by Emma Lathen
The subsequent hour was a lesson to Thatcher. He had always assumed that Gene Fleming was an eccentric in the world of motorcycling, a sober man of affairs surrounded by leather-jacketed fanatics. But Monsieur Raoul Thibault disabused him of that notion. A stocky man with glistening dark eyes, Thibault discoursed learnedly about the distinction between earthenware and porcelain, about varying admixtures of ash and clay, about rival traditions in Limoges and Staffordshire, Dresden and Nanking.
While he necessarily appreciated the commercial value of dinnerware, Thibault reserved his real approval for ornamental pieces. Antoine Poirier et Fils, he said, had been producing vases and urns and figurines for a hundred and fifty years.
“But Léon’s health is forcing him to consider retirement,” he added sadly.
Nor did Thibault’s helpfulness end there. He could name the Poirier bankers, estimate the firm’s annual gross, and make a shrewd guess about net profits.
“Very timely,” Thatcher observed as they were returning to Tudor House. “Toby will be able to get to work on this right away.”
“And if we should ever be thinking in terms of European insurance companies,” Fleming said blandly, “we could do worse than consult the IFMA rep from West Germany.”
It was a humbling reminder that virtually any extracurricular activity could prove useful to a working banker. But then simply existing and moving about ensured contacts of some nature. As they crossed the entrance arcade, lined with boutiques and other gilded offerings, they met Audrey Kruger, emerging from the beauty salon.
“Oh, you’re still here,” she said. “I thought you’d gone to Birmingham with the rest of them.”
“We’re not leaving until this afternoon,” Thatcher replied.
“What a shame! They could use some dilution.”
In fact, the Sloan contingent had cunningly ascertained Lackawanna’s travel plans before making its own. Now Thatcher was doubly grateful for his foresight.
“What with the police leaving us alone and the press finally beginning to thin out,” she continued, “I thought I could get Carl calmed down before he left. But there’s just so much I can do when these fax people let everybody read everybody else’s mail.”
Fair-mindedly Thatcher tried to defend the fax station. “If Alderman is going to crumple his messages and leave them on the counter, it really isn’t their fault.”
“I’m not talking about the note that either came from Mr. Matsuda or didn’t, and who cares anyway?” she replied with uncharacteristic fretfulness. “I’m talking about—”
In the midst of her irritation she stopped short, clearly debating whether Thatcher and Fleming were appropriate confidants. Audrey Kruger might babble nonstop, but Thatcher could not recall indiscretions about Lackawanna.
Her second thoughts had reminded her of the worldwide publicity surrounding Tudor House.
“I suppose everybody knows by now that Carl was mad at Bennet.”
“I was privileged to witness Alderman’s reaction,” Thatcher said dryly. “That was when he and Hodiak went to the mat. And your husband has since told me that he’s beginning to fear Alderman might have had a hand in bribing MITI.”
In the face of this comprehensive knowledge, Audrey had no qualms about continuing.
“That’s why Carl had some kind of report on Bennet’s work sent over. But the fax people let Bennet get his hands on it first. And Carl didn’t need the extra annoyance.”
Thatcher could mount only qualified sympathy. Life should have taught Audrey her limitations. She could send her husband forth in fighting trim; she could not insulate him from the buffetings of fate.
“Well, your husband will have turned his mind to selling MR by the time we all gather tomorrow.”
“At least Carl is in good physical shape. He’s even been going swimming, though I don’t know how he can bear to use that pool,” she said with an involuntary shudder. “Just look at him!”
Mr. Tomaheko Matsuda had been unloaded from a limousine and supported through the front doors. His progress across the lobby was halting, his face pallid, his left arm obscured by a bulky and complex sling. Although he looked like a candidate for a rehabilitation center, he was swift to announce his intentions.
“Ah, Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Fleming. I thought everybody had already departed for our session. I am looking forward to it with great interest. And Mrs. Kruger too. You are not accompanying your husband?”
“I’d just be in the way,” she replied automatically. “But you mustn’t stand around like this; you’re not well. And— pardon me—should you be going to Birmingham at all?”
Matsuda, clearly fresh from some victory over Japanese bureaucracy, was kindly. “My doctors have assured me that I am ready to resume my duties,” he explained.
Part of his tolerance was probably due to Mrs. Kruger’s womanly behavior. Thatcher suspected that it was easier on a conservative Japanese than Pamela Webb’s efficient grasp of corporate finance.
“Actually that wasn’t what I meant,” she rejoined. “Aren’t you afraid someone will try to shoot you again?”
Even this bluntness failed to puncture Matsuda’s self-satisfaction.
“My wife, too, suffers from these alarms,” he explained grandly to Thatcher. “That is because she does not understand the situation. It was incautious of me to intrude upon a clandestine meeting. But as I no longer constitute a threat, there is no reason to anticipate further violence.”
That might be Matsuda’s interpretation; it was certainly not that of his watchdogs. They were standing on either side of their charge, vigilantly scanning the lobby.
“I need not say how happy we all are to see you recovered,” Thatcher said. “And we certainly hope you are correct about the future.”
“There is no alternative explanation,” Matsuda declared. “I blame myself for not realizing that the forces unleashed in Tokyo could represent a danger to the most innocent bystander.”
If there were misgivings about his physical safety, there was roaring doubt about his innocence. That, of course, was a subject upon which even Audrey Kruger was not going to venture.
Without a flicker, Thatcher retreated into generalities. “We can only be grateful there have been no tragic consequences.”
Even stray Americans were receiving the Matsuda accolade. “I have forwarded my expression of appreciation to the hotel guest who acted so promptly in my behalf. Without him I fear the results might have been quite different.”
By now it was only too apparent that tomorrow they were all going to have a bellyful of Matsuda as gracious higher being.
“And will we have the pleasure of traveling by the same train with you?” Thatcher asked, prepared to take evasive action.
But there was no need for concern.
“I am afraid not. My surgeon has advised me that it will be less of a strain to go by limousine. Indeed, you will have to excuse me now,” he said, consulting his watch. “I still have to ensure that my papers are packed properly.”
“He sure doesn’t act frightened,” Fleming admitted as they made their way to their rooms.
Thatcher fell back on the opinion of an expert. “Inspector Hayakawa says Matsuda doesn’t factor violence into his analysis of the situation.”
“That’s what Hayakawa said before the shooting,” Fleming pointed out. “Anybody who’s been hospitalized by a gunshot wound has had the possibility brought to his attention.”
“I would certainly think so.”
“All things considered, Matsuda is carrying this off better than I expected. Of course everybody in Japan is learning new tricks.”
As they emerged from the elevator, Thatcher demanded an explanation.
“Before Recruit, there were certain givens,” said Fleming. “Now it’s a new ball game. If the Japanese hadn’t been in the middle of that scandal, our troubles would have been handled far more discreetly.”
“You’re not forgetting they had a bloody corpse in a MITI offic
e? They couldn’t just ignore it.”
Fleming cocked his head. “No, but they wouldn’t have let it shape government policy.”
When they arrived at Thatcher’s door, he was trying to imagine the murder of Mr. Ushiba and the attack on Mr. Matsuda in a less frenzied context.
But Fleming was already moving on. “The two-forty seems to be safe. We still taking it?”
“Yes, of course,” said Thatcher, fumbling for his key. “I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes.”
As Thatcher proceeded with his packing, he reverted to Matsuda’s serene dismissal of physical peril. What could make him so confident? Surely, after the happenings in Tokyo and London, any man privy to the identity of the briber had cause for alarm.
Methodically stowing shirts and underwear, Thatcher continued to speculate. But try as he would, he could produce only one explanation.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered to himself. “Or rather, if it does make sense, then nothing else does.”
But the clock was ticking, and he sternly put the entire problem from his mind. With his two-suiter deposited by the door, he attacked his attaché case. He was just lowering its lid when he discovered, to his annoyance, that there had been a fresh delivery while he was out.
Miss Corsa had embraced the fax era with such gusto that a nonstop stream of documentation followed in her employer’s wake. The net result of this modern technology was that he had to find space in an already bulging case. Somewhere else in Tudor House, he reflected, Mr. Matsuda was similarly encumbering himself with useless and time-consuming paperwork.
In a spirit of rebellion, Thatcher began to reverse his movements. But even as he did so, his subconscious speculations began to bear fruit.
“Good God!” he exclaimed, jerking upright in the act of consigning a memo to the wastebasket. “But that would make everything simple.”
Too simple, perhaps?
Thatcher shook his head. He had listened to Haru Fleming analyzing the concept of uchi and her husband emphasizing the importance of Recruit. And, naturally, these two crafty Japanologists were absolutely right. But they had not gone far enough.
Thatcher could think of another solution. Since it would upset a major applecart, the prudent man would neither voice fanciful theories nor dismiss them. Instead he would acquire supporting evidence. Happily, in the sea of Midland Research paper there was one unexamined document that had no doubt been printed in bulk, filed in triplicate, and made available on demand.
To think of it was to reach for the phone.
Five seconds later, Mr. Matsuda, courteous as ever, was sounding baffled.
“Mr. Ushiba’s report? Yes, of course it was introduced into the record. And I would be happy to provide Mr. Fleming with a copy, if you feel it would be of help. But I should warn you that . . .”
As Thatcher listened to the familiar refrain about poor Ushiba’s lack of the smarts, he realized there was a long road ahead. The report might provide an indication. By cudgeling his brains, he might slowly amass further corroboration.
But the participants in this drama were not interchangeable robots. They were living people with very human concerns. Don Hodiak had to deal with a problem wife, Mr. Arai had to rewrite his buccaneer past, Pamela Webb had to live with gossip. And men and women do predictable things. When moving to exposed positions, they try to shield themselves. Could protection, in this case, have taken a time-honored form?
Every now and then a poker player is actually dealt a royal flush. Overcome by the possibility that he might strike it lucky, Thatcher could barely produce farewell remarks for Matsuda before dialing again.
“Toby?” he said. “A wild idea has crossed my mind, and I’d like your people to check it out.”
Chapter 29
“But we don’t need a dress rehearsal, Carl; we’ve already had one,” Ali Khan insisted within hours of the arrival of the Lackawanna team. “The actual demonstration will be exactly what we did for Kwai Dong. Of course Pamela says she has to have some alterations, but those just affect the presentation.”
Pamela sounded long-suffering. “There have to be changes because you were busy setting up municipal appointments when Dong was here. You ought to welcome them, Ali; they put you front and center.”
“I don’t object. I’m simply explaining that I can’t be everywhere at once. You want me for the changes, Carl wants me to run a rehearsal, and on top of everything else, that producer wants me.”
“Just a minute!” Kruger held up a hand as he scented an opportunity to solve one of his minor problems. “What producer?”
“It’s big news here when the Japanese and the head of Lackawanna come to town,” Ali explained. “The TV people are coming out to MR this evening to prepare for their coverage tomorrow, and the papers are asking for some kind of handout. God knows who I’ll get to do that.”
Bennet Alderman, sitting slightly apart from his colleagues, raised his head automatically at the mention of television, but Carl Kruger gave him no chance to speak.
“There’s no reason for you to bother about publicity, Ali. Not when we have a PR expert here.”
Ali, who had witnessed the press circus in Tokyo, made things absolutely clear. “This isn’t worldwide coverage by CBS, Carl. This is just a local feature. I don’t know why they have to come out today, but I suppose they know what they’re doing. Anyway, I don’t have time to hold their hands.”
“Of course. You go right ahead and work out those details with Pamela. Bennet will go over to MR this evening to take care of the TV people.”
“Absolutely,” said Alderman, rising and moving to the door. “And while I’m there, I’ll see about that press release too.”
No one was more gratified by his departure than Don Hodiak. “Well, at least you’ve gotten him out of our hair for tonight,” he said in tones of congratulation.
Pamela drew her own inference.
“You must have had a merry train trip together,” she suggested.
Carl Kruger grimaced.
“It was easy in London,” he said. “Bennet was always with the police or the lawyers. God knows what we’re going to do with him now that we’ve got him full time.”
“There’s always Lackawanna U.K.,” Pamela reminded him.
“Maybe you should decide they need an expert PR man too.”
Then she briskly returned to her chief preoccupation. “Come on, Ali,” she invited. “Let’s find someplace private and get to work. It may take quite a while.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Kruger mused after they had gone. “I mean about saddling U.K. with Bennet.”
“Have the police decided he didn’t shoot Matsuda?”
Kruger shrugged. “Hell, Don, they don’t seem to know what’s going on.”
“This should be some meeting. The Japs are stuck with, Matsuda, and we’ve got little Bennet.”
For days now Kruger had been deprived of his usual confidants. Pamela Webb had been up north, and Alderman was no longer one of the faithful. Insensibly Kruger had begun turning to Don Hodiak.
“Even if Bennet is telling the truth about the shooting,” Kruger continued, “I don’t like the other things he’s up to. Did you know he got hold of Johnson’s report before I did?”
Without any ulterior motive, Hodiak grumbled: “Privacy is getting harder and harder to find.”
“You can say that again.” Kruger’s eyebrows drew together in a forbidding line. “You heard Bennet say he had something on me, didn’t you? I thought I saw you in the hall.”
Hodiak was uncomfortable. “That’s all I heard,” he gruffly.
“Bennet’s got a one-track mind,” said Kruger with a twisted smile. “Look, I’m not a chaser, Don, but I’m no saint, either. He knows about a couple of weekends when I forgot myself, No big deal.”
Nodding, Hodiak said deliberately: “He never gives up. Right now Bennet’s trying to dig up dirt on Pamela. He thinks that if she’s got something going on the s
ide, that’ll be the end of her.”
“For Chrissake, I don’t give a damn what she does on her own time,” Kruger blurted. “But that doesn’t mean I want to read the details any more than I want to know about your troubles.”
Hodiak was content to let the matter drop. “Well, by this time tomorrow, the pressure will be off. Then we can get back to business as usual. You eating in the hotel?”
“No,” said Kruger without elaboration. “I have something on.”
Two hours later, he was smiling lazily as he accepted a drink in a house set well beyond the urban sprawl of Birmingham. Mr. Arai, after Tudor House had placed him cheek by jowl with an assassin, had decided to distance himself. He was perched on the extreme edge of an overstuffed chair covered with a faded floral chintz. Echoing this theme on the far wall, a magnificent bouquet was reflected in a gilt mirror. Its profusion of color, variety, and form was a tribute to the English cutting garden and an offense to every Japanese aesthetic standard. Furthermore, it was all too apparent that the Yonezawa commissariat had been left behind. On Kruger’s arrival, a maid coming through the service door had been accompanied by a tantalizing aroma of roast beef. And Mr. Arai, like everyone present, was drinking Scotch. There had been no suggestion that anything else was available.
Kruger leaned back at his ease and listened to his host. Mr. Arai spoke at some length before permitting the translator to take over, but the only material fact emerged at the end of his discourse.
“Mr. Matsuda’s caution, normally an admirable characteristic, is now entirely misplaced. He is considering our proposal.”
“Maybe he’s reluctant to make a vital decision while he’s still weak,” Kruger suggested.
Arai sipped his drink with catlike fastidiousness while he weighed this possibility.
“No,” he decided. “The man has been released by the hospital. There can be no medical grounds for his hesitation.”
Kruger was not so sure. Earlier that afternoon he had witnessed Matsuda’s arrival at the hotel. The watchdogs seemed to have begun playing the role of male nurses. For that matter, Arai himself was showing signs of the extended strain.