Cryptonomicon

Avi meets Randy in the hotel lobby. He has burdened himself with a square, old-fashioned briefcase that pulls his slender frame to one side, giving him the asymptotic curve of a sapling in a steady wind. He and Randy take a taxi to Some Other Part of Tokyo--Randy cannot begin to fathom how the city is laid out--enter the lobby of a skyscraper, and take an elevator up far enough that Randy's ears pop. When the doors slide open, a maître d' is standing right there anticipating them with a radiant smile and a bow. He leads them into a foyer where four men wait: a couple of younger minions; Goto Furudenendu; and an elderly gentleman. Randy was expecting one of these gracile, translucent Nipponese seniors, but Goto Dengo is a blocky fellow with a white buzz-cut, somewhat hunched and collapsed with age, which only goes to make him seem more compact and solid. At first blush he seems more like a retired village blacksmith, or perhaps a master sergeant in a daimyo's army, than a business executive, and yet within five or ten seconds this impression is swallowed up by a good suit, good manners, and Randy's knowledge of who he really is. He's the only guy in the place who isn't grinning from ear to ear: apparently when you reach a certain age you are allowed to get away with staring tunnels through other people's skulls. In the manner of many old people, he looks vaguely startled that they have actually shown up.

Still, he levers himself up on a big, gnarled cane and shakes their hands firmly. His son Furudenendu proffers a hand to help him to his feet and he shrugs it off with glare of mock outrage--this transaction looks pretty well-practiced. There's a brief exchange of small talk that goes right over Randy's head. Then the two minions peel off, like a fighter escort no longer needed, and the maître d' leads Randy, Avi, and Goto père et filsacross a totally empty restaurant--twenty or thirty tables set with white linen and crystal--to a corner table, where waiters stand at attention to pull their chairs back. This building is of the sheer-walls-of-solid-glass school of architecture and so the windows go floor-to-ceiling, providing, through a bead curtain of raindrops, a view of nighttime Tokyo that stretches over the horizon. Menus are handed out, printed in French only. Randy and Avi get the girl menus, with no prices. Goto Dengo gets the wine list, and pores over it for a good ten minutes before grudgingly selecting a white from California and a red from Burgundy. Meanwhile, Furudenendu is leading them in exceedingly pleasant small talk about the Crypt.

Randy can't stop looking at Tokyo on the one hand and the empty restaurant on the other. It's like this setting was picked specifically to remind them that the Nipponese economy has been on the skids for the last several years--a situation that the Asian currency crisis has only worsened. He half expects to see executives dropping past the window.

Avi ventures to ask about various tunnels and other stupefyingly vast engineering projects that he happens to have noticed around Tokyo and whether Goto Engineering had anything to do with them. This at least gets the patriarch to glance up momentarily from his wine list, but the son handles the inquiries, allowing as how, yes, their company did play a small part in those endeavors. Randy figures that it's not the easiest thing in the world to engage a personal friend of the late General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in polite chitchat; it's not like you can ask him if he caught the latest episode of Star Trek: More Time-Space Anomalies.All they can really do is cling to Furudenendu and let him take the lead. Goto Dengo clears his throat like the engine of a major piece of earth-moving equipment rumbling to life, and recommends the Kobe beef. The sommelier comes around with the wines and Goto Dengo interrogates him in a mixture of Nipponese and French for a while, until a film of sweat has broken out on the sommelier's brow. He samples the wines very carefully. The tension is explosive as he swirls them around in his mouth, staring off into the distance. The sommelier seems genuinely startled, not to mention relieved, when he accepts both of them. The subtext here would seem to be that hosting a really first-class dinner is a not insignificant management challenge, and that Goto Dengo should not be bothered with social chatter while he is coping with these responsibilities.