AMRAN, check the assignments desk in Boston. I filed a ten-page wraparound on that yesterday.’
‘On what?’
‘On their merger with San-San.’
‘What’s San-San?’
‘San-San means The Three Sirs, a triad, It grew out of the war. It was a little scandalous. The head knocker, Shichi Tomoro, was one of Japan’s industrial giants during the war. MacArthur let him off with a wrist-slapping, then Hooker helped finance their whole gig. Now it’s one of the most powerful industrial groups in Japan. Very strong politically, and they got more money than the Rockefellers.’
‘What kind of industries?’
‘Oil refining. Shipbuilding. Electronics.’
‘Maybe I should talk to Tomoro.’
Yerkes raised his chin slightly to get the full benefit of the sun. ‘You’re too late, He packed it in a couple of months ago.’
‘You mean he’s dead?’
‘Dead, cremated and scattered to the winds.’
‘How—’
‘He had a wild-boar preserve up on the north end of the island near Aomori. Accidentally shot himself.’
Chameleon at work again, she thought. It had to be. It fit the pattern perfectly.
‘Ira, ever hear of anyone called Chameleon?’
‘That’s his name, Chameleon? What does he do ‘-sit around the house and change colours?’
‘It’s his nom de plume.’
‘Nope. Why?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘What do you mean, bullshit?’
‘I mean bullshit. C’mon, you just don’t casually ask about somebody called Chameleon, for Christ’s sake. What is he, some hot new rock singer?’
‘Punk rock.’
‘Oh, forget it. I’m just getting into disco.’
They got up to leave and Eliza remembered the ‘Midas’ notation in Lavander’s book. ‘One other thing, Ira, does the word “Ghawar” mean anything to you?’
He carried their trash to a basket and dropped it in. ‘The only Ghawar I know is in Saudi Arabia,’ he said.
‘Saudi Arabia?’
‘Sure. It’s the largest oil field in the world.’
The Kancho-uchi, headquarters of the secret service, was in a three-story building in an obscure corner of the government complex. O’Hara was escorted to the third floor by a young woman in a white suit. She was formal to the point of making him uncomfortable. Hadashi was waiting for him at the door of his office.
O’Hara had not seen Bin Hadashi for three years. The Japanese agent had changed little. He was in his early thirties, a tall man for a Japanese, slender, his hair cropped short. He was a cum laude graduate of Princeton.
‘Hey, Kazuo, where you been,’ Hadashi said with a broad smile. ‘I heard you were on the dodge. Your own man was trying to get you hit, hunh?’
Something like that.’
‘Some asshole.’
He led O’Hara into a small spotless office. There were no pictures on the walls, and the desk was empty except for the telephone and a can of apple juice.
‘He was never anything different,’ O’Hara agreed.
‘And then he called it off.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What an asshole. You still writing for a living?’
‘Trying. There’re easier ways of feeding yourself.’
‘What you snooping around here for? You want something, right?’
‘Just a little information.’
‘That’s the hardest thing to get around this place. You know how we Japanese are. Inscrutable bastards.’
‘The guy I’m looking for maybe the most inscrutable bastard of all. You ever hear of a Japanese agent calling himself Chameleon? This was back during the war.’
‘Which war, World War II?’
