”Uh-huh. Thanks, I think.”
”Don’t mention it. What’re friends for? Relieve our curiosity, would you? Sven says he’ll buy, if you’ll tell.”
Kit raised a brow. If Sven Bailey was that curious, something decidedly odd was up. “I’ll let you know. Thanks for the warning.”
Malcolm hung up. Kit shoved back his chair. Whoever was on his way, meeting the guy face to face, cold, was not Kit’s idea of good strategy. He paused at the doorway to slip on his shoes, thought about his attire and hastily exchanged his comfortable kimono for a business jacket and slacks, then headed down to Neo Edo’s main desk. “Jimmy, Malcolm says an up-time visitor is headed this way. Tell ’em I’m out, would you? I want to be scarce for a few minutes. Lay a false trail or something.”
Jimmy, also a retired time scout, winked and nodded. “Sure thing, Kit.”
Time scouts could never be too careful.
Particularly world-famous ones.
Kit damned all reporters everywhere and made tracks through a gathering crowd. The Neo Edo’s lobby was a modern re-interpretation of the receiving hall of the shoguns at Edo Castle, as it had appeared before Ieyasu Tokugawa’s famous shogunate headquarters had burned to the ground in the Long-Sleeves Fire of 1657. The lobby’s showpiece was the mural-sized reproduction of Miyamoto Musashi’s famous, lost painting of sunrise over Edo Castle, commissioned from the master warrior poet-painter by none other than Japan’s third Shogun, Iemitsu Tokugawa. The painting drew the eye even from the Commons, which meant tourists who wandered in to admire the artwork often stayed to become customers.