Serious Moonlight(61)

“Stop apologizing. It’s all good,” he said, lightly brushing the back of my fingers with his.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. And at least we got some info about the spreadsheet. We got the initials of the Ukrainian company, and we know Ivanov’s title.”

“What about the address that Sharkie translated when we were on the roof? I saw you pulling it up on your phone when he read it off.”

“Doesn’t exist,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll text it to you, and I’ll try it again later, but the map is just defaulting to the city.”

“Maybe it’s like a black-market thing.”

He nodded and absently scratched his arm, glancing at Mona through the car window. “So, hey. About what I said earlier . . . You want to meet me for dinner tomorrow before work?”

Uh-oh. Was this the private talk he wanted?

“You have some place in mind?” I asked.

“Do you like sushi?”

“Sushi?”

“The food of my people,” he joked. “Rice, nori, fishy goodness?”

“Not sure if I’ve ever had real sushi, but I like California rolls. And I like fish.”

“That’s a start,” he said. “I know a place that you’ll love. I promise. And we can talk. About things.”

Things. Exactly what he meant by that, I wasn’t sure.

But I didn’t think it was about the Raymond Darke spreadsheet.





“Trust, Jones, is something hard to win, easy to lose, and never to be taken lightly.”

—DCI Tom Barnaby, Midsomer Murders (2007)





19




* * *



Daniel texted me directions to a small, triangular plaza near a statue of Chief Seattle, south of Denny Way. Making my way past a herd of blue-badged Amazon employees that had strayed too far from their corporate campus, I got there in time to meet him for dinner the next day before work.

The monorail track ran above, and just a few blocks away, the ever-present Space Needle was casting a long shadow over a crisscross of streets. I exited a city bus, and as traffic sped by, I spotted Daniel a few steps away, hands stuffed in his pockets.

“This must be the nexus of the city,” I joked.

“I’ve heard if you say ‘candyman’ three times at the Chief Seattle statue, Kurt Cobain’s ghost will appear.”

“Is that so?”

He smiled at me, just a small smile, but it was unguarded and hopeful, and seeing it caused a battalion of butterflies to wage war inside my stomach.

Were we okay? Were we not? Clearly he didn’t ask me here to discuss our investigation. Was he going to tell me about the stupid thing he’d done in high school? Or had he changed his mind about our snatch-and-run with Aunt Mona yesterday and decided my weird family was too much for him to handle?

I tried to divine his intentions, becoming hyper-observant of his body language. His hands were in his pockets. Did that mean he was nervous because he was about to tell me we needed to cool things down?

Can you break up with someone whom you’ve only been out with once?

I was being paranoid, surely. It was just that he seemed . . . different. Tense.

Remnants of rush-hour traffic sped down Denny Way. We shuffled silently under trees lining the plaza, and after crossing the road, he ushered me down a sidewalk lined with casual restaurants and into a door marked TILIKUM SUSHI.

The restaurant was cozy and unadorned. A few tables were scattered around the perimeter, but it was what sat in the center that held my attention. Two chefs in black uniforms were cutting up fish in an open kitchen that sat in the center of a square wood counter. And around that counter, like a lazy train, a conveyer belt of slow-moving dishes glided past customers.

“Kaiten-sushi,” Daniel explained. “Have you had it?”

I shook my head.

“Sometimes conveyer sushi isn’t the best because it’s basically fast food. But this place is awesome. I know the owner.”

Of course he did. A few customers huddled around all four sides of the counter, mostly tech bros and lawyer types in suits. We sat down at a couple of free stools, and the chef, a Japanese man in his twenties, grinned when he spotted Daniel. “Yo, magic boy,” he said.

“That’s magic man to you,” Daniel corrected. “Don’t embarrass me in front of the lady.”

“I’m Mike,” the chef told me, holding up a sharp knife. A red bandanna cap covered his head, and his mustache curled up on both ends, à la Salvador Dalí. “And for the record, he embarrasses himself.”

“This is true,” Daniel said, smiling.

“How’s Cherry?” the chef asked.

From a stack below the conveyer belt, Daniel pulled off two china cups without handles and set one in front of me. “Too old for you.”

“I’ve dated older. And younger,” he said, smiling at me. “How old are you?”

“Right in front of my face?” Daniel shook his head, and as he scooped green powder into our cups, he said to me conspiratorially, “Don’t listen to this guy, Birdie. He’s all talk, no game. And his sushi skills are shit.”

The chef pointed the tip of his knife at Daniel. “Those are fighting words, Aoki.”