Marcus put 11 tiny things on the hotel table and lined them up like candy.
Duke came out of the bathroom with a clean shirt and long cotton pants and a towel on his shoulder and stopped.
Marcus had spent all night in the room with a flashlight and a small screwdriver.
"Where were they?" Duke asked.
Marcus pointed at each one. "Lamps. Phone. Behind the painting. Air vents. Two in the headboard."
He tapped a black dot no bigger than a shirt button. "This one was in the smoke alarm."
"A camera?"
"A camera."
Duke leaned over it. He had read about this in business magazines.
In 1981, hotel rooms in Tokyo got searched a lot. Companies wanted to know what visiting bosses talked about, and so did some newspapers.
"Who put them there?"
"Could be anybody." Marcus shrugged. "The government, rival company, magazine. Everybody wants to know what Americans or you want."
Duke picked up the one from the lamp. "Does this one still work?"
"Yes."
"Then put it back."
Marcus stared at him.
"Take the rest out," Duke said. "Leave this one."
He sat on the edge of the bed, looked right at the lamp, and spoke in a clear voice. "You know, I really love women, mature women with some meat on their bones. I think about them all the time."
Marcus's mouth twitched, turning around and pretended to check the window.
Someone knocked on the door, as Victoria walked in holding a small flower vase in both hands.
"Somebody gifted me this flower vase, the flower inside its the Royal Flower, the japanese Chrysanthemum," she said. "It represents longevity so I decided to name it Duke."
"Don't name it that."
"Too late." She set the vase on the table next to the eleven black items.
"Who's listening to us right now?" she whispered.
"I dont know, too many different groups want information on someone like me," Duke said.
Duke stood up and walked to the window to watch outside where a small group of protesters stood with signs. They had followed him to the hotel.
'Did I do anything bad to Japan?' He couldnt help but wonder.
Breakfast came on a tray with a bowl of miso soup, a grilled fish, a pot of rice, and one pickled plum.
Victoria poked the plum with her chopsticks and handed it to Duke.
"You first," she said.
He ate it, his whole face twisting around from how salty it was, she clapped laughing.
Later, he asked the hotel operator for a number in Los Angeles.
In 1981, you couldn't just dial, an operator had to connect you, and you waited through clicks and static until a voice answered from the other side of the world.
Tokyo was 17 hours ahead of LA.
It was 7 in the morning here and 2 in the afternoon of the day before for Eisner.
"How's Japan?" Eisner asked.
"Loud," Duke said. "And polite. At the same time. I really don't know how they do it."
"Have you eaten anything strange there? I heard the Japanese have a type of soup made out of kids feces."
"That soup is Korean in reality. Although, I was offered something called Shirako, it looked tasty until I learned it was fish sperm sacs."
Eisner's papers rustled on his end. "Okay. Lets get to business." He said ignoring his last words. He seemed to abruptly have lost interest in the food topic.
"Oriental Land called my office again to discuss matter."
"They called us," Duke said. "We didn't knock."
"I know. That's what worries me."
Duke wrote the words OL and OSAKA on the hotel notepad and drew a box around them.
Oriental Land was the company that in his past life, built and ran Tokyo Disneyland.
Disney only rented them its name and got a fee. .
Oriental Land paid for the rides, the land, and the workers.
When the gates opened, they would keep most of the money.
It was a nice deal for the people who did the work.
But Duke did not plan to renting out his name.
"Here's my problem," Eisner said. "We have Gladiator in a month. We have Congress. Now we want to build a park in Japan?"
"I didn't say build."
"You didn't say don't."
Duke tapped the pen against the paper. "What else?"
"Washington. If the newspapers say Paramount is buying parks across the ocean, Valenti will love it. It's another line in his Rockefeller speech."..
"And?"
Eisner took a breath. "And Disney. They're going to hear that their own partner is talking to us. That's a fight, Duke.
Mm"
Duke thought about it. He could hear a clock ticking somewhere in the room, and a cart rolling in the hallway outside.
"Here's what we do," he said. "We listen. Nothing else. If we ever say yes, we own part of it. No renting."
"A partnership."
"A real one. And not until the movie is done."
"You hate listening."
"I'm practicing."
Eisner laughed. Then his voice changed. "Jeffrey says he's sitting in on the animation visit today. Is that right?"
Duke's pen stopped over the paper.
"He's riding with me to MadHouse," he said.
"Good. Make him eat something. He looks like a lamp post."
"Sure."
Duke said goodbye and hung up.
---
Short chapter cause I'm falling asleep
Next chapter already written only needs proofread