Trifecta (56 page)

W
hen Sato Hashimoto walked into Sabrina's Fashions,
a chubby woman with short, glowing red hair was waiting on many customers.  Hashimoto
pretended to be looking around and the small woman finally walked up, smiling, and
asked if she could help him.

Hashimoto said yes, something for his wife, although he
knew his wife would never wear anything without the proper Parisian designer labels. 
In that regard his wife was a snob, but he had mistresses who were not so choosy
and who would expect presents.  Hashimoto had to admit that the Miller woman had
talent, surprisingly, or at least very good taste.  When he asked the woman with
the day-glow hair if the owner had designed some of the clothing, she said that
Sabrina Miller had designed everything in the shop.

Bea didn't realize she was being pumped for information
because she was so delighted at the amount of the Japanese man's purchases. 

He said he would like to meet the talented woman who had
designed such beautiful apparel and Bea told him that he could sit down and wait
while she wrapped his packages.  Sabrina had gone to the hospital to see a sick
friend.

As Hashimoto looked around, he was reminded of his mistress
Suki.  She was his favorite and had pleaded with him for a florist shop or a little
dress shop of her own.  He had always dismissed the idea, but he suddenly thought
of a way to give Suki what she wanted and get both Eve and Sabrina to Japan. 

As Hashimoto waited he pondered the new information that
Willard Modert had provided him that morning.  Hashimoto had transferred a large
amount of money into a numbered Swiss account before the documents had been faxed
to him, and again, they looked like they were genuine top secret files from the
CIA, but the contents were quite remarkable. 

The handcuffs that one of the women had broken was being
studied in a laboratory.  The initial results were that the blood on the cuffs was
that of Sabrina Miller, from her physician's records.  The handcuffs themselves
were made of tempered steel, standard issue commonly supplied to police departments. 
There did not seem to be any defect in the material or workmanship, which pointed
to the fact that the initial report by Alexander Steinbrenner, which stated that
along with the computer came enormous strength, might possibly be true.

Hashimoto was a very impatient person, and he considered
it a virtue.  He abominated the fact that he would have to have a wait-and-see attitude
as he watched his packages being decorated with paper and bows.  He also felt that
he had spent an immense amount of time and money on what could turn out to be a
gigantic hoax.  That thought made him enormously angry.

S
abrina and Eve had tried to bypass hospital authorities
and sneak directly to Ferd's hospital room.  The plan didn't work.  They were stopped
at the nursing station in the intensive care ward.  There seemed to be an unusual
amount of security people around that desk and they were asked to sign a register
stating they had come to visit Dr. Steinbrenner.  The staff said it was routine,
but Sabrina had never heard of such a procedure.

They were just giving the flowers that Sabrina had brought
for Ferd to the floor duty nurse, when Alexander Steinbrenner went past, not noticing
them in his haste, manipulating his crutches with practiced ease.

Sabrina called out to him.  Alexander turned around and
scowled.  He made an abrupt motion with his head, arrogantly indicating that he
would speak to them in the lounge area, away from the watchful nurses.  They all
sat down.  Alexander sat with his broken leg sticking straight out in front of him,
resting it on the couch they were sitting on.

"How is Dr. Steinbrenner?"  Eve asked Alexander.

"I'm not answering any questions until my brother
gets here,"  Alexander said.  He glared at the women.  Sabrina thought he was
trying to intimidate them as he gazed at them, one and then the other, without taking
his eyes away for even a moment.  Sabrina also felt uncomfortable at his proximity. 
The man was sitting too close and invading their space with his large presence and
accusing eyes.  Then she noted that Eve was looking directly back at Alexander without
blinking.  Sabrina was afraid Eve would give herself away, so she said she was very
sorry about Ferd.  Alexander just gawked at her, silently hostile, and did not comment. 
She wondered if he used this offensive hostile staring tactic on juries.

After what seemed at least an hour, but was only a few
minutes, Stephan came down the hall from the direction of his father's room in his
motorized chair.  He was wearing a coat and no one would have realized that he had
bandages, dressing for a gunshot wound, under the shoulder of his business suit.

Stephan wheeled over and stopped too close to the couch
where Sabrina and Eve were sitting.  They were penned in, with Alexander's cast
making it impossible to leave from one side and Stephan's chair blocking the other
end of the couch.

"I guess you came to find out about our father," 
Stephan said.

They nodded.

"Well, Dad's temporarily lost his ability for speech,
so it's hard to access his mental acuity."

"Can't we just see him for a minute?"  Eve asked.

"No,"  Alexander exploded, so loudly that the
nursing staff at the desk turned and looked at him.

"Shh..."  Stephan said, frowning severely. 

"What I want to know,"  Alexander said belligerently
but quietly, "is if the computer will be at the meeting tomorrow."

"We will be there,"  Sabrina said pointedly,
stressing the 'we.' She felt contemptuous that Alexander still seemed to think that
making money was his foremost concern, when his own father was in such serious condition. 

"You will provide the documentation and the bank card
as you promised?"  Sabrina asked.  "As your father wishes."

"Only if the computer shows up,"  Alexander said
bluntly.

"That was not a condition imposed by your father," 
Eve said.

"No, it was not,"  Stephan interjected.  "But
I have power of attorney, and I'm making the decisions now." 

There seemed to be nothing more to say and Sabrina and
Eve stood up.  Eve had to step over Alexander's cast to get past him.  As she did
so, he grabbed her arm so that she was off balance for a moment.  Then she wrenched
her arm violently away. 

"You're the one, aren't you,"  Alexander said.

"Can you tell us apart?"  Eve asked.

"Not with the hair alike, no, but that was an easy
test.  You responded exactly as I expected." 

Sabrina knew Alexander was greatly underestimating Eve,
who was smiling at him, but probably very angry. 

Eve leaned forward and took one of Alexander's metal crutches
from him.  She bent the very tip of it, right above it's rubber padded end, like
a wishbone.  When Alexander started to protest, Eve barred her teeth and growled
very quietly, almost inaudibly.  Sabrina was reminded of a deadly tiger for just
an instant.  She felt a thrill of fear herself.  Eve suddenly appeared deadly. 
She was reminded of the transformation from Dr.  Jekyll to Mr.  Hyde, but this was
not done with camera tricks that showed a fade in, with a watery, wavering, out
of focus picture.  The change had been instantaneous.

The noise Eve made was almost imperceptible, but the effect
of her expression and the threatening growl was immediate.  Alexander pushed away
from her and almost toppled his chair backward.  Stephan quickly moved his wheelchair
back to allow the women room to leave.

As they walked out of the lounge and down the long hospital
corridor, Sabrina looked back and saw Alexander trying in vain to straighten out
his metal crutch.  She couldn't help smiling, but wondered if it had been a wise
thing for Eve to do.  At least she found herself in a greatly improved mood. 

"No one was watching."  Eve seemed to be reading
Sabrina's thoughts.  "I just couldn't resist with them acting like that.  Big
bullies."

"They are obnoxious." 

"I thought they were scaring you." 

"Yes.  A little,"  Sabrina admitted.  She didn't
want to acknowledge that Eve had also scared her for a moment.

"I'll be careful not to give myself away in the future. 
But I couldn't let Alexander hold my arm like that, like he could physically manhandle
me."

"He could with most women, so just for the meeting
tomorrow, you might have to restrain yourself." 

"It will be hard, if I get really angry." 

W
hen Sabrina arrived back at her shop she saw the man before
she could retreat.  She knew it was Sato Hashimoto and she knew he had seen her. 
Ah, hell, she thought.  This was one confrontation she didn't want to face right
now. 

The sight of the small man fascinated her in an awful way. 
He was saying something to Bea as he caught her eye and she had a glimpse of the
yellow teeth, but it was the brown mole on his cheek that was really hideous; it
was irregular in shape and color, large and grainy in appearance, like it was deciding
to grow larger in another direction, either higher or sideways, on his cheek.  She
was reminded of dire warnings of melanoma.

"Sabrina Miller, I presume,"  Sato said, smiling
in her direction and totally revealing the horrid teeth.

Bea, standing beside the man, said, "This is Mr. 
Hashimoto. 

The man extended his hand and Sabrina was forced to take
it.  "You have such beautiful things here.  I'm afraid I got overly enthused
and bought many items for my wife."

Sabrina forced herself to smile, and tried to avoid staring
at the teeth or mole.

"I was hoping to meet your sister, Eve, also," 
Hashimoto said.

"Oh, they're not sisters,"  Bea said, joining
in the conversation.  "But they look exactly like twins."

Sabrina knew that Eve, who had entered from the back door,
would be able to hear the whole conversation, so she didn't have to worry about
her walking in on them.

"I did want to talk you and Eve informally, before
our meeting tomorrow.  It sometimes gets a bit cumbersome to arrive at any type
of agreement when lawyers are present."

Sabrina nodded and wondered if the man wanted to reach
an arrangement without the meddling of the Steinbrenner brothers.

"I spoke to Dr. Steinbrenner, before his unfortunate
stroke.  He and I agreed that Eve Miller should come back to Japan to work for me. 
He was planning to come to Tokyo himself."

He was lying.

"And, if you could arrange time off from your beautiful
store, we would love to have you accompany Eve Miller.  We could possibly get a
little boutique in Tokyo for you, so that you and Eve could be together.  I know
how close you are."

Now Sabrina was sure it was Hashimoto's spies that had
been following her and Eve.

Hashimoto went on, "Of course, to begin with, I would
pay the lease rent.  Rental space in Tokyo is quite at a premium.  Just one square
foot of land there, in the city, costs about ten thousand dollars."

"We would have to think over your generous offer," 
Sabrina said, not having any intention of doing so.  The man was very polite, yet
so offensive in his assumption that he could buy people.

Hashimoto looked around, "Where is Eve, now?"

"Oh.  She went on a little trip.  I'm not sure where," 
Sabrina said vaguely.  She really needed to find out how much he knew.  She had
to assume that Alexander had told him everything, but decided to plant a doubt in
his mind about the alleged computer.  "Eve was curious about why you might
want her to work for you.  She has no special training or abilities."

"No special abilities?"

"Well, she can help me in the store.  And she has
worked as a model.  But really, she knows little of business."

"Really? No special abilities."  She heard his
voice go up in pitch and almost hiss on the end of the word abilities, but the man's
face remained almost blank except for slightly raised brows.  "I had heard
that she is a very special person."

"Well, I think so too,"  Sabrina said heartily,
as she would for a good but slightly befuddled friend.

"She will be available for the meeting tomorrow?" 

"I think so,"  Sabrina said, hoping to make Eve
sound flighty and frivolous.  "Eve tends to travel a lot and she sometimes
can't be counted on, you know?"

"I am so pleased that we were able to meet and talk," 
Hashimoto said.  "I will look forward to the meeting." 

He walked to the door and Sabrina saw a limousine parked
outside with several very large men with slick black hair inside.  Probably bodyguards.

At the door, Hashimoto turned back to her.  "By the
way, I was wondering what salary Alexander Steinbrenner quoted for Eve Miller?"

"He didn't say." 

"Ah.  Well, we were thinking in the area of a hundred
thousand, maybe more.  Do you think she would find that satisfactory?"

"I can't answer for Eve." 

Cheap bastard.  Probably thought she was impressed. 

"I was hoping that we could come to some agreement
before the meeting.  You see, Stephan and Alexander are negotiating for a substantial
fee because they say that they can decide what she will or will not do.  In the
case of Dr. Steinbrenner's death, they will control all of his assets and they consider
Eve Miller to be chattel."

"I don't believe a live person is an object," 
Sabrina said almost in spite of herself.  It was obvious that he was trying to create
an animosity between her and the Steinbrenner brothers, so maybe they weren't working
together.  Alexander had probably just gone to the man whom he thought of as the
highest bidder.

"No, of course not.  Which is exactly why we would
be willing to pay for her services.  If she was an object we would buy her.  And
I think our offer should be considered highly.  There are other interests who would
not be willing to pay for her services."

Sabrina nodded and thought that everybody knew about everybody
else, now.  He was referring to the Russians, and also to the American government. 
And the American's must know who he was.  His interest might provoke them to act
more hastily.  Or it might provoke the Russians to do so, and they had already attempted
a kidnapping.

"I'm sure your offer will be regarded seriously by
Eve,"  Sabrina said, trying to be as polite and obscure as the Japanese man.

"That is a good beginning.  Please give my regards
to Eve." 

Hashimoto smiled, disclosing his awful teeth again.  Sabrina
wondered why he didn't get better dental care.  He must be one of the wealthiest
people in the world.

Sabrina watched with relief as he picked up his packages
and left the shop.  She saw one man get out of the back seat and then Hashimoto
got in, so that he was riding between two gigantic men; probably so that no one
could shoot him without first killing a bodyguard.

Sabrina felt her nerves finally relaxing as she watched
the stretch limousine drive out of sight.  She walked into the back of the store. 
Eve was working at the design table.  Bea was watching in awe at the fastest sketching
she had ever seen.  It was apparent that even Bea knew Eve was different, now.

"I should get some Japanese language tapes," 
Eve said, when she saw Sabrina.  "Then I'll know what's going on in the meeting
tomorrow."

Bea stood looking at the two women in astonishment.

"That's a good idea.  Do you mind watching the store
for a little while, Bea?"

"I don't understand,"  Bea said.

"That's all right.  You remember to keep Eve a secret
and we'll tell you everything soon.  I think things are going to happen pretty quickly
now.  You see, Eve has some special abilities."

"Sure, I'll watch the store,"  Bea said, almost
mesmerized by the quick skillful drawing.  "And I won't say a word.  This is
quite thrilling."