Dragon Dance Read online

  Martine said good-bye to Lemaitre, who was off to make an early start on the Shinjuku nightlife. This crisis suited him fine, much better than the tedium of bourgeois prosperity. The best restaurants were always half empty, antique porcelain was getting cheaper and cheaper, and the rent boys were much better educated. The opportunities to “embrace instability” were frequent and cheap.

  The train doors opened, and twenty Nozawa look-alikes spilled out onto the platform. Martine had never seen so many different Nozawas in one place. There were tall Nozawas swinging their bony arms, short square-hipped Nozawas, smooth-faced fifteen-year-old Nozawas, tough middle-aged Nozawa’s with bulging biceps and hairy forearms, even one or two female Nozawas with their hair pinned up under rising sun headbands.

  Nozawa was everywhere, Nozawa was everyone. He was a fruit-juice salesman, a rocker in a leather jacket, a crooner in a tuxedo, an idealistic folksinger holding hands with his girlfriend, an auto worker brandishing a welding tool, a farmer bent over in a rice paddy. He was your brother, your father, your lover. He was Charles de Gaulle or Ryoma Sakamoto or Saddam Hussein. He was whatever you wanted him to be.

  [176] Martine went straight back to her apartment and had a shower. She pulled on a new pair of denim shorts and a Tintin T-shirt that Makoto had bought for her at the Tintin museum in Brussels. It showed Tintin running with notebook in hand, Snowy yapping at his heels. “My favorite journalist—until I met you, that is,” said Makoto. A double-edged compliment, but she was used to those by now.

  She did some stretching exercises, then made herself a long glass of mint tea, and took it out onto the balcony.

  It was her favorite time of day, the sun sliding toward the horizon, moving a little closer every time you looked away. The eastern half of the sky was indigo, with a sliver of moon already surprisingly high. One by one the neon signs were flickering into life, pulsing and twisting and fizzing, turning the city into a vast electronic book. It made you feel cooler somehow, though the temperature hadn’t changed at all.

  Only when the sun had gone did Martine go back inside, ready to face an evening’s work. There were two messages waiting on her answering machine. The first was from Makoto, asking in rather hurt tones why she hadn’t been in touch. He had obviously called before reading the provocative e-mail she’d sent him that morning. The second message was from Kyo-san, warning her not to come back to the office. Apparently the phone hadn’t stopped ringing since she left. Amongst the dozens of people demanding to talk to her about the Nozawa interview were a senior official of the Defense Agency, a staffer from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gary Terashima of the US Embassy, and the producer of InfoCorp Network News, calling in person from the command center in Los Angeles. Martine was in no mood to talk to any of them. She did try to get hold of Makoto—it would have been nice to give him the same message over the phone, and to listen to his embarrassed but secretly delighted struggle for words—but he had already left.

  Martine poured herself another glass of mint tea and switched on the computer. There were dozens of messages, most of which she deleted unread. Just as she was about to close the mail folder a new message arrived. It had no title or name.

  Sweet angel,

  That was a brilliant piece about Nozawa in today’s paper. All the same it is not worth wasting too much time on this story. Soon he will not be able to cause any more problems. Incidentally, those blue shorts suit you so well. What color panties are you wearing underneath?

  An icy finger ran down Martine’s spine. Blue shorts? She’d never worn them before in her life. Which meant one thing—he must be out there right now, watching her.

  [177] She rushed to the window and jerked the curtains shut. For a moment she stood there frozen to the spot. What should she do? Call the police? Call a security company? She made a little gap in the curtains and peered down at the street. There was the usual throng of people, a few standing outside the convenience store, a few more waiting at the bus stop. But he didn’t have to be at ground level. He could be in that big office building, staring out of one of the windows. Or he could be further away, lying on a rooftop with a pair of infrared binoculars. After all, this man was no ordinary stalker. He foretold plane crashes and mass poisonings and explosions in chemical plants. And the only way he could possibly have foretold these things was if he was actually involved in making them happen.

  The telephone rang, and Martine practically jumped out of her skin. She let it ring five times then, hands trembling, picked up the receiver. There was nobody at the other end, just clicks and buzzes.

  “What do you want?” she whispered

  “What’s going on over there? Your voice sounds very strange.”

  It was Makoto, calling from London. Martine breathed a huge sigh of relief. For a moment she felt like spilling out everything, the stalker at the window, the plane crash, the predictions ... The predictions! What about the new one? “Soon he will not be able to cause any more problems”—what was that supposed to mean?

  “Martine, is something wrong? I can’t hear you. Please say something.”

  Makoto’s voice sounded strained, genuinely worried. At that moment Martine knew that she wasn’t going [to] tell him anything. If she did, he would want her to drop the story immediately, and then she would have to refuse because she couldn’t drop a story with this potential. Every journalistic fiber of her being rebelled at the idea.

  “Oh—I’m sorry. My mind was somewhere else.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes, kind of.”

  “I see. Well, I was just calling to say that I miss you very much.”

  “Yes, I miss you very much too.”

  Martine was finding it hard to concentrate. The man watching her on the balcony—how long had he been watching her apartment? How many times had she passed him on the street without knowing?

  “I want to get back as soon as possible. I’ve got important things to say, but it’s difficult to talk on the phone.”

  “Yes, it’s difficult.”

  Martine’s eyes were fixed on the computer screen. She needed to answer the stalker immediately, draw him in closer, get him to give away more ...

  “I’m sorry if I’m clumsy with words sometimes. I was brought up to be [178] clumsy with words, just as you were brought up to be graceful ...”

  “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It doesn’t matter?”

  “No, I understand you.”

  Now they were talking in clichés, saying nothing. Martine sensed his discomfort and ended the conversation as soon as she could. This really wasn’t the moment.

  She sat down at the computer and batted out a fast reply.

  Why are you following me around? And what else do you know about Nozawa?

  The answer came immediately.

  I am interested in you because you are the most beautiful journalist in the world. As for the Nozawa situation, the key to everything is the Atami incident.

  Martine got up and peered through the curtains again. There was a man at the bus stop fiddling with his mobile phone. That could be him. But what about the young guy squatting in front of the convenience store, also fiddling with a mobile, now raising his head and gazing straight at her apartment? That could be him too, as could the man in shirtsleeves at the window of the office building, or the driver of that parked van. He could be anywhere.

  Martine sat down again. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

  I want to know more. Why don’t we meet somewhere and discuss it?

  What would Makoto say if he was looking over her shoulder right now? Would he be appalled by her recklessness? She put the question out of her mind and sent the message before the guilt had time to settle.

  Tonight demure Jenny Leung and stern businesslike Jenny Leung were nowhere to be found. It was raunchy Jenny all the way, right from the moment she opened the door of the Beverly Hills house and, in full view of the Filipina housemaid, slipped her arms around Ma
rk’s neck and her tongue into his ear. Then she broke away with a giggle.

  “Isn’t my stepson cute? He’s so different from his father, it’s unbelievable.”

  “What’s so different?” asked Mark, stepping into the house.

  [179] “For one thing, you’re a gentleman with women, whereas your father is a complete ruffian. He just takes what he wants whenever he wants it.”

  “I see.”

  Mark didn’t see, and he didn’t want to see. The thought of what his father got up to with Jenny was something he had learned to blank out of his mind.

  “I invited some friends for dinner. I think you’ll find them quite amusing.”

  This was unexpected. Mark had envisaged a lengthy, gently probing conversation with Jenny. Now he found that there were four other people seated around the pool waiting for him. Two were instantly recognizable—Flic Marsden and Candi di Lucci, the young stars of Glory over the Pacific, the biggest hit that InfoCorp’s movie subsidiary had produced in years. There was even talk of an Oscar for Flic’s portrayal of a heroic young pilot and another for Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of General MacArthur.

  The other two were from the INN cable channel, a senior editor and a newscaster with pneumatic lips and breasts that defied the laws of gravity.

  They drank cocktails by the side of the pool and chatted about movie people and TV people and who was on the way up and who was on the way down. Then Jenny arrived with a silver tray carrying a silver box. Mark lifted the lid and gazed dubiously at the white powder inside.

  “What’s the matter, darling stepson? I suppose your dear wife wouldn’t approve.”

  “It’s nothing to do with my wife. I need to have a clear head tomorrow.”

  “This stuff is excellent quality,” said Jenny, ever the gracious hostess. “Tomorrow you’ll be in top form, I assure you.”

  Mark shook his head, wondering if drugs on a tray had been a regular feature of his father’s new lifestyle. It seemed incredible—after all, his father had been noted for his medieval views on the punishment of drug offenders. And yet Warwick had been determined to form close personal relations with the top people in the music and movie industries. His ambition had always been to transform InfoCorp from an information company into an entertainment company. Mark knew his father well enough to appreciate that whenever principles had clashed with business logic, business logic had always been the easy victor.

  Suddenly Candi di Lucci stepped out of her backless, deep-cleavage dress, peeled off her thong, and dived into the swimming pool. The newscaster did the same, revealing a clean-shaven pubic mound, and then their two partners joined them in the pool, splashing and yelling.

  Mark stood at the edge, sipping gin and tonic.

  “No chickening out this time,” hissed Jenny in his ear.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be shy, Mark. I promise not to look.”

  “You can look if you want. It doesn’t bother me.”

  [180] Jenny took him at his word, sitting down a yard of front of him and staring as he kicked off his boxer shorts. “Not a bit like your father,” she smirked.

  Mark ignored her, and broke the surface of the water with a perfect swan dive. Jenny was the last to undress, turning away from the pool as she slipped off her panties. Was she shy, or just pretending?

  “Horses and jockeys,” she called out, once she had slipped into the water.

  Before Mark had time to think, Candi di Lucci had clambered onto his back and wrapped her statuesque legs around his neck. Jenny had vaulted onto the news editor’s shoulders, and the INN newscaster—a hefty woman whose buttocks alone would outweigh a good-sized sack of potatoes—was perched on the slender shoulders of the Oscar candidate, Flic Marsden. They rushed at each other, jousting with slaps and shoves, then switched partners. Next, Mark had the newscaster bouncing and yelling on his shoulders, her bare labia rubbing against the back of his neck. Then finally he was carrying Jenny, whose thigh muscles held him in a grip of steel.

  “Come on, Mark,” she growled. “Let’s see what you can do.” She spread her hands across the top of his head, massaging his scalp before suddenly grabbing a hank of hair in each hand.

  “Yow!” shouted Mark.

  “When I pull left you go left, and when I pull right you go right.”

  Mark jumped, twisted, sent her sailing over his head and crashing into the water face first. There was laughter from the others. Jenny came spluttering to the surface and stared at him with an expression of pure malice.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “Not as much you will be, stepson.”

  The others laughed again. Jenny joined in, but her eyes didn’t change at all.

  Dinner was out on the patio, a “nouvelle asiatique” blend of French and Chinese cuisine prepared by the chef under Jenny’s personal direction and served by a team of Filipino houseboys. Jenny treated them the same way she treated all social inferiors. She didn’t so much ignore them as look straight through them. For her they simply didn’t exist.

  Flic Marsden talked about Glory over the Pacific, the biggest budget war movie ever made. Audiences all over the world were thrilling to the hologram technology used in the Battle of Midway sequence, the computer simulation of the bombing of Hiroshima, and the final scene when Flic parachutes into the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and defeats a whole division of Japanese troops single-handed.

  Hot-tempered Jenny had been replaced by Jenny the far-sighted visionary. She talked technology, business theory, the need to swim with the tides of history, the need to destroy in order to create, the need to think visually not verbally.

  [181] “Chinese people are already visual thinkers because our writing system is made of pictures. But in Western writing the words have no relation to what they’re supposed to be describing. They’re like grey insects crawling across the page.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” queried Mark, toying with a slice of stir-fried abalone set on a bed of Andalusian goat cheese.

  “There’s nothing particularly wrong with it,” replied Jenny haughtily. “But it’s inefficient and inappropriate for learning to think visually.”

  “Inefficient? How’s that?”

  “Well, the problem with verbal thinking is that words have different meanings for different people. In visual thinking, all people can be trained to see the same image. If I say the word ‘Coca Cola,’ we probably have the same thing in mind, but if I say the word ‘tree’ we all have different ideas. The merit of visual thinking is that all people will get to think the same ‘tree,’ just like we think the same ‘Coca Cola.’ ”

  “Cool,” said Candi di Lucci, on her fourth glass of Chardonnay. “We’ll all be turning Chinese.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all.”

  Mark smiled at Jenny’s irritation, but said nothing.

  After dinner there was brandy, more white powder from the silver box, and another naked frolic in the swimming pool. The other guests took off shortly before midnight, leaving Mark and Jenny staring at each other in the main lounge. Outside, gas-flame torches flickered in the breeze, lighting up the faces of the Greek statues that decorated the long, rolling lawn.

  “You don’t like me very much, do you?” said Jenny, crossing her elegant legs.

  “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “I can’t say I blame you. I broke up your father’s marriage and turned the company upside down, and now he’s in hospital after having a stroke. Naturally you consider that my fault too.”

  “Well it certainly wouldn’t have happened if he’d stayed with my mother.”

  Jenny shook her head slowly, like a teacher reprimanding a child. “Sometimes I think I know your father better than you do. Playing it safe is not in his nature. He has to be in motion, he has to be thinking ahead. I’ve never known anyone with so much male energy.”

  How many men had Jenny known, Mark wondered. How old was she really anyway? From her appearance she could
be anywhere between twenty-five and forty-five.

  “As I told you before, he takes whatever he wants. And one of the things he wanted was me.”

  “Did he know what he was getting into?”

  “Of course. He understands women very well. Much better than his son does.”

  [182] “Oh really?”

  There was a moment of silence as their eyes locked.

  “You see, that proves it,” said Jenny with a sniff of contempt.

  “Proves what?”

  “Your father wouldn’t just sit there staring at me. He would understand what the situation requires and act.”

  She crossed her legs the other way and gazed at him, glossy-lipped, pouting and mocking at the same time. Mark saw what the situation required. He acted. Jenny didn’t resist as he picked her up and marched upstairs.

  He pushed open the door of the master bedroom with his foot and tossed her onto the bed. She pulled him down on top of her, sinking her teeth into the side of his neck. Mark jammed his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her away, and kissed her roughly on the mouth.

  “So you are a tough guy after all,” she breathed, fingernails digging into his back.

  Mark grabbed the neckline of her dress, twisted it around his fist.

  “Hey, what are you doing? It’s a Manuel Blani.”

  Mark twisted and pulled, and the dress tore right down the seam.

  “Hey! You now owe me fifty thousand dollars.”

  “You owe me billions, bitch!” Mark shoved her down on the bed, and ripped off her panties one-handed.

  “That’s another two thousand, you ruffian.”

  “Shut up,” snapped Mark. He had never done anything like this before, and was starting to enjoy it.

  “Wait—I want to get something.” Jenny slid across the bed and opened the top drawer of the dresser. From inside she fished out two sets of handcuffs. Mark experienced a sudden decline in ardor. For some reason he pictured his father lying prone on the hospital bed, tubes and wires snaking around his head and chest.