Tokyo Heist (2 page)

Breathe
. Maybe when my dad sees me, he’ll slap his forehead and apologize, like he does when he’s late to meet me at Romano’s Macaroni Grill for our roughly-every-other-month-dinner thing.

My sneakers squelch on the floor as I shove through the crowd.

But before I can get to my dad, a tall woman strides toward me, blocking my path.

Thunder rumbles outside. Maybe this June storm colors my view, but this woman would make the perfect villain for a
Kimono Girl
episode. My hand twitches with the urge to sketch her. Her silver, bobbed hair is cut razor sharp, her thin lips stained deep maroon. Draped over her black pantsuit is a purple scarf with intricate geometric patterns. I could call her the Scarf. Her scarf might possess magic powers. It could make things disappear.

“Can I help you?” the unsmiling woman asks me.

“Uh, that’s okay.”

“We don’t allow bags larger than a purse in the gallery.”

“Sorry. Do you have a coatroom?”

“We do not.” She nods at a guy standing by the door.

The short, scrawny man in a gray suit walks rapidly toward us, head tipped to one side. His thinning hair is combed back and stiff with gel, a scraggly goatee looks like the site of a botched hair transplant, and his mouth hangs open. He makes me think of the sockeye salmon we studied in biology this year. And I suddenly get a vision of how I could use him as a character, too. As a shape-shifter named Sockeye, who can transform from man to salmon. Yes! He travels Elliott Bay as a fish, then springs from the water as a man to commit heinous crimes!

“What’s going on, Margo?” Sockeye asks.

“Julian, would you kindly escort this young lady and her wet bags to the door?”

Reality hits. The Scarf is Margo Wise, my dad’s new art dealer, the gallery owner.

“Wait,” I say as Julian steps toward me. “I’m here to see my dad. I’m Violet Rossi.” As they both look doubtfully at me, I add, “Glenn Marklund’s daughter.”

Margo glances at the door. “Really? Are there more of you?”

“No. Just me.”

“Well.” She looks me up and down, like I’m a sculpture that didn’t turn out right.

I shouldn’t be shocked I’m breaking news. My parents never married. I’m the offspring of two college students who dated briefly, then called it quits. My mom didn’t see a future with my dad, so she raised me on her own, even though it meant taking twice as long to get through college and an art history PhD program.

I’m proud of her. If anyone has
chikara
,
it’s my mom. But I think her determination to do it all on her own wiped out any trace of my dad in me. I have her height—five foot nine—and her Italian features: a round face, dark curly hair, and curves that I prefer to hide with oversize T-shirts and hoodies. I didn’t get my dad’s angular, Scandinavian features or his Nordic blue eyes. I can see why Margo and Julian are struggling to connect the dots. Still, it seems like my dad failed to mention my mere existence. My thoughts curl up in a fist.

“I’ll get Glenn,” Margo says. “Julian. Move the child’s luggage behind your desk.”

Sniffing loudly, Julian picks up my bags. My duffel bag leaves a wet splotch on his leg.

I look around the gallery, trying to act like I belong. I pretend I’m Kimono Girl slipping into a painting. In
The Adventures of Kimono Girl
, the manga-style graphic novel I’m working on, Kimono Girl (KG for short) has an enchanted vintage kimono. It allows her to slip into works of art. Inside the art, she can hide and observe people on the outside, or she can explore the worlds in the paintings. At work this week, I’ve storyboarded the whole sequence of how she first finds the robe in a shop. The shopkeeper tells her that it once belonged to a Japanese artist. KG gradually discovers its powers. I’m already up to page ten.

I’m sure KG would love to zoom into my dad’s enormous canvases. Fuchsia flowers dot the bluffs, and teal waves glimmer in the distance. Trees in every shade of green pose like models, more like tree portraits than landscapes. I walk up to the tree from the postcard. That tree has serious attitude. A stay-out-of-my-way tree, alone on a bluff.

Imagining I’m Kimono Girl hidden in those branches, I steal a look at the crowd. Most people are just here to see and be seen. But a Japanese man in a dark gray suit commands my attention. Silver hair. Gold watch. Black shoes. Wire-rimmed glasses. Everything about him seems to catch the light and gleam. Edge and Reika would say I only notice him because I’m a total Japan freak. But I don’t think that’s why. I’m drawn to his look of intense concentration. He stands in front of a canvas, swaying slightly, as if the painting is playing music only he can hear.

What would it be like to have someone look at my graphic novel that way?

“Violet? What brings you here?”

I spin around to face my dad. “Seriously? You were supposed to get me after work.”

“No, I’m getting you tomorrow at three thirty. Friday.”

“Mom left for Italy today. I waited for two hours. I left you four phone messages.”

He slaps his forehead. “Gosh. I’m sorry, kiddo. There’s been some stuff going on lately on top of this show that’s sort of distracted me. And I’ve misplaced my cell phone again, can you believe it? So I didn’t get your messages.” He glances at a photographer hovering nearby and puts up one hand. “Um. So. You’re here. That’s terrific! You hungry?”

I shrug and follow him to a banquet table.

“Margo had this catered by Wild Ginger, and—oh, excuse me a moment? There’s someone I promised I’d touch base with. Just real quick. Then we’ll catch up. Okay?”

I load up a plastic plate with vegetable spring rolls and steamed
gyoza.
As I dig in, I notice I’m being stared at by a pale, thin woman with close-cropped auburn hair. She watches me through narrowed eyes. I turn my attention to my plate.

My dad returns. “Great turnout, huh?” He points out some big-time art collectors: media people, high-tech tycoons, investment bankers, venture capitalists. I recognize only the weatherman from Channel Four. “And over there? My two newest collectors.” He points to the silver-haired Japanese man a few yards away. He’s now standing by a Japanese woman. They are discussing a painting.

The woman—his wife, I assume—looks at least a decade younger than him and has the air of a former model. She wears a white cocktail pantsuit with gold, strappy sandals and carries a gleaming, gold clutch. Her hair—jet black with one artful gray streak off her forehead—is smoothed back in a twist and secured with a pearl comb. When she smiles, I notice her teeth are crooked, which startles me at first. But the rest of her beauty overpowers this flaw.

“Kenji and Mitsue Yamada,” my dad whispers. “They’re serious collectors. They live mostly in Japan, but they own a house here in Seattle and come a few times a year for business. Kenji’s with the Yamada Corporation. Heard of it?”

I shake my head.

“It’s one of the biggest construction companies in Japan. They have offices in cities all over the world. Kenji’s the CEO.”

“I thought you hated business. When did you start worshipping the corporate gods?”

My dad pours a cup of seltzer. “Kenji’s not your typical businessman. He’s retiring this year. Wants to be a dedicated patron of the arts. And his wife curates an art museum in his Tokyo office building.”

“Looks like they’re big fans.” I watch the couple exclaim over details in my dad’s painting. In Studio Art, no one looks at my class work with awe. I “show promise” and have “great ideas,” but there are always a hundred things to fix.

“Guess so,” my dad agrees. “Not only are they taking four of my paintings for a show at their museum next month, they commissioned a mural from me for their lobby.”

“In their Seattle office? Cool.”

“No, no. Company headquarters. In Tokyo. I’m flying there in August, after you go back to your mother’s.”

I stare at him. Awesome. Now I’ve got one parent jetting off to Italy, and the other zooming away to Japan, while I get to spend my entire summer working at a second-rate strip-mall comic shop, taking money from snotty kids and forty-year-old men who need showers. Plus, it’s my life dream to go to Japan. One of my best friends is there all summer, and I would kill to be there with her. And now my dad—who won’t even touch sushi with a ten-foot chopstick—is the one who gets to go. This is so not fair.

The auburn-haired woman comes over and snakes an arm around my dad. She fixes her cool, gray eyes on me. “Hello,” she says, then looks at my dad. “Who’s your friend?”

My dad’s neck is turning red. “So, uh, Skye, actually this is Violet, my, um, daughter. Violet, this is Skye Connolly. My, uh, girlfriend.”

Um Daughter and Uh Girlfriend shake hands. “Nice to meet you,” we lie in unison.

Okay, somebody has to say something to break the stare-down contest.

Skye wears a black sheath dress, and her right arm sports a tattoo of a black bird with a long neck shaped like a question mark. “I like your tattoo,” I tell her. “Black swan?”

“Cormorant.” She looks at the characters I copied in white ink on my black leather jacket: the cast of
Fruits Basket
, every character a zodiac sign. “Cute. You’re a manga fan?”

“Sort of.”
Cute.
My dad said that once, last fall, when I showed him some rough ideas for
Kimono Girl
. That’s the last page I ever showed him.

My dad laughs weakly, as if relieved the two of us have found some spongy common ground to flounder on. “Are you kidding? Violet devours manga. Reads it in all her spare time.”

“No, I don’t.” Actually I do. But I’m not a hard-core
otaku
or anything. I don’t do cosplay, or post fan art on the Internet. I go to only one con a year. But I feel pretty much done talking to Skye. She’s made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t get manga. Or me.

Coming here this evening was a huge mistake. I don’t fit into my dad’s world at all. And I don’t think he wants me to. Now he’s talking to Skye in a low voice. I’ve gone from a weird blot on the scene to invisible.

I turn to go. But Margo’s striding toward me again, this time with the Japanese art collectors, and I’m caught in their curious stares.

2

“I
t is a great pleasure to meet you, Violet,” says Kenji Yamada, after Margo introduces me. His English is precise, his accent Japanese mixed with something else. British, I think.

“Yes, very nice meeting you.” Mitsue’s voice makes me think of tea swirled with honey. She admires my damp kimono scarf. “Is this made from a kimono?”

“Uh, yeah, so there’s this store in the international district? They have a bin of vintage kimonos with rips, for ten bucks each, and I use those to make scarves and headbands and stuff?” My mom is always yelling at me about ending sentences with question marks. I wish I could talk about art—or anything—with confidence. With
chikara.

“How creative!” Mitsue exclaims.

“You must be an artist, like your father,” Kenji says, his eyes twinkling. Then he shakes my dad’s hand. “Glenn. Congratulations to you, my friend. Wonderful show.”

“Thanks. I’m so glad you could make it. Considering everything that’s going on.”

Mitsue bites her lip. “We are happier here. I do not feel so comfortable in our home right now. I cannot sleep at night.” Her jade teardrop earrings shudder.

“Yes, but life must go on. Our art was stolen, not our spirit,” Kenji says. “We would not miss this reception for anything.” He sounds cheerful, but his smile falters and he looks down.

“You had art stolen? What kind of art?” I can’t help asking. I love mysteries. My favorite mystery/paranormal manga series is
Vampire Sleuths
; I’ve devoured all forty-two.

“A portfolio containing three van Gogh drawings,” says Mitsue. “It was taken last Wednesday evening from our Seattle house. Skye had just finished some restoration work on the drawings, and we were supposed to deliver them to the Seattle Asian Art Museum the next day, for their upcoming exhibit.” She sighs and twists the strap of her clutch.

“What were the drawings of?” I ask.

“Three studies of a bridge,” Kenji explains. “Inspired by a Japanese woodblock print by Ando Hiroshige called
The Moon Crossing Bridge at Arashiyama
. The museum was going to display them alongside the Hiroshige print that we own.”

I didn’t think regular people could own van Goghs. Then again, I’m getting the impression the Yamadas are not exactly regular people.

“I understand you’re working with the FBI and Interpol. Any leads yet?” Margo asks.

“A few, perhaps,” Kenji says. “The investigation is still in an early stage.” He turns to my dad. “Actually, detectives will be contacting you, Glenn. Margo, Julian, and Skye, too. They must talk with anyone who knows our collection. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“It’s to be expected,” Margo says. “They’re just doing their job. Besides, all they have to do is review our security camera tape to see that Julian and I were here at the gallery at six o’clock last Wednesday evening, planning Glenn’s show.”

“Yeah, I already got my summons,” my dad says. “I’m going in Monday morning. But they won’t waste much time with me, either. I teach at the Art Institute on Wednesday evenings.”

I wait for Skye to offer up an alibi, but she just stands there, eating cheese cubes.

Kenji pats my dad on the shoulder. “Let us return to happier topics. Glenn, I should have wished you double congratulations. I heard about your—”

And then Skye has a Category Five choking fit. She’s doubled over. My dad puts a hand on her back. Everyone looks worried. In thirty seconds, the fit is over. Margo fetches Skye water.

I watch Skye carefully. That fit seemed staged. Was Skye trying to create a distraction, to stop Kenji from completing his sentence? What didn’t she want him to say?

“So, Glenn,” Kenji says when things have calmed down, “my nephew, Hideki, would like you to begin work on the mural earlier. I’m afraid that means flying to Japan a bit sooner.”

“Oh? How much sooner are we talking about?”