turned the place into a slum. There were clothes and towels all over the floor, plates of dried-out food and smudged highball glasses, stacks of newspapers and magazines. It smelled faintly of acetone and a mixture of sweat and old booze.
Hiram himself had lost weight. His clothes sagged around him like they were still on hangers. After he let Fortunato in, he walked back to the bed without saying anything. Fortunato shut the door, dumped a dirty shirt off a chair, and sat down. "So," Hiram said at last. "It would seem I've been ferreted out."
"They're worried. They think you might be in some kind of trouble."
"It's nothing. There's absolutely nothing for them to be concerned about. Didn't they get my note?"
"Don't bullshit me, Hiram. You've gotten messed up with the yakuza. Those are not the kind of people you take chances with. Tell me what happened."
Hiram stared at him. "If I don't tell you, you'll just come in and get it, won't you?" Fortunato shrugged, another bluff. "Yeah. Right."
" I just want to help," Fortunato said.
"Well, your help is not required. It's a small matter of money. Nothing else."
"How much money?"
"A few thousand."
"Dollars, of course." A thousand yen were worth a little over five dollars U.S. "How did it happen? Gambling?"
"Look, this is all rather embarrassing. I'd prefer not to talk about it, all right?"
"You're saying this to a man who was a pimp for thirty years. Do you think I'm going to come down on you? Whatever you did?"
Hiram took a , deep breath. "No. I suppose not."
"Talk to me."
"I was out walking Saturday night, kind of late, over on Roppongi Street.. . ."
"By yourself?"
"Yes." He was embarrassed again. "I'd heard a lot about the women here. I just wanted to ... tantalize myself, you know? The mysterious Orient. Women who would fulfill your wildest dreams. I'm a long way from home. I just... wanted to see."
It wasn't that different from what Fortunato had been doing the last six months. "I understand."
"I saw a sign that said `English-speaking hostesses.' I went in and there was a long hallway. I must have missed the place the sign was for. I went back into the building a long way. There was a padded kind of a door at the end, no sign or anything. When I got inside, they took my coat and went away with it somewhere. Nobody spoke English. Then these girls more or less dragged me over to a table and got me buying them drinks. There were three of them. I had one or two drinks myself. More than one or two. It was a sort of a dare. They were using sign language, teaching me some Japanese. God. They were so beautiful. So ... delicate, you know? But with huge dark eyes that would look at you and then skitter away. Half shy and half... I don't know. Challenging. They said nobody had ever drunk ten jars of saki there before. Like no one had ever been quite man enough. So I did. By then they had me pretty well convinced I would get all three of them for a reward."
Hiram started to sweat. The drops ran down his face and he wiped them off with the cuff of a stained silk shirt. "I was ... well, very aroused, shall we say. And drunk. They kept flirting and touching me on the arm, so lightly, like butterflies landing on my skin. I suggested we go somewhere. They kept putting me off. Ordering more drinks. And then I just lost control."
He looked up at Fortunato. "I haven't been ... quite myself lately. Something just came over me in that bar. I guess I grabbed one of the girls. Sort of tried to take her dress off. She started screaming and all three of them ran away. Thep the bouncer started hustling me toward the door, waving a bill in my face. It was for fifty thousand yen. Even drunk I knew there was something wrong. He pointed at my coat and then at a number. Then the jars of saki and more numbers. Then the girls and more numbers. I think that was what really got to me. Paying so much money just to be flirted with."
"They were the wrong girls," Fortunato said. "Christ, there's a million women for sale in this town. All you have to do is ask a taxi driver."
"Okay. Okay. I made a mistake. It could happen to anybody. But they went