Girl in a Box

by Sujata Massey

  I pressed “pause.” I had the Kravitz recording, the one Michael had said was unethical. I’d assumed that Michael had taken the microchip with him, but he had left it in place, no doubt forgetting it after the chaos that had taken over the evening.

  Now I had it, and whether I was going to listen to it or set it aside was my decision. I didn’t take long to decide. I had to listen, because the fact was, that there was likely to be K Team business following Melanie’s voice. Or maybe she’d been using a K Team phone—she could have returned while I was on my break.

  “Warren?” Her words left no doubt who she was talking to. “Warren, did you just call my cell? I can’t get a signal, so I’m calling you back from a landline.”

  “Yeah, you got a minute?” he responded.

  “Not really, but what is it? Did you forget to tell me something you needed?”

  “It’s about the party Saturday. See if you can catch a ride with the Abbots, or somebody, because I’m not going to get there till late.”

  “You mean—you won’t get there at all.” She laughed shortly. “Not again, Warren. Do you realize how annoying this is for me? It’s not like Tyler’s around any more to take me places. What do you want me to do, recruit one of those cute young boys from your department?”

  “You’re a big girl, Melanie. You can show up by yourself.”

  “But why? You’ve known about the orphanage ball for the last two months. You’re chairing it with me.”

  “It’s new business. Hot new business.”

  “Oh, come off it—”

  “Shut up for a minute. Jimmy DeLone wants to spend some time when it’s quiet, and the media aren’t crawling all over him. His people say that it’s got to be Saturday, and to block off the whole day into evening, just in case.”

  “The whole day into evening? Please!” Melanie shrilled. “I can’t believe you’d leave me to chair this ball alone, after you were the one who pressured me to get you on the committee.”

  “Multibillion-dollar deals don’t come along every week, Melanie. Imagine the year-end bonus.”

  There was an intake of breath. “Why not bring him to the party with you?”

  “I’ll ask what he wants to do,” Warren said. “From what I hear, he’s an oddball, and he’s media-shy, like I said, because of the negative coverage on NHK.”

  “Did he bring his wife to Japan?” Melanie asked.

  “He doesn’t have one.”

  “Are you going to get him a girl?”

  “What am I now, some kind of pimp?” Warren sounded exasperated.

  “Not that kind of girl, Warren, just a pretty Japanese girl. Unless he’s one of those confirmed bachelors. How old is he?”

  “Pushing sixty, Melanie, and I have no idea whether he’s gay. But there’s a sexual harassment policy in our office. I can’t pressure any of the OLs to spend time with Jimmy DeLone. And after the way he spoke to me, I think he’d scare most Japanese women off within ten minutes.”

  “I have an idea about a girl,” Melanie said.

  “I don’t like the sound of that—”

  “Never mind, honey. It was just an idea. I’ll let you take care of your own business.”

  “Thank you, honey. You know, it’s not just for me, it’s for—”

  “Us,” Melanie finished. “Love you, Warren. Bye-bye.”

  I was laughing to myself by the end of the conversation. Melanie and Warren Kravitz certainly had a unified marriage. So their lives might be devoted to shopping, social climbing, and making the money to pay for it all.

  Melanie’s casual mention of someone named Tyler was interesting. Had Melanie Kravitz used good-looking young Tyler Farraday as her occasional escort? I wondered how they’d met, since I couldn’t recall any mention, in the Tyler Farraday file, of the Kravitzes. Maybe the situation had come about because Warren wanted Tyler to keep tabs on his wife…or maybe because Tyler was attempting to cultivate ties with Melanie or Warren. Tyler had to have known that Warren was the man who’d instigated the whole American investigation of Mitsutan.

  After I finished transcribing the rest of the recordings—business as usual between Mrs. Okuma and her contacts in the cashier’s office—I decided to call Michael. It was five, which was early, but not too early for someone with jet lag.

  “Hendricks,” Michael answered after the hotel operator had patched me through to his room. His real name: how novel.

  “Were you awake?” I asked.

  “For hours,” Michael said. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I did the transcriptions, and I’m about to send you something—”

  “Don’t. I have no Internet access in my room, and the situation with public computers downstairs isn’t secure enough.”

  “That’s a drag. You’ve simply got to hear what I’ve got on Warren—”

  “This is a nonsecure line,” Michael interrupted me.

  “Well, then, I want to give you a transcript. Can you meet me right now?”

  “I’d rather not. Too many people around.”

  “But you have to know what I heard before you go off to Winston Brothers today.”

  “I see. Well, then, why don’t you make a drop at the place we discussed a while back?”

  He was talking about the Kabuki Theater. I answered, “Sure. After I get to work this morning, I’ll text-message you when I’m going on break, and see you over there.”

  “Try to send the message in advance, Rei. Even if I take a taxi, it could be a while till I get there.”

  “Okay, I understand. Over and out—”

  “One last thing?”

  “Yes?” I answered.

  “Write it in code, on the off chance it’s intercepted.”

  “Which code?”

  “Two.”

  30

  Michael and I had worked out a variety of codes together back in Pentagon City, on one of the icy days when the government was closed and there was little else to do. Today, because there wasn’t much time for me to fuss, Michael had requested one of the easiest systems, which meant replacing each letter with one that was two farther along in the alphabet. Thus Warren became YCTTGP, and Mitsutan was OKVUWVCP. I just hoped Michael would have time to sit down privately and spell things out for himself before his one o’clock meeting with Warren Kravitz.

  After my shower, I dressed for work, slipping the coded note inside a pink-and-orange Tsumori Chisato bra. Tonight was the night I was going out with Miyo, and I imagined she’d be checking me out critically as we dressed in the locker room, so I made sure everything matched. I pulled on a pair of Nice Claup khakis and an older Agnes B sweater just to get to the annex, but in my bag I was carrying better clothes for the night ahead of me: a slim-fitting Anna Sui purple corduroy skirt; a delicate chiffon-and-ribbon blouse from Rachel’s Diary; and raspberry fishnet stockings that I would layer over flesh-toned hose, since the weather was still chilly. I remembered Mrs. Taki’s warnings about fishnet stockings sending the wrong message in Japan, but I wasn’t going to be courting any Japanese.

  Mrs. Taki remained in my mind as I rode the subway to work. She’d bombarded me with e-mail messages that I barely had time to read: reminders that I needed to keep up my grooming with frequent appointments; that she hoped I was practicing my kanji; and that if I had time, I was to go to Mitsutan’s book department to find the novel she had asked me to bring. It was a good thing I hadn’t told my parents I was abroad; who knows what they would have asked me to buy?

  I put away my thoughts of the future as I stood at attention during the Friday morning cho-rei. Mr. Morita, general manager of the credit department, was expounding on the need for every salesperson to suggest that customers using cash should open store credit accounts. In Japan, he explained, credit cards were used for only eight percent of all spending—far less than in other countries, a situation the manager was deploring. If underlings were allowed to speak up at cho-rei, I would have told him the reason: Japanese credit cards didn’t offer t
he chance to substantially delay payment, which was the crux of why most people used credit cards in the United States. Japanese creditors—whether they were responsible for Mitsutan’s own private shopping card or a national card like Saison or J-Card—registered your bank account number when you signed up. Once or twice a month, the credit card would suck the payment due right out of your bank. If you were caught in a bind and didn’t have enough funds in your account, the credit card company wouldn’t allow you to roll over the balance to the next month; you’d have to pay within days. Most people did this by taking out a loan from a private lending company. The private companies charged horrifically high interest, and would send yakuza after you if you couldn’t promptly repay them.

  It was no wonder that people preferred to stay away from credit cards; the only incentive was a card that offered a discount. Big spenders at Mitsutan qualified for a Titanium shopping card, and thus could receive a five percent discount if they spent 800,000 yen within a six-month period. Mr. Morita pointed out that while 800,000 yen sounded like a lot of money, it really wasn’t, if customers chose to buy foodstuffs and electronics at the store as well as clothes. Everyone benefited from using credit cards; it was our task, that day, to ponder how we could best increase the number of users.

  “Boring,” Miyo said when we’d started work a few minutes later in the K Team’s office.

  “Are you talking about the cho-rei?” I asked.

  “No, the day itself. I wait so long for Friday and then I have to get through the whole day. We’re still on for tonight, aren’t we?” Miyo asked.

  “Of course. And about the daytime schedule, when are you taking lunch?”

  “Well, I’d like to go around one, if that’s okay with you.”

  I blinked, surprised at her new politeness. “Sure. I was hoping to go early, around eleven.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll say something to Okuma-san if she wonders where you are. She seems distracted, anyway; I’m sure she won’t care. I bet you’re looking for something to wear tonight.” She beamed. “I hear there’s going to be a sale in Comme des Garçons, but those aren’t exactly clothes for dating.”

  “Agreed.” I thought about Mr. Kitagawa’s and Michael’s reactions to the CDG top I’d worn a few days ago. “For tonight I brought an outfit already.”

  “You promised to let me see what you were thinking about!” Miyo sounded hurt.

  “I know, but I can’t spend too much. I think you’ll approve. I tried to copy your style a bit,” I added.

  Miyo was right that Okuma-san was not going to notice what I was doing at eleven. She had not even sat down at the desk, but went right away to the PC in the back of the office, her fingers flying over the keyboard. At ten-twenty, I briefly excused myself to go to the women’s room, saying something about drinking too much coffee; in the privacy of a stall, I opened up my phone and text-messaged Michael that I’d be inside the theater gallery by eleven-fifteen.

  When the first customers of the day came in, an Italian husband and wife looking for a gift for their dog, I led them to Fifi and Ramone, the pet fashion boutique. They cooed over the cashmere dog sweaters, but ultimately settled on a blue-and-red vinyl raincoat. Excellent choice, I thought, not pricey enough for them to get the rebate, which meant that I could send them on their way and pop into the K Team’s office briefly to sign out for my lunch.

  Two customer groups were waiting. Mrs. Okuma was still on the computer, looking consumed. Miyo waved me off. “Go, Rei-san! I’ve got the situation covered.”

  I rushed over to the annex to get my coat, because I couldn’t go to the Kabuki-za with my Mitsutan uniform showing. As I approached the building, I looked at the windows on the higher floors. Mr. Yoshino worked on the fifth floor, as I knew from the information on the business card he’d pressed on me at Aladdin’s Cave. I thought I saw a figure looking down at me, or at the alley itself; however, I didn’t have time to stand around counting up to see which floor the window belonged to.

  The women’s locker room was completely empty. I would have welcomed that a week earlier, when I was shy about joining the group. Today I felt differently; it spooked me to be here alone, when nobody would troop in to get a coat or anything else for at least an hour. As I opened my locker, I thought I heard the door I’d come through creak open, but there were no footsteps following.

  I opened my locker, which, according to company rules, could not actually be locked, and slid my coat off the hanger. As I slipped my arm into one sleeve, it got caught in the lining. I pulled it out, irritated, then saw the cause; the lining had actually been slit. The same was true of the other sleeve, and there was also a slit along the hem at the coat’s bottom.

  Surely, Miyo wasn’t mad at me anymore; we were going out that night. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would do such a thing, and when would anyone have had time to do it?

  During cho-rei. The only people who didn’t have to attend cho-rei were senior managers, the people who worked in the annex. I hadn’t seen Mr. Yoshino or Mr. Kitagawa at the morning lecture.

  Now I was so nervous that I practically ran out of the building, slowing my pace only when I was out on Ginza-dori. I wondered if I’d done the right thing in wearing the damaged coat; all the cutting was in the interior, so I didn’t look as if I were wearing rags, but I wondered about the integrity of the coat. I half wondered if there was a bug inside it.

  I didn’t like it. I popped into a rival department store, Mitsukoshi, got myself lost in a throng of women shopping for cosmetics, and rode an elevator up to the third floor, where I dumped the coat in a trash can in the women’s room when the coast was clear. I did it with regret, because the Persian lamb jacket dated from the 1970s and had belonged to my mother. True, it was starting to get worn in many places, but it still had sentimental value—and it looked cool.

  I took the store’s stairs down to the food basement, where my Mitsutan uniform drew a few glances from shoppers and the Mitsukoshi staff, but I was quickly out the Harumi Street exit. After that, it was just a matter of crossing the street to the Kabuki-za.

  A handsome black-haired foreigner with tortoiseshell spectacles and a cashmere overcoat was already at the small ticket window to the left of the main entrance. Michael, much more recognizable than usual.

  I dawdled until he’d bought his ticket and gone inside. Then I drew close to the sign above the ticket window and studied it, trying to seem as if I were deciding which act to see. After a few more customers had bought tickets, I approached the same window and bought mine.

  “There are only two rows of seats, at the back of the fourth floor. It’s the highest place in the theater.” The ticket clerk looked at me doubtfully.

  “That’s fine,” I said quickly, handing her a 1,000-yen note and struggling to keep myself from grabbing the ticket she eventually gave me.

  I ascended four steep flights of stairs, trying not to look rushed. Another day, I would have slowed my pace, because the theater, rebuilt in the style of the original 1924 building, was a beauty. But Michael was already inside, waiting for the drop.

  I shook off my fantasy because a suited man was asking me for my ticket. I gave it to him, and he broke off the stub and returned it to me.

  “Would you like to rent earphones?” he asked me in Japanese.

  “No, thanks.” I knew the play, Bancho Sarayashiki, the story of a quick-tempered lord who falls in love with a lady-in-waiting. I certainly didn’t need expert commentary.

  “Please go ahead. This side is less crowded.” He waved his hand toward a curtained entryway. I walked through it carefully and, in the semidarkness, looked for Michael. Of course, he was sitting on the other side; in the seat closest to the aisle, with a briefcase laid over the empty seat between him and a couple of elderly Japanese women. This was bad manners, given that there were so few seats; but since he was a foreigner, nobody was going to test him. He had a pair of earphones on, I noticed, even though the show hadn’t started; his gaze was
downward at the English-language program.

  I went out of the gallery again, and ignored the look of the ticket-taker as I entered through the other curtained doorway, which was closer to where Michael was sitting.

  “Sumimasen,” I said, and he looked up at me briefly, frowned, but removed the briefcase so I could sit down. I wondered if the frown was just for show, or if he was actually annoyed. I had been supposed to arrive there first, and have the message taped under his seat. Now I’d come late and would have to pass him the message without being noticed.

  I jumped at the sharp sound of wooden blocks being struck together, the signal that the curtain was about to open. The audience leaned forward, drinking in the spectacle of a springtime scene complete with cherry blossoms. Soon we’d see the actors in spectacular robes.

  Without the cover of a coat, getting out the transcript was going to be tricky. Thank goodness Michael had chosen a seat in the back row, I thought as I undid the three buttons of my work jacket so I could reach into my bra. The information packet had slid practically down to my ribs, so I had to unbutton a bit more to get it out.

  Once I had it in hand, I waited for the right moment to drop the three stapled papers to the floor, then used my heel to shoot the papers in Michael’s direction.

  Unfortunately, I overshot the distance. The plastic-wrapped papers landed a few inches out from Michael’s seat, in the aisle. Michael swiftly picked up the packet under the cover of a theater program already inside his hand.

  Wordlessly, he handed me the program; the plastic-wrapped papers had already disappeared from sight.

  “Domo sumimasen deshita.” I made an elaborate, whispered excuse in Japanese for the sake of the woman on my left, who was looking at me first with annoyance, and then with shock, when she saw my open jacket.

  I started buttoning myself up, embarrassed that I hadn’t taken care of this before shooting Michael the papers. A couple of minutes later—when I’d ascertained that the prim woman was looking at the stage again—I glanced over to see what Michael was doing, but it turned out that he’d already left.