cellophane away and stuck it between square teeth. He didn’t light it. “As an ex-soldier, you should know we have ways of obtaining information. It doesn’t matter how we know.”
Brad decided abruptly that he wanted no part of this fat slob, brass pistols and all. He said it slowly: “I thought that ‘we’ routine went out when the Great White Father got shanghaied from over here. You a leftover from his cabinet?”
Getty reddened, eyes bulging. “No need to take that attitude, Saxon. We—I—realize you’re a civilian, now.”
Jaw muscles tightening, Brad stared at the captain. “Make sure you do, buster. And the name is Mister Saxon, get it? Now say whatever the hell you came busting into my room to say, then haul it out of here and go shake down some business girl.”
The MP sputtered; veins stood out in his swollen throat. “Look here—”
One outthrust finger trip-hammered into Getty’s chest, banged hard and repeatedly against his collarbone. “You look,” Brad said, pushing, hoping the man would push back. “This is my room; Japan is a friendly country now; you and the MPs can go blow your tin whistles. You going to deliver your message before I throw you down the stairs?”
Paling, Getty moved back a step, and then another. “I—I came to—help you, dammit. The girl you’re looking for is dead. She died two years ago, according to our files.”
Brad set himself. “And what was her name doing in MP files?”
The captain blinked rapidly, tried to recover his dignity, his tone of command. “Surely you know what she was. All prostitutes are registered. And—there were other things.”
“What other things?”
Getty was sweating. “Black market; suspicion of thefts; consorting with known communists. She had quite a dossier.”
“You’re a damned liar. Sueko wouldn’t steal a dime. And she hated the Reds just as I did.”
“We—I—don’t want to break security, but she was all I said. A trouble-maker, a headache to the Japanese police as well.”
Brad frowned, moved closer. “And you came here in the middle of the night, just to tell me all this? You came here out of the goodness of your heart, because you wanted to help an ex-GI far from home? The hell you did, captain. Now spit out the rest of it before I run up one side of you and down the other.”
Getty’s small, pouched eyes turned mean. “Go ahead; I’d like to get you slammed into a Jap jail where friends of mine can get at you. I know your type, Saxon—a big shot football player, big wheel on the sports pages. You were nothing but a lousy sergeant in the Army. Go ahead—try roughing me up and see what happens.”
Softly, dangerously, Brad hissed the words: “Sure, you’ve got connections. A slob like you exists on connections. I’ll bet you even know somebody in the ambassador’s office, don’t you? Some cheap clerk who could get my visa yanked. I don’t doubt that—captain. I’m not even interested. But I am interested in you. I want to find out how many times you’ll bounce.”
Getty back-pedaled, squeaking. Low and sudden, Brad’s blocking shoulder thudded into the soft belly, hurled the gasping captain into the wall. Brad dug his feet into the floor, kept the man pinned there for a long moment. Then he slipped aside and allowed the breathless Getty to slide to the carpet where he held his stomach and sucked for air.
“You don’t bounce so well,” Brad said.
“D-damn you—”
“I’ll wait right here,” Brad said, “while you go tell your friends to make me persona non grata in this country. But you’d better have the CIC do a little more checking up. Tell them to nose around the State Department.”
He’d said the magic words. A flicker of fear crossed Getty’s face. He could almost see the man’s mind working furiously, going over any information he had on Brad Saxon, not finding anything concerning the State Department, but afraid to make a mistake that could cost him his bars.
Brad hooked a hand into Getty’s shirtfront, effortlessly jerked the captain to his feet. “I don’t know why you came here,” he said, “and I don’t give a damn if your connections reach all the way into the Imperial Palace. I do know you lied about Sueko, and that you’re damned anxious to get me out of Tokyo. Now hear me well, fat boy—I’m going to find out things. And if you get in my way, officially or unofficially, I’m going to bust you right in half.”
He flung the captain toward the door. Getty pawed at the knob, struggled for a shred of composure. He started to say something, but thought better of it when Brad lifted both hands eagerly. Getty snatched the door wide and plunged through it into the hall. He almost ran over the little Japanese standing there.
“Get the hell outa’ my way,” Getty snarled, and shoved the small man roughly aside. Brad heard his boots thumping hard against the carpeted stairs, and thought the MP enlisted men would catch hell tonight.
“Please?” Mr. Hara said. “I heard shouting. May I be of help?”
“Come on in,” Brad said. “I was just about to send down for another jug. You can help me with it.”
Hara drifted in, closed the door softly. “American liquor is too strong for me.”
“Tonight it’s like water,” Brad said, and proved it by downing a glassful. “I didn’t have time to introduce you to the MP captain—but then, he’s not a guy you’d like to know, anyway.”
Mr. Hara sat gingerly upon a chair, hands folded. “Ah-so? Perhaps he had information?”
Brad shook his head. “He told me the same thing the girl did—that Sueko is—dead.” The word was difficult to say. Brad went on. “He also hinted strongly that he’d have me worked over if I didn’t take my big nose out of Japan. Now what the hell do you suppose all that was about?”
“I have heard of this captain,” Hara said. “A dangerous enemy.”
“A jerk,” Brad corrected. “I’m not worried about him. His boys didn’t dig deep enough into my background. I have a friend or two, myself. My father is—well, pretty high up in the State Department. He wouldn’t like it if I got myself into a jam over here, but he’d pull me out. But I’d just like to know why a jerk like Getty is involved in this. And why. Why did he bother to come here to tell me Sueko is dead? And why all the lies about her?”
If they were lies. Brad thought. Nine years could bring a lot of changes in a girl who had to scrape for a living. Especially one who had been deserted by the man she thought loved her; her first man. Who the hell could blame Sueko for doing anything—pushing heroin, trading on the black market, even for peddling bits of information gleaned from big-mouthed GIs to local communist bosses?
But if she was dead, as two people said—why the interest in her? Katsue, Brad could understand. The girl would sell what was left of her soul for a few bucks. Probably Captain Getty would, too. Yet the fat MP officer hadn’t even mentioned money. Therefore, it figured that he was being paid from some other source. Who? and again—why?
Brad gulped more brandy and turned to ask Mr. Hara these questions. The little man beat him to the punch. “Mr. Saxon—I think that Kamiya
