“My sister came to this one once when she was younger,” Hase said, his face pensive. “So I have a special relationship with the proprietors. College girls often wear fancy kimono to their graduation ceremony. My sister’s boyfriend convinced her to accompany him here… and, of course, remove her kimono. She did, but when their three hours of ‘rest’ was up she realized she did not have the necessary skill to dress herself back in the kimono. The entire process is quite intricate. Lucky for her, the old auntie at the front desk knew how to tie kimono and was able to help her get dressed before she returned home to our family.” He looked at Bowen through the narrow eyes of an elder brother. “But I could tell.”
“What happened?” Bowen asked as he stopped in front of the Luxor, waiting for Hase to finish his story before they went inside.
The detective winked. “I had a talk with my sister’s boyfriend and he is now my brother-in-law. We laugh about it now because I come here for work and talk to that same old lady that helped her out. My sister does not think it is very funny.”
He motioned Bowen through the door ahead of him. “Please,” he said. “After you. Japanese people are very polite. If someone is going to kill us, it will be in the back.”
Bowen stopped to look at him.
The detective grinned, showing a playful side brought out by the family story. “I am joking, Bowen-san.”
A bell chimed when they opened the glass door and entered a dim, but surprisingly clean, tile foyer. More nude statuary greeted them beside the front desk. These were plaster renditions of the goddesses Athena and Aphrodite, Greek not Egyptian, but Bowen doubted any of the Luxor’s patrons cared even if they happened to know.
“Irashaimase,” the granny behind the front desk window said. Please come in. A curtain with a print of a beautiful geisha hung down so the clerk would have to stoop to see anyone who was checking in. It was an illusion of privacy because there were two cameras facing the door that presumably fed monitors in the back office.
The clerk buzzed a side door open and waved Hase out of the main foyer with a flick of her liver-spotted hand. Bowen didn’t understand her words, but it was apparent that having a police officer loitering around check-in would be bad for business.
They were taken to a cramped back room, stacked to waist level with bins full of clean towels, bottles of shampoo, assorted lotions, and complimentary cans of beer. A plastic laundry basket sat just inside the door, filled to the brim with adult magazines and toys Bowen expected to find at such an establishment. If Hase and the old woman were embarrassed, they didn’t show it.
The two spoke for a short time, with the detective doing the lion’s share of listening while the old woman rattled on about something that Bowen thought was probably her bursitis, the way she kept holding up her elbow.
Finally, Hase turned to explain. “First,” he said, “you should know that Mrs. Mori thinks you are very handsome.”
Bowen looked at the grinning old woman. She was seventy if she was a day. “You’re talking about this woman here?”
“Yes,” Hase said. “She said is a shame that all the rooms are full and wonders if all American law enforcement officers are as good looking as you.”
“Not sure I know how to answer that.”
“That’s okay.” Hase laughed. “You don’t have to.” He nodded at a television monitor mounted on the back wall. A baseball game was playing, but the old woman picked up a remote and began to move through the channels. She clicked through five adult movies, pausing on one that was apparently a favorite of hers, before finally clicking through to a color-coded grid.
She studied the list of room numbers for a moment, then spoke rapidly to Hase.
“He’s still here, in Room four-oh-two — the Caesar Suite.” The detective pointed to the television screen. “That picture of a small lock below the room number means the door is shut. It will show unlocked if he opens the door to let someone in or leaves his room for any reason. They cannot allow people to walk freely around the halls in a place like this. Men can use one of the free papers from the lobby to pick out a girl and then call and place his order from the room.”
“The girl on the bicycle.” Bowen mused.
“Yes.” Hase nodded. “I am sure she was from one of the free paper advertisements. The man in Room four-oh-two has called to order such a girl, but Mrs. Mori said she has not yet arrived.”
“I see.” Bowen marveled over the differences between the Japanese and American versions of no-tell motels. “High tech.”
“High… tekku?”
“Tech,” Bowen said. “Technology.”
“Ah, yes,” Hase said, translating for the woman who smiled at the compliment regarding her system.
“So anyway.” Bowen nodded toward the flat screen. “Who is this man waiting in the Caesar Suite and why are we interested in him?”
“His name is Watanabe,” Hase said. “A yakuza soldier I have arrested numerous times. He is a regular client of Ayako Shimizu and will know how to find her if we ask the right questions.”
“And what type of questions are those?”
Hase turned to walk toward the elevator. “The same type of questions that turned my sister’s boyfriend into my brother-in-law.”
CHAPTER 60
Quinn and Ayako waited beside a vending machine that sold vitamin drinks in a shadowed alley across the busy four-lane thoroughfare of Sumiyoshi Street. A conservative black sign in large block characters ran between the uppermost row of windows and the flat roofline of the fifteen-story building. It read YANAGI PHARMACEUTICAL.
A steady wind howled, cold enough that periodic raindrops stung when they hit exposed skin. The motorcycle leaned on its side stand a few feet away, hot engine ticking as it cooled.
Ayako sniffed, brushing a wisp of hair out of her cold-pinked cheek. The wind blew it back again, so she gave up after two tries. She hunched over a small notebook, scribbling something while Quinn kept his eyes focused across the street. Whatever it was, she brooded about it for a moment, before tucking the book inside her bra, next to her heart.
Sighing heavily — as if she’d come to some grave decision — she took her phone out of her jacket.
“The website says this pharmaceutical company is a subsidiary of Yanagi Chemical Corporation…” She used her thumb to scroll down the page as she read. “What would Oda want with a company that manufactures antibiotics and tetanus vaccine?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said, leaning against the bike. “But it can’t be good.”
He’d watched four women and a man who all looked to be American or European leave together shortly after he’d parked the bike a little before 11:00. Now they walked back up the street, returning with cups of takeout coffee from a nearby café, chattering happily among themselves. Two of the women gave each other a high five as they crossed the street at the end of the block. They were celebrating something.
Quinn fought the urge to strong-arm his way to Oda. He’d come this far looking for answers. It would do little good to blow it all because of impatience. Still, they had to start somewhere — and of all Quinn’s good qualities, quietly waiting was not chief among them.
Emiko Miyagi had pointed out this fault early on. She told him of a poem that described the three most prominent shoguns in feudal Japan and their methods of dealing with a bird that refused to sing.