Dragon Dance Read online

  “I want you to put these on.”

  “No, you put them on,” glowered Mark.

  “All right, let’s do the rock, paper, scissors game. The winner can decide.”

  They did the rock, paper, scissors game and Jenny won. She sat on the bed dangling the handcuffs and grinning like a cat.

  “I’m looking forward to this, Hot Lips Fletcher.”

  Mark gazed at her, eyes narrowed. What would his father do in a situation like this, where principles were in conflict with business logic. No question—principles would go out the window. His father would take what he wanted.

  Mark grabbed her by the wrist, and gave her a backhanded slap across the side of her face. It was harder than he’d intended, and sent her flying across the bed. Before she could recover, he was on top of her, wrenching the [183] handcuffs from her grasp. She flailed with arms and legs, raking her fingernails across his left cheek, but in seconds she was pinned to the bed.

  “Liar!” she spat.

  “Not as big a liar as you.”

  Mark dropped the handcuff keys in his trouser pocket. Then he sat beside her on the bed, teasing her breasts, watching her nipples rise and harden.

  She tossed her head from side to side, rattling the handcuffs. “Come on, Mark,” she murmured. “You can do anything you want.”

  Mark brushed his fingers across her face and she took them into her mouth, nibbling and licking. Then suddenly she bit down hard, sinking her front teeth into the first joint of his forefinger.

  “Yow! You really are vicious!”

  Mark rolled on top of her, pinning her with his full weight. He used his knee to force her thighs apart, then slid down her body until his eyes were level with her pubic mound. There, on the inside of her left thigh, was a bluish-black star shape, about two inches wide. Through the water of the swimming pool it had looked like a bruise, but now he could see it was a birthmark. Ricky Patel had asked him to confirm it, and now he had.

  “Aren’t you going to punish me?” she murmured. “There are some other things in the drawer, if you want.”

  Mark fingered his cheek, where Jenny’s nails had drawn a few drops of blood. Then he stood up and gazed around the room. On top of the dresser were a couple of Jeffrey Archer novels, a strange choice for an expert in American literature. In the cupboard he could see his father’s suits and shirts. Hanging from the door was the monogrammed silk dressing gown that Mum had given him as a birthday present years ago.

  “Next time, maybe.”

  “Next time? What do you mean?”

  “Sorry, I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

  Jenny stared up at him, legs splayed apart, eyes blazing. “What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you man enough to fuck me?”

  There was something about the aggrieved Mary Poppins voice that caused Mark to chuckle out loud.

  “No, I don’t think I am,” he said, turning for the door.

  Jenny was spitting obscenities, rattling the handcuffs against the bed-frame. He wondered how she would treat her houseboys when they appeared in the morning. Looking right through them wouldn’t be an option.

  SIXTEEN

  Martine spent the evening at her computer, nibbling chocolate cookies and running down information on the Atami incident. A number of sensational events had taken place in Atami over the years, including love suicides, battles between biker gangs, insurance murders, and the mysterious deaths of some construction company executives, but there was only one that the press consistently referred to as the Atami incident. This was something that had happened thirty years ago, when the student radicalism of the late sixties was declining into murderous factional rivalry.

  Three members of the Workers Revolutionary Army had fled to Atami after a fire-bomb attack on the underground headquarters of the fanatical Red Core Faction. They were living under assumed names in a cheap guesthouse, staying inside during daylight hours and constantly on guard for police surveillance. Then one night, as they were strolling down a quiet residential side street on their way back from the local yakitori restaurant, a van drew up alongside them and out spilled half-a-dozen Red Core Faction members wielding steel pipes. According to witnesses they were wearing crash helmets and face masks and screaming like banshees. The operation had been well planned, as the police discovered. Telephone lines had been cut to prevent anyone calling for help, and the steel pipes had been taped at one end. They didn’t want their hands to slip as they set to work crushing their enemies’ skulls.

  Two of the victims died instantly, the third suffered brain damage. The case was never solved, and no suspects were ever named. No surprise there, thought Martine. The police would not have been too troubled by the prospect of the radicals annihilating each other.

  So that was the Atami incident, a minor outrage in a half-forgotten era of turmoil and blood-drenched psychosis. The question was how on earth it related to Nozawa here and now. Martine had no answer to that. She went [185] through every reference she could find, but nothing fitted. If this was the key, where was the lock?

  Martine went to bed, her head spinning with a jumble of messages, phone calls, interviews, headlines from an alternate universe, conversations with nonexistent people. When she closed her eyes, lines of newsprint went scrolling across the inside of her eyelids.

  In the summer Martine usually slept naked, but tonight she wore a light cotton kimono that Makoto had brought her from Kyoto. Her sleep was fitful. Once she woke up in a cold sweat, convinced that someone was in the room. She switched on the light and glimpsed a lizard scuttling behind an antique chest. She had nothing against lizards—they fought the good fight against mosquitoes and other insects—but all the same she got up and closed the bathroom window. On the way back she took a bottle of Makoto’s new premium beer from the refrigerator and sat and drank it with slow relish. This was the nutty, foamy, eight-percent-alcohol beer. The taste was deeply relaxing. It made her want to stretch out on the sofa, gazing at the shadows on the ceiling, thinking about Makoto, the things they’d done together here on this sofa ...

  The next thing she knew the digital clock was winking six-thirty and sunshine was streaming through the gap in the curtains. Outside, the cicadas were fizzing and the crows were limbering up for their daily depredations. Martine rolled off the sofa, feeling as heavy-headed and blurred as if she had just flown around the world twice.

  She made some coffee, did twenty minutes of yoga, then switched on the TV. The top story on NHK was the launch of the National Regeneration Party. There was a video clip of yesterday’s press conference—first a close-up of Nozawa talking about his plans for agricultural subsidies, then a reaction shot of a blond woman in the audience nodding in silent agreement. Martine cringed. She always looked so big and clumsy on TV, an overgrown schoolgirl pretending to be serious. And this shot was spectacularly unflattering. The way they caught the line of her jaw, it almost looked as if she had a double chin!

  Martine quickly switched channel to INN, just in time for the international news. The first story was Romania again, and the massacre of gypsies which all sides were blaming on each other. The second item was about Yamada Motor, now under concerted attack for the SUV rollovers. One of the victims’ lawyers—a handsome young finger-wagger right out of a John Grisham novel—was explaining the class action suit.

  “We want to send a clear message to Yamada Motors and all other irresponsible foreign corporations. No more will you be allowed to bring death and destruction to ordinary American families. No more will you get away with lies and cover-ups. No more will you trample on the values of freedom and democracy ...”

  [186] The damages were being estimated at several billion dollars. Yamada was Japan’s second-largest auto manufacturer, but that would blow its balance sheet to smithereens.

  The third story concerned the diplomatic tremors caused by Nozawa’s nukes comment. The Chinese and the Koreans had already registered “disquiet and anger.” The Europeans were appealing for calm on a
ll sides. The US was demanding an official clarification. So what did the experts think? Cut to a sharp-faced man making shapes with his hands as he talked rapidly into the camera.

  “This is certainly the most serious threat to Asian stability for decades. In my view the only way to halt Japanese adventurism is through a new policy of containment. We need to draw a line in the sand right now.”

  The title at the bottom of the screen said “Jim Murphy, Tokyo bureau chief of the Tribune.” So this was the obnoxious Murphy! Martine had been expecting an older man, someone with the presence to back up his domineering management style. But Murphy was no older than Martine herself, and he was wriggling around with the nervous energy of an eel.

  Cut back to the anchor, the woman with saucer eyes and lips stretching to the edge of her face.

  “So Jim—what do you make of this guy Nozawa? Is he for real?”

  Murphy nodded vigorously. “He most surely is. Nozawa is the most popular politician in Japan. In fact, since the UNG scandal he’s the only popular politician. In my view he will be the next prime minister.”

  Back to the rubber-mouthed anchor. Martine wondered if she did stretching exercises every morning, pulling her lips open with her fingers.

  “And that was Jim Murphy, the man who broke the story of Japan’s nuclear threat ...”

  “WHAT!” yelled Martine at the screen. “Say that again, you brainless bimbo!”

  But the brainless bimbo was already on to the next story, the wave of strikes across Europe. Martine switched off the TV and went to get her karate gear. Suddenly she felt wide awake.

  Murphy wanted her out, she was convinced of it. First that comment about “full authority over personnel matters.” Now this theft—for that’s what it was, outright larceny—of the Nozawa scoop. It was a deliberate insult to her professionalism. And to think that she had been glad to see the back of poor old Charlie! Clearly, Murphy had no intention of developing a working relationship. His game plan would probably be to demote her to “researcher” or some such menial job, pick up the contacts she had spent years cultivating, and then find some excuse to fire her. Well, she wasn’t just going to roll over and let it happen. She would fight back, hard and dirty. It wouldn’t be easy—the word was that Murphy had powerful friends in the InfoCorp [187] organization—but Martine had some ammunition of her own. She would put the word out and make sure Murphy got not a sliver of cooperation anywhere where she had any influence.

  Martine was still fuming when the doorbell rang. She glanced at the security monitor in the wall. A motorbike messenger was standing in the lobby, holding a package up to the camera. She let him in, wondering who on earth would request a delivery at this time of the morning.

  The answer, from the label on the envelope, was Shimizu.

  “Sign here, please,” smirked the messenger, obviously delighted to meet a half-dressed blond woman in the course of his duties. His breath was heavy with the odor of pickled radish. Martine took a step back and signed without a word. The messenger strode down the corridor, his “DaiNippon Transport” bag swinging jauntily from his shoulder. Martine had a strong presentiment he would turn at the corner and give another gap-toothed smirk. He did, but by then Martine’s door had slammed shut.

  The label on the envelope said “photo.” Martine remembered the unflattering profile that had just flashed across her TV screen and been viewed in millions of households all over Japan. If this was the publicity material from yesterday’s press conference, she only hoped her own picture had not been included.

  But the envelope did not contain publicity material of any sort. Instead there was just one photo inside, a grainy black-and-white image that looked as if it had been blown up several times. It showed a woman in jeans and black turtleneck sweater, arms folded, gazing down at two men sitting cross-legged on the floor. Her eyes were startlingly beautiful, and her hair fell in curtains over her shoulders. The men, both seen from the back, were wearing helmets. On the wall behind were revolutionary slogans, a poster of Che Guevara, and, dimly visible, a banner that read “Red Core Faction.”

  Martine gazed at the photo in bemusement. Why had Shimizu sent her this? Or—wait a moment—was Shimizu really the sender? The reference to the “Red Core Faction” was too much of a coincidence. She went back inside, picked up the phone, and called the number on the envelope.

  The phone rang a dozen times before a surly voice answered.

  “Yes? What do you want?”

  “Is that DaiNippon Transport?”

  “No. This is Shinjuku Police Station. What do you want?”

  It must be a misprint, thought Martine as she put down the phone.

  She called directory assistance and got the number for DaiNippon Transport. It bore no resemblance to the number printed on the outside of the envelope. This time the voice that answered was female, ecstatically polite, and on roughly the same frequency as a canary.

  [188] “DaiNippon Transport here. Thank you very much for your patronage. How may we be of service?”

  “I’d like to check some information please.”

  “Yes, certainly. What would you like to know?”

  “It’s about a delivery you just made to my apartment.”

  “To your apartment?” twittered the woman in surprise. “But we don’t make deliveries to people’s apartments. Our company specializes in transporting cranes, bulldozers, and heavy construction equipment.”

  “Not documents?”

  “Unfortunately not.”

  “Sincere apologies,” cooed Martine, answering in the same register. “Could please tell me if there is another company called DaiNippon Transport in the Tokyo area?”

  The woman put her hand over the phone and yelled out the question in a twenty-cigarettes-a-day voice with a strong Osaka accent.

  “I have just checked with my colleagues,” she said, returning to her saccharine squeak. “There is no such company. We have been in business for twenty years, and no such confusion has ever occurred before.”

  Martine slowly put down the phone. She remembered the messenger’s leering face, his yellow teeth, the smell of radish on his breath. Could that have been the stalker at her door, staring over her shoulder into her apartment? If so, it was a violation, deliberate and mocking. The very idea made her shudder.

  Today’s matchup with the cop Saya Miki was closer than usual. Martine caught her off-balance several times and once sent her staggering backward with a reverse kick to the center of her face guard. Afterward they sat in the changing room, towels around their waists, and swilled cold green tea and chatted about men, dogs, and the condition of being a woman at this particular moment in history.

  “I’ve always wanted to ask you this question,” said Martine suddenly. “What’s it like being a female detective?”

  “What’s it like? What part do you mean?

  “Well, you’re in the middle of a man’s world. Most of your colleagues are male, the prosecutors are male, the criminals are male. How do you get on with all that?”

  Saya Miki gave one of her enigmatic smiles. “Is this an interview?” she asked dryly.

  Martine wrinkled her nose, annoyed with herself. Unconsciously she had slipped into her journalist’s persona, something Makoto complained about [189] from time to time. “Stop asking questions,” he’d said once when they were lying in an outdoor hot-spring bath surrounded by snow. “This isn’t supposed to be material for an article.”

  “Sorry, Saya-san.”

  “No problem. But if we’re going to interview each other, let me go first.”

  “All right then. Go ahead.”

  Saya Miki pushed out her fist as if it held a microphone. “So tell me, Meyer-san, what does it feel like to be a female journalist in Japan?”

  “What’s it like? What part do you mean?”

  Saya Miki’s smile got a little wider and her fist a little closer. “Well, you’re in the middle of a man’s world. The people you interview, the politicians
and businessmen and so on, they’re nearly all male, and they nearly all have the same thing in mind.”

  “Which thing?”

  “They want to take your clothes off and kiss your naked body.”

  “What?” exclaimed Martine, sitting bolt upright on the bench.

  “You know it’s true. You know what men are like, worse than dogs after bones.”

  “Are they?”

  “Sure,” said Saya Miki, eyes twinkling. “Every single one. Looking the way you do, it really can’t be helped.”

  “Well, I’m not going to argue with you. But as for being a female journalist—actually there are some serious disadvantages.”

  “Like what?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yes.”

  Martine closed her hands around Saya Miki’s fist. “All right then, let’s put away the microphone.”

  Before she knew what she was doing, Martine was spilling out the story of the stalker, the delivery man, the mysterious e-mails. She wasn’t sure why she was revealing these things—after all, she hadn’t breathed a word to Makoto—but there was something about Saya Miki that was comforting, instantly trustworthy in a way a man could never be. It was like talking to her big sister, except that Martine didn’t have a big sister.

  “Weird stuff,” said Saya thoughtfully. “And what was inside this envelope?”

  Here Martine hesitated. Going further would mean giving away the story, potentially a much bigger scoop than the nukes interview.

  “It’s hard to explain,” said Martine. “You’re a cop after all.”

  “Not if you don’t want me to be,” said Saya, giving her a squeeze on the forearm. “I’m an ordinary human being too, you know.”

  She sat there smiling, wet hair hanging down over her breasts. The nipples, [190] peeking through the strands of hair, were semierect after the cold shower. Not for the first time, Martine felt a tinge of envy as she glanced at her. This woman was five years older than Martine, ate and drank what she wanted when she wanted, and nowhere on her body was there an unwanted bulge or suspicious dimple. She never wore makeup, hardly even bothered to comb her hair, and yet there were Hollywood actresses spending billions of dollars to look like Saya Miki.