Right You Are, Mr. Moto

by John P. Marquand

  By the time he and Mr. Moto reached the hotel, the preliminary preparations were all in hand: the equipment immediately necessary was packed in Mr. Moto’s briefcase. When Ruth Bogart saw the briefcase she smiled a thin, Mona Lisa smile, Jack had never seen her looking prettier. The excitement and the exacting demands which would be made of her in the next few minutes had added to the delicacy of her features and the luster of her hair. Even her voice had a new seductive quality.

  “So you boys need me, do you?” she said. “All right, rig up the telephone.”

  When Mr. Moto took out of his briefcase and methodically arranged the instruments, Jack watched him with approval. There were right and wrong procedures in wire tapping, and Mr. Moto knew all the proper ones.

  “I suggest that we both listen, Mr. Rhyce,” he said as he handed Jack Rhyce a pair of earphones of Japanese manufacture. The Japanese were able to make anything.

  “Are you sure this won’t be too big a load?” Jack Rhyce asked.

  “Don’t be silly, Jack,” Ruth Bogart said. “He knows his stuff.” She smiled her brightest smile. “I couldn’t have set this up better myself, and now it is three o’clock, I think. Perhaps—if you are ready—I’d better make the call?”

  “No,” Jack Rhyce said. “Let him wonder. Let him sweat it out for ten minutes.”

  He never forgot the interval of waiting, or how happy Ruth Bogart looked.

  “Jack,” she said, “you’re glad I’m along now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he answered, “at the moment, Ruth.”

  “It’s nice to know I’m useful, under the proper circumstances,” she said. “Maybe that’s all any woman wants.”

  They did not speak for another minute or two, and then Mr. Moto broke the silence.

  “Excuse the question,” Mr. Moto said. “Do you carry a blackjack with you, Mr. Rhyce?”

  “Funny you should ask that,” Jack Rhyce answered, “because I was thinking of it myself. No, I haven’t one with me.”

  Mr. Moto reached inside his briefcase.

  “If you will permit, it will be a pleasure to present you with this one,” he said. “It may be useful, and ha-ha, it will be easier for you to reach him, if needed.”

  Jack balanced the instrument expertly in his hand before he slipped it into his back pocket.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll do my best to be neat and clean if necessary.”

  “I’m sure,” Mr. Moto said. “So very sure you will be. And now perhaps Miss Bogart should make the call. Let us not have the gentleman too discouraged.”

  They sat silent while Ruth Bogart gave the number, and there followed, of course, a moment of suspense until they heard the answering voice. The connection was very clear. There was no doubt in the world that it was Big Ben.

  “Gosh, honey,” he said, and his voice was plaintive, “I’ve been settin’ here. I mighty near thought it was a brush-off.”

  “Oh, Ben,” she said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t call until I was alone.”

  “You mean he’s back with you?” Big Ben asked. “Why honey, I kind of got the idea he might have left you for good back there in the mountains. When did he come back?”

  “He said he wasn’t able to sleep,” Ruth Bogart answered. “He just said he went out with some Japanese friends and drank some saki.”

  “And he’s hanging around you now, is he?”

  “Ben, don’t be that way,” she said. “I told you I was tired of him, and he’s gone now.”

  “Well, don’t forget you’re my girl now, honey. How about say around six tonight?”

  She first glanced questioningly at Mr. Moto.

  “Why that would be lovely, Ben,” she then said. “Will you call for me at the hotel?”

  There was a silence on the other end of the wire.

  “Why, honey,” he said. “I had some trouble there, last time I was in Tokyo, and the folks there maybe don’t like me too much. How about going down to the Ginza and meeting me outside the Cimaroon beer hall? It’s a GI place, honey, with good food and singing and everything. I’ll be waiting by the front entrance, come six o’clock.”

  “But, Ben, dear, I don’t know this town.”

  “I’m going to see personally that you’re going to know it and love it before you’re through, honey,” he said. “It’s no trouble to get there. Just you tell the hotel doorman. Any taxi driver can take you to the Cimaroon.”

  “Well, then you be right outside,” she said. “It’s spooky alone in a place where you don’t know the language or anything. Are you sure you’ll be there, Ben dear?”

  “Sure as hell isn’t freezing. Just you don’t worry. Take a cab,” he said.

  “All right,” she said, “but it makes me a little frightened, Ben.”

  “Aw, now,” he said, “there’s nothing to be scared of, honey. Wear something cute and fluffy. I only wish it was six already. Don’t forget—the Cimaroon. You got it, honey?”

  They all had it—the Cimaroon—and the conversation was over, and they each sat for a moment in a questioning sort of silence.

  “How did I do?” she asked.

  Jack had been analyzing every pause and change of tone in the speeches. A voice over the telephone without features or personalities to support it was a disembodied thing. Although he had no doubt that the voice belonged to Big Ben, there was a doubt as to whether it had been wholly credulous. In the end, everyone speaking on the telephone always assumed a new and peculiar personality. Even Ruth Bogart’s voice had exhibited strain, and the same had been true with Big Ben, but there had been so little deviation that he could safely attribute it to the medium of communication.

  “You did fine, I think,” he said. “Don’t you think so, Moto?”

  Mr. Moto was dismantling the wire-tapping device.

  “It is not for me to analyze the European mind, but on the whole he gave me the impression that he wanted so very greatly to see Miss Bogart.”

  Mr. Moto snapped his briefcase shut.

  “The Cimaroon is a beer hall and night club, frequented by American soldiers and sailors, a suitable place for him to select,” he said. “It should not be difficult to take him quickly if he is waiting on the sidewalk. I must be leaving now to make arrangements. The car and driver will be waiting to take you there, Mr. Rhyce. May I ask you to arrive in front of the Cimaroon at half-past five?”

  “Let’s make it 5:15, if it’s all the same with you,” Jack said. “Those Joes have second thoughts, and get careful and early sometimes. Once I had to do a snatch in Paris—one of the first I ever was mixed with—but never mind it now.”

  “Thank you,” Mr. Moto said. “I quite agree with 5:15.”

  “And what about me?” Ruth Bogart asked. “Am I going with you, or not?”

  “Certainly not,” Jack Rhyce said quickly. “There won’t be any need, Ruth.”

  “If he doesn’t see me, he may not show,” she said. “I’ve known it to happen, Jack.”

  As things stood then it seemed safe to discount that possibility. Jack was actually experiencing a feeling which was almost one of peace. As far as he could see, the Japan assignment was drawing to a close. If the ending was not wholly satisfactory, it was effective, and with the way things were going, they could not beat about the bush forever. His main mission had been Big Ben. He took the blackjack from his hip pocket, tossed it in the air and caught it, with the same carelessness he would have caught a baseball on the outside. It was very nicely constructed. The Japanese were always good at detail.

  “No, it won’t be necessary, Ruth,” he said. “You’ll only be in the way if there’s any kind of hassle. He’s a big boy, and he may muss things up.”

  “I think Mr. Rhyce is correct,” Mr. Moto said. “I am most grateful to you, Miss Bogart, and it would be so nice if I could pay you my respects when this is over. Perhaps a Japanese supper tonight; but—ha-ha—not at the Cimaroon, and just with me and Mr. Rhyce. But—ha-ha—not with Mr. Ben. At 5:15, then, Mr. Rhyc
e, and thank you very much.”

  The feeling that everything was over still persisted after Moto had gone. It resembled the easing of tensions he had experienced before when a job was almost finished, and everything was in the groove. But this time elation was added to his relief, which he tried to check because he always distrusted elation. Finally his conscience troubled him with a nagging suspicion that he was ending things too quickly, not following them as far as he might to an ultimate conclusion. It was true that he was hedging his bets, but it was better to hedge than lose, and they were winning enough. At least they were crippling the apparatus by taking out Big Ben.

  “You know, I feel pretty good on the whole,” he said to her. “When we get him, we can move the hell out of here and head for home.”

  Her expression had brightened, too.

  “It can’t be soon enough for me,” she said. “And why can’t we start being ourselves when we get on that plane?”

  “I don’t see why we can’t from there on in,” he answered.

  “What do you mean?” she asked. “From there on in?”

  “A lot of things,” he said, “and we ought to be able to start discussing them as soon as I get back here.”

  “Do you mean you still love me?” she asked.

  “It’s unprofessional, but I do,” he said, “and a lot of other things. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t have missed any of this.”

  “Even being unprofessional?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, “even being unprofessional.”

  “Jack,” she said, “what’s going to happen to him?”

  “He’s not our problem,” he said. “The Japs will take him over. But it’s the best we could do under the circumstances, Ruth.” He turned and strode across the room and back. “We might have gone further into this if Bill Gibson hadn’t died, but I think it’s time now to stop this show, I really do.”

  “It’s sticky, letting the Japs take him,” she said. “I wish you and I weren’t in it.”

  “We’re in it all right,” he said.

  “You’re too nice for it,” she said, “and maybe I am, too.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he told her, “but let’s put our minds on pulling out of here tomorrow, Ruth.”

  The interval before his departure for the Cimaroon always remained in his memory as a domestic sort of scene.

  “I don’t suppose we’d better inquire about plane reservations yet,” he said. “No reason for anyone to know that we’re checking out, but if you want something to do while I’m out you might start packing your suitcases. There might be space on something tomorrow.”

  “Jack,” she said, “don’t you think you ought to wear something heavier and darker than that seersucker coat?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” he answered. “This won’t be night work, and it’s awfully hot outside.”

  “I wish you were carrying a gun,” she said, “just in case. Wouldn’t you like to borrow my fountain pen gadget? It doesn’t look as though I’m going to need it.”

  “I can do fine with this jack,” he said. He was feeling almost jovial now that everything was set. “I’m really pretty good at controlling one of these.”

  “I think you ought not to wear crepe-soled shoes,” she said. “You might slip in them. I don’t know whether you ever knew Bobby Burke, who used to work in Paris. He slipped making a swing at Oscar Ertz—you know, the Czech—just outside the Gare du Nord. He skidded on the pavement and had a shiv in him before he could recover.”

  “These shoes are skid-proof,” he told her. “No, I never did know Bob, but I’ve heard plenty about him. Ought I to be jealous?”

  “Darling,” she said, “I never knew about you, dear, and you never knew about me. You won’t ever need to be jealous. Now let me take a look at you. You look awfully handsome.”

  “So do you,” he said. It was time to be going, but he did not want to leave her.

  “Jack,” she said, “if you do hit him, follow through. Let him have it all. He’s an awfully big man, you know. Now you’d better kiss me good-by. I don’t want you to be late.”

  “Don’t forget Moto’s coming to take us out to dinner when we get back,” he said. “I wish we were going alone. We haven’t had much fun here, what with one thing and another.”

  “Oh,” she said, “there’ll be lots of other times. Take care, Jack, please take care.”

  He remembered those last words most distinctly. In fact, they echoed in his memory all the way out of the hotel. He had a final glimpse of her before he closed the door She was standing smiling, very straight and neat, and looking very happy.

  The taste of the American GI was responsible for most of the innovations along the Ginza, and it was worth remembering that they reflected the immaturities of youth—naturally enough, since the age average was low in the American armed forces. Thus it was not wholly fair to be overcritical of the garish beer halls and night clubs, as full of gay plastic color and light as the jukeboxes at home, for they filled very adequately an intense demand for release. In fact, Jack Rhyce thought the Cimaroon offered everything that he would have wanted when he was an undergraduate at Oberlin—air-conditioning, cold beer on draught, an enormous gaudy bar, a jazz orchestra, a Japanese torch singer, and dozens of tables with pretty, smiling Japanese hostesses. He half wished he were back in the army. It had been different in the paratroops in Burma.

  Although it was only 5:15, the Cimaroon was already full. The brash notes of the orchestra, the high voice of the singer, and the chatter of the patrons over their drinks rose to such an intensity that his transient wish that he were a boy again vanished. Instead, it occurred to him that the noise would be an excellent background for a shot, and it could easily be minutes before anyone would know just what had happened. You had to consider seriously such contingencies in a place like the Cimaroon, as well as check the entrances and exits. These were limited, as far as he could observe, to a wide entrance on the street, and to two doors in back leading to service quarters. He stopped making these mental notes only when he reminded himself that he was not running the party and that instead he was in the guise of a foreign attaché.

  Mr. Moto was waiting at a wall table, facing the door—a conventional position under the circumstances. He waved a welcome to Jack Rhyce in an exaggeratedly European manner.

  “Beer, of course?” Mr. Moto said. “It is so cool and comfortable here.”

  It was cool but noisy, and Jack had a feeling that the Cimaroon did not belong in Japan or anywhere else. He took only a sip or two of beer because he disapproved of drinking before any such event as the one they were approaching.

  “Everyone is posted,” Mr. Moto said. “Ha-ha, we will use the same Buick in which I drove you.”

  “Have you looked for him all through this building?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Mr. Moto said. “No sign. Are you thinking of something, Mr. Rhyce?”

  “I’m just wondering whether he will be hiding until he sees her,” Jack Rhyce said. “Maybe we were wrong in not having her drive up.”

  Mr. Moto thought for a few moments.

  “I very much approve your thoroughness, Mr. Rhyce,” he said. “It is too late. We might call her, from the manager’s office.”

  The office was a cubbyhole of a room, only a few paces from where they were sitting, and it was startlingly silent, once they had closed the door. She answered almost immediately.

  “Ruth, we’ve got a second thought,” he said. “Maybe you’d better take a taxi and come here at six o’clock. Get out and stand by the main entrance.

  “Okay,” she said. “It’s nice that great minds think alike sometimes. I’ll be there.”

  He felt a momentary qualm as they returned to the table, simply because he disliked revising a plan on such short notice. It showed once again that he was not sure of himself when it came to Ruth Bogart; and besides, any revision always presented a new set of factors. Yet he had not the slightest premonition th
at he had made an error until it was six o’clock. It was six and there was no sign of any American girl, let alone Ruth Bogart, outside the Cimaroon.

  “There is traffic,” Mr. Moto said. “She may have misjudged the time. Do not let it upset you for five more minutes, Mr. Rhyce.”

  He had not meant to show his feelings, nor had he thought he would, for he had believed that experience had made him immune to sudden reverses—but he had not felt a shock of helpless panic for years comparable to what he experienced then. Everyone went wrong sometime, he said to himself, and this was it for him.

  “I’d better telephone and see if she’s left,” he said.

  When he reached the manager’s office and gave the number he noticed that his hands shook. It did no good to tell himself that he must quiet down. He had never in his life wished for anything so vehemently as that he might hear her voice answer, but there was no answer. She had gone. Outside the office he was startled at the sight of his own face, reflected from one of the wall mirrors.

  “I think they’ve double-crossed us,” he said.

  Mr. Moto looked very grave, and glanced at his wrist watch.

  “If so, I share your feelings,” he said. “But wait, We gain nothing by hurrying, Mr. Rhyce. Remember that you yourself made her wait ten minutes, only not to appear too prompt. She may be doing this, too—and please remember just one thing more.”

  “What’s that?” Jack Rhyce answered.

  “I am to blame as much as you are, Mr. Rhyce. And—what is it they say in America? The show must go on in any case, Mr. Rhyce?”

  He did not like the appraising look in Mr. Moto’s eyes. After all, he was representing the Intelligence of his country.

  “Damn it,” he said. “Don’t you tell me how to behave.”

  “That is better,” Mr. Moto said. “I know I would not need to remind you, Mr. Rhyce.”

  Jack Rhyce stood up.

  “I’m going now,” he said.

  “Where, please?” Mr. Moto asked.