The Key to Midnight

Joanna cover, missing but not gone forever. She might still be reached, resurrected, and helped to remember the circumstances of her premature burial.
        In either case, the kidnappers had stuffed her full of fake memories. They had provided her with phony identification and turned her loose in Japan with a substantial bankroll that had supposedly come from the settlement of her make-believe father's estate.
        But for God's sake, why?
        Alex got to his feet and paced nervously. His legs felt more rubbery with every step.
        Who could have done it to her? Why? And why were they still interested in her?
        He had no idea what the stakes of the game might be. If they thought it was important enough to keep Joanna's true identity a secret, they might kill him if he was on the verge of proving who she really was. Indeed, if he managed to convince Joanna of the truth, they might even kill her to keep the whole story from being revealed.
        Regardless of the risk, he was determined to have the answers that he wanted. His rooms had been searched, and he had been cut. He owed these people a measure of humiliation and pain.

----

    14
        
        West of Kyoto, the last light of day gradually faded like the glow in a bank of dying embers. The city smoldered into evening under an ash-colored sky.
        The streets of the Gion district were crowded. In the bars, clubs, restaurants, and geisha houses, another night of escape from reality had begun.
        On his way to the Moonglow Lounge, immaculately dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, matching vest, pale-gray shirt, and green tie, with a gray topcoat thrown capelike across his shoulders, Alex walked at a tourist's pace. Although he pretended to be engrossed by the passing scene, he paid scant attention to the whirl of color and activity on all sides. Instead, he was trying to learn if the opposition had put a tail on him. In the busy throng that hurried over the washed-stone pavement, Alex had difficulty detecting any one person who might have been following him. Every time he turned a corner or stopped at a crosswalk, he glanced casually behind, as if taking a second look at some landmark of the Gion, and without appearing to do so, he studied the people in his wake.
        Eventually he grew suspicious of three men, each walking alone, each caught watching him at one point or another, each remaining behind him block after block. The first was a fat man with deeply set eyes, enormous jowls, and a wispy chin beard. His size made him the least likely of the three candidates, because he was highly visible; this was a line of work that favored nondescript men. The second suspect was slender, in his forties, with a narrow, bony face. The third was young, perhaps twenty-five, dressed in blue jeans and a yellow nylon windbreaker; as he walked, he puffed nervously on a cigarette. By the time Alex reached the Moonglow Lounge, he still hadn't decided which of the three men was tailing him, but he had committed every detail of their faces to memory for future reference.
        Just inside the front door of Moonglow, an easel supported a yard-square posterboard sign. The red-and-black announcement was neatly handprinted, first in Japanese characters and then in English.

        
    DUE TO ILLNESS

    JOANNA RAND

    WILL NOT PERFORM TONIGHT

    THE MOONGLOW ORCHESTRA

    WILL PROVIDE MUSIC FOR DANCING
        
        Alex left his topcoat with the hat-check girl and went to the bar for a drink. The restaurant was doing a lot of business, but only six customers were in the lounge. He sat alone at the curved end of the bar and ordered Old Suntory. When the bartender brought the whiskey, Alex said, 'I hope Miss Rand's illness isn't serious.'
        'Not serious,' the bartender assured him in heavily accented English. 'Only sore throat.'
        'Would you please call upstairs and tell her that Alex Hunter is here?'
        'Too sick see anyone,' the man said, nodding and smiling.
        'I'm a friend.'
        'Much too sick.'
        'She'll talk to me.'
        'Sore throat.'
        'We have an appointment.'
        'So sorry.'
        They went around and around for a while, until the bartender finally surrendered and picked up a phone beside the cash register. As he spoke with Joanna, he glanced repeatedly at Alex. When he hung up and returned to Alex, he said, 'Sorry. She say can't see you.'
        'You must be mistaken. Call