Death in the Face

by Craig McDonald

  Ian also wanted to see pearl girls diving and to experience a Japanese hot bath.

  Most of all, Ian very much desired to see a live volcano where his villain could potentially lure depressed Japanese into committing suicide—a key plot point of his projected next James Bond novel.

  Hector listened drowsily. He was starved for real rest; it had taken him a while to fall asleep, and only after calling down to room service and asking the sheets that still smelled of Haven be changed.

  Then he had spent several uneasy hours dreaming of Brinke and Haven until he received his six a.m. wake up call.

  Reading his mind, Dikko studied him with red-rimmed eyes, then said, “We win them, and we lose them, old boy. Women, I mean. So don’t sing the weeps too much. There’s always another one waiting in the wings. At least it’s my experience that’s so for the dashing sorts like you.”

  “Until there simply aren’t anymore who are interested,” Hector countered.

  And dashing?

  Please.

  Their waiter was suddenly there, bowing and excusing himself for interrupting, then noting Mr. Hector Lassiter had an urgent phone call awaiting him. The phone in question was sitting atop the bar, in clear view of the room, so Hector didn’t fear this particular incoming call was some sort of ruse calculated to isolate him.

  Walking to the bar and scooping up the receiver, he half expected it to be Haven on the other end. In fact, some part of him hoped that was the case. He said, “Lassiter speaking.”

  No woman on the other end: instead it was a man with a basso, European accent.

  The voice said, “I feel compelled to give you a sporting chance to survive your trip to Japan, Mr. Lassiter. Because of your brash actions, you’ve already stripped from me, and from yourself of course, the very delectable and sensuous Miss Branch. This could have been a very easy and satisfying escapade for you, if you’d only enjoyed her company and let matters unfold as they inevitably must. But now I fear it may have to become bloody between us.”

  Hector tried to place the accent’s point of origin:

  German? No.

  Hungarian? Just possibly. Yes, he really thought the latter.

  He said cheerily to the stranger, “Let’s please not run off half-cocked and threatening, not straight from the gates, old pal. To start with, who the hell are you? Your accent sounds Hungarian.”

  A soft snort: “It hardly matters—accents, I mean. There are the places we’re born, or where we are raised, and then there are the places we love and the homes of our choosing. I think of Haven Branch, of course, as I say that. Japan is her country of choice. Hungary is, I must confess, a dreadful place, at least from my perspective. So, like Miss Branch, I’ve selected Japan as the home of my spirit. I will tell you my real name because it so long dormant and because I have not used it in a very, very long time. I was indeed born in Hungary, on May 28, 1908, so I’m a few years younger than you, Mr. Lassiter.”

  He noted Dikko watching him carefully from across the bar. Hector supposed something now showed in his face, alerting Hughes to the tension he now felt. Hector said to the voice, “You promised me a name, friend.”

  “Ah, yes, a silly name for you to give to your spy and journalist friends so they can dig and dig into it, but toward no revelation. I will tell you now, because after all, what in the end, is a mere name? How easy is it, after all, to bury a mere name?”

  “Then share yours, already.”

  “I was born Ernák Szász Bulcsú. Shall I spell any of that out for you, Mr. Lassiter?”

  “Where are we going with this, Mr. Bulcsú?”

  “I told you that is no longer a name I answer to.”

  “So what do you go by now? I’d surely like to get it right—at least have something polite to call you by. What name are you known by these days?”

  “Sharing that would of course not do at all. I’ve built a very fine life for myself here in Japan and at no small expense and effort. I certainly have no intention of spoiling any of that, Mr. Lassiter. This is what is important; this is what you must take away from this conversation. Very simply, I need you to stand aside, or better still, to recover and then hand over to me the Operation Flea microfilm as soon as you have it in hand. If you do not do that, then I will systematically begin to kill everyone who matters even the slightest to you, Mr. Lassiter.”

  The voice grew silkier, more menacing: “Not just the obvious ones, like your current three motley friends, will suffer. No, I will reach back into your life, Mr. Hector Lassiter. I will, one-by-one, eliminate every one of your dearest and darling ones—from best friends to fleeting sweethearts. People you care about, some of them very much, will die. Let me give you just two examples. My first proposed target is a certain Irish policeman based in someplace called Cleveland, Ohio. The second is a beautiful young Latina currently living in Los Angeles, California. You are already aware of the Black Dragon’s activities and presence in your own country, so you surely must see this is no idle threat. I can quite easily reach these people of yours. I can have them dispatched in well under an hour. A phone call just like this one is all that is needed to set that in motion. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Mr. Lassiter? Have we an understanding now?”

  Jimmy Hanrahan and Alicia Vicente were the man’s threatened first victims. Hector’s blood was boiling. This mystery man had just signed his own death warrant. Even if it was eventually proven to have been an idle threat or utter nonsense, Hector vowed to himself to kill this man simply for putting such bloody threats out there into the world.

  “I hear you,” Hector said. “It’s very clear to me what must happen.” He again promised himself he’d spend his remaining time in Japan first finding this man, then killing him and those around him, just as systematically as this man had vowed to slay Hector’s darlings.

  And he would kill Haven Branch, too, if she was somehow proven to indeed be part of this mystery man’s machine.

  But Hector said for now, smiling so it would come across in his voice, “How will I find you in order to turn over this piece of property if I somehow come across it?”

  “I’ll find you, of course,” the man once called Bulcsú said. “Just as I have ears everywhere—though not all of them as enticing as our friend Miss Branch’s, to be sure—I also have eyes nearly everywhere. You do well not to forget that. In the future, Mr. Lassiter, I advise you to assume that every word of yours, and every action you contemplate, is almost certainly well known to me.” A pause, then, “How is your current bourbon, by the way?”

  “Delicious.”

  “I’m so glad. It could have had special ingredients, you know. All it would take is another phone call and that next drink might kill any of you four men. Just know it could happen if you push things in a direction unpleasing to me.”

  The stranger’s tone changed a bit; Hector could now hear the smile back in the man’s voice as he said this next: “You’re an author, of course, so I leave you with this last warning in verse, Mr. Lassiter. It comes from the man I think to be Japan’s greatest writer, Matsuo Basho. I think of this haiku of his as one that well describes the situation you’ll find yourself in, if you dare even contemplate thwarting my will. In English, and depending on the translator, it goes something like this Mr. Lassiter:

  Sick on my journey

  only my dreams will wander

  these desolate moors

  A little chuckle, then the voice said, “Viszontlátásra, or rather, Goodbye, Mr. Lassiter. Goodbye for now.”

  The connection was severed before Hector could respond.

  Seething, he returned to his seat. Ian and Tiger were in the bar now, sitting alongside Dikko and also studying Hector with burning eyes.

  Frowning Ian said, “You look like the devil.”

  “Possibly because I just spoke to the son of a bitch,” Hector said. “Seems that man on the phone was the true villain of this misadventure. At least I think that is so. He claims it to be true.”

&nb
sp; Hector searched his fellow writers’ eyes. He said, “Do any of you know of a prominent Hungarian who has taken up residence in Japan?”

  ***

  The train in which they left Tokyo was indeed modern, even sumptuous.

  Watching the Japanese countryside slide by their window, Hector further filled in Ian and his journalist friends about his threat-filled phone call.

  Tiger and Dikko promised to have their sources immediately investigate the name Ernák Szász Bulcsú. Fleming said he would set his SIS sources to the same task.

  Hector just smiled and shook his head. “Probably not really worth the effort in the end,” he said.

  “Why?” Ian put a hand on Hector’s arm. He asked, “Why not worth the effort?”

  “Partly because he gave it up so readily, and partly because I think this man, whoever he is, also has a mean sense of humor,” Hector said. “I think he’s sneering at us. Consider those initials: E.S.B. They should resonate for you, of all men, Ian.”

  Tiger and Dikko were clearly turning the letters “E”, “S” and “B” over in their minds.

  Dikko at last shrugged and said, “Jesus, I’m dry.”

  Tiger said, “This means nothing to me.”

  But Ian clearly got it. He said, “E.S.B. are the same initials as the head of James Bond’s current bête noire, SPECTRE.” Ian said softly, “E.S.B.—Ernst Stavro Blofeld.” The English thriller writer let go of Hector’s arm and stared out at the passing scene, yet clearly not really seeing any of it. “That birth date he gave you for himself, Hector—that’s my birthday. Yes, clearly this fiend is having us on.”

  “The search I really need you fellas to press for,” Hector said, “is the one I mentioned back at the bar. You need to have your people identify every Hungarian now living in Japan. Seems to me that can’t be a terribly long list. He’s probably been here for some time. Maybe he came over soon after the last war.”

  As he said that, he noticed Ian scratching furiously away in a small notebook, the one he used to keep notes for his novels—to scribble down bits of possible dialogue or scraps of description that might flash through his mind in stray moments.

  Hector made out what he took to be a theme Ian must consider of possible use for his Bond novel, one that again made him think of Haven. Ian posed the thought as a question to himself:

  “How many of one's own nationals want to live in another country,” he wrote, “and how many of that country want to live in yours? What threat does the latter pose when the number is far greater?"

  ***

  For one strange, sensually charged week, Hector found himself virtually embalmed in Ian Fleming’s idiosyncratic, Bondian world.

  They saw sumo wrestling matches and Shinto shrines. Some of them brushed bits with geishas and visited some very snazzy houses of ill repute where other, more private bits brushed.

  At the same time, Ian was vehement about avoiding traditional teas, Noh plays or anything remotely smacking of what he regarded to be the typical and tame Japanese tourist fare.

  Ian was very much focused on Samurai tradition and what he, at least, saw as a national obsession with suicide and violence.

  But there was something quite disturbing to Hector in Ian’s explicit, desperate drive to try and experience Japan through 007’s eyes—that impossible to achieve, much less to sustain—heightened appreciation of all things sensual and deadly.

  Late one afternoon, Ian positively nonplussed Dikko by presuming to caress the shoulder of an underdressed and fetching little Japanese pearl diver as she surfaced. The intimate contact startled the girl and shattered all Japanese social contracts.

  But Ian insisted it was necessary for him as an author to know exactly how the wet flesh of a young Japanese woman felt in order to accurately describe it for his readers.

  A bit after that, alone at another bar and sipping sake, Dikko Hughes, once again very much in his cups, confided to Hector his mounting concerns for Ian. “He looks like hell, of course, more so now that we’re at full gallop. He views his heart as a time bomb, and perhaps he does that with a firm foundation. Hell, it’s all but certainly so, based on his breathing and his color. He’s aged terribly since I last saw him here in Japan. He looks at least ten years older, the poor bastard. I’m painfully aware of the skull beneath the skin when I look at him, now. Death in the face, don’t you know. Ghastly stuff. If he actually survives this trip, and if he gets a book out of it, I expect it will be our friend’s last.”

  A long pause. “Honestly? He’s already confided to me he means to leave Bond for dead at the end of this next novel. I take that as a grave sign, no pun intended.”

  “Really?” That was news to Hector, and disquieting enough.

  “It’s so cruel, really,” Dikko said. “The money and fame are at last arriving and only now, when it’s all but too late for his enjoyment or comfort. I asked Ian last night how it was to have this Bond movie doing so well back in the U.K., and another already in production—to know the big money is coming just down the line. He said to me, looking very exhausted indeed as he did so, ‘Ashes, dear boy. . . Ashes.’”

  Hector was tired of fretting over his own age, and growing all-too fatigued at worrying after ailing Ian.

  He was tired of hectoring Fleming to forego that next drink, to taper off still more on his incessant smoking.

  Hector was also tired of worrying about Haven’s current whereabouts and the possibility he might find himself ranged against her in some final, perhaps even deadly confrontation. He found that he now carefully inspected every vaguely Western-looking woman he saw, trying to decide if she might be Haven in disguise.

  Dikko made a gesture with his hand and said, “Hush for now. Ian comes yonder.”

  For all their talk of his failing health, and despite the fact Ian seemed to be leaning a bit harder on his cane as he fought the motion of their latest “modern” train, Fleming seemed almost ebullient as he took a seat alongside Hector. Tiger sat down next to the English thriller writer.

  Smiling and starting to work on preparing a new cigarette, Ian said, “That conniving bastard may hide behind phony birthdates and joke names, but he can’t obscure his accent, by God. As my dear Texan here hazarded, there are indeed damned few Hungarians living in Japan—very damned few.” A sardonic grin. “To be a Hungarian in Japan, to borrow a turn of phrase from my other dear writer friend, Mr. Raymond Chandler, is to be just about as conspicuous as a fig leaf on a fan dancer.”

  Hector said, “Is that your way of saying you have a lead on this son of a bitch, buddy?”

  “On an identity, yes, I believe I do, and perhaps even on a location,” Ian said. “I believe the man you spoke with is Béla Gustav Herczog—at least that’s the name he came over to Japan with. He did that after the First World War, a conflict he managed to survive while so many of his countrymen did not. Very little is known about his background before then. He had a brief stint as a journalist before and during WWI—yes, Béla Herczog is another one of us, I fear, Hector—by us I mean a writer, and, like us, a sometimes spy. In his case, Herczog was spying for the Russians, it was suspected. And, anyway, he no longer uses that name. He arrived in Japan about 1921 and soon after opened a health institute that he continues to operate.

  Hector arched his eyebrows. “A health institute? Really?”

  “That’s right,” Ian said. “Did you know that Hungary has the largest thermal lake in the world? It also boasts the most extensive thermal water cave system. Most of those are sufficiently hot to scald one to the bone, but some of them there are actually suitable for bathing, or at least they can be regulated artificially to be so. Our man’s family had some experience operating just such a therapeutic bath service before the Great War back in Hungary. Mr. Herczog used that knowledge to locate a similar, temperate thermal water pool near Beppu.”

  Ian smiled to see the reaction that place’s name elicited from Hector. Ian said, “Yes, Hector—it would seem all roads lead there, jus
t where your lady’s lost writings also are said to languish. Now, it seems that rather like Hungary, Beppu is positively lousy with noted geothermal hot spots. The most significant of them are called the Eight Hells of Beppu.”

  Hector could see how very much his English friend relished that exotic name for the hot spots—it was exactly the kind of macabre local color that was always very much up Ian’s peculiar alley. Hector just smiled and shook his head, awaiting more from the British journalist-turned-thriller writer.

  Ian continued, “Anyway, Mr. Herczog bought his mud, sulfur and sand pools and set himself up as a kind of latter-day Dr. Kellogg, one presumes.”

  Dikko interjected, “But the most recent war, old boy—surely Herczog must have suffered some issues as a result of all that.” He jacked a big thumb at Hector and said, “After all, his country locked up even its innocent, longtime Jap citizens, the wretched buggers. Roosevelt did that just on the off-chance they might be fifth columnists.”

  Ian shook his head. “Not so in this case. Because Herczog was viewed as stateless and long regarded as intensely loyal to Japan, our fellow evaded internment or repatriation. Apart from the deprivations and dangers anyone would experience living in a country under wide and sustained bombardment, life for our Hungarian expatriate in Japan went on largely as normal during the war years.”

  “The same could be said of several gaijin expatriates living here during the war,” Tiger said. “It’s not widely known, but some non-Japanese did live out the conflict years here in relative freedom, it’s true.”

  Hector said, “You said this man doesn’t even use the name Béla Whatever anymore. . .”

  “Herczog, and exactly,” Ian said. “Now he’s gone utterly native and is known now as Doctor Fumio Oshiro. He’s all but a recluse, so his appearance doesn’t stand much risk of giving the lie to his new Asian name. I’ve decided we can adjust our schedules slightly once we reach Beppu. I think we’ll agree we need to see this man’s health operation there, up close. I for one, look forward to the experience and could perhaps even benefit from a hot sulfur bath. Certainly after your beating, you must surely feel much the same, Hector.”