The Key to Midnight

by Dean Koontz

  “Am I about to get hit with some philosophy of the mysterious East? I didn’t hear the Zen warning siren.”

  “Sometimes we need to be frightened,” Mariko said.

  Joanna softly imitated a submarine diving alarm: “Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop. ”

  “Sometimes fear purges us, Joanna-san.”

  “We’re deep in the unfathomable waters of the Japanese mind,” Joanna whispered theatrically.

  Mariko continued unfazed: “But when we confront our demons—”

  “Deeper and deeper in the Japanese mind, tremendous pressure building up—”

  “—and rid ourselves of those demons—”

  “—deeper and deeper—”

  “—we don’t need the fear any more—”

  “—the weight of sudden enlightenment will crush me as though I’m just a bug—”

  “—don’t need it to purge us—”

  “—I tremble on the edge of revelation—”

  “—and we are then freed.”

  “I’m surrounded by the light of reason,” Joanna said.

  “Yes, you are, but you’re blind to it,” said Mariko. “You are too in love with your fear to see the truth.”

  “That’s me. A victim of phobophilia,” Joanna said, and drank the rest of her sherry in one long swallow.

  “And you call us Japanese inscrutable.”

  “Who does?” Joanna said with mock innocence.

  “I hope Godzilla comes to Kyoto,” Mariko said.

  “Does he have a new movie to promote?”

  “And if he does come, he’ll be the patriotic Godzilla, seeking out new threats to the Japanese people.”

  “Good for him.”

  “When he sees all that long blond hair of yours, he’ll go right for you.”

  “I think you’ve got him confused with King Kong.”

  “Squash you flat in the middle of the street, while the grateful citizens of Kyoto cheer wildly.”

  Joanna said, “You’ll miss me.”

  “On the contrary. It’ll be messy, hosing all that blood and guts off the street. But the lounge should reopen in a day or two, and then it’ll be my place.”

  “Yeah? Who’s going to sing when I’m gone?”

  “The customers.”

  “Good God, you’d turn it into a karaoke bar!”

  “All I need are a stack of old Engelbert Humperdinck tapes.”

  Joanna said, “You’re scarier than Godzilla ever was.”

  They smiled at each other in the blue mirror behind the bar.

  3

  If his employees back in the States could have seen Alex Hunter at dinner in the Moonglow Lounge, they would have been astonished by his relaxed demeanor. To them, he was a demanding boss who expected perfection and quickly dismissed employees who couldn’t deliver to his standards, a man who was at all times fair but who was given to sharp and accurate criticism. They knew him to be more often silent than not, and they rarely saw him smile. In Chicago, his hometown, he was widely envied and respected, but he was well liked only by a handful of friends. His office staff and field investigators would gape in disbelief if they could see him now, because he was chatting amiably with the waiters and smiling nearly continuously.

  He did not appear capable of killing anyone, but he was. A few years ago he had pumped five bullets into a man named Ross Baglio. On another occasion, he had stabbed a man in the throat with the wickedly splintered end of a broken broomstick. Both times he had acted in self-defense. Now he appeared to be nothing more than a well-dressed business executive enjoying a night on the town.

  This society, this comparatively depressurized culture, which was so different from the American way, had a great deal to do with his high spirits. The relentlessly pleasant and polite Japanese inspired a smile. Alex had been in their country just ten days, on vacation, but he could not recall another period of his life during which he had felt even half as relaxed and at peace with himself as he did at that moment.

  Of course, the food contributed to his excellent spirits. The Moonglow Lounge maintained a first-rate kitchen. Japanese cuisine changed with the seasons more than any style of cooking with which Alex was familiar, and late autumn provided special treats. It was also important that each item of food complement the item next to it, and that everything be served on china that—both in pattern and color—was in harmony with the food that it carried. He was enjoying a dinner perfectly suited to the cool November evening. A delicate wooden tray held a bone-white china pot that was filled with thick slices of daikon radish, reddish sections of octopus—and konnyaku, a jellylike food made from devil’s tongue. A fluted green bowl contained a fragrant hot mustard in which each delicacy could be anointed. On a large gray platter stood two black-and-red bowls: One contained akadashi soup with mushrooms, and the other was filled with rice. An oblong plate offered sea bream and three garnishes, plus a cup of finely grated daikon for seasoning. It was a hearty autumn meal, of the proper somber colors.

  When he finished the last morsel of bream, Alex admitted to himself that it was neither the hospitable Japanese nor the quality of the food that made him feel so fine. His good humor resulted primarily from the fact that Joanna Rand would soon appear on the small stage.

  Promptly at eight o’clock, the house lights dimmed, the silvery stage curtains drew back, and the Moonglow band opened with a great rendition of “A String of Pearls.” Their playing wasn’t the equal of any of the famous orchestras, not a match for Goodman or Miller or either of the Dorsey brothers, but surprisingly good for house musicians who had been born, raised, and trained many thousands of miles and a few decades from the origin of the music. At the end of the number, as the audience applauded enthusiastically, the band swung into “Moonglow,” and Joanna Rand entered from stage right.

  Alex’s heartbeat quickened.

  Joanna was slim, graceful, striking, though not beautiful in any classic sense. Her chin was feminine but too strong—and her nose neither narrow enough nor straight enough—to be seen in any ancient Grecian sculpture. Her cheekbones weren’t high enough to satisfy the arbiters of beauty at Vogue, and her startlingly blue eyes were shades darker than the washed-out blue of the ennui-drenched models currently in demand for magazine covers and television commercials. She was a vibrant, golden vision, with light amber skin and cascades of platinum-blond hair. She looked thirty, not sixteen, but her beauty was inexpressibly enhanced by every mark of experience and line of character.

  She belonged on a stage, not merely to be seen but to be heard. Her voice was first-rate. She sang with a tremulous clarity that pierced the stuffy air and seemed to reverberate within Alex. Though the lounge was crowded and everyone had been drinking, there was none of the expected nightclub chatter when Joanna Rand performed. The audience was attentive, rapt.

  He knew her from another place and time, although he could not recall where or when they’d met. Her face was hauntingly familiar, especially her eyes. In fact, he felt that he hadn’t just met her once before but had known her well, even intimately.

  Ridiculous. He wouldn’t have forgotten a woman as striking as this one. Surely, had they met before, he would be able to remember every smallest detail of their encounter.

  He watched. He listened. He wanted to hold her.

  4

  When Joanna finished her last song and the applause finally faded, the band swung into a lively number. Couples crowded onto the dance floor. Conversation picked up again, and the lounge filled with sporadic laughter and the clatter of dinnerware.

  As she did every night, Joanna briefly surveyed her domain from the edge of the stage, allowing herself a moment of pride. She ran a damn good place.

  In addition to being a restaurateur, she was a practical social politician. At the end of her first of two hour-long performances, she didn’t disappear behind the curtains until the ten o’clock show. Instead, she stepped down from the stage in a soft swish of pleated silk and moved slowly among the tables, a
cknowledging compliments, bowing and being bowed to, stopping to inquire if dinner had been enjoyable, greeting new faces and chatting at length with regular, honored customers. Good food, a romantic atmosphere, and high quality entertainment were sufficient to establish a profitable nightclub, but more than that was required for the Moonglow to become legendary. She wanted that extra degree of success. People were flattered to receive personal attention from the owner, and the forty minutes that she spent in the lounge between acts was worth uncountable yen in repeat business.

  The handsome American with the neatly trimmed mustache was present for the third evening in a row. The previous two nights, they had exchanged no more than a dozen words, but Joanna had sensed that they wouldn’t remain strangers. At each performance, he sat at a small table near the stage and watched her so intently that she had to avoid looking at him for fear that she would become distracted and forget the words to a song. After each show, as she mingled with the customers, she knew without looking at him that he was watching her every move. She imagined that she could feel the pressure of his gaze. Although being scrutinized by him was vaguely disturbing, it was also surprisingly pleasant.

  When she reached his table, he stood and smiled. Tall, broad-shouldered, he had a European elegance in spite of his daunting size. He wore a three-piece, charcoal-gray Savile Row suit, what appeared to be a hand-tailored Egyptian-cotton shirt, and a pearl-gray tie.

  He said, “When you sing ‘These Foolish Things’ or ‘You Turned the Tables on Me,’ I’m reminded of Helen Ward when she sang with Benny Goodman.”

  “That’s fifty years ago,” Joanna said. “You’re not old enough to remember Helen Ward.”

  “Never saw her perform. But I have all her records, and you’re better than she was.”

  “You flatter me too much. You’re a jazz buff?”

  “Mostly swing music.”

  “So we like the same corner of jazz.”

  Looking around at the crowd, he said, “Apparently, so do the Japanese. I was told the Moonglow was the nightclub for transplanted Americans. But ninety percent of your customers are Japanese.”

  “It surprises me, but they love the music—even though it comes from an era they otherwise prefer to forget.”

  “Swing is the only music I’ve developed a lasting enthusiasm for.” He hesitated. “I’d offer you a cognac, but since you own the place, I don’t suppose I can do that.”

  “I’ll buy you one,” she said.

  He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat.

  A white-jacketed waiter approached and bowed to them.

  Joanna said, “Yamada-san, burande wo ima omegai, shimasu. Rémy Martin.”

  “Hai, hai, ” Yamada said. “Sugu. ”He hurried toward the bar at the back of the big room.

  The American had not taken his eyes off her. “You really do have an extraordinary voice, you know. Better than Martha Tilton, Margaret McCrae, Betty Van—”

  “Ella Fitzgerald?”

  He appeared to consider the comparison, then said, “Well, she’s really not someone you should be compared to.”

  “Oh?”

  “I mean, her style is utterly different from yours. It’d be like comparing oranges to apples.”

  Joanna laughed at his diplomacy. “So I’m not better than Ella Fitzgerald.”

  He smiled. “Hell, no.”

  “Good. I’m glad you said that. I was beginning to think you had no standards at all.”

  “I have very high standards,” he said quietly.

  His dark eyes were instruments of power. His unwavering stare seemed to establish an electrical current between them, sending an extended series of pleasant tremors through her. She felt not only as though he had undressed her with his eyes—men had done as much every night that she’d stepped onto the stage—but as though he had stripped her mind bare as well and had discovered, in one minute, everything worth knowing about her, every private fold of flesh and thought. She’d never before met a man who concentrated on a wom- an with such intensity, as if everyone else on earth had ceased to exist. Again she felt that peculiar combination of uneasiness and pleasure at being the focus of his undivided attention.

  When the two snifters of Remy Martin were served, she used the interruption as an excuse to glance away from him. She closed her eyes and sipped the cognac as if to savor it without distraction. In that self-imposed darkness, she realized that while he had been staring into her eyes, he had transmitted some of his own intensity to her. She had lost all awareness of the noisy club around her: the clinking of glasses, the laughter and buzz of conversation, even the music. Now all that clamor returned to her with

  the gradualness of silence reasserting itself in the wake of a tremendous explosion.

  Finally she opened her eyes. “I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t know your name.”

  “You’re sure you don’t? I’ve felt ... perhaps we’ve met before.”

  She frowned. “I’m sure not.”

  “Maybe it’s just that I wish we’d met sooner. I’m Alex Hunter. From Chicago.”

  “You work for an American company here?”

  “No. I’m on vacation for a month. I landed in Tokyo eight days ago. I planned on spending two days in Kyoto, but I’ve already been here longer than that. I’ve got three weeks left. Maybe I’ll spend them all in Kyoto and cancel the rest of my schedule. Anata no machi wa hijo ni kyomi ga arimatsu.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it is an interesting city, the most beautiful in Japan. But the entire country is fascinating, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Call me Alex.”

  “There’s much to see in these islands, Alex.”

  “Maybe I should come back next year and take in all those other places. Right now, everything I could want to see in Japan is here.”

  She stared at him, braving those insistent dark eyes, not certain what to think of him. He was quite the male animal, making his intentions known.

  Joanna prided herself on her strength, not merely in business but in her emotional life. She seldom wept and never lost her temper. She valued self-control, and she was almost obsessively self-reliant. Always, she preferred to be the dominant partner in her relations with men, to choose when and how a friendship with a man would develop, to be the one who decided when—and if—they would become more than friends. She had her own ideas about the proper, desirable pace of a romance. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have liked a man as direct as Alex Hunter, so she was surprised that she found his stylishly aggressive approach to be appealing.

  Nevertheless, she pretended not to see that he was more than casually interested in her. She glanced around as if checking on the waiters and gauging the happiness of her customers, sipped the cognac, and said, “You speak Japanese so well.”

  He bowed his head an inch or two. “Arigato.”

  “Do itashimashite. ”

  “Languages are a hobby of mine,” he said. “Like swing music. And good restaurants. Speaking of which, since the Moonglow is open only evenings, do you know a place that serves lunch?”

  “In the next block. A lovely little restaurant built around a garden with a fountain. It’s called Mizutani.”

  “That sounds perfect. Shall we meet at Mizutani for lunch tomorrow?”

  Joanna was startled by the question but even more surprised to hear herself answer without hesitation. “Yes. That would be nice.”

  “Noon?”

  “Yes. Noon.”

  She sensed that whatever happened between her and this unusual man, whether good or bad, would be entirely different from anything she’d experienced before.

  5

  The man with the steel fingers reaches for the hypodermic syringe....

  Joanna sat straight up in bed, soaked in perspiration, gasping for breath, clawing at the unyielding darkness before she regained control of herself and switched on the nightstand lamp.

  She was alone.

  She pushed back the covers and got out of bed with an urgency sparked by
some deep-seated anxiety that she could not understand. She walked unsteadily to the center of the room and stood there, trembling in fear and confusion.

  The air was cool and somehow wrong. She smelled a combination of strong antiseptics that hadn’t been used in that room: ammonia, Lysol, alcohol, a pungent brew of germicidal substances unpleasant enough to make her eyes water. She drew a long breath, then another, but the vapors faded as she attempted to pinpoint their source.

  When the stink was gone altogether, she reluctantly admitted that the odors hadn’t actually existed. They were left over from the dream, figments of her imagination.

  Or perhaps they were fragments of memory.

  Although she had no recollection of ever having been seriously ill or injured, she half believed that once she must have been in a hospital room that had reeked with an abnormally powerful odor of antiseptics. A hospital ... in which something terrible had happened to her, something that was the cause of the repeating nightmare about the man with steel fingers.

  Silly. But the dream always left her rattled and irrational.

  She went into the bathroom and drew a glass of water from the tap. She returned to the bed, sat on the edge of it, drank the water, and then slipped under the covers once more. After a brief hesitation, she switched off the lamp.

  Outside, in the predawn stillness, a bird cried. A large bird, a piercing cry. The flutter of wings. Past the window. Feathers brushing the glass. Then the bird sailed off into the night, its thin screams growing thinner, fainter.

  6

  Suddenly, as he sat in bed reading, Alex recalled where and when he’d previously seen the woman. Joanna Rand wasn’t her real name.

  He had awakened at six-thirty Wednesday morning in his suite at the Kyoto Hotel. Whether vacationing or working, he was always up early and to bed late, requiring never more than five hours of rest to feel alert and refreshed.

  He was grateful for his uncommon metabolism, because he knew that by spending fewer hours in bed, he was at an advantage in any dealings with people who were greater slaves to the mattress than he was. To Alex, who was an overachiever by choice as well as by nature, sleep was a detestable form of slavery, insidious. Each night was a temporary death to be endured but never enjoyed. Time spent in sleep was time wasted, surrendered, stolen. By saving three hours a night, he was gaining eleven hundred hours of waking life each year, eleven hundred hours in which to read books and watch films and make love, more than forty-five “found” days in which to study, observe, learn—and make money.