Chameleon (33 page)

Eliza started to laugh. ‘I don’t believe a word of this.’

‘Look, what are we standin’ here talkin’ about it for? There’s a fuckin’ bear at the fuckin’ bar drinkin’ a fuckin’ beer. Go see for yourself.’

‘I’m just going to take a look inside,’ Eliza said.

She took a look. ‘My god, it is a bear! That’s a big damn bear, too! I mean, look at that son of a bitch!’ Eliza said.

‘I wouldn’t talk about him like that,’ said the Magician.

‘What the hell is a bear doing drinking beer in a bar?’

‘How the hell do I know? Ask the bartender, he used to work for Bridges. He’s the one we need to talk to.,

‘That’s Kraft American?’

‘That’s what I understand.’

The bartender, a barrel of a man with a crew cut, a nose that had been broken so many times it wasn’t sure which way to point, and arms as thick as a tire tube, was wearing a black T-shirt with ‘Hot Tricks at Budakan’ stencilled across the front in bright-yellow letters. The tattoo on his left arm, an anchor embroidered with roses, had ‘USS Billfish’ bannered across it. A toothpick lingered forgotten in the corner of his mouth.

‘Wouldn’t it be illegal serving a bear beer? You can’t even take a dog in the supermarket back in America,’ Eliza whispered.

‘You can reason with a dog,’ the Magician said, which made as little sense as the bear at the bar drinking beer.

‘Gooda see yuh,’ the bartender said. ‘Everybody calls me Kraft American. I own the place, What’ll it be?’

‘I need something really strong. A piña colada,’ the Magician said. ‘And beer for my friend.’

‘Okay I make that piña colada with Russian rum?’ Kraft American asked.

‘Russian rum?’ the Magician said, somewhat aghast.

‘It’s all I got till my delivery tomorra’

‘Sure,’ the Magician said with a shrug. ‘It fits in perfect with everything else.’

‘Uh ... what’s with the bear there?’ Eliza asked.

‘Yuh mean the one with the hat?’

‘I don’t see any other bear in here.’

‘What can I tell you,’ Kraft American said apologetically. ‘He comes with the store, okay? The guy who owns the place before me, he’s kind of like a patriotic nut. The bear is just one thing. You haven’t gone to the john yet. You sit on the seat, a recording of “God Bless America” plays. Anyways, the deal is, the guy wants out. He offers me the place. The only catcher is, see, the bear stays. And his rah, rah, rah, America hat stays too. And the flag-wavin’ toilet seat, everything.’

‘Does he have a name?’

‘Name’s Harry S. Truman.’

‘Does he often tear a man’s clothes off his back?’ the Magician asked, still annoyed.

‘It was the piano. I woulda warned ya, but I didn’t see yuh siddown to play. Only problem we got with Harry S. is that the goddamn bear goes apeshit when he hears flat musical notes. Hurts his ears or sumpin. That piano ain’t been tuned since they built the Canal. The only way, see, to calm Harry S. down when he gets outa sorts like that, all yuh gotta do is whistle the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

‘You ever know a guy name of Red Bridges?’ Eliza asked.

‘Know him? Shit, yuh. Can’t count the nights I wheeled his ass outa here. Red was in here alla time. He loved Harry S. I mean, they was asshole buddies. Red’d sit there, tell that goddamn bear his troubles, he’d never talk to anybody else. He used to bitch about the dish.’

‘Dish?’ Eliza asked.

‘Yeah, enormous thing, maybe as big around as, uh, half a football field, Like that.’

‘What do you do with it, invite a thousand of your closest friends to dinner?’ said the Magician, looking around for a laugh.

Kraft American laughed. ‘That’s a good one,’ he said. Harry S. belched, then rolled his lips back and smiled at everybody.

‘Actually, what it is, it’s an underwater environment thing.’

‘How come it was so big?’ Eliza asked.

‘Uh, I dunno this fer certain, okay? This is scuttlebutt. But from what I hear, this saucer-type thing could sleep maybe twelve, fifteen people. Had regular apartments in it, like they was gonna live down there. It was designed by that Greek guy, y’know the one does all the underwater shit.’

‘Nicholas Kaginakas?’ Eliza said.

‘That’s the one. He died too. He was here for a while and then he went back to Greece and one day he dropped dead.’

‘What did Bridges make before they started building the dish?’ Eliza asked.

‘He was hot and heavy into the salvage business. Then Red bought about — oh, fifteen, sixteen of those old Liberty ships from World War II. Big, ugly bastards, but they could hold a ton. He worked on them for a while, refitting, putting in tanks.’

‘What for?’

‘Red comes up with the idea that you could gut them, put in storage tanks and use them for oil tankers. He did lotsa business, none of ‘em ever came back to complain. They was very unique, y’know, had ballast tanks in them like a submarine.’

‘Ballast tanks?’ said the Magician.

‘Yeah. I guess so’s they could equalize the way they float, empty and full.’

Harry S. picked up his empty mug between his paws and rapped on the bar, and Kraft American went down and drew him another beer.

‘What d’ya think?’ the Magician whispered to Eliza.

‘Didn’t Danilov say something about killing a man in Greece?’

The Magician nodded.

Kraft American came back with a pina colada and one draft beer.

‘This dish, you know where they took it?’ the Magician asked.

‘Nope.’

‘And Red Bridges died before it was finished?’

‘Yeah. Old Red was gettin’ fed up with the operation. It got bigger than he had planned. See, Red was just a good old pirate, a salvage jockey. He loved lookin’ for old wrecks. If he’d made a fortune dredging up some old treasure ship or a war vessel full of relics, that woulda made him happier than a pig in shit

— pardon the French, lady. But converting old tubs into tankers and building some underwater flyin’ saucer, that wasn’t his thing. That definitely was not his thing. He didn’t wanna be no big-timer.’

‘Did he ever find anything when he was salvaging?’ the Magician asked.

‘Sure. Just before he quit we found an old Jap troopship lyin’ in twelve fathoms off the Volcano Islands south of here. She was running from Iwo Jima in ‘45 and our dive bombers caught up with her. Then he got involved in this big-time shit and he never went back. She’s still down there, rusting away.’

‘Nobody else went back either?’

‘Far as I know, Red never reported the find. He was always planning to go back there when he retired.’

He stopped and shook his head forlornly, then went on, ‘He really agonized over selling the yard, though, after thirty-five years. I heard him tellin’ Harry S. all about it one night. He got a little soused, was unloadin’ on old Harry. Some people he worked with after the war wanted to buy him out. Poor son of a bitch dropped dead before he could make up his mind.’

‘Before?’ said Eliza.

‘Yeah. Two nights before he passed away, he’s in here with a bag on. He’s bitchin’ about gettin’ in a squeeze with the big boys. But what big boys he didn’t say.’

‘And nobody ever said what happened to the dish?’

Nope. Hauled it outa here — shit, must be three, four months ago now. Actually I’m glad it’s gone. Everything was very hush-hush, the guys’d come in, wouldn’t talk shop. That’s about the time they started hiring a lotta Jap guys. Hadda pass security tests, the whole shithouse mouse.’

Harry S. belched again. ‘Ye’re excused,’ Kraft American said.

‘Who owns the shipyard now?’ Eliza asked.

‘Uh, some big outfit over here. Can’t remember offhand, seems t’ me it’s down south somewhere.’

‘AMRAN?’ Eliza ventured.

‘No, sumpin like—’

‘San-San?’ said the Magician.

‘Yeah, you got it, man. That’s it, the San-San Company.’ Harry S. grumbled into his beer.

‘Whatsa matter, Harry, you got the blues?’ Kraft American said.

‘He gets the blues, “know, sits there with his face in the glass like some drunk, moaning.’

‘Maybe he’s horny,’ the Magician suggested.

‘I never thoughta that,’ Kraft American said and moved on down the bar to talk it over with Harry S., who continued to stare bleakly into his glass.

‘It’s beginning to fit together,’ Eliza said. ‘One more thing, Mr Kraft American, did Red ever mention the word “Midas” to you?’

‘Sure, lotsa times.’

‘He did?’

‘Yeah. That’s what they called the dish.’

4

It was almost midnight when he arrived at the house in Kyoto. He slipped through the gate, but the dogs were with him before he got to the garden. They went crazy. The male, Kazuo, threw back his head and groaned low in the throat, like a she wolf serenading the moon. ‘Quiet,’ he said in a hushed voice. He knew Kimura would be asleep by now, and there was no light in Sammi’s room. He went to the house in back. Tana was asleep, curled in a ball on her tatami, her black pigtail in a twist over her shoulder.

O’Hara was weary from the traveling
-
It had been three days since he had loosened up. He went down the hall away from Tana’s bedroom to the practice hail. It ‘as no larger than a big bedroom and its floor was covered with mats. One wall was mirrored, like in a ballet studio. He looked for the flowers. Tana put fresh flowers in the room for him every day whether he was there or not. The vase was in the corner, filled with yellow carnations, and the longing started.

The room was dark, streaked with light spilling in from outside, but he lit no lights.

He was relieved that Tana was asleep. He needed time to prepare his body, to clear his mind, to erase from it everything but the immediate objective.

Chameleon.

The ghost was nearby. He felt suffocated by its shroud. Everything else was immaterial.

He took off his shirt and sat for ten minutes in the lotus position in the center of the room without moving or blinking his eyes, listening to wind chimes, going to the wall. Then he unwound slowly, like a snake awakening in the sun, and in a series of moves so swift and smooth that he might have been a ballet dancer executing an intricate pas, he ran four stances: yoko-tobi-geri, the flying side kick; neko-ashi-dachi, the cat stance, for fast movement; zenkutsu-dachi, the forward stance, for punching; and kiba-dachi, the horse stance, for attacks to the side. And then, just as quickly, he ran four blows: the Tang hand, for chopping; Taisho, the classic palm, heel; and mawashi-zuki, the roundhouse strike to the collarbone.

He repeated the moves a dozen times, each time increasing his speed.

And then, just as quickly, he slowed the pace down, down, down, and twisting as if in slow motion and in one long move, he returned to the lotus position, where he sat motionless for another ten minutes.

He stood up and shook Out his hands. He was ready. And that is when he saw Tana. She was standing in the doorway, naked, her body streaked with dim light, with her hands at her sides and sleep in her eyes.

‘The dogs told me you were here,’ she said.

He stepped into a shaft of light and held his hands so she could read them. ‘You were so peaceful I didn’t want to awaken you. I forgot about the dogs.’

She smiled. ‘And would you have slept in here so as not to awaken me?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I can sleep anytime.’ She came close to him. ‘You have not come back to stay.’

‘No. Only to talk to Tokenrui-san’

‘He is away until tomorrow at the time of the last meal. But I would like to talk to you, to watch your lips.’

He reached out and touched her very lightly on the lips, and she, in turn, touched the end of his fingers with her tongue.

‘Sadness is written in your face,’ she said.

‘I am tired.’

‘It is not tired that I see.’

‘It is the wrong time to talk about it.’

She did not question his judgment. It was his thing to talk about and his right to pick the proper moment. Besides, he was here, even if only for the moment.

‘I have missed you, Kazuo. It is hard for me to sleep without the comfort of your arms.’

And I have thought much about you.’

She stroked his face with her fingertips. It is good to touch you again.’

Her nipples touched his chest and grew hard. She closed her eyes and said, ‘I have thought about you until I feel like a bee and am wet with wanting you.’

He pressed against her and stroked tier back, felt her move tighter against him. Her fingers moved to his pants and unbuckled them. She slid her hand down the front of them, felt him and wrapped her fingers around him and felt him surge at her touch. With her other hand she unzipped his pants and let them drop away. She took his hand with 1ers and put it between her legs, and guiding his fingers between her lips, began stroking herself with his hand. She licked her other hand and stroked him harder.

He felt her stiffen, rise up on her toes and begin to tremble. Her small screams seemed caught in her throat and then she opened her mouth and they came forth, a rush of cries that sent blood surging through his hard penis.

She guided him to her, felt him slipping into her and she wrapped one leg around his waist and rose and lowered herself on the toes of her other foot.

She enveloped him, sucked him deep into her, squeezed him and then released him, then she did it again. And again. And he too began to tremble. He groaned, only it was more like a growl, and then she wrapped her other leg around him and he grabbed her cheeks and began to rock her hips. Fire burned down his back, under his sac and then roared up through him and burst into her and she bit his lower lip as he cried out.

He dropped slowly to his knees, fell forward on one arm and lowered her to the floor. She lay there and looked up at him and her breath was still coming in short gasps.

‘It was so quick it is a memory already,’ she said. Come to bed, Kazuo, and you will awaken inside me and we will greet the sun with our cries.’

5

The short Japanese woman walked briskly down the fenced street to the kendo school. She could hear the sharp, flat reports of the bamboo swords striking each other before she entered the large, brightly lit room.

Inside, it might have been a scene from the seventeenth century. There were twenty students in all, each well protected by thick headgear and ribbed masks called
men
, hard, bamboo-backed jackets called do, by
kotes,
leather gauntlets covering their hands and wrists, and a padded tare shielding stomach and groin.

She walked down the side of the room to a podium in the front and stood silently in the corner, watching the master
sensei,
the teacher, as he seemed to float around the room, watching each of the teams as they dueled, occasionally stepping in to make a point. The
shinai
‘swords,’ made of four bamboo slats laced together at the grip with leather, smacked sharply as the students attempted to score points, striking at the top of the head, the right wrist, the right torso and the throat.

The
sensei
taught by example. When he wished to instruct a student he simply moved in, taking over the role of the opponent. His moves were dazzling. She saw him score three points with what looked like a single move. He bowed to the student and moved on, working his way across the room until he was near her.

He leaned his
shinai
against the wall,

‘Excuse me, Okari-san,’ she said. ‘I would not interrupt your class, but it-is important.’

‘I understand, Ichida,’ he said quietly. ‘I assume things are happening in Tokyo?’

‘Hai.
The one known as Kazuo is much better than we thought.’

‘So? Kei and his friends did not discourage him, then?’

‘Kei is in the hospital. His jaw is broken. The others were also hurt. He said it was like fighting the wind.’

The kendo master said nothing for several seconds. He watched his students at work, and without turning, asked, ‘And has he made progress, this Kazuo?’

‘Perhaps. He first went to the Hall of Records and then to visit a man named Hadashi at the Kancho-uchi. He was at the Kabuki Theatre asking questions about make-up and actors who have worked there in the past. And now he is here.’

‘In Kyoto?’

‘Hai. He stays at the home of the Tokenrui. And he has made plans to go to Tanabe later today.’

‘Interesting.’

‘He knows the country and our ways. He moves easily.’

‘He is just like the others. He was once with the CIA. They are all alike. What about the Englishman?’

‘He is much more subtle. It is as if they did not know each other.’

‘And the other two?’

‘They were still in Tokyo last night.’

‘I will deal with them later. Thank you. I am sorry about Kei, but I am sure he will recover. It is comforting to know I can rely on my friends.’

The Japanese called Ichida bowed again. ‘Shall we continue to follow him?’ she asked.

‘No. But keep the two in Tokyo in view. First I must dispose of the assassin, O’Hara, who poses as a journalist. After that, we will deal with the others.’

And with that he turned, and moving with the grace of a dancer, whirled through the students like a dervish, scoring point after point after point until he had challenged them all. And then he stopped and removed his men and laughed.