Manhattan

All the way down in the elevator, Michiko felt the package. She shook it and finally decided that there were four smaller envelopes inside. The letter for her, the clippings and two others.

She was tempted to open it, but remembered various stories from her youth about girls who opened things they shouldn't. In particular, there was a gaijin one, Bluebeard, that she recalled. She would obey her uncle.

The elevator indicator flashed -2. Michiko hurried down the gray concrete corridor, a stark contrast to the brocade and wood paneling which lined the hall outside her uncle's office, and reached her own room without meeting anyone.

She had tried to give the small space some style of its own with plants that could survive under the fluorescent lights and some framed prints, but had only partially succeeded in distracting the eye from the room's drab beige walls and linoleum.

Lounging in a chair was Danny Di Rocco, a computer programmer employed by the bank.