Flashback

Nick rubbed both of his temples as he looked at the dead girl’s face and tried to remember her dossier. She was young—nineteen—and blond. And American. And tall. Almost a foot taller than Keigo at his diminutive five-foot-one height. All the Jap males seemed to have a thing about tall American blondes.

But, as was true of much of the food that Keigo Nakamura had eaten at home while he was in the States, Ms. Keli Bracque had been brought over from Japan. The orphan daughter of two American missionaries there, the girl had more or less been raised by the entertainment-and-relaxation branch of Nakamura Heavy Industries. In the old days, Nick knew, Japanese businesses had sent their execs on sex holidays to Bangkok… not to the Patpong sex district that men from other nations flocked to, but to a more rigidly monitored sex district catering only to the Japanese. Even then, the HIV problem had gotten serious enough there that the big Japanese corporations had given up on Thailand and raised their own hookers. The dossier on Keli Bracque that Nakamura’s firm had finally—reluctantly—surrendered hadn’t said it outright, but odds were great that Keli had been sexually satisfying top execs there since she was a pre-teenager.

Or, thought Nick as he studied her dead face, maybe not.

Maybe this one had been saved for the boss’s son. Or the boss and his son.

“She’s half-dressed; he’s still naked,” he said aloud.

“Yes,” said Sato.

Nick waited for the derision that such a statement of the obvious by a trained detective deserved, something along the lines of No shit, Sherlock, but Sato let the single flat syllable suffice.

“My point,” Nick said finally, “is that Keigo and Ms. Bracque were up here alone for—what?—thirty-nine minutes? Forty?”

“Thirty-six minutes and twenty seconds before Mr. Satoh broke down the door after young Mr. Nakamura did not respond to his page,” said Sato.

“Long enough to have sex,” said Nick. He knew that “broke down the door” hadn’t been quite accurate since the door at the head of the stairs could have resisted any number of battering rams. Security man Satoh had carried a tiny but powerful shaped charge, no larger than a kneaded eraser, for just such entry emergencies. But that was irrelevant.

“But,” continued Nick, rubbing his stubbled cheek and looking through his glasses at the two dead bodies, “both autopsies showed that they hadn’t had sex, even though that was the reason Keigo said he wanted the privacy up here during the party. Hell, I don’t think Keli was getting dressed after some messing around between the two. I don’t think she ever got undressed, except to take her blouse and boots off.”

“Perhaps young Mr. Nakamura and the young lady were chatting,” said Sato.

Nick snorted. “Are NakamuraCo living sex toys famous for their conversational abilities?”

“Yes,” said Sato. “Like the geisha, all Nakamura employees in the recreational division are trained to please by intelligent conversation, the playing of musical instruments, by knowing the proper technique of preparation and pouring in the Tea Ceremony… a wide range of abilities beyond mere… gratification of physical pleasure.”

Nick was barely listening to the security chief. He pointed to the open paperback. “I think Ms. Bracque was reading her book when the killer entered the room. She only just had time to set it facedown, marking her place, when the assailant shot her.”

Sato waited.

“Whoever it was, she wasn’t alarmed by his or her sudden arrival,” mused Nick. This was old ground for him, but he was rediscovering it as he went. It had been years since he’d mulled over the details of this murder. “You don’t take time to mark your place in a book when someone who frightens you suddenly looms up in your bedroom.”

“Bottom-san, you are saying that Miss Bracque knew her killer.”

Nick was too lost in thought even to nod. Taking off his tactical glasses, he walked to the window nearest to the bed, nearest to the blood on the tatami and headboard, and touched the glass that wasn’t quite glass. Sealed. Bulletproof. Blastproof for all but the most intense blasts. When Nick had read the specs six years earlier, he’d had the image of a major bombing event where the building here on Wazee was rubble but the windows remained, hanging in air like transparent Druid stones.

Since they couldn’t be opened, the third-floor rooms were constantly refreshed by the whisper of forced air from ventilators. Tiny ventilators. A tiny ninja-assassin mouse might get in through those ventilators if it weren’t for all the layers of active filters and screens. Nick held his hand close. The air was moving so the central system was still active.

“So Keigo and his hired girlfriend weren’t up here screwing,” Nick said to himself. “Maybe Keigo was just waiting for someone.”

“Waiting for whom?” Sato asked in low tones.