The Key to Midnight (2 page)

“Like a drink?” Joanna asked.

Mariko smiled. “Water would be nice, thank you.”

“Have something stronger.”

“No, thank you. Just water, please.”

“Trying to make me feel like a lush?”

“You aren’t a lush.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Joanna said. “But I wonder. I seem to wind up here at the bar more nights than not, around this time.” She put a glass of ice water on the counter.

Mariko turned the glass slowly in her small hands, but she didn’t drink from it.

Joanna admired the woman’s natural grace, which transformed every ordinary act into a moment of theater. Mariko was thirty, two years younger than Joanna, with big, dark eyes and delicate features. She seemed to be unaware of her exceptional good looks, and her humility enhanced her beauty.

Mariko had come to work at the Moonglow Lounge one week after opening night. She’d wanted the job as much for the opportunity to practice her English with Joanna as for the salary. She’d made it clear that she intended to leave after a year or two, to obtain a position as an executive secretary with one of the larger American companies with a branch office in Tokyo. But six years later, she no longer found Tokyo appealing, at least not by comparison with the life she now enjoyed.

The Moonglow had worked its spell on Mariko too. It was the main interest in her life as surely as it was the only interest in Joanna’s.

Strangely, the insular world of the club was in some ways as sheltering and safe as a Zen monastery high in a remote mountain pass. Nightly, the place was crowded with customers, yet the outside world did not intrude to any significant extent. When the employees went home and the doors closed, the lounge—with its blue lights, mirrored walls, silver-and-black art deco appointments, and appealing air of mystery—might have been in any country, in any decade since the 1930s. It might even have been a place in a dream. Both Joanna and Mariko seemed to need that peculiar sanctuary.

Besides, an unexpected sisterly affection and concern had developed between them. Neither made friends easily. Mariko was warm and charming—but still surprisingly shy for a woman who worked in a Gion nightclub. In part she was like the retiring, soft-spoken, self-effacing Japanese women of another and less democratic age. By contrast, Joanna was vivacious, outgoing—yet she also found it difficult to permit that extra degree of closeness that allowed an acquaintance to become a friend. Therefore, she’d made a special effort to keep Mariko at the Moonglow, regularly increasing her responsibilities and her salary; Mariko had reciprocated by working hard and diligently. Without once discussing their quiet friendship, they had decided that separation was neither desirable nor necessary.

Now, not for the first time, Joanna wondered, Why Mariko ?

Of all the people whom Joanna might have chosen for a friend, Mariko was not the obvious first choice—except that she had an unusually strong sense of privacy and considerable discretion even by Japanese standards. She would never press for details from a friend’s past, never indulge in that gossipy, inquisitive, and revelatory chatter that so many people assumed was an essential part of friendship.

There’s never a danger that she’ll try to find out too much about me
.

That thought surprised Joanna. She didn’t understand herself. After all, she had no secrets, no past of which to be ashamed.

With the glass of dry sherry in her hand, Joanna came out from behind the bar and sat on a stool.

“You had a nightmare again,” Mariko said.

“Just a dream.”

“A nightmare,” Mariko quietly insisted. “The same one you’ve had on a thousand other nights.”

“Not a thousand,” Joanna demurred.

“Two thousand? Three?”

“Did I wake you?”

“It sounded worse than ever,” Mariko said.

“Just the usual.”

“Thought I’d left the TV on.”

“Oh?”

“Thought I was hearing some old Godzilla movie,” Mariko said.

Joanna smiled. “All that screaming, huh?”

“Like Tokyo being smashed flat again, mobs running for their lives.”

“All right, it was a nightmare, not just a dream. And worse than usual.”

“I worry about you,” Mariko said.

“No need to worry. I’m a tough girl.”

“You saw him again ... the man with the steel fingers?”

“I never see his face,” Joanna said wearily. “I’ve never seen anything at all but his hand, those god-awful metal fingers. Or at least that’s all I remember seeing. I guess there’s more to the nightmare than that, but the rest of it never stays with me after I wake up.” She shuddered and sipped some sherry.

Mariko put a hand on Joanna’s shoulder, squeezed gently. “I have an uncle who is—”

“A hypnotist.”

“Psychiatrist,” Mariko said. “A doctor. He uses hypnotism only to—”

“Yes, Mariko-san, you’ve told me about him before. I’m really not interested.”

“He could help you remember the entire dream. He might even be able to help you learn the cause of it.”

Joanna stared at her own reflection in the blue bar mirror and finally said, “I don’t think I ever want to know the cause of it.”

They were silent for a while.

Eventually Mariko said, “I didn’t like it when they made him into a hero.”

Joanna frowned. “Who?”

“Godzilla. Those later movies, when he battles other monsters to protect Japan. So silly. We need our monsters to be scary. They don’t do us any good if they don’t frighten us.”

“Am I about to get hit with some philosophy of the mysterious East? I didn’t hear the Zen warning siren.”

“Sometimes we need to be frightened,” Mariko said.

Joanna softly imitated a submarine diving alarm:
“Whoop-
whoop-whoop-whoop. ”

“Sometimes fear purges us, Joanna-san.”

“We’re deep in the unfathomable waters of the Japanese mind,” Joanna whispered theatrically.

Mariko continued unfazed: “But when we confront our demons—”

“Deeper and deeper in the Japanese mind, tremendous pressure building up—”

“—and rid ourselves of those demons—”

“—deeper and deeper—”

“—we don’t need the fear any more—”

“—the weight of sudden enlightenment will crush me as though I’m just a bug—”

“—don’t need it to purge us—”

“—I tremble on the edge of revelation—”

“—and we are then freed.”

“I’m surrounded by the light of reason,” Joanna said.

“Yes, you are, but you’re blind to it,” said Mariko. “You are too in love with your fear to see the truth.”

“That’s me. A victim of phobophilia,” Joanna said, and drank the rest of her sherry in one long swallow.

“And you call us Japanese inscrutable.”

“Who does?” Joanna said with mock innocence.

“I hope Godzilla comes to Kyoto,” Mariko said.

“Does he have a new movie to promote?”

“And if he does come, he’ll be the patriotic Godzilla, seeking out new threats to the Japanese people.”

“Good for him.”

“When he sees all that long blond hair of yours, he’ll go right for you.”

“I think you’ve got him confused with King Kong.”

“Squash you flat in the middle of the street, while the grateful citizens of Kyoto cheer wildly.”

Joanna said, “You’ll miss me.”

“On the contrary. It’ll be messy, hosing all that blood and guts off the street. But the lounge should reopen in a day or two, and then it’ll be my place.”

“Yeah? Who’s going to sing when I’m gone?”

“The customers.”

“Good God, you’d turn it into a karaoke bar!”

“All I need are a stack of old Engelbert Humperdinck tapes.”

Joanna said, “You’re scarier than Godzilla ever was.”

They smiled at each other in the blue mirror behind the bar.

If his employees back in the States could have seen Alex Hunter at dinner in the Moonglow Lounge, they would have been astonished by his relaxed demeanor. To them, he was a demanding boss who expected perfection and quickly dismissed employees who couldn’t deliver to his standards, a man who was at all times fair but who was given to sharp and accurate criticism. They knew him to be more often silent than not, and they rarely saw him smile. In Chicago, his hometown, he was widely envied and respected, but he was well liked only by a handful of friends. His office staff and field investigators would gape in disbelief if they could see him now, because he was chatting amiably with the waiters and smiling nearly continuously.

He did not appear capable of killing anyone, but he was. A few years ago he had pumped five bullets into a man named Ross Baglio. On another occasion, he had stabbed a man in the throat with the wickedly splintered end of a broken broomstick. Both times he had acted in self-defense. Now he appeared to be nothing more than a well-dressed business executive enjoying a night on the town.

This society, this comparatively depressurized culture, which was so different from the American way, had a great deal to do with his high spirits. The relentlessly pleasant and polite Japanese inspired a smile. Alex had been in their country just ten days, on vacation, but he could not recall another period of his life during which he had felt even half as relaxed and at peace with himself as he did at that moment.

Of course, the food contributed to his excellent spirits. The Moonglow Lounge maintained a first-rate kitchen. Japanese cuisine changed with the seasons more than any style of cooking with which Alex was familiar, and late autumn provided special treats. It was also important that each item of food complement the item next to it, and that everything be served on china that—both in pattern and color—was in harmony with the food that it carried. He was enjoying a dinner perfectly suited to the cool November evening. A delicate wooden tray held a bone-white china pot that was filled with thick slices of daikon radish, reddish sections of octopus—and
konnyaku,
a jellylike food made from devil’s tongue. A fluted green bowl contained a fragrant hot mustard in which each delicacy could be anointed. On a large gray platter stood two black-and-red bowls: One contained
akadashi
soup with mushrooms, and the other was filled with rice. An oblong plate offered sea bream and three garnishes, plus a cup of finely grated daikon for seasoning. It was a hearty autumn meal, of the proper somber colors.

When he finished the last morsel of bream, Alex admitted to himself that it was neither the hospitable Japanese nor the quality of the food that made him feel so fine. His good humor resulted primarily from the fact that Joanna Rand would soon appear on the small stage.

Promptly at eight o’clock, the house lights dimmed, the silvery stage curtains drew back, and the Moonglow band opened with a great rendition of “A String of Pearls.” Their playing wasn’t the equal of any of the famous orchestras, not a match for Goodman or Miller or either of the Dorsey brothers, but surprisingly good for house musicians who had been born, raised, and trained many thousands of miles and a few decades from the origin of the music. At the end of the number, as the audience applauded enthusiastically, the band swung into “Moonglow,” and Joanna Rand entered from stage right.

Alex’s heartbeat quickened.

Joanna was slim, graceful, striking, though not beautiful in any classic sense. Her chin was feminine but too strong—and her nose neither narrow enough nor straight enough—to be seen in any ancient Grecian sculpture. Her cheekbones weren’t high enough to satisfy the arbiters of beauty at Vogue, and her startlingly blue eyes were shades darker than the washed-out blue of the ennui-drenched models currently in demand for magazine covers and television commercials. She was a vibrant, golden vision, with light amber skin and cascades of platinum-blond hair. She looked thirty, not sixteen, but her beauty was inexpressibly enhanced by every mark of experience and line of character.

She belonged on a stage, not merely to be seen but to be heard. Her voice was first-rate. She sang with a tremulous clarity that pierced the stuffy air and seemed to reverberate within Alex. Though the lounge was crowded and everyone had been drinking, there was none of the expected nightclub chatter when Joanna Rand performed. The audience was attentive, rapt.

He knew her from another place and time, although he could not recall where or when they’d met. Her face was hauntingly familiar, especially her eyes. In fact, he felt that he hadn’t just met her once before but had known her well, even intimately.

Ridiculous. He wouldn’t have forgotten a woman as striking as this one. Surely, had they met before, he would be able to remember every smallest detail of their encounter.

He watched. He listened. He wanted to hold her.

When Joanna finished her last song and the applause finally faded, the band swung into a lively number. Couples crowded onto the dance floor. Conversation picked up again, and the lounge filled with sporadic laughter and the clatter of dinnerware.

As she did every night, Joanna briefly surveyed her domain from the edge of the stage, allowing herself a moment of pride. She ran a damn good place.

In addition to being a restaurateur, she was a practical social politician. At the end of her first of two hour-long performances, she didn’t disappear behind the curtains until the ten o’clock show. Instead, she stepped down from the stage in a soft swish of pleated silk and moved slowly among the tables, acknowledging compliments, bowing and being bowed to, stopping to inquire if dinner had been enjoyable, greeting new faces and chatting at length with regular, honored customers. Good food, a romantic atmosphere, and high quality entertainment were sufficient to establish a profitable nightclub, but more than that was required for the Moonglow to become legendary. She wanted that extra degree of success. People were flattered to receive personal attention from the owner, and the forty minutes that she spent in the lounge between acts was worth uncountable yen in repeat business.