She saw the open bottle with two glasses. “I just had one in my room, but I suppose another wouldn’t harm me.”
He agreed and poured her a glass. “As I told you on the phone, I’m sorry to disturb you so late. But I believe it is vital that you know your life is in danger.” His voice had dropped much lower.
“I hope you’re just exaggerating.”
“I wish I were. You were pushed in front of that taxi this morning by a young Japanese man. I believe he did it deliberately.”
She took a sip of the champagne. “Let’s start at the beginning, Mr. Peters.”
“Please call me Geoffrey.”
“All right, Geoffrey. Why were you watching me this morning?”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You knew my name. You were watching me just as he was. How do I know it wasn’t you who gave me a push?”
He ignored her question and said, “The young man who pushed you is Yoichi Hiraoka, the professor’s son.”
“I suspected as much,” she admitted. “I recognized him when I visited their house today. But why? He didn’t even know me.”
“Japan has many of the same problems as Germany these days—a resurgence of the kind of right-wing factions that helped bring on the Second World War. Hiraoka’s son is active in such a group.”
She remembered his father saying simply that he had other interests. “But why would he try to kill me? He’d never even met me. And what business is it of yours?”
The Englishman said quietly, “We were advised of your mission. So was Yoichi’s group.”
“Mission? What mission?” Susan was growing angry now. “I’m over here to arrange an exhibition of Professor Hiraoka’s webs for next Christmas, back in New York.”
“How long are you staying?”
“The store is faxing me the agreement overnight. If I can obtain Professor Hiraoka’s signature tomorrow I’ll take a plane out of here the next day.”
“They don’t want that agreement signed. That’s why an attempt was made on your life.”
“What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense,” she argued. “Why should a rightist group care about those webs and what happens to them?”
“We don’t know. The only thing certain is that Fuji Star department store has become a focus of their activities. Group members under surveillance are often seen to enter the store and browse around, though they rarely buy anything.”
“Are they shoplifting?”
“No. They’ve been watched very carefully and they do nothing suspicious.”
“Do you work for the Japanese government?”
He smiled slightly. “I’m doing some antiterrorist work for them under contract. That’s all you need to know.”
Susan finished her champagne. “Thank you for warning me about Yoichi.
I’ll be on my guard. Good night, Mr. Peters.”
He stood up as she left the table. “Happy New Year, Miss Holt.”
She slept a bit later the following morning and when she awoke she was surprised to see so many people on the street, even on New Year’s morning. Many of the stores appeared to be open. On her way down to breakfast she picked up the contract that had been faxed to her room and reviewed it while she ate. When she was satisfied it was in order she used her fax machine to make several more copies.
Susan could see the Mitsukoshi department store from her hotel and she decided to visit it. Tokyo’s largest, it boasted a multistoried entrance hall and a grand staircase with a huge sculpture representing the goddess of sincerity. The escalators, as in Fuji Star, had bowing automatons warning about kimono sleeves. She bought a small gift, a blue cotton yukata—a loose-fitting garment that went over the head and tied around the waist, to be worn after bathing or at the beach. It would look good on Russell, if he’d gotten over his anger at her sudden business trip.
On the street Susan was very careful not to stand too near the curb and she kept an eye out for Professor Hiraoka’s son, but there was no sign of the young man. With some time to kill before she returned to the professor’s home for his signature on the contracts, she decided to return to Fuji Star on the off-chance that Takeo Keio might be at work, even on a Saturday that was New Year’s Day. Japanese managers, after all, were notorious for hard work and long hours.
The store was about as crowded as Mitsukoshi’s had been, and she was sorry now that she hadn’t bought her gift here. She made her way to Keio’s office on the top floor and asked his secretary, Rumiko, if he was in.
“Yes,” she replied with a smile. “He had a visitor who’d brought him a New Year’s gift, but I believe he’s free now. Let me see.”
She went to the door of his office, knocked, and opened it. Her short, startled cry brought Susan to her side at once. Takeo Keio was slumped over his desk, his head resting in a pool of blood. He’d been shot through the left temple.
The police took charge quickly. Rumiko, sobbing at her desk, told them what little she knew. A young Japanese man had arrived to see Takeo Keio at eleven that morning, saying he had a New Year’s gift for him. There was indeed a gift, a small hand-carved Buddha that sat on the desk just at the edge of the blood from Keio’s fatal wound. Rumiko had heard nothing unusual from the office, indicating that a silenced pistol had probably been used.
“They were together about ten minutes,” Rumiko said. “Then I went over to the files. As I returned to my desk I saw the young man walking away toward the elevator.”
Susan watched while the police searched the office carefully. “A silenced pistol is usually an automatic,” the detective in charge explained to her. “We want to find the ejected cartridge case, if the killer didn’t take it with him.”
He spoke good English and smiled to put her at ease. Only his eyes were cold. He’d said his name was Sergeant Shimane.
There was nothing on the desk top except the Buddha and a few of Keio’s papers. The wastebasket was empty this early in the day. They went over the carpeted floor and found nothing at first, until one detective felt around the leg of a chair and came up with the cartridge case. Sergeant Shimane examined it carefully and dropped it into a plastic evidence bag.
“Now tell me what you were doing here, Miss Holt,” he said.
“I had business with Mr. Keio. I’d seen him yesterday, and I returned to speak with him again today.”
“On New Year’s?”
“I took a chance he’d be here since the store was open.”
The detectives had finished their examination of the office without finding anything else the killer might have left. Photographers and fingerprint men moved in and Sergeant Shimane escorted her outside. Rumiko had recovered enough to telephone the store’s main office with news of the killing. Shimane questioned Susan some more, noted the hotel where she was staying, and advised her to contact him before she left the country. Then she was free to go.
With Keio’s limousine no longer available, Susan took a taxi out to Professor Hiraoka’s residence. The professor’s wife answered the door and Yoichi was nowhere to be seen. The professor came out of his study to greet her. “I have been looking forward to your arrival,” he said, seeming genuinely pleased.
“Before you sign the agreement I’m afraid I must tell you some bad news. I’ve just come from Fuji Star. Takeo Keio has been shot to death in his office.”
“What? What’s this you’re saying?” He seemed startled by the news. “Who could do such a thing?”
“The police are looking for a young man. I know nothing more about it.” He shook his head. “Terrible, terrible—”
Susan removed the contract from her briefcase. “Professor, there are one or two questions I must ask you.”
“Go ahead.”
“Have you received any recent threats regarding the display of your webs? Is there anyone who didn’t want them shown in America?”
“There’ve certainly been no threats. Are you implying that Keio’s murder is somehow connected with my webs?”
“I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”
“The only one opposed to showing the webs in America is my son Yoichi, who has strange nationalistic ideas at times.”
“Is Yoichi here now? I’d like to see him.”
“He left early this morning to meet friends.”
The professor’s wife had been hovering near the study door. Now she entered, to his great displeasure. “Naomi—do not interfere in this!”
But she wouldn’t be silenced. “What is this about my son?” she asked. “What has he done?”
“I don’t know,” Susan said. “I just want to talk to him.”
“Those people,” she muttered, then switched to Japanese.
They talked, or argued, for some minutes. Finally Naomi left the room and Susan turned to the professor. “What is the trouble?”
“She fears Yoichi is a member of a militant group bent on violence.”
“Do you think it is true?”
“I know it is true,” he said with a deep sigh.
“I hope we won’t have any trouble in New York,” Susan said. She produced the contract. “Please sign these. I’ll explain anything you don’t understand.” He started reading the contract, pausing now and again for the meaning of some word or phrase. Finally satisfied, he affixed his signature to three copies just as they heard the front door open. “Whose taxi waits outside?” a voice yelled. She knew it was Yoichi.
He entered the room and saw her, throwing down the heavy jacket he’d been wearing. His face twisted with fury as Professor Hiraoka tried to calm him. “You have signed the contract, Father! You have signed my death warrant!”
Naomi Hiraoka appeared behind him, trying to grab her son’s shoulders. He fought her off and the professor shouted something in Japanese. It was an angry scene, and Susan wished she was out of there. She felt like one of those helpless flies, trapped in a web she couldn’t comprehend.
Yoichi broke free of his mother’s grasping hands and ran out of the house with his father’s voice shouting after him. He’d left his heavy jacket on the floor and Susan picked it up without thinking. She felt the weight in the pocket and immediately imagined a small gun, the weapon that had killed Takeo Keio. It was not a gun but some sort of remote-control device.
“What’s this?” she asked the parents. “Is it for a garage door?”
But Professor Hiraoka and his wife continued arguing, ignoring her for the moment. She dropped the gadget into her purse.
“I must go,” she told them, scooping up the signed contracts.
They ceased their argument and Professor Hiraoka tried to regain his composure. “You must excuse us. Being the parents of a rebellious son is not always easy in today’s Japan.”
“Nor in today’s America,” Susan sympathized. “Did he know Takeo Keio?”
“He’d met him at the opening of my webs exhibit, of course. Yoichi is often at Fuji Star, for whatever reason.”
“Has he been in trouble with the police?”
“I fear so. He has been arrested in demonstrations at the airport and the university.”
“What did he mean about this contract being his death warrant?”
“I do not know. He wished me to exhibit the webs at a celebration next December marking the hundredth anniversary of our victory in the Sino-Japanese War, but I was against the idea from the beginning. My webs are works of art, not militaristic celebrations.”
Susan stuffed the contracts into her briefcase. “My taxi is waiting. I must be on my way. A copy of the contract will be returned to you together with the advance payment agreed upon. We will be in touch about the shipping dates for the webs.”
“I would like to travel with them, on the same plane if possible.”
“I think we can arrange that. I’ll look forward to greeting you and Mrs. Hiraoka in New York next November. And I hope your personal problems are resolved.”
He bowed. “Thank you, Miss Holt.”
Susan went back to her hotel and ordered a sandwich from room service. The contracts were signed, her job was done. She could be on a flight to New York in the morning. The murder of Takeo Keio was no concern of hers, whether or not Yoichi Hiraoka had pulled the trigger. Still. . .
She opened her purse for a tip when the room-service waiter arrived and saw Yoichi’s remote-control device resting there. She’d forgotten all about it. Pointing it toward the window, she pressed the button on top.
Nothing happened.
She pointed it toward the room’s television set and nothing happened. She sat down and ate her sandwich.
Was it something connected with Fuji Star? Yoichi frequented the store, and Geoffrey Peters had told her that other members of the rightist group did too. Susan walked to the window and stared across the square at it.
One last time, one last visit, she decided. She left the briefcase and contracts in the room but took the remote-control unit with her. Nervously crossing the wide street, expecting to see Yoichi lunging toward her at any moment, she made it to the store without incident. As she entered a greeter was telling customers in Japanese and English, “We will be closing in thirty minutes because of the holiday.”
She took the escalator up to the top floor and noticed that a police officer stood guard at the door to Keio’s office. Walking down the aisle toward the furniture department, she pressed the remote-control gadget in her pocket. Nothing happened.
This is foolish, she decided. If the purpose of the device was to set off some sort of explosive, she might blow herself up by accident. She headed for the down escalator. The waiting automaton bowed and the mouth on the white doll-like face began voicing a warning about kimono sleeves. She pressed the button in her pocket as if to zap it.
Instantly the voice was cut off, overridden by another message in Japanese.
Strange.
Customers were beginning to leave the store, streaming down the escalators with their bags. Clerks were cashing up for the day. She waited until no one was near and approached the bowing figure again, activating the remote control in her pocket. Once again the substitute message came from the bowing figure.
“We are closing now,” an employee told her, hurrying past. “Thank you.”
She turned, not knowing what to do, when suddenly she saw the Englishman, Geoffrey Peters, coming from the direction of the furniture department. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I heard about Keio’s death and came as soon as I could. I understand you found his body, along with his secretary?”
“That’s right, and I may have discovered why he was killed. You told me this store seemed to be a focal point for activity by young rightists.”
“Yes,” he agreed, staring at the remote-control gadget she produced from her pocket. “What’s that?”
“I found it in the pocket of Yoichi Hiraoka’s coat. Watch this!”
The bowing figure voiced her special message and Peters was taken aback. “This unit overrides the standard taped message with a special message. These rightist youths have been coming here for instructions, triggering this device when no one else was within earshot.” He took the gadget and tried it himself.
“Keio was seen doing this and someone killed him.”
“Perhaps,” Peters said a bit uncertainly.
“What does the message say?”
“Meet me in the gallery after the store closes.”
“That’s now!”
“I just came from that area and I saw no one.”
“Come on,” she urged.
He followed her back to the furniture department, to the gallery entrance, and the spotlights came on as they walked past the sign announcing Professor Hiraoka’s wonderful webs. Stretched out on the floor beneath the first case was the body of Yoichi Hiraoka.
“He’s been shot,” Geoffrey Peters told her, kneeling to examine the body. “We’re too late.”
“The killer can’t be far.”
It was clear to her now. She knew wha
t had to be done. “I’ll get the police,” Peters said, leaving her for a moment.
Susan walked past a white-faced automaton that bowed in her kimono and announced a sale on the second floor. She hurried on, ignoring it. Another blocked her path, bowing, starting to speak as she came out of her bow, and Susan saw the silenced pistol slide from the sleeve of her kimono, coming up fast toward Susan’s face.
Then she heard a deafening gunshot behind her as Peters fired and the figure toppled backwards, blood gushing from her shoulder.
“My God!” Susan gasped, frozen with fright.
“It’s all right,” Peters said, kicking the gun away from the traumatized fingers. “I’ll get some of this paint off the face and we’ll see who it is.”
“I already know who it is,” Susan managed to tell him. “It’s Takeo Keio’s secretary, Rumiko.”
Sergeant Shimane and his men were still in Keio’s office when they heard the shot and came running. Susan’s legs were a bit wobbly as she sat down on one of the chairs. “Call an ambulance!” Shimane ordered one of his men. “What happened here?”
“She killed Yoichi Hiraoka,” Peters said, “and she tried to kill Miss Holt here. Yoichi’s body is in the gallery.”
“Keio’s secretary?” the detective asked, unable to believe it. “I just finished questioning her an hour ago!”
“She killed Keio too,” Susan assured them. “No doubt with this same gun. We should have known her story about the young visitor with the gift for Keio was a lie. The little Buddha was sitting alone on the desk. When you searched for the cartridge you found nothing else on the floor and the wastebasket was empty.” Shimane and Peters both looked blank. “Don’t you see? There was no wrapping for the gift! In Japan gifts are always wrapped— it’s rude not to! If the killer bothered to bring a gift at all, it would have been wrapped. If he took the wrapping with him he’d have taken the gift too. Rumiko lied about the visitor. After she killed Keio she left the Buddha on his desk to bolster her story, forgetting that she should have left a wrapping too. She’s the one who’s been doctoring these automatons so they’d deliver special messages to members of the youth group. It was a perfect method of getting instructions to them quickly without the danger of using a tapped telephone.”
Hoch's Ladies Page 3