The Mask: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Taylor Stevens

  His tone changed to forgiveness midsentence.

  He smiled with a mouth of yellowing teeth, launching into a monologue in drunken English that came close to a donkey’s bray.

  Munroe humored him and begged to buy him a drink, knowing that at best he might infer that tonight was a difficult night for such things. She was a foreigner and foreigners were notoriously oblivious to the subtle ways of saying no, and that would allow her to push harder, but there was no need.

  He was drunk and pleased to meet her.

  The man with the broken capillaries and crooked teeth pounded her on her back and wrapped a meaty arm around her shoulders, and slurring Japanese just slightly more intelligible than his English, he walked her through the door.

  The mama-san lit up when they stepped through, yen signs flashing in her eyes with every bat of her thick fake lashes. She was a beautiful woman, soft and feminine with genuine warmth that said she’d known the mark a long time.

  She led them to a table in the far back of a room that, like the hostess club Munroe had visited the night before, was lit with mood and ambience. Here, waist-high walls at intersecting angles were topped with tea lights, adding a touch of the dramatic and providing a greater sense of privacy, and off to the side was a small dance floor, where two couples swayed to piped-in music.

  The portly man sat and Munroe took her place opposite him, eyeing the hostesses, a mixture of foreign and local, all of them stunning. The mama-san lingered beside the mark, head dipping in rhythm to words Munroe couldn’t hear, body and face saying Yes and I agree and Of course.

  One of the foreign women, wearing a gold-sequined dress that hardly reached her thighs, blond and petite and with baby blue eyes recognizably dulled by drugs or alcohol, sauntered over and slid onto the sofa bench beside the portly man, snuggling up as if she’d been waiting for a longtime lover.

  The mark reacted to his plaything like a cat to sun or a puppy to fingers behind the ear, and paused just long enough to reach for his wallet. He retrieved a business card, thick and heavy, and presented it to Munroe with a flourish of ceremony. Business cards, treated as reverently by the receiver as one would treat the giver, left Munroe fishing for her pocket.

  She presented one of Bradford’s cards while an open bottle of Glenfiddich, ice, and glasses arrived from the bar, carried on a silver tray by a young woman in very high heels and a barely there dress.

  The blonde reached for the bottle of whisky and the mama-san stood. Full of polite apology, she encouraged Munroe to take a space of her own at a table made available across the room.

  “Go, go,” the portly man said in English, waving Munroe on magnanimously. Munroe bowed her thanks and followed the mama-san and, in what had to be a prearranged collusion, a tall pale brunette reached the table at nearly the same time.

  Munroe slid into the quasi-booth formed by the bank of sofas and low table and smiled at a woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty.

  She sat beside Munroe and, in Japanese that was fluid in the way practiced lines were fluid, said, “I am Gabi, please allow me to request for you a drink.”

  “I drink what you drink,” Munroe said, and then she repeated the sentence in Russian. The language was a guess, the closest she could offer the foreign accent from within her repertoire, and she’d not been far off. Gabi’s eyes widened and her mouth opened just slightly, and she stumbled through placing an order with the bar girl who’d already arrived, perfectly timed, at their table.

  When the liquor came and the drinking began, Munroe learned that her hostess was Lithuanian. Her Russian wasn’t fluent, but the conversation flowed far better than it would have in Japanese or English, and when the ice had been broken and Gabi had relaxed, Munroe slid a picture of Bradford onto the table. “He’s my friend,” she said. “I’m trying to find him, I’ve heard he’s been here.”

  Gabi leaned forward, picked up the picture, then moved it closer to a nearby candle and examined it more closely. She handed it back with a nod that might as well have said You’d better put that away.

  Munroe tucked the photo into her wallet.

  Gabi traced a finger across Munroe’s hand and managed to both flirt and pout in the same breath. “He has been here, but not with me,” she said, and she leaned back slow and sultry, each muscle tensed with the perfection of a stage performer fully aware of how every movement was watched by someone, somewhere. Gabi looked down the room toward the front, closer to the door, and kept on looking until Munroe followed her gaze.

  “You see the red dress?” Gabi said.

  Red dress was an understatement.

  Munroe turned back to the drinks and said, “I see the dress,” although what she’d seen were long legs that kept on going forever, stopped by clingy red material topped out with a chest that had to have been enhanced. And long blond hair that flowed in coifed waves over bare shoulders, which were attached to elegant arms and hands pouring drinks at a table with three Japanese men.

  “That is Alina,” Gabi said. “She was at the table with your friend.”

  An elegant Filipina approached and Gabi said, “You know how it works?”

  Munroe shook her head. “Tell me.”

  “You want me to stay? You want a new hostess?”

  “Stay,” Munroe said, “and when the red dress gets free, I want her here.”

  Gabi smiled, waved the other girl away. “Give me some minutes,” she said, “I will make sure you get what you want.”

  They chatted more, small talk to fill the time, and then Gabi slid out to the floor, only slightly stable on platform shoes, and she wandered out of sight, either to the mama-san or the master, it was hard to know.

  Munroe was an hour in and a hundred and fifty dollars lighter when the red dress showed up. Munroe patted the seat and invited her to sit, just a bit too happy, as if she was a little too affected by the booze.

  Alina smiled and offered more of the same coy, playful fawning that permeated the air, but no amount of sensuality could hide the bored indifference that punctuated every move.

  She was older than Gabi, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six.

  “Twenty-seven,” Alina said, and showed no surprise at Munroe having engaged her in her own language.

  Presumably, Gabi had spread the word.

  Alina answered the next question before Munroe could ask, as if this was a litany she endured with all new customers and pulling off the exchange without descending into condescension or implied snark would take effort. “I’ve been in Japan for four years,” she said. She took the tiniest sip of the drink Munroe had bought her and then added, “I can speak enough Japanese to get by.”

  “I’m looking for a friend,” Munroe said. “I was told you’ve seen him. I’m hoping you would tell me what you know of him.”

  “I’ve seen him,” Alina said.

  “You don’t want to look at the picture?”

  “There’s no need. Any one of us would recognize him if he came back.”

  “He came here often?”

  “Three times, I think.” Alina shrugged. “Do you smoke?”

  Munroe shook her head. Three nights accounted for each of Bradford’s unexplained absences according to the notes on his calendar.

  Alina sighed, dropping the pretense that Munroe had come for any other reason than information. Time was time, and she got paid either way. “Another hour and I go home,” she said, and lit the cigarette, leaning back into the sofa and crossing her long legs. She inhaled and then let out the smoke toward the ceiling.

  Munroe said, “Tell me about my friend.”

  Chin raised, cigarette balanced between two fingers, Alina traced her eyes over Munroe’s face. Munroe knew the look; she’d seen it on strippers and fortune-tellers and politicians—those who’d so finely perfected the ratio between bullshit and charm that people believed what they heard and willingly opened their wallets for more.

  “I tell you about him,” she said, “and in exchange you tell me about
you: one for one.”

  Munroe picked up her drink and ran the glass between her palms.

  In a few words the woman had said she believed Munroe had something she wanted and she’d hold the information about Bradford hostage to get it.

  Munroe set the glass on the table. Alina had left her own untouched, which, because the hostesses were paid for every drink the men bought, meant she was losing money. “Let me buy you another,” Munroe said.

  Alina’s eyes drifted from Munroe’s face to the table, where her glass dripped condensation, allowing the obvious to stand in for her reply.

  “This place closes soon,” Munroe said. “We can waste the rest of the night playing games of avoidance or you can tell me what you want, and I can tell you straight up if it’s reasonable.”

  Alina eyed Munroe again, then turned away and stared across the room at nothing in particular. “I watch people,” she said. “I know people.”

  She’d have to in this line of work. Probably knew each customer better than he knew himself within a minute of his walking through the door.

  “I know criminals and soldiers. I know weak men from strong.”

  She glanced at Munroe for the briefest of seconds. “You are not a weak man,” Alina said, and her focus turned to the rear of the room, where the portly mark’s red face continued on far too cozy with the tiny blonde.

  “You came in with him, but you didn’t come with him. You came to ask questions, but you came without asking questions. You are a strong man, and clever, and you have no ties to the owners of this club or you would have come here under other means.”

  “What is it you think I can give you?”

  “Protection.”

  “From what?”

  “From the man who owns this place,” Alina said. “The man who keeps my passport. The man who claims he owns me. If I tell you what you want, then you keep me safe in exchange.”

  Munroe began to speak, but Alina’s expression shifted, instant metamorphosis, and her body language switched from indifference to flirtation. She leaned into Munroe as if she were whispering in her ear and stroked her hand. A heartbeat later, a tiny man in a deep gray designer suit passed by their sectional, and when he was gone, the change vanished and Alina shifted back again. “The master,” she said. “It’s better that he sees me working.”

  “He’s the one you need protection from?”

  Alina smiled, a real smile. “He’s just an employee.”

  Munroe set her glass on the table and leaned back, her arm draped over the sofa mirroring the woman’s faux indifference.

  “Can you protect me?” Alina said.

  “I could,” Munroe said, “but I can’t imagine anything you tell me would be worth the effort.”

  “I saw things,” Alina said, and in her earnestness she leaned in. “I saw your friend kill a man.”

  Munroe stared hard. Everything in the woman’s body, her micro expressions, her posture, held that she told the truth. Brow furrowed, Munroe said, “That’s a serious accusation. You’d think for something like this, the police would have been called and he would have been arrested.”

  “Yes,” Alina answered, and as if in her earnestness she’d betrayed too much, her tone went back to indifference. “It’s what I saw. The friends of the man carried him away. I only found out much later that he died.”

  “There was more than one person?”

  “Yes, but only two men fighting with your friend.”

  “Do you know why they were fighting?”

  “I do,” Alina said, “but that’s all I will tell you for free.”

  Munroe picked up the glass again, set it down, ran a finger along the rim while priorities ordered and reordered. There were very few reasons a woman like Alina would beg for protection from a stranger in a country as safe as Japan, and every one of them was attached to organized crime.

  Strategy set itself out in an array of possibilities.

  Hating that she’d been boxed into a corner without room for negotiation, Munroe said, “I can keep you safe in exchange.”

  “Where can I find you after work?”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight or not at all.”

  Munroe took a napkin and motioned for a pen. Alina sought one out and gave it to her, and Munroe drew a map from the hostess club to the konbini not far from where she’d parked the bike—a five-minute walk, maybe ten in Alina’s stupid shoes. “You know where it is?”

  “I’ll be there by three,” Alina said.

  “If I have to protect myself before I get a chance to protect you, then I’m not waiting for you to get there.”

  Alina smiled and flicked Munroe’s nose. “It will be fine,” she said.

  Motorcycles were common, foreigners on motorcycles not so much, especially not at this time of night. Munroe waited under the streetlight, ignoring glances and double takes from the few who came and went.

  Alina arrived at three just as she’d promised wearing flat shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt, with most of her makeup removed, and her long tresses pulled up into a messy ponytail, speed-walking and looking over her shoulder as if she feared she was being followed. She carried an oversize purse stuffed full, and her steps faltered slightly when she caught sight of Munroe and the bike.

  “This?” she said when she’d reached it.

  “Unless you’d rather walk.”

  Alina glanced down the street as if genuinely considering the possibility. Then, expression grim, she said, “Please. Let’s go quickly.”

  Munroe handed Alina her only helmet. She hadn’t had the foresight to bring the spare when leaving the apartment, never imagined that in her decision to fix Bradford’s problem she’d wind up with this type of baggage.

  Alina fumbled with the straps and Munroe helped her get the helmet on and then waited patiently for her to settle. “You need to go home and get some things?” Munroe said.

  The helmet shook: No.

  “You sure?”

  “Not safe” came the muffled response.

  Munroe rotated back, flicked the visor up and found fear in Alina’s eyes.

  “Do you have a phone?”

  Alina glanced down at her purse.

  Munroe held out her hand.

  Alina dug and pulled out a cell phone. Munroe turned it off, opened the back, and removed the battery. “Carrying this is like carrying a tracking device,” she said. “Don’t put it back together unless it’s an emergency. Got it?”

  Alina nodded. Munroe pushed the visor down again. “Don’t fight me,” she said. “I’m not going to do anything to get us killed, but if you tense up and throw your weight, you’re going to cause problems.”

  “Don’t tense,” the muffle said.

  Munroe nudged the bike toward the curb and Alina tensed.

  Munroe sighed. “Hold on,” she said, and when Alina grabbed tight with the cushion of the purse pressed uncomfortably between them, Munroe took the bike out into the street. Riding without a helmet was a risk. If she got stopped, she’d lose her license and see the bike impounded, but this wasn’t a throwaway jaunt. Instinct told her that Alina was right: Tonight or not at all.

  —

  Munroe drove in circles, street to street, farther and farther from the drinking district until, certain they hadn’t been followed, she wound back to the hotel with its web of diagrams taped up along her room’s wall.

  She could have gone elsewhere for the night, holed up at one of the many fanciful love hotels where privacy was sacred and rooms that played to want and whimsy could be had by the hour—hotels that, like the manga cafés, offered temporary escape from overcrowded living. Could have but didn’t because love hotels were often run by organized crime and, without knowing what territory belonged to whom, they became a greater risk.

  Instead she stopped in a small parking lot where owners without better options paid by the quarter hour to keep their vehicles from being towed and stood by while, in the shadows, Alina emptied her purse, item b
y item.

  Munroe took the purse and ripped out the lining in search of tracking devices. She’d not expected to find anything—fear and pain were far more reliable methods for controlling a victim—but she couldn’t risk not knowing. Munroe returned the purse without explanation and Alina said nothing as she shoved her things back inside.

  At nearly five in the morning, Munroe slid the key card into the room lock and swung the door wide. She stepped inside. Alina remained on the threshold, face white, purse in her hands, staring into the darkened space, as if it only now dawned on her what she’d done, and worse, what she was about to do.

  Munroe flipped on the light and motioned around the room. “Nothing here but me,” she said.

  Alina stayed put.

  Munroe opened the desk’s bottom drawer and pulled out one of the hotel-provided jinbei—pants and jacket—the Japanese version of pajamas or a robe, yet not so intimate that they couldn’t be worn out on the streets during the evening hours.

  Munroe sat on the bed, held the jinbei toward the door, another invitation for Alina to come inside. But still she stood frozen, the fear on her face more pronounced than it had been from behind the visor, and Munroe understood.

  Making the plea for help had been easy in the spur of the moment— a daydream practiced often. Even getting on the bike and going where Munroe chose to take her had been doable. But to be locked in a small room with a strange man who might in the end be worse than the man she’d just fled?

  Munroe set the loungewear back on the bed, stood, and unbuttoned her shirt. She tossed the outer layer aside and then stripped out of the T-shirt beneath. Concealing her gender had never been particularly difficult. Nature, in making her taller than many men, hadn’t been generous with other gifts.

  “I want to know what you know,” Munroe said, “and now you see that I have no reason to hurt you.”

  Alina’s mouth dropped open slightly, though it was difficult to tell if that was due to discovering that Munroe was a woman or a response to the scarred slivers that crisscrossed Munroe’s torso as mementos of the knife attacks that had occurred near-nightly over the space of two years.