Read Online Owl and the Japanese Circus by Kristi Charish - Free Book Online Page B

up beside me.
    I sipped the champagne; I could feel the alcohol dulling my brain, and it was an effort to keep my face blank. “Only three months.”
    “That’s a long time for you. Someone was asking about you.”
    I kept on staring at my champagne. “I’m sure someone was, and I’ll deal with that. Tomorrow night.” I downed the rest of my drink and pointed to her cell. “Call Nuroshi?”
    Nadya tsked but dialed the number and stepped into her office.
    Hostesses kept moving bottles of champagne across the floor, and the music picked up. Captain yawned and stretched out on the bar.
    “Good thing Nadya keeps cat food,” I told him.
    Nadya returned a moment later with her coat thrown over her shoulder and Captain’s carrier in the other hand.
    “Nuroshi’s going to meet us here tomorrow at noon,” she said.
    “See, I told you—”
    “And it will cost you double.”
    “Shit.” Don’t get me wrong, it could have been much worse. He could have said no. Still . . . “If he was worried about vampires, he should have mentioned something before the last three jobs I gave him.”
    Nadya blew kisses at her “special table.” “Come on, I’m off. I feel like partying.” Somehow Nadya drew distinctions between the partying she did at work and off work.
    I coaxed Captain back in his case with minimal mewing, grabbed my Chanel bag, and scrambled out the door and down the flight of stairs after her. It had started to drizzle, and I wished I’d have thrown my RL hooded jacket overtop. “Umm, about that, can we leave the partying until tomorrow night? I figured I’d settle in and—”
    “No.”
    “But Nadya—”
    Nadya spun on me and stamped her foot on the damp pavement. “You can’t wait until tomorrow night to visit him. It’s rude, not to mention cruel.”
    I took a deep breath. I knew the tone; it was the same one she’d used on me when I’d tried to turn down her help after my program funding had been pulled out from under me. There was no arguing with her. “All right. We’ll go.”
    We dropped Captain and my stuff off at Nadya’s apartment, and I let Nadya fix my hair and makeup. In the mirror, I examined the braids and the light, almost orange-red lipstick Nadya had paired with otherwise minimal makeup. Credit where credit is due, Nadya could do wonders with a hairbrush and ten minutes.
    We headed back out to club Gaijin Cloud.
    Damn it. I was going to have to talk to Rynn tonight.

    I followed Nadya into Gaijin Cloud, a bar that took up half the tenth floor of a Shiyuba district business building. It hadn’t changed much since I’d last been in, except they’d also installed a night-light bar, a red one.
    “Talk about keeping up with the Joneses,” I said to Nadya.
    Nadya frowned and shot me a quizzical look.
    “The same night-light bar you have,” I said, and pointed. “Theirs is red.”
    She rolled her eyes and headed for the bar.
    I hung back while I scanned the floor. The usual mixed international crowd was in attendance, both foreigners and young Japanese, the kind who spend most of their time overseas. It was packed, and the lights were dim enough that I couldn’t make out faces very well. When I realized Rynn wasn’t manning the front bar, I let out the breath I was holding and joined Nadya.
    She tsked as I ordered my Corona.
    “Hey, let me suspend belief a little longer. Isn’t that the business model these guys work on? Waking up from your dreams is bad? Let me dream Rynn isn’t here a little longer.”
    “You’re impossible,” Nadya whispered.
    The Gaijin Cloud wasn’t a host or hostess bar, or even a Western bar. It occupied some strange, nebulous place in between the three. The men and the women working there were gorgeous and there to entertain everyone—for a price. And that’s where the nebulousness starts and ends.
    The host and hostess bars in Japan get a bad rap, but there’s a practicality and efficiency to them . . . and, when it comes down to it,