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strange,” I added when Michael shot me an annoyed look. “If we pull together the information showing that Mitsutan is worth less than they say they are—well, that would be helpful for Jimmy DeLone, when he finally pulls out his checkbook.”
    Michael wasn’t facing me, because he was placing the clipping on the photocopier’s glass plate, but I could see his shoulders stiffen under the striped oxford shirt he was wearing.
    â€œRei, who do you work for?”
    â€œYou?” Was this a trick question?
    â€œNo, you don’t work for me.” Michael sounded exasperated. “Yes, I’m your supervisor, but you work for a greater entity: OCI, and beyond that, the CIA. I don’t believe anyone would think that you sound like a loyal employee at the moment.” Michael picked up the photocopied papers and slapped them both down on my desk.
    â€œJust because I asked a question?” I wrinkled my nose at Michael. “Come on, you’ve got to have some of these questions in the back of your mind, too.”
    â€œAgreed,” Michael said evenly. “Every good officer should ask questions. But I can tell you that our government is not in the habit of using tightly stretched funds to help a billionaire retail magnate get a better shopping deal. For some reason, we’ve been ordered to investigate Mitsutan. It’s our job to collect data for analysis, not to answer riddles.”
    â€œBut how about a lightbulb joke, like how many spies does it take to figure out we have a trade deficit in lightbulbs?” I shot back. “Obviously, this country would be better off if Americans were making the cheapest lightbulbs in the world rather than buying them from suppliers in Asia.”
    â€œEcon 200,” Michael said, his tight expression finally relaxing into a smile. “What exactly did you learn in Monterey?”
    I laughed. “You’ll never know.”
    â€œJust like today, I’ll never know what you and Mrs. Taki will do, exactly. But I’m really looking forward to seeing the results of your appearance modification.”
    â€œThat nonsense is happening today? Why didn’t you warn me?” I was annoyed. Mrs. Taki, the sixty-something, very bossy translator who worked with us, was the Defense Department’s self-proclaimed expert on Japanese appearance. She had taken me on a shopping trip that had lasted three days: a hunt for the perfect suit, shoes, and bag for the interview at Mitsutan. After we’d finally found the right things at Escada, she’d made me buy a second suit from Jil Sander, just in case there was a second interview. German designers in Japan! I didn’t quite understand her enthusiasm for German couture, but then again, I was a bit younger, and not native-born.
    â€œRemember, we talked about it before? She called when I came in this morning to make sure you were free to go over. It seems the salon finally has a four-hour block available for you.”
    â€œMichael, you said to me that I’m not going over with an assumed identity. If I’m going back to Japan as Rei Shimura—why would I want to change the way I look?”
    â€œYou’re trying to be hired at a very glamorous department store. In order for you to accomplish that, you need to resemble an ideal Japanese twenty-three-year-old woman. Consider this.” Michael picked up a copy of An-an that had been lying on my desk.
    â€œI’d need multiple surgeries to look like that.” I looked down at the indescribably lovely girl—poreless skin, eyebrows as delicate as birds’ wings headed upward for flight, and limpid dark brown eyes that opened innocently under rose-tinted eyelids.
    â€œMrs. Taki says that the salon owner used to do theatrical makeup, so she knows how to create the illusion of an epicanthic eyelid. I believe it’s possible, given that I myself have passed for Korean in the past.” Michael