by Barry Eisler
And there was something else I didn’t know, something I wouldn’t share with Harry. I didn’t know if I wanted her to let it go.
What had I just told him? You can’t live with one foot in daylight and the other in shadows. I needed to take my own damn advice.
4
I SAW HARRY off around one. The subways were already closed and he caught a cab. He told me he was going home to wait for Yukiko.
I tried to picture a beautiful young hostess, pulling down the yen equivalent of a thousand dollars a night in tips in one of Tokyo’s exclusive establishments, with her pick of wealthy businessmen and politicians for paramours, hurrying home to Harry’s apartment after work. I just couldn’t see it.
Don’t be so cynical, I thought.
But my gut wasn’t buying it, and I’ve learned to trust my gut.
It’s still early. Just take a look. It’s practically on the way to the hotel.
If Harry had changed his mind about going home and had gone to Damask Rose instead, though, he’d know I was checking up on him. He might not be surprised, but he wouldn’t like it, either.
But the chances that Harry would stop by there on his own dime, when Yukiko was due to come to his place in just a few hours anyway, were slim. The risk was worth taking.
And Nogizaka was only a few kilometers away. What the hell.
I tried directory assistance from a public phone, but there was no listing for a Damask Rose. Well, Harry had said they didn’t advertise.
Still, I could just go and have a look.
I walked the short distance to Nogizaka, then strolled up and down Gaienhigashi-dori until I found the club. It took a while, but I finally spotted it. There was no sign, only a small red rose on a black awning.
The entrance was flanked by two black men, each of sufficient bulk to have been at home in the sumo pit. Their suits were well tailored and, given the size of the men wearing them, must have been custom-made. Nigerians, I assumed, whose size, managerial acumen, and relative facility with the language had made them a rare foreign success story, in this case as both middle management and muscle for many of the area’s entertainment establishments. The mizu shobai, or “water trade” of entertainment and pleasure, is one of the few areas in which Japan can legitimately claim a degree of internationalization.
They bowed and opened the club’s double glass doors for me, each issuing a baritone irasshaimase as they did so. Welcome. One of them murmured something into a microphone set discreetly into his lapel.
I walked down a short flight of stairs. A ruddy-faced, prosperous-looking Japanese man whom I put at about forty greeted me in a small foyer. Interchangeable J-Pop techno music was playing from the room beyond.
“Nanmeisama desho ka?” Mr. Ruddy asked. How many?
“Just one,” I said in English, holding up a finger.
“Kashikomarimashita.” Of course. He motioned that I should follow him.
The room was rectangular, flanked by dance stages on either end. The stages were simple, distinguished only by mirrored walls behind them and identical brass fire poles at their centers. One stage was occupied by a tall, long-haired blonde wearing high heels and a green G-string and nothing more. She was dancing somewhat desultorily, I thought, but seemed to have the attention of the majority of the club’s clientele regardless. Russian, I guessed. Large-boned and large-breasted. A delicacy in Japan.
Harry hadn’t mentioned floor shows. Probably he was embarrassed. My sense that something was amiss deepened.
On the other stage I saw a girl who looked like a mix of Japanese and something Mediterranean or Latin. A good mix. She had that silky, almost shimmering black hair that so many modern Japanese women like to ruin with chapatsu dye, worn short and swept over from the side. The shape of the eyes was also Japanese, and she was on the petite side. But her skin, a smooth gold like melted caramel, seemed like something else, maybe African or mulatto. Her breasts and hips, too, appealingly full and slightly incongruous on her Japanese-sized frame, seemed to suggest some foreign origin. She was using the pole skillfully, grabbing it high, posing with her body held rigid and parallel to the floor, then spiraling down in time to the music. There was real vitality in her moves and she didn’t seem to mind that most of the patrons were focused on the blonde.
Mr. Ruddy held out a chair for me at an empty table in the center of the room. After a routine glance to ensure that the seat afforded a proper view of the entrance, I sat. I wasn’t displeased to see that I also had a good view of the stage where the dark-haired girl was dancing.
“Wow,” I said in English, looking at her.
“Yes, she is beautiful,” he replied, also in English. “Would you like to meet her?”
I watched her for another moment before answering. I didn’t want to wind up with one of the Japanese girls here. I would have a better chance of creating rapport, and therefore of eliciting information, by chatting with a foreigner while playing the role of foreigner.
I nodded.
“I will let her know.” He handed me a drinks menu, bowed, and slipped away from the table.
The menu was written on a single page of thick, cream-colored parchment in double columns of elegant Japanese, the club’s signature red rose placed discreetly at the bottom. I was surprised to see that it included an imaginative selection of single malts. A twenty-five-year-old Springbank, which I’d been looking for. And a Talisker of the same age. I might have to stay for a while.
A waitress came by and I ordered the Springbank. Ten thousand yen the measure. But life is short.
There were a dozen girls working the floor. About half were Japanese; the others looked indeterminately European. All were attractive and tastefully dressed. Most were engaging customers, but a few were free. None approached my table. Mr. Ruddy must have passed the word that I’d requested someone. Efficient operation.
At the table next to me was a Japanese man surrounded by three fawning hostesses. He looked superficially youthful, with radiant white teeth and black hair swept back from a tanned face free of fissures. But I looked more closely and saw that the appearance was ersatz. The hair was dyed, the tan courtesy of a sunlamp, the unseamed face likely the product of Botox and surgery, the teeth porcelain caps. The chemicals and the knife, even the retinue of attractive young women with paid-for adoring smiles, all simply tools to prop up a shaky wall of denial about the inevitable indignities of aging and death.
The techno beat faded out and the dark-haired girl gyrated slowly to the floor, her legs scissoring the pole, her back arched, her head tilted back toward the room. The blonde was also finishing, albeit in less spectacular fashion. The audience applauded.
The waitress brought my Springbank, shimmering amber in a crystal tumbler. I raised the glass to my nose, closed my eyes for a moment, and inhaled a breath of clean, sherried sea air. I took a sip. Salt and brine, yes, but somewhere a hint of fruit, as well. The finish was long and dry. I smiled. Not bad for a twenty-five-year-old.
I took another sip and looked around. I didn’t pick up any danger vibes. The place could be legit, I thought. Doubtless it would be hooked up with organized crime, but that was par for the course in the mizu shobai, not just for Japan but for the world. Maybe Harry had just gotten lucky.
Maybe.
A few minutes later, the dark-haired girl appeared from behind the stage. She moved down a short riser of steps and walked over to my table.
She had changed into a strapless black cocktail dress. A thin diamond bracelet encircled her left wrist. A gift from an admirer, I thought. I expected she would have many.
“May I join you?” she asked. Her Japanese was lightly accented with something warm, maybe Spanish or Portuguese.
“Please,” I responded in English, standing and pulling back a chair for her. “Is English all right?”
“Of course,” she said, switching over. “I just thought . . . you’re American?”
I nodded. “My parents are Japanese, but I grew up in
America. I’m more comfortable in English.”
I eased the chair in behind her. The cocktail dress laced up the back. Smooth skin glowed in the interstices.
I sat down next to her. “I enjoyed watching you dance,” I said.
I knew she would have heard that a thousand times before, and her smile confirmed it. The smile said Of course you did.
That was fine. I wanted her to feel in control, to let her guard down. We’d have a few drinks, relax, get to know each other before I began to probe for what really interested me.
“What brings you to Tokyo?” she asked.
“Business. I’m an accountant. Once a year I have to come to Japan for some of the firm’s local clients.” It was a good cover story. No one ever asks follow-up questions when you tell them you’re an accountant. They’re afraid you might answer.
“I’m John, by the way,” I added.
She held out her hand. “Naomi.”
Her fingers were small in my hand but her grip was firm. I tried to place her age. Late twenties, maybe thirty. She looked young, but her dress and mannerisms were sophisticated.
“Can I get you something to drink, Naomi?”
“What’s that you’re having?”
“Something special, if you like single malts.”
“I love single malts. Especially the old Islay whiskeys. They say age removes the fire but leaves the warmth. I like that.”
You’re good, I thought, looking at her. Her mouth was beautiful: full lips; pink gums that almost glowed; even, white teeth. Her eyes were green. A small network of freckles fanned out on and around her nose, barely perceptible amidst the background of caramel skin.
“What I’m drinking isn’t from Islay,” I said, “but it’s got some island character. Smoke and peat. A Springbank.”
She raised her eyebrows. “The twenty-five?”
“You know the menu,” I said, nodding. “Would you like one?”
“After a night of watered-down Suntory? I’d love one.”
Of course she’d love one. Her pay would include a cut of her customers’ tabs. A few ten-thousand-yen shots and she could call it an evening.
I ordered another Springbank. She asked me questions: how I knew so much about single malt whiskey, where I lived in the States, how many times I’d been to Tokyo. She was comfortable in her role and I let her play it.
When our glasses were empty I asked her if she’d like another drink.
She smiled. “You’re thinking about the Talisker.”
“You’re a mind reader.”
“I just know the menu. And good taste. I’d love another.”
I ordered two Taliskers. They were excellent: huge and peppery, with a finish that lasted forever. We drank and chatted some more.
When the second round was nearly done, I began to change tack.
“Where are you from?” I asked her. “You’re not Japanese.” This last I said with some hesitation, as though inexperienced in such matters and therefore unsure.
“My mother was Japanese. I’m from Brazil.”
I’ll be damned, I thought. I was planning a trip to Brazil. A long trip.
“Brazil, where?”
“Bahia.”
Bahia is one of the country’s coastal states. “Salvador?” I asked, to determine the city.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, with the first genuine smile of the evening. “How do you know Brazil so well?”
“I’ve been there a few times. My firm has clients all over the world. Um pae brasileiro e uma mae Japonêsa—é uma combinação bonita,” I said in the Portuguese I had been studying with cassettes. A Brazilian father and a Japanese mother—it’s a beautiful combination.
Her eyes lit up and her mouth parted in a perfect O. “Obrigado!” she exclaimed. Thank you! Then: “Você fala português?” You speak Portuguese?
It was as though the real person had suddenly decided to reinhabit the hostess’s body. Her eyes, her expression, her posture had all come alive, and again I felt that vital energy that had animated her dancing.
“Only a little,” I said, switching back to English. “I’m good with languages and I try to pick up a bit from wherever I travel.”
She was shaking her head slowly and looking at me as though it was the first time she had seen me. She took a swallow of her drink, finishing it.
“One more?” I asked.
“Sim!” she answered immediately in Portuguese. Yes!
I ordered two more Taliskers, then turned to her. “Tell me about Brazil,” I said.
“What do you want to hear?”
“About your family.”
She leaned back and crossed her legs. “My father is a Brazilian blue blood, from one of the old families. My mother was second-generation Japanese.”
Brazil’s melting pot population includes some two million ethnic Japanese, the result of immigration that began in 1908, when Brazil needed laborers and Imperial Japan was looking to establish her people in different parts of the world.
“So you learned Japanese from her?”
She nodded. “Japanese from my mother, Portuguese from my father. My mother died when I was a child, and my father hired an English nanny so I could learn English, too.”
“How long have you been in Japan?”
“Three years.”
“The whole time at this club?”
She shook her head. “Only a year at the club. Before that I was teaching English and Portuguese here in Tokyo through the JET program.”
JET, or Japan Exchange and Teaching, is a government-sponsored program that brings foreigners to Japan primarily to teach their native languages. Judging from the average Japanese’s facility with English, the program could use some work.
“You learned to dance like that teaching language classes?” I asked.
She laughed. “I learned to dance by dancing. When I got here a year ago I was so shy I could barely move on the stage.”
I smiled. “That’s hard to imagine.”
“It’s true. I was raised in a very proper house. I never could have conceived of this kind of thing growing up.”
The waitress walked over and set down two crystal tumblers, each with a measure of Talisker, and two glasses of water. Naomi expertly tipped a drop of the water into the whiskey, swirled it once, and raised the tumbler to her nose. Had she still been in hostess mode she would have waited, taking her cue to drink from the customer. We were making progress.
“Mmmm,” she purred.
We touched glasses and drank.
She closed her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “That’s so good.”
I smiled. “How did you wind up here at world-famous Damask Rose?”
She shrugged. “My first two years in Japan, my salary was about three million yen. I was tutoring in the evening to make a little extra. One of my students told me he knew some people who were opening a club where I could make a lot more than I was making then. I checked it out. And here I am.”
Three million yen a year—maybe twenty-five thousand dollars. “This certainly looks like an improvement,” I said, looking around.
“It’s a good place. We make most of our money with private lap dances. Just dancing, no touching. If you’d like, I can do one for you. But no pressure.”
Lap dancing would be her economic bread and butter. That she had treated it as an afterthought was another good sign.
I looked at her. She really was lovely. But I was here for something else.
“Maybe later,” I said. “I’m enjoying talking with you.”
She smiled, perhaps flattered. Given her looks, my demurral must have been refreshing. Good.
I smiled back. “Tell me more about your family.”
She took another sip of the Talisker. “I have two older brothers. They’re both married and work in the family business.”
“Which is?”
“Agriculture. It’s a family tradition that the men go into the business.”
The reference to agricu
lture felt deliberately vague. From what I knew about Brazil, it could have meant coffee, tobacco, sugar, or some combination. It could also have meant real estate. I gathered that her family was wealthy but that she was discreet about it.
“What do the women do?” I asked.
She laughed. “The women study something trivial in college, so they have a proper education and can be good conversationalists at parties, then they get married into the right families.”
“I gather you decided to do something different.”
“I did the college part—art history. But my father and brothers expected me to get married after that and I just wasn’t ready.”
“Why Japan, then?”
She glanced upward and pursed her lips. “It’s silly, but whenever I hear Japanese it sounds like my mother to me. And I was starting to lose the Japanese I had acquired from her as a child, which was like losing part of her.”
For an instant I saw an image of my own mother’s face. She had died at home while I was in Vietnam.
“That’s not silly at all,” I said.
We were each quiet. Now, I thought.
“So, how do you like working here?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s okay. The hours are crazy, but the money is good.”
“Management treats you well?”
She shrugged again. “They’re okay. No one tries to make you do anything you don’t want to.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. When you do lap dances, some customers want more. If the customers are happy, they come back and spend big money. So, in places like this, sometimes management can pressure the girls to make the customers happy. And to do other things.”
My expression was appropriately concerned. “Other things?”
She waved a hand. “Nothing,” she said.
Change tack. “What about the other girls?” I asked, looking around. “Where do they come from?”
“Oh, all over the world.” She pointed to a tall, auburn-haired beauty in a red-sequined dress who was charming Botox Boy. “That’s Elsa. She’s from Sweden. And that’s Julie next to her, from Canada. The girl who was dancing opposite me is Valentina, from Russia.”