Ian waved a disgusted hand and added, “From that perspective, we hardly really live at all, and all four of us, as we embark on this particular, uncertain trip into the borderlands of the undiscovered country that is the East, have already long ago passed from the zone of living well and true.”
Ian turned as he saw Hector. Smiling, he rose on shaking legs and rushed to embrace the American novelist. “My God, it’s been on the news and it took forever to get Haven on the phone to assure us you weren’t killed. You are truly well, then?”
“Alive at least, obviously,” Hector said, awkwardly accepting Ian’s hug. “Or as much as that can be said of anyone our age.” He felt obligated to make that little dig at Ian’s unrelenting fatalism. He then added, “But I’m more than a bit banged up.” He patted Ian’s back and said, “In the end, I’m mostly okay.”
Ian said, “Who was it who did this? It simply can’t be permitted to stand.”
“Well, on that note, some invalid from the airport was immediately responsible,” Hector said. “That Japanese youth with a missing leg I helped on the escalator, do you remember him? He left his fake limb standing next to me outside the airport. It was stuffed full with plastic explosives, maybe TNT. Something bad, anyway. It was probably detonated, whatever it was, by some kind of radio signal.”
Freshly red-faced from a first round of room service sake, Dikko said, “Dear God, things like that simply don’t happen here.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “And so it will make the world press, of course. And where is Miss Branch right now, if I might quickly ask of you?”
“She’s seeing to our accommodations and settling in. We’re two floors down.” Hector saw that there was a third man in Fleming’s rather luxurious suite—this one saturnine and sixtyish. The man wore thick glasses with horn rims. He had a prominent jaw that made him look argumentative, even in his momentary silence. His thinning silver hair was slicked straight back. The stranger wore English tweeds and a striped bow tie. Ian said, “Burton, I’d like you to meet—”
The stranger quickly held up a hand, finger to his lips, signaling for silence all around. He led them into Ian’s bathroom, closed the door, then turned the water faucets all the way up.
Hector, frowning, said, “Why the hell are we all in the bathroom together?”
The man called Burton said, “Because I haven’t had time to get my people over here to comb the place yet, to ferret out listening devices or the like.”
Smiling uncertainly, Ian said, “This is our equipper and fixer, so to speak, courtesy of MI6’s tourism department, because Britain, sad to say, has no official station here in Japan these years. Hector, do please say hullo to Alec Burton.”
The elder Brit shook Hector’s hand, already sizing him up. He presumed to spread open Hector’s sport coat, then placed his hands on either side of the writer’s tender torso. He raised a quizzical eyebrow as Hector winced. “Are your ribs hurting? I’ll take more care if that is so.”
“Ribs are sore, but no need to mollycoddle me,” Hector said, not certain where this was heading. He raised an eyebrow. “But why touch me at all?”
Burton said, “I see you wear your jacket cut very loose and large. Presumably you do that for concealing a gun back home. One of some considerable size one must deduce. Unless, of course, your tailor is habitually the worse for drink?”
Actually, Hector mostly bought his suits off-the-rack: they tended to take a lot of wear and tear, after all. Take today’s ensemble, for example. Feeling a bit of a blush, Hector said, “Peacemaker, that’s what I sometimes carry back home. Sorry, that is to say I favor a—”
First a dour expression from Burton brought Hector up short. A tone of civilized disdain ensued: “That is to say, a single action Colt, model year 1874, yes? Real cowboy and Indian stuff. Extraordinarily long barrel and all but utterly impractical in a shoulder holster as you seem inclined to carry your frontier museum piece. I suppose you do that in some sort of jerry-rigged Berns-Martin, split-front, spring-retention holster?” A sniff and near sneer. “Don’t bother confirming it so, my dear fellow. It’s clear that’s the case and, just as clearly, you’re an antiquarian sentimentalist. You’re afforded merely six shots, then you have to individually eject the spent cartridges with a built-in rod before you can reload. In the hands of even a mildly competent marksman, even the most tepid automatic would outshoot you to hell and back mere instants after you’ve spent your six. You wouldn’t survive an exchange with even me. I’m frankly stunned you’ve endured this long, sir.”
Now Hector was close to fuming. Ian saw that and raised a finger to his lips, winking, as if to say, Do settle down and listen, dear boy. You really must choose your battles.
The British weapons master rummaged through a metallic suitcase and pulled out a Walther PPK 7.65 mm and a Chic Gaylord holster he handed to Hector with what seemed palpable regret.
“Ian is now carrying this one’s twin,” said Burton. “And, yes, it’s the Bond gun. Please don’t lose it, and for God’s sake, certainly don’t get caught carrying it. It goes without saying Her Majesty’s government will steadfastly deny any knowledge or involvement with you possessing that weapon, much less having provided it to you. If caught, you’re quite on your own, is that understood?”
A furrowed brow, then he added: “Paradoxically, I would also strongly discourage its actual use, as leaving a further trail of corpses here in Japan is hardly going to go unnoticed or unpunished by local authorities. Having said that, given the bulky cowboy gun you favor back home, are you going to need instruction in use of this infinitely more sophisticated and refined firearm, Mr. Lasher?”
“Lassiter,” Hector corrected, “and no, thank you, I know how to use an automatic. It wouldn’t even be my first time handling this particular model.”
That was quite true. Some foolish, James Bond-infatuated publicist had made Hector pose with just such a gun a year or so back for a blessedly rejected dust jacket photo. But after the modeling shoot, Hector hadn’t been able to resist venturing behind the shutterbug’s studio to blow to smithereens a carton of empty Coca-Cola bottles in an effort to see how Mr. James Bond’s already-legendary gun truly performed.
The gun expert thrust several clips into either of Hector’s jacket pockets. “I’ll leave it to you to better sort out the concealment of these,” Burton said.
The stodgy Brit turned back to his bag of tricks, showing Hector his back. Still facing away, Burton said, “I’m told you’re a smoker, so a cigarette lighter won’t be an eyebrow raiser, will it?”
“Quite the contrary, in fact,” Hector said. “It would prove quite useful just now. My Zippo’s flint has had it for the moment, so I could use a temporary replacement until—”
“No, you don’t understand,” Burton said.
Hector raised his eyebrows. “I don’t understand what?”
“You don’t understand that this isn’t what it appears to be.” The Englishman held up the lighter—it was much narrower and far more vertical than Hector’s cherished Zippo. “You only get to use this Ronson a single time, Mr. Lasher. It’s not a lighter, of course. This is more akin to a flamethrower. Across a distance of six feet or thereabouts, it should prove frightfully effective. At very least, it will create immediate and disfiguring burns. At its best, it will permanently blind or perhaps even kill an assailant. The happier news is, if caught having deployed this particular instrument, you might be able to fob off its lethal or disfiguring results as some manner of production defect. Let the hapless manufacturer carry the sorry water for the wicked outcome, yes?” A nasty if hopeful grin.
Hector warily accepted the cigarette lighter, weighing it in his palm. “You’re sure it’s safe to actually carry? Seems a little like lugging around a live bomb.”
“Provided it’s not struck by a bullet or compromised by an exploding artificial leg?” Was that a twinkle of amusement in the Brit’s cold, gray eye? He said, “Oh, I expect it’s safe enough to carry about.
At least until its actuator is depressed. Once that happens, you’d best have a target acquired.”
Burton reached back into his bag of tricks and said, “Right, then. You’ve acknowledged you are a smoker. I’m told you favor Pall Malls. I’m afraid that’s rather too difficult to manage at short notice.”
He held up what appeared to be a virgin pack of Morlands. As Hector reached, the man took a quick step back. “No! Don’t simply go around bumbling with things you know nothing about! This just happens to be a quite literal explosive device you will carry around on your person. This item does require very special handling.”
His head spinning, Hector said, “That thing is a bomb?”
“In a word,” Burton confirmed. “It contains two chemicals in discrete glass containers hidden inside. Contrary to the cigarette pack boasts, this one is very crushable. You do that, breaking the glass and allowing the vials’ contents to comingle. Then you throw it and run like all hell. It’s a tad unpredictable in terms of detonation time, I confess—anything from nearly instantaneous to under two or three seconds. It has an absolutely lethal range of perhaps six feet. If you’re still within twelve feet when she blows, you’ll likely incur serious damage.”
Hector nodded his understanding and carefully accepted the pack that he slid with the lighter into his jacket pocket alongside the ammunition clips. He determined he would be sparing in his packing of the cigarette bomb, if he dared carry it at all. He said, “So, is that everything?”
“Just one more item,” Burton said. “I’ve noted you’re right-handed.”
“That’s right,” Hector confirmed.
“Then please give me your left arm.”
Scowling, Hector did that. Burton pushed back Hector’s sleeves and eyed his trusty old Timex, tsk-tsking. “How quaint. I suspect we can do rather better than that.” He removed Hector’s watch and actually presumed to toss it into a wastepaper basket sitting next to the hotel’s rather spacious writing table.
“Here you go now,” he said slipping a new band around Hector’s wrist. “A Rolex Submariner 6538 on a nylon strap—modified, of course. The stem has been reengineered and made into something a bit more useful.” Burton tugged at that stem, drawing out a thin length of tensile steel wire that emerged with a sinister hiss.
“A garrote,” Burton said, rather unnecessarily. “Apparently, this idea of building one into a watch is a KGB inspiration. But even if that bit of apocrypha is proven one day to be accurate, I assure you we’ve more than improved upon the concept.”
Hector eyed the deadly watch. Unlike the gifted lighter or explosive cigarette pack, it at least fulfilled its apparent primary function by actually keeping time.
Shaking Ian’s hand, Burton said, “Please do be diligent in returning all issued items in something close to their original condition, yes?”
“Of course,” Ian said on Hector’s behalf. “As always. I hate to think we’ll even be bothered to entertain their use.”
The expression that elicited from Burton—even for such an accomplished writer as Hector—was ineffable.
Once the man had left the room with his deadly, metallic suitcase, Hector dipped a hand into the wastepaper basket and retrieved his Timex. He slid his customary watch into his pocket along with the deadly lighter. “What a mean little son of a bitch that character is,” he said sourly.
“Yes, and then some more,” Ian agreed. “But now we have guns thanks to the little bastard, so one simply must take the rough with the smooth.” Ian hesitated, then gripped Hector’s arm. “The fellows and I have been talking—yes, Dikko and Tiger know all about why we are really here. One question stemming from all that, Hector. When this bomb went off at the airport—where exactly was Haven Branch?”
“Not so close by at all,” Hector said bluntly, his mind instantly starting to gnaw at it, probably just as Ian and Hughes intended. “She was trying to find us a cab.” He fingered the deadly lighter in his pocket. He said softly, “You have your doubts about Haven now? You don’t trust her?”
“That might still be putting it too strongly,” Ian said. “In you, I have no doubts. The same can be said of Dikko and Tiger. I certainly know my own heart and head, all too bloody well, of course.” Ian paused and said, “I’m just asking you to be judicious when trusting in or confiding to Miss Branch until something of moment occurs in which she can, to use an American phrase, prove out as completely trustworthy.”
Hector looked from Ian to the two journalists.
Ian pressed on. “No, don’t be like that, Hector. Please don’t go and get your back up. The stakes are unbelievably high and we know next to nothing about her save what she’s told us. Well, almost nothing. Tiger and Dikko have done some digging you see, and their initial inquiries have prompted more areas to explore, I fear.”
“You have to explain that,” Hector said. “You have to do that right now.”
“I can’t. We can’t, not yet. There are just. . .we’ll call them implications and insinuations. It’s all rather frustratingly like stroking smoke, at least for the moment.”
Ian raised his eyebrows, searching Hector’s face. “Neither of us is a child, and we’ve both known our share of betrayals. We’ve broken sacred vows of our own. We’ve done so, time and again, I’d daresay. Hector, friends and lovers too frequently betray, as you well know. Even family, our very blood, disappoints, sometimes most bitterly of all. Promises are more often than not made with every intention of being broken when it eventually becomes efficacious to do so, quite heedless of any of the potential consequences. Surely you must agree that only the unwritten or yet to happen is to be trusted, Hector. Because it can make no promises, only tomorrow never lies.”
10/ Trust Dies. Mistrust Blossoms
Haven hugged him as he closed and secured their hotel room’s door. She kissed his cheek and said, “You should probably lay down and rest for a while. It’s not that long ago since you were nearly blown to rags and jam.”
A hand to his forehead, as if checking for a temperature, she said, “Remember what they said about your poor head.”
Hector shook that head. “Ringing in my ears is gone and there’s no nausea. I wouldn’t want to play eighteen holes of golf or to try and land a marlin, but I’m feeling sound enough to move around the room, here and now.”
“In that case. . .” Taking his hand, Haven led him to the window. The sun was almost down and Tokyo was transforming into a sea of pulsing neon. It looked a little like New York City if all of the Big Apple was illuminated in the same busy and blinding manner as Times Square.
Haven said, “Quite a view, isn’t it? A view to kill for?”
An odd way to put it, he thought. Hector stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, considering the riot of light.
You didn’t even have to read Japanese to know what most of it was pushing—a cataclysm of American goods advertising Kodak and Coke and a hundred other brands from back home. It was less than twenty years since Japan’s surrender, and the conquered country was already well on its way to the sorriest form of Western commercialization.
“The problem with a room with a view is that view usually becomes its own problem,” Hector said. His lips lightly grazed the soft black down at the back of her neck.
Haven whispered softly, “Please, don’t be cynical, not tonight, darling. If you are feeling up to it, what’s the plan for our first evening in Japan?”
“I’m thinking just you and me tonight, if you don’t terribly mind,” he said. “Ian’s quite jet-lagged. Given his damaged heart, I really don’t want to press. He already feels some tragic need to play at being James Bond every time he has any kind of audience at all, so I’m just relieved he’s being somewhat sensible tonight.”
“And the other two—Dikko and Tiger?”
“They live here. It’s just home to them and so no special night in that sense.”
Disappointment in her voice: “Will we have room service dinner then? At least perhaps take a litt
le walk through the downtown after, Hector? But only if you’re truly up to that.”
Hector was tempted to say something brash and full of bravado, perhaps something like, “Screw room service, kid. Show me the goddamn town.”
But his scuffed hands hurt a bit more, now. Just a few hours after the blast, more aches and pains were settling in and asserting themselves. His battered cheek and knee throbbed with fresh urgency.
And, at least in this room and freshly armed, Hector enjoyed certain advantages in safekeeping he wouldn’t have out there on the bustling, Tokyo streets.
This night, having come so close to death, Hector felt something he couldn’t remember ever experiencing and certainly not with such vivid unease. For perhaps the first time in his life since the befouled trench lines of the Great War, Hector felt utterly and terrifyingly vulnerable.
Nobody stays tough after forty. Wasn’t that another Fleming axiom?
“Room service, definitely,” he said. “Then a safe and quiet night in that big bed, please.” A smile. “Not necessarily to sleep, mind you, not at first, anyway. But I really do need to give myself a bit of an easier night after this bloody day. Candidly? I’ve seen firsthand a time or two the insidious, long-term results that can come from ignoring a head injury. The sorry prospects after doing that are pretty sobering.”
Irresistibly, he thought of Hem: Ernest stood as the textbook example of inventing myriad ways not to behave after sustaining the latest in what ultimately had proven to be a lamentable and likely to have proven collectively lethal series of personality-altering blows to the head.
Death in the Face Page 9