by Barry Eisler
'Okay.'
'Now this staircase leads down to the basement level, which is restrooms, a utility room, and again that emergency exit. See if you can use a bathroom break to get into the utility room. My source tells me that code for this building requires emergency lighting run off a backup generator. I need to know what they're using and whether you can disable it tomorrow night. And regardless, look around for stand-alone battery-operated units, especially in stairwells and above doorways. If they're already required by the building code to have a generator system, I doubt they'd go to the expense of installing stand-alone units, too, but we have to know.'
'Okay.'
'The final thing is cameras. They probably don't have any overt ones, except again possibly one monitoring the front entrance. The place is supposed to be the ultimate in discretion, and obvious security cameras inside would spoil the ambience. But they might have some less obvious ones. Here's something that will help you spot them if they do.'
I took out the custom-made, pocket-sized bug detector Harry had made for me before he died, and handed it to Delilah. 'Here. It picks up the horizontal oscillator frequency radiated by video cameras. It's not exactly a divining rod, but it'll give you an idea.'
Delilah hefted it in her hand and looked at it approvingly. 'Nice.'
'I'd like it back, if possible. It's one of a kind. And it has sentimental value.'
Dox started to break out into the grin. 'You? Sentimental?'
I looked at him, thinking of Harry. 'Is there a problem?' I asked.
The grin retreated. 'No problem.'
I looked at Delilah, then Dox. 'Questions? Comments?'
Delilah said, 'So Plan A is for Dox to drop Yamaoto as he leaves his car and enters the club. The rest of this is all Plan B.'
'That's right. But Plan A is nothing to count on here. You've seen the street the club is on. There aren't many places we can position Dox for a shot at the front entrance. There's no parking on the street, so we can't set him up in the van. There's a building site near Aoyama-dori that might work, but even then the angle is such that he'll only have a second to make the shot. Yamaoto travels in an armored Mercedes, and he'll probably have a phalanx of bodyguards. Unless he lingers for a few moments outside the entrance, we won't be able to get to him until he's inside.'
'Yeah,' Dox said. 'Plan B is the new Plan A.'
'Makes sense,' Delilah said.
'You manage to get a phone?' I asked.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a clamshell model in screaming yellow.
'Well, that ought to do,' I said. 'Did you figure out…'
'I changed the interface to English,' she said. 'It's fine.'
I nodded. 'Are you armed?'
She smiled. 'What do you think?'
I looked her over. She wasn't wearing much, but if she was carrying, I couldn't see it.
'Not that I can tell,' I said.
Her smile widened. She dropped her right hand, hooked her thumb under the edge of the dress, and reached up along her inner thigh. An instant later her hand reappeared, her fingers curled into a fist. A wicked-looking two-inch blade protruded like a talon from between her first and second knuckles.
'Goddamn,' Dox said. 'What is that pretty little thing?'
'FS Hideaway,' Delilah said. She opened her hand, slid the knife from around her first two fingers, and handed it hilt first to Dox.
'Yeah, I've been reading about these, but haven't gotten my own yet,' he said. He tried to slip it on, but the grip was too small to fit over his fingers. 'You like it?'
'I love it,' she said. 'This one's actually a knockoff that our tech people make. It's composite, not steel. Not as tough as you'd like, but it's razor sharp and, best of all, doesn't set off metal detectors. I carried it from Paris on the plane.'
I saw that, instead of a handle, the knife was gripped through a capsule shaped hole. The whole thing was tiny, but when she had it deployed, she looked like a damned velociraptor.
'What have you got down there?' Dox said, looking at her thigh.
She raised an eyebrow.
He blushed. 'I mean…' he started to say.
She smiled. 'Kydex sheath.'
'Well, now I know what to ask for for Christmas,' Dox said, handing the knife back to her. She reached under her dress and returned it to its hiding place.
I pulled the commo gear out of a bag and handed her a transmitter and an earpiece. 'This is the same kind of equipment we used in Hong Kong,' I said. 'We ought to do a dry run tonight. But with your hair up…'
'I'll hold the earpiece,' she said, fixing the transmitter just below the neckline of the dress. 'When I get alone for a minute, I'll put it in place. We'll make sure it all works.'
I nodded. 'We could wire you up so Dox and I can hear what's going on around you, not just you talking into your dress.'
She shook her head. 'Not in this outfit. I wouldn't be able to hide the battery bulge. And I don't know what this club is like. People might be free with their hands.'
I nodded again. 'Yeah, you're right. Well, as long as we can hear you, we should be okay.'
She looked at her watch, then at Dox and me. She smiled, and I realized that some part of her enjoyed the rush of an op.
'Okay, boys,' she said. 'Time for me to get into character.'
32
Delilah did a surveillance detection route on foot to ensure she was alone, then caught a taxi to Minami Aoyama. She doubted the driver would ever have heard of Whispers, but he understood the words Aoyama-dori and Kotto-dori well enough, and from that main intersection she could walk. She was glad she'd taken the time to reconnoiter earlier that day. It would be good to have a few things that felt familiar. Certainly everything else about this city and these circumstances was disorienting.
She didn't want things to be so tense with Rain, but damn it, she was just so frustrated with him. None of this needed to be happening. He had rushed off to see his child, and then he'd screwed up, just as she had feared in Barcelona. And now she was getting sucked into the aftermath.
Ordinarily, she felt she had a lot of clarity in her life, especially given the shifting, ambiguous world she lived in, but this time her feelings were a mess. She was pissed at Rain for creating the situation that had caused her to do such an ugly thing as visit Midori in New York. And she was simultaneously appalled at what she had done, remorseful for it, and afraid that Rain was going to find out. She wanted to do something to make amends, and was furious with herself for putting herself in a position where she felt she needed to make things up with him. And underlying all of it was the fact that she still wanted him, and she was angry at him for that, too.
She closed her eyes, exhaled deeply, and told herself to let it go. She could figure it all out later. Right now, she was on her way to a job interview. She reviewed all the particulars of the role she was playing, why she was here, the job she wanted, her hopes and fears. By the time the cab let her off at the corner of Aoyama-dori and Kotto-dori, she had submerged herself and was fully in character.
She walked south down Kotto-dori, cold in the capelet and skimpy dress, past an intriguing mix of restaurants, boutiques, office buildings, and residences. Cars and small trucks and motor scooters navigated up and down the street, their engines whining and revving at discordant pitches and resounding off the walls of buildings to either side. An occasional horn honked, but never aggressively. A few bicyclists maneuvered around her on the sidewalk. A number of older women were out walking squirrel-sized dogs, some of the animals in tiny wool sweaters. The women and their overly precious canines you saw everywhere in Paris. But here, she noted, looking down, the custom was to clean up after the pets.
She liked the city. Tokyo seemed to have little in the way of zoning ordinances, something that would have horrified the overseers of Paris. But the planning that worked there would have suffocated the eclectic charm that she sensed was what made Tokyo tick.
She turned left on one of the narrow, na
meless side streets running east off Kotto-dori. Fifty meters ahead, she saw two men standing purposefully and sensed they worked for the club. When she had walked by earlier that day, there had been no one around, and, if she hadn't known at the time what she was looking for, she would have gone right past without even knowing. There was no sign or any other announcement, just a slate path leading away from the street, now flanked by these two.
They watched her as she approached. They were wearing identical dark suits, fully buttoned, and each had the same metrosexually refined eyebrows and carefully coiffed hair. They were way too soft-looking to be security, and she made them as the valets Rain had mentioned. That made sense — the place was more than upscale enough, and there seemed to be no parking nearby. They bowed as she approached and she nodded to them, catching sight of the wired earpiece each was wearing.
She turned onto the path, head swiveling as she walked, as though impressed by the design of the place. And it was impressive: to either side of the path were dark rectangular pools of water and lush ferns, all of it illuminated softly from below. A pair of clean-cut concrete walls rose out of the ground and increased in height as the path got closer to the building, eventually reaching about three meters and creating a sense of privacy that grew as she walked. There was a faint smell of incense, and the sound of water moving over stones. It was as though the club was gradually taking her in from the noisy, public city outside.
The effect increased as the path turned right. Suddenly everything was quiet: nothing but her footfalls and that calming sound of water trickling in the pools. She walked up a short riser of concrete steps and into a large vestibule discreetly lit with wall sconces. A small square of glass was embedded in the wall to the right of a pair of large wooden doors, surrounded by a metal plate. Camera, she thought. She felt the detector Rain had given her buzz in her purse, and was glad to know it was working. Next to the camera was a button. Below it, an embedded plastic unit she recognized as a magnetic card reader. There was no keypad, just the reader itself, and she guessed that the valets carried swipe keys. That meant the door would be kept locked and, valets and other employees excepted, controlled from inside.
She looked around again, just an out-of-town girl taking it all in, and noted no other surveillance equipment. She pulled on both doors, then pushed. They were indeed locked. Okay.
She looked at the button next to the camera as though noticing it for the first time, then pressed it. A moment later, she heard the distinct clack of an electronic lock, then the door to her left was swinging outward, guided by another man in a dark suit. Unlike the two out front, this guy had security written all over him. His hair was crew-cut — functional, not stylish — and something in his eyes suggested that if anyone ever tried to metrosexually reshape his brows they'd be hospitalized for their troubles. He held open the door and bowed his head in welcome.
The way he had immediately welcomed her, without checking to see whether she was alone, confirmed that she had been watched via the camera before she pressed the buzzer. The man had opened the door already knowing, or having been told, exactly what was outside.
She nodded and walked in. Soft techno music played from unseen speakers and the air smelled faintly of cigar smoke. She checked the drape of the security guy's suit as she went by. She saw no telltale bulges, but his right side was facing away from her and she couldn't be sure. She'd try for another look later.
This was the small room she'd seen in the floor plans. The design was minimalist, just dark, wood-paneled walls, a leather-wrapped island in the center, and a leather-covered bench to one side. To the left was a pair of large swinging doors, which from the plans she knew led to the main room. Behind the island was another door, the one that led to what they had guessed was an office. To the right, the stairs down to the restrooms and, presumably, the utility room.
Two more men stood off to the right. One was another serious-looking guy she made as security, and there it was, yes, the bulge that was no cell phone at his hip under the jacket. The other guy was as soft-looking as the two out front. Probably another valet, she thought. When a member is ready to leave, this guy runs out for the car, and one of the two outside comes in. They rotate. No one's kept waiting.
Two quite stunning Japanese women stood behind the island. Both were dressed exquisitely in gold lame gowns. Their makeup was perfect, and their long, lustrous hair was set in elaborate chignons. They looked classy, sophisticated, and very, very sexy.
Delilah walked up and smiled a little uncertainly. 'Pardonnez-moi,' she said. 'Parlez-vous français?'
The women looked at each other, then back to Delilah. No, they didn't speak French.
'Ah, this is Whispers, yes?' she asked in heavily accented English.
The hostesses nodded. One of them said, with a Japanese accent, 'Whispers, yes.'
Okay, their English didn't seem too much better than their French. Delilah said, 'I am here for… a job. Working here.'
The woman who had spoken a moment earlier said, 'Mmm, one minute, please.' She picked up a phone and spoke a few words of Japanese, then hung up. 'Please,' she said, gesturing to the bench. 'Just a minute.'
Delilah thanked her and sat. She glanced again at the first security guy, but his right side was still facing away from her. Well, the other guy was carrying, it was safe to assume they both were.
While she waited, she heard a soft buzzer. She watched the women behind the island. They looked down, presumably at a video screen, then nodded to the first security guy, who nodded back and opened the door. Two fiftyish Japanese men wearing cashmere overcoats walked in. The women came out from behind the island and bowed in welcome. One of the women took the coats and brought them into the room behind the island; the other escorted the men into the main area. A few moments later the women had reassembled in their original positions.
So the security guy didn't have visual access to the vestibule outside. The hostesses took care of that, and he took his cues from them. Okay.
A minute later, another Japanese woman came through the door on the other side of the island. This one was older — late forties or fifties. She was a handsome woman, and looked at home in a black Chanel suit that, while certainly elegant, served to identify her, along with her age and bearing, as management rather than talent.
Delilah stood as the woman approached. 'May I help you?' the woman asked in English.
'Yes,' Delilah said, laying on the Parisian accent. 'I would like to apply for a job.'
The woman nodded and looked Delilah up and down. Delilah could tell the woman approved of what she saw.
'How did you hear about us?' the woman asked.
'Hear…'
'About Whispers. This club. How did you learn about us?'
Delilah paused as though to translate the words, then said, 'Ah, I met a nice woman in Paris. Valerie. She… tells me about Whispers.'
The woman smiled and nodded. 'Ah, Val. She was very popular here. How is she?'
'She is very well, I think.'
'Do you live in Paris? Or…'
'Yes, Paris.'
'Then you're just visiting Tokyo.'
'Oui. Yes, visiting.'
The woman nodded again as though considering. Then she said, 'Our membership is exclusive. Men of unusual wealth and taste. Powerful men. Do you think you could entertain such men? Know how to… please them?'
Delilah paused again as though having difficulty with the English, then said, 'I like men.'
The woman laughed. 'And I expect they like you. But, forgive me, your English is not very good, is it?'
Delilah smiled a little sheepishly, as though the woman had just exposed a secret. 'Non, but I am fast learning…'
The woman laughed again. ''You'll have to, and some Japanese, too. But first things first. Mr Kuro is the person you need to speak with, and he's not here tonight. But he will be tomorrow. Can you come back then?'
Because it was consistent with her role, Delilah permitted her
self a moment of satisfaction. 'Come back tomorrow?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Yes. What time?'
'The same time as now. I don't know when he'll be free, and you might have to wait for a while.'
'I can wait.'
'Good. And what is your name?'
'I am called Laure.'
'Well, Laure, it's very good to meet you. You can call me Kyoko.'
'Enchantée,' Delilah said, shaking the woman's hand. Then she added, 'Would it be all right to… may I see? The club?'
Kyoko smiled and looked her over again. 'I don't see any problem with that. You'll certainly look right at home.'
She took Delilah by the arm and escorted her through the swinging doors. Delilah noted that they swung in both directions, no knobs, no locks.
The room beyond was a large rectangle built on three levels. At the lowest level, in the center, was a freestanding bar. One step up, surrounding the bar and facing it, were four long rows of built-in leather-covered benches. The backs of the benches rose to the floor of the room's third level, where Delilah now stood. A dozen men in suits and twice that number of drop-dead women in equally drop-dead clothes were seated along the rows around the bar, and the techno music Delilah heard earlier now mingled with the sounds of laughter and conversation. Several of the men looked up at Delilah, and she realized this was part of the purpose of the layout, to let the club's members leisurely appraise its hostesses. In fact, she noticed that the lighting, too, was designed for the pleasure of the patrons: the seating areas were illuminated only indirectly, and were therefore private, while this level, which was open to foot traffic, was lit by a series of elegant hanging lights.
