The Salaryman's Wife (32 page)

“You certainly have no guilt about taking time away from our work to traipse off to a party!”

“Joe’s got something on the American, I’m positive of it.” I got up and headed for the door. “Besides, I quit my job today. I need him.”

“You’re leaving Nichiyu? It’s because of this mess, isn’t it?” Hugh sounded contrite. After a minute, he said, “You should go back to America and do law or medical school. I could write you a reference for law and Tom could do the other—”

“Are you delirious? I’d never leave Tokyo to do something so boring!”

“Darling, it hurts me to say this, but I can’t very well support you if I’m unemployed. I’ll lose the flat, the car, everything.”

“This is my city, and I’ll live here on my terms, okay? I’ve got something new, I keep trying to tell you.”

“What’s your scheme?” Hugh closed his eyes as if the sight of me was becoming tiresome.

“Antiques. I’m going to work as a freelance buyer
for private clients.” I liked the way it sounded in contrast with “shopper,” Joe’s original term.

“Too risky. Why don’t you gather a few clients first and build a nest egg? I’d hate to see you get discouraged.” If Hugh were any more dubious, he could pass for my father.

“This afternoon, I sold a piece I bought in Shiroyama for one-point-two million yen. A decent nest egg, wouldn’t you say?”

Hugh’s eyes flew open. “Tell me I’m not dreaming!”

I put my hands on my hips and stared down at him with my most severe expression. “I’m having the cash wired to my bank account, if you want to see a receipt.”

“You’ll want to incorporate if you’re going to run a business in Japan. You’ll need a lawyer—”

“I’ll need a lawyer who’s not in the hospital or prison. Ta, darling.” I waved my fingers in a splendid imitation of him as I left.

The Tokyo American Club lies within spitting or kissing distance of the Russian Embassy, depending on your mood. Mine was definitely guarded. I had a fantasy of walking into the sprawling, California-style complex and being politely shown out. Winnie had said something to Hugh about buying tickets, and I had less than 2,000 yen in my evening bag.

Fortunately, Joe was waiting on a sofa in the understated but plush lobby, a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
open in his lap. Catching sight of me, he smiled and patted the seat next to him.

“How’s life?” he asked. “You look good for someone doing combat with the police, gangsters, and tabloid writers.”

“I put in my resignation at Nichiyu. My lower stress level must be showing.”

“Superb.” Joe leaned forward and kissed me. “Now you’re going to have to let me convince you
about starting your business. We’ll order some champagne to get started—”

“No champagne is needed, and don’t bother trying to convince me about anything,” I told him. “I’m already there.”

Joe looked amazed when I told him about my sale to the Shiroyama Folk Art Center. He immediately started planning. “Much more important than advertising will be word-or-mouth. When the gals in the international women’s clubs talk about shopping, your name should be on somebody’s lips. Businessmen traveling solo will ask you to buy for their wives, in part because you’re a pretty little thing and they’ll enjoy the consultation. Do I offend you?” he beamed. “It’s simply the way men work and to your economic advantage.”

“I wonder about the way men work,” I said. “This thing with Mrs. Chapman—do you just turn on and off?”

Joe shook his head. “She came on too strong for me. When I saw you that Sunday outside of the church, I was so relieved. I thought you would help me out, but you didn’t!”

“What’s wrong with her? Your ages match, and you have the same kind of enthusiasm for life—” I was perplexed.

“I’m not really interested in American women.”

I stiffened. “Well, I didn’t come here for a date with a man older than my father.”

“
Touché
. The source is waiting for you. Miss Shimura, but we need to circulate first.” He rose and gestured toward the sound of big band music, clinking glasses, and applause.

“I should warn you that I’m terrible at small-talk,” I muttered, feeling a painful shyness come over me as we headed into a ballroom filled with elegantly dressed
gaijin
, the party page come to life.

“All you have to do is smile.” Joe held out his hands for my coat. “Say, that’s some number you’re wearing.” He blinked several times before he was elbowed out of the way.

“It’s Rie Shimura!” A slim, red-haired woman held out her hand. “I’m Molly Mason! My husband Jim’s over there. He wants your autograph but is too shy to ask.”

“My name is Rei, not Rie,” I corrected. “I believe you’re confusing me with the actress Rie Miyazawa—I could understand your husband wanting her autograph—”

“I saw your picture in
Friday
,” another woman interrupted. “I had to get my maid to translate the whole story.
Rei’s bow
, it was called. Completely adorable!”

“Hugh’s a squash buddy of mine, I suppose he hasn’t mentioned it—I’m Jerry Swoboda.” A well-fed, Rotary Club-type had a glass of champagne for me in one hand, his business card in the other.

“So, is Hugh good in bed or better off dead?” The last comment was whispered rather waspishly by a woman behind me. I began feeling dizzy and retreated into the arm Joe put around me.

“Hold on, what’s this nonsense? Damn rude of you to talk like that.” Joe attempted to cut a path for us across the room. We encountered a photographer en route, an Australian in a little black dress who
identified herself as a photojournalist on assignment for the
Tokyo Weekender
.

“I know you aren’t taking questions about the murder, but I have to ask…your dress? Whose is it?” She spoke while focusing her lens.

This time, I knew the verbal shorthand. “It’s a Léger.”

“Of course! One of his bandage dresses—some say he copied Azzedine Alaïa.”

“Really? I thought that kind of thing only went on in the art world!” I was fascinated.

“I can’t believe you—here—with Hugh on his sickbed!” Winnie Clancy stage-whispered from the side. The society photographer turned to snap Winnie’s angry face, and I couldn’t help imagining how it would look on the party page.

My mischievous thoughts faded as Joe steered me down a spiral staircase and into a small lounge. This could be trouble, being alone with him. He pushed open the door, and I made out the silhouette of a man looking out the window at the sparkling Tokyo night landscape. He wore an ill-fitting gray suit that didn’t follow the evening’s black-tic dress code. As he turned, the weathered face with dark blue eyes snapped into my memory. He was the leader of the veterans who had stonewalled me in Yokosuka.

“Master Chief Jimmy O’Donnell, meet Rei Shimura.” Joe’s voice was hearty.

What did one say in a case like this?
Pleased to see you again?
I took a sip of wine and shifted from foot to foot until Joe told me to sit down.

“I can leave you two alone if you like,” Joe offered.

“Please don’t,” I begged. As nervous as I was about Joe, Jimmy O’Donnell was a totally unknown entity.

“I had to sort some old business out before I could talk to you. Do you understand?” O’Donnell’s voice rasped.

“Yes. I’m glad you decided to trust me.” I settled down in a plush chair across from him and after a second, he also sat down.

“I thought you weren’t being straight. I didn’t understand why you cared more about the grandfather than the gal who claimed to be his offspring. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.” He cast a glance at Joe. “We talked about it, and he told me you were the real thing.”

“I’m not the granddaughter,” I said quickly.

“No, but you’re the genuine article. You support yourself in Tokyo without any handouts. You’re asking questions because you’re in love with that fellow who’s in trouble, the Englishman.”

Mrs. Chapman must have exaggerated wildly to Joe, who in turn was feeding the rumor. I shook my head. “There has to be a link between the American father and Setsuko’s death. I think he’d stopped sending her money about six months ago.”

“Five months ago, a guy called Willie Evans died. We got a copy of the obituary at Old Salts for our scrapbook,” O’Donnell said. “Kind of a sad hobby we have, keeping track of the dead.”

“Did you know Mr. Evans well?” I asked.

“Not at all. There were so many sailors around, three times as many as there are now. I knew most of
the gals who worked the bars and was sorry when the big stores drove them out. I guess I felt as much loyalty to them as I do my own people.”

I knew what Jimmy O’Donnell was talking about. He was as in love with Japan as Joe and I were. The three of us sat quietly for a minute, as if appreciating that.

“In the early fifties, he had a girlfriend here who worked in the bars. She already had one kid, but he didn’t care. They got a house together and lived like they were married. They had a baby. Evans’s name didn’t go on any birth certificate because he didn’t want his commanding officer to know.”

“Typical.” Joe nodded. “So how did he leave her?”

“His tour of duty ended and he just went back to the States, met some gal at a church picnic. They were together thirty-three years before she passed away, breast cancer, I think.”

“Did the American wife know about his first love in Japan?” I asked.

“I have no idea. The two sons might be able to help you. They’re still living in the Boston area, as the obituary says.” He handed me a blurry photocopy of a notice in the
Boston Globe
. Skimming it quickly, I saw no mention of Texas—it appeared Willie Evans’s entire life before and after Japan took place in Framingham, Massachusetts.

“You should call them, Rei,” Joe said, as if hearing my silent question. “You’ve got dates and other locations to check by them. There’s no need to jump to conclusions, but it’s worth acting sooner than later.”

“You’re right.” I folded the paper into my evening bag, where I caught sight of the envelope I had not returned to Hugh. “Actually, I have a letter from the father—”

Joe was practically on top of me to get it, ruining my hopes of keeping off fingerprints. “Let me see.” He looked up at O’Donnell. “There’s a Texas postmark here. Not Boston.”

“You know, he could have retired to the West…a lot of guys do, for the weather,” James O’Donnell said lamely. “I can start looking into folks from Texas. I suppose I should get going.”

“No, you’re staying for a drink and spending the night with me in Aoyama,” Joe coaxed. “After we drop the young lady off, you and I’ll paint the town red, just like we used to.”

Back in the ballroom, Jimmy O’Donnell stayed busy holding up the
hors d’oeuvre
table while Joe took me out on the dance floor. I had some trouble with the Blahnik heels and the fact I’d never swing-danced before. I was whirled from Joe into the arms of a small, dark man who kept telling me he’d gone to Princeton. After that came a lean young Japanese whose name I recognized as connected to a powdered soup fortune. My final partner was Molly Mason’s husband Jim, who swore he hadn’t confused me with Rie Miyazawa and wondered how the Imperial Hotel sounded for lunch next Tuesday….

I excused myself to tell Joe I was going home.

“The glorious reality of the party page has hit
you, huh?” he teased. “Now you see why I lead a quiet life devoted to my business.”

“But you don’t! You’re in the
Weekender
at least every other issue. Tonight we had our picture taken two dozen times.”

“Not my picture. Yours,” he corrected.

“I don’t normally look like this—”

“You should from now on,” Joe said. “While you were dancing, I was spreading the word on your upcoming antiques venture. I tickled them a little about the box you sold to the museum, and the upshot is I have five gals who want appointments as soon as possible.”

“That’s wonderful.” I was unable to concentrate. “Joe, if I go home now, I can figure out my strategy for the Evans brothers. I have to call them early tomorrow morning.”

“You’re hopeless.” Joe brought my coat and escorted me outside and into a taxi, kissing me good-bye in front of a battalion of Japanese media. The taxi driver seemed ecstatic until we started moving and I directed him to drop me at the nearby Kamiyacho station. It looked cheap, I guess, for a woman wearing Hervé Léger. Still, the sale of the box had been a fluke. It could be a long wait for my next influx of cash. In the meantime, budget was going to be my mantra.

As had become my custom, I scanned the crowd exiting Minami-Senju station with me. A few motley bands of drunken men got off. Trailing a safe distance behind them, but not totally alone, I wrapped the
thin leather coat around me and started over the steel pedestrian bridge for home. I waved at Mr. Waka through the window at Family Mart but didn’t go in. My feet were killing me. I wanted to get home and stick them in the bathroom sink.

My street was silent except for a drip coming from somewhere high above. Paired with my footfalls in the unusually high shoes, the sounds formed a rhythmic percussion. After a few minutes, I realized a quieter, clipped noise was marring the rhythm. I stopped, feigning a look in the window of the closed fishmonger, and it ceased.

I started walking again, sorry that I hadn’t taken the taxi all the way home. To return to Mr. Waka’s shop, I’d have to run toward my stalker. Where was Kenji Yamamoto tonight? I wondered. Or Keiko’s
yakuza
friends?

I slipped off Karen’s shoes and took them in my hands so I could walk faster. The street was freezing cold and rough against my feet, with disgusting wet spots that soaked through my pantyhose. As the footsteps fell faster behind me, I spun around and a slight figure leaped into the gas company’s doorway. He was shorter than Joe Roncolotta and Yamamoto, but maybe it was the man who had tried to run me over with the motorcycle.

“
Yamete
,” I said loudly.
Quit it
. There was no response. I broke into a run, my apartment looming like a beacon just fifty feet away. I made it in and took the stairs two at a time, cursing the fact there was no lock on the vestibule door. My stalker could run up the stairs behind me if he wanted.

When I turned the key into the lock of my door and tell inside, I was trembling so violently that Richard got up from eating an octopus–corn pizza with Mariko and put his hand on my forehead.

“What is it? The flu or something? Poor baby—”

“No, it’s the guy who rode the motorcycle at the train station. He came back to get me,” I said as I ran to the telephone and dialed 110. An English-speaking officer came on halfway through my conversation with the sergeant who had answered the call.

“Excuse me, miss, but how long will you remain in Japan?”

“I’m not a tourist, I live here!” I gave my name and street address again. When they realized I was the
Friday
girl who had been involved in an accident at Minami-Senju station earlier, the English-speaking officer asked if Hugh Glendinning was with me. I said no.

The policeman decided to dispatch a car to my street, all the while warning me an arrest would be unlikely, given that it wasn’t a crime for a person to walk around at night. “Unless, of course, the person is carrying a weapon—in our country, unlike yours, guns are not allowed!” the officer huffed.

I hung up and asked Richard to make me tea. He gave me a can of Pocari Sweat, insisting the soft drink’s ionization action would settle me better than caffeine. But I didn’t want to sleep.

We sat by the window with the lights off watching for the stalker. All that appeared was the police cruiser, which double-parked in a manner so obvious and
unusual that lights started snapping on in neighboring windows. Two cops got out. They peered in doorways and roused a few street people, but left after twenty minutes with nothing to show for it.