Sayonara, Signora

Her name was Marguerita Carmella Yoshiro. Dantine found her in a cafeteria on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. She sat alone at a table, hollow black eyes staring a hole in the fading yellow wallpaper, a cup of coffee and a slice of cold peach pie untouched on the table before her.

For six months Dantine scoured the globe, arduously following up on every tip and lead arriving at the home office in Berlin. He regretted the incident in Tokyo but he was careful to make the deaths appear accidental; so far the Japanese authorities didn’t appear to be thinking otherwise.

He stood quietly in the doorway of the cafeteria, wrapped in the warm embrace of sunshine flooding through the plate glass windows. Marguerita had let her short black hair grow past her shoulders. She was wearing a simple white cotton blouse, ill-fitting jeans, and a pair of pink, fuzzy house slippers. She did not recognize Dantine when he dropped into the chair across from her.

“Marguerita,” Dantine said softly, his eyes misting. “It’s time to go back.”

Her eyes drifted away from the yellow wallpaper to meet Dantine’s gaze. She moved her lips to speak but instead of words issuing forth, she emitted the loud bugle-like note of a whooping crane.