Kazuo Onishi glanced across the smoky singles bar and then looked back at the
sudsy inch of beer remaining in his mug. She was stunning: long blond hair, a
pert nose, a mischievous smile. What was she doing alone at the bar?
“Kaz, is that honey on the bar stool hitting on you?”
So it had to be true: even his friend Dexter had noticed.
Onishi smiled. “Why do you sound surprised?” he smirked. “The ladies know a true
stud muffin when they see one.”
“Must be why you’ve gone home alone the last half a dozen times we’ve been
here,” said Dexter Fillmore, a bespectacled black man whose own luck wasn’t much
better. The two had known each other since their days at Caltech; now, they
never discussed work—since what they both did was classified, that issue simply
did not arise—but they had few secrets when it came to affairs of the heart, or
just plain affairs. “I’m an eligible bachelor, I make a good living: the ladies
should be taking a number and getting in line,” Onishi regularly complained.
“Would that be an irrational number or an imaginary one?” Fillmore would
snicker.
But now it looked as though Kazuo Onishi had himself a live one.
The woman’s third glance definitely had some linger to it.
“Call in the referee,” Onishi said, ” ’cause we’re looking at a knockout.”
“Come on, you’re always saying how much a girl’s personality matters,” Dexter
protested playfully. “What could be more superficial than to make judgments from
across the room?”
“Aw, she’s got a great personality,” Onishi said. “You can just tell.”
“Yeah,” said his friend. “I bet you love the way her personality fills that
tight sweater of hers.”
And now the woman was walking toward him, daintily holding a cosmopolitan. His
luck was definitely changing.
“Somebody sitting here?” she asked, pointing to an empty chair near Onishi. She
sat down and placed her cocktail next to his beer mug, then signaled a waitress
for refills. “OK, I don’t usually do this, but I was waiting for my ex-boyfriend
who still has issues, if you know what I’m talking about, and I swear, the
bartender here starts hitting on me. I mean, what’s up with that?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Onishi, looking innocent. “So where’s the boyfriend?”
“Ex,” she said pointedly. “Just got a call on my cell phone, said a sudden
emergency at work came up. So whatever. Trust me, I wasn’t looking forward to
it, anyway. I think the only way he’s going to stop calling me is for him to get
a new girlfriend.” She turned to Onishi and smiled a dazzling smile. “Or for me
to get a new boyfriend.”
Dexter Fillmore finished his beer and coughed. “I’m going to get a pack of
Camels. You guys want anything?”
“Get me one,” Onishi said.
After Fillmore left, the blonde turned to Onishi and made a face. “You smoke
Camels?”
“Not big on smoking, huh?”
“That’s not it. But, please, we can do better than that slot-machine shit. You
ever try a Balkan Sobranie? Now that’s a real cigarette.”
“A what?”
She opened her handbag and pulled out a metal tin. It contained a row of black
unaltered cigarettes with gold tips. “Fresh from a diplomatic pouch,” she said.
She handed him one. “Try it,” she said. A lighter materialized in her hand as
well.
A girl who’s good with her hands, Onishi thought as he took a deep drag.
Promising. He was also relieved that she hadn’t slipped in the what-do-you-do
question yet. He always answered that he was a “systems administrator for the
government,” and nobody ever asked further, though if they did he had a
practiced line about “platform interoperability” involving the Departments of
Agriculture and Transportation. It was so stupefying that it was guaranteed to
repel further inquiries. But the real reason he was glad she hadn’t asked was
that the one thing he did not want to think about was his job. His real job. In
recent days it had become so stressful that his shoulders began to ache as soon
as he went to his office. What a string of bad luck they’d had. Fucking
unspeakable. All that sweat, all those years—and the goddamn Mobius Program was
imploding. He needed to get lucky in some other department of life. Hell, he
deserved to get lucky.
The beautiful blonde’s eyes lingered on his face as the thick smoke filled his
lungs. Something about him seemed to fascinate her. A new song came on: the one
from the soundtrack of that big new World War II flick. Onishi loved that song.
For a moment, he felt he might fly away with happiness.
He coughed. “Strong,” he said.
“It’s what cigarettes used to be like,” she said. She spoke with a very faint
accent, but he couldn’t tell what kind. “Now be a man. Suck it in.”
He took another drag.
“Special, isn’t it?” she said.
“A little harsh,” he said, tentatively.
“Not harsh, rich. I swear with most American cigarettes you might as well be
smoking typing paper.”
Onishi nodded, but in truth he was beginning to feel more than a little dizzy.
It must really be strong tobacco. He felt himself flushing, and starting to
sweat.
“Oh my poor dear, look at you,” the blonde said. “You seem like you could use
some fresh air.”
“Might do some good,” Onishi agreed.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk together.” He started to reach for his
wallet but she put down a twenty, and he was feeling too faint to demur. Dexter
would be wondering what happened to him, but he could explain later.
Outdoors, in the cooler air, the dizzy feeling persisted.
She reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly. In the streetlights, she
looked even more beautiful—unless that was more evidence of his dizzy state.
“You don’t seem so steady on your feet, you know,” she said.
“No,” he said, and he knew he had a silly grin on his face but could do nothing
about it.
She made a tsking noise of mock reproach. “Big hunk like you, laid low by a
Balkan Sobranie?”
Blondie thought he was a big hunk? That was encouraging. A major positive data
point in the multivariate mess that was his sex life. His grin became wider.
At the same time, he found his thoughts growing oddly scrambled, though he also
found it hard to care.
“Let’s get in my car and go for a drive,” she said, and her voice sounded as if
it were coming from miles away and something inside him was saying, Maybe this
isn’t a good idea, Kaz, and he found he could do nothing but say yes.
He would go with the beautiful stranger. He would do what she said. He would be
hers.
He was only dimly aware of her smoothly shifting the gears of her blue
convertible and driving off somewhere with the controlled movements of somebody
who had a schedule to keep.
“I’m going to show you the time of your life, Kazuo,” she said, her hands
brushing his crotch as she reached over to lock his door.
A thought glinted and flashed: I never told her my name. It was followed by
another thought: Something is very wrong with me. And then all such thoughts
disappeared into the dark void that was now his mind.
PART THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Hasid, nervously clutching his battered hard-sided briefcase, walked over to
the railed edge of the upper foredeck in an old man’s shuffle. His eyes were
vaguely fearful, owing more, it seemed, to his temperament than to his
particular circumstances aboard the Stena Line HSS. The giant twin-hull ferry
took just four hours to travel from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, where special
trains, stationed right alongside the ferry, brought passengers to Amsterdam’s
Centraal Station. The high-speed ship did all it could to make the trip
comfortable: on board were several bars, a couple of restaurants, a number of
shops, and a movie theater. The Hasidic man with the battered case did not have
the appearance of someone who would avail himself of these diversions, however.
He was a recognizable type: the diamond dealer—could there be any doubt of
it?—who had no interest in such luxuries as he purveyed, like a teetotaler
running a distillery. Other passengers glanced at him and looked away. It
wouldn’t do to stare. One would not want the Hasid to get the wrong idea.
Now the salty breeze ruffled the man’s full white beard and earlocks, his black
woolen coat and trousers. The round black hat remained firmly planted on his
head as the man continued to take in the pewter sky and the gray-green seas. The
vista wasn’t inspiring, but the Hasid seemed to find comfort in it.
A figure like him, Janson knew, became invisible by virtue of standing out. If
the spirit gum on his cheeks itched, and the woolen cloak was uncomfortably hot,