The Key to Midnight Read online

  Alex pointed the pistol at the guy’s heart. When he was sure that his captive was no longer disoriented, he said, “I have a few questions.”

  “Go to hell,” the guy said in Japanese.

  Alex spoke in the same language. “Why were you following me?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You think I’m a fool?”

  “Yes.”

  Alex poked him hard in the stomach with the gun, then again.

  Wincing, the stranger said, “I was going to rob you.”

  “No. Nothing that simple. Someone ordered you to watch me.”

  The man said nothing.

  “Who’s your boss?” Alex asked.

  “I’m my own boss.”

  “Don’t lie.” Alex poked him hard with the gun once more.

  The stranger gasped in pain, glared at him, but didn’t respond.

  Although Alex was incapable of using physical abuse to extract information, he was willing to engage in light psychological torture. He put the cold muzzle of the weapon against the man’s left eye.

  With his right eye, the stranger stared back unwaveringly. He didn’t appear to be intimidated.

  “Who’s your boss?” Alex asked.

  No response.

  “One round, through the brain.”

  The stranger remained silent.

  “I’ll do it,” Alex said quietly.

  “You’re not a killer.”

  “Is that what they told you?” Alex pressed the muzzle against the guy’s left eye just hard enough to hurt him.

  The wind fluted through the clusters of trash barrels, playing them as though they were organ pipes, producing a crude, hollow, ululant, unearthly music.

  Finally Alex sighed and rose to his feet. Staring down at the stranger, still training the gun on him, he said, “Tell your bosses I’ll get to the truth one way or another. If they want to save me time, if they want to cooperate, maybe I’ll keep my mouth shut when I know what this is all about.”

  The gaunt man virtually spat out his response: “You’re dead.”

  “We’re all dead sooner or later.”

  “In your case, sooner.”

  “I’m not going to drop this case. I’m going to be a bulldog. Tell them that,” Alex said. “You people don’t scare me.”

  “We haven’t tried yet.”

  Still holding the pistol, Alex backed off. When he and the stranger were separated by twenty yards of pavement, he turned and walked away.

  At the end of the alley, when Alex glanced back, the gaunt man had vanished into the gloom and the snow.

  Alex rounded the corner and walked swiftly through the Gion maze toward more major thoroughfares.

  The blackness above the city seemed to be something other than an ordinary night sky, something worse, an astronomical oddity that bled all the heat from the world below, that sucked away the light as well, until even the dazzling spectacle of the Gion dimmed to a somber glow, until every bright-yellow bulb began to radiate a thin and sour aura, until red neon darkened to the muddy maroon of cold, coagulating blood.

  The late-autumn chill pierced him and scraped like a steel scalpel along his bones.

  It was not a night for sleeping alone, but the bed that awaited him would be empty, the sheets as crisp and cool as morgue shrouds.

  18

  In the lightless room, in bed, staring at the shadowy ceiling, Joanna startled herself by saying aloud: “Alex.” That involuntary word seemed to have been spoken by someone else, and it sounded like a soft cry for help.

  The name reverberated in her mind while she contem- plated all the meanings that it had for her.

  Misery was her only companion. She was being forced yet again to choose between a man and her obsessive need for an extraordinary degree of privacy. This time, however, either choice would destroy her. She was teetering on the brink of mental collapse.

  Her joy in life—and therefore her strength—had been drained by years of compulsive solitude.

  Nevertheless, if she dared to pursue Alex, the world would close like a vise around her, as it had done more than once before. In a waking nightmare, the ceiling, the walls, and the floor would appear to draw together from all sides, tighter, tighter, until she was reduced by claustrophobia to unreasoning animal panic. Huddled. Shaking. Unable to breathe. Gripped by an unshakable sense of doom.

  On the other hand, if she didn’t pursue him, she would finally have to accept that she would always be alone. Forever. He was her last chance. Resigning herself to unending loneliness was a heavier weight than she could carry.

  Either way, whether she reached out to Alex or shunned him, she would be unable to endure the consequences. She was so tired of the struggle of living.

  She longed for sleep. Her head ached. Her eyes burned. She felt as though innumerable lead weights encumbered her limbs. In sleep she would be briefly free.

  She raised herself from the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed. Without switching on the lamp, she opened the nightstand drawer and located the small bottle of the prescription drug on which she depended more nights than not. Although she’d taken one sedative an hour ago, she wasn’t even drowsy. One more couldn’t do any harm.

  But then she thought, Why just one more? Why not five, ten, an entire bottleful?

  Her exhaustion, her fear, and her depression at the prospect of perpetual loneliness were so grave that she didn’t reject the idea immediately, as she would have done only a day ago.

  In the darkness, like a penitent reverently fingering rosary beads, Joanna counted pills.

  Twenty.

  That was surely enough for a long sleep.

  No. She must not call it sleep. No euphemisms. She would hold on to at least some self-respect. She must be honest with herself, if nothing else. Call it by its true name. Suicide.

  She wasn’t frightened, repelled, or embarrassed by the word, and she realized that her weary acceptance represented a terrible loss of will. For as long as she could remember, she had been tough enough to face anything, but she had no resources left. She was so tired.

  Twenty pills.

  No more loneliness. No longer would she have to yearn for intimacy that she could never allow herself to accept. No more alienation. No more doubts. No more pain. No more nightmares, visions of syringes, and grasping mechanical hands. No more.

  She no longer had to choose between Alex Hunter and her sick compulsion to smash love when and where it arose. Now the choice was much simpler yet far more profound. For the moment she had to decide only whether to take one more pill—or all twenty.

  She held them in her cupped hands.

  They were as smooth and cool as tiny pebbles fished from a mountain stream.

  19

  Alex was accustomed to sleeping as little as possible. If time was money, then every minute spent in sleep was an act of financial irresponsibility. This night, however, he was not going to get even the few hours of rest that he usually required. His mind raced, and he couldn’t downshift it.

  Finally he got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator in the suite’s wet bar and sat in an armchair in the drawing room. The only light was that which came through the windows—the pale, ghostly radiance of predawn Kyoto.

  He was not worried about the people who had sent the dorobo to his hotel room and had him followed in the Gion. The single cause of his insomnia was Joanna. A torrent of images cascaded through his mind: Joanna in the pantsuit that she’d worn to lunch at Mizutani; Joanna on the stage of the Moonglow Lounge, moving sinuously in a clinging, red silk dress; Joanna laughing; Joanna so vibrant and alive in the Kyoto sun; Joanna frightened and huddled in the shade of the trees in the garden at Nijo Castle.

  He was filled with an almost painful desire, but more surprising was the tenderness that he felt toward her, something deeper than affection, deeper even than friendship.

  Not love.

  He didn’t believe in love.

  His parents had proved to him that lov
e was a word that had no meaning. Love was a sham, a hoax. It was a drug with which people deluded themselves, repressing their true feelings and all awareness of the primitive jungle reality of existence. Occasionally, and always with apparent sincerity, his mother and father had told him that they loved him. Sometimes, when the mood seized them—usually after their morning hangovers abated but before the new day’s intake of whiskey had awakened the dragons in them—they hugged him and wept and loudly despised themselves for what they had done the night before, for the latest black eye or bruise or burn or cut that they had administered. When they felt especially guilty, they bought lots of inexpensive gifts for him—comic books, small toys, candy, ice cream—as if a war had ended and reparations were required. They called it love, but it never lasted. In hours it faded, and it vanished altogether by nightfall. Eventually Alex had learned to dread his parents’ slobbering, boozy displays of “love,” because when love waned, as it always did, their anger and brutality seemed worse by comparison with the preceding brief moment of peace. At its best, love was just a seasoning like pepper and salt, enhancing the bitter flavor of loneliness, hatred, and pain.

  Therefore, he had not, would not, could not fall in love with Joanna Rand. His feelings for her were strong, more than lust, more than affection. Something new. And strange. If he was not falling in love, then he was at least sailing in uncharted waters, and the guide that he most needed was caution.

  He drank two bottles of beer and returned to bed. He couldn’t get comfortable. He lay in every position permitted by his injured left arm, yet sleep eluded him. The injury wasn’t the problem: Joanna was. He tried to banish all thoughts of her by picturing the hypnotic motion of the sea, the gracefully rolling masses of water, endless chains of waves surging through the night. After a time, he did grow drowsy, although even the primordial rhythms and mesmeric power of the sea couldn’t bar Joanna from his mind: She was the only swimmer in the currents of his dreams.

  He was awakened by the phone.

  According to the luminous number on the travel clock, it was four-thirty in the morning. He had been asleep less than an hour.

  He picked up the handset and recognized Mariko’s voice. “Alex-san, Joanna asked me to call you. Can you come here right away? A very bad thing has happened.”

  He sat up in bed, shuddering and suddenly nauseous. “What have they done to her?”

  “She’s done it to herself, Alex-san.” Mariko’s voice broke. “She tried to commit suicide.”

  20

  The sky was still spitting snow, but the accumulation on the streets was no more than a quarter of an inch by the time that the taxi dropped Alex at the Moonglow Lounge.

  Black hair cascading over her shoulders, ivory pins forgotten, Mariko was waiting for him at the front door of the club. “Joanna’s upstairs. The doctor’s with her.”

  “Will she be okay?”

  “He says she will.”

  “Is he a good doctor?”

  “Dr. Mifuni has been treating her for years.”

  “But is he any good?” he demanded, surprised by the vehemence in his voice.

  “Yes, Alex-san. He’s a good doctor.”

  He followed Mariko past the bar with the blue mirror into an elegantly decorated office and up a set of stairs to Joanna’s apartment.

  The living room was furnished with cane, rattan, and rosewood. There were half a dozen excellent watercolors on scrolls, and numerous potted plants.

  “She’s in the bedroom with Dr. Mifuni. We’ll wait here,” said Mariko, indicating a couch.

  Sitting beside her, Alex said, “Was it ... a gun?”

  “Oh, no. No. Thank God. Sleeping tablets.”

  “Who found her?”

  “She found me. I have a three-room apartment on the floor above this one. I was asleep ... and she came to my room, woke me.” Mariko’s voice faltered. “She said, ‘Mariko-san, I’m afraid I’m making a goddamned silly fool of myself, as usual.’ ”

  “Dear God.”

  “There were twenty pills in the bottle. She’d taken eighteen before she’d realized that suicide wasn’t the answer. I called an ambulance.”

  “Why isn’t she in a hospital?”

  “The paramedics came, made her swallow a tube ... pumped out her stomach right here.” She closed her eyes and grimaced at the memory.

  “I’ve seen it done,” Alex said. “It isn’t pleasant.”

  “I held her hand. By the time they were finished, Dr. Mifuni arrived. He didn’t think a hospital was necessary.”

  Alex glanced at the bedroom door. The silence behind it seemed ominous, and he had to resist an impulse to cross the living room and yank the door open to see if Joanna was all right.

  Looking at Mariko again, he said, “Is this the first time she tried to kill herself?”

  “Of course!”

  “Do you think she actually intended to go through with it?”

  “Yes, at first.”

  “What changed her mind?”

  “She realized it was wrong.”

  “Some people only pretend suicide. They’re looking for sympathy, or maybe for—”

  She interrupted him. Her voice was as cold as the vapor rising from a block of dry ice. “If you think Joanna would stoop to such a thing, then you don’t know her at all.” Mariko was stiff with anger. Her small hands were fisted on her lap.

  After a while he nodded. “You’re right. She’s not that mixed up ... or that selfish.”

  Gradually the stiffness left Mariko.

  He said, “But I wouldn’t think she’s the type to seriously consider suicide, either.”

  “She was so depressed before she met you. Then after she ... rejected you ... it got worse. At one moment she was so far down that death seemed the only way out. But she’s strong. Even stronger than my mama-san, who is an iron lady.”

  The bedroom door opened, and Dr. Mifuni entered the living room. He was a short man with a round face and thick black hair. When meeting someone new, the Japanese were usually quick to smile, but Mifuni was somber.

  Alex was sure that something had gone wrong, that Joanna had taken a turn for the worse. His mouth went as dry as talcum.

  Even under these less than ideal circumstances, Mariko took the time to introduce the two men formally, with a good word said about the qualities of each. Now there were bows and smiles all around.

  The introductory ritual almost shattered Alex’s brittle nerves. He nearly pushed past the physician and into the bedroom. But he controlled himself and said, “Isha-san dozo yoroshiku.”

  Mufini bowed too. “I am honored to make your acquaintance, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Is Joanna feeling better?” Mariko asked.

  “I’ve given her something to calm her. But there’s still time for Mr. Hunter to talk with her before the sedative takes effect.” He smiled at Alex again. “In fact, she insists on seeing you.”

  Unnerved by the emotional turmoil that gripped him, Alex went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  21

  Joanna was sitting in bed, propped against pillows, wearing blue silk pajamas. Although her hair was damp and lank, although she was so pale that her skin seemed translucent, although vague dark smudges of weariness encircled her eyes, she was still beautiful to him. The suffering showed only in her amethyst-blue eyes; that evidence of her pain and fear made Alex weak as he sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi.”

  “After they pumped all the sleeping pills out of me, I’ve been given a sedative. Isn’t that ironic?”

  He could think of nothing to say.

  “Before I fall asleep,” she said, “I want to know ... do you still think I’m really ... not who I think I am?”

  “Lisa Chelgrin? Yes. I do.”

  “How can you be so positive?”

  “There’ve been developments since we had lunch. I’m being followed everywhere I go.”

  “By whom?�
��

  “I need time to explain.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said.

  “But your eyes are beginning to droop.”

  She blinked rapidly. “I reached the breaking point tonight. Almost did a stupid thing.”

  “Hush. It’s over.”

  “I wanted to die. If I don’t have the courage to die ... then I’ve got to find out why I behave the way I do.”

  He held her hand and said nothing.

  “There’s something wrong with me, Alex. I’ve always felt so hollow, empty ... detached. Something happened to me a long time ago, something to make me the way I am. I’m not just ... not just making excuses for myself.”

  “I realize that. God knows what they did to you—or why.”

  “I have to find out what it was.”

  “You will.”

  “I’ve got to know his name.”

  “Whose name?” he asked.

  “The man with the mechanical hand.”

  “We’ll find him.”

  “He’s dangerous,” she said sleepily.

  “So am I.”

  Joanna slid down on the bed until she was flat on her back. “Damn it, I don’t want to go to sleep yet.”

  He took one of the two pillows from beneath her head and drew the covers to her chin.

  Her voice was growing thick. “There was a room ... a room that stank of antiseptics ... maybe a hospital somewhere.”

  “We’ll find it.”

  “I want to hire you to help me.”

  “I’ve already been hired. Senator Chelgrin paid me a small fortune to find his daughter. It’s about time I gave him something for his money.”

  “You’ll come back tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Whenever you want.”

  “One o’clock.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Her eyes fluttered, closed. “What if I’m not ... not awake by then?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  She was silent so long that he was sure she had fallen asleep. Then she said, “I was so scared.”

  “Everything will be fine. It’s okay.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Alex.”