blocking the corridor and being enthusiastically bowed at by the elderly couple who ran the place.

“Wow,” breathed Sonja. “
Mine
.”

“I saw him first.”

“Forget it, titch. He’d squash you like a bug.”

“Get your claws out, the pair of you,” I said extremely firmly. “That’s my bodyguard. Anyway, guess who’s behind him, Sonja.”

“Mount Fuji? Oh, my God, crazy Taka,” she added as Taka made his way past. “What has he done to his hair? It looks fantastic!”

A match made in heaven. I’d always thought so.

I hadn’t wanted to drag Minachan into this, but she was here, and I knew better than to try shutting her out now. I made the introductions, and we pulled two tables together for the six of us to sit round. The barkeep brought three cold beers in icy glasses without being asked, and next to him his tiny, grey-haired wife smiled and bowed as she placed a dai-jockey in front of Chanko. That’s a glass holding the best part of a litre of beer. I rather thought I could guess who had actually dealt with those local toughs.

I got the meeting to order. We settled on English as language of choice for the sake of security, me to translate if, or rather when, Taka got stuck. Yoshi was pretty fluent, and Minachan’s understanding was as good as her speech was erratic.

“Before we start,” I said seriously. “We all know the situation. I need to get the family off my back, and I’d like your help to do it, but it’s up to each of you. I’m not planning to go against them, but it still means getting involved, and that could be dangerous. If you don’t want that, then please, go now. Okay? Because nobody should get into this unless—”

“Hang on. We’re not going against them?” Sonja scowled. “What the fuck are we doing here then?”

Minachan and Taka nodded vigorously. Yoshi groaned.

“We’re making them leave us alone,” I said. “Getting them away from Noriko. They’ve threatened her again.”

“Yeah, I hear.” Minachan had a pixie-ish look normally, but her jaw was set like a mule’s. She and Noriko had been friends since school—in fact, it was through Minachan that Noriko had known the Primrose Path. I wondered how Minachan felt about that.

“So, we’re all staying? Okay, then.”

I quickly went over the basics of the business for the girls. I could see Chanko frowning, and to be honest I had my own doubts since Sonja had spilled the beans once already, but we needed to know the score at the Primrose Path, and for that they needed to trust me. I didn’t mention the boyfriend or the bag yet, instead asking for an update on the situation at the bar.

“It stinks,” said Sonja briefly, and drew an expletive-laden picture of things. Mama-san constantly harassed, worn to a shadow. The girls corralled, bullied, leaned on. Regulars already starting to disappear, and new, nasty faces arriving, and the pressure to offer a different kind of hospitality. Yukie’s tiny winces and awkward stance, and the long sleeves she was suddenly wearing.

They had torn the bar apart the other day, as Yukie had told me, looking for something. They hadn’t told the girls what, but they’d searched every bag and locker, and in every drawer, and made a hell of a mess. They had played CCTV recordings, pale-haired women on jerky film going in and out of doorways, and demanded identification: me or Kelly? And they had questioned the girls again and again as to Kelly’s friends and acquaintances.

“Did anyone say anything?” I asked.

“Hell, no. Nobody knows anything about the bitch, nobody had anything to say. What have you got, Kerry? You know something we don’t?”

I glanced at Chanko and decided to go for it. “I might have a place to start, anyway. I think Kelly had a boyfriend—”

“Big Amerikajin,
ne
? Yeah, I know.” Minachan nodded then looked around at our faces. “What?”

I was gaping. Yoshi was gaping. Taka was giggling hysterically, and Chanko was leaning forward with one heavy hand on the table. Minachan reared back in her seat, eyes widening, and I hissed, “You’re looming.”

“Sorry.” He sat back. “You want to say that again, Minako-san? You
know
him?”

“Not like friend. I saw. Is big guy, not big like Chanko-san, but more tall and wide to Taka-san. Brown hair, very little.”

“Short hair, you mean? Or bald?”

“Ah, very, very short, but also it’s go like this.” She sketched a sharp widow’s peak on her own black bob. “White guy.”

“Very short hair,” rumbled Chanko. “Soldier boy. Uniform—soldier clothes?”

“Blue jean.”

“Eyes? Face?”

She shrugged. “Big nose,” she offered vaguely, not to anyone’s surprise. Every European has a big nose. “Face always on Kelly face. Kiss-kiss.”

Yoshi and Taka tutted righteously. Public displays of affection in Japan are ill-mannered.

“So, by the way, I saw two time, same man.”

“Where? When?” asked Yoshi sharply.

Another shrug. “Roppongi, I think. One month, two month…dunno.”

Chanko made an exasperated noise, but Sonja and I were already chorusing, “Who were you with?”

“Ee!” Minachan’s eyes lit up. “Chester. One time, early from I meet—” She paused, trying to pick through the grammar in her head, then hissed and switched languages. “Yeah, it was a few days after I started seeing Chester. I remember thinking I was glad the thieving bitch had someone else to occupy her attention. And then again—let’s see, it must have been the last time we went out, because he bought me that amazing necklace with the little diamond drops, you know the one, and I
know
I was wearing it because I really wanted her to notice it, but of course she didn’t even look up. Call it two days before he flew out, and that was the seventeenth.”