I told her about it. She laughed when I mentioned the brass testicles on the light fixture, but by the time I finished, she was wearing a serious expression.
“It doesn’t sound too bad, really,” she said. “But are you sure …?”
“No, I’m not sure. Let’s not get into that again, okay?”
“Okay. When does the partnership open for business?”
“On Monday. Eb went out shopping for office furniture today. Mine’s being delivered tomorrow afternoon.”
“Well, all I can say is I hope it works out.”
“Not as much as I hope so,” I said. “Meanwhile, I picked up a three-day job this afternoon-my last solo investigation.” I did not like the sound or taste of those last four words as I said them.
Kerry said, “Is it anything interesting?”
“Not particularly,” and I told her about Haruko Gage and her secret admirer.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Kerry said, “it sounds kind of interesting to me.
“Yeah? Why?”
“It appeals to my romantic nature. You know, the mystery of it. It’s a little frightening to have a determined secret admirer, but it’s also pretty exciting.”
“Mrs. Gage didn’t seem to think so.”
“Not that she let on. But then why did she wait so long to call in a detective?”
“She’s a materialist. She likes expensive jewelry.”
“I’ll bet that’s not all, though.”
“Maybe not. Listen, how would you like to go visit a bath with me tonight?”
“What?”
“A public bath. You know, with other people.”
“Are you being funny?”
“Nope. I thought I’d stop in and talk to one of Mrs. Gage’s ex-boyfriends for a few minutes; it happens he works evenings in a Japanese bathhouse on Pine Street.”
She made a face. Then her expression changed shape and became thoughtful. “A Japanese bathhouse?” she said. “I’ve never been inside one of those and I’ve always wondered what they’re like.”
“Likewise. So tonight we can both find out.”
“All right. But I’m not going to take any public bath. I’d be too embarrassed.”
“How about a private bath with me later on?”
“I don’t think we’d both fit in the tub.”
“There’s always the shower.”
“Mmm. We’ll see.”
Yeah, I thought, you bet we will.
She said, “But right now I’m hungry. I imagine you must be too.”
“Starving.”
“Well, we’d better go out somewhere. I don’t have much here. What do you want to eat?”
“Do I get a choice?”
“Within reason.”
“I want a New York steak about three inches thick,” I said. “With sauteed mushrooms and a baked potato loaded down with sour cream and chives and bacon bits. And some sourdough French bread. And a pint or two of good ale.”
“I’ll just bet you do. And how is your diet going, anyway?”
“Peachy keen,” I said.
“How much weight have you lost so far?”
“Two pounds.”
“Is that all? You should have lost more than that. You haven’t been cheating, have you?”
“No, I haven’t been cheating. I’ve been grazing a lot, according to your mad dictates. And eating eggs- cartons of eggs. Cluck, cluck.”
“That’s good. I mean that you’re not cheating. But you shouldn’t eat too many eggs.”
“What?”
“They’re full of cholesterol.”
“I thought you told me to eat eggs three times a day.”
“I did not tell you that. I said they were high in protein and you should have them once or twice a day. Two meals and four eggs, maximum. With grapefruit to counteract the cholesterol.”
“I hate grapefruit.”
“Does that mean you haven’t eaten any?”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“I told you. Don’t you ever listen?”
“Not when somebody’s trying to get me to eat grapefruit.”
“Selective hearing,” she said, “that’s what you’ve got.”
“Nuts,” I said. “I don’t care what you say, I’m going to have a steak tonight. Just the thought of one makes me weak.”
“I never said you couldn’t have a steak. It’s the baked potato with all the trimmings and the sourdough bread and the two pints of ale you can’t have.”
“Then what do I get with the steak?”
“Black coffee and a green salad with lemon juice.”
“Green salad with lemon juice. God.”
“It’s good for you. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t care,” I said. “Just so long as we get there fast.”
We ate at a place in one of the large downtown hotels that specialized in steaks. They sliced any cut of meat to order right in front of you, as soon as you came in, and I told the chef I wanted a sixteen-ounce New York done rare. Normally I like my steak medium rare, but tonight I was after red meat, the bloodier the better. It made me feel primitive as hell, like a caveman out on his first date.
When the steak arrived at our table I managed to eat it like a civilized human being, if just barely. I was even able to get down most of the green salad with lemon juice. Kerry watched me with a little awe in her expression. You’d have thought she had never seen a starving man wolf food before.
After the waiter cleared away the remains we sat and talked for a while over coffee. My stomach was full and I was happy. It doesn’t take much to make me happy-just a good meal, an attractive woman, a pulp magazine to read, and a job to do. Maybe I was a primitive, after all.
I let her pay the check for a change. She could afford it; she was a highly paid copywriter for one of San Francisco’s largest ad agencies and I was only a poorly paid private eye who was going to be even more poorly paid once I had to start divvying with Eberhardt. Then we went and got my car and I drove over to Pine and straight out to Tamura’s Baths. The sooner I got my little talk with Ken Yamasaki over and done with, the sooner I could go have an Italian shower with Kerry. Italian showers were much better than Japanese baths. The kind I had in mind were, anyhow.
The building that housed the baths was nondescript enough-a narrow brick structure, two stories high, flanked by an apartment house and a corner grocery. I found a parking space two doors down and we walked over to it through a drizzle that was more mist than rain. A luminous clock in the window of the grocery said that the time was 9:35.
At the door to the bathhouse, Kerry said, “Are you sure it’s all right for women to go in here?”
“You don’t see any signs that say otherwise, do you?”
“No, I guess not.”
The only sign of any sort was tacked up alongside the entrance. It said TAMURA’S JAPANESE BATHS HOURS 10 A. M.- 10 P.M. DAILY. I moved past it and opened the door and let Kerry precede me into a narrow, gloomy hallway illuminated by a single Japanese lantern. At the far end was a set of stairs leading upward.
It was quiet in there; I couldn’t hear anything except silence when I shut the door. The stairs took us into an anteroom that contained some rattan chairs, two more lanterns, and a reception desk with nobody behind it. To one
