The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) (25 page)

There was no welcoming
noren
curtain outside Boys Bath’s heavy steel door, nor were any prospective customers lined up for admission. The only clue that this place was a private-admission, men’s-only bath club was the doorman, who wore a long, blue-and-white
yukata
robe tied over jeans. Richard greeted the doorman by name and was answered in the friendliest of manners: a kiss. Richard put his arm around my shoulders, introducing me as Raymond Shimura, a “Rocku Staa Banana,” who had dreamed of visiting a very special bath.

Once inside, the charade continued. In quick, whispery Japanese, Richard told the concierge that Raymond Shimura was a Japanese-Korean boy-band performer from Canada. Apparently, I’d finished a sold-out gig in Yokohama and had come to the city for some rest and relaxation. The concierge whispered a question to Richard about how fluent Raymond’s Japanese was. Richard whispered back that Raymond looked Asian but regrettably only spoke English. This is what made Raymond a banana. Yellow on the outside, white on the inside, and rumored to be delish.

“Take him right to our Wild Cats Lounge,” the concierge instructed. “And you know, his VIP guest admission ticket includes two free drinks.”

The recommended lounge was small, but appeared even smaller, because of its black walls, low lighting, and plush stuffed tigers, cheetahs, and panthers posed around the place. The seat cushions on the bar stools were zebra-print velour, and the gleaming bar appeared to be a facsimile of ebony. A sexy Japanese bartender sporting dyed red hair and the classic black-leather-vest-with-nothing-underneath-it motioned for us to take two prime seats.

“One cosmopolitan with an extra twist, please,” Richard said to him in Japanese. When my friend turned to me, he spoke English. “What’ll it be, Raymond?”

“Just a beer, please,” I answered. “Whatever’s on tap.”

“Ah, he is American,” the bartender commented.

“Raymond is from Toronto, Canada. We went to school together. He is a boy-band performer who just gave a concert.” Richard trotted out the lies he’d dreamed up.

“But of course,” the bartender exclaimed. “I think I saw him on television this morning.”

“It must have been someone else, because Raymond’s contract doesn’t allow filming,” Richard ad-libbed. “You see, he has a pending deal with a soft-drink company. Only they can promote his image.”

“I want to know more about your band,” the bartender tried in stilted English. “Are you the lead singer? Is everyone else also bananas?”

“I’m going bananas,” I started saying, while Richard pinched me.

“Raymond not only sings but plays bass guitar.”

The bartender laughed. “A true
talento
. Two ways is better than one,
neh
? I recommend our very special beer cocktail.”

The big crepe I’d eaten in Harajuku had been absorbed long ago, so the beer cocktail—a mix of white ale, bourbon, lemon juice, and bitters—hit me hard. I was beginning to feel less fearful of the texter, and also starting to think maybe the Mayumi search was not really worth the work. I would talk to Mr. Ishida about it the next day. But tonight, I’d maybe have another nightcap. Get a room, sink into a bed. Everything would be all right.

“Raymond, I’ll be here tomorrow morning to pick you up for your news interview. Don’t have too much fun tonight,” Richard said, kissing me lightly on the lips.

I hadn’t realized how much time had passed, but it was midnight. I’d been intrigued by the bartender’s flirtation with me, and the shy, smiling admiration from the Wildcat’s other customers. Now, without Richard’s help, I wasn’t sure I could continue carrying off the rock-star charade. Someone might bring me a guitar or flute or drag me into the karaoke lounge. When I really couldn’t sing.

“Here, Raymond. Gift from a friend.” The bartender slid a glass toward me and gazed eagerly for a reaction. I took a sniff of the drink that had odors of Coke, Curacao, and something else. Did Rohypnol have an odor? I knew I shouldn’t try it.

“Oishii,”
I said, although it did not look delicious at all.

“Raymond-chan said
oishii.
His Japanese is very good. He knows Japanese!”

And so it went. Because Richard’s protection was gone, the other customers dared to come closer. “Oh, Raymond-san, have you tried a Japanese bath before? I will show you everything.”

“Americans wash in the morning,” I rumbled back. “How early does this bath open?”

“Aren’t you Canadian? You may learn Japanese ways—”

“If he’s
toransukei,
” one man said to the other in soft Japanese, “he could be shy.”

The concierge who’d handled my admission stepped into the room and signaled to the bartender. As they stood ten feet away, chatting and looking repeatedly at me, I felt nervous. Something had come up, and Richard wasn’t around to help me.

“Raymond-san, will you please come with me?” the concierge said in English. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“I will come, too,” suggested one admirer, a middle-aged gentleman in a salaryman’s typical gray suit.

“No, no.” The concierge crossed his arms in a protective X before me.

“Thank you. I’m ready to roll.” I practically fell off my bar stool, I was so eager to go. Richard had surely come through with the room arrangement. I tried to walk unsteadily, so I looked quite drunk.

“Sorry to interrupt conversations with new friends,” the concierge said in English. “Raymond-san, we have a special customer already waiting.”

Shaking my head, I said, “No customers, okay? I must sleep alone to give a good concert tomorrow.”

“The customer is called Burukkusu-san. He is older, handsome, looks like a
butcho
,” he said, using the word for senior corporate executive. “Maybe a music producer?”

“No, I do not know him. Please tell him I’m sorry, but I cannot go to him. May I buy a key for my own room instead?”

“Of course, of course, you can have your own room, too. But I must take you to Boroku-san. He
paid
for you.”

“For me!” I was both outraged and frightened. Perhaps someone who’d been in the bar earlier decided to go for broke with a private invitation. But the concierge seemed nonplussed.

“I said to him: Raymond-san is a rock star, not rent boy. Still, he gave a small financial gift to us just for a favor of bringing you for an autograph and whatever might come. He would like to give you a bigger gift, if you want it.”

What a conundrum. All I wanted was to lie down in peace. But I also had to appear like a curious gay rock musician. Such people did sign autographs. And have random sex.

Glumly, I followed the concierge into an elevator decorated with pictures of the bathhouse’s various luxuries—a screening room for erotic films, the bar, a restaurant, and numerous baths including one that contained a low-level electric current. Seeing me looking at it he said, “That bath is our most stimulating one. Because of the electric crisis, though, TEPCO has asked us to refrain from running it, at least for this time being.”

“Yes,” I said as the doors parted with a cheerful ring and he waved me ahead of him into the hallway.

“I am bringing you because Burukkusu-san is very private. He does not want his room number spoken aloud. His tour guide was most specific.”

“Tour guide?”

“Tonight is a big night for our having international visitors: a good thing after the tsunami. Our government is afraid no more tourists will come. It made us afraid, too.”

The mention of the tsunami put me on edge. Could my stalker have booked himself into a room? How private and members-only was this club? I remembered the famous Groucho Marx line about never wanting to join a club that would have one as a member. If Boys Bath had allowed me as a guest, it might also admit another dubious individual.

The manager stopped at door thirteen and knocked smartly. “Burukkusu-san, hotel management has come,” he called out in English.

But there was no answer.

As I deliberated whether to start walking away, the manager fished a key out of his pocket and gave me a wink. “Master key opens everything. There, you go ahead.”

“Can we go in together? You might need to translate for me, because all I can give is an autograph.”

“I met him. No translation will be necessary. And he wants to see
you
,” the concierge whispered, putting his hands on my shoulders and propelling me inside. He closed the door and, too quickly, his footsteps faded off.

I could have run out myself, but I paused. I checked out twin beds that hadn’t been slept in, and between them a low table with an iPod dock and a small basket with the typical sexual accoutrements of any Japanese love hotel, plus a big box of tissues. There was also a notepad emblazoned with BOYS BATH and a cute image of two little bears scrubbing each other. Tearing off a page, I carefully wrote “To Burukkusu-san, Keep on Rockin! Raymond Shimura” in English script. My job was done. The concierge would get his tip, and I’d get my private room.

The bathroom door was cracked open. I heard a slight sloshing sound of water and smelled the aroma of eucalyptus bath salts. The man called Burukkusu-san was apparently in the bathtub. I had a new thought. If he were in a bath, I’d have the physical advantage. I’d get a good look at him to satisfy my worries and be gone before he could get out. If he tried anything outrageous, I would snap a full-frontal photograph that could be shared with the police.

This meant turning on my phone again. I did that and then got into camera mode. Then, counting silently to three, I gently pushed open the bathroom door.

As I’d anticipated, the bath was full and a naked man was inside. He was far too long for it, with his legs folded up like pretzels. But what I could see of him was darkly tanned and pretty hunky.

I knew that body. And that face. Familiar blue eyes met mine, but instead of holding happy recognition, they looked panicked.

“Get the hell out,” my husband shouted.

“I
mean it, guy!” He was starting to rise out of the tub. “How’d you get in here?”

I held out my arms. “Michael, it’s me! Your wife!”

Michael stopped yelling. His eyes ran over my masculine outfit, the phone in my hand, and then back to my face. Clearing his throat, he said, “That’s a hell of a cover.”

“Speak for yourself. I was scared to death coming up here. Why are they calling you Burukkusu-san? Hendricks-san would have been enough.”

“B-R-O-O-K-S. I thought you’d recognize my old code name.” He shook his head, still looking me up and down. “Enrique promised that Richard would bring you sometime tonight. I just didn’t think you’d look this way.”

I was growing more confused. “Did you not specifically request Raymond Shimura, a boy-band member?”

Michael shook his head and started to laugh. Together we both said: “Richard.”

“And look what he did to me half an hour ago.” I pulled off the newsboy cap to reveal my new haircut.

Michael stopped laughing. “You cut your hair.”

“I worried you wouldn’t like it. Well, at least hair grows back.”

“It’s not bad.” Michael paused, studying me. “It would look prettier after you, ah, remove the faux beard. That washes off, right? I could help you.”

“Just a sex. I mean, sec!”

Double-locking the door and putting a chain on it, I went to the bedside table with the dock and looked at the songs loaded onto my phone. What was the right music for the place, moment, and man? The late, great LCD Sound System doing “I Can Change.”

When I went back to the bathroom, I was singing along tunelessly, and the lost-and-found guys’ clothes were slowly coming off to reveal the same old me.

I got into the tub. Between long kisses, Michael explained that he and his colleages had been transported by helicopter from Misawa Air Base and dropped onto a navy cruiser stationed in the waters.

“Just like old times, huh?” I said.

“Not quite. Looking at those steaming reactors was worse than anything I’ve ever seen in a disaster movie.”

“Um, how close were you?” My old anxiety for him returned.

Michael dropped his head, looking uncomfortable. “We were about twenty kilometers away. But you do know the big blaze is out, right?”

“I didn’t know. That’s great news. But did you guys really have to get that close?”

“Nobody made us do anything. But you know, being operational was the best way to find out what’s really going on.”

“So, I’m sitting in the water with you here… could it be radioactive?” As my question formed, I realized how stupid it sounded.

“If the Tokyo drinking water’s got radiation, I’m sure the bath water does too. Don’t blame me for that,” Michael said.

“I won’t.”

“After things stabilized, I got clearance to take off and visit you. I was in Sugihama yesterday, but you’d already headed out.”

“You never texted me you were planning that. I would have stayed!”

“I wanted to surprise you. At least I caught up with Tom. He filled me in on what he knew about you finding Ishida-san’s apprentice, and I shared some of the things you told me about Mayumi’s death. Hope that was okay.”

“Of course. Those were my old concerns. You haven’t heard about my phantom texter.” I described the menacing text messages that had been flowing since my arrival in Tokyo and the disturbing man I’d met at Summer Grass.

Michael’s voice was tight. “My first question is: who have you recently met that has your phone number?”

“Akira knows it and so does this guy called Toshi. Also: Mayumi’s parents, and the antiques dealer Mr. Morioka, because I briefly misplaced the phone at his store and he found it. Oh, and I told Glock today as well.”

“Did you bring the phone to this hotel?”

“Of course. It’s in my backpack in the other room—” Before I could finish my sentence Michael had stood up and was shedding water as he stepped out on the tiled floor. Grabbing a tiny hand towel, he strode into the bedroom. “What’s your password?”

“After the SIM card went in, I skipped putting the password back on. I had a lot on my mind. I didn’t think…” I stood up from the bath and reached for the remaining small towel to dry myself. Then I put on the crisp
yukata
robe hanging on the door.

Michael was sitting naked on the edge of one of the small beds, my phone in his hand. “Okay, I’ve gone into the phone’s settings and can see that someone’s activated your GPS. I’ve also discovered that every outgoing e-mail and text message, as well as your voice mails, is being forwarded to a Japanese address. It’s in
kanji
. Can you read this?”

I scrutinized the inscrutable array of characters and numbers. “I could ask my aunt what this means. It would be fabulous if it turned out to be someone’s name—but I’m guessing no stalker would be that stupidly transparent.”

“You never know. The tracking that was put on was very straightforward. But Rei—” He shook his head. “You must not have spent any time examining your phone when you got it back, because this is all stuff you could have figured out.”

“No,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t expecting to be tailed.”

“It’s easy enough to undo,” Michael said. “We’ll stop all the e-mail and GPS forwarding. I’d like to add a different GPS tracker just between your phone and mine, so I’ll know where you are, if you run into trouble.”

“Will that address the issue of the harassing texts? My number’s still the same.”

“I want a full record of those texts. They can be used to prove guilt if the police ever respond to this situation.”

There weren’t many things sexier than a gorgeous, irritated man wearing no clothes. I put my arms around Michael and said, “I want to forget about all of it for a while. Let’s have some fun, and then I’ve got to leave you for the private room I told the concierge I wanted.”

“No,” Michael said. “I’ll go to the mat to keep you with me for the whole night.”

“Prove it.” I smiled encouragingly as he pressed me back on the blanket.

No bones about it. A straight married couple making love in a gay men’s hotel room was downright subversive. If the concierge happened to pop in again with his master key, how would he react to me lying exposed while Michael slowly stroked my breasts? As we moved together, relearning each other’s bodies, I fantasized that I might actually be a sexy young man called Ray who’d checked into a Japanese bathhouse because he was curious and succumbed to the desires of a powerful, older producer. Other people did this kind of thing all the time. I didn’t know what Michael was thinking as we made hard, fast love that night, but I felt different: outside of my body and reckless. He was above me, behind me, beside me.

Everywhere I wanted him.

“Hey, the group bath might be empty at this hour.” I sighed as Michael emerged from the bathroom’s miniscule shower the next morning.

“Unh-unh. The baths manager advised me bathing hours are nine to midnight.” Michael was drying himself with the face cloth-sized towel he’d used the night before.

“You spoke with the baths manager yesterday?”

“Yes. I went in for a dip with Enrique because my back hurt from the helicopter ride.”

“Hold on. You soaked in a bath with a bunch of gay men?” I could imagine the ripples of excitement this muscular
gaijin
would have created.

“Actually, soaking in a jetted tub with other guys is hardly a big deal. I’ve done it other places in Japan and Korea as well. Here, it was rather mind-opening.”

Now I was angry. “Come on. It’s like you getting naked with a lot of horny sorority sisters.”

Michael made a time-out sign with his hands. “Enough, Rei. The mind-opening thing I’m trying to tell you about is I now understand what it’s like to be a minority.”

“What do you mean, Michael? You’re waspier than almost anyone I know.”

“It’s about sex. Whenever you and I check into a hotel, people look at us and assume we’re okay to sleep together. You might be Japanesish, I might be Connecticutish, but it’s no matter to anyone. We’ve got our wedding rings.”

“I don’t see a ring on your finger today,” I said archly.

“Hey, what about you, Mrs. Hendricks?”

“It was Richard’s idea that I take it off,” I admitted. “It’s in my backpack in the locker downstairs along with my regular clothes. By the way, do you have any extra clean underwear I can borrow?”

Michael shook his head. “Forget the underwear. There’s a larger picture to worry about. How can we get you out of here looking like you did when you came on to me last night? Your moustache and beard went down the bathtub’s drain.”

I pulled away from his caress and looked into the mirror across from the foot of the bed. Adjusting the tweed cap over my new short hair, I thought I looked like one of the Hardy Boys. “I’m passing as transgender—here, it’s known as
toransukei
or
nyu hafu.
Richard and Yoshiko say it’s still hard to be gay in Japan. You can’t be out unless you work in entertainment, fashion and beauty, or the arts. And Tokyo’s much more gay-friendly than other small towns.”

“Sexual identity may have been Mayumi’s struggle, and why she really left Sugihama,” Michael said. “That’s if she actually was playing for the girls’ team. Going to a gay bar a few times is no proof. You’re the living testimony.”

“Now I’m wondering about Eri, the third roommate,” I said. “She paints urinals—as you know, those vessels are colloquially called
benjo
. And
benjo
is also the slang term for a straight girl who hangs around with lesbians.”

“Maybe that adds a double meaning to her art,” Michael said.

“I want to see those women again,” I said.

“There’s a risk to that,” Michael said.

“I know.”