by John Lutz
Finally the guests begin rising from the table. Tillie wipes her sweaty palms before dropping her napkin. The evening is ending for the others. Not for her.
On the lanai she and Herb stretch out their thanks and good nights to the Kuritas as the other guests move off through the noisy tropical night to their cars. The Kuritas go inside. Herb takes her arm and leads her along the broad lanai and around the corner of the house. He offers her a cigarette. She shakes her head. She has already sweetened her breath with a mint.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
She nods.
“They’ll call me when I get home. They always do. Any message?”
“No.”
He starts to go, hesitates. “Sometimes I’m sorry I ever told the Navy about you.”
“I’m not.”
He squeezes her shoulder and walks off toward his Buick. Tillie turns back to the house. Long pale rectangles are cast on the lanai by the floor-to-ceiling windows. They disappear as the lamps inside are turned off. She walks until she comes to the side door. Mrs. Kurita’s maid is waiting, eyes downcast. As Tillie enters, she whispers, “Upstairs, second door on right.”
Arrangements have been made correctly, and there is no one to see Tillie as she climbs the steps and walks down the corridor. Without knocking, she opens the door. There is only a single lamp on the dressing table, but she can see Ryo in the dimness. He is in bed. As he raises himself on an elbow, the covers fall away from his muscular shoulder and arm. He does not speak. They like to pretend that she does not know he is in the room. It is a game.
One of their games.
She turns her back to him. He’d set the scene carefully, the lamp off to the side, the tall mirror above the dressing table facing her. He likes to see her front and back. She unzips her dress and lets it fall. Slides off her shoes.
Now she makes him wait, sitting at the mirror, pouring water from the ewer to the basin, washing off her mascara and lipstick, patting her face dry with a soft towel. Then pulling the myriad of pins from her tight French roll, allowing her blond hair to fall around her shoulders.
She stands, hooks her fingers under the straps of her slip, slides them off her shoulders, lets the slip fall. Bending to one side, then the other, a movement she knows he likes, she thumbs her stockings from their garters. Sitting in a chair by the lamp, she lifts her right leg and eases the silk hose down her thigh.
It is no easy task to remove stockings gracefully. A Chinese courtesan was brought over from Macao by Captain Jenkins and Commander Mannion to teach her how to do it. Along with other tricks.
Glancing over her shoulder she can see the moonlight reflected from Ryo’s eyes as he watches from the shadows.
She stands to remove her girdle. Another task she’d had to learn how to do for an audience. She’d always hated wearing a girdle and had many fights with her mother, who thought it was indecent to go without one. Her mother would be so pleased to know she is decent tonight.
Now she is down to her peach satin panties and brassiere. Ryo’s breathing is becoming audible. She stands at attention, arches her back, brings her hands up to undo the two sets of hooks. Peels the cups away from her small, high-riding breasts. The aureoles of her nipples are unusually large. She used to worry that when she bent over in a bathing suit, a bit of pink might show. The anxieties of a virgin seem so far in the past.
She bends to lower her panties. As she steps out of them and begins to straighten up, Ryo breaks the silence. “Oh, not yet! Hold still. People say that the sweep of Waikiki beach to Diamond Head is the loveliest curve in the islands, but they haven’t seen your behind.”
She chuckles as she lets him look for another moment. Ryo’s sense of humor was a surprise to her. His fluent English and his years in Chicago and Washington had been explained in the briefings, but not his jokes that seem so American to her.
She crosses the room. Ryo throws back the covers and sits on the edge of the bed, displaying the evidence of how much he has enjoyed the show. In his hand is the familiar short ivory stick. She opens her mouth, accepting it as obediently as her horse used to accept the bit. It’s necessary; otherwise she can’t keep from making noise. The Kuritas and their maid know what she and Ryo are doing, but the rest of the household does not. It must be kept that way if they hope to meet here again. And she does. Otherwise they have to meet in Honolulu, in a borrowed apartment or a hotel room, and the arrangements are difficult and tense. A mixed-race couple draws stares.
He pats the bed beside his thigh. She puts one foot there. Then he slides to the floor, kneeling between her legs. Soon she has to bite down hard on the ivory. The Chinese courtesan, while teaching her all the ways to please a man, told her that the man’s efforts to please her would be perfunctory at best. But Ryo likes to bring her to her first climax before she is even in bed.
The courtesan was wrong about something else: how the lovemaking would end. She said that the man would lose interest in her the instant after he spent his seed. She should expect him to turn over and fall asleep. But Ryo props himself on an elbow over her and gently mops the sweat from her brow with the corner of the sheet and runs his fingers through her tangled hair, all the while murmuring endearments. He wishes her sound sleep and lightly kisses her closed eyes, as if she is a child.
When she reports to Captain Jenkins and Commander Mannion, she tells them everything Ryo does and says. Except for this.
Ryo’s head lies on the pillow next to hers, his face turned toward her. She can tell by the rhythm of his breath against her cheek that he has fallen asleep. She is wide awake. Her vigil is beginning.
She knows the day has been tiring for him. His duties at the consulate are grueling, and these dinner parties, when he has to weigh every word before he speaks, wear him down. She hopes that he will sleep deeply. That there will be nothing for her to do tonight.
But no. She will not be spared. It begins as it usually does. He stirs, rolls onto his other side, then onto his back. She opens her eyes to see that his brow is furrowed. Beneath his lids his eyes are moving. His mouth opens. First there are only mumbles. But gradually he begins to form words. Japanese ones.
Whoever had tipped off Captain Jenkins and Commander Mannion that the Japanese attaché talked in his sleep had also known that he spoke in his mother tongue. That was how she got this job.
There are plenty of beautiful girls in Honolulu, Jenkins said. There are a few who are also intelligent, brave, and patriotic. But there is only one who in addition to having these qualities speaks fluent Japanese.
Tonight, what Ryo says is as usual a jumble. Some small anxiety of his day at the office continues to haunt him. He mentions the banyan tree outside the Kuritas’ house. And the gecko on the dining room wall. That amused him, too. Eventually he grows quiet and still. There will be no more tonight. She slips out of bed, retrieves the journal from her purse, carefully records his babblings before she forgets them. For all the good they will do the U.S. Navy.
Don’t worry, Jenkins and Mannion will say when she reports. Some night he’ll reveal something big. He’s well thought of at the consulate, a rising man, a confidant of the consul himself. He knows secrets and he’ll let them slip.
One time Jenkins sent Mannion out of the office. Put his hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eye. “We know what you’re undergoing. The—the degradation. You feel the dirt can never be washed away. But it will be worth it in the end.”
But I don’t feel degraded, Tillie thinks now. Ryo’s hands have touched every inch of my body, and I don’t feel dirty. I won’t feel dirty until the day he lets the secret slip and I bring it to you.
Until I complete my betrayal of him.
13
“Laker.”
“Boss.”
“Are you on a secure line?”
“Yes.”
He was in a small office in the Customs and Immigration wing of Baltimore–Washington International Airport. He and Ava had come here straight from
their plane, and Laker had used his Department of Homeland Security creds to obtain the use of a secure landline.
“You’ve been in Honolulu with Ava North. Where her grandmother grew up.”
“How did you know?”
Mason grunted. Or possibly laughed. “Not from you. As usual, you did not inform me of your plans. Well done.”
“Sir?”
“Your reputation in this town for handling matters your own way is the only thing keeping my battered old bureaucratic ass out of a sling.”
“People have been asking you what I’m up to.”
“The sort of people it’s hard to say no to. So it was a good thing I could plead ignorance. Now they’ve started asking the Secretary for Homeland Security.”
“Oh.”
“Our boss. That’s undesirable, Laker.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Are you making progress?”
“I think so. I’ve found out—”
“No. Don’t tell me. We’re not having this conversation.”
“Okay.”
“I will continue to cover for you for as long as I can. But Laker? When I call, prepare to do what you’re told. For a change.”
The line went dead. Mason preferred landlines to cell phones. Partly because they could be made more secure. Mostly because he liked to hang up on people, and it was much more satisfying when you could slam a receiver down on a cradle.
Laker replaced his own receiver and turned to Ava. She was sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair by the door, her russet head bowed. She’d fallen asleep. It had been a tiring couple of days.
“Ava.”
The head came up and she blinked at him.
“Apparently the word is out.”
“About our trip to Hawaii? So you were right. Somebody—maybe my own esteemed employer—peeked into the airline reservation computers.”
“Yes. They found your name. And they penetrated my alias. Which bothers me.”
“That guy who followed me was probably from the field office of the FBI or whoever and he only wanted to ask me some questions. Now I feel twice as dumb for panicking and running away and falling in a river.”
“You said your instincts told you he was your grandmother’s murderer.”
She sighed and looked down. “Yes. But what are my instincts worth? I’m an amateur. As I demonstrated by not following your advice. I should have stayed at poolside.”
“The main thing is, you’re okay.”
“And we’ve still got the journal.”
He considered for a moment. “Somebody is probably waiting at your apartment. To haul you back to Fort Meade for debriefing.”
“It’s inevitable, isn’t it? What do we have to fear from being questioned by our own people? Apart from the tedium.”
“It’ll put us in a dilemma. Either we run off a string of lies, or we tell them about the journal.”
“We tell them, and they’ll demand we turn it over.”
“Once it’s out of our hands, it could just disappear. Don’t rock the boat is rule number one in this town.”
“And cover your ass is number two. Laker, I don’t want to give up the journal till we find out what it means.”
“Better not go home, then. I recommend a hotel. Unless you have a friend you could stay with.”
Ava smiled. “I have you.”
He turned his good ear toward her.
“You and I are in this together, Laker. And I don’t want to get any of my innocent BFFs in trouble. I guess I’ll have to buy some clothes and things.”
“There’s a coffee shop on the corner, a block west of my building. Meet me there in four hours. We should go to my place together.”
She glanced at her watch. “They’ll be watching your place, too.”
“Possibly. But there’s a sort of gentleman’s agreement among the D.C. spy shops. They don’t try to pull each other’s agents in off the street.”
“Sensible arrangement. I have the feeling that trying to pull you in off the street might be hazardous to one’s health. What will you be doing with the next four hours?”
“Old Washington saying. If you know nothing, people will tell you nothing—”
“But if you know a little, they’ll tell you a lot,” Ava finished for him. Her face became grave. “So you’ll be trying to leverage what we found out in Hawaii. That Tillie was a honey trap.”
“Ava, all we know for sure is that your grandmother worked for Naval Intelligence.”
“We also know how intelligence agencies use beautiful, innocent young women. I expect it was the same in 1941.”
14
Laker was sitting in a small, windowless conference room off the newsroom of the Washington Post. It was unimpressively furnished—just a battered wooden table surrounded by old office chairs—but this was where politicians who were about to announce their candidacy for office, or wanted coverage for some other reason, came to meet with editors and reporters. Something about the atmosphere reminded him of the old movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Burl Ives as Big Daddy wrinkling his nose and saying, “There’s an odor of mendacity in here.”
The door swung open. Joshua Milton stood glaring at him a moment before entering.
One of Washington’s most famous and choleric investigative reporters, his face was familiar to Laker from the Sunday morning news shows: long graying dark hair flopping over his forehead and curling up from the tops of both ears so that he appeared to have horns, dark eyes with heavy bags under them, a mustache drooping over a downturned mouth.
“I was told a guy wants to see me, and he claims to be Thomas Laker. Which I find implausible.”
The odor of mendacity must be getting to him, too. Working here, you’d think he’d be used to it. “Want to see my ID?”
“I know what the IDs of people like you are worth. I also happen to know Laker used to play ball for Notre Dame. So our sports editor will be sending up a photo in a minute. You want to tell me who you really are?”
“Let’s wait for the photo.”
Milton shut the door and slumped in a chair, looking balefully across the table at Laker. “You turn out to be Laker, I’m gonna be disappointed. Taking on a bullshit errand like this one—”
“What do you think I’m here for?”
“C’mon. It’s that screwup in Pakistan two years ago. I’ve been working on the story ever since. Now it’s ready to go. You guys don’t want us to publish. You’re here to ask nicely. Then there’ll be the appeal to patriotism. Then the veiled threats. Let’s skip it. Have your lawyers call our lawyers, and I’ll see you—or somebody—in court.”
The door opened and a copy boy came in. Were there still copy boys, Laker wondered. If so, they probably didn’t call them that anymore. In any case he was a harassed-looking kid, and he handed Milton a folder and left.
Milton opened the folder, and Laker saw a photo of himself upside down in pads and number jersey. Looking as young as the copy boy.
“So you are Laker,” Milton said.
“I’m not here about Pakistan.”
“What, then?”
“In this case it’s a who. Tillie North. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Milton closed the file and tossed it on the table. “I don’t like answering questions. Especially about Mrs. North.”
“Ten years ago, you were working with her on an authorized biography.”
“Yeah. She was charming. Told me lots of anecdotes about the rich and famous. I kept saying, c’mon, Tillie, you got to rip the lid off. We want to sell some books here. But she wouldn’t give me the real stuff. The project was canceled. I had to give the advance back. Which was inconvenient, considering I’d spent it.”
“You were pissed. So you set to work on an unauthorized biography.”
“I deny that. I have nothing to tell you about Tillie North. Unless you want to hear her funny story about the time Hubert Humphrey got drunk.”
“I wa
nt to know about an earlier period in her life.”
“Oh?”
“When she was an asset of the Office of Naval Intelligence at Pearl Harbor. Assuming they used that term in 1941.”
Milton smiled for the first time. “You live up to your rep, Laker. That was buried deep. You find out about Mannion and Jenkins, too?”
Laker raised his eyebrows. He figured that was all it was going to take. Milton had been waiting for someone he could tell this story to for a long time.
“Commander J. T. Mannion, just beginning a long and distinguished career in ONI. At Pearl in ‘41, he was trying to turn a diplomat named Hirochi Ryo. Smart man, esteemed at the consulate, sure to have actionable intelligence on Japanese war plans. He’d spent years in America. Liked Americans.”
“So did Admiral Yamamoto. That didn’t stop him from masterminding the Pearl Harbor attack.”
“No. Ryo was cut from the same cloth. Loyal to the emperor, even if he had doubts about General Tojo. Mannion was getting nowhere. Finally he tried a kind of honey trap.”
“Entangle Ryo in a romance, then blackmail him?”
“Not exactly. Try to blackmail Ryo, and he’d just commit hara-kiri. There was a twist to this one. Captain L. B. Jenkins, Mannion’s boss, was a digger. He tracked down Ryo’s roommate at the University of Chicago, who told him Ryo talked in his sleep.”
Laker thought of the seemingly meaningless lines in the journal. So they were the unconscious murmurings of a Japanese diplomat. He said, “Mannion and Jenkins went looking for a beautiful girl. With no known connections to Naval Intelligence. Who spoke Japanese.”
“Tillie gave her body for her country. Repeatedly. Faithfully turned in all Ryo’s mutterings. But he was a professional diplomat, on guard even when asleep. He let no secrets slip. That’s what Mannion told me.”