by Barry Eisler
“We’re doing this on a schedule?”
“The person’s not in position yet. As soon as he is, I’ll upload the information you need.”
On the one hand, I liked the extra time. On the other hand, once again, I hated the idea that Hilger would be able to follow me by my efforts to track his target. I hoped Kanezaki would find something to help me short-circuit the whole thing.
“How long are we talking about?” I asked.
“Forty-eight hours. Check the bulletin board then.”
He clicked off.
I called Kanezaki from a pay phone. “You get it?” I asked.
“I got it. He’s in Jakarta. Or at least he was during the time you had him on the phone.”
I was gripping the phone hard. “Where in Jakarta?”
“Pluit, it looks like. The marina.”
“Can you be more precise than that?”
“What do you want, an address? All I know is he was near a cell tower in Pluit. Without a formal request to the NSA, which will create a lot of questions and take a month to process anyway, I can’t triangulate. I can only give you a radius around a single tower. From what I can see, either he was in Pluit, or he was a little way out in the Java Sea.”
I was quiet for a moment. He was right, I wasn’t being reasonable. But damn, to feel like I was that close to having him in my sights…
“He’s got our friend on a boat,” I said. “They probably docked in Jakarta to make the call, maybe use an Internet café, whatever. But with the boat, they could move anywhere, and keep moving. There are ten million people in Jakarta alone. Leave Jakarta, and you’ve got seventeen thousand islands, only six thousand of them inhabited, and probably twenty thousand miles of coast. And that’s all assuming he stays somewhere in Indonesia and doesn’t move on. Shit, this isn’t much better than knowing he’s in Asia.”
“It’s another piece,” Kanezaki said, after a moment. “Like you said.”
I sighed. He was right again. “Is this anything you can use with what you’ve already got?” I said. “The visas, the previous known location, the government backing?”
“I doubt it. I don’t have a way to search travel records by location, only by names. It doesn’t look like our friend was traveling as himself. So it’s slow going.”
“All right,” I said, trying not to be frustrated. We had so many pieces…but they still added up to nothing. I fought the urge to just go to Jakarta, see what I could find there. Without more information it would be useless.
“What about you?” he asked. “You learn anything on the call? Anything new we can work with?”
“No. Well…maybe one of the people who’s holding Dox is or was a Marine. I think Dox was trying to indicate that, but I’m not sure.”
“All right, I’ll see if that gets us anywhere.”
Even as he said it, I knew it was unlikely. It was almost nothing.
“Anyway, that’s all,” I said. “Hilger told me he’d upload details about the next assignment two days from now.”
“Two days from now? You’re doing it again, aren’t you? Giving yourself time to…”
“I’m not doing anything. He told me the person isn’t in position yet and wouldn’t be for forty-eight hours. I’ve got nothing to do but wait. If you could come up with something in that time, it sure would be handy.”
“Otherwise…”
“Yeah, that’s right. Otherwise we get to number two on the list.”
“Jesus,” I heard him breathe.
“Don’t ‘Jesus’ me,” I growled. “I’m not going to let something happen to my friend.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Bullshit. I don’t want to hear it. Not unless you’ve ever once gotten your own hands bloody. Have you? Ever? Or do you only send out other people for the nasty stuff so you can sleep like a fucking baby at night?”
A long moment went by. Then he said, “I wasn’t judging you. I was just…a little awed. That’s all. I’m trying to help, okay?”
I watched people strolling past me. A group of teenagers, laughing through orthodontic-perfect smiles, sauntering in distressed jeans that probably cost two hundred dollars a pair. Men whose faces bore the marks of nothing worse than overstretched mortgage worries beat back by too much Botox. Women with bare liposuctioned midriffs and Herculean plastic breasts. A river of well-fed selfishness, a contagion of insecure conceit. I hated them. I hated all of them.
“You there?” I heard Kanezaki ask.
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t mind my saying, and you probably will, you seem like you’re on a short fuse lately.”
“You’re right, I mind.”
“I’m only bringing it up because…”
“Because what?”
“Never mind.”
“What? Just say it.”
He sighed. “Don’t push away the people who are trying to help you. You can’t afford it. And neither can our friend who’s in trouble.”
“Oh, now you’re trying to help me. Not use me. Help me.”
“Look, there’s something I want out of this, yes. I’ve been upfront with you about it. But that doesn’t mean…”
“That’s exactly what it means,” I shouted. “Exactly. When are you going to grow up and realize you can’t fucking have it both ways?”
I slammed down the phone and clenched my hands into fists, fighting the urge to smash something. A sound rumbled up out of my throat. It might have been a snarl.
I looked up and saw three husky college kids watching from five yards away. White, dressed like gangsta wannabes. I realized they had stopped because of my outburst.
“Chill, dude,” one of them said.
I stood perfectly still. Inside, a war raged: the need to avoid trouble so I could focus on Dox; the overwhelming urge to slaughter the three creatures looking at me like I was an animal in the zoo. I imagined myself tearing into them like a lawn mower up on its back wheels, slashing, ripping, gutting. I could almost hear their high-pitched wails of terror and surprise, could practically smell the hot blood pouring out of them. I gritted my teeth into an insane smile and stood staring at them, panting with the effort of holding back, praying for one of them to say something, do something, to tip the balance and make me lose control.
One of them smacked Mr. Chill on the back of the head and gave him a shove. “Let’s go, man,” he said. And Mr. Chill, perhaps guided by some reptile-brain recognition of the image of a predator just before it pounces, nodded and silently complied. The three of them walked away, and somehow I managed to let them.
I glanced around. A few other people in the area were studiously looking elsewhere. Goddamnit, I’d drawn attention to myself. Stupid. I pulled out a handkerchief and wiped down the phone receiver, obscuring the act with my torso, then walked away, keeping my head down.
I found another pay phone and called the toll-free number for Hilton hotels. Their property in Beverly Hills had a room available tonight, did I want that? I told them I did, and would be there shortly. One night was fine. I was just passing through.
I had the car for a week anyway, so I decided to hold on to it. It beat figuring out the bus system, or trying to get around by cabs. I had nowhere to go for two days. I might as well stay here.
The nav system took me onto the Santa Monica Boulevard and east toward Beverly Hills. I drove through alternating patches of feeble yellow light and serene urban darkness, the interior of the Mercedes strobing weakly with each passing lamppost. Fragments without were illuminated, revealed, then gone again: a shuffling homeless man, glancing up at me as indifferently as a sea creature outside a passing bathysphere. Shuttered storefronts, graffitied walls, construction sites suffocating under profusions of slapped-on posters. A homeless woman, sunk to her side in the shadows, her head in her hands, another soul swallowed up by the city.
A few miles from the hotel, as concrete gave way to palm trees and graffiti to the shiny windows of boutiques, I turned on my old cell phone to check the v
oice-mail account. Part of me hoped for a message from Delilah. Part of me dreaded it.
What I got, though, wasn’t a message. Just a second after I fired up the phone, it buzzed. I checked the readout, surprised, and saw that Delilah was calling me right then.
I hesitated for two full rings. Then I picked up and said, “Hey.”
“You’re hard to reach,” she said. “And you don’t return calls.”
I thought of several things to say. What came out was just, “Sorry.”
“You know how many times I’ve called you, hoping I’d catch you with your phone on?”
“A lot, I’m getting the feeling.”
“Any news?”
“Some. He’s okay for now.”
“Did you meet with…”
“I met him.”
“And?”
“I learned a few things. But not enough.”
“Where are you now?”
“I…” I started to say. Then, “I don’t know where I am.”
“I want to see you. Just tell me where.”
“I’m in California. But…”
“I have some time off. Tell me where on the bulletin board. I’ll fly out.”
I wanted her, and yet I didn’t. “You shouldn’t come,” I said. “You don’t want to be mixed up in this.”
“You told me you feel tied to me. Did you mean it?”
I sighed. “Christ, you’re stubborn.”
“Did you mean it?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “You know I did.”
“Then I’m coming to see you. Just tell me where.”
“I’ve only got two days…”
“Post it now and I can be there tomorrow afternoon.”
A dozen more protestations came to mind. But I said only, “I need to get to a computer.”
“Okay. And give me the name you’re using. I’ll make a reservation somewhere and tell them to let you in. If you show them ID, you won’t have to wait for me.”
We were quiet for a moment. I said, “What are you wearing?”
She gave me a small laugh. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
My gut roiled with conflicting emotions. I waited, wanting to say something more, for her to say something more, but she had already clicked off.
I found an Internet café in West Hollywood and told Delilah I was in L.A. Then I went to the hotel. I used their business center to check the Air France website—a safe bet Delilah would be flying the national carrier if she wanted her choice of nonstops. There were two flights she could use. One got in at 3:50 in the afternoon, the next, a few hours later at 6:55.
I lay in bed for a long time, thinking, trying to unwind. I wanted to see her, but at the same time I was afraid to. Afraid of what she’d make of me. Which was stupid, of course. Why should I even care what she thought, or anyone else? And if anyone could understand…
No one can understand. No one.
Lying in another anonymous bed in another random hotel room, back in the life as though I’d never left it, I thought I should just let Delilah go. Already my relationship with her felt improbable, inapplicable, absurd. What could I have with her, anyway? Separate apartments in a foreign city, thoughts and lives that we couldn’t discuss?
It didn’t matter. Whatever we had, it was gone, another moment alchemized to memory. I should just accept that. I should just move on, alone. It was all I was ever good for. It was all I could really trust.
18
DELILAH ARRIVED at LAX at a little before four in the afternoon California time. It was almost one in the morning now in Paris, but she’d napped on the flight and didn’t feel tired at all. Flying west was easy. It was the trip back that could be a little rough.
She was carrying only a shoulder bag, a dark brown Bottega Veneta in classic woven leather, and was in a cab less than twenty minutes after touching down. She told the driver, a twentysomething with a nice smile who she guessed was from West Africa, to take her to the Beverly Wilshire, although the reservation she’d made was in fact at the Bel-Air. Unlikely anyone was waiting at the airport to try to follow her, but she wanted a chance to confirm anyway before going on to her true destination.
“And let’s stay on Sepulveda to Jefferson Boulevard,” she added.
“Are you sure, miss? The four-oh-five would be faster.”
She knew that, which was exactly why she wanted to go through the city. In L.A. freeway traffic, it would be impossible to know whether anyone was following them; there could be fifty cars between the cab and a tail. The city route, by contrast, would have fewer cars and more local traffic. Every time the cab turned, Delilah would be able to check behind to see if anyone had stayed with them. A few instances of a car going the same way could be a coincidence. All the way from the airport to Beverly Hills would be a different matter.
“I’d just like to see the city,” Delilah said.
The driver furrowed his brow and smiled. “Of course, of course. You…live in L.A.?”
Delilah understood what he was thinking. She obviously knew the city well, but if she lived here, why would she want to take the scenic route? And with her looks, he was wondering if she was a celebrity he couldn’t quite place. Her clothes fit the celebrity theory, too: a classic Burberry trench coat, open now in the relative warmth of the southern California afternoon; a cream-colored, scoop-necked cashmere sweater, set off by a long, gold Faraone Mennella chain-link necklace; chocolate brown, platform-heeled boots worn over slim-cut jeans. She got that quizzical “Is she a celebrity?” look a lot. It neither gratified nor displeased her, but was occasionally something she could use.
“I’ve spent time here,” she said, glancing behind as they turned onto Sepulveda, marking the cars that followed them.
“Oh, of course,” the driver said, and she knew he would take the glance behind them as alertness for paparazzi, or, if not that, then wariness about being followed to an assignation with her lover. The second interpretation, she realized, wasn’t so much inaccurate as it was incomplete.
She thought of John on the way, and Dox. She was worried about both of them: Dox, for obvious reasons; Rain, because she knew that precisely because he was hell-bent on helping his friend, his judgment was likely to be impaired. Look at the way he had blundered into surveillance last year when he’d gone to see Midori and their child. Delilah had tried to warn him then, too, and he had ignored her. She wondered what it was about men that wed them more to a way of doing things than to achieving their ostensible goals. She loved them, loved nothing more, but she had to admit the world would be a better place if it were run by women.
By the time they got to the Beverly Wilshire, she knew she was clean. Still, she wanted to do a foot route to be absolutely sure. She freshened up in a restroom, then strolled through Beverly Hills as the sun set, using a variety of countersurveillance moves to make certain she was alone. After an hour, she was satisfied, and found another cab.
When she had checked the bulletin board before leaving Paris and learned that Rain was in L.A., she immediately thought of the Bel-Air, her favorite hotel in southern California. She’d stayed there twice, and loved it: a luxurious but low-key oasis of pink stucco Mission-style buildings, improbably secluded in the heart of the city among acres of flower and herb gardens, quietly trickling fountains, and the canopies of ancient trees. The hotel had been popular with stars since opening in 1946 because it was so serene, secure, and, of course, discreet. She had posted John the name and location, and the name she would be using. Just say you’re with Laure Kupfer, she had written, and they’ll check you in. Then she had called the hotel, paid in advance for the Garden Suite, and explained that they should give a key to a Mr. Ken, who might arrive before she did and ask to be let into her room.
The cab let her out on the quiet, residential street that fronted the property. She crossed a covered stone bridge to the main building within and was instantly enveloped by the beauty of the place. Water trickled somewhere in the dark
beneath the bridge; to one side, the twisting branches of ancient sycamores were illuminated by spotlights from below. She caught the scent of orange blossoms and basil and suddenly realized she was ravenous.
The check-in area was furnished like a comfortable, tasteful living room, all upholstered furniture, landscape paintings in gilded frames, unostentatious objets d’art. The light was just right, not too bright, not too dim, and the room had a welcoming hush to it, along with a faint scent of wood and cut flowers. A fire crackled in an open fireplace.
Delilah walked over to the front desk and told them she was Laure Kupfer. Of course, Ms. Kupfer, welcome, they told her. Mr. Ken had already arrived; would she like to be escorted to the Garden Suite? She thanked them and told them no, she would rather just stroll over alone.
She walked along a porticoed terrace, her footfalls echoing quietly. She heard the sounds of conversation and quiet laughter from a few people dining under the heat lamps on the patio outside the restaurant, but other than that, Delilah enjoyed the delicious sense that she had the place to herself.
She came to the Garden Suite, unlocked the door, and stepped into the living room. The lights were on, but she didn’t see Rain. “John?” she called out.
There was no answer. A fire was burning in the stone fireplace, and she caught a faint, pleasant trace of smoke in the air. A thick contemporary Oriental rug with a floral design was spread across the expansive Saltillo-tiled floor. The upholstered chairs and couch arranged around a wooden coffee table at the center of the rug were all empty: not a newspaper, not a tossed-aside jacket, not an empty glass. Other than the lights and the fire, in fact, there was no sign that anyone had been using the room.
Suddenly, she was concerned. Rain had sophisticated enemies, and look what had happened to Dox. What if someone had…
Then she told herself she was being ridiculous. The hotel’s security was designed to protect Hollywood glitterati. They were safe here. And even if his judgment were off, Rain was still the most thorough, cautious, paranoid tactician she’d ever known. He was just out—taking a swim, or using the gym, or maybe strolling in one of the gardens.