The Key to Midnight

restaurant two blocks from the Moonglow, and then Joanna drove them directly to the hospital to see Wayne Kennedy. The police had already been there. Wayne had told them only what Alex wanted him to reveal, and they'd seemed satisfied -or at least not terribly suspicious. Wayne was just as Mariko had described him the previous night: brimming with energy in spite of his condition, joking with everyone, demanding to know when he would be permitted to walk, 'because if I lay here much longer, my legs will atrophy.' One of the nurses spoke English, and Wayne tried to convince her that he'd come to Japan to enter a tap-dancing contest and was determined to participate on crutches if necessary. The nurse was amused, but Wayne's best audience was Mariko. Alex had never seen her so animated and cheerful as she was in that small, clean, but decidedly dreary hospital room.
        At three o'clock he and Joanna left to keep an appointment with Dr. Omi Inamura, but Mariko remained at the hospital.
        The leaden sky had darkened and descended since they'd arrived at the hospital, as if a solar eclipse was in progress behind the vault of clouds.
        In Joanna's Lexus, as she drove across the busy city, Alex said, 'From now on, Mariko's going to put her matchmaking energy to work for herself.'
        'What do you mean?'
        'You didn't notice the attraction between them?'
        'Who? Mariko and Wayne?'
        'It was obvious to me.'
        On the sidewalks, pedestrians hurried stoop-shouldered through a cold, brisk wind that flapped their coattails.
        'I don't doubt Mariko and Wayne are attracted to each other, but nothing'll come of it,' Joanna predicted. 'Sad to say, but there's a strong cultural bias here against interracial relationships. If you aren't Japanese, then you're regarded as one degree of barbarian or another. It's almost not something you can become angry about when you encounter their prejudice, because they're so unfailingly polite about it, and they do treat everyone with great respect. It's just been a part of their worldview so long that it's in their bones.'
        Alex frowned. 'Mariko doesn't think of you as a barbarian.'
        'Not entirely. She's a modern woman, but in some deep recess of her Japanese soul, the attitude is still present. On a subconscious level maybe, but it's there. And she's definitely not modern enough… for Wayne.'
        'I suspect you're wrong about that. She believes in love at first sight, you know.'
        'Mariko?'
        'She told me.'
        'She was talking about Wayne?'
        'About you and me. But she believes in it for herself too. Love at first sight.'
        'Is he good enough for her?' Joanna asked.
        'He's first-rate, I think.'
        'Well, then, I hope she's even more of a modern woman than I think she is.'
        Joanna parked half a block from Omi Inamura's office but did not switch off the engine. Staring at his building through the windshield, she said, 'Maybe this is a mistake.'
        'Why?'
        'I'm scared.'
        'Illl be with you.'
        'What if Inamura can help me remember the face and name of the man with the mechanical hand? Then we'll have to go looking for him, won't we?'
        'Yes.'
        'And when we find him…'
        'Don't worry. It's like Mariko said last night. When you finally find him, he won't be as frightening as he is in your nightmares.'
        'No. Not as frightening. Maybe worse.'
        'Think positive,' he said.
        He reached out and took her hand. It was cold and moist.
        A piercing wail rose in the distance. Traffic pulled aside to allow an ambulance to pass. The shrieking siren filled the world for a moment. In the gray-on-gray day, the fierce red light from the revolving emergency beacons seemed to have preternatural substance: It splashed like blood across the street, washed through the car in an intangible tide, and briefly transformed Joanna's face into a mask that might have been the universal face of any spattered victim, blue eyes wide but sightless and darkened by a glimpse of Death's own cold face in the penultimate moment.
        Alex shivered.
        'I'm ready,' she said. She let go of his hand and switched off the car engine.
        The siren had dwindled beyond hearing. The splashing red light was gone. Once again, the day was dead gray.

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        Bowing not from the waist but with a discreet