The Miko - 02 Read Online Free PDF Page A

its forest green contrasting nicely with the toffee-colored blouse with its deep maroon string tie at the tiny rounded collar. On one lapel she wore a discreet gold and lacquer pin emblazoned with the feudal design of Sato Petrochemicals. On the lobes of her ears were gleaming emerald studs.
    “It must feel good to be home again, Linnear-san,” she said, pronouncing it “Rinnearu.”
    It would not have been good manners for Nicholas to have acknowledged her oblique reference: she had cleverly told him that she had been briefed on his background without ever having said it outright.
    He smiled. “The years have melted away,” he said. “Now that I am back it seems only moments since I left.”
    Miss Yoshida turned her beautiful face away from him. Junior was emerging from the terminal, loaded down with their luggage. Her eyes returned to his and her voice lowered, became less formal for an instant. “There will be a car for your use,” she said, “should you desire to light joss sticks.”
    Nicholas struggled to hide his surprise. He now knew the extent of the briefing Miss Yoshida had been given on him. Not only had she said that Sato would provide transportation for him if he chose to visit his parents’ graves but also that he would want to light joss sticks on his mother’s stone. It was not widely known that Cheong had been at least half Chinese; “joss stick” was a peculiarly Chinese term, though the Japanese, being also Buddhist, lit incense at the graves of family and friends.
    Miss Yoshida’s eyes lowered. “I know I have no right to offer, but if it will be easier for you to be accompanied on such a journey I would make myself available.”
    “That is terribly kind,” Nicholas said, watching Junior approach out of the corner of his eye, “but I could not ask such an enormous inconvenience of you.”
    “It is no bother,” she said. “I have a husband and a child buried not far away. I would go in any case.”
    Her eyes met his but he could not say whether she was telling the truth or simply employing a Japanese lie in order to make him feel more comfortable with her offer. In either case he determined he would take her up on it when a lull in the negotiations permitted it.
    “I would be honored, Miss Yoshida.”
    Inside the car, as Junior hurled them into the stifling traffic on the outskirts of the city, Tomkin leaned forward, staring out the gray-tinted windows at the growing expanse of the steel and glass forest rising from the borders of the farmers’ green fields. “Jesus,” he said, “it’s just like New York. When the hell’re they gonna stop building? I come twelve thousand miles and I feel like I never left home.” He sat back with a sudden lurch, a smirk on his face. “Except, of course, that you and I’re the tallest creatures for a thousand miles, eh, Nick?”
    Nicholas gave his employer the semblance of a nod and in the same motion said to Miss Yoshida in the front of the car, “ Gaijin are often rude without meaning to be, eh?” He shrugged his shoulders. “What else can you expect from ill-bred children.”
    Miss Yoshida covered her bowlike lips with the palm of her hand, but her mirth was obvious in her sparkling eyes.
    “What the hell’re you two chattering about?” Tomkin growled, feeling left out.
    “Just informing the natives that it isn’t only height that’s out-sized on foreign devils,” Nicholas lied.
    But he’d struck the right chord. “Hah!” Tomkin guffawed. “You’re damn straight! Very good, Nicky.”
    Just over an hour later, the three of them stepped off the high speed elevator at the summit on the triangular Shinjuku Suiryu Building. All of Tokyo lay shimmering like a dusky multifaceted jewel beneath them. Suspended six hundred and sixty feet—fifty-two stories—in the air, Nicholas was amazed at the profusion of ultra-modern skyscrapers that had sprung up in his absence. They shot from the bedrock pavement like a Mandarin’s glittering