The Gentleman from Japan

by James Church

  Chapter Three

  Maybe I fell asleep, maybe not. Anyway, twenty minutes later there was a soft knock on my door. When I got up to answer it, there was an envelope on the floor. Someone had slid it partway under the door. It was a plain envelope, no name on it, sealed with a wide strip of tape that had dashed lines like those painted down the middle of a road. After wrestling with the tape, which was not regular sealing tape, for a couple of minutes, I tore the bottom of the envelope open and extracted an airline ticket. It was for a flight leaving at eight fifty in the morning the next day, and arriving in Barcelona at eleven forty-five. That would barely give me time to get wherever it was I was supposed to be to meet the vice president to discuss whatever it was I was supposed to discuss. Maybe there would be another envelope in the meanwhile, or the maid would be back to rearrange my socks. A note attached to the ticket gave me some reassurance. The cash from Bernardo was your advance. Must have receipts for all expenditures. If I’d had any doubts that this was a government operation, they were gone.

  That night I went out to dine at the cheapest place I could find, figuring it would have the best food. Luis had told me the grilled octopus with some little potatoes would be good, that and a glass of wine. I found what I wanted at the top of a flight of stairs on a hillside overlooking a plaza. The place was crowded, with only two tables left. I indicated the one with the view of the lights below, but the waiter shook his head impatiently and steered me to the other empty one, sitting off by itself facing a stone wall covered with a series of faded advertisements for what looked to be guitar performances. Before I could ask for a menu, he raced away. A few minutes later, he was back in bad humor. He took my order with barely concealed annoyance and rushed off to serve another table with six workmen and nine bottles of beer. When he returned with my octopus, he put the dishes down with a clatter and said, “Wrong ticket. Leave at seven fifty-five.” He poured some wine into my glass from a carafe. “It’s on the house,” he said, and hurried away. A moment later he swooped back with a basket of bread. “Dumplings,” he said, and used his head to indicate the table behind me, the one with the view of the lights. Sitting alone was one of the old men who had looked out of breath this morning. I half expected the Australian girls to show up and sit down at his table, but no one disturbed him. When I left, he was drinking his way through a bottle of wine and doing a good job of pretending he did not know I was there.

  Back at my hotel, I found my underwear folded on the bed, and no extraneous paper in the drawers. I went down to the desk to ask if I would be able to find a taxi to the airport at five in the morning.

  “Most assuredly. Are you checking out early? Your reservation was for three nights.”

  “Emergency. Death in the family.”

  “How sad.” The clerk pulled a long face. He looked at his watch and then at his computer. “In that case, we’ll only charge one extra night. Though if you’d like, we could keep your room and save you the trouble of checking back in the day after tomorrow.”

  “What makes you think I’ll be back the day after tomorrow?”

  “Only a suggestion, sir. The Spanish couple in the next room is leaving tomorrow morning as well, but plans to be back the night after that. I thought maybe you would do the same.”

  I leaned slightly across the counter and looked deep into his eyes. “I am going to a funeral. I am in mourning. I will not be back.”

  “A taxi will be waiting in the morning. The airport, you said?”

  “At five A.M.”

  “Very good.” He glanced behind me toward the front door. “Ah, the busload of travel agents has arrived.” His face took on a welcome mask, a leopard grinning at a tethered goat, and he stepped around the counter. “Welcome! Bienvenido! Konnichi-wa! This way with the luggage.”

  2

  The next morning the taxi was waiting. The driver was not interested in talking, nor was I. Traffic was light, the morning was foggy, and I needed the chance to review the situation one more time. I had stopped in an Internet café just before dinner the night before and, using the phone number on the paper the maid had given me, had found where I was to go after I landed in Barcelona. It was about twenty-five kilometers north of the airport. A cab ride would not be cheap. Renting a car probably made more sense, though that meant standing in line and dealing with another clerk. I decided on a cab.

  When we arrived at the airport, I paid the driver, retrieved my bag from the trunk, and immediately ran into Luis inside the terminal.

  “Good morning,” he said morosely.

  “Good morning, yourself,” I said. “I thought you had abandoned me. You are supposed to be back home.”

  That seemed to strike a nerve, but a morose one, so he only looked all the more unhappy. “I’m sorry, Inspector. It was not my idea to run away. It was certainly not my idea to stay. There are people above me.” He looked skyward. “I’m only a pebble on the beach.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Luis, I’m not angry. In fact, I’m glad to see you. Can we get a cup of coffee? I have some time before my plane. Will you be able to get through the security checkpoint without a ticket?”

  “I may only be part Portuguese, Inspector”—he bowed slightly—“but I still know my way around. In fact, I’ll get you into one of the lounges. It will be more comfortable, and we can talk without all of the announcements crashing over us. I’ll meet you on the other side.”

  At the ticket counter, the woman informed me that I could not have a seat assigned just yet. They would do that at the gate.

  “I have a reservation, do I not? Then why not a seat?” I knew I sounded officious, but I did not care. I did not like the way this smelled.

  “The flight is overbooked,” she said. She was more officious than I was, and it set me off one more notch.

  “Perhaps so,” I said, “but I did not overbook it. It says right here, I have a seat.” I waved the reservation at her.

  The woman closed her eyes for a moment. I could tell she was pulling from somewhere an extra drop of civility. “Yes,” she said finally, “I can see well enough you have something that makes you think you have an ironclad reservation, but I can also see it says right here”—she pointed at the computer screen in front of her—“that you don’t. You bought the cheapest ticket, and the cheapest tickets get bumped in an oversold situation. Just go to the gate, and perhaps it will work itself out.” She handed me the ticket. “You board at seven thirty, if you do board. Fair warning, if you are not there promptly when boarding begins, it will not go well. Have a nice flight.” From her tone, it was clear she did not have her heart in these well-wishes.

  At the security checkpoint, one of the guards patted me down and then asked if I had any carry-on luggage.

  “I do,” I said. “I just put it through your scanner.”

  “No, the woman at the scanning machine has signaled that you have no luggage. Why not? That’s odd. It’s a red flag. According to your ticket, you don’t have a seat and you didn’t check a bag. You don’t have carry-on either?”

  “Well, what if I don’t?”

  “You just said you did, senhor. Now you ask what if you don’t. Perhaps you should step over to see the supervisor.”

  My eyes swept the room searching for Luis. He was nowhere around. The security guard had his hand on my arm. “Shall we go?” He tightened his grip. “There are other people in line behind you.”

  “I’m not leaving without my carry-on luggage.”

  “You said you had none. And what if you did? You couldn’t put it under the seat in front of you because you don’t have a seat. Please don’t cause a scene, senhor. I’m sure something can be worked out with my supervisor.”

  Just beyond the supervisor’s desk, Luis appeared suddenly, like a spider dropped from the ceiling. He was leaning casually against a pillar, staring off in the distance as if in Macau and planning something with Lulu. I wasn’t even sure he was paying attention.

  “I�
�m doing this under protest,” I said to the guard. “If there is anything missing from my carry-on bag when I retrieve it, there will be hell to pay.”

  The guard said nothing but propelled me to the supervisor’s desk.

  “Problem?” The supervisor, a big man with a thick neck and matching shoulders, eyed me coolly. “Let me see your passport, if you would be so kind.”

  “I would not be so kind,” I said. “What are you doing misplacing my bag and then pulling me out of line?”

  I saw Luis shake his head. He put his hands together as in prayer and closed his eyes. I took a deep breath. “All right, here is my passport. I insist we clear this up quickly. If I’m not at my plane in”—I looked at my wrist and realized my watch was still at the security checkpoint—“twenty minutes or so, I won’t get a seat. If I don’t get a seat, I will miss an important meeting.”

  The supervisor was studying my passport. “You are from Costa Rica?” His eyes narrowed as he flipped through the pages. It was a pretty good passport, but I had not looked at it in several years and recalled uneasily that it had not been perfect. Anyone who examined it closely enough might find something not quite right, an exit stamp that didn’t belong, a page that was too full. “It says here you landed in Denmark a couple of years ago. You had business? What did you see? What did you eat? Where did you stay?” He was punching buttons on his cell phone and did not look pleased.

  At that moment, Luis strolled over. He said something like “Ho!” The supervisor turned and broke into a huge grin. While they embraced like long-lost brothers, Luis peered over the man’s shoulder and indicated I should get my bag and disappear. My bag was sitting on the edge of the conveyer belt; my watch was in a basket beside it. I grabbed both, slipped behind the supervisor still embracing Luis, and walked quickly toward the boarding gates. The bag was heavier than I remembered. Worse, I didn’t have my passport. If Luis didn’t retrieve it for me, I’d have to use the spare in my luggage, which wouldn’t be easy to get past immigration when I finally left Europe because it lacked the stamp I needed to show when I had entered. Details. Always details.

  My gate was the last one, on the far end of the terminal. Luis was there, sitting near the check-in counter, looking off into space with a worried frown on his face.

  “Ola, Luis,” I said, and sat down beside him. “How did you get here ahead of me?”

  “Ola, yourself.” He continued to stare off into the distance. “This is my territory, Inspector. Don’t concern yourself about how I move.”

  “What about the lounge?”

  “Forget about the lounge, it’s overheated. What we have now is a real worry. ‘Houston,’ as they say, ‘we have a problem.’”

  “Before we start trading movie lines, Luis, do you have my passport? That bastard supervisor took it and didn’t give it back. Do you know him?”

  “You saw the movie?”

  “Luis, my passport! That bastard still has it.”

  “That man and I went to the same upper school. He was my junior, and I used to get cigarettes and other things for him, so he feels obliged.”

  “He grew up in Macau?”

  “It happens, Inspector. Don’t sound so surprised.” Luis reached into his pocket and produced my passport. “Here, surely you didn’t think I’d leave it behind. It isn’t a very good one, you know. The dates for the entry and exit stamps for Indonesia are backward. Don’t you check these things when your Ministry hands it to you? I never accept a passport until I’ve been through it page by page.”

  “Idiots,” I muttered as I flipped to the page with the Indonesia stamp. “It’s old. Nothing I can do about it. What’s the other problem?”

  “Thank you?”

  “Thank you, Luis. If I’d been thinking straight, I would have realized you wouldn’t leave it. Now, what is the other problem?”

  “Your flight is oversold.”

  “I already know that. They told me at the check-in counter I’d have to wait until everyone boarded. Can’t you pull strings? This is the ticket I was given. Don’t your people check before they make a reservation? Why did they have to buy the cheapest one?”

  “Reservations are not my affair. Strings at security checkpoints and on passports, yes, I know which and how hard to pull, but on seats? No. I’m as helpless as a squid in a pan of olive oil.”

  “If I’m late, I don’t get to Barcelona in time to make my appointment. Then what? We have your squid for lunch and call the whole thing off?”

  Luis cleared his throat. “I’m aware of the timing problem, Inspector.”

  “Good, do you know who I’m supposed to meet in Barcelona?”

  Luis looked around. There was an old woman dozing on the end of the row of seats where we sat.

  “Let’s get some water,” he said. “Anyway, I need to stretch my legs.” He stood and made an exaggerated effort to touch his toes. “Sitting makes me stiff. Old age, I guess.” He smiled sweetly at the old woman, who was now alert and digging through the canvas bag on her lap.

  Even before I could gather my things, Luis was moving away to a refreshment kiosk halfway down the corridor. I caught up with him as he was paying for a bottle of water. He took the change and handed the bottle to me. “Don’t look now,” he said, “but the old woman is taking your picture with her cell phone. She’s Spanish. Her name is Dora. The Spaniards use her at the airport every other month. Sometimes she sits around in her old lady act. Other times she has on a short skirt and swivels her hips. She wears lots of makeup and a blond wig. We leave her alone pretty much, as long as she doesn’t get in our way.”

  “Don’t they realize she’s known?”

  “Sure, but that’s fine with them. They think we figure if we watch her, we’ll miss their really important agents, so we’ll loosen up on her and look for someone else, at which point, she’ll be better placed to do what she needs to do.”

  “Which is?”

  Luis shrugged. “Today she’s watching for you. That means they’ll be expecting you at the Barcelona airport. I’m not sure that’s such a bad idea, but you might as well be prepared for a reception.”

  “Maybe it will be just as well if I get bumped. In fact, maybe I should just bag this whole thing and go home.”

  Luis nodded at my carry-on bag. “Have you looked inside?”

  “Why?”

  “Inspector, we went to a lot of trouble at that checkpoint, and you didn’t even look inside? This will be a disappointment to the head of the foreign operations department, who on my say-so has invested a lot of effort in getting you here. Please, take the bottle of water, walk over to the seating area by the window, and look in your bag.”

  As soon as I unzipped the bag, I realized it wasn’t mine. It had a concealed pocket inside, though not all that well concealed if I could find it in a matter of seconds. In the pocket was a miniature tape recorder that wasn’t mine. It was molded in the shape of a mechanical pencil. There was also a heavy guidebook of Barcelona, which was not mine, and an orange, which judging from the very faint evidence of cutting at the very top contained something other than vitamin C. Probably a transmitter, though maybe it was an explosive. Or maybe a camera. Did the Spaniards not want this orange to arrive in their country, or did they want to make sure it was delivered, on time, to a preselected target? I decided Luis was either going to come clean with me in the next few minutes, or I would hand the orange to Dora and catch the next flight back to China.

  “This isn’t my bag, Luis.”

  “It’s close enough, Inspector. Maybe even better than the one you took from that store.”

  “The Syrian man works for you?”

  “Not in so many words. How did you know he was Syrian?”

  “I have a good sense of nationalities, Luis. It’s a survival instinct. And you’re misinformed. I didn’t take a bag from that store. Is he charging you for it?”

  Luis closed his eyes and frowned.

  “I hate to make trouble, Luis, but I want my bag
back. And without all your added stuff.”

  “You might find this one useful.” Luis had stopped frowning but still had his eyes closed.

  “I don’t like oranges. Too much acid.”

  Luis made a clicking sound with his tongue, took a breath, and opened his eyes. “Listen closely, Inspector. Before you go to your appointment, you move the pencil out of the extra pocket and the orange into it. That activates the lens. You just squeeze the handle of the bag. There’s no sound, but you’ve taken a picture.”

  “What if they inspect the bag at the factory?”

  “My God, Inspector, of course they will.”

  “It’s my neck.”

  “It’s foolproof.”

  “Nothing is foolproof.”

  “You want out? Just say so.” Luis’s voice had a hard edge, nothing like I had ever heard from him.

  “No. I’m with you, Luis. Though I don’t know why. I really don’t.”

  “Good. One more thing. If anyone asks, you are Japanese.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind. It will be explained later. You should be able to carry it off with no problem.”

  “What about my passport? It’s not Japanese.”

  “Well, it’s not Korean either, is it? You won’t have any trouble. Have some fun with it if you want.”

  In a sudden turn of fate, there was room in the first-class section of the plane, and the woman from the ticket counter, who was now collecting tickets at the gate, gave me a smug smile. “As you see, it works out, and there is never any sense in getting red in the face, is there? I trust the flight will be smooth.”