"What?"
"All sorts of things. Tomorrow I'm going to a hospital to have my appendix scars changed over to Russian style and to have my teeth re-filled in a way that won't look too American. Then I'm going to buy gadgets."
"Can you take much with you?"
"This much." He held up an American matchbox. "But I'll have lenses, cutting edges, syrettes, all sorts of things. It's the Japanese miniature copy of the Nazi's spy kit. I don't think that the Americans ever developed anything like it. I'm putting my own combination of requirements together. And I'm taking lessons, too."
"What kind of lessons?"
"From a Japanese confidence man. He's been a prisoner in Siberia and just got back. He is a first-class swindler, with a big police reputation before the war. He's not merely sold fake plans for the American atomic bomb to the Russian officials here. He's sold the same plans to the same Russian twice. That's good. He and I are thinking up some really international swindles — American secrets for the Russians, American citizenship and passports for Japanese, all sorts of things. I'm actually getting the tune on the Russians from him. He has really gotten to know the feel of them."
Sarah sighed. "It sounds like a funny way to go about your errand." She wished he would talk about their own two personal selves.
The waiter came in with bowls of rice so white that each grain gleamed like a tiny pearl. A waitress followed, bowing prettily, with a tray on which the strips of eel gleamed in savory lengths about half the size of an American frankfurter. A miniature fitted dish, containing a jigsaw puzzle of odd-shaped saucers, contained condiments. Dugan spoke Japanese to the people of the restaurant and it was plain, even to Sarah's untrained ear, that his Japanese had a harsh hesitant run to its cadences. When they left he looked over at her and whispered:
"You like my American-accented Japanese? You ought to hear me being a graduate of the Imperial Military Academy!"
"Show me," she whispered back, alert to the game, welcoming it as against the miserable undertones of their meeting.