“You don’t need the NYPD to find the watch, Mr. Takahashi,” Maya said softly. “You just need a napkin.”
Takahashi blinked, freezing mid-gesture. “What?”
Maya pointed toward the porcelain dessert tray resting near the center of the table, where four small square pastries sat dusted in vibrant green ceremonial Uji matcha powder. One pastry—the one beside Takahashi’s saucer—had a corner broken off.
“When you returned from the restroom ten minutes ago,” Maya said, “you broke off a piece of your matcha financier with your right hand before you realized Richard had turned the contract to Clause Fourteen. You didn’t wipe your fingers on your hot towel. Instead, while everyone was looking at the contract folder, you unclasped your watch under the table and slipped it into your jacket.”
Maya raised her hand and pointed directly at the right side of Takahashi’s tailored black suit.
“Look at the tip of your right thumb, Mr. Takahashi,” Maya said. “And then look at the black wool on the inner edge of your right pocket flap.”
Daniel Brooks stood up from his chair and leaned across the walnut table.
Under the warm overhead light, the faint green dusting of ceremonial matcha powder was unmistakable against the tip of Takahashi’s right thumb. And directly below his waist, smeared along the jet-black silk piping of his right suit pocket flap, was a matching crescent of bright green powder—placed there the exact instant a thumb had pushed something heavy down into the lining.
Takahashi looked down.
When he saw the green smudge against his black jacket, the breath left his lungs in a ragged hiss.
“And if Mr. Vance still doubts why you put it there,” Maya added quietly, looking past the older man toward the corner of the room, “all he has to do is ask Mr. Sato to open that briefcase. Because under Japanese corporate law, the compliance secretary who signs the verification line on a falsified asset sheet is the one who goes to prison when the fraud is discovered—not the Chairman.”
Kenji Sato’s knees visibly buckled an inch. Tears of sheer terror and humiliation sprang into the corners of the young man’s eyes as he looked at the back of Takahashi’s neck, finally realizing that a boss who would frame an innocent waitress in thirty seconds would throw his own secretary to the prosecutors without a second thought.
“Kenji, don’t you dare!” Takahashi’s face contorted with fury as he lunged backward to grab the leather briefcase out of his secretary’s hands and storm out of the room—just as a delicate, mechanical chime began to ring directly from the inside of Takahashi’s right suit pocket.
Four clear, silver notes rang out in the dead silence of the VIP room, muffled only slightly by the expensive black wool of Mr. Takahashi’s right jacket pocket. Eight o’clock on the hour—the automatic Westminster chime of a fifty-thousand-dollar gold minute-repeater watch. Nobody breathed as the delicate mechanical melody finished chiming against Takahashi’s hip.
Then, following a brief mechanical pause, eight deeper, resonant strikes sounded one after another from the exact same spot inside his jacket.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
Takahashi stood frozen mid-lunge between his chair and his secretary. His outstretched hands hovered in the air like a statue’s. Every ounce of blood had drained from his face, leaving his skin as pale and waxy as tallow under the amber glow of the hanging lanterns.
Across the walnut table, Greg Miller slowly looked up from the side of Takahashi’s suit jacket to meet the older man’s eyes. Arthur Pendelton’s mouth hung slightly open. Beside the sliding cedar door, floor manager Victor Moretti looked as though the polished floorboards had just vanished beneath his shoes.
Richard Vance didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“That’s a remarkable suit, Chairman Takahashi,” Richard said, his baritone slicing through the quiet room like cold steel. “Does your tailor build Swiss chimes into all of your right pockets, or only the ones you accuse waitresses of robbing?”
Takahashi’s throat worked violently as he swallowed. His dark eyes darted around the table, looking for a single face that still held a shred of deference. There were none. Even Arthur Pendelton was staring at him with open disgust.