the miniature courtyard and down a squeaky hall to a certain room. Suddenly, Brad had to see that room again. He lurched erect with Machiko pattering anxiously beside him. Mumbling apologies, he shouldered across the dance floor. Men frowned at him, but when his size and bulk registered with them, they moved out of his way.
There was no light behind the sliding panels of the remembered door. Brad swayed before it, staring at its blankness.
“This room?” Machiko asked, and when he nodded, she kneeled to remove his shoes.
The imitation Stateside bed was in its usual corner; the box dresser bare of the statue of Ho-Teh, fat, grinning god of health. It was cold.
“Oh hell,” Brad said, realizing that he was drunk, that the waiting and hoping were making him maudlin. “Oh hell,” he said again.
The door slid shut behind him. A dim bulb showed him the bones of the room, the unrumpled bed, the withered cherry branch with its tinseled good luck charms hanging dusty from an exposed rafter. It was all wrong. It shouldn’t be dim. It ought to be lighted with the glowing beauty of a tiny, modeled girl who tucked her little hands into the sleeves of her yukata and looked like a lovely butterfly.
With a delicate motion, Machiko moved in front of him, lifted her hands in an utterly feminine gesture and fluffed out her hair. Dark, searching eyes; dew on the petals of a morning flower; sandalwood and spice, and the urgent thrusting of desire making his belly taut and his loins rigid.
Alien girl, waiting to be sampled, to be tasted and felt; mystery woman, priestess of love cults, of bronze gongs soft in Spring twilight, of silks and satins and perfumed flesh. Fragile girl, so warm and small against the vastness of his body, her slippered feet dangling above the floor.
She held the flavor of warm winds over richly blooming fields, tasting of downy blossoms and far valleys. She was sweetly trembling in his arms, thick hair swirling as he let her go to wriggle out of her dress and bolt the door. She was entrancing hillocks and desirable vales, a flowing together of smooth-warm legs and softflare hips, a clasping, surrendering rocking of thighs and breasts, blending, enveloping. Gladly, he sought to lose himself in her.
And for the moment, she was even tinier, an elfin perfection that clung and spread, and loved in mad-wild passion and an intriguing, gentle tenderness.
He whispered it into the musky sheen of her hair: “Sueko—Sueko—”
She didn’t stiffen and roll away. If she was hurt, the girl didn’t show her pain. Instead, Machiko held him closer, substituting herself for the girl this huge, gentle man dreamed of, wishing in spite of herself that she was actually the one he sought. It would be nice to be so loved.
Brad Saxon sighed back from the girl at last, drained of hasty desire, relaxing in the heady aura of womanhood and the insiduous glow of the liquor within him. He was a little puzzled at the way she clung so fervently to him—as if she would never see him again. And he remembered the watchful caution of the hardfaced madam in the bar.
CHAPTER II
From the Classified rooms of the Mainichi newspaper, Brad rode the hurtling little “kamikaze” taxi back to his hotel. The Nomura wasn’t far from the fabulous Rocker Four Club, most luxurious setup in the world for Army NCOs. It was semi-deserted in the daytime, and passing it, Brad felt a momentary twinge of something indefinable.
Regret? he wondered. No. A sense of being on the outside, perhaps; of not belonging any more. The herd instinct normally strong in man, but stronger yet in the Service. Brad Saxon wasn’t sorry he wasn’t in uniform any more. The Army was for fighting wars; when there were no more wars, he could see little reason for its existence.
Of course, a standing army was necessary, but that kind of life irked Brad. Spit and polish and the boredom of repeated training; and, he told himself, he mustn’t forget the brass-plated and self-appointed gods. A little of them was more than enough. Sure, there were good men in command, even great ones. But there were also the free riders, the desk-and-briefcase politicians who never earned the right to be called soldiers.
Brad crawled out of the cab after it shrieked to a sliding stop outside the Nomura, and paid the gold-toothed hackie. Adding a fat tip, he said: “Here, sport—buy yourself a shrine. You keep driving that way, and you’re going to need it.”
The driver shrugged fatalistically and roared the taxi into traffic as Brad turned away and moved through the lobby. The desk clerk bowed slightly when he passed by and into the elevator. Brad grinned to himself. Tokyo—city of no questions asked, as long as you could pay your way. And the big display ad he’d just ordered in the Mainichi should pay its way, too. For the hundred-dollar reward he’d offered, half the city ought to be trying to find Sueko.
At the third floor, Brad turned down the carpeted hall and into his room. There was another lead he could follow himself, the dog-eared, carefully protected letter from Sueko—the last one. Seven years ago, but it had a return address, and not the New Opal Hotel. Her home, perhaps. She’d mentioned a family.
In the shower, Brad let the cool water flow over him, and thought for the hundredth time that his trip might not pay off. Sueko could be dead; she might be married to some GI, living respectably in the States. Brad stepped out and towelled himself. But he had to try. The years away from her had taught him one thing—that all other women stood in her shadow. He had to find her and take her back with him.
Brad plugged in the razor and massaged it over his stubble. Some guys he knew would think he’d flipped; they’d think any man who wanted to marry a prostitute was out of his head. During the past nine years Sueko had probably slept with a thousand men.
But Brad Saxon had been the first. And if he hadn’t been such a damned fool, he’d have been the only one. He grimaced at his battered face in the mirror. Well, even damned fools may get another chance, if they’re lucky. He wouldn’t louse up this opportunity. All the men between didn’t matter. Nothing did—except the vital, driving fact that he must hold Sueko in his arms again, permanently.
He took his big, hairy body into the bedroom and began fitting it into a tailored sharkskin suit. Maybe he’d honeymoon in Hong Kong with Sueko, if she liked the idea. They could stock up on good clothes there. Hell, he’d buy her the moon, if she wanted it.
And he could almost afford it. He’d never have to count the bruises again, never have to limp out on the field with the bad knee taped tight, hoping it would hold out through the game. Let the other clowns bang their heads together for the paychecks. Brad Saxon had his.
School had seemed so damned important. The old man had pushed a little, too, wanting Brad to follow him into the State Department. Still, he couldn’t blame school—nor the old man—for leaving Sueko as he had. Sure, the Army had a lot to do with it, hustling him back for discharge, tying up marriage applications in red tape. But Brad could have come back as a civilian. He should have come back.
Brad knotted his tie, ran a brush over cropped hair. Maybe he should blame the bid from the Forty-Niners, too. Only you don’t blame a job that brought you in almost thirty thousand per. It wasn’t bad pay for a big slob who enjoyed banging other big slobs around. A little rough on the hide, perhaps, but tackles weren’t supposed to be glamor boys. That was left to the backfield.
He grinned at himself. Some of the old gang were still on the sports pages, still dragging themselves off the field every Sunday. Through the old man’s needling and advice, Brad had invested his paychecks in solid payoff stocks, a little finagling here, a little quick selling there. Now he was fat. Now
