by Mario Puzo
“You’ll get used to them,” Cully said. “Now listen close. I want you to know everything that’s going on, so you don’t make any mistakes.”
As we walked along the wall of gray-green garbage, Cully explained to me that he was smuggling out two million dollars in Japanese yen and that the government had very strict laws about exporting the national currency.
“If I get caught, I go to jail,” Cully said. “Unless Fummiro can put the fix in. Or unless Fummiro goes to jail with me.”
“How about me?” I said. “If you get caught, don’t I get caught?”
“You’re an eminent writer,” Cully said. “The Japanese have a great respect for culture. You’ll just get thrown out of the country. Just keep your mouth shut.”
“So I'm just here to have a good time,” I said. I knew he was full of shit and I wanted him to know I knew it.
Then another thing occurred to me. “How the hell do we get through customs in the States?” I said.
“We don’t,” Cully said. “We dump the money in Hong Kong. It’s a free port. The only people who have to go through customs there are the ones traveling on Hong Kong passports.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Now you tell me we’re going to Hong Kong. Where the fuck do we go after that, Tibet?”
“Be serious,” Cully said. “Don’t panic. I did this a year ago with a little money, just for a trial run.”
“Get a gun for me,” I said. “I got a wife and three kids, you son of a bitch. Give me a fighting chance.” But I was laughing. Cully had really roped me in.
But Cully didn’t know I was kidding. “You can’t carry a gun,” he said. “Every Japanese airline has their electronic security check of your person and your hand luggage. And most of them X-ray any baggage you check in.” He paused for a moment and then said, “The only airline that doesn’t X-ray checked baggage is the Cathay. So if something happens to me, you know what to do.”
“I can just picture myself alone in Hong Kong with two million bucks,” I said. “I’d have a million fucking hatchets in my neck,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Cully said soothingly. “Nothing’s going to happen. We’ll have a ball.”
I was laughing, but I was also worried. “But if something does happen,” I said, “what do I do in Hong Kong?”
Cully said, “Go to the Futaba Bank and ask for the vice-president. He’ll take the money and change it into Hong Kong dollars. He’ll give you a receipt and charge you may be twenty grand. Then he’ll change the Hong Kong dollars into American dollars and charge you another fifty thousand dollars. The American dollars will be sent to Switzerland and you’ll get another receipt. A week from now the Hotel Xanadu will receive a draft from the Swiss bank for two million minus the Hong Kong bank charges. See how simple it is?”
I thought this over as we walked back to the hotel. Finally I came back to my original question. “Why the hell do you need me?”
“Don’t ask me any more questions, just do what I tell you,” Cully said. “You owe me a favor, right?”
“Right,” I said. And I didn’t ask any more questions.
When we got back to the hotel, Cully made some phone calls, talking Japanese, and then told me he was going out. “I should be back around five P.M.,” he said. “But I may be a little late. Just wait in this room for me. If I’m not back tonight, you hop the morning plane for home. OK?”
“OK,” I said.
I tried reading in the bedroom of the suite and then imagined noises in the living room, so I went there to read. I ordered lunch in the suite, and after I had finished eating, I called the States. The connection went through in only a few minutes, which surprised me. I thought it would take at least a half hour.
Vallie picked up the phone right away, and I could tell from her voice that she was pleased that I’d called.
“How is the mysterious Orient?” she asked. “Are you having a good time? Have you gone to a geisha house yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “So far all I’ve seen is the morning Tokyo garbage. Since then I’ve been waiting for Cully. He’s out doing business. At least I’ve got him beat for six grand in gin.”
“Good,” Valerie said. “You can buy me and the kids some of those fabulous kimonos. Oh, by the way, you got a call yesterday from some man who claimed he was a friend of yours in Vegas. He said he expected to see you out there. I told him you were in Tokyo.”
My heart stopped a little. Then I said casually, “Did he give his name?”
“No,” Valerie said. “Don’t forget our presents.”
“I won’t,” I said.
I spent the rest of the afternoon worrying. I called the airline for a reservation back to the States for the next morning. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure that Cully would be back. I checked his bedroom. The big brassbound suitcase was gone.
Darkness was beginning to fall when Cully came into the suite. He was rubbing his hands, excited and happy. “Everything is all set,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Tonight we have fun and tomorrow we wind things up. The day after that we’ll be in Hong Kong.”
“I called my wife,” I said. “We had a nice little chat. She told me some guy called from Vegas and asked where I was. She told him Tokyo.”
That cooled him off. He thought about it. Then shrugged.
“That sounds like Gronevelt,” Cully said. “Just making sure his hunch was right. He’s the only one who has your phone number.”
“Do you trust Gronevelt on a deal like this?” I asked Cully. And right away I knew I had stepped over the line.
“What the hell do you mean?” Cully said. “That man has been like a father to me all these years. He made me. Shit, I’d trust him over anybody, even you.”
“OK,” I said. “Then why didn’t you let him know we were leaving? Why did you give him that bullshit about buying antiques in Los Angeles?”
“Because that’s the way he taught me to operate,” Cully said. “Never tell anybody anything he doesn’t have to know. He’ll be proud of me for that, even though he found out. I did it the right way.” Then he eased up. “Come on,” he said. “Get dressed. Tonight I’m going to show you the best time of your life.” For some reason that reminded me of Eli Hemsi.
Like everybody who has seen films about the Orient, I had fantasized about a night in a geisha house: beautiful talented women devoting themselves to my pleasure. When Cully told me that we were going to be entertained by geishas, I expected to be taken to one of those crazy-cornered, gaily ornamented houses I had seen in movies. So I was surprised when the chauffeured car stopped in front of a small restaurant housed in a canopied storefront on one of the main streets of Tokyo. It looked like any Chinese joint in the lower part of Manhattan. But a mitered led us through the crowded restaurant to a door that led to a private dining room.
The room was lavishly furnished in Japanese style. Colored lanterns were suspended from the ceiling; a long banquet table, raised only a foot above the floor, was decorated with exquisitely colored dishes, small drinking cups, ivory chopsticks. There were four Japanese men, all in kimonos. One of them was Mr. Fummiro. He and Cully shook hands, the other men bowed. Cully introduced me to all of them. I had seen Fummiro gambling in Vegas but had never met him.
Seven geisha girls came into the room, running with tiny steps. They were beautifully dressed in heavy brocade kimonos embroidered with startlingly colored flowers. Their faces were heavily made up with a white powder. They sat on cushions around the banquet table, a girl for each man.
Following Cully’s lead, I sat down on one of the cushions around the banquet table. Serving women brought in huge platters of fish and vegetables. Each geisha girl fed her assigned male. They used the ivory chopsticks, picking up bits of fish, little strands of green vegetables. They wiped our mouths and faces with countless tiny napkins that were like washcloths. These were scented and wet.
My geisha girl was very close to me, leaning her body against mine, and, with a charming smile and entreating gestur
es, make me eat and drink. She kept filling my cup with some sort of wine, the famous sake, I guessed. The wine tasted great, but the food was too fishy until they brought out platters of heavily marbled Kobe beef, cut into cubes and drenched in a delicious sauce.
Seeing her close, I knew that my charming geisha had to be at least forty. Though her body was pressed against mine, I could feel nothing except the heavy brocade of her kimono; she was swathed like an Egyptian mummy.
After dinner the girls took turns entertaining us. One played a musical instrument that was like a flute. By this time I ‘had drunk so much wine that the unfamiliar music sounded like bagpipes. Another girl recited what must have been a poem. The men all applauded. Then my geisha got up. I was rooting for her. She proceeded to do some astonishing somersaults.
In fact, she scared the hell out of me by somersaulting right over my head. Then she did the same somersault over Fummiro’s head, but he caught her in midair and tried to give her a kiss or something like a kiss. I was too drunk to see really well. But she eluded him, tapped him lightly on the cheek in reproach, and they both laughed gaily.
Then the geisha girls organized the men into playing games. I was astonished to see that it was a game involving an orange on a stick, that we had to bite the orange with our hands behind our backs. As we did so, a geisha would try the same thing from the other side of the stick. As the orange bobbed between male and female, the two faces would brush each other with a caress which made the geishas giggle.
Cully, behind me, said in a low voice, “Jesus, the next thing we’ll be playing spin the bottle.” But he smiled hugely at Fummiro, who seemed to be having a great time, shouting at the girls in Japanese and trying to grab them. There were other games involving sticks and balls and juggling acts, and I was so drunk that I was enjoying them as much as Fummiro. At one point I fell down into a pile of cushions and my geisha cradled my head in her lap and wiped my face off with a hot scented napkin.
The next thing I knew I was in the chauffeured car with Cully. We were moving through dark streets, and then the car stopped in front of a mansion in the suburbs. Cully led through the gate and the door opened magically. And then I saw we were in a real Oriental house. The room was bare except for sleeping mats. The walls were really sliding doors of thin wood.
I fell down on one of the mats. I just wanted to sleep. Cully knelt down beside me. “We’re spending the night here,” he whispered. “I’ll wake you up in the morning. Stay here, go to sleep. You’ll be taken care of.” Behind him I could see Fummiro’s smiling face. I registered that Fummiro was no longer drunk, and that set off some alarm bell in my mind. I tried to struggle up off the mat, but Cully pushed me down. And then I heard Fummiro’s voice say, “Your friend needs some company.” I sank back down on the mat. I was too tired. I didn’t give a damn. I fell asleep.
I don’t know how long I slept. I was awakened by the slight hiss of sliding doors. In the dim light of the shaded lanterns I saw two young Japanese girls in light blue and yellow kimonos come through the open wall. They carried a small red wood tub filled with steaming water. They undressed me and washed me from head to foot, kneading my body with their fingers, massaging every muscle. While they were doing this, I got an erection and they giggled and one of them gave it a little pat. Then they picked up the redwood tub and disappeared.
I was awake enough to wonder where the hell Cully was but not sober enough to get up and look for him. It was just as well. The wall fell apart as the doors slid back again. This time there was a single girl, a new one, and just by looking at her, I could tell what her function would be.
She was dressed in a long flowing green kimono that hid her body. But her face was beautiful and highlighted exotically with makeup. Her rich jet black hair was piled high on her head and was topped with a brilliant comb that seemed made out of precious stones. She came to me, and before she knelt, I could see that her feet were bare, small and beautifully formed. The toenails were painted dark red.
The lights seemed to become dimmer, and suddenly she was naked. Her body was a pure milky white, the breasts small but full. The nipples were startling light pink, as if they had been rouged. She bent over, took the comb out of her hair and shook her head. Long black tresses poured down endlessly over my body, covering it, and then she started kissing and licking my body, her head giving little determined shakes, the silky thick black hair whipping over my thighs. I lay back. Her mouth was warm, her tongue rough. When I tried to move, she pressed me back. When she was finished, she lay down beside me and put my head against her breast. At some time during the night I woke up and made love to her. She locked her legs behind mine and thrust fiercely as if it were a battle between our two sexual organs. It was a fierce fuck, and when we climaxed, she gave a thin scream and we fell off the mat. Then we fell asleep in each other’s arms.
The wall sliding back woke me up again. The room was filled with early-morning light. The girl was gone. But through the open wall, in the adjoining room, I saw Cully sitting on the huge brassbound suitcase. Though he was far away, I could see him smiling. “OK, Merlyn, rise and shine,” he said. “We’re flying to Hong Kong this morning.”
* * *
The suitcase was so heavy that I had to carry it out to the car, Cully couldn’t manage it. There was no chauffeur, Cully drove. When we got to the airport, he just left the car parked outside the terminal. I carried the suitcase inside, Cully walking ahead to clear a path and lead me to the baggage check-in desk. I was still groggy, and the huge case kept hitting me in the shins. At the check-in the stub was put on my ticket. I figured it didn’t make any difference, so I didn’t say anything when Cully didn’t notice.
We walked through the gate onto the field to the plane. But we didn’t board. Cully waited until a loaded baggage truck came around the terminal building. We could see our huge brassbound case sitting on top. We watched while the laborers loaded it into the belly of the plane. Then we boarded.
It was over four hours’ ride to Hong Kong. Cully was nervous and I beat him for another four thousand in gin. While we were playing I asked him some questions.
“You told me we were leaving tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Cully said. “But Fummiro got the money ready sooner than I figured.”
I knew he was full of shit. “I loved that geisha party,” I said.
Cully grunted. He pretended to study his cards, but I knew his mind wasn’t on the game. “Fucking high school cunt teasing party,” he said. “That geisha stuff is bullshit, I'll take Vegas.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought it was charming. But I have to admit that little treat I got afterward was better.”
Cully forgot about his cards. “What treat?” he said.
I told him about the girls in the mansion. Cully grinned. “That was Fummiro. You lucky son of a bitch. And I was outrunning around all night.” He paused for a moment. “So you finally broke. I’ll bet that’s the first time you’ve been unfaithful to that broad you got in LA.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But what the hell, anything over three thousand miles away doesn’t count.”
When we landed in Hong Kong, Cully said, “You go on to the baggage area and wait for the case. I’ll stick by the plane until they unload. Then I’ll follow the luggage truck. That way no sneak thief can pinch it.”
I walked quickly through the terminal to the baggage carousel. The terminal was thronged, but the faces were different from those in Japan though still mostly Oriental. The carousel started to turn and I watched intently for the brass bound case to come down the chute. After ten minutes I wondered why Cully had not appeared. I glanced around, thankful that none of the people were wearing gauze masks; those things had spooked me. But I didn’t see anybody who looked dangerous.
Then the brassbound suitcase shot out of the chute. I grabbed it as it went by. It was still heavy. I checked it to make sure it had not been knifed open. As I did so, I noticed a tiny s
quare name tag attached to the handle. It bore the legend “John Merlyn,” and under the name my home address and passport number. I finally knew why Cully asked me to come to Japan. If anybody went to jail, it would be me.
I sat on the case and about three minutes later Cully appeared. He beamed with satisfaction when he saw me. “Great,” he said. “I have a cab waiting. Let’s get to the bank.” And this time he picked up the case and without any trouble carried it out of the terminal.
The cab went down winding side streets thronged with people. I didn’t say anything. I owed Cully a big favor and now I’d evened him out. I felt hurt that he had deceived me and exposed me to such risk, but Gronevelt would have been proud of him. And out of the same tradition I decided not to tell Cully what I knew. He must have anticipated I would find out. He’d have a story ready.
The cab stopped in front of a ramshackle building on a main street. The window had gold lettering which read “Futaba International Bank.” On both sides of the door were two uniformed men with submachine guns.
“Tough town, this Hong Kong,” Cully said, nodding at the guards. He carried the case into the bank himself.
Inside, Cully went down the hail and knocked on a door, and then we went in. A small Eurasian with a beard beamed at Cully and shook his hand. Cully introduced me, but the name was a strange combination of syllables. Then the Eurasian led us farther down the hail into a huge room with a long conference table. Cully threw the case on the table and unlocked it. I have to admit the sight was impressive. It was filled with crisp Japanese currency, black print on gray-blue paper.
The Eurasian picked up a phone and barked out some orders in, I guess, Chinese. A few minutes later the room was filled with bank clerks. Fifteen of them, all in those black shiny suits. They pounced on the suitcase. It took all of them over three hours to count and tabulate the money, recount it and check it again. Then the Eurasian took us back into his office and made out a sheaf of papers, which he signed, stamped with official seals and then handed over to Cully. Cully looked the papers over and put them in his pocket. The packet of documents was the “little” receipt.
