John Hawks - The Golden City

“But you won’t come with us?”

“Never.” Kotani stood up awkwardly and almost knocked over the chair. “The Itako talks to ghosts. There are too many ghosts in my life.”

They left the bar, found a taxi, and asked the driver to take them to the Shibuya district. Kotani closed his eyes and lay back against the seat. The bottle of vodka had helped him overcome his fear.

“So what was Sparrow like?” Hollis asked. “Can you describe him?”

“In the last year of his life, he knew Yakuza were going to kill him. That knowledge made him very calm and gentle-except when he was fighting. I was a high school teacher. Sparrow used to sit in my apartment and help me correct my tests. Then we would go to the Nirvana bar and watch the Zen master try to break free of his body.”

“When did you start selling books?”

“When Sparrow was killed, I went to the hospital to claim his body. Someone took my photograph and it was in the newspapers. Underneath my picture were the words: ‘The Madman’s Friend.’ Someone cut out the photograph and pinned it up in the teacher’s room. I was humiliated. The students laughed at me. So I started selling books. I was no longer respectable so I could not get married.” Kotani made a fist and struck his chest. “I should have died with Sparrow that night, but I was a coward.”

The taxi stopped outside the Shibuya subway station, and the bookseller led Hollis up a low hill to a neighborhood filled with hundreds of love hotels. A few of the hotels had bland white facades, but most of them were brightly lit and painted with garish colors. They walked past a miniature French chateau, a Swiss cottage and a fake Greek temple with plaster nudes in wall alcoves. When cars arrived at the hotels, they disappeared down ramps into underground parking garages.

Halfway up the hill, Kotani stopped in front of a hotel designed to look like a Gothic castle. There was a moat and a drawbridge and a stucco façade that had been painted to resemble blocks of stone. Pink banners flapped wearily from flagpoles at the top of a steep roof.

“This is where we meet Senzo and his friend,” Kotani explained. “He did not want you to go to the apartment building.”

They crossed the fake drawbridge and pushed open a heavy wooden door. The hotel lobby lacked furniture, but it had a row of brightly lit vending machines that sold condoms, beer and energy drinks. The framed photographs of twelve different rooms were hanging on the wall. One room was designed to look like a medieval dungeon, another was a cabana.

Kotani picked a room with an African theme. He pushed a red button and the light over the photograph immediately went out. A half-curtain covered part of an alcove opening so that the clerk and the hotel customers would never see each other’s faces. When Kotani placed a wad of cash on the counter, a woman’s hands took the money and offered a plastic key card. A few seconds later, a speaker played the sound of wind chimes, and an elevator door glided open.

Kotani dialed a number on his mobile phone and said a few words. They stepped into the elevator, and it moved slowly upward. “Why can’t we operate the elevator?” Hollis asked.

“You can only go to the correct floor. They do not want customers meeting other people in the hallway.”

On the third floor, Kotani slid a key card into the lock for room 9 and the door clicked open. The African Room resembled the photograph in the lobby, but the zebra skin rug was frayed and the room smelled like lemon-scented disinfectant.

Hollis went into the bathroom and found a whirlpool tub with a rock façade and fake tropical foliage. He returned to the bedroom, pushed back the leopard print curtains and looked down at the streetlight. No fire escape. The door was the only way out.

“Where’s the closet?”

Kotani looked confused.

“Every hotel room has a closet.”

“Most people do not stay here for long.”

Hollis inspected the African carving hanging on the wall and the four-poster bed covered with mosquito netting. Still looking a little drunk, Kotani sat down on a rattan chair and smiled. “Why are you suspicious? No one knows we are here.”

“In a few minutes someone is going to show up with a gun for sale. Maybe they’ll decide to keep the gun and take all the money.”

“There is nothing to worry about. You are the suspicious person, Mr. Wilson. Not Senzo. When you first came to the shop, I thought you were sent by the Tabula.”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“But I know who you are. I checked everything with Linden.”

Hollis controlled the expression on his face. “And how did you do that?”

“I sent him an email. After he confirmed your identity, I called you on the mobile.”

“Did you send the email from a cyber cafe?”

“I have my own computer at home. No need to worry. I did not use my real name.”

“The Tabula could have placed a virus on your hard drive. It’s activated when it detects certain words.”

“You are much too nervous, Mr. Wilson. Sparrow never talked this way.”

“Sparrow is dead. I plan to stay alive.”

Both of them were startled when Kotani’s mobile phone played “Ode to Joy.” He switched it on the phone and said a few words in Japanese.

“See? Everything is good. Senzo is in the lobby with his friend. They are coming up in the elevator.”

“And he’s your landlord?”

“Yes. I told you. He offered to sell me the weapon a year ago.”

“And so you called him?”

“That was not necessary. He came to my apartment and told me that he was going to paint the kitchen.”

“So he just happened to show up at that particular moment?”

“What are you saying?”

“We’re getting out of here.”

Hollis grabbed Kotani and pulled him to his feet as someone knocked on the door. No way out. He thought about the smashing the window, but it was too far to jump.

“Listen to me…” Hollis pulled two packets of Japanese currency out of his shoulder bag and stuffed them into Kotani’s pockets. “If the Tabula are looking for me, then we’ve got a problem. But maybe it’s okay. Maybe they just want money. Buy the gun and they’ll leave.”

“I-I understand.”

Hollis pulled the ceramic knife from its sheath. As the visitor in the hallway knocked a second time, he dropped to the floor and slid beneath the canopied bed. A cotton mattress cover hung down from the box spring and concealed him. There was a two-inch gap between the hem of the cover and the wood floor.

Kotani opened the door and two men entered the hotel room. They spoke Japanese, and Hollis didn’t know what they were saying. Peering through the gap, he could see one of the men was dressed in a dark blue business suit. The second man wore stained cotton pants and old running shoes. Hollis decided that the second man was Senzo-the landlord who grew up in South America. He had a brisk, friendly voice and his legs rocked slightly as he stood beside the bed.

Senzo did most of the talking while Mr. Business Suit paced back and forth inspecting the room. Kotani’s voice was soft and respectful. Hollis tried to breathe quietly as he held the blade of the knife against his chest. Just pay them the money, he thought. Pay the money and tell them to leave.

After a few minutes of conversation, the man in the business suit began to ask questions. He had a deep, powerful voice and spoke in short sentences. Kotani answered him with a frightened voice.

Silence. And then the man wearing the suit grabbed Kotani and slammed the bookseller against the wall. The man’s voice filled the room, demanding an explanation. Kotani fell onto the floor, but his interrogator picked him up and slapped him across the face. Hollis didn’t need to understand Japanese to know that Kotani was desperate, begging for mercy. If the bookseller betrayed him, then he would have to attack.