Chapter 14: Practice Makes Perfect
Chapter 14: Practice Makes Perfect
“Here are the addresses of all kore ya mama Pharmaceutics properties. Fortunately they have only one
main manufacturing nt. The headquarters are not far off. Their researchbs are in the same
building as the headquarters offices.”
“Koriyama,” Ste said, correcting the pronunciation.
ze looked proud of herself as she ced the list of addresses on a coffee table.
“I have been told,” she went on, “that it is more likely Sorren would be using the research facilities. So I
think that is where we should check first.”
Sounded good to me, so I didn’t say anything.
“Ste is still putting the finishing touches on her show, so I guess it’s up to you and me, Sled.”
“Sure, babe.”
I might have been a little more certain if my head didn’t feel like a whole toon of soldiers were
marching around inside it. That sack-key stuff is stronger than it looks. Still, a Private Dick’s gotta do
what a Private Dick’s gotta do. I pushed my porkpie hat back an inch and told her, “When do we go?”
“Now. It will take us about two hours to travel to kor aye amma.”
N?velDrama.Org: text ? owner.
“Koriyama,” said Ste, again.
“Yeah, what I said. We can look around, andter tonight, after the offices have closed down, we’ll go
in.”
No one said anything, so I guess the n was fine with Ste and Tara also. I was happy at the
prospect of some action. Sitting around eating funny food is not the lifestyle for an action guy like me.
Ste and Tara left, leaving ze and I alone in her hotel room.
“I have arranged for a car to drive us to Corry Amma,” ze said. I liked the way she frowned when
she tried to pronounce Japanese words. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes, huh? That didn’t leave us any time for anything but a good, old-fashioned “quickie”,
but I didn’t know ze well enough to suggest that. Too bad. She did have a nice body and a face that
made men’s heads turn every time she walked by. Well, maybe the body did it more, but she was also
very pretty.
“Pack an overnight bag,” she said, “we’ll stay in a hotel there and return here tomorrow morning.”
I told her I would meet her in the lobby, and went back to my room.
To take a quickie cold shower.
Well, I actually didn’t, but I did use the time to clean Wilma and make sure she was loaded for bear.
Fifteen minutester I was in the lobby, waiting for ze.
The car she had hired was Japanese built and the driver was a teenage girl who looked as if she
should be in high school instead of driving people around. I felt like asking if she really had a driver’s
license. She bowed to us and invited us into her car.
After a while, I calmed down. She wasn’t a bad driver, and once we were out of the main part of Tokyo
the roads became much less crowded. The first thing that surprised me was that there were signs on
the freeway much like in California: big green signs with white lettering. Of course, the lettering was in
that funny hen scratching they use instead of letters, but most of the major signs had a trantion in
English under the Japanese writing.
We were told by our teenager driver that Koriyama was in the Fukushima Prefecture and was a central
business city for the area. To the north were the Adatara Mountains (which didn’t look all that big to me,
having seen the Sierra Nevada Mountains), Lake Inawashiro to the west (I wondered how the fishing
was), and the Abukuma River ran right through town.
It wasn’t a long drive, maybe a hundred miles or so, and it was only mid-morning when we reached that
city. Being a big city boy myself, I wasn’t too impressed with the ten or twelve story office buildings, but
then I had notice that they don’t make their buildings very tall in Japan. Maybe that had something to
do with the earthquakes. We had felt several since we arrived, and were told that they were
aftershocks from the big one a few months before. Ste also mentioned that they have almost daily
small earthquakes in Japan anyway. It’s a way of life here, she said.
Made me feel right at home, being from Los Angeles and all.
We had her drive us by the headquarters building of Koriyama Pharmaceutics. Wasn’t too impressive,
about eight stories tall, looked about forty years old and had only one sign announcing who lived there.
And that wasn’t a very big one. We circled it a couple times before making off to the Comfort Hotel.
Since it was only a few blocks between our hotel and our target, we told our driver to return for us
tomorrow morning and we checked in.
I expected ze to have reserved two rooms for us, but was surprised when the desk clerk handed me
only one key. On the way up, ze took my arm and whispered, “We’re married.” Then she exined
that the CIA was short of budget and wanted agents to share rooms. Which was fine with me. I could
hardly wait to see what the sleeping arrangements would be.
The room was on the fifth floor, was pretty nice by most standards, and obviously outfitted for
foreigners. None of that sleeping on the floor stuff, and all. I could have been in a hotel most any ce
in California. There were two separate beds. Damn. Well, we were still in the same room.
ze put her small suitcase in one corner and I dropped my bag on one of the beds.
A king sized bed would have been nice, but at least there was only a couple feet between the two
beds: nice and close.
“First thing is to get some lunch,” she said brightly. “I’m hungry.”
I had to admit that I was hungry also. So we wandered down to the front lobby. The in-house restaurant
was Japanese style, even though most of the people in there were non-Japanese. I told ze we could
look around for something else. Just outside, I looked across the street and my heart leapt for joy!
There were the big golden arches of a fast food chain I had grown up with. I practically pulled ze
across the street.
For the first time in a couple days I had a decent meal: a nice, big, juicy, calorie-loaded hamburger! And
french fries. I was in heaven and my stomach thanked me.
Back in the hotel room, hunger of one type satisfied, I stood at the window and looked down the street.
There, not far off, was the building we were going to break into that night. I could even see people
going in and out the front.
As I was looking out, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Turning around, there was ze.
“Sled, could I ask a favor of you?”
“Sure, babe, anything.”
“Would you please tie me up?”