Linnear 03 - White Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online

dawn of sexual desire, the other rapt in it.
    'I suppose I was speaking theoretically,' Branding said a bit thickly. 'Real life has proved that evil is always banal.'
    Shisei put her head in the hollow of his shoulder, the way a child might when she is tired or in need of affection. But she was not a child. Branding felt with a start the hardness of her breasts. The erotic charge was like an electrical current running through him, and he missed a step, almost stumbling over her tiny feet.
    She looked up into his face and smiled. Could she be laughing at him?
    'As a child,' she said in time to the music so that she might have been singing, 'I was taught that banality was in itself evil or - in any event - not acceptable.' A light sheen lay along the skin of her arm, like the dew on the geranium petals. It seemed to Branding to highlight the tender firmness of her flesh. "There is a Japanese word -kata. It means rules, but also the proper form to maintain. Do you understand? Banality is outside kata, not of our world.'
    'Your world?'
    'In Japan, Senator, training is everything. Kata is all.
    Without them both, chaos would surely ensue, and man would be little better than the ape.'
    Branding had heard many stories of Japanese prejudice, but had never thought much of them. Now, hearing that bias firsthand, it rankled. He was a man who disliked prejudice in any form - it was one of the reasons he disliked this crowd; why he had had so many bitter fights with his father, the blue-blood Brahmin; and why, after college, he had never returned home. It was in his nature to struggle against such ignorance.
    'Surely you mean laws,' he said, attempting to understand her. 'Laws are what make mankind civilized.'
    'Mankind,' she said, 'enacts laws to suit individual purpose. Kata is equal among all Japanese.'
    He smiled. 'Among all Japanese, perhaps. But not among all people.' He realized too late that his tone as well as his smile was the kind he used when, years ago, his daughter said something amusing but essentially foolish.
    Shisei's eyes sparked, and she broke away from.him. 'As a senator I assumed you would be sufficiently intelligent to understand.'
    Branding, standing with her on the patio with couples in movement aft around them, was all too conscious of the stares they were getting. He held out his hands. 'Let's dance.'
    Shisei studied him, unmoving. Then she smiled, as if having taken in his embarrassment, she had been amply repaid for his unintentioned insult. She moved smoothly, effortlessly into his arms. Again, Branding felt the heat of her body insinuate itself erotically against him.
    The band had switched to the kind of smoky ballads Frank Sinatra loved to sing.
    'What kind of music do you like?' Shisei asked as they slowly circled the patio.
    He shrugged. 'Cole Porter, I suppose. George
    Gershwin. As a kid, I used to love to hear Hoagy Carmichael play. Do you know "Sweet and Low Down"?'
    'I love Bryan Ferry, David Bowie, Iggy Pop,' she said as if he had not answered her. 'Am I going too fast?'
    He knew what she meant. 'I've heard of them,' he said, somewhat defensively.
    'Energy,' Shisei said, 'is the kick I need with my champagne.'
    He studied her face and, feeling his heart beating fast, wondered that his adrenalin had started running. It was after midnight, a time by which he would normally have said his goodnights, and been driving back to his wind-and salt-weathered house on Dune Road, bored and slightly depressed, as if contact with these people was somehow pernicious. He found much to his surprise that he had no inclination to leave.
    He wanted to continue dancing, to keep her in his arms, but she said, 'I'm hungry.'
    The clams casino and the lobster had already come and gone. They picked over what was left: cold charcoal-broiled chicken, slightly limp salad, corn on which the butter had congealed.
    Branding watched with fascination as Shisei ate like a little animal, hunched over her plate. Her long gold-lacquered