dawn, they curled together like kittens in soft contentment, the young, hell-bent sergeant and the younger, just professional prostitute. She was so damned beautiful, so damned sweet—
“Mr. Saxon,” Hara said. “The waiter wishes to know if you care for more brandy?”
Brad blinked, rubbed his face. “Yeah. Only not here. I want a couple of bottles set up. Hennessy: the good stuff.”
Hara nodded. “I understand. The waiting is bad. Perhaps tomorrow—” remember?
“Perhaps tonight,” Brad said, and took the check. “The New Opal, remember? Maybe you can talk the old lady there into saying something. Or the girl. But right now, I just want to crawl into a bottle and pull the cork after me.”
At the exit, a youngster stepped in front of Brad. He was in civilian clothes, but the short hair and GI shoes marked him as Army. “Excuse me,” he said, “I may be wrong but—aren’t you Brad Saxon? From the Forty-Niners, I mean?”
Even here, Brad thought; but in a couple of years, nobody would remember. “Yes,” he answered. “You from the Coast?”
“From the City,” the boy said, as all San Franciscans call their town. “Man—I remember that game against the Rams where you—”
“Me, too. I’ve got the lumps to prove it.”
There was more, with Mr. Hara standing patiently by, smiling to himself. Brad finally managed to break away from the fan, saying no, he was through playing ball, and sure, he was glad to meet somebody from home. But all he wanted was eight or nine big drinks, so he could stop remembering how it had been, with Sueko.
“An athlete,” Mr. Hara said in the elevator. “I thought so.”
“Sure,” Brad said. “Look at the footprints on me. Look—I’ll call you tonight; the New Opal is shut up until then. If we don’t find anything there, we’ll just have to wait until the ad stirs something up.”
“Yes,” Mr. Hara agreed, and went into his room.
Brad keyed his own door and went in, too. The girl was waiting for him inside, looking as if she belonged on his bed. All she wore was a thin kimono—open down the middle.
CHAPTER III
“Kum-ba-wa,” she said, which was, Brad figured, as good a way as any to greet a strange man from his own bed.
“Good evening,” he answered politely. What the hell else did a guy say to that much exposed rose-and-ivory skin?
The woman stretched, arching fine breasts and sliding one tapered leg in his direction. Her hair puddled the white pillow like liquid ebony. The translucent kimono didn’t cover much, but it evidently wasn’t intended to.
Guiltily, Brad flinched at the sharp rapping on the door behind him.
“Your brandy, sir,” the voice said.
Brad fumbled for the knob, blocked the door crack with his bulk as he fed the bellhop wadded Yen notes and snatched the whisky. When he turned back to the room, the woman had pulled herself together, drawn the loose robe about her. It was a damned shame.
He carried the tray to a table—brandy, ice, mixer, wondering if every available Japanese woman he saw was going to do this to him, send the blood racing through his body, urge him with the silken texture of her flesh. If so, he was in for a hell of a time. Ninety percent of the women here were available.
“I am Katsue,” the woman said, moving from the bed in a fluid, entrancing motion, and coming to stand close to him. She took the brandy bottle from him, broke the seal expertly and poured two over the rocks.
“What is this?” Brad asked. “A service of the hotel?”
“Nan-deska?” she said, frowning. “No understand. I come to see you.”
Damn, he thought. This Sueko thing must be pushing him harder than he knew. The woman here, this Katsue, seemed even more like his Sueko than any of the others. Something about the shape of the face, the tone of voice, the richness of her midnight hair and the innate grace with which she walked—
But it couldn’t be. He was seeing Sueko in all women, overlapping her image upon the features of all women. Brad drained his glass. Katsue refilled it with the quick anticipation of the trained Geisha.
Brad moved away from her nearness, sat in the overstuffed chair, his weight making it creak. “All right,” he said, “you wanted to see me. Take it from there.”
Her face was flushed, and he remembered that Oriental women couldn’t really drink; powerful American whisky jolted them in a hurry. Katsue flicked a pink tongue over ripe lips.
“The shinbun” she said, “the newspaper.”
Brad choked on his drink. “What the hell? Does everybody in Tokyo have a friend on the Mainichi? That ad won’t be out until tomorrow.”
“I hear,” Katsue said imperturbably. “Hundred dollars, okay?”
Brad emptied his glass, settled back in the chair. The girl had an angle, he supposed. Get in here with some hint that she knew things, that she could lead him straight to the woman he sought, and meanwhile peddle her very attractive wares.
“I’ll pay a hundred dollar reward,” he said, “or more. If you can prove your information is okay. What do you know about Kamiya Sueko?”
Katsue put down her glass, swayed a bit. “I know, okay. Damn right I know. You think I’m crook, ne? I tell you about Sueko, okay. She’s—twenty-seven; more small than me, sukoshi girl.”
Right, Brad thought, with rising excitement. Sueko would be twenty-seven now. It was strange how he kept remembering her as eighteen.
“And?” Brad said eagerly. “And?”
Katsue fumbled with the kimono sash, whipped it back and away. One manicured fingernail pointed to a spot just below her right hipbone, made a tiny circle upon the bare golden flesh. “Mark here, ne? Funny mark.”
Brad swallowed hard. Sure, Sueko had a birthmark there—a cute, mothlike outline. They had joked about it, laughed over it in those sweetward hours coiled spent and drained upon the soft futon, feeling the tingly silk of the bedding upon their nude bodies, feeling the greater tingle of delightfully familiar flesh touching hip to thigh, knee to knee.
“Where is she?” Brad asked. “Quick, damn you—where is she?”
Katsue giggled, splashed more brandy into her glass. She didn’t bother to close the kimono; light glinted from her rounded thigh, from the swell of her calf. Brad came catlike to his feet, reached her in two swift steps, caught at her shoulders. Her flesh was warm under his palms.
“No hurry,” Katsue said. “Nine years, ne? You wait more sukoshi—little bit more.”
The girl tilted her glass, spilled amber drops across her chin. One trickled down her throat, came to rest diamonding the dusky valley between her erect breasts. Brad wanted to shake her, to squeeze her
