The Nicholas Linnear Novels (78 page)

Nicholas stepped forward, coming between them. He could see that despite herself Miss Yoshida’s face had gone ashen beneath the artful cosmetics. Her hands were shaking.

“What d’you think you’re doing, Nick?”

Nicholas ignored Tomkin, using his own powerful frame to move his employer back. At the same time he composed his face, smiling easily, projecting his own relaxation in order to short-circuit the woman’s obvious alarm.

“Please excuse the
gaijin
,” he said in Japanese, not wanting to use Tomkin’s name. “He’s had a long, uncomfortable trip.” He lowered his voice and went on, keeping the pressure on Tomkin as he did so. “The truth is, Miss Yoshida, his piles are bothering him and he’s like a dog who’s sat on a warrior anthill. He snaps at anyone and everyone.” He grinned. “And he hasn’t the sense to be cordial to so dutiful a blossom but in his pain seeks out to blindly crush the beauty before him.”

Miss Yoshida gave Tomkin a wary look before she bowed, thanking Nicholas. “Sato-san will be with you shortly,” she said. “His wish is only for your comfort and ease before the rigors of negotiations begin.”

“I understand completely, Yoshida-san,” Nicholas said kindly. “It is most thoughtful of Sato-san to be concerned with our total well-being. Please be so kind as to extend our compliments to him.” He bumped his muscular shoulder against Tomkin’s struggling form. “And as for the
gaijin,
leave him to me.”

Miss Yoshida bowed again, relief flooding her face; this time she made no attempt to mask her feelings. “Thank you, Linnear-san. I cannot think what Sato-san would say to me if he knew I had not performed as he had anticipated.” Half running, she squeezed by them both and hurried back down the corridor.

Tomkin felt a lessening of the awesome pressure brought to bear on him and broke away. His face flushed. He raised a sausagelike finger. “You owe me an explanation, Nick, and it goddamned well better be a good one or—”

“Shut up.”

It was not said particularly loudly, but some hidden tone seemed to strike Tomkin’s nervous system. His mouth snapped shut.

“You’ve done enough damage to us already,” Nicholas said, struggling as Miss Yoshida had to keep his emotions under control.

“Damage? What are you—”

“You lost us incalculable face with that woman. We’ll both count ourselves lucky if she hasn’t gone straight to Sato with the affront.” The last was a lie. Miss Yoshida was so frightened of offending the guests she’d do no such thing. But Tomkin would never know that, and some fear was good for him right now.

Nicholas pushed by him. He found himself in a rather small, dimly lighted room with a cedar slat-boarded floor. Along one wall was a row of spacious metal lockers. He went over to one and opened it. Inside he found not only a terry-cloth robe but comb and brush, an entire array of toiletry items. Off to the right an open archway led into a mirrored bathroom with sinks, urinals, and a row of toilet stalls.

Nicholas could hear the muffled sounds of water dripping, as if within the walls. To the left of the row of lockers was a plain wooden door. The baths, he surmised, must be beyond. The air was moist and warm, decidedly inviting. He began to disrobe.

Tomkin came in behind him. He stood rigidly in the middle of the room, glaring at him, willing Nicholas to face him. Nicholas went methodically on with what he was doing, his long, lean muscles rippling, consciously letting Tomkin steam.

After a time, Tomkin said, “Listen, you bastard, don’t you ever do that to me again.” His voice was thick with pent-up fury. “Are you listening to me?” he said finally.

“Get your clothes off.” Nicholas folded his trousers, hung them over the metal hanger. He was naked now, stripped of the layers that civilization dictated he must wear. It was clear he possessed an innate animal quality that was almost frightening. Justine had felt it the first moment she had seen him moving naked across the room like a wraith, a dancer, a nocturnal predator. Even when he made so mundane a move as putting one foot in front of the other, he used his body as an instrument, achieving a confluence of grace and power.

“Answer me civilly, dammit!” Tomkin’s voice had risen, a function of not only his anger but his abrupt fear of the man standing in front of him. He was nonplussed. In his world of corporate business, nakedness was a state of vulnerability. Yet looking at Nicholas Linnear now, Tomkin felt only his own vulnerability, so acutely that he was aware of the thunder of his heart pumping, his accelerated pulse.

Nicholas turned to face Tomkin. “You hired me for a specific purpose. Kindly allow me to do my job without interference.” There was no anger in his voice now; he had that under control.

“Your job is not to insult me,” Tomkin said in a more normal tone of voice as he struggled to control his runaway pulse.

“You’re in Japan now,” Nicholas said simply. “I’m here to help you stop thinking like a Westerner.”

“You mean loss of face again.” Tomkin snorted and hooked a spatulate thumb at the closed door. “That was just a girl. What the fuck do I care what she thinks of me.”

“She is, in fact, Seiichi Sato’s personal representative,” Nicholas said in a calming tone. “That makes her important.” This lie was essential now to keep Tomkin under control. If he should even suspect the slight that had been dealt them, there would be no stopping him. “As such, here, she is part of Sato himself and therefore no less important.”

“You mean I should bow and scrape to her? After Sato didn’t even have the courtesy to meet us himself.”

“You have been over here many times,” Nicholas said evenly. “It astonishes me that you have learned nothing at all about Japanese customs.” He gestured. “This treatment is accorded to only the highest dignitaries. Do you have any idea what this setup—the Japanese bath—must cost with space at such a high premium in Tokyo.” Nicholas sighed. “Stop thinking with your Western ego and try a little acceptance. That will go a long way here.” He reached into his locker, brought out a fluffy white towel embroidered with a dark blue triple wheel, the emblem of Sato Petrochemicals.

Tomkin was silent for a moment. Then, abruptly, he grunted and began to undress. It was as close to an apology as he was going to come. When he, too, was naked, he drew out his towel and the key to the locker.

“Don’t use it,” Nicholas said.

“Why not?”

They stared at each other for a moment, then Tomkin nodded. “Loss of face, right?”

Nicholas smiled, opening the wooden door beside the bank of lockers. “Come on,” he said.

They stepped into a chamber perhaps twenty feet square. The floor was the same cedar slats but here the walls were of gleaming blue tile. The ceiling, of smaller tile, was a mosaic whose center was the interlocking wheel pattern of the company’s logo. The room was taken up by two enormous bathtubs both now filled with steaming water. Two young women stood in attendance.

Without hesitation Nicholas stepped in front of them, allowing them to pour scalding water over him, then begin rubbing him down with soapy sponges. After a moment spent taking this in, Tomkin followed him.

“This I understand,” he said, allowing the woman to wash him. “First get clean, then let the heat relax you.”

They were rinsed off carefully, shampoo provided for them, then, dripping, their flesh steaming, walked to one of the steaming tubs.

Here the water was even hotter, making Tomkin cringe. They discovered niches within the walls of the tub so that they could sit with just their heads out of the water. Tomkin’s face was red, beads of sweat rolling freely down his cheeks. He found that if he moved it made the heat intolerable. Nicholas’ eyes were closed, his body relaxed. There was no sound save the soft, hypnotic lapping of the wavelets their own bodies created in languid movements within the bath. The tiled walls were stippled with moisture.

Tomkin put his head back against the wood, stared up at the Sato triple wheel. “When I was a kid,” he said, “I remember I hated to take a bath. I don’t know why. Didn’t think it was manly or something. There was a fag kid in school always smelled like he’d come from the bath. Jesus, I hated him. Beat his brains out one day after class.” His chest moved up and down slowly with his breath.

“I thought, you know, that it’d make me some kind of hero with the other kids, but it didn’t.” His voice lapsed for a moment before resuming. The drip of the water was like a metronome. “I remember my father coming after me, throwing me into the tub, scrubbing me with that kind of powdered cleanser—Ajax or something. It hurt like hell, I can tell you. ‘Cry,’ he said. I can just hear his voice. ‘It’ll do you a world of good,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow you’ll take a bath on your own so I won’t have to clean you this way again.’

“Yes.” Tomkin nodded. “My father certainly taught me the wisdom of keeping clean.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if picturing the scene all over again.

Nicholas looked at him and thought of his dead friend. Lew Croaker had been so certain that Tomkin had had Angela Didion murdered. That obsession had a peculiarly Japanese flavor to it because it sprang from Croaker’s blind obedience to the dictates of the law. “Nick,” his friend had once told him, “I don’t give a rat’s ass what Angela Didion did or what her rep was. She was a human being, just like all us slobs. What I’m doing…Well, I figure it’s something she deserves. If she can’t get justice, then no one at all deserves it.”

What Croaker termed justice Nicholas knew as honor. Croaker knew where his duty lay and he had died in that pursuit. It was a
samurai
’s death, Nicholas knew that very well, but it somehow did not ease the sadness that welled up in him in odd quiet moments or erase the emptiness he felt inside him, as if a vital part of him had been abruptly severed.

“Nick, you and Craig Allonge get along well.” Tomkin was speaking of the company’s chief financial operations officer. “You know that I rely on him a great deal. Besides me, he knows more about the real running of Tomkin Industries than anyone. He’s close to its heart.” If Tomkin was trying to make a point, he did not finish. Instead, he seemed to veer onto a tangent. “Craig’s going through a particularly hard time now. He’s moved out of his house. He and his wife aren’t quite seeing eye to eye since she told him about her lover.”

Tomkin moved involuntarily and sucked in his breath with the searing heat. “It’s a helluva situation. Craig told me he wanted to move into a hotel in town, but I wouldn’t hear of it. He’s staying with me until he decides what to do. I told him I’d help him with the divorce if that’s what he wanted. I’ll also pay for a counselor if he thinks there’s any chance of a reconciliation.” He closed his eyes. “But, more important for the moment, he needs a real friend. I’m his boss; I can’t be his friend, too, not in this way. You like him, and I know he thinks the world of you. And you know the real meaning of friendship.”

Nicholas settled back in the scalding water, thinking, Westerners are so unpredictable. They bluster one minute, insensitively ignoring civilized courtesies, then the next, show an inordinate amount of insight and caring. “I’ll do what I can as soon as we get back,” he said.

At length, Tomkin turned his head toward Nicholas, and when he spoke his voice had unaccountably softened.

“Nicky,” he said, “are you going to marry my daughter?”

Nicholas, half-dreaming, nevertheless heard the touch of desperation in the other man’s voice and wondered at it. “Yes,” he said immediately. “Of course. As soon as we get back to the States.”

“You’ve discussed it with Justine?”

He smiled. “You mean have I proposed? Yes.” He heard Tomkin exhale deeply and opened his eyes, looked at the other man. “We have your blessing?”

Tomkin’s face darkened and he gave a harsh bark that Nicholas recognized as an anguished laugh. “Oh, yes, for all the good it might do you. But don’t tell Justine. Christ, she might decide not to marry you just to spite me.”

“I think those days are over.”

“Oh, you’re wrong about that. Nothing will ever be right between me and my daughters again. There’s too much bitterness on their part, too much resentment of the way they think I’ve interfered in their lives. Rightly or wrongly. I’m not even sure I know which now.”

Time to break the mood, Nicholas thought, and he clambered slowly out of the tub. Tomkin followed, and they went through another door into a steam room. They sat on hexagonal tiles while the long vertical pipe coughed and belched pockets of water that ran down, gurgling into the drain. Then, with a great gout of sound, the steam began to shout from the open end of the pipe and talk became impossible.

Precisely five minutes after they entered, a warning bell rang. They could no longer see one another though they sat fairly close together. Periodically, the pipe running along the tiled wall to their left screamed like a banshee, delivering forth a new cloud of steam which wrapped itself around their shoulders with a new wave of heat.

Nicholas touched Tomkin on his beefy shoulder, and they went out through the second door set into the far wall.

They were in a fairly large, dimly lighted room that smelled faintly of birch and mentholated camphor. Four long padded tables were aligned along the periphery of the room. Two tables were occupied by dark lumps that they soon could make out as bodies. A young woman stood by each table.

“Gentlemen.” A male figure sat up on the table to their right. He bowed slightly. “I trust you are more relaxed than when you entered our doorway.”

“Sato,” Tomkin said. “It took you—” But feeling the pressure of Nicholas’ hand on his arm, he changed in midsentence. “This’s a helluva way to greet us. The Okura couldn’t’ve done as well.”

“Oh, no, we cannot come up to that standard.” But Seiichi Sato nodded his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. “Linnear-san,” he said, turning slightly, “it is an honor to meet you at last. I have heard much about you.” He swung his legs around, lay back down. “Tell me, are you pleased to be back home?”

“My home is now America, Sato-san,” Nicholas said carefully. “Much has changed in Japan since I left, but I trust there is more that has remained the same.”