I’d walked all the way down the hill to the convenience store when the Windom pulled up.
“He saw me!” I fell into the car with the torn garbage bags I’d carried the whole way.
“Who? What? And why did you take off like a ninny just when I was arriving?”
“Nakamura! He came in that white Mercedes. I thought you saw it.”
“That car was blocking the alley. I couldn’t get through, so I reversed. I never thought—”
“He saw the back of me. Maybe he’ll think the maid was shy. He’ll certainly find his house clean,” I added glumly.
“Right. We must not panic,” Hugh said as if to convince himself while making a dangerous right in front of oncoming traffic. I screamed. He ran two red lights on the way out of town. I shut my eyes and didn’t open them until he’d gotten on the toll road and set the cruise control to ninety-eight kilometers per hour.
“It was a set-up,” I decided. “The maid must have told him we were coming. Or your secretary, Hikari.”
Hugh shook his head, remaining silent. After a while I couldn’t stand it and stretched my hand toward the radio dial.
“Do you mind?” Hugh barked, snapping J-WAVE off. He was obviously quite shaken. Well, he had more to lose than I did.
After fifteen minutes, he took his left hand off the steering wheel and closed it over my right. He was probably trying to apologize or needed some comfort. I squeezed his hand back and then made a move to release it. But he hung on, his fingers tracing my ring finger.
“What’s this?” He took his eyes off the road for a moment.
“I got it for Christmas.” It was a piece of modern sterling silver set with onyx and mother-of-pearl that my mother had sent me.
“Why didn’t you wear it in Shiroyama?”
“I don’t travel with valuables.”
Hugh put his hand back on the wheel. I stared out the window, watching the evergreens and mountains slowly give way to gray forests of skyscrapers and factories. When the Shuto Expressway loomed, I started reading him the directions we had assembled before starting the trip.
“I’m fine from here, thanks,” he snapped.
It was dark when we arrived back at Roppongi Hills, where the portico was filled by a mini-traffic jam of media vehicles. Hugh sped past and turned to enter the garage. But a young man waiting by the entrance swung a camera toward us while darting under the rising door. Hugh backed up with a horrible screech and shot down an alley.
“Drop me off near the train, will you? I’ll get home on my own.” The style in which he was driving was bound to lead to arrest, and I didn’t want to be involved.
“What about me? I won’t be able to go home for hours and I’m not in the mood to drink in Roppongi. There’s nowhere I can go that people don’t know my sorry foreign face.” His desolation reminded me of the way he’d appeared on New Year’s Day drinking by himself.
“You could try a really crummy neighborhood like mine,” I suggested, expecting him to complain about its shabbiness.
“There’s an idea. We could kill time by going through the telephone books.” Hugh sounded thoughtful.
“That sounds like fun.” I yawned, thinking of the huge task ahead.
“Darling, are you saying you’d rather do something else?”
“I’m not, and you’re only conditionally invited,” I warned.
“And what are these conditions?” There was laughter in his voice.
“First, you’ve got to start driving like a law-abiding man. And second, the only one who gets called darling is Richard, okay?”
23
As if anticipating good times to come, Richard’s head poked out the apartment door as I helped Hugh upstairs. He held out his arm for my parka and, upon seeing the maid’s uniform I was still wearing, yelped.
“Nothing like acting out one’s fantasies, eh?”
“Where’s Mariko?” I slipped off my shoes and motioned for Hugh to do the same.
“She left a note saying she had to hurry to work.”
“Back to work! Do you believe it?” I asked.
“Well, she had plenty of time to go through the bathroom to take my Super Hard gel and your favorite MAC lipstick.”
“Just great.” Mariko hadn’t done much to prove her innocence, but I still was going to worry about her. I slumped against a wall, knocking a kimono askew.
Hugh had moved in from the doorway and was evaluating the apartment. I followed his eyes over the brick-and-plank bookcases holding my art books and Richard’s Japanese comics, my laundry drying near the heaters and finally, the rumpled futon I’d neglected to roll up in the morning.