Chen Song crossed to the window and contemplated the harbor below as his uncle had done minutes earlier. Behind him,
“You give the
“Then all you need to do to earn back that face is do the work I give you,” Chen Gui said evenly. “The
Chen Song laughed bitterly. “Ha! So now you think I’m too ambitious, uncle?”
Chen Gui said nothing for a time. Chen Song let the silence play out, refusing to do anything which might give his uncle room to maneuver away from answering the question.
“I think your view is short and narrow,” Chen Gui said finally. “You need to look farther down the road.”
Chen Song started to speak, but Chen Gui’s phone suddenly broke into the tunes of
Accomplished. WT.
“Ha! He’s done it!” the portly Shanghainese crowed. “He’s done it! Soon we’ll be able to return to Japan!”
There was a knock at the door, and Chen Gui’s grin faded. Chen Song turned and faced the hotel room door; he glanced back at Chen Gui. Chen Gui licked his lips nervously and nodded.
“Answer the door, nephew,” he said as mildly as he could.
Chen Song walked to the door slowly, handing the phone back to Chen Gui as he passed him. He peered through the peephole after a moment, then looked back at his uncle.
“It’s Boss Tao, and he has Lin Feng with him.”
Chen Gui released his held breath in an explosive rush. “Then let them in! Lin Feng has clothes for me, and I’m hungry!”
Tokyo, Japan
Manning awoke the next morning at 7:45am, right as the Sun rose high enough to bathe the curtains over the bedroom windows in a fiery orange light. Even from the height of the 33rd floor, he heard the city of Tokyo awakening, stirring like some mythical beast preparing for the coming day’s hunt. It was murder to get up; the apartment was cool from the over-active air-conditioning, and Manning was faced with the equivalent of getting out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning. Curled up beside him like a cat was Ryoko, her small body generating an inviting warmth that Manning also found irresistible. He snuggled up to her and kissed her shoulder, and she murmured something in her sleep and stirred for a moment before becoming still again. Manning allowed his head to settle back onto his pillow, and he was content to inhale the sweet scent of her hair, now bound in a ponytail. He slipped an arm around her narrow waist and closed his eyes. Sleep harkened its return, and he felt himself start to drift into its embrace.
The image of the Japanese hostess with the bleach-blonde hair appeared before the lens of his mind’s eye before it could fully close, and she froze there, captured in every detail: carefully manicured hair, artfully painted eyebrows, somewhat thin lips covered by a sheen of lip gloss, white but slightly crooked teeth, the small beads of sweat on her upper lip, the flakes of cigarette ash clinging to her black T-shirt with the word staff emblazoned across it below the small twin mounds of her breasts… and her dark eyes, aflame with the rising panic borne from suddenly coming face-to-face with her mortality.
Manning braved the cold and swung his legs out of the bed. He walked to the zoned AC and shut it off, since the bedroom was already cold enough to safely refrigerate meat. He made his way to the bathroom and went through the morning ablutions. Afterwards, he pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and headed for the kitchen. The living room was ablaze as the sun made its gradual climb into the sky, bathing the spire of Tokyo tower and its less-commanding office building siblings in orange-yellow light. Manning grabbed himself a glass of too-sweet orange juice and paid homage to the vista. Minato-ku lurched to full wakefulness and faced the day with the traditional gusto reserved for the upper-crust parts of Tokyo, peopled by only the wealthiest of salarymen and foreign dignitaries posted at the various embassies in the area. Manning finished his juice and checked the clock on the wall. Ryoko would sleep until after two o’clock, he knew, so he was free to do whatever he wished until then.
The Atago Green Hills tower, where Manning lived, was located in a park-like setting. The verdant grounds were tended by a virtual army of Japanese landscapers who wore their gray coveralls as if they were the uniforms of some elite military unit. As Manning strolled out of the main lobby doors-the only such individual in such casual dress-the landscapers were already busy at work, trimming here, clipping there. The facility had an image to maintain, and since the tower complex was neighbored by the Atago Shrine to the north and the Seishoji temple to the south, the real estate conglomerate which owned the complex had to make it conform to the bounds of serenity dictated by the two local landmarks.
Manning set off at a brisk pace through the park, jogging down the trails at a reasonable clip, weaving around the occasional walker or young mother out with her children, enjoying the bright morning. In his mind, Manning flipped through a menu of cadences seemingly tailor-made for the event when a man was faced with some distasteful memories that physical activity alone couldn’t put down, running cadences he learned by heart during his time in the U.S. Army.
As the chant repeated itself endlessly in his mind, Manning kept up the pace, running faster and faster, no longer jogging now but virtually sprinting, causing those he passed in the park to turn and look. As the sweat rolled down his back in rivulets and his lungs began to burn, all Manning could see was the frightened face of a young girl whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
