by Barry Eisler
I circled again. His taunts meant nothing to me.
“Your friend screamed on the way down,” he said. “He . . .”
I closed the distance with a single step and thrust the baton into his throat. He raised his injured arm to try to grab it, but I had already retracted it across my body. In the same motion I changed levels, dropping into a squat, and whipped the baton into his leg again. He screamed and crumbled to his knees.
I stepped behind him, away from any possibility of a lunge.
“Did he sound like that?” I snarled, and brought the baton down on his head like a hatchet.
He sank down to his side, then fought to regain his balance. I brought the baton down again. And again. Gouts of blood flew from his scalp. I realized I was yelling. I didn’t know what.
I rained blows down on him until my arm and shoulder ached. Then I took a long step backward and sank down to my knees, sucking wind. I looked over at the dog. It was still.
I waited a few seconds to catch my breath. I tried to jam the baton closed but couldn’t. I looked at it and saw why. The straight steel rod had deformed into a bow shape from what I had done to Murakami.
Jesus. I stood up and dragged his body into the shadows under the awning, next to what was left of his buddy. Dragging him one-armed was a bitch but I managed it. The dog was easier. I took the cell phones out, wiped them down, and dropped them. Ditto for the shades. Last was the baton. I didn’t want to be found walking around with a twenty-six-inch murder weapon bent into the shape of one of the victim’s skulls. I shrugged off the leather jacket I had taken and dropped it on top of the mess.
Some of the buckets near the awning had collected rainwater. I used them to wash the area down and make the blood less obvious. I wiped them for prints when I was done.
Last stop was the front of the building, where I found the cigarette I had spat out before taking out the second guy. I stubbed it out and pocketed the butt.
I walked over to Naomi’s building and pressed a knuckle to her apartment buzzer. A moment later I heard her voice. Her tone was fearful. “Who is it?” she asked.
For a second I couldn’t even remember what I’d told her to call me when I’d first met her at the club. Then I remembered: my real name.
“It’s me,” I said. “John.”
I heard her breathing. “Are you alone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All right. Just come up. Hurry.”
The door buzzed and I opened it. I kept my head low so that whoever would surely be reviewing the building security tapes later that morning wouldn’t get a good look at my face. I took the stairs to the fifth floor and knocked softly on her door when I got to it.
I saw the light blotted out for a moment behind the peephole. Then the door opened. Her mouth opened wide when she saw me.
“Oh meu deus,” she said, “meu deus, what happened?”
“I ran into them on their way out.”
She shook her head and blinked. “Come in, come in.” I walked into the genkan and she closed the door behind me.
“I can’t stay,” I said. “Someone is going to find them out there soon, and when that happens there are going to be cops swarming all over your neighborhood.”
“Find them . . . ,” she said, then recognition hardened onto her features. “You . . . you killed them?” She shook her head as though she couldn’t believe it. “Oh merda.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She looked at me. “They came for me at the club tonight. They told me I had to leave with them but wouldn’t say why. I was really scared. They made me take them back here, up to my apartment. Murakami had a dog with him. He told me he would sic it on me if I didn’t do exactly what he wanted.”
She looked at me, afraid, I thought, of what I might be thinking.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Keep going.”
“He told me he knew I’d been seeing you outside the club, that he knew I had a way to contact you. He told me to call you and ask you to come over.”
“He was probably bluffing,” I said. “Maybe the bugs picked it up when you gave me your e-mail address that first night, and he played on that. Or maybe Yukiko sensed something and told him. It doesn’t matter.”
She nodded. “He asked me what language we used when we were together. I told him mostly English. His English isn’t so good, but he told me if he heard anything wrong, anything that sounded like a warning, he would feed me to the dog. He was listening right next to me. I was afraid if I tried to warn you, you might say something back and he would know what I had done. But I tried to tell you, in a way you wouldn’t notice or comment on right away. Did you notice?”
I nodded. “ ‘Would love to,” ’ I said, pronouncing it the way she had.
“Sim. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I was too scared. He would have known.”
I smiled. “That was perfect,” I said. “It was good thinking. Obrigado.”
I was cradling my wrist in front of me and she looked at it. “What happened to your arm?” she asked.
“Murakami’s dog.”
“Jesus! Are you all right?”
I looked at my forearm. The leather jacket had kept the animal’s teeth from breaking the skin, but the area was purple and badly swollen and I thought something might be broken.
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “It’s you I’m worried about. There was a triple murder outside your building just now. As soon as someone finds one of the bodies, which isn’t going to be hard to do, the police are going to subpoena the security tapes from every building in the area. They’ll see you getting escorted by a guy with a white dog, the same white dog that’s getting cold now with its master a few meters from your building. You’re going to have a lot of questions to answer.”
She looked at me. “What should I do?”
“If you get picked up, tell the truth. You won’t want to mention that you opened the door just now—it’ll make you look complicit. But don’t deny that someone came up here and tried to get in. They’re going to see me on the security tapes, although I was careful to hide my face.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“But the police aren’t your real problem. Your real problem is going to be the associates of the men who came here tonight. They’re going to come after you, either for revenge, or as a way to get to me, or both.”
The color drained away beneath her caramel skin. “He would have killed me tonight, wouldn’t he,” she said.
I nodded. “If I had shown up as he hoped, they would have killed me and then eliminated you as a potential witness and loose end. My not showing up made you less of a liability. In their minds, killing you became not worth the trouble. It’s that simple.”
“Meu deus,” she said, swallowing. She was pale.
“Pack a bag,” I said. “Do it quickly. Take a cab to Shinjuku or Shibuya, someplace where there are still people around. Get another cab there. Stay at a love hotel, someplace with automated check-in. Use cash, no credit cards. First thing in the morning, take a train to Nagoya or Osaka, someplace with a major airport. Get the first flight out. It doesn’t matter where it’s going. Once you’re out of the country, you’ll be safe. You can find your way home from there.”
“Home?”
I nodded. “Brazil.”
She was silent for a long moment. Then she took my good hand in both of hers. She looked at me. “Come with me,” she said.
Looking into those green eyes, I almost could have said yes. But I didn’t.
“Come with me,” she said again. “You’re in danger, too.”
And then, in that instant, I realized I’d created a new nexus, another Harry or Midori, that a determined pursuer like the Agency or Yamaoto might follow as a way of getting to me. And this one was heading straight to Brazil. Where Yamada-san, my alter ego, had planned to establish himself.
I think I smiled a little bit at the irony, the jokes fate likes to play, because she said, “What?”
/> I shook my head. “I can’t travel now. Even if I could, it would be too dangerous for you to try to travel with me. Just go. I’ll find a way to contact you in Salvador after you’re back there.”
“Will you really?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause. Then she looked at me. “I don’t think you’ll really come. That’s okay. But contact me and tell me that. Don’t make me wait, not knowing. Don’t do that to me.”
I nodded, thinking of Midori, the way she had said, Let’s see how you like the uncertainty.
“I’ll contact you,” I said.
“I don’t know where I’ll be exactly, but you can contact me through my father. David Leonardo Nascimento. He’ll know how to find me.”
“Go,” I said. “You don’t have much time.”
I turned to leave, but she caught me and stepped in close. She put her hands on my face and kissed me hard. “I’ll be waiting,” she said.
22
I MADE MY way out of the area on foot. I didn’t want to be seen, not even by an anonymous taxi driver.
I cleaned myself up in an all-night sauna, then stopped at a twenty-four-hour drugstore and bought a bottle of ibuprofen. I ate a half-dozen dry. My arm was throbbing.
Finally, I found a business hotel in Shibuya and collapsed into comalike sleep.
The sound of my pager awoke me. I heard it in my dreams as an automated garage door, then as a vibrating cell phone, then finally in the wakeful world for what it was.
I checked the readout. Tatsu. About fucking time. I went out, found a pay phone, and called him. It was already midday.
“Are you all right?” he asked me.
He must have heard about the carnage. “Never a cop around when you need one,” I told him.
“Forgive me for that.”
“If I’d gotten killed, I wouldn’t have. Under the circumstances, though, I feel magnanimous. I could use a doctor for an injured arm.”
“I’ll find someone. Can you meet me right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Where we parted last time.”
“Okay.”
I hung up.
I did an SDR that took me to Meguro station. Tatsu and Kanezaki were standing by the wickets.
Oh good, I thought. I needed a surprise.
I walked over. Tatsu pulled me aside.
“The theory is that there is a gang war under way,” he said to me. “An internal yakuza conflict. It will blow over.”
I looked at him. “You’ve heard, then.”
He nodded.
“Well?” I said. “Didn’t your parents teach you to say thank you?”
His face broke into a surprised grin and he actually patted me on the back. “Thank you,” he said. He looked at my arm, which I was cradling unnaturally close to my body. “I know someone who can take a look at that. But I think you’ll want to hear Kanezaki first.”
The three of us walked across the street to a coffee shop. As soon as we were seated and had ordered, Kanezaki said, “I learned something about your friend’s death. It’s not much, but you helped me out the way you promised, so I’ll tell you.”
“All right,” I said.
Kanezaki glanced at Tatsu. “Uh, Ishikura-san here briefed me on your meetings with Biddle and Tanaka. He told me that Biddle asked you to kill me.” He paused for a second. “Thanks for not taking him up on that,” he said.
“Doitashimashite,” I said, shaking my head slowly. Don’t mention it.
“After the last time we met,” he went on, “I wanted more information. For leverage over Biddle, to make sure he knew I had something on him in case he decided to try anything again.”
Fast learner, I thought. “What did you do?”
“I bugged his office.”
I looked at him, half-surprised, half-impressed by his apparent audacity. “You bugged the Chief of Station’s office?”
He smiled in a young, self-satisfied way that reminded me for a moment of Harry. “I did. His office is only swept for bugs every twenty-four hours, at regular intervals. Back at Headquarters I took the locks and picks course, so getting into his office to place the bug was no problem.”
“Impressive security,” I said.
He shrugged. “Security is generally effective against outside threats. But it wasn’t designed with inside threats in mind. Anyway, I can get in and out pretty much as I need to, putting the bug down to listen in, then removing it to avoid the sweeps.”
“You overheard something about Harry,” I said.
He nodded. “Yesterday, the Chief was on the phone with someone. I could only hear his half of the conversation, but I know he was talking to someone big, because it was ‘yes sir’ this and ‘no sir’ that.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Don’t worry. The thread we were following to try to contact Rain has been cut. No loose ends.” ’
“That’s not much.”
He shrugged. “To me it sounded like an acknowledgment that your friend’s death wasn’t an accident, that he was killed.”
I looked at him, and what he saw in my eyes made him blink. “Kanezaki,” I said, “if you feed me even the smallest bit of bullshit as a way of manipulating me into acting against your boss, it’ll be the worst mistake you ever made.”
He lost a bit of color, but other than that kept his cool. “I understand that. I’m not bullshitting you or trying to manipulate you. I told you before I’d tell you what I knew about your friend if you helped me, and you helped me. I’m just following through.”
I kept my eyes on him. “Nothing more about who ‘cut the thread’?”
He shook his head. “Nothing explicit. But the thrust of the conversation was about Yamaoto, so I think we can infer.”
“All right, infer.”
Tatsu broke in. “It seems that Biddle’s relationship with Yamaoto is not what I believed it to be. In certain critical ways they appear to be collaborators, not antagonists.”
“What does this have to do with Harry?” I asked.
“One of the things I overheard,” Kanezaki said, “is that Biddle plans to give the receipts to Yamaoto.”
The waiter brought our coffee and departed.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “I thought we all agreed that the USG wants to help Japan reform, while to Yamaoto reform is a mortal threat.”
“That’s true,” Kanezaki said.
“But now you think they’re working together.”
“From what I overheard, yes.”
“If that’s true, then Biddle might have been involved in Harry’s death. But why?”
“I’m not sure.”
I looked at Tatsu. “If the Agency is working with Yamaoto, it can only be to fuck your reformers. And now Biddle has all those receipts.”
Tatsu nodded. “We need to get them back. Before he turns them over to Yamaoto.”
“But it’s not just the receipts,” I said. “From what Tanaka told us, you’ve got to assume that several of Kanezaki’s meetings have been caught on videotape, with audio intercepted by parabolic mikes. What are you going to do about all that?”
“Nothing can be done,” Tatsu said. “As we discussed, any politician thus caught meeting with a CIA case officer is compromised. But the ones implicated only by virtue of the receipts can still be saved.”
“How?”
“A small percentage of politicians will be compromised both by the receipts and the photos. Doubtless Yamaoto plans to burn these unfortunates first. Then, during the ensuing media frenzy, he will release the balance of the receipts. The fact that there is no ‘hard’ video or audio evidence backing this second wave of revelations will be lost on the public.”
“So even though Yamaoto might still be able to burn the group he’s got on tape . . .”
“His efforts will be limited to that group. By reacquiring the receipts, we can contain the damage.”
“Okay. How are you going to get the receipts?”
“It sounds like you can pick a lock, kid,” I said, “but cracking a safe is another story.”
“He won’t need to crack it,” Tatsu said. “Biddle will give him the combination.”
“What, are you going to just ask him nicely?”
Tatsu shook his head. “I thought it might be better if you would.”
I considered for a moment. I wanted another chance to question Biddle about Harry, in more private surroundings than were available last time. Especially if it was true that he and Yamaoto were somehow aligned, which increased the probability that he might have been involved in Harry’s death. Murakami and Yukiko were taken care of, but now it looked like there was still a little something I needed to wrap up.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“I can help you set it up—” Kanezaki started to say.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, already picturing how I would handle it. “I can take care of that myself. You just make sure you have access to Biddle’s office when I tell you to.”
“Okay,” he said.
I looked at him. “Why are you doing all this? If the CIA finds out, they’ll call you a traitor.”
He laughed. “It’s hard to be scared of something like that immediately after finding out that your boss has been trying to hire someone to have you killed. Besides, Crepuscular was officially shut down, remember? As far as I’m concerned, Biddle is the traitor. I’m just trying to straighten things out.”
Tatsu took me to a doctor he knew, a guy named Eto. Tatsu told me he had done this guy a favor many years earlier, that as a result he was in Tatsu’s debt and could be counted on for his discretion.
Eto didn’t ask any questions. He examined my arm and told me I had a fractured ulna. He set it, put a cast on it, and gave me a prescription for a codeine-based painkiller. The prescription was written on generic Jikei Hospital stationery. I looked at the signature and saw that it was illegible. No one would be able to trace it back to him.
I called Biddle afterward. Told him I was ready to take him up on his offer about Kanezaki. Arranged a meeting for ten o’clock that night to discuss details.