“You are awake,” she said. “I have had no calls yet from that devil Watanabe.”
“Tanaka is zero for nine.” Quinn yawned, trying to work the kinks out of his spine. “He can’t let us continue to kill his men without addressing the problem.
Besides, he’ll want his tao tou back.” Quinn returned the pistol to the Transit jacket and fell back onto the futon to stare up at a cobweb on the ceiling beams. “He’ll call.”
“In any case,” Ayako said, “you need to eat. The kitchen here is rudimentary at best. But please forgive my clumsiness. Before you arrived, it was many years since I prepared anything more than a mixed drink for a man.” She held up a small wooden box containing four pink skeins of tiny fish eggs. Each skein was about six inches long and the diameter of a small squash. “Emiko said you like Japanese food.”
“I do.” Quinn nodded, his mouth suddenly watering at the thought of a meal.
“I got mentaiko,” she said. “Spiced cod roe. We are known for it here in Fukuoka.”
“Sounds delicious.” Quinn couldn’t help smiling as he watched Ayako putter around the simple wooden counter that served as a kitchen in the small cottage. Her hair still hung in damp locks from her shopping trip in the morning rain. She’d slipped off her wet sweatpants and jacket to reveal a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and loose violet gym shorts that matched the slippers she’d brought in the duffel from her apartment.
The softness of the colors reminded Quinn of an Easter egg. He wondered if she realized that though she worked each day to make herself alluring with costumes and makeup, it was now, fresh from the rain and dressed in plain T-shirt and shorts, that her natural beauty shone through.
Perhaps, Quinn thought, she knew exactly what she was doing and had expertly dialed in on what Quinn found attractive.
“There is a tub in the room behind that screen there.” She pointed to the back wall of the cottage, beside the closet where the mattresses had been stored. “I lit the heater earlier, so the water should be hot. Please, go ahead and have a bath. Breakfast will be ready by the time you are finished.”
The comforting smell of miso soup filled the cottage as Quinn removed the planks that covered the wooden tub and lowered himself into the water. It was small, thankfully with only room for one, but deep enough to soak all the way to his shoulders. Like most Japanese he’d met, Ayako apparently liked her baths somewhere just south of a rolling boil. Quinn knew he really needed more ice but hurt too bad to care. He kept his movement to a minimum and was soon used to the heat. His ribs were certainly cracked from the boot treatment he’d received from the Fairfax County officer. The beer mug at Sato’s had given him a knot the size of a golf ball behind his ear, and his left kidney felt swollen to twice its normal size.
Breathing in the heady aroma of miso and the hint of Ayako, who must have already bathed, Quinn leaned his head back and marveled that he’d lived through yet another day. He was stiff, bruised, and pissing blood, but he was alive. He took a quick look at the H&K pistol within easy reach on the folded towel, then closed his eyes to consider his situation.
He’d been in Japan for less than forty-eight hours and was already beginning to lose count of the casualties he’d left in his wake. Some were a blur, some stood out in vibrant detail. It had taken him five full minutes of scrubbing to get the blood from the night before out from under his fingernails. Someday, there would be a mental reckoning for the things he’d done, the way he lived. Even with good intentions and the weight of the government behind him, repeated violence came with a high price, and he was living on credit. But he’d decided long ago to do his job and let the shrinks worry over him when the time came.
For now, he had bigger things to fret about than any mental collapse on the horizon. He was a fugitive, wanted for murder and escape. They’d probably pile kidnapping on since he’d handcuffed the officers to the signpost. He was hiding out with a Japanese prostitute he hardly knew, was in possession of a pistol he’d stolen from an organized crime boss who wanted him dead, and sitting on a shipment of illicit Korean Ecstasy — not to mention a couple of other items that would be sure to get him five days in the electric chair if the Fukuoka police happened to walk in.
“Ahhh, Veronica,” he said under his breath. “If you could see me now.” He chuckled and felt the searing heat of the water from even that small movement. Of course Ronnie would be the first person to his mind. He fretted over Kim and agonized over Mattie’s safety — but thoughts of Ronnie Garcia were always in front of all else.
Thibodaux was right. It would be a woman that did him in. Thibodaux was right about a lot of things.
Ayako set out a simple spread of rice balls wrapped in seaweed and pickled radish to go with the miso soup and spicy cod roe. Had it not been for the hot bath, Quinn wouldn’t have been able to fold himself into position on the cushion at the low wooden table. As it was, he had to move the table to one side of the room so he could lean his back against the wall.
Ayako used the points of her chopsticks to tear a bite-size piece of the red, pepper-flecked mentaiko and popped it into her mouth. Quinn followed her example and found it delicious — like the eggs on the outside of a California roll but with more substance.
“I cannot remember the last time I had breakfast with a nice man,” she said, waving her chopsticks in small circles as she spoke around a mouthful of food. “Or any man at all for that matter. The men I am with rarely take time with me for the simple pleasures of eating a good meal.”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places,” Quinn said. He was still exhausted, and probably shouldn’t have been so forward, but Ayako seemed to appreciate such direct talk.
“Maybe so.” She ate another bite of rice, chewing while she thought. “How about you?”
Quinn took a sip of miso soup, then peered at her over the raised bowl. “What do you mean?”
“Do you ever have breakfast with any nice girls, or just other killers?”
At first, Quinn thought she was joking, or maybe trying to get back at him for what he’d said. But she continued to look at him, eating her rice and blinking dark lashes in earnest curiosity.
“I guess,” he said. “Yes, of course I do.”
Ayako raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t quite believe him. “You and I are a little bit the same, I think.” She popped another bite of cod roe into her mouth. “Perhaps we do what we do because we are not much good at anything else.”
Quinn laughed. “That could be it.”
He supposed Ayako spent a lot of time on her back, pondering the mystery and vagaries of life. Positional prostitutional philosophy, Jacques would have called it.
Ayako pushed away from the small table, rising quickly as if an idea had just occurred to her. She retrieved the canvas guitar case from her side of the sleeping mats and carried it reverently to the table.
She cleared away the dishes and carefully unzipped the case.
“This was my father’s,” she said, pulling back the lid to reveal a wakizashi—the shorter companion sword to a traditional Japanese katana. “And his father’s before him.” She lifted it out, one hand on the black-lacquered sheath, the other cradling the cotton-wrapped ray skin of the handle. “According to the inscription on the handle, this sword was crafted by Mitsunokami Tameyasu over three hundred years ago.” She nodded toward the hilt. “The writing on the guard says ‘Fujin’—the Japanese god of the wind.”