Aces Abroad wc-4

by George R. R. Martin

  Finally one of the foreign waitresses ducked behind the bar and smiled at Fortunato. " I have a feeling Tosun is not going to do well here," she said. Her accent was Northern England. Her hair was dark brown and pinned up with chopsticks, and her eyes were green. "Can I help?"

  "I'm looking for a nightclub somewhere around here. It's got a duck on the sign, like this one. Small place, doesn't do a lot of gaijin trade."

  The woman looked at the napkin. For a second she had the same look as the bartender. Then she worked her face around into a perfect Japanese smile. It looked horrible on her European features. Fortunato knew she wasn't afraid of him. It had to be the club. "No," she said. "Sorry"

  "Look. I know the yakuza are mixed up in this. I'm not a cop, and I'm not looking for any trouble. I'm just trying to pay a debt for somebody. For a friend of mine. Believe me, they want to see me."

  "Sorry"

  "What's your name?"

  "Megan." The way she thought before saying it told Fortunato she was lying.

  "What part of England are you from?"

  "I'm not, actually." She casually crumpled the napkin and threw it under the bar. "I'm from Nepal." She gave him the brittle smile again and walked away.

  He'd looked at every bar in the district, most of them twice. At least it seemed that way. Hiram could, of course, have been half a block farther on in the wrong direction, or Fortunato could simply have missed it. By four A. M. he was too tired to look anymore, too tired even to go home.

  He saw a love hotel on the other side of the Roppongi Crossing. The hourly rates were on the high, windowless walls by the entrance. After midnight it was actually something of a bargain. Fortunato went in past the darkened garden and slipped his money through a blind slot in the wall. A hand slid him out a key.

  The hall was full of size-ten foreign men's shoes paired off with tiny zori or doll-sized spike heels. Fortunato found his room and locked the door behind him. The bed was freshly made with pink satin sheets. There were mirrors and a video camera on the ceiling, feeding a big-screen TV in the corner., By love hotel standards the room was pretty tame. Some eatured jungles or desert islands, beds shaped like boats or cars or helicopters, light shows and sound effects.

  He turned out the light and undressed. All around him his oversensitive hearing picked up tiny cries and shrill, stifled laughter. He folded the pillow over his head and lay with his eyes open to the darkness.

  He was forty-seven years old. For twenty of those years he'd lived inside a cocoon of power and never noticed himself aging. Then the last six months had begun to teach him what he'd missed. The dreadful fatigue after a long night like this one. Mornings when his joints hurt so badly it was hard to get up. Important memories beginning to fade, trivia haunting him obsessively. Lately there were the headaches, and indigestion and muscle cramps. The constant awareness of being human, being mortal, being weak.

  Nothing was as addictive as power. Heroin was a glass of flat beer in comparison. There had been nights, watching an endless throng of beautiful women move down the Ginza or the Shinjuku, virtually all of them for sale, when he'd thought he couldn't go on without feeling that power again. He'd talked to himself like an alcoholic, promising himself he'd wait just one more day. And somehow he'd held oui. Partly because the memories of his last night in New York, of his final battle with the Astronomer, were still too fresh, reminding him of the pain the power had cost him. Partly because he was no longer sure the power was there, whether Kundalini, the great serpent, was dead or just asleep.

  Tonight he'd watched helplessly as a hundred or more Japanese lied to him, ignored him, even humiliated themselves rather than tell him what they so obviously knew. He'd started to see himself through their eyes: huge, clumsy, sweaty, loud, and uncivilized, a pathetic barbarian giant, a kind of oversized monkey who couldn't even be held accountable for common politeness.

  A little tantric magick would change all that. Tomorrow, he told himself. If you still feel this way tomorrow then you can go ahead, try to get it back.

  He closed his eyes and finally fell asleep.

  He woke up with an erection for the first time in months. It was fate, he told himself. Fate that brought Peregrine to him, that provided the need for him to use his power again.

  Was that the truth? Or did he just want an excuse to make love to her again, an outlet for six months of sexual frustration?

  He dressed and took a cab to the Imperial Hotel. The tour took up an entire floor of the new thirty-one-story tower, and everything inside was scaled up for Europeans. The halls and the insides of the elevators seemed huge to Fortunato now. By the time he got off on the thirtieth floor his hands were shaking. He leaned against Peregrine's door and knocked quietly. A few seconds later he knocked again, harder.

  She answered the door in a loose nightgown that touched the floor. Her feathers were ruffled and she could hardly open her eyes. Then she saw him.

  She took the chain off the door and stood aside. He shut the door behind him and took her in his arms. He could feel the tiny creature in her belly moving as he held her. He kissed her. Sparks seemed to be crackling around them, but it could have been just the strength of his desire, breaking out of the chains he'd kept it in for so long.

  He pulled the straps of her nightgown down along her arms. It fell to her waist and revealed her breasts, their nipples dark and puffy. He touched one with his tongue and tasted the chalky sweetness of her milk. She put her arms around his head and moaned. Her skin was soft and fragrant as the silk of an antique kimono. She pulled him toward the unmade bed and he broke away from her long enough to take off his clothes.

  She lay on her back. The pregnancy was the summit of her body, where all the curves ended. Fortunato knelt next to her and kissed her face and throat and shoulders and breasts. He couldn't seem to get his breath. He turned her on her side, facing away from him, and kissed the small of her back. Then he reached up between her legs and held her there, feeling the warmth and wetness against his palm, moving his fingers slowly through the tangle of her pubic hair. She undulated slowly, clutching a pillow in both hands.

  He lay down behind her and went into her from behind. The soft flesh of her buttocks pressed into his stomach and his eyes went out of focus. "Oh, God," he said. He began to move slowly inside her, his left arm under her and cupping one breast, his right hand lightly touching the curve of her stomach. She moved with him, both of them in slow motion, her breath coming harder and faster until she cried out and ground her hips against him.

  At the last possible moment he reached down and blocked his ejaculation at the perineum. The hot fluid flooded back into his groin and lights seemed to flash around him. He relaxed, ready to feel his astral body come loose from his flesh.

  It didn't happen.

  He put his arms around Peregrine and held onto her fiercely. He buried his face in her neck, let her long hair cover his head.

  Now he knew. The power was gone.

  He had a single bright moment of panic, then exhaustion carried him on into sleep.

  He slept for an hour or so and woke up tired. Peregrine was on her back, watching him.

  "You okay?" she said. "Yeah. Fine."

  "You're not glowing."

  "No," he said. He looked at his hands. "It didn't work. It was wonderful. But the power didn't come back. There's nothing there."

  She turned on her side, facing him. "Oh, no." She stroked his cheek. "I'm sorry"

  "It's okay," he said. "Really. I've spent the last six months going back and forth, afraid the power would come back, then afraid it wouldn't. At least now I know" He kissed her neck. "Listen. We need to talk about the baby."

  "We can talk. But it's not like I expect anything from you, okay? I mean, there's some things I should probably have told you. There's a guy on the tour name of McCoy. He's the cameraman for this documentary we're doing. It looks like it could get serious with us. He knows about the baby and he doesn't care."

  "Oh," Fortu
nato said. "I didn't know."

  "We had a big fight a couple of days ago. And seeing you again-well, that really was something, that night back in New York. You're quite a guy. But you know there couldn't ever be anything permanent between us."

  "No," Fortunato said. "I guess not." His hand moved reflexivelv to stroke her swollen stomach, tracing blue veins against the pale skin. "It's weird. I never wanted kids. But now that it's happened, it's not like I thought it would be. It's like it doesn't really matter what I want. I'm responsible. Even if I never see the kid, I'm still responsible, and I always will be."

  "Don't make this harder than it has to be. Don't make me wish I hadn't come to you with this."

  "No. I just want to know that you're going to be okay. You and the baby both."

  "The baby's fine. Other than the fact that neither one of us has a last name to give it."

  There was a knock at the door. Fortunato tensed, feeling suddenly out of place. "Peri?" said Tachyon's voice. "Peri, are you in there?"

  "Just a minute," she said. She put on a robe and handed Fortunato his clothes. He was still buttoning his shirt when she opened the door.

  Tachyon looked at Peregrine, at the rumpled bed, at Fortunato. "You," he said. He nodded like his worst suspicions had just proved out. "Peri told me you were… helping."

  Jealous, little man? Fortunato thought. "That's right," he said.

  "Well, I hope I didn't interrupt." He looked at Peregrine. "The bus for the Meiji Shrine is supposed to leave in fifteen minutes. If you're going."

  Fortunato ignored him, went to Peregrine, and kissed her gently. "I'll call you," he said, "when I know something."

  "All right." She squeezed his hand. "Be careful."

  He walked past Tachyon and into the hall. A man with an elephant's trunk instead of a nose was waiting there. "Des," Fortunato said. "It's good to see you." That was not entirely true. Des looked terribly old, his cheeks sunken, the bulk of his body melting away. Fortunato wondered if his own pains were as obvious.

  "Fortunato," Des said. They shook hands. "It's been a long time."

  "I didn't think you'd ever leave New York."

  "I was due to see a little of the world. Age has a way of catching up with one."

  "Yeah," Fortunato said. "No kidding."

  "Well," Des said. "I have to make the tour bus."

  "Sure," Fortunato said. "I'll walk you."

  There was a time when Des had been one of his best customers. It looked like those times were over.

  Tachyon caught up with them at the elevator. "What do you want?" Fortunato said. "Can't you just leave me alone with this?"

  "Peri told me about your powers. I came to tell you I'm sorry. I know you hate me. Though I don't really know why. I suppose the way I dress, the way I behave, is some kind of obscure threat to your masculinity. Or at least you've chosen to see it that way. But it's in your mind, not mine." Fortunato shook his head angrily.

  "I just want one second." Tachyon closed his eyes. The elevator chimed and the doors opened.

  "Your second's up," Fortunato said. Still he didn't move. Des got on, giving Fortunato a mournful look, and the elevator closed again. Fortunato heard the cables creaking behind bamboo-patterned doors.

  "Your power is still there."

  "Bullshit."

  "You're shutting it inside yourself. Your mind is full of conflicts and contradictions, holding it in."

  "It took everything I had to fight the Astronomer. I hit empty. The bottom of the barrel. Cleaned out. Nothing left to recharge. Like running a car battery dry. It won't even jumpstart. It's over."

  "To take up your metaphor, even a live battery won't start when the ignition key is turned off. And the key," Tachyon said, pointing at his forehead, "is inside." He walked away and Fortunato slammed the elevator button with the flat of his hand.

  He called Hiram from the lobby.

  "Get over here," Hiram said. "I'll meet you out front."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Just get over here."

  Fortunato took a cab and found Hiram pacing back and forth in front of the plain gray facade of the Akasaka Shanpia. "What happened?"

  "Come in and see," Hiram said.

  The room had looked bad before, but now it was a disaster. The walls were spattered with shaving cream, the dresser drawers had been thrown into the corner, the mirrors were shattered and the mattress ripped to shreds.

  "I didn't even see it happen. I was here the whole time and I didn't see it."

  "What are you talking about? How could you not see it?" Hiram's eyes were frantic. "I went to the bathroom about nine this morning and got a glass of water. I know everything was okay then. I came back in here and put the TV on and watched for maybe half an hour. Then I heard something that sounded like the door slamming. I looked up and the room was like you see it. And this note was in my lap."

  The note was in English: "Zero hour comes tomorrow. You can die this easy. Zero man."

  "Then it is an ace."

  "It won't happen again," Hiram said. He obviously didn't even believe himself. "I'll know what to look for. He couldn't fool me twice."

  "We can't risk it. Leave everything. You can buy some new clothes this afternoon. I want you to hit the street and keep moving. Around ten o'clock go into the first hotel you see and get a room. Call Peregrine and tell her where you are."

  "Does she… does she know what happened?"

  "No. She knows it's money trouble. That's all."

  "Okay. Fortunato, I…"

  "Forget it," Fortunato said. "Just keep moving."

  The shade of the banyan tree had saved a little coolness from the morning. Overhead the milk-colored sky was thick with smog. Sumoggu, they called it. It was easy to see what the Japanese thought of the West by the words they borrowed: rashawa, rush hour; sarariman, salary man, executive; toire, toilet.

  It helped to be here in the Imperial Gardens, an oasis of calm in the heart of Tokyo. The air was fresher, though the cherry blossoms wouldn't be blooming for another month. When they did, the entire city would turn out with cameras. Unlike New Yorkers, the Japanese could appreciate the beauty that was right in front of them.

  Fortunato finished the last piece of boiled shrimp from his bento, the box lunch he'd bought just outside the park, and tossed the box away. He couldn't seem to settle down. What he wanted was to talk to the roshi, Dogen. But Dogen was a day and a half away, and he would have to travel by airplane; train, bus, and foot to get there. Peregrine was grounded by her pregnancy, and he doubted Mistral was strong enough for a twelve-hundred-mile round trip. There was no way he could get to Hokkaido and back in time to help Hiram.

  A few yards away an old man raked the gravel in a rock garden with a battered bamboo rake. Fortunato thought of Dogen's harsh physical discipline: the 38,000-kilometer walk, equivalent to a trip all the way around the earth, lasting a thousand days, around and around Mt. Tanaka; the constant sitting, perfectly still, on the hard wooden floors of the temple; the endless raking of the master's stone garden.

  Fortunato walked up to the old man. "Sumi-masen," he said. He pointed to the rake. "May I?"

  The old man handed Fortunato the rake. He looked like he couldn't decide if he was afraid or amused. There were advantages, Fortunato thought, to being an outsider among the most polite people on earth. He began to rake the gravel, trying to raise the least amount of dust possible, trying to form the gravel into harmonious lines through the strength of his will alone, channeled only incidentally through the rake. The old man went to sit under the banyan tree.

  As he worked, Fortunato pictured Dogen in his mind. He looked young, but then most Japanese looked young to Fortunato.` His head was shaved until it glistened, the skull formed from planes and angles, the cheeks dimpling when he spoke. His hands formed mudras apparently of their own volition, the index fingers reaching to touch the ends of the thumbs when they had nothing else to do.

  Why have you called me? said Dogen's voice inside
Fortunato's head.

  Master! Fortunato thought.

  Not your master yet, said Dogen's voice. You still live in the world.

  I didn't know you had the power to do this, Fortunato thought.

  It is not my power. It is yours. Your mind came to me. I have no power, Fortunato thought.

  You are filled with power. It feels like Chinese peppers inside my head.

  Why can't I feel it?

  You have hidden yourself from it, the way a fat man tries to hide himself from the yakitori all around him. This is how it is in the world. The world demands that you have power, and yet the use of it makes you ashamed. This is the way Japan is now. We have become very powerful in the world, and to do it we gave up our spiritual feelings. You have to make the decision. If you want to live in the world you must admit your power. If you want to feed your spirit, you must leave the world. Right now you are pulling yourself into pieces.

  Fortunato knelt in the gravel and bowed low. Domo arigatb, o sensei. Arigato meant "thank you," but literally it meant "it hurts." Fortunato felt the truth inside the words. If he hadn't believed Dogen, it wouldn't have hurt so much. He looked up and saw the old gardener staring at him in abject fear, but at the same time making a series of short, nervous bows from the waist so as not to seem rude. Fortunato smiled at him and bowed low again. "Don't worry," he said in Japanese. He stood up and gave the old man back his rake. "Just another crazy gaijin."

  His stomach hurt again. It wasn't the bento, he knew. It was the stress inside his own mind, eating his body up from within.

  He was back on Harumi-Dori, heading toward the Ginza corner. He'd been wandering for hours, while the sun had set and the night had flowered around him. The city seemed like an electronic forest. The long vertical signs crowded each other down the entire length of the street, flashing ideograms and English characters in blazing neon. The streets were crowded with Japanese in jogging outfits or jeans and sport shirts. Packed in with the regular citizens were the sararimen in plain gray suits.