He blew out another smoky breath. “No, not Yuko. The guy. The Japanese guy. The dude wearing earplugs.”
“Who’re you talking about, Charles? Are you wasted?”
“No, no. He said he was—” Charles chuckled. “Maybe I am.”
“You’re what, Charles?”
“Wasted.”
Alison rolled her eyes. “Have you seen Yuko?”
“Had to take off. She said to tell you bon voyage.”
Alison dropped the pitcher off in the kitchen., Alison’s interest in partying had walked out the door with Ms. Yamada’s departure.
She glanced at the wall clock. Almost two o’clock in the morning. When were these people going to go home? Someone had found the classic Motown CDs and suddenly everyone was a dancing Blues Brother. Like an out-of-control train headed downhill, the party was picking up momentum.
She had an early flight to Hong Kong and wanted to get some sleep. Or pass out. Whichever, blissfully, came first. Charles could be the gracious host to his houseful of party guests. She needed a time-out.
Alison went to her bedroom, kicked off her slippers, killed the lights and stretched out on the futon bed. After a quiet moment to rest her eyes, she’d be ready for another round of hospitality.
She must have dozed a bit, but she had a feeling, a sixth sense, that she was being watched, that there was someone in the bedroom with her.
“Hey, Charles.” She sat up in bed in time to see a man’s head duck out of the door. The bedroom door slammed shut. The man wasn’t Charles.
Who the hell was that? Some freak voyeur in her own home? Maybe she dreamed it, but she didn’t think so. Was it just some drunken sot looking for a bathroom?
Alison got out of bed and turned on the lights. On top of the futon, next to where Alison had been resting, was an envelope. Alison tore open the envelope. Inside was a picture postcard of Hong Kong harbor at night.
Alison smiled. How sweet of Charles to leave her a note. For Charles, a postcard was tantamount to an effusive love letter. He was missing her already. She turned the postcard over to read his message.
Glued to the back of the card was a slapdash, digital composite image. Alison’s face had been pasted onto the naked body of a woman, bound by her wrists and ankles to the poles of a four-poster bed. A coiled bullwhip lay between her spread-eagled legs. Scribbled on the bottom of the card was a handwritten message. “Have a good trip, TokyoAli!!! I will be waiting for you!!!”
28
It was him. In her house. The damn freak had been in her bedroom. A scream rocketed from Alison’s gut and exploded out of her mouth.
She threw the postcard on the floor and thundered into the living room.
“Charles!” She yelled but the music drowned her out. The partygoers were caught up in their own highs, their own drunkenness. Alison scanned the glazed faces. Was one of them her stalker?
Where was Charles? If he knew that some twisted psychopath had crashed his party. Had ventured into his bedroom hunting his girlfriend. Charles would handle it. Would handle him. But where was Charles?
Alison raced to the first-floor guest room, pushed open the door. No one. She ran down the back hall and saw Miss Lap Dog scurrying from the study. Miss Dog was pulling down her very bodycon dress. Shrink-wrap would have been a looser fit.
“Have you seen Charles?” Alison asked.
Without answering, Miss Lap Dog trotted down the hall.
Alison opened the study door. The lights were off, but Alison could see Charles on the couch, his profile reflected against the glow of the street light on the window.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Charles. There’s some freako nut in the house.”
“What’re you talking about?”
Alison switched on the table lamp. Charles blinked at the sudden brightness. Shirt half-unbuttoned, he leaned heavily on his elbow for support staying upright.
“There was some guy here. I don’t know who. I was resting on the bed, and he left a postcard right next to me. A bon voyage card.”
“Yeah, so. That’s nice.”
“No. It was really perverted. And he knew I’m going to Hong Kong.”
“I didn’t realize it was a state secret.”
“I was alone in the bedroom with some deranged lunatic.”
Charles dropped his chin to his chest and massaged his eyelids. “You were dreaming, Alison. You’ve been hitting the sauce pretty hard tonight — tequila, champagne. Makes a person imagine things.”
“Imagine things? That postcard isn’t a dream. It’s a threat. Can’t you do something? Throw everybody out? Party’s over.”
Charles stood up with an air of impatient resignation. “Show it to me.”
Alison led Charles to the bedroom, but the postcard was gone.
Charles raised his eyebrows and looked down at Alison like she was a poor, misguided child. She hated that look. It was his supercilious way of saying I told you so.
“Get some sleep, Alison. And if the postcard-writing boogeyman comes back, I’m here to protect you.” Charles snorted.
“Protect me? I was frantically searching for you, and you were back there in the dark with that lap dog bimbo.”
“Get off it, Alison. You’re imagining things. All kinds of things.” Charles rubbed the backs of his eyelids. “We got any eye drops? Visine?”
Alison stared at Charles. His red-rimmed eyes gazed at Alison as if from a faraway distance. She wanted to scream all over again. He’d been smoking dope all night, and yet she was imagining things.
“I’ll tell you what I saw, Charles. Sworn testimony. An eyewitness account.” Alison held her palm in the air. “I saw her. That lap dog bitch. I saw you, too. And I saw a postcard. Humiliating, degrading. All of it.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
Why did she have to convince him of anything? Why couldn’t he just believe her? Believe in her. “I’m tired of being sober.”
Alison stopped by the living room and snagged an open bottle of champagne. The bottle, almost full, was still chilled. She retreated to the bedroom and locked the door. Visiting hours were over.
“Open the door.” Charles’ pounding shook the door in its frame.
“Go back to your party.”
Charles kicked the door. “Dammit, Alison! What’s the matter with you?”
“There was a strange man leaving me obscene messages in my bedroom while you were fucking around with some bimbo in my own house.” Alison laughed. “In your house. But you know, you’re right. I must have imagined the entire thing.”
Alison had a big guzzle of champagne straight from the bottle. The bottle was heavier than she realized and champagne sloshed out of her mouth and dribbled down her chin.
She dragged herself into the bathroom to find an Actifed. Allergy medicine with an alcohol chaser was the closest thing she had to a sleeping pill.
“Fuck it, Alison. Go to Hong Kong. Do what you have to do. But when you get back, you need to talk to a shrink. Someone who’ll help you be more rational.”
Alison popped the Actifed into her mouth and washed it down with a swig of champagne.
“That’s the problem, Charles. I’m completely rational now.”
01111001 01101111 01110101
Alison cracked open an eye to squint at the bleeping clock on the nightstand: 5:30 a.m. She had fallen asleep in her party clothes and her morning mouth tasted like dried shit, a remembrance of last night’s festivities.
It was way too early, and she’d barely dozed off. But remembering the blowout with Charles, she was ready to pull herself together and hit the road. All she needed was a hot shower, cool mint toothpaste and coffee. She’d be good to go.
Alison called the contact number Charles had given her for Morgan Sachs’ travel department. She switched her hotel reservations at the Mandarin and booked a deluxe single at the Regent, the hotel Kiyoshi had recommended. Let Charles explain the expense to his firm. If they even noticed, which she
doubted they would.
Alison emailed Kiyoshi telling him where she was staying so that he could fax her the list of his recommendations in Hong Kong. Then she packed her bag.
Passport, business suit, briefcase. She snatched up the pile of business cards she had collected, a pack of American Express traveler’s checks and her return ticket to the States. All the trappings that Ms. Lipton at the embassy had suggested she offer up to satisfy Japanese immigration enough to grant her a business visa.
What other evidence could she present to plead her case? She scanned the bedroom. Just in case, she took some Green Space material as proof of her business meetings. And she double-checked that the disk Ms. Yamada had entrusted to her was securely stored in her purse.
That should do it. As an afterthought, she pulled out her computer and attached it to the strap on her rolling suitcase. She didn’t want Charles to stumble upon her Mac.
Alison couldn’t resist looking in on Charles and found him splayed out on top of the guest bed, fast asleep in his clothes. She leaned down to give him a light kiss on the cheek, but then realized that she didn’t feel like bothering.
Hong Kong would be a good break for her. A chance to get clear about her relationship with Charles. The trip would be a welcome escape.
She closed the guest bedroom door, grabbed her suitcase and rolled out onto the street.
29
The jet taxied to a halt in the middle of the tarmac at Kai Tak airport, and Alison relaxed her death grip on the armrest. Landings at her hometown SFO airport were scary enough. It always looked like the plane was going to crash into the bay until at the very last minute a runway would miraculously appear. But the descent into Hong Kong offered a heart-pounding thrillfest when the 747 banked precipitously and zoomed uncomfortably close between skyscrapers.
The passengers deplaned and were shepherded onto buses to take them to the terminal. Alison wasn’t expecting the mild breeze that greeted her on the ground in Hong Kong. She immediately liked Hong Kong’s moderate climate in contrast to Tokyo’s chilling winds.
Still bleary from lack of sleep, Alison shuffled along with the crowds through immigration and customs. She changed a little money at the currency exchange counter before climbing into a cab.
Her car pulled up in front of the Regent Hotel. Unsure if tipping was standard practice in Hong Kong, Alison paid the driver and threw in an extra 20 percent to be safe. An eager doorman assisted her out of the cab, and Alison had to fight to keep him from taking her suitcase. She checked in at the registration desk and received her electronic room key.
“By any chance did a fax come for me?” Alison hoped Kiyoshi might have already gotten her email message and faxed his list of recommended sights.
“No, but if we get one, we will turn on the message light on in your room.”
Alison tapped the card key against her cheek. Maybe she should let Charles know where she was staying in Hong Kong. Just in case.
Alison asked the man at the front desk for a fax cover, and he passed her a sheet printed with the hotel’s name and logo. She scribbled a short note and handed the paper back.
Charles — I’m at the Regent in Kowloon.
—Alison
Brief, but that’s all he needed to know. Alison waved off the bellhop who wanted to take her bag and rolled her suitcase over to the lobby gift shop. She bought a guidebook about Hong Kong and rode the elevator up to her floor.
The room felt comfortably modern with a big-screen television, surround-sound radio, and water kettle with a variety of imported teas, coffees and packets labeled “tisane” — whatever a tisane was. All the luxury amenities an elite clientele would expect at a hotel that catered to their kind.
As a budget-conscious traveler who was stashing away the freebies, Alison was sure she wasn’t the typical Regent customer. But she would do her best to suffer her fate in the lap of luxury.
She moved on to the bathroom to see what loot awaited her. Score. A hefty bar of French milled soap rested on the edge of a marble soaking tub. She picked up the soap without removing the wrapper and held it to her nose. Lavender with a touch of verbena. Yeah, she could definitely get used to this.
Alison ran water for a bath. Waiting for the tub to fill, she unpacked her lawyerly all-purpose, all-season dark blue Donna Karan suit and hung it up in the bathroom to steam out the wrinkles. All this bother and preparation for a damn visa stamp. But then again, she’d blown it. She’d overstayed her visa. If the Japanese consulate wanted a dog-and-pony show, she wouldn’t disappoint.
Alison stripped and eased into the bath. The deep tub was small, and there was no place to sit on a stool for a prewash before hopping in. She realized how quickly she’d become accustomed to the Japanese way of bathing and the spacious ofuro in her house. She let her mind drift and her muscles relax while the warm water invited her to nap.
Waking herself up, Alison dried off and slipped on a plush hotel robe. Embroidered with the Regent’s name and logo and lined with terry cloth soft as velvet, the robe might have found its way into her suitcase, if she weren’t such a straight-up, true-blue Girl Scout. And if the hotel didn’t have her credit card number. Or, rather, Morgan Sachs’ account number. She certainly didn’t want to get Charles in trouble over a stolen hotel robe.
Bundled up and getting hungry, Alison went in search of a room service menu. Looking in the drawer of the nightstand — no Gideon’s Bible, she noted — she found a binder describing the hotel’s services. The in-room dining options sounded delicious, and her stomach growled in agreement.
She used her calculator to convert the room service prices to U.S. dollars and decided what to eat. The cheapest thing on the menu.
A child’s meal of a hamburger and fries was promptly delivered on a linen-draped rolling cart. Maybe they wouldn’t notice there weren’t any kids staying in the room. Alison scarfed down the food and picked up the phone to have housekeeping remove the cart. The telephone’s red message light was on.
Alison smiled in anticipation of reading Kiyoshi’s fax. Or, she realized with a thud back to reality, it could just as easily be a message from Charles. She dialed the front desk.
“A fax arrived for you, Miss Crane. Shall we have someone bring it up?”
“Yes, please.”
Within moments — had somebody been waiting outside of her room? — an envelope was slipped under the door.
The fax was from Kiyoshi, sent to her by way of World NetLink.
Dear Alison,
I hope you had a good flight. I am sorry if this list is late reaching you. Here are my suggestions.
- Dim Sum at Diamond Restaurant
- Drunken prawns at any restaurant
- A ride on the Star Ferry
- The Jade Market
- Victoria Peak
- Also, I highly recommend drinks at the lobby bar at your hotel. Sunset is the best time.
I wish I could be there to show you these sights, but maybe the list will be helpful.
Yours truly,
Kiyoshi Hisaka
Alison read the note and beamed. “I wish I could be there to show you these sights.” She wished he could be here, too. She hung her motion-activated travel burglar alarm on the hotel door and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
30
Alison’s wake-up call jarred her out of sleep. She ordered coffee and toast from room service and began her morning stretches. Minutes later, the room service man arrived with her breakfast. He set the tray on the table in front of the window and pulled open her curtains.
As he prepared to leave, he said, “This fax came for you during the night, Miss Crane,” and handed her an envelope.
“Thank you.” Alison scrounged in her purse for some coins and handed them over. The huge grin on the man’s face made her think perhaps she didn’t have an understanding of the value of the Hong Kong dollar.
She sat down at the table and poured her coffee, appreciating that the hotel had provided a sid
e pot of hot milk. She sipped her coffee, putting off the inevitable. She didn’t want to read the fax, undoubtedly an abject, groveling apology from Charles.
What the hell, she opened the envelope.
DO YOU MISS ME ALISON????? MISS MISSS MISS ME MISS ALI???? I MISS YOU. THANK YOU FOR THE PARTY!!!!! I HAD FUN. WHY NOT YOU??? LET’S MEET AT HONKON!!
Dumbfounded, Alison stared at the fax page. No doubt who it was from. But how did that bastard know where she was?
She had sent Kiyoshi an email telling him where she was staying, but all of their messages were encrypted. So that must mean the techno-creep had been able to break the code.
“I had fun. Why not you?” Damn him! Like a tick that had burrowed under her skin, this freak had invaded her life and wouldn’t be shaken loose.
The anger she had felt when she knew that the guy had violated her bedroom, her most intimate personal space, returned and lodged in her stomach. Even though she’d only had coffee and toast, Alison felt queasy, like she was going to be sick. She took some calming yoga breaths and waited for the nausea to pass.
She looked at Kiyoshi’s fax again. Kiyoshi had sent the fax through World NetLink’s fax service. Could the cybernut pick up faxes sent through the computer network? Why not? It was all digitized information being hurled through the ethers, there for the intercepting.
But the creep couldn’t actually be coming to Hong Kong. No way. Just a bluff to unnerve her. Nevertheless, the guy was way too close for comfort.
Alison phoned the front desk. “This is Alison Crane, and I’d like you to hold all my phone calls. And if I get any faxes, please throw them away.”
“I’m not sure I understand, ma’am,” the operator said. “You would like for us to discard faxes we receive for you?”
“That’s right. No incoming communication. I’d appreciate your help.” Alison hung up. She was going offline, underground, incognito. She’d be damned if that cyberfreak was going to ruin her trip.
She showered and donned her lawyer gear. It was time to plead her case.
Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense Page 14