Read The Miko - 02 for Free Online Page B

not even sure I know which now.”
    Time to break the mood, Nicholas thought, and he clambered slowly out of the tub. Tomkin followed, and they went through another door into a steam room. They sat on hexagonal tiles while the long vertical pipe coughed and belched pockets of water that ran down, gurgling into the drain. Then, with a great gout of sound, the steam began to shout from the open end of the pipe and talk became impossible.
    Precisely five minutes after they entered, a warning bell rang. They could no longer see one another though they sat fairly close together. Periodically, the pipe running along the tiled wall to their left screamed like a banshee, delivering forth a new cloud of steam which wrapped itself around their shoulders with a new wave of heat.
    Nicholas touched Tomkin on his beefy shoulder, and they went out through the second door set into the far wall.
    They were in a fairly large, dimly lighted room that smelled faintly of birch and mentholated camphor. Four long padded tables were aligned along the periphery of the room. Two tables were occupied by dark lumps that they soon could make out as bodies. A young woman stood by each table.
    “Gentlemen.” A male figure sat up on the table to their right. He bowed slightly. “I trust you are more relaxed than when you entered our doorway.”
    “Sato,” Tomkin said. “It took you—” But feeling the pressure of Nicholas’ hand on his arm, he changed in midsentence. “This’s a helluva way to greet us. The Okura couldn’t’ve done as well.”
    “Oh, no, we cannot come up to that standard.” But Seiichi Sato nodded his head in acknowledgement of the compliment. “Linnear-san,” he said, turning slightly, “it is an honor to meet you at last. I have heard much about you.” He swung his legs around, lay back down. “Tell me, are you pleased to be back home?”
    “My home is now America, Sato-san,” Nicholas said carefully. “Much has changed in Japan since I left, but I trust there is more that has remained the same.”
    “You missed your calling, Linnear-san,” Sato said. “You should have been a politician.”
    Nicholas wondered who was lying on the table against the far wall.
    “Lie down, please, gentlemen,” Sato said. “You have not yet completed your course in relaxation.”
    They did as he bade, and immediately two more young women emerged from the semidarkness. Nicholas felt the splash and roll of oil, then skilled hands kneading his muscles.
    “Perhaps you are already wondering why these girls are not Japanese, Linnear-san? Do not think I am not nationalistic. However, I am a realist as well. These girls are from Taiwan.” He chuckled. “They’re blind, Linnear-san, could you tell that? The prevailing explanation is that their affliction allows them a more sensitive sense of touch. I am inclined to agree. Ever since my first trip to Taiwan in ’56, I have dreamed of bringing Taiwan masseuses here to Japan. What do you think, Linnear-san?”
    “Superb,” Nicholas grunted. The girl was turning his rocklike muscles to butter beneath her talented fingers and palms. He breathed deeply into the expansion, experiencing an almost dizzying sense of exhilaration.
    “I was obliged to remain in Taiwan for ten days while we jury-rigged a deal that was falling through. I assure both you gentlemen that the only worthwhile features of that country are its cuisine and its extraordinary blind masseuses.”
    For a time then there was only the soft somnolent slap of flesh against flesh, the sharp camphor smell of the liniment that somehow increased the overall sense of drowsiness.
    Nicholas’ mind returned to the mysterious fourth man. He was well acquainted with the convoluted byways of Japanese business structure, so different and alien to Westerners. He knew that despite the fact Sato was this keiretsu ’s—enterprise group’s—president, still there were many layers, many men in power, and there were those in the highest