Roppongi, page 14
“Please, always keep the door locked, baby.”
Baby. Funny, he still called her that after all these years.
The sight Jack Bender dreaded the most met him as he forced the door. There behind it, Yumiko Abe lay motionless. She had tried to leave and had apparently collapsed where she now lay. Here was the geisha doll of Jack Bender’s universe. Thankfully, his military training was still with him. He quickly leaned over and delicately held her head as he checked for pulse and breathing. Both were there, Thank Jesus, he thought, heart pounding, sweat starting to appear on his brow. He called Yokosuka emergency and in what felt like forever, although only about five minutes, the ambulance arrived.
She was in ICU now as Jack paced in the waiting room. All the years together, What was the line from that song- “The hopes and fears of all the years…”came flooding through his very being. From his brain, his sub-conscious, all the way down to his gut. Exploding there like one of those giant “Daisy Cutter” bombs he had heard about. The shrapnel here though was not laced with bolts or nails but substances much more lethal – broken promises, indiscretions, drunken rages.
The doctor was speaking to him now.
“Mr. Bender, your wife is stable now. I’ll have to ask your permission to operate, however.”
“Operate? Why? The tumor wasn’t/isn’t malignant. They told me. Jesus, did they lie? Was there a mistake?”
Jack in a dream-like state now. Not really speaking to the doctor. The doctor, a young, fresh-faced Lieutenant - Was he from Oz too? The Cornfields, the son of one of the Furies of long ago. The Messenger of Death here to finish what the Enola Gay started in another day, on another planet?
The doctor spoke now. Appearing as an apparition to Jack rather to any flesh and blood human being.
“No, sir. All the information you were given concerning the tumor was correct. There has been a complication, however. An aneurysm. The aneurysm was probably caused as a result of the unexpected growth of the tumor. Regardless of how it got there, it is imperative that we reduce its size.”
“No other options? There is no other way to do this, doctor?”
Jack knew the answer already. He suddenly knew that his feelings now must have been eerily similar to those that Adam had experienced when he had asked the same unnecessary question the night his dear friend Art had died. Jack recalling the ashen, broken look on Adam’s face as he spoke of his friend’s loss. What would Adam think of him now if he knew that Jack was the mole for Aum. Had indeed played a pivotal role in the demise of his friend? When Jack had “aided and abetted,” to borrow the police phrase from the Bakersfield of his youth, in Rose’s death, hadn’t he basically killed Art as well?
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Bender. Mrs. Bender’s…”
“It’s not ‘Mrs. Bender,’ it’s ‘Abe.’” Jack cut him off, regretting it almost immediately. Deep down he had yearned for his beloved Yumiko to take his name. It broke his heart to hear a stranger refer to her in the way he had always wished, especially in the time and place and the dreadful circumstances of the moment.
“Yes, sir, your wife’s only chance of survival is this operation. She will most certainly die without it, I’m afraid.”
“And if she has the operation?”
Again the interminable wait before the inevitable response.
“She has about a thirty percent chance, Mr. Bender. I’m truly sorry. We will do the very best we can. I can assure you of that much. I wish I could give you better news, but it is my duty…”
“Yes, yes, of course. Please operate, doctor.”
40
“I am a guest of Mr. Carter. Could you please contact him. I believe he is in the bar.”
The marine looked at the small, fragile Japanese woman. It was 2000 or 8pm in civilian time, and she was wearing sun-glasses. A bit too anxious as well. Probably should contact the Captain, but hell he was going off duty in just a few minutes.
“Okay, Miss Watanabe, just one moment while I call the bar.”
Benny Carter was at the front gate of the Sanno Hotel in five minutes. He shook his head as he passed the recently constructed cement barricades and the detachment of U.S. Marine guards that had just last week been transferred here from the marine barracks at Yokosuka Naval Base. God, how times had changed. Benny, the Vietnam vet who along with dear, departed Art Chambers, had fought a conflict where at least one knew who the enemy was. Now, well, different times. He did know that two of the dearest people in his world were dead, however. Somebody would pay. Benny Carter. U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant, Retired was as certain of this as he was of the fact that the cancer, currently residing in his lymph nodes would eventually kill him.
“Is that my long, lost daughter out there? Could it be? My God, it is. My beautiful Keiko. How’s my little girl? My cherry blossom!”
Keiko had wandered over to the new construction site where the newly installed cement blocks stood. Preoccupied momentarily. Walking back now toward the gate as Benny’s voice brought her out of her trance.
The sight of Benny, her big teddy bear, suddenly bringing Keiko back to the beautiful, innocent times. Not ready for this. Welling up now. Shaking. Holding Benny now. Sobbing uncontrollably.
“Hey, hey now, my baby girl! Please, I can’t bear to see you cry.”
“Oh, Benny San, I miss you so. Everyone, everyone all gone. My life, gone.”
Benny, signing her in now, walking her past the bemused Lance Corporal Henson.
Keiko overwhelmed with a kind of sensory overload almost immediately as she entered the lobby of the Sanno Hotel. The furniture reeking with the smell of new leather. As a girl, on her first day of school, the smell of her new book bag. The best that money could buy. Leaving the lobby, walking towards the lounge. The sounds of bells now. A “ding, ding, ding” sound. Art Chambers had told her and Adam one long ago afternoon that a lot of angels were getting their wings that day. Adam had laughed and shook his head in a knowing way.
“Yea, that’s it. Art. Angels getting their wings,” and then, seeing the quizzical look on Keiko’s face, laughing louder and holding her close.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m sorry. You never did see It’s a Wonderful Life, did you? We’ll change that soon.”
That night they had watched the movie and saw Clarence the Angel gleefully explain to an incredulous Jimmy Stewart how another angel was getting his wings as the bell on the cash register at Martini’s sounded.
Of course, the bells that Keiko was hearing now were emanating from the slot machine room which was conveniently located adjacent to the Sanno Hotel Bar and Lounge.
“Aye, Art, there may be a few angels getting their wings, but there are a few poor souls in there losing their shirts as well,” Dan Bronsan had retorted that day.
“There’s a booth in the back there, Keiko San. Do you want something to drink?”
Looking at the lounge now. Memories flooding back. She almost lost her balance. This return to a place that had represented so much hope so much love along with a good amount of pain. She steadied herself on Benny’s shoulder.
“You okay, baby? Here, sit down. I’ll get us a drink.”
“Just juice for me, Benny San. I’m okay, really.”
“It’s so good to see you, little daughter.”
Keiko smiling weakly now. Benny just looking at her. Both caught up in one of those awkward pauses that occur probably millions of times a day throughout the world. Why don’t we just say what we really feel, Benny thinking now. Shit, so much easier. Thinking of Art and Rose. He loved them so much. Never told them though. Hell, they probably knew.
Benny Carter, a black man in the U.S. military when men of color were still treated in a less than manner. Art, always treating Benny like a man though. Sure they would argue. Art, the “Right Wing Nazi” as Dan liked to refer to him and Benny the “Bleeding Heart Liberal.” Still they cut through it somehow. ‘Nam, the common denominator of course but Benny still believing deep down that Art Chambers would have been the same decent guy, war or no godamn war.
“How long has it been? It seems like forever. There were rumors that you were in the hospital.”
“Oh, Benny San, I…I don’t really know. So much has happened. Changed. Have you…”
Shaking visibly now. Voice cracking.
“…I mean, I’m sorry…”
“Adam? Yes, I’ve seen him. Are you okay, baby? How about a small cognac?”
Smiling, she nodded. Benny already on his way to the bar to order.
Alone now. What am I doing here? Is this the right thing to do? The right way to do it even? Too late in any case. The die cast . Keiko Watanabe formerly a member of the Aum Cult terrorist organization now banished. Here now in a United States military facility. Despite the lax security at the gate, she had no doubt that she had been recorded by the ever present security camera. It would only be a matter of time. Benny her only chance now.
“Here you go, daughter. Drink this. Medicinal purposes don’t you know.”
Benny smiling. The raspy voice a bit rougher than she remembered. He had lost weight as well. Benny not looking healthy at all. She took the drink.
Courvoisier. Memories flooding in now. Benny’s favorite drink. She eyed it tentatively for a brief moment as if she dreaded yet at the same time desired the release. A Pandora’s Box of emotions of sorts. Finally, she gulped it and gagged.
“Hey, hey, baby doll. Scoshi, slowly. I can’t have my favorite daughter getting sick now.”
The warmth coming as she finally swallowed. She was better now. She would be able to do what was needed.
“Adam is fine. He’s off the sauce. Been hanging around the base a lot lately. They took him off the ship. Probably for the best.”
“He is working on the base now?”
“Yea, works with the civilians now. Retired guy named Bender is his boss. So how are you, Keiko? Really. Where have you been? What have you been doing? God, I missed you, Keiko Chan.”
“I had to leave, Benny. Adam…well you probably know about it. I just couldn’t…”
Her voice breaking now. Benny the consoling father-figure.
“Hey, It’s okay, baby. Take another shot of courage there. You don’t have to tell me everything at once. Drink your Courvoisier. Relax. Everything is going to okay.”
“But I do, Benny San. I do. I need to…I have to tell you everything. Everything and everyone that I care about in the world depends on it. I just don’t know how to start.”
Benny holding her hand now. The fatherly mode. Keiko reminded of a bald Nelson Mandela. The soft Benny Carter emerging. The part of him only those closest were allowed to see.
“Why the sunglasses, baby. You were wearing them when you came in and it was dark outside. Not a star in the sky even. Pretty dark in here right now too. You know they keep it this way so that the old drunks like me can turn into Billy Dee Williams after a few snorts.”
“Who is Billy Dee Williams?”
“Don’t worry about that, girl.” Jeez, I’m getting old.
“Unless you’re trying to be the Japanese Stevie Wonder, those sunglasses don’t make sense to me. You always did have the most beautiful brown eyes. If I were only younger. Jeez what a …”
Stopping now. No need to go into a tirade concerning Adam. Not now.
A brief smile just at the corner of her mouth now. Benny didn’t miss it though.
“Anyway, honey, you couldn’t pull it off. Much too pretty and Stevie is getting up in years now. He’s a might darker shade of yellow too. “You are the sunshine of my life…”
Benny singing to her in that raspy voice.
“You brought a lot of sunshine to all of us when you were here. Tell your father everything. It’s okay.”
Maki, just starting her shift at the bar. Tray in hand, she was standing over Benny and the weeping Keiko now. Benny with a dismissive gesture of his head, ever so slight but caught by Maki.
“Everything is daijoubu here. Bring us another round will you, pretty lady? Courvoisier, two of them. A couple of glasses of water too. I can die now. Here I am with the two most beautiful girls in all of Tokyo.”
Maki smiling as she left.
“I’ll bring it right away, Benny San.”
Keiko crying softly now. Finishing her drink. She would be okay. She had to be.
Leaning back in the booth, she missed the entrance of the head of security for the Sanno Hotel. The man accompanying him a tall stooped shouldered individual but with an otherwise unmistakable military demeanor about him. Joe Dickwell, Lieutenant, Naval Investigative Service gave the room a quick studied sweep before turning towards the bar with his companion.
The words she needed suddenly came to Keiko.
“Benny, I need to tell you some things. Please listen to everything that I have to say before you ask any questions. I’m sure you will have many. I know that a lot of what I am about to say will be very hard for you, but please know that I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Benny gesturing as if to cut her off. Keiko having none of it.
“Please Benny, you must listen to me.”
No music playing. Only a few people in the lounge. Joe Dickwell heard the loud female voice with the Japanese accent. He turned ever so slightly, just enough to note the source.
“Okay, baby, I’m here. I’m listening.”
When Keiko finished, an hour had passed. There were pauses, a few tears, consolation from Benny, but she got it all out. Told him everything. How she had left the doctor’s office in a daze following the horribly botched abortion. The initial meeting with Shoko Asahara. How he had mesmerized her from the very moment she looked at him. His eyes seemed to look deep into the abyss of her very soul. He had dared to venture into the dark pits and recesses and had brought out all of the horrid bile and emotional excrement that she herself would never look at let alone even attempt to remove. In a sense, he knew Keiko already. At least her pain. In fact, he seemed to thrive on pain. His own, hers, the world’s. He had talked of rebirth from destruction. A theory that Keiko was as ripe for as any being could be.
The meeting had taken place in a room above the Gas Panic bar in Roppongi. Keiko had run into one of her old girlfriends at a local upholstered sewer. She had been drinking heavily for days.
“He has all the answers, Keiko. He will help you. I know. It’s a new religion. A spiritual revolution.”
Of course, Chiyo had not mentioned or probably even known that the decimation of half the population of Tokyo was an integral part of the Spiritual Awakening sought after by the Aum Cult, the name its founder and leader, Asahara, had given to his menagerie of lost souls and broken angels, all of whom would die for the cause with the eagerness of one who had been given an escape route from a life of interminable pain.
Shoko Asahara had the gift. The ability to see inside any human being and bring up all the refuse that most never examine in twenty lifetimes, let alone one. The lost and anguished, his specialty. The refuse boiling over within them. A look, a touch, a few well-chosen words and the process began. The expurgation of all of the pain. Once finished, one indeed felt cleansed but with a kind of void. The kind that one would feel when one’s humanity had been taken as well. A trade off curiously not mentioned. No worries though. The shell was now devoid of the malignant abscess as well. What the lemmings did not realize at once but would learn later, when it was too late, was that their benefactor would return this abscess of pain and utter human suffering magnified to the nth degree when and where it served his purpose to do so. The ultimate insurance policy for Asahara. The pain of the lemming gladly remitted ten-fold.
“You look troubled, my dear.”
“I…”
“Please, don’t say anything. Not yet.”
She had noticed the eyes at first. Black, seemingly empty, yet, something there. Almost imperceptible. Drawing one in. The black orbs like magnets for all of the pain in the universe. Closer and closer, she felt herself being carried into them till, finally, a latch in some deep, dark confine buried away in her soul shut. Not a loud noise. Just a click. Shut nonetheless. The world ending with a whimper, not a bang. The poet was right.
Keiko had not mentioned the heroin use to Benny. It would complicate matters. He would insist that she enter a hospital to kick the addiction. Keiko would have none of it. There was no time in any case. Her life meaningless when measured against the loss of humanity that would most certainly take place in a very short time if she did not act.
Shoko Asahara himself had injected Keiko with heroin during that first meeting. It was like leading a lamb to slaughter. Keiko, in her already trance-like state under the spell of Asahara, offering no resistance at all.
“It is a kind of an initiation, little one. A test to show that you trust the Cult above all else. A necessity to prepare you for the arduous days ahead. Be strong,” he had whispered as the needle pricked her skin. Immediately enveloped in an exquisite warmth she had never experienced and would never attain again. Although, true to the form of an addict, she would continue to try. The difference between an addict and an alcoholic very simple. One always became addicted to narcotics upon the first administration while ten different people could drink a few glasses of whiskey and only two or three would end up drinking alcoholically.
The injections given at staggered times. Different locations after the first. Keiko never knowing when or where they would come. This another technique used by The One to maintain complete control over his troubled minions.
As the days went by, Keiko Watanabe became privy to certain aspects of the Aum Cult’s plan of Rebirth from Destruction. It became her understanding that Aum had acquired a lethal chemical, a gas of some kind. Rumors were that it had come from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Keiko was not a stupid woman by any means, but in her drug-induced, spell-bound state she was incapable of concluding the obvious. Rather than use the sarin gas that Asahara had in his possession as a bargaining chip to somehow force the West into ceasing the export of the decadent military men sent over to soil the young Japanese women, the Aum Cult would in fact unleash the deadly sarin on the population of Tokyo itself. There would be no warning or room for negotiation as Asahara had led all but his inner circle to believe. It was only after Rose Carney was killed by Aum that Keiko was awakened to the horrible truth and made the decision to bring down Asahara and the Cult itself.
