Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

“You are paid to dance each night at the Yeddo entertainment place.”

She inclined her head again. “Yes, Colonel.”

His voice became a droning mumble while he continued to read from the papers, as though he did not need any further confirmation from her. “Twenty-four years old. Born here in Tokyo. Grandfather gave his life in the glorious victory at Tsushima Straits. Older brother died in Service in the China incident.”

He became less formal, discarded the papers and clasped his hands comfortably on the desk before him, although he still allowed her to stand there, almost at attention.

“An honorable family.”

She bowed her gratitude.

“Would you too like to serve your divine Emperor?”

This time she bowed deeply, reverently, arms held stiffly close to her sides. “I would give my unworthy life itself.”

The colonel gravely nodded his approval. “Spoken like a true daughter of Yamato.”

“But who am I to dare offer this, a mere woman?”

The colonel was more and more pleased with her. His first instinctive antipathy to her Western apparel and her un-Japanese mode of earning a living began to wear off. Underneath that she was all Japanese, he could see. She had the white flame of patriotism in its holiest form.

“Men must give their lives on the field of battle, true. But there are other ways in which men cannot serve, and a woman may. These can be just as important for the good of our country. In the eyes of the gods, these smaller ways can be just as worthy.”

Her eyes were smoldering now. “Command me.”

He thawed completely, captivated by her — not personally, but patriotically. “Sit down, san .” He took out a fresh cigarette for himself and offered her one.

“This is not our way,” she said quietly. “This is the way of the Others. Smoking is for men.”

“For over a year now,” he began without further preamble, “there has been, somewhere in this city, a secret radio transmitter, sending out coded messages. Our detector units have picked up its call signals over and over. This can only mean one thing. An enemy agent or a group of enemy agents are operating right here in the capital. We have been unable to pinpoint the transmitter closely enough to locate it. Our radio detection equipment is not accurate enough. However, there are other ways of capturing and silencing it. By identifying and arresting the person or persons who are operating it. Starting with a list of almost two hundred possible suspects at the beginning, our investigations have now brought this down to not more than six all told. Five out of the six are being covered by my other operatives.

“In Azabu-ku lives an American—” he grimaced as he pronounced the word — “called Jo-hin Lai-hyon. This is your task. He is a possibility, if only because so many others have already been eliminated. Close watch from the outside has uncovered nothing. His house has been searched a number of times without result. It is only from the inside, where a man has not the same defenses, that success may come. You must get on the inside of him. Know him inside out. There is your assignment. You may have to lie in his arms, and be the body to his body. Is this too much to ask?”

“No.”

“It will not be too difficult. He has a sort of fever for women on him. All men do, but with him it has already become sickness. There is no let and no stop to it; until finally the door of the mind closes without ever again reopening.”

“Where shall I meet him? How shall I know him?”

“You will be given a photograph we have of him, to study before you leave here. We will arrange the meeting for you also. His house is being watched. When he is seen to leave it, and it is sure he will not answer the call himself, I will have someone ring up on the telephone, give the name of one of the other five I mentioned, a Californian Japanese, and ask to have him meet him at the place you work, the Yeddo. His wife, who is stupid in our ways of speech, will not know one voice from another. She will give him the message. His friend will not be there, of course, when he goes there. Instead, he will see you. The rest will follow. You will know what to do. This is nothing that comes out of books. It was born into you.

“I will arrange with the central telephone exchange to have a closed circuit set up, so that you can reach me direct at any hour of the night or day, either at my home or here at the office, without having to go through the usual switchboards and interception desks. Simply give my name and say your own. Precious moments may be saved that way.”

She dropped down to her knees and inclined her forehead until it touched the floor.

“I serve my divine Emperor.”

The Yeddo Club was just off the Ginza, Tokyo’s Broadway-Piccadilly-Champs Elysées. A single ideograph, in coral tube-lighting, announced its name. There was no Western lettering in the accompaniment. And yet the evidences of Westernism on every hand could not be escaped, for a nightclub in itself was a Western product, unlike the native geisha-houses, which were something entirely different.

Everyone in the place, even the Japanese, wore Western clothing. The barmen were busy mixing martinis and daiquiris, not serving sake. And at the moment when Lyons entered, a small Japanese band was sawing away — and with no sense of the beat — at an antique American number called “Button Up Your Overcoat.” A few couples were on the floor doing the old-fashioned walkaway fox trot.

He asked for and got a small table for one on the edge of the parquet, rather than one of the banquettes lining the walls. He ordered a Tom Collins and sat out a trio of jugglers and a magician with a kimonoed girl assistant, wondering what was holding Matsuko up, and whether he’d come to the right place.

Then the spotlight, which had been spread out to envelop the whole floor area, contracted to just an aspirin tablet of dazzling white intensity, and a girl came out and began to dance.

Instantaneously, at first glance, she did something to him. A sort of spitting, sizzling electrical charge seemed to come from her and form an arc to him. Simply because he was what he was, and who he was, and ready to be grounded.

At first she was in a rich purple silk kimono, embroidered with gold cranes and chrysanthemums, and obi of pale violet, a gold eye mask on her face. She postured gracefully this way and that for a moment, opened and discarded the kimono — which was whisked from sight by a girl attendant — and then really began to dance.

She was not unclothed in any sense of the word. But a tier of long silken fringe fell from her bosom to her waist, and a second tier from her waist to her lower thighs. It was the glimpses of her body, as the fringe continually parted and split with her movements, that did the damage. It stirred his senses so that he almost reeled, and had to grab the sides of his chair tight to stay on.

He was hers before she’d even taken her third step. Every nerve in his body wanted her. The rest of the dance passed in a blur; he was hardly able to see it through the spell that enveloped him. His breath kept coming faster than the music.

When it was over and she was gone, the room seemed to cool down considerably, his heartbeats slowed and he could breathe better again.

Taking a long drink and a long shaky pull on a cigarette, he stopped a waiter with a peremptory jerk at his jacket.

“What was her name? Her, just now. You’ve got to give it to me.”

“Tomiko,” said the waiter blandly, as though this weren’t exactly a new experience.

“Wait,” he said, holding onto him. “Tell her she’s got to come out here. She’s got to come to my table. If she doesn’t, I’ll go in there myself and bring her out.”