The Game in the Past. John Zeugner
hotel in Shinjuku.
“He had one son, and I understand his wife came for sea burial ceremonies in Hawaii, but erected a monument in Denver. That’s an interesting problem, isn’t it—putting up a tombstone for a body not there?” Guade continued in the elevator, Moran watching his own widening grin in the circular mirror mounted on the back wall. “So in terms of removal Atcheson’s death was about as antiseptic as you could ask for.”
The corridor was grey-white and carpeted in grey-pink, spongy thickness, but Moran was delighted to find out Guade’s room was scarcely larger than his own in Shinjuku. There was one substantial difference. Guade’s bureau had a miniature bar on top of it, a rack of choice liquors in tiny bottles, and there was a refrigerator.
Moran unhesitatingly opened a tiny scotch bottle.
“I pay for that in the morning,” Guade said, irritated.
“I’ll deduct from the dinner tab,” Moran answered.
Guade sat on the bed, which doubled as a couch. Moran sank into a narrow straight-backed wicker chair opposite.
“Atcheson’s death—” Guade said.
“Look,” Moran interrupted, “I only made a suggestion about Atcheson. What’s the point in getting so riled up over it? I don’t think it makes any real difference. What would happen if you could show Atcheson was Mata Hari? Who’d care? And what would it prove historically?”
“You can’t make evaluations before the story is clear, can you?” Guade answered. “Why judge the data at the outset? You assemble the data and then decide. You simply can’t judge the sources at the outset.”
“As good a time as any,” More said. The T.V. seemed better than his Shinjuku version which was suspended about 18 inches from his bed.
“I want you to do something for me,” Guade said.
“Only if you pay your tab.”
Guade stared straight at the scotch bottle, then took a five thousand yen note from his wallet. “Are we even? Those cost 1,800 yen.”
“More than even,” Moran answered, taking the note.
“I want you to ask a question tomorrow. I want you to ask Wells a question. About Atcheson. Ask him why the Air Force wanted to see Atcheson’s papers as part of the Flight Accident Investigation.”
“And he’ll know?”
“He authorized the transfer, as often as not, from ’43 on Atcheson reported to him.”
“And Wells being here was also an accident?”
“You must have known it,” Guade said. “You must have foreseen it. That’s the best part. You set me up!”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“You’ll ask the question?”
“Why not? It’s a bland enough question.”
Part II, Moran’s Distraction
When Moran left he carried a large manila envelope, which Guade explained would reveal the other half of it he had promised. By exiting from the rear of the Hilton, using a floor below the lobby, it was possible to walk directly into a subway entrance of the Chiyoda line. Then by taking two enormous down escalators and walking the full length of the platform and then three escalators up you could get to the Marunouchi line without ever surfacing. The Chiyoda line platform was sparklingly new—greenish polished cement and tiles, and, surprisingly, without many passengers waiting for the next train. Walking the platform Moran decided was like stepping into a long horizontal urinal. You waited for the rushing water that came as the train arrived and in the meanwhile only your steps echoed in the gleaming porcelain tube.
He decided to stick the manila envelope inside his coat jacket. He clamped his arm against it. Safe. Unsnatchable. All of which, he knew, was absurd. Scotch-topped paranoia was contagious. For a while Moran imagined he was followed. On the first up escalator he slowly turned around and was disappointed to see only two school girls at the bottom.
Moran remembered a Guade-like fellow in graduate school who insisted one night in reciting for him all the outrageous accusations of the 1884 Presidential election, as if Moran would be equally mesmerized, indeed enchanted by Cleveland’s and Blaine’s taunts. Moran knew well enough the obsessional turn of mind such students had, but he was surprised that Guade, the polished scholar shared the disposition. Only the tiniest, jesting nudge had sent him charging into the documents, had tossed him against bureaucracy’s doors. Might it have been possible Guade was the first U.S. historian ever to demand to see accession lists at State? Who else would have thought of it? Only, Moran decided, the most diligent of conspiracy hunters, that is, those without choices beyond the ferreting life. And what did the ferreting life yield as benefit? Only its own obsession and commitment—it’s terrific determination to discover something in the void of the past at the expense of the present? Only its ferocity of determination to find something out that ultimately became an interpretive mirage anyway? Still there was Guade’s enviable energy, focus, stellar unconsciousness. Who knew what those implements might yield?
Moran took the local to Shinjuku san-chome. He exited through the basement of Isetan Department Store, and then, in a sudden lurch of sentiment turned right rather than left and started walking toward the main Shinjuku Station, the entertainment district. His business hotel was quite the other direction, a choice, he decided a thousand, more likely several thousand, Japanese business men made every evening. Japanese movies and television shows were filled with the adventures of peasants from Kyushu or Hokkaido who couldn’t keep away from the attractions surrounding Shinjuku Station.
This main entertainment district, the kabukicho, was a grid of narrow streets, closed to most cars, and suddenly on all sides by bars, night clubs, game parlors, pachinko parlors, strip shows, discos, tiny eating places (with six or eight stools at the counter), basement coffee houses and on top floor, lounges. Before every building tuxedoed barkers poured out beckonings in the scarlet and orange-filled sky. Neon pulsated; the clouds overhead contained apparently, fluorescent lights. Reams of wandering Japanese, men with arms around each other, propping each other up in order to vomit, chic couples in the latest gear—army fatigues, string dresses, wide lapel suits, elegant frost white blouses, white patent leather shoes. And spreading charcoal fumes. Wine stink. Sake scents. Boiling water humidity bathing the area. Lurid posters and mechanical neon signs, and withal, a constant babble in another language. Moran could only pick out phrases. He was better used to the slurring of the dialect in Osaka. There appeared to be a greater precision of pronunciation in Tokyo, less emotive signaling in the phrases, yet more hostility in the muted tones.
Moran stopped first at a ramen stand and ordered another bottle of beer. Then, bolstered, he headed back out into the throngs. He oriented himself by keeping an eye on the enormous billboard atop a building that ran the full length of the block, advertising a sado-masochist show. When the rant of the barkers became more insistent and the neon grew more brilliantly orange, Moran knew he had entered the roadway of so called “love hotels” and “Turko baths”. And then a young, apparently Japanese fellow, in a slightly stained double breasted tuxedo was standing in front of him speaking insistently into Moran’s face—about ten inches, it seemed, from his nose. Was it English?
“Good time, eh? Very good time in here. And not so expensive. Good time, eh? Eh?”
Moran instinctively drew back, but the fellow pressed in. His breath, like that of lots of Japanese, smelled foul. “Good time?” Moran queried attempting to slow the pressure.
“Yes. So. So. Very good time. I fix it for you. I fix it for you. Come on in. Come in now!”
“How much?” Moran asked, back stepping further.
“Very inexpensive. Come on, I’ll show you. He grabbed Moran’s left arm. Moran felt the envelope shifting. He clamped it harder to his side and went along with the fellow.
At first Moran thought they were going upstairs, but