by Barry Eisler
“I’ll need a way to contact you,” I said.
“Will you take the job?”
I looked at him. “I want to think about your story first. If I decide I can work with you safely, I’ll do it.”
He took out a Mont Blanc Meisterstück, unscrewed it, and scrawled a number on a napkin. “You can reach me here,” he said.
“Oh, one more thing,” I said, taking the napkin. “The guy you were using to try to get to me. Haruyoshi Fukasawa. He died recently.”
He swallowed. “I know. Kanezaki told me.”
“What do you think happened there?”
“From what Kanezaki told me, I gather it was an accident.”
I nodded. “The thing is, Fukasawa was a friend of mine. He wasn’t much of a drinker. But apparently he was loaded when he fell from that roof. Strange, isn’t it?”
“If you think we had something to do with this . . .”
“Maybe you can just tell me who did.”
He glanced to his right again. “I don’t know.”
“Your people were following Harry. And I know his death was no accident. If you can’t do any better than what you’ve already told me, I’m going to start assuming that it was you.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know who did it. Even assuming it wasn’t an accident.”
“How did you find out where Harry lived in the first place?”
He repeated Kanezaki’s story about Midori’s letter.
“With only that to go on, you must have used local resources,” I suggested.
He looked at me. “You seem to know a lot. But I’m not going to start confirming or denying the specifics of local resources for you. If you suspect local resources might have been involved in your friend’s death, I can’t help you. As I said, I don’t know.”
I wasn’t going to get any more out of him in a place like this. I wished for a second we were alone.
I got up to go. “I’ll be in touch,” I said.
Tatsu and I had agreed to meet in Yoyogi Park after I’d braced Biddle. I went there, taking the usual precautions. He was already waiting, sitting on a bench beneath one of the park’s thousands of maple trees, reading a newspaper, looking like some of the retirees in the area who were passing the day doing the same thing.
“How did it go?” he asked.
I briefed him on what Biddle had told me.
“I know of Tanaka,” he said when I was done. “His father founded an electronics company in the twenties that survived the war and prospered afterward. Tanaka sold it when his father died and has been living off the considerable proceeds ever since. He is said to have an enormous libido, particularly for a man nearing seventy. He is also said to be addicted to codeine and other narcotics.”
“What about his politics?”
“He has none, so far as I know.”
“Then why would he want to fund an Agency program to aid reformers?”
“I’d like you to help me find out.”
“Why?”
He looked at me. “I need a bad cop. And we may get a lead about Murakami.”
“Nothing from the guy you took into custody?”
He shook his head. “The problem is that he is much more afraid of his boss than he is of me. But I’ve always been impressed by how much a man’s attitudes will change at between forty-eight and seventy-two hours of sleep deprivation. We may learn something yet.”
He took out his cell phone and input a number. Asked a few questions. Listened. Issued instructions. Then he said, “So da. So da. So.” That’s right. That’s right. Yes.
He hung up and turned to me. “One of my men is on his way to pick us up now. He will take us to Tanaka’s residence, which is in Shirokanedai.”
Shirokanedai is arguably Tokyo’s poshest neighborhood. Apart from the main artery of Meguro-dori, which runs through it, its narrow streets of elegant single-family homes and apartments are astonishingly hushed and peaceful, as though the neighborhood’s money has managed to buy off the tumult of the surrounding city and send it somewhere else. There’s a sort of relaxed class about the place. Its women, known locally as shiroganeze, look at home in their furs as they promenade their toy poodles and Pomeranians between visits to tea shops and boutiques and salons; its men, secure behind the wheels of the Beemers and Benzes that carry them to their high-powered jobs; its children, relaxed, carefree, not yet even aware that their neighborhood is the exception to life in Tokyo and elsewhere, not the rule.
Tatsu’s man picked us up as promised and drove us the ten minutes to Shirokanedai.
Tanaka lived in an oversized, two-story detached house in Shirokanedai 4-chome, across from the Sri Lankan embassy. Its most distinguishing characteristics, aside from its size, were the cars parked in its driveway: a white Porsche 911 GT with a massive spoiler, and a bright red Ferrari Modena. Each was spotless and gleaming and I wondered whether Tanaka actually drove them or merely exhibited them as trophies.
The property was gated and sat on an elevated plot of land that gave it the feel of a castle looking out upon the lesser dwellings around it. Tatsu and I got out and went through the gate, which was unlocked. He pressed a button next to the double wooden doors and I heard a long series of baritone chimes from within.
A moment later a young woman answered the door. She was pretty and looked Southeast Asian, maybe Filipina, and was dressed in a classic black-and-white maid’s uniform, complete with some sort of white lace cap atop her upturned coiffure. The getup was just this side of what a medium-class pervert might ask for in one of Tokyo’s “image clubs,” where customers can be serviced by girls dressed as students, nurses, or any other profession whose uniform might provoke a fetish, and I wondered what the full range of this woman’s household duties might actually be.
“May I help you?” she asked, looking first at Tatsu, then at me.
“I am Keisatsucho Department Head Ishikura Tatsuhiko,” Tatsu said, producing his ID, “here to speak with Tanaka-san. Would you get him for me?”
“Is Tanaka expecting you?” she asked.
“I don’t believe so,” Tatsu said, “but I am certain he will be happy to see me.”
“Just a moment, please.” She closed the door and we waited.
A minute later the door opened again, this time by a man. I recognized him instantly: the guy I had noticed at Damask Rose, with the chemically and surgically maintained superficially youthful appearance.
“I am Tanaka,” the man said. “How may I be of assistance?”
Tatsu displayed his ID again. “I would like to ask you a few questions. For the moment, my interest in you is peripheral and unofficial. Your cooperation, or lack of it, will determine whether my interest changes.”
Tanaka’s expression was impassive, but the tension in his body and angle of his head told me that Tatsu had his full attention. Despite all the lawyers I had no doubt were in his employ, despite likely entourages of sycophants and underlings, this was a man who was afraid of real trouble, the kind of real trouble he would have just seen when he looked in Tatsu’s eyes.
“Yes, please, come in,” he told us. We took off our shoes and followed him through a circular entranceway with a floor of checkerboard black-and-white marble tiles. At the rear was a winding stairwell; to the sides were reproductions of some sort of Greek statues. We entered a mahogany-paneled room with four sides of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Like the cars out front, the books looked as though they were frequently dusted and never read.
Tatsu and I sat on a burgundy pincushion leather couch. Tanaka sat across from us in a matching armchair. He asked us if he could offer us something to eat or drink. We declined.
“I didn’t get your associate’s name,” Tanaka said, looking at me.
“His presence here, like mine, is unofficial for now,” Tatsu said. “I hope we can keep it that way.”
“Of course,” Tanaka said, in his nervous eagerness overlooking the fact that Tatsu had ignored his question. “Of course. Now
, please tell me whatever it is you need.”
“Someone is attempting to implicate you in a U.S. program that directs funds to certain Japanese politicians,” Tatsu said. “Although I believe you are involved in this program, I don’t believe you are responsible for it. But I need you to convince me that I am correct in this belief.”
The color drained from behind Tanaka’s tan. “I think . . . it would be best for me to consult with my legal counsel.”
I looked at him, imagining how I would kill him so he could see it in my eyes. “That would be uncooperative,” I said.
Tanaka looked at me, then at Tatsu. “The money isn’t even mine. It doesn’t come from me.”
Tatsu said, “Good. Tell me more.”
Tanaka licked his lips. “This conversation will remain unofficial?” he asked. “If someone finds out, it would be very bad for me.”
“As long as you cooperate,” Tatsu said, “you have nothing to fear.”
Tanaka looked at me for confirmation. I gave him a smile that said I was secretly hoping he would be uncooperative, so I could go to work on him.
Tanaka swallowed. “All right. Six months ago I was told to contact someone who works in the U.S. Embassy. A man named Biddle. I was told that Biddle represented certain parties who hoped to secure a source of campaign funding for reformist politicians.”
“Who told you to do this?” Tatsu asked.
Tamaka glanced at Tatsu, then down. “The same person who provides the money for this thing.”
Tatsu looked at him. “Please be more specific.”
“Yamaoto,” Tanaka whispered. Then: “Please, I’m cooperating. This conversation must remain unofficial.”
Tatsu nodded. “Keep going,” he said.
“I met with Biddle and told him, as I was instructed, that I believed Japan needed radical political reform and that I wanted to help in any way I could. Since that time, I have provided Biddle with some one hundred million yen for distribution to politicians.”
“These people are being set up,” Tatsu said. “I want to know how.”
Tanaka looked at him. “I was only following instructions,” he said. “I’m not really involved.”
“I understand,” Tatsu said. “You’re doing fine. Now tell me.”
“For three months, I gave Biddle cash without asking for anything in return. Then I pretended to be concerned about whether I was being conned. ‘Who is this money really going to?’ I asked him. ‘Tell me, or I’ll cut you off!’ At first he resisted. Then he told me I would know these people, could probably figure out who they would be just from reading the paper. Then he gave me names. I pretended to be satisfied, and gave him more money.
“Then I acted paranoid again. I said, ‘You’re just making this up. Prove to me that you really are giving my money to the people who need it and not keeping it for yourself!’ Again, he argued at first. But eventually he agreed to tell me when and where a meeting would occur. And then another.”
Jesus Christ, I thought.
“How many meetings did Biddle inform you of?” Tatsu asked.
“Four.”
“And what did you do with that information?”
“I passed it along to . . . to the person who provides the funding, as I was instructed to do.”
Tatsu nodded. “Give me the names of the participants in those four meetings, and the dates.”
“I don’t remember the exact dates,” Tanaka said.
I smiled and started to stand. Tanaka flinched. Tatsu put a hand out to restrain me and said, “Be as accurate as you can.”
Tanaka intoned four names. A ballpark date for each. I sat down.
“Now give me every other name you got out of Biddle,” Tatsu said.
Tanaka complied.
Tatsu didn’t write anything down, and I realized he knew these people well. “Very good,” he said when Tanaka was done. “You have been most cooperative and I see no reason for anyone to learn that this conversation took place. Of course, should I need any further information, I may call on you again. With similar discretion.”
Tanaka nodded. He looked a little sick.
The maid saw us to the door. The car was waiting outside. We got in back and drove off. I told them to drop me off at nearby JR Meguro station. Tatsu’s man drove the short distance to the station and waited in the car while Tatsu and I stood outside to wrap things up.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“He’s telling the truth,” Tatsu said.
“Maybe. But who put him in touch with Biddle?”
He shrugged. “Probably one of the Agency’s tainted assets, someone with connections to Yamaoto. If Biddle were canvassing these assets to try to find a supporter for Crepuscular, word would have gotten back to Yamaoto.”
“And Yamaoto would have seen an opportunity to turn the program to his own ends.”
He nodded, then said, “What do you think Yamaoto did on those four occasions in which he learned where and when Kanezaki would be meeting with his assets?”
I shrugged. “Observers. Using parabolic microphones, telephoto lenses, low-light video.”
“Agreed. Now assume Yamaoto has audio and video recordings of these meetings in progress. What is the value of these materials to him?”
I thought for a moment. “Blackmail, mostly. ‘Do as I tell you, or I release these photos to the media.” ’
“Yes, that is Yamaoto’s preferred method. And it is remarkably effective when the photos are of an extramarital affair in progress, or a liaison with a young boy, or some other socially unacceptable behavior. But here?”
I thought again. “You think video and audio of a meeting with Kanezaki wouldn’t be damning enough?”
He shrugged. “The audio might be, if the recorded conversation were sufficiently incriminating. But the video would be of lesser consequence: a politician chatting with a man, apparently Japanese, in a public place.”
“Because no one knows who Kanezaki is,” I said, beginning to catch on.
He looked at me, waiting for me to put it together.
“They need a way to make Kanezaki a household name,” I said. “To get his picture in the paper. That gives the photos punch.”
He nodded. “And how to do that?” he asked.
“I’ll be damned,” I said, finally seeing it. “Biddle was playing right into Yamaoto’s hands. He’s been positioning Kanezaki as his fall guy, giving him full responsibility for Crepuscular so that, if it ever got out, he’d have a ‘rogue’ who could take all the heat. But now, if Kanezaki becomes publicly known as the poster child for CIA skullduggery, the politicians who have been photographed with him are going down, too.”
“Correct. Biddle can no longer burn Kanezaki without burning the very reformers he presumably wants to protect.”
“That’s why he wants him dead,” I said. “A nice, quiet suicide to preempt a scandal.”
“Biddle would meanwhile destroy the receipts and any other evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”
I thought for a moment. “There’s something off, though.”
“Yes?”
“Biddle’s a bureaucrat. In the ordinary course of things he wouldn’t just resort to murder. He’d have to be feeling desperate.”
“Just so. And what produces desperation?”
I looked at him, realizing that he’d already put it together. “Personal reasons, as opposed to institutional ones.”
“Yes. So the question is, what is Biddle’s personal stake in all this?”
I considered. “Professional embarrassment? Problems with his career, if Kanezaki were burned and a scandal erupted about the CIA’s Tokyo Station?”
“All that, yes, but something more specific.”
I shook my head, not seeing it.
“What do you think precipitated Biddle’s request for those receipts, and his request that you assist with Kanezaki’s ‘suicide’?”
I shook my head again. “I don’t know.”
He
looked at me, perhaps mildly disappointed that I hadn’t managed to keep up with him. “Yamaoto got to Biddle the same way he got to Holtzer,” he said. “He created assets that Holtzer and Biddle believed were real. They basked in the reflected glory of the intelligence the ‘assets’ produced. Then, when he judged the time was propitious, Yamaoto revealed to them, privately, that they had been duped.”
I imagined Yamaoto’s conversation with Biddle: If word gets out that your “assets” are all run by the other side, your career is over. Work with me, though, and I’ll keep things quiet. I’ll even make sure that you get more assets and more intel, and your star will keep rising.
“I understand,” I said. “But somehow Yamaoto miscalculated this time, because Biddle thinks he’s got a way out. Just get rid of Kanezaki and destroy all the evidence of Crepuscular’s existence.”
He nodded. “Yes. And what does that tell us?”
I considered. “That Crepuscular has an unusually small distribution list. That Langley doesn’t know of it, because if they did, Biddle wouldn’t be able to contain it just by eliminating Kanezaki and burning some paperwork.”
“So it seems that Mr. Biddle has been running Crepuscular on his own initiative. He told you the program was terminated six months ago, did he not?”
I nodded. “And Kanezaki told me he discovered cable traffic to that effect.”
“Biddle’s story is that Kanezaki has been running a rogue program since that time. Given that Tanaka has only been dealing with Biddle, it seems likely that the rogue is in fact Biddle, who was using Kanezaki as his unwitting front man.”
“Yamaoto wouldn’t know that Crepuscular wasn’t officially sanctioned,” I said, nodding. “He would have assumed that the program was within the knowledge of Biddle’s superiors back at Langley. But it sounds like, outside of Biddle and Kanezaki, no one on the U.S. side is aware of it.”
He bowed his head as though acknowledging the valiant efforts of a slow student who had shown a hint of progress. “Which is why Yamaoto missed the possibility that Biddle would see Kanezaki’s elimination as a solution to Yamaoto’s blackmail.”
“You can’t really fault Biddle’s reasoning,” I said, looking at him closely. “With Kanezaki gone, Yamaoto’s blackmail evidence would lose most of its power. Meaning your network of reformers would be a lot safer if Kanezaki exited the scene.”