“They’ll wait.”
“Right. Now why Tomodachi?”
“Tomorrow is August sixth.” He watched for Komeito’s reaction.
Komeito looked at the car ceiling. “Ahhhh! Hiroshima, the 8.6 number.”
“Exactly.”
“And you think Petrevich is planning something for tomorrow.” Komeito’s eyes narrowed.
“Someone is. Petrevich is helping him carry it out. Too many things converge on the Tomodachi to dismiss them. Antonov’s girlfriend told him she heard Snake-eyes Ivan mention a bath house. The bartender said Ivan followed his boss to the Tomodachi. The old man there saw Ivan casing the place. Ivan bragged he was gonna nuke it. Maybe drunk talk, maybe not.”
“So you are going for Ivan’s boss.”
“We find him, we find Ivan. Then Ivan to Petrevich. I’ll bet on it.”
When TK stopped the car, Warfield never would have guessed it was the Tomodachi he was looking at. The area was run down, but the appearance of the sento was in sharp contrast to its surroundings. A red-tiled roof swept down in flowing lines to an upturned edge, and red ceramic tile that was still attractive despite fissures and faults covered the outside walls and paved the sidewalk. The place was a holdover from the old days when everyone went to a neighborhood bath house. Komeito told Warfield that traditional center-city sentos continued to scrape by on a dwindling clientele of students, the down-and-out, and traditional Japanese. Newer public baths included sauna, mineral baths, Jacuzzis, waterfalls, massage chairs, TV rooms and lounge areas to counter the dwindling flow of customers that resulted from modern in-home baths. Not so the Tomodachi.
Warfield and Komeito stepped inside the entryway to a wooden stand that served as the superintendent’s station. The super was away and Warfield followed Komeito into the next room, which separated into men’s and women’s dressing rooms. Co-ed bathing had phased-out after the war. The moist, warm air caused Warfield’s shirt to stick to his back. Komeito showed him inside the men’s bath where two or three men soaked. Warfield was struck by a serene mural that covered one wall with a scene of blue sea dotted with islands and pleasure boats. Graceful trees covered the islands and gentle waves brushed a narrow white beach. Warfield made a mental note to return with Fleming when he could savor the Japanese culture.
The grayed superintendent came around the corner and took his place at the stand. Komeito asked him about two men who came there on a regular basis, one caring for the other who might be retarded. The old man shook his head at first and when Komeito persisted he glanced at Warfield and returned to his duties. Warfield got the message and went to the car.
Minutes later Komeito ran to the car and showed Warfield the notes he’d made inside. “The men are brothers. Fumio and Jotaro Yoshida. But that’s all the old man would say.”
Warfield shook his head. It wasn’t enough.
Komeito smiled. “But when he went to check the water temperature, I found Yoshida’s file. Lucky this place still works out of a shoebox instead of computers like the new ones.”
“What else?”
“Birth dates. Fumio Yoshida, 17 September 1940. Jotaro, 3 November 1945.”
Warfield considered the new information. Jotaro Yoshida was sounding more like the dependent brother Ivan spoke of. If his big brother turned out to be the boss Ivan talked about, he could lead them to Petrevich. Warfield turned to the notes he made from his conversation with Anderson. Fetuses in developmental weeks eight to twenty-five were the most affected. He went to the calendar in his iPhone and calculated backward from Jotaro’s date of birth. Jotaro would have been conceived around 1 February, 1945. Warfield counted forward to week twenty-five. August sixth fell almost three weeks after the twenty-fifth week, outside the window of risk Anderson specified. His best lead yet but Jotaro didn’t fit the formula!
It was a serious setback for Warfield. Minutes were slipping by and if Yoshida was not his man, he’d blown precious time trying to find him. August sixth drew closer by the minute and, if he was right, something Petrevich was doing was racing toward reality at this moment. If Jotaro’s birth date didn’t jibe with one of the kids in Anderson’s records he would go in another direction. Oh yeah? What direction is that? he mumbled to himself as he dialed Anderson.
The receptionist said Anderson was having lunch but had told her to put Geering through to him if he called.
Seconds later, Anderson answered with a mouthful. “Rolf, I got birth dates, city and hospital for all twenty-five. Also got physicians’ reports of the kids’ conditions at birth for some of them. Listed by case number, no names. Want me to send this to you?”
“Tell me if one of those kids, the severe ones, has a birth date of 3 November 1945.”
There was silence while Anderson checked the report. Seconds later he said, “How the hell you know that?”
Warfield’s heart started again. “Tell me everything you’ve got on that one.”
Anderson summarized as he ran through the report. “Male. DOB 3 November 45, hospital in Miyoshi — that’s not far from Hiroshima. Weighed three pounds two ounces at birth and—”
“Hold on Anderson. That sounds low.”
“It is, and according to these records he was born premature, five weeks.”
Warfield looked at his notes. If the baby was premature, that meant the date of conception was later than the calculation he’d made by counting backwards from the birth date. By five weeks. That put him perfectly inside the exposure risk window!
“What’s this guy like now?” Warfield hammered.
“According to his records, this kid — man, I should say — can’t talk, can’t read, can’t write. He can’t live alone. Mother died at childbirth, father in the war — kamikaze it says here. Government raised the kid in an orphanage but on 10 April, 1965, his older brother took him away. Would’ve been…nineteen then. Wish I could tell you more about him, where he lives, for example, but we don’t have those files here.”
Warfield didn’t need to hear more. Anderson was talking about Jotaro Yoshida.
He thanked Anderson and started to hang up.
Anderson said, “Oh, here’s something. A birthmark. Strawberry-like flat mark, size of a half-dollar, right side of his neck.”
“Okay, John. Gotta go.”
“See you at the White House next time I’m in Washington,” Anderson said, laughing.
Warfield hung up and looked at Komeito, who had heard both ends of the conversation on the speaker phone. “He’s our man,” he told Komeito. “We’ve got to find him. Now. Tonight will be too late.”
Komeito smiled again. “Did I tell you I got Yoshida’s address?”
CHAPTER 14
The street address Komeito had for the Yoshidas was five blocks from Tomodachi Sento. TK knew the area, as he did many of the older sections of Tokyo, and five minutes later pointed out the Yoshida home. The modest houses sat close to the street on miniscule plots of ground. August in Tokyo was grueling, the hottest month there, but frequent showers made the landscaping more prominent than the houses it adorned. Cherry blossom and magnolia trees accented the Yoshida yard but, in contrast to others on the street, the Yoshidas’ was a bit overgrown, as if it had missed more-recent grooming.
Komeito told TK to cruise by, make the block and come back around. On the second pass there was still no indication anyone was at home and TK pulled to the curb in front of the house and stopped. Warfield and Komeito went to the front door and knocked and when no one responded Warfield tried it and was surprised to find it unlocked. He looked back at TK and circled an index finger in the air, and TK drove off.