by Unknown
“Help him out to do what?”
“The one thing he’s way more obsessed with than he is with me. He has this dream of opening sports car tracks all over Japan. And then, all over Asia.”
After we’d pretty much run the subject of Blake into the ground—and thrown a little mud on it—I swung the conversation to more general topics. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to sit around conversing when Bill and I could be out hunting Blake down, even in the rain, but Moriko was clearly forlorn and I thought it would be good to give her a sense that life was normal and this was just another problem to be handled. I asked about her folks, who lived half the year here and half in Japan. Right now was the Japan part, and she was grateful because they didn’t have to know what she’d gotten herself into. Also, of course, they didn’t know she was a kitsune, and it would be hard on them to learn the truth.
“Of course,” I said.
She asked after my family, and I told her my mother had recently begun to shed her dislike of my profession and insert herself into some of my cases. Because she knows my mother, that actually made Moriko laugh.
“I’m not sure having your mother work with you is a good idea,” she said.
“Not to worry. She’ll never embrace my way of life totally. She still can’t stand Bill.”
Bill nodded, as though modestly accepting a compliment.
Tentatively, I asked, “How’s Tadao?” Tadao’s the brother I used to date.
Moriko looked into her teacup. “I’m not sure. He’s working at Georgetown, coaching mixed martial arts and judo. He says he’s over that whole playing-with-fire phase.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I want to. But I don’t know. Once you’re in with those people, do you ever get out?”
I turned to Bill. “Tadao’s a jock like me, and he’s a wild man. In high school that meant we’d climb up on billboards and tag them, or bodysurf at Coney Island.”
“I wish I’d seen that.”
“In the winter. Later, though, he started romancing the Yakuza. Everyone was worried.”
“What he says,” Moriko poured Bill more tea, “is that the Yakuza turned out to be an astute crowd who knew Tadao better than he knew himself. His contact toyed with him a while, then told him to go fly a kite. But I don’t know. I’m afraid he’s only telling me that so I won’t worry.”
It wasn’t kite-flying weather when Bill and I left Moriko’s, but all we needed to do was scurry to that whispering Metro and re-emerge at Federal Triangle, home of the white-shoe law firms. We’d called ahead for an appointment with Blake Adderly. Moriko was pretty sure he was keeping the kitsunebi-dama in his office, and whether it was there or not we needed to size up the foe. Bill had done the talking on the phone, professing himself interested in sports cars—not that much of a stretch—and as a sort of password had dropped the name, supplied by Moriko, of one of Blake’s friends.
“I feel so used,” Bill told me when he hung up. “You only made me make that call because I’m a guy.”
“That, and because you’d know what to do if he said ‘Lamborghini.’ ”
After IDs, photos, and name tags, we made it past the pair of guards at the security desk with its bank of closed-circuit TVs. One guard hit the button to release the turnstile and we entered an elevator that slid silently up to the seventeenth floor. Quiet appeared to be a virtue of machinery here in Washington. All the better to eavesdrop on each other?
The perfectly poised and polished person behind the sleek teak desk in the anteroom at Adderly, Bascombe, Chase murmured into her headset. In a moment a similar person came to guide us to Blake Adderly’s corner office. The good news was, I spotted a solid rock crystal globe on a shelf as soon as the door opened. The bad news: it was behind locked and alarmed glass cabinet doors.
Bill’s first thought had been to just buy another globe and give it to Moriko, telling her we’d managed to pull a switcheroo with the one Blake stole. After meeting her Bill could tell that was a non-starter, though. “She’d know, wouldn’t she?”
“I’m sure she would. It’s bound to have some tiny chip or flaw and she’ll look for that first thing.”
“Or maybe it really does have her kitsunebi inside it and if we give her a phony it won’t be there.”
“Uh-huh. But listen, maybe we could swap a new one for the real one in Blake’s office and Blake wouldn’t know.”
Big preppy grin folding his freckled cheeks, Blake Adderly glad-handed us to leather client chairs. Bill was all blue-suited, rep-tie friendly; I was wearing a black business suit and red blouse, pumps, had put on a touch of make-up, and was narrow-eyed and aloof. If Blake picked up on my attitude it didn’t seem to faze him, although I did get the feeling he’d picked up on my legs. “So,” he said, forearms on his desk. His sand-colored hair was short-top-and-sides but with a fetching unruly curl in front. I wondered how much product he had to use to make it so adorably casual. “Friends of Digger’s, huh? Welcome to D.C. and our wonderful weather.”
Dave “Digger” Worthington was the name we’d dropped. A car-racing pal of Blake Adderly’s, he’d conveniently been transferred to Geneva. We found that handy because we could be sure he and Blake wouldn’t be getting together tonight for drinks after work.
“Recent acquaintances,” Bill corrected with an old-boy’s-club smile. “I’m Bill Smith, this is Lydia Chin.” Everyone nodded hello. “I was admiring Digger’s Ferrari, we traded a few war stories, and he suggested I might want to meet you.”
“I thought he had the Ferrari shipped to Switzerland.”
“Geneva,” Bill nodded. “That’s where I saw it.”
“And why did Digger think we should meet? Do you race?”
“Not anymore. I did run a 911 in the ALMS for a couple of years.”
“ALMS? Nice.”
“Not pro. A privateer entry. Then I rolled at Lime Rock. Totaled the Porsche. Jacked up my back.”
“And that was it?”
Bill shrugged. “I walked away from that one, but I could tell I was losing a step. Racing’s a young man’s game.”
Blake grinned, accepting the credit for the accomplishment of still being young. “Then what did Digger have in mind? Not that I have any problem with chatting with you folks for a few.” He looked at me, winked, and his grin expanded.
I forced myself to smile a tiny tight smile and not jump up and slap his smarmy puss.
“Well,” Bill said, “Digger told us about this idea you have, about opening a series of sports car tracks in Asia. Especially Japan, I think he said?”
Blake nodded.
“Lydia and I discussed it. We represent some people who’re looking for investment opportunities.”
Blake sat back in his giant ergonomic leather chair. “Do you?”
“We do.”
“Mind telling me who?”
Bill looked at me and I shook my head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “One of the conditions of our discussions and any future relationship will have to be anonymity. You’ll only deal with me and Lydia. I can tell you they’re people looking for places to put a good deal of capital.”
Blake looked at Bill, clearly cogitating. “Asians?”
Bill looked at me again.
I nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
“Chinese?”
I shook my head.
“Sorry,” Bill said. “That’s as far as I can go. I can assure you the capital’s liquid and available, and as long as you have a sound business plan there’s no—”
My phone buzzed. I grabbed it from my bag, whispered in urgent Chinese, and put it away again. “I’m sorry.” I stood. It was the first time I’d spoken, and I made sure my English was over-precise and slightly accented. “Bill, we must go. It has been a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Adderly. I am sorry to run away but an urgen
t matter has come up. Perhaps we can continue this conversation tomorrow? We can come to your office at 10 a.m.”
I didn’t speak again until we were on the sidewalk. “That was some nice ad-libbing,” I told Bill. My phone, of course, hadn’t rung; that had been the alarm I set before we went in.
“Oh, I could have gone on. No one even said ‘Lamborghini’ yet.”
“So what do you think? Was that it?” The rain had retracted to a fine mist, though I had the feeling it wasn’t through with us yet.
“The globe in the cabinet? I think it has to be, don’t you?”
“Can you pick that lock?”
“Probably. I’d need a few minutes. But it’s alarmed—did you see the wire? I don’t know what we would do about that. And it would have to be during the workday. No way we can break into Adderly, Bascombe, Chase when they’re closed. Not in a building that secure. Besides, law offices don’t close. Some poor associate is always there being worked to death.”
I thought. “Fire drill?”
“They must have a protocol. Not sure how I’d manage to get left behind. And this just occurred to me, but they might have security cameras.”
“In the private offices?”
“Why not?”
“Spying on themselves?”
“They’re lawyers.”
Stealing the globe right out from under Blake Adderly’s nose had been Plan Z anyway, even though we didn’t have Plans A or B yet. We agreed to give it some thought and made our way back to Dupont Circle to check in at our bed and breakfast. We had two rooms (of course we did) in a townhouse three blocks from Moriko’s apartment. My room faced the garden. A cherry tree just beginning to bloom arched gracefully over a bench in a herringbone-patterned brick yard. I’d told Bill that before we went home I wanted to make sure to go down to see the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin. “Even if it’s pouring,” I’d added, to cut off any whining about the weather, but he’d surprised me.
“Viewing cherry blossoms is a venerable Japanese tradition. Hanami, it’s called. In the sun, in the rain, equally beautiful. You can see it in all kinds of weather in any number of woodblock prints. In fact, you can even see kitsune having hanami parties. Maybe we should take your friend Moriko down there as a celebration when we’re done.”
“As long as we’re sure we’ll have something to celebrate.”
“Oh, we will,” he said. “I have complete faith. You’ll come up with something.”
My room was supplied with a coffee maker and porcelain mugs. I took a long, hot shower, dried, and dressed. I made a cup of tea, which I drank sitting in a comfy chair at the big window, looking out on the cherry tree and the bench. The rain hadn’t yet picked up again, its place held by a fine mist that blurred edges and softened colors. It was, I decided, the visual equivalent of silence. The mist grayed out nearly everything in the garden, but the brand-new cherry blossoms seemed to glow. Some things became clearer in the mist, just as some became sharper in the silence.
When my tea was gone I picked up my phone and invited Tadao to join me and Bill for dinner.
Moriko had a function to go to that evening. “Full kimono, the whole enchilada,” she said. “I’m wearing that light blue one you always liked, Lydia.”
“With the yellow flowers? It’s beautiful. I’m glad you still wear it.”
“It’s my favorite. Enjoy dinner, you guys. Oh, Lydia? Don’t tell Tadao about the kitsunebi, okay? He doesn’t like Blake to begin with.”
“Why should he?”
“No reason, but I don’t want him to go off half-cocked. Or,” she tilted her head in thought, “fully cocked.”
“Does he know … about you?”
“That I’m a kitsune?” She smiled. “Of course. He’s my brother.”
And your parents are your parents, I thought, but I guess there’s no arguing with a fox.
Bill and I headed through the rain to the Old Ebbitt Grill. Tadao had suggested it for dinner because he thought I needed to see old-boy, power-broking Washington.
“That’s where I spent the afternoon,” I’d said on the phone.
“The Old Ebbit Grill?”
“No, old-boy, power-broking Washington. Bill and I were up talking to Blake Adderly.”
“Blake? Why?”
“Long story.”
“To be frank, I do not like that arrogant S.O.B. I’ll be happy when Moriko finally ditches him. See you at seven.”
As Bill and I crossed the dining room to the table where Tadao waited for us I decided the dark wood and the marble staircase were handsome, but I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of eating under the reproachful gaze of taxidermy supposedly shot by Teddy Roosevelt.
“You get used to it,” Tadao said, after I voiced that opinion.
“I’m not sure I want to. And I think I’ll be eating fish.”
He kissed my cheek and I kissed his; then I introduced him to Bill and they shook hands quite civilly.
“God, it’s been forever,” Tadao said as we all sat. “You look fabulous, Lydia.” He grinned at Bill. “I’m sure you do, too, though I don’t have any baseline for you. So how come you guys came down? And why were you hanging out with that snake, Blake?”
“He is kind of slimy,” I agreed. “Did you know he wants to open a chain of sports car tracks in Japan? From there I gather he wants to conquer all of Asia.”
“I didn’t know that, no. I can’t say it makes me happy to hear it.”
A waiter in a crisp white shirt and suspenders came to take our drink orders. While we gave them I checked Tadao out. He looked pretty good himself. He was built on a different template from his sister: stocky and muscular, square forehead and large hands. When the waiter was gone I told him, “We came here to see Moriko.”
“Is she okay? Is there something she’s not telling me? She seems down lately.”
“She is.”
“Trouble with Blake?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s encouraging. Is that why you were up seeing him?”
“Partly. I mean, I’d never met him and I wanted to check him out. As it happens Bill’s interested in sports car racing, so we had something to talk to him about. I’ll tell you all about it, but first, Tadao, I need to ask you something.”
He raised his eyebrows, and then the lightbulb went on over his head. “You’re going to ask me if I’m a Yakuza wakagashira yet.”
A wakagashira in the Yakuza is a regional commander. “A kobun would be bad enough,” I said. Kobun literally means ‘foster child.’ It’s the lowest rank the Yakuza have.
“I never even made that. Relax, Lydia. Or tell Moriko to relax, if she sent you. That part of my life is done with. It was—what do the pols around here say? A youthful indiscretion. I’m lucky. If you really get in you never get out, but I wasn’t allowed that deep in the first place. Just dipped my big toe, that was it. It’s over with. I teach judo now. For Pete’s sake, I’m on the Georgetown faculty! How cool is that?”
“Moriko didn’t send us. She believes you when you say it’s over. I just wanted to see for myself.”
“Well,” he spread his arms, “see. Peace?”
“Peace.”
“So. What did you and ol’ Blake have to say to each other?”
“It was mostly about cars. And the weather.”
The drinks came, and the rest of the evening was spent eating oysters, crab cakes, and spicy shrimp linguine. We talked about old times, present times, youthful indiscretions, poor decisions, getting in deep, and dealing with consequences.
The next morning saw more rain, another cup of tea by the window, a lovely French toast breakfast, and the arrival of me and Bill—same suits, me a different blouse, he a different tie—at Adderly, Bascombe, Chase promptly at 10 a.m. Blake Adderly was, he claimed, delighted to see us.
&
nbsp; Seated in Blake’s office, the wet streets of Washington glistening outside his corner window, we continued our discussion.
“We’ve spoken to our principals,” Bill said. “They’ve asked us to pursue your racetrack idea. They’re especially interested in your plan to begin in Japan. Digger told me that’s what you were thinking.”
“It seemed like the best place to start. On the one hand, the Japanese have a heavy load of complicated—actually, if you ask me, absurd—tradition weighing them down. But on the other, that’s why when they cut loose, they seriously get wild.” He gave us a conspiratorial grin. “I can see us really monetizing that.”
One, I thought, no one did ask you. And two, well, you’re just one superior fellow, aren’t you? I smiled one of my tight, tiny smiles.
“Your business plan,” Bill said. “We’d want a majority stake, of course, even if there are other investors. Seats on the board. We’d ask to be involved as you choose all the technical consultants—track designers, architects—though we expect to be able to defer to you on these decisions, as the subject-matter expert. In Japan, of course, there are all kinds of earthquake precautions that need to be taken, but I’m sure you’ve considered that. Not so much for the tracks, but for the grandstands and ancillary structures. The marketing is another major issue. We assume you have a strategy? Celebrity spokesperson, that sort of thing? Are there any—”
A brief commotion of raised voices made us all swing our heads to the office door. It flew open and in strode Tadao, along with a young, lean Asian guy a little shorter than he was. Both were in black suits and ties, Tadao with a bulky black leather man-bag over his shoulder. Behind them in a fluttery panic came the poised person whose job it was to not let things like this happen to Blake.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Adderly, they just—”
“It’s all right, Heather. I know this gentleman.” Blake stood, smiling and extending his hand to Tadao as though these were just people coming late to our meeting. Heather withdrew in relief and confusion. I closed my mouth, which had flown open when the door had. Bill’s face was wary, set and closed.