toward leaving the world entirely and shutting himself in a monastery, he couldn't stay away from these women. The jo-san, the play-for-pay hostesses. If only to look at them and talk to them and then go home alone to masturbate in his tiny cubicle, in case his burned-out wild card ability had started to come back, in case the tantric power was beginning to build inside his Muladhara chakra.
When the water wasn't painful anymore, he got up and soaped and rinsed again and got back into the ofuro. It was time, he thought, for a decision. Either to face Peregrine and the others at the hotel, or leave town entirely, maybe stay a week at the Shukubo in Chiba City so he wouldn't run into them by accident.
Or, he thought, the third way. Let fate decide. Go on about his business, and if he was meant to find them, he would.
It happened five days later, just before sunset on Tuesday afternoon, and it was not an accident at all. He'd been talking to a waiter he knew in the kitchen of the Chikuyotei, and he'd taken the back door into an alley. When he looked up, she was there.
"Fortunato," she said. She held her wings straight out behind her. Still, they nearly touched the walls of the alley. She wore a deep blue off-the-shoulder knit dress that clung to her body. She looked to be about six months pregnant. Nothing he'd seen had mentioned it.
There was a man with her, from India or somewhere near it. He was about fifty, thick in the middle, losing his hair.
"Peregrine," Fortunato said. She looked upset, tired, relieved-all at once. Her arms came up and Fortunato went to her and held her gently. She rested her forehead on his shoulder for a second and then pulled away.
"This ... this is G. C. Jayewardene," Peregrine said. The man put his palms together, elbows out, and ducked his head. "He helped me find you."
Fortunato bowed jerkily. Christ, he thought, I'm turning Japanese. Next I'll be stammering nonsense syllables at the beginning of every sentence, not even be able to talk anymore. "How did you know..." he said.
"The wild card," Jayewardene said. " I saw this moment a month ago." He shrugged. "The visions come without my asking. I don't know why or what they mean. I'm their prisoner."
"I know the feeling," Fortunato said. He looked at Peregrine again. He reached out and put a hand on her stomach. He could feel the baby moving inside her. "It's mine. Isn't it?"
She bit her lip, nodded. "But that's not the reason I'm here. I would have left you alone. I know it's what you wanted. But we need your help."
"What kind of help?"
"It's Hiram," she said. "He's disappeared."
Peregrine needed to sit down. In New York or London or Mexico City there would have been a park within walking distance. In Tokyo the space was too valuable. Fortunato's apartment was a half-hour train ride away, a four-tatami room, six feet by twelve, in a gray-walled complex with narrow halls and communal toilets and no grass or trees. Besides, only a lunatic would try to ride a train at rush hour, when whitegloved railroad employees stood by to shove people into already-packed cars.
Fortunato took them around the corner to a cafeteriastyle sushi bar. The decor was red vinyl, white Formica, and chrome. The sushi traveled the length of the room on a conveyor belt that passed all the booths.
"We can talk here," Fortunato said. "But I wouldn't try the food. If you want to eat, I'll take you someplace else-but it'd mean waiting in line."
"No," Peregrine said. Fortunato could see that the sharp vinegar and fish smells weren't sitting well on her stomach. "This is fine."
They'd already asked each other how they'd been, walking over here, and both of them had been pleasant and vague in their answers. Peregrine had told him about the baby. Healthy, she said, normal as far as anyone could tell. Fortunato had asked Jayewardene a few polite questions. There was nothing left but to get down to it.
"He left this letter," Peregrine said. Fortunato looked it over. The handwriting seemed jagged, unlike Hiram's usual compulsive penmanship. It said he was leaving the tour for "personal reasons." He assured everyone he was in good health. He hoped to rejoin them later. If not, he would see them in New York.
"We know where he is," Peregrine said. "Tachyon found him, telepathically, and made sure he wasn't hurt