Fallen Angel (9781101578810) Page 4

  He dug in his pocket for a business card and handed it to her. “My mobile number is on the back.”

  She shrank back against the door.

  He peered into her downcast face and saw fear. “Now that The Zombie doesn’t have Cherry to slap around, will he start asking for you?”

  Her quick, frightened glance told him everything he needed to know. She bowed and ducked back into the club, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Chapter 6

  Friday, November 8

  9:00 P.M.

  Hoshi

  Hoshi wiped his mouth. It had been a long time since he’d had to throw up a bottle of champagne, but tonight he wasn’t sure it would be the last.

  In the host club upstairs, three separate tables were waiting for him, and each of his women thought he spent too much time with other customers and not nearly enough whispering sweet nothings into her own ear. They’d all wait to order the Dom Pérignon and the hundred thousand yen brandy until he was sitting beside them, helping drink it.

  He moved to the sink to rinse the sour taste from his mouth and splash water on his face. It had been years since he’d felt guilty that his customer had paid ¥70,000 for the champagne he’d just recycled to the Tokyo sewers. He’d learned the hard way that if he didn’t take care of business promptly after one of them made him drink too much too fast, he’d pass out and the ladies who paid for his company would be royally pissed off.

  Because his best patrons visited the club several times a week, tonight Hoshi’s brown eyes were blue. Customers easily became bored; keeping his look fresh and exciting was a constant challenge. Although his face had changed little in the eight years he’d been working as a host—features still appealingly boyish, though slightly more chiseled—his smile had become slightly sardonic and he barely remembered what he looked like with black hair. Recently he’d boosted the color from reddish blond to platinum, but kept the razored, shoulder-length cut that allowed women to fantasize they were dallying with a rock star. His carefully cultivated resemblance to the vocalist in the visual kei band XtaSea had always served him well.

  He checked his Rolex. 9:04. Mrs. Ono had paid handsomely for him to attend to her exclusively for half an hour. Six more minutes to go. He inspected his reflection. Dammit, was that a smear of her lipstick on his collar? She really was a pain. Still, she’d dropped ¥100,000 last week and over ¥150,000 tonight. Clients like her were essential to his long-term plans, so he had no choice but to figure out how to keep them entertained while giving away as little of his real self as possible.

  He moved closer to the mirror and checked his teeth anxiously. Last week Shinya had told him he’d heard that throwing up could take the enamel right off. Was it his imagination, or were the front ones looking a bit translucent?

  He’d have to worry about it later. Right now he had to consider how he was going to duck Mrs. Ono’s persistent hints that he take her to a love hotel after closing time. As one of the club’s top five hosts, he never had to give in to customers who wanted sex. That didn’t stop them from trying, though; the hope they’d get lucky some night was what kept them coming back for more. He was an expert at walking that fine line, but the Ono Trading Company chairman’s wife was a demanding woman. She was used to getting what she wanted. Anything she wanted. Tonight, for example, she’d called at the last minute and made him come in early.

  He was beginning to regret she’d designated him her shimeisha; for the past three months he’d been taking home a gratifying percentage of her monthly bar tab in exchange for being her primary entertainer, but even so, it might not be enough for his trouble. She didn’t seem to understand that even though he was her shimeisha, she still had to share him with his other loyal customers. And like every successful host, he had quite a few others.

  His thoughts turned to the rest of the evening. After he finished with Mrs. Ono, he’d reward Coco for her patience by asking if she was turning twenty-two on her birthday next month, even though he knew she was already twenty-six. Then he’d attend to the other two patrons he’d spotted being seated as he slipped out to the locker room.

  Hoshi tipped his head toward the ceiling and dosed his eyes with Super Minty drops. The sting of peppermint reminded him of his first months as a host, back when he was a homesick nineteen-year-old from Ibaraki prefecture, hoping to make enough money to open a motorcycle repair shop in his hometown and marry his childhood sweetheart. He recapped the bottle and leaned toward the mirror to tweak his hair into shape.

  His childhood sweetheart would never recognize him now.

  Chapter 7

  Friday, November 8

  10:30 P.M.

  Yumi

  Yumi didn’t know whether to be relieved or outraged as she watched Coco flirt with the bedroom-eyed prince across the table at Club Nova.

  Relieved, because her friend wasn’t working nights as a hostess after all; outraged because the five ¥10,000 notes she’d passed Coco under the table were going to pay for the ridiculously expensive, half-empty bottle of champagne she was sharing with the host she’d introduced as Hoshi.

  Yumi looked around Club Nova as Coco’s stylish escort refilled her empty glass and added a few token drops to Yumi’s untouched one. Every table was staffed by young men who looked as though they’d just hung up their electric guitars and walked offstage to mingle with adoring fans: extravagant bleached hair, multiple earrings, elegant edgy suits. But these guys didn’t play guitar; they played women. They lit cigarettes, poured drinks, dispensed compliments, and pretended to care.

  If Ichiro’s relentlessly conservative Japanese family found out she’d been to a host club, she’d be dead. She’d already had to tell a half truth to her fiancé, explaining that she’d made plans with Coco to go out and celebrate her “birthday.” When Yumi had arrived at Club Nova, she’d discovered Coco’s “emergency” was that she was afraid she wouldn’t have enough cash to cover the evening’s bar tab, and didn’t want to lose face in front of handsome, charming Hoshi, whom she knew a whole lot better than she ought to.

  Why was her friend wasting time—and money—on a host?

  Hoshi lit Coco’s cigarette with an engraved lighter he’d produced with a flourish from his vest pocket, then put it away and excused himself for a moment. Champagne call, two tables over.

  The entire staff gathered around an already tipsy woman who wore her dark hair long and elaborately curled, even though she was pushing forty. She’d ordered a bottle of “Dom Peri” and requested that Hoshi join her to drink it. He sat next to her and she leaned over to whisper something in his ear. He replied, and she jokingly slapped him on the cheek. Laser lights sparkled over the crowd. The host who’d been sitting with her began chanting the club drinking song into a cordless mike as Hoshi popped the champagne and the waiter poured it into glasses awaiting the group toast.

  Everyone cheered as the tray was passed. They all drank, then the bottle was handed to the customer. She tried her best to down the remaining champagne while Hoshi held a towel under her chin to catch any drips. Coco whispered that the guy with the mike was Shō, the club’s #1 host. Hoshi was about to pass him in the rankings and grab the top spot this week.

  The woman came up for air, unable to finish. She reeled a bit, then handed the bottle to Hoshi. Striking a heroic pose, he upended it while his client and the other hosts urged him on. Triumphantly, he raised the empty above his head and turned to the customer with a practiced smile, settling her back into her seat. She gazed up at him adoringly and tried to pull him down onto the banquette next to her, but he whispered something in her ear and excused himself, disappearing behind a screen near the bar.

  The club settled back into dark intimacy, and a few minutes later Hoshi returned to Yumi and Coco’s table with an elegantly lanky young man in tow. The newcomer’s dark hair was streaked with blond, razored and waxed to mussy perfection. A small silver stud nestled into a piercing below his lower lip, and a silver cuff rode high on his right ear.
Under his black vest, the low V-neck of his white T-shirt revealed a heavy baroque cross. Three chains hung with four-leaf-clover charms were swagged between a belt loop and the pocket of his narrow, black jeans. Handing Yumi a name card, he introduced himself as Shinya, then pulled out the chair next to her, topping up the champagne in their glasses and pouring himself a drink from their bottle.

  Yumi did a double take. Wasn’t there something familiar…? But before she could introduce herself, Hoshi leaned across the table and smiled. “Forgive me. I forgot to ask if you have a nickname you’d like to use…?”

  A nickname? It suddenly registered that Hoshi had switched to addressing her in the familiar style of Japanese used between close friends. The club’s seductive atmosphere, the closeness suggested by the use of nicknames, the kind of attentiveness that was seldom lavished on Japanese women by Japanese men, were all calculated to make customers relax, to skip straight past acquaintance and friendship to intimacy.

  “No,” she said, realizing he was still waiting for an answer. “Just call me Yumi.”

  Shinya stared at her for a moment, then occupied himself pulling out a pack of Mild Sevens. He offered her one, and when she declined, asked if she minded. She shook her head, and as he took his first drag, recognition dawned. That profile, that cigarette.

  “Hey, didn’t you and your friends used to hang around outside the salon next to the cram school where I worked when I was in high school?” The Elite Number One juku was next door to a beauty salon where the most princess-y of Princess Gals worked coveted part-time jobs, getting paid next to nothing but keeping up their bleached hair and elaborate fingernails for free.

  “Guilty,” he said, pulling the ashtray closer and smiling as smoke curled lazily from his cigarette. “I thought I recognized you. My big sister used to cut your hair.”

  Yumi frowned, confused. “But I thought your name was Daiki?”

  “Yeah, like half the boys in my kindergarten class. When I started working here, my sempai helped me pick a professional name.” He inclined his head toward Hoshi, who was attentively nodding as Coco complained about her boss.

  So Shinya was Hoshi’s kohai. She shouldn’t be surprised that the sempai-kohai system thrived in even the shadiest corners of Japanese business. Hosts probably had to be taught the skills peculiar to their industry just like salarymen and government workers had to be shepherded up the career ladder. In fact, she shouldn’t be surprised that Daiki had changed his name. Host and hostess clubs grew out of the geisha tradition and still followed that business model—attractive, entertaining companionship had always been available for a price. But beneath the instant intimacy was an impenetrable barrier: No geisha was ever known by her real name.

  Yumi shook her head, trying to reconcile the polished ladies’ man across the table with the slouching, class-cutting punk she remembered. “I’d never have recognized you if you hadn’t lit that cigarette.”

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “I didn’t recognize you either. I always thought you were pretty, but when you walked in tonight, I saw you across the room and thought, Wow.”

  “Me?”

  “I used to hang around outside on the days you worked, hoping you’d come out someday without that foreign guy who always stuck to you like glue.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” she said, her suddenly red cheeks betraying that some part of her hoped he wasn’t.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t realize how gorgeous you are,” he murmured, his hair tickling her cheek. “Didn’t that boyfriend of yours ever tell you? If I’d known he was that lame, I’d have offered to teach him a thing or two. Or,” he whispered, his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath, “I’d have told you myself.”

  She hadn’t been prepared for this. Flustered, she pulled back and turned to Coco. “Coco-chan, did you know Shinya used to hang out by that salon next to my cram school?”

  Coco tore herself away from Hoshi for a moment to say, “He’s the one who invited me here in the first place, silly. I ran into him last year when he was working at the Jackrose store, and he told me he’d just been recruited.”

  “I was so nervous.” Shinya laughed, topping up Yumi’s glass. “I begged her to come, just to see a friendly face on my first night.” He deftly refilled Coco’s and Hoshi’s glasses, too.

  “You spilled shō-chū all over my skirt, remember?” Coco said, “But fortunately Hoshi rescued me, and he’s trained you up quite nicely since then.”

  Shinya laughed and raised his glass. “It would be hard to get worse.”

  Coco returned her attention to the object of her affections. Hoshi took that as an invitation to push back his chair and move over next to her on the banquette, resting his arm casually behind her shoulders. He leaned close to whisper something in Coco’s ear and she giggled.

  Shinya’s gaze strayed to something reflected in the mirrored wall over Yumi’s shoulder. She looked up to see the manager hurriedly steering a man toward a door behind the bar. Yumi froze. Men didn’t come to host clubs, but that wasn’t why she was still staring at the door after it closed. She was wondering why a policeman had come to the club. In particular, she was wondering why that policeman had come to the club.

  Kenji Nakamura. She hadn’t seen him since she’d been a witness in a case he was investigating last spring. She’d tried not to even think of him since then. Their involvement had threatened to turn her life upside down and derail her marriage plans.

  “Someone you know?” Shinya asked.

  “No. Well, yes. We went to school together.”

  “Uh-huh.” He gave her a knowing smile.

  Kenji bending down to kiss her with those seductively curving lips. The way he’d tasted of tobacco that first time, surprising her, making her realize how much about her old classmate she didn’t know. Stop it. She couldn’t afford to think about Kenji Nakamura.

  They’d met in third grade, when her family abruptly moved back from America and took up residence in her father’s old family house in Komagome. Crossing paths last April, she’d been stunned by how much he’d changed. Within days of agreeing to marry Ichiro, she’d been blindsided by an attraction that had pulled her to Kenji like throwing a switch on an electromagnet. But she’d done the right thing, turned her back on temptation. She’d avoided him since.

  Yumi forced herself to turn her attention back to Shinya and smile. She downed a big slug of champagne.

  Coco turned to Yumi, more than a little tipsy. “Shall we order another?” she asked, lifting the nearly empty bottle and waggling it back and forth.

  “Coco, I don’t think…”

  The club manager appeared next to their table and bent down to murmur something in Hoshi’s ear. The host removed his arm from behind Coco’s shoulders, rose to his feet, and said with a bow, “Sorry, ladies. Please excuse me for a moment.”

  He followed the manager toward the door behind the bar.

  Shinya divided the last of the champagne between the two women’s glasses, held up the empty bottle, and asked, “Would you like me to order another?”

  Coco pouted. “Not if Hoshi isn’t here to help us drink it. I was thinking of ordering a second one so he’d be sure to make number one this week, but…when do you think he’ll be back?”

  Shinya smiled and said he was sure it wouldn’t be long, then launched into a story about something amusing Hoshi had done during the hosts’ trip to Bali the previous spring.

  What was going on? Yumi wondered. Why had Hoshi been summoned to the room where Kenji was sequestered with the manager? Was he involved in some sort of crime?

  “Oh, Bali,” sighed Coco. “I wish I could have been there, too.”

  Yumi’s attention snapped back to her friend. Bali? Coco Kawaguchi had never been outside Japan. She didn’t even have a passport. Yumi’s fears resurfaced. Falling for a host was a very bad idea. Time to get her out of here and have a serious talk. She hoped Coco wasn’t already in over her head.

&
nbsp; “Coco-chan, it’s late. Come on, let’s go home.”

  “But I haven’t said good-bye to Hoshi yet!”

  “I’m sure he’ll understand.” Yumi sighed, her tiredness no act.

  Coco gave the firmly shut door a final glance, then reluctantly agreed.

  Shinya caught the eye of the man staffing the bar, and a waiter appeared with a small white envelope, presenting it to Coco on a silver tray. She looked at the bill and counted out ¥45,000 from her own purse plus four of Yumi’s ¥10,000 notes, turning all the bills so they faced the same way and sliding them into the envelope. She handed the tray back to the server and slipped the remaining ¥10,000 note back to Yumi under the table.

  Coco stood, swaying slightly, and said to Shinya, “I can’t come in tomorrow night, but tell Hoshi I’ll see you Sunday at the anniversary event for sure.”

  Shinya bowed, and rose to see them out.

  Chapter 8

  Friday, November 8

  10:30 P.M.

  Kenji

  The Club Nova manager was waiting for Kenji as the elevator doors slid open. Unlike his employees, Masato’s hair remained black, and while his suit was cut considerably more sharply than Kenji’s, his white shirt and dark tie wouldn’t have been out of place in a corporate boardroom. His heavy gold Rolex and handsome face were the only hints he’d once been a successful host himself.

  When Kenji had arrived around 8:00, he’d been annoyed to discover that Hoshi didn’t usually start work before 10:00. The top five hosts were allowed to skip entertaining the walk-in crowd, saving their attentions for the free-spending clients who’d made fashionably late reservations to party with their shimeishas. So Kenji had killed two hours sitting by the window in a nearby restaurant, eating cheap ramen, drinking green tea, and watching hosts aggressively enticing women into their clubs.