Mona Lisa Overdrive

Kumiko saw that the silver lenses met the pale skin with no sign of a seam.

Sally reached for the empty whiskey glass, tilted it without lifting it from the table, and regarded it critically. "I met your father once," she said. "He wasn't as far up the ladder, back then." She abandoned the glass for her mug of ale. "Swain says you're half gaijin. Says your mother was Danish." She swallowed some of the ale. "You don't look it."

"She had them change my eyes."

"Suits you."

"Thank you. And your glasses," she said, automatically, "they are very handsome."

Sally shrugged. "Your old man let you see Chiba yet?"

Kumiko shook her head.

"Smart. I was him, I wouldn't either." She drank more ale. Her nails, evidently acrylic, were the shade and sheen of mother-of-pearl. "They told me about your mother." Her face burning, Kumiko lowered her eyes.

"That's not why you're here. You know that? He didn't pack you off to Swain because of her. There's a war on. There hasn't been high-level infighting in the Yakuza since before I was born, but there is now." The empty pint clinked as Sally set it down. "He can't have you around, is all. You'd be too easy to get to. A guy like Swain's pretty far off the map, far as Kanaka's rivals are concerned. Why you got a passport with a different name, right? Swain owes Kanaka. So you're okay, right?"

Kumiko felt the hot tears come.

"Okay, so you're not okay." The pearl nails drummed on marble. "So she did herself and you're not okay. Feel guilty, right?"

Kumiko looked up, into twin mirrors.

Portobello was choked Shinjuku-tight with tourists. Sally Shears, after insisting Kumiko drink the orange squash, which had grown warm and flat, led her out into the packed street. With Kumiko firmly in tow, Sally began to work her way along the pavement, past folding steel tables spread with torn velvet curtains and thousands of objects made of silver and crystal, brass and china. Kumiko stared as Sally drew her past arrays of Coronation plate and jowled Churchill teapots. "This is gomi," Kumiko ventured, when they paused at an intersection. Rubbish. In Tokyo, worn and useless things were landfill. Sally gri

The talent wore a bottle-green velvet suit and immaculate suede wingtips, and Sally found him in another pub, this one called the Rose and Crown. She introduced him as Tick. He was scarcely taller than Kumiko, and something was skewed in his back or hip, so that he walked with a pronounced limp that heightened an overall impression of asymmetry. His black hair was shaved close at the back and sides, but piled into an oily loaf of curls above his forehead.

Sally introduced Kumiko: "My friend from Japan and keep your hands to yourself." Tick smiled wanly and led them to a table.

"How's business, Tick?"

"Fine," he said glumly. "How's retirement?"

Sally seated herself on a padded bench, her back to the wall. "Well," she said, "it's sort of on again, off again."

Kumiko looked at her. The rage had evaporated, or else been expertly concealed. As Kumiko sat down, she slid her hand into her purse and found the unit. Colin popped into focus on the bench beside Sally.

"Nice of you to think of me," Tick said, taking a chair. "Been two years, I'd say." He cocked an eyebrow in Kumiko's direction.

"She's okay. You know Swain, Tick?"

"Strictly by reputation, thank you."

Colin was studying their exchange with amused fascination, moving his head from side to side as though he were watching a te

"I want you to turn him over for me. I don't want him to know."

He stared at her. The entire left half of his face contorted in a huge slow wink. "Well then," he said, "you don't half want much, do you?"

"Good money, Tick. The best."

"Looking for something in particular, or is it a laundry run? Isn't as though people don't know he's a top nob in the rackets. Can't say I'd want him to find me on his manor ... "

"But then there's the money, Tick."

Two very rapid winks.

"Roger's twisting me, Tick. Somebody's twisting him. I don't know what they've got on him, don't much care. What he's got on me is enough. What I want to know is who, where, when. Tap in to incoming and outgoing traffic. He's in touch with somebody, because the deal keeps changing."

"Would I know it if I saw it?"

"Just have a look, Tick. Do that for me."

The convulsive wink again. "Right, then. We'll have a go." He drummed his fingers nervously on the edge of the table. "Buy us a round?"

Colin looked across the table at Kumiko and rolled his eyes.

"I don't understand," Kumiko said, as she followed Sally back along Portobello Road. "You have involved me in an intrigue ... "

Sally turned up her collar against the wind.

"But I might betray you. You plot against my father's associate. You have no reason to trust me."

"Or you me, honey. Maybe I'm one of those bad people your daddy's worried about."

Kumiko considered this. "Are you?"

"No. And if you're Swain's spy, he's gotten a lot more baroque recently. If you're your old man's spy, maybe I don't need Tick. But if the Yakuza's ru

"I am no spy."

"Then start being your own. If Tokyo's the frying pan, you may just have landed in the fire."

"But why involve me?"

"You're already involved. You're here. You scared?"

"No," Kumiko said, and fell silent, wondering why this should be true.

Late that afternoon, alone in the mirrored garret, Kumiko sat on the edge of the huge bed and peeled off her wet boots. She took the Maas-Neotek unit from her purse.

"What are they?" she asked the ghost, who perched on the parapet of the black marble tub.

"Your pub friends?"

"Yes."

"Criminals. I'd advise you to associate with a better class, myself. The woman's foreign. North American. The man's a Londoner. East End. He's a data thief, evidently. I can't access police records, except with regard to crimes of historical interest."

"I don't know what to do ... "

"Turn the unit over."

"What?"

"On the back. You'll see a sort of half-moon groove there. Put your thumbnail in and twist ... "

A tiny hatch opened. Microswitches.

"Reset the A/B throw to B. Use something narrow, pointed, but not a biro."

"A what?"

"A pen. Ink and dust. Gum up the works. A toothpick's ideal. That'll set it for voice-activated recording."

"And then?"

"Hide it downstairs. We'll play it back tomorrow ... "