Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [43]
Bit by bit, with Goldstein in no seeming rush, Taiku’s story emerges. First, before leaving Japan, he was handed a business card from the Monroe Escort Service by a superior who’d been quick to explain that Monroe’s specialty was large-breasted, blond-all-over blondes. Taiku had accepted the business card, not because he wished to enjoy the favors of a blond-all-over blonde, but only because a refusal would result in his superior’s losing face. He’d bowed, put the card in his wallet, and had forgotten about it until a dinner meeting was canceled at the last second and he found himself consigned to a long evening in his room at the Martinique Hotel. Jane Denning (who’d called herself Inga Johannson) had arrived an hour later.
“Did you get what you paid for?” Goldstein asks. He hasn’t stopped grinning (nor have his eyes strayed from Taiku’s) since Taiku began his story.
“What you say?”
“You know.” Goldstein cups his hands against his chest. “Did she have a big pair? Was she blond all over?”
Taiku recoils. He cannot divine the motive behind the question; the cultural differences are too vast. Policemen in Japan maintained a supremely disapproving countenance at all times. Goldstein looks as if he’s about to drool.
“Hai. Girl okay.”
“How many times you do her?” Goldstein arches his back and grunts. “I mean, it was an all-nighter, right? You took her for the whole night?”
“Yes. All night.”
“So, how many times you do her?”
Taiku has had enough. He expects foreigners to be offensive, and knows he has to make allowances. But this is too much. Next Goldstein will ask him to describe what they did. “This not your business.”
Goldstein’s eyes narrow, but do not waver. “Awright,” he waves his hand in a vague circle. “Go on, Hoshi.”
They’d had sex, Taiku admits, then he’d gone to sleep. He’d slept through the night and when he’d awakened the next morning, found himself alone in the bed. His first thought was that he’d been robbed, but his wallet, with his cash and credit cards, was where he’d left it in the pocket of his trousers. Then a cool breeze had drawn his attention to an open window, which he’d closed without thinking to look down. It was only after he’d showered and dressed, after Goldstein knocked on his door, after a long, repeated explanation, that he’d finally understood. Inga Johannson had used the window to make her final exit.
The story is simple and carefully rehearsed, but Taiku’s voice drops in pitch and volume as he proceeds. He is lying and certain that Goldstein knows it, certain also that he has to maintain the lie if he hopes to see his country and his family any time in the near future. But the need to confess, prompted by shame and disgrace, is very strong as well. And then there is the likelihood that even should he be released, he will neither be welcomed in his country, nor embraced by his family.
“Look,” Goldstein declares after a long moment of silence, “just for the record, is this the woman who came to your hotel room?”
Goldstein dips into the breast pocket of his jacket to remove a small photo of a young woman kneeling behind a toddler. The child, a boy, is looking over his shoulder and up at his mother while she faces the camera squarely. The broad smile on her face appears to be spontaneous and genuine.
Taiku stares at the photo, remembering the heavily made-up prostitute who’d emerged from the bathroom in her transparent lingerie, who’d run her tongue over her lips and her fingertips over her belly as if possessed. “Tell me what you want me to do,” she’d said. “Just tell me.”
“Hai. This her.”
“We found it in her wallet. Good thing, too, because the way she came down on her face … Wait a second.” Goldstein’s fingers return to his breast pocket, this time removing a Polaroid taken a few hours before. He lays the photo on the table. “A fuckin’ mess, huh?”
At first, Taiku sees only a large pool of blood spreading from a headless torso. But as he continues to stare down, he finally