Read Online Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn - Free Book Online Page A

between my dad and Skye. I want to understand why Skye would lie about something like that. But the topic doesn’t come up again. Instead, we sip dark green matcha served in elegant cups with no handles. The tea smells both fresh and earthy and tastes way better than my mom’s bags of Lipton. We eat wagashi , Japanese confections, and Mitsue points out the two layers of gelatin in the small, fish-shaped cakes. Between bites, my dad and Kenji talk about some Seattle construction project, and Mitsue asks me about my work at Jet City Comics.
    After tea and wagashi , Mitsue takes me downstairs to see their print collection while my dad and Kenji talk about the mural project. Most people’s basements are pretty junky. Boxes, dusty exercise equipment, the occasional artificial Christmas tree. Not this place. It looks like a real museum archive. The ceiling has recessed lights, and there’s a climate control switch on the wall. Two huge metal tables stacked with flat boxes take up the center of the room. Flat-drawer cabinets line the walls. Horizontal windows, high up by the ceiling, are covered with gray screens to filter out daylight, except for a window at the end. That one’s boarded up.
    “That’s where the thief entered and escaped,” Mituse says, following my gaze.
    “The thief must be pretty skinny,” I remark. The windows are less than two feet tall.
    I step closer to the wall, observing two angry black streaks halfway up.
    “And those marks came from hard-soled shoes,” Mitsue explains. “Climbing up.”
    The sill doesn’t have a big overhang. “You’d sure need a lot of upper-arm strength to hang on.” I picture Skye’s wiry bicep with the cormorant tattoo. “So did an alarm go off?”
    “Yes. The police responded to it, but when they arrived, the thief was already gone.”
    “Any witnesses?”
    She shakes her head. “Our neighbors did not see or hear a thing. I regret that we lined our garden paths and walkways with all those white stones. No footprints were left behind.”
    “What did the thief use to break the glass?”
    “A large rock. From our Zen garden out back. Ironically.”
    I think of that ugly rock at my dad’s house. He seemed certain there was no connection, but two rocks shattering two windows seems like some kind of link to me.
    “Forgive me. I do not wish to frighten you with these details,” Mitsue apologizes. “Let me show you some prints.” From one of the flat boxes, she removes a stack of portfolios.
    Brown portfolios! Just like the one I saw peeking out of Skye’s bag!
    “We have acquired a great number of Japanese prints from estate sales and print fairs,” Mitsue says, slipping on white gloves. “Eventually, we will transport all of them to Tokyo. These boxes contain ukiyo-e prints, from the 1600s through early 1800s. The other boxes contain shin hanga , or ‘new’ prints, from the early twentieth century. We are going to display some of each in our exhibit next month.”
    “Wow. My dad’s paintings are going to be shown in the same room with these?”
    “Yes. The exhibit will focus on the influences of Japanese woodblock prints on contemporary artists. Your father has studied some techniques and used them in his paintings.”
    “You mean like van Gogh did?”
    Mitsue smiles. “Yes, there are similarities. Van Gogh was a great collector and student of ukiyo-e . Japanese prints influenced his perspective, his composition, his color choices, even his brushstrokes. He copied three prints and turned them into paintings. They’re in the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. In fact, we think the drawings for the Moon Crossing Bridge , and the painting that accompanied them, were intended to be his fourth major work inspired by a Japanese print.”
    “Do you have the Hiroshige print that van Gogh studied?”
    “We do. Though ours is only in fair condition.”
    “I’d love to see it.”
    “Of course.” Mitsue goes to a flat-file cabinet, turns a combination