Lawrence Block - Manhattan Noir

The word “threaten” emerges as “fletta,” which only adds to the humiliation Taiku feels at that moment. He has begged an inferior, a foreigner, to protect him.

“What?”

“Man threaten me.”

“Who fletta , you? Speedo?” O’Boyle glances at Speedo Brown, then laughs before answering his own question. “Little Speedo? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Would ya, Speedo?”

“Never hurt a fly in my life, but I’m hell on Japanese beetles.”

“I am Japanese citizen. You must… protect me.” Taiku chokes on his own demand. A shudder runs through his body. If he’d had the means, he would have killed himself before speaking those words.

“Whatta ya think, Speedo? Should I ploteck him?”

“You jus’ leave the boy in my hands, officer. Ain’ nobody gonna hurt him. Leastways, nobody but me.”

O’Boyle chuckles and shakes his head. “Awright, Tojo. You can wait for Goldstein out by the desk. Bein’ as you’re a Jap citizen and you ain’t been charged with a crime, I guess it’s my beholden duty to save you from the big bad wolf.”

“I’m really sorry,” Goldstein apologizes for the second time. “A couple of uniforms picked up a rapist I been after for six months. I hadda make sure he got hit with enough counts to catch a high bail. The asshole, he goes out on the streets, he’s gonna rape someone else.”

They are sitting in the interview room they left an hour before, on either side of the gray table. Goldstein’s pen, pad, and tape recorder are laid out in a neat row. “We’re goin’ on the record now.” Goldstein sets the tape recorder on end, starts it running, then suddenly shuts it off and pushes it to the side.

“Ya know something, Hoshi? I don’t think we need to get formal. For right now, let’s just keep this between the two of us. Whatta ya say?”

Goldstein acknowledges Hoshi Taiku’s nod with one of his own, then gets to work. “Okay, why don’t we start at the beginning. Why don’t you tell me, in your own words, exactly what happened at the hotel this morning.”

Taiku draws a breath and feels his command of English, modest at the best of times, slip away. He fears that when he speaks, he will appear a clown to the detective whose eyes never leave his own. Still, he knows he must speak.

“Girl jump,” he finally says. “She whore.”

“Whore?”

“She whore,” Taiku repeats.

“A prostitute? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“You devil. So, how’d you meet her?” Goldstein shakes his head and mock-punches Taiku’s arm. “And by the way, her name was Jane Denning. She was twenty-eight years old and had a kid in fourth grade at Holy Savior in Brooklyn.”

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 discerns the outlines of a flattened human skull made even more obscure by a semi-detached scalp.

Goldstein’s tone, when he begins to speak, is matter-of-fact. “You did okay for an amateur, Hoshi. First, you washed up the bathroom pretty good. Then you dumped the dirty towels, her makeup, and her syringe in a plastic bag which you took from the waste basket. Then you carried the bag down two flights, and you tossed it in a service cart without being seen. The only problem is, it’s not gonna help ya, not one bit, and what you’re doin’ here, lyin’ to me and all, is only makin’ things a lot worse.”

Taiku finds that he can’t tear his eyes from the photo on the table. Not because the gore holds him prisoner, but because he can no longer face Goldstein’s steady gaze. It’s ridiculous, of course; sooner or later he will have to look up. Still, he’s relieved, at least initially, when Goldstein continues to speak.