by Barry Eisler
No one seemed to be lurking outside. Unless they were waiting in her apartment or nearby, she would be safe for the night.
I took out Harry’s unit and activated her phone, then listened in on my cell phone. Silence.
A minute later, I heard her door being unlocked and opened, then closed. Muffled footsteps. Then the sound of more footsteps, from more than one person. A loud gasp.
Then a male voice: “Listen. Listen carefully. Don’t be afraid. We’re sorry to alarm you. We’re investigating a matter of national security. We have to move with great circumspection. Please understand.”
Midori’s voice, not much more than a whisper: “Show me . . . Show me identification.”
“We don’t have time for that. We have some questions that we need to ask you, and then we’ll leave.”
“Show me some ID,” I heard her say, her voice stronger now, “or I’m going to start making noise. And the walls in this building are really, really thin. People can probably already hear.”
My heart leaped. She had instinct and she had guts.
“No noise, please,” came the reply. Then the reverberation of a hard slap.
They were roughing her up. I was going to have to move.
I heard her breathing, ragged. “What the hell do you want?”
“Your father had something on his person around the time that he died. It is now in your possession. We need it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another slap. Shit.
I couldn’t get into the building without a key. Even if someone entered or exited right then so that I could slip inside, I would never be able to make it into her apartment to help her. Maybe I could kick the door down. And maybe there would be four guys with guns standing ten feet away who would drop me before I was half inside.
I broke the connection with the unit and input her number on the cell phone. Her phone rang three times, then an answering machine cut in.
I hung up and repeated the procedure using the redial key, then again. And again.
I wanted to make them nervous, to give them pause. If someone tried to get through enough times, maybe they would let her answer it to allay potential suspicions.
On the fifth try, she picked up. “Moshi moshi,” she said, her voice uncertain.
“Midori, this is John. I know you can’t speak. I know there are men in your apartment. Say to me ‘There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.’ ”
“What?”
“Say ‘There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.’ Just say it!”
“There isn’t . . . There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.”
“Good girl. Now say, ‘No, I don’t want you coming over now. There’s no one here.’ ”
“No, I don’t want you coming over now. There’s no one here.”
They’d be itching to get out of her apartment now. “Very good. Just keep arguing with your grandmother, okay? Those men are not the police; you know that. I can help you, but only if you get them out of your apartment. Tell them your father had some papers with him when he died, but that they’re hidden in his apartment. Tell them you’ll take them there and show them. Tell them you can’t describe the hiding place; it’s a place in the wall and you’ll have to show them. Do you understand?”
“Grandma, you worry too much.”
“I’ll be waiting outside,” I said, and broke the connection.
Which way are they likely to go? I thought, trying to decide where I could set up an ambush. But just then, an old woman, bent double at the waist from a childhood of poor nutrition and toil in the rice paddies, emerged from the elevator, carrying out her trash. The electronic doors parted for her as she shuffled outside, and I slipped into the building.
I knew Midori lived on the third floor. I bolted up the stairwell and paused outside the entrance to her floor, listening. After about half a minute of silence, I heard the sound of a door opening from somewhere down the corridor.
I opened the door part way, then took out my key chain and extended the dental mirror through the opening in the doorway until I had a view of a long, narrow hallway. A Japanese man was emerging from an apartment. He swept his head left and right, then nodded. A moment later Midori stepped out, followed closely by a second Japanese. The second one had his hand on her shoulder, not in a gentle way.
The one in the lead checked the corridor in both directions, then they started to move toward my position. I withdrew the mirror. There was a CO2-type fire extinguisher on the wall, and I grabbed it and stepped to the right of the door, toward the side where it opened. I pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle face high.
Two seconds went by, then five. I heard their footsteps approaching, heard them right outside the door.
I breathed shallowly through my mouth, my fingers tense around the trigger of the unit.
For a split second, in my imagination, I saw the door start to open, but it didn’t. They had continued past it, heading for the elevators.
Damn. I had thought they would take the stairs. I eased the door open again and extended the mirror, adjusting its angle until I could see them. They had her sandwiched in tightly, the guy in the rear holding something against her back. I assumed a gun, but maybe a knife.
I couldn’t follow them from there with any hope of surprising them. I wouldn’t be able to close the distance before they heard me coming, and if they were armed, my chances would range from poor to nonexistent.
I turned and bolted down the stairs. When I got to the first floor I cut across the lobby, stopping behind a weight-bearing pillar that they’d have to walk past as they stepped off the elevator. I braced the extinguisher against my waist and eased the mirror past the corner of the pillar.
They emerged half a minute later, bunched up in a tight formation that you learn to avoid on day one in Special Forces because it makes your whole team vulnerable to an ambush or a mine. They were obviously afraid Midori was going to try to run.
I slipped the mirror and key chain back in my pocket, listening to their footsteps. When they sounded only a few centimeters away I bellowed a warrior’s kiyai and leaped out, pulling the trigger and aiming face high.
Nothing happened. The extinguisher hiccupped, then made a disappointing hissing sound. But that was all.
The lead guy’s mouth dropped open, and he started fumbling inside his coat. Feeling like I was moving in slow motion, sure I was going to be a second late, I brought the butt end of the extinguisher up. Saw his hand coming free, holding a short-barreled revolver. I stepped in hard and jammed the extinguisher into his face like a battering ram, getting my weight behind the blow. There was a satisfying thud and he spilled into Midori and the guy in the rear, his gun clattering to the floor.
The second guy stumbled backward, slipping clear of Midori, pinwheeling his left arm. He was holding a gun in his other hand and trying keep it in front of him.
I launched the extinguisher like a missile, catching him center mass. He went down and I was on him in an instant, catching hold of the gun and jerking it away. Before he could get his hands up to protect himself I smashed the butt into his mastoid process, behind the ear. There was a loud crack and he went limp.
I spun and brought the gun up, but his friend wasn’t moving. His face looked like he’d run into a flagpole.
I turned back to Midori just in time to see a third goon emerge from the elevator, where he must have been positioned from the beginning. He grabbed Midori around the neck from behind with his left hand, trying to use her as a shield, while his right hand went to his jacket pocket, groping for a weapon. But before he could pull it free, Midori spun counterclockwise inside his grip, catching his left wrist in her hands and twisting his arm outward and back in a classic aikido san-kyo joint lock. His reaction showed training: he threw his body in the direction of the lock to save his arm from being broken, and landed with a smooth ukemi break fall. But before he could recover I had closed the distance, launching a
field-goal-style kick at his head with enough force to lift his whole body from the ground.
Midori was looking at me, her eyes wide, her breath coming in shallow gasps.
“Daijobu?” I asked, taking her by the arm. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
She shook her head. “They told me they were the police, but I knew they weren’t: they wouldn’t show me any identification and why were they waiting in my apartment anyway? Who are they? How did you know they were in there?”
Keeping my hand on her arm, I started moving us through the lobby toward the glass doors, my eyes sweeping back and forth for signs of danger outside.
“I saw them at the Blue Note,” I said, urging her with the pressure on her arm to increase the pace. “When I realized they hadn’t followed us back, I thought they might be waiting for you at your apartment. That’s when I called.”
“You saw them at the Blue Note? Who are they? Who the hell are you?”
“I’m someone who’s stumbled onto something very bad and wants to protect you from it. I’ll explain later. Right now, we’ve got to get you someplace safe.”
“Safe? With you?” She stopped in front of the glass doors and looked back at the three men, their faces bloody masks, then back at me.
“I’ll explain everything to you, but not now. For now, the only thing that matters is that you’re in danger, and I can’t help you if you don’t believe me. Let me just get you somewhere safe and tell you what all this is about, okay?” The doors slid open, a hidden infrared eye having sensed our proximity.
“Where?”
“Someplace where no one would know to look for you, or wait for you. A hotel, something like that.”
The goon I had kicked groaned and started to pull himself up onto all fours. I strode over and drop-kicked him in the face again, and he went down. “Midori, we don’t have time to discuss this here. You’re going to have to believe me. Please.”
The doors slid shut.
I wanted to search the men on the floor for ID or some other way of identifying them, but I couldn’t do that and get Midori moving at the same time.
“How do I know I can believe you?” she said, but she was moving again. The doors opened.
“Trust your instincts; that’s all I can tell you. They’ll tell you what’s right.”
We moved through the doors, and with the wider range of vision that our new position afforded me I was able to see a squat and ugly Japanese man standing about five meters back and to the left. He had a nose that looked like a U-turn — it must have been broken so many times he gave up having it set. He was watching the scene in the foyer, and seemed uncertain of what to do. Something about his posture, his appearance, told me he wasn’t a civilian. Probably he was with the three on the floor.
I steered Midori to the right, keeping clear of the flat-nosed guy’s position. “How could you know . . . how could you know that there were men in my apartment?” she asked. “How did you know what was happening?”
“I just knew, okay?” I said, turning my head, searching for danger, as we walked. “Midori, if I were with these people, what would I gain from this charade? They had you exactly where they wanted you. Please, let me help you. I don’t want to see you get hurt. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
I saw the flat-nosed guy go inside as we moved away from the scene, I assumed to help his fallen comrades.
If they had been planning to take her somewhere, they would have had a car. I looked around, but there were too many vehicles parked in the area for me to be able to pinpoint theirs.
“Did they say where they were going to take you?” I asked. “Who they were with?”
“No,” she said. “I told you, they only said they were with the police.”
“Okay, I understand.” Where the hell was their car? There might have been more of them. All right, go, just keep on walking, they’ll have to show themselves if they want to take you.
We cut across the dark parking lot of the building across from hers, emerging onto Omotesando-dori, where we caught a cab. I told the driver to take us to the Seibu Department Store in Shibuya. I checked the side views as we drove. There were few cars on the road, and none seemed to be trying to tail us.
What I had in mind was a love hotel. The love hotel is a Japanese institution, born of the country’s housing shortage. With families, sometimes extended ones, jammed into small apartments, Mom and Dad need to have somewhere to go to be alone. Hence the rabu hoteru — places with rates for either a “rest” or a “stay,” famously discreet front desk, no credit card required for registration, and fake names the norm. Some of them are completely over-the-top, with theme rooms sporting Roman baths and Americana settings, like what you’d get if you turned the Disney Epcot Center into a bordello.
Beyond Japan’s housing shortage, the hotels arose because inviting a stranger into your home tends to be a much more intimate act in Japan than it is in the States. There are plenty of Japanese women who will allow a man into their bodies before permitting him to enter their apartments, and the hotels serve this aspect of the market, as well.
The people we were up against weren’t stupid, of course. They might guess that a love hotel would make an expedient safe house. That would be my guess, if the tables were turned. But with about ten thousand rabu hoteru in Tokyo, it would still take them awhile to track us down.
We got out of the cab and walked to Shibuya 2-chome, which is choked with small love hotels. I chose one at random, where we told the old woman standing inside at the front desk that we wanted a room with a bath, for a yasumi — a stay, not just a rest. I put cash on the counter and she reached underneath, then handed us a key.
We took the elevator to the fifth floor, and found our room at the end of a short hallway. I unlocked the door and Midori went in first. I followed her in, locking the door behind me. We left our shoes in the entranceway. There was only one bed — twins in a love hotel would be as out of place as a Bible — but there was a decent-sized couch in the room that I could curl up on.
Midori sat down on the edge of the bed and faced me. “Here’s where we are,” she said, her voice even. “Tonight three men were waiting for me in my apartment. They claimed to be police, but obviously weren’t — or, if they were police, they were on some kind of private mission. I’d think you were with them, but I saw how badly you hurt them. You asked me to go somewhere safe with you so you could explain. I’m listening.”
I nodded, trying to find the right words to begin. “You know this has to do with your father.”
“Those men told me he had something they wanted.”
“Yes, and they think you have it now.”
“I don’t know why they would think that.”
I looked at her. “I think you do.”
“Think what you want.”
“You know what’s wrong with this picture, Midori? Three men are waiting for you in your apartment, they rough you up a little, I appear out of nowhere and rough them up a lot, none of this exactly an average day in the life of a jazz pianist, and the whole time you’ve never once suggested that you want to go to the police.”
She didn’t answer.
“Do you want to? You can, you know.”
She sat facing me, her nostrils flaring slightly, her fingers drumming along the edge of the bed. Goddamnit, I thought, what does she know that she hasn’t been telling me?
“Tell me about your father, Midori. Please. I can’t help you if you don’t.”
She leaped off the bed and faced me squarely. “Tell you?” she spat. “No, you tell me! Tell me who the fuck you are, or I swear I will go to the police, and I don’t care what happens after that!”
Progress, of a sort, I thought. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything!”
“Okay.”
“Starting with, who were those men in my apartment?”
“Okay.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know wh
o they are.”
“But you knew they were there?”
She was going to pull hard at that loose thread until the entire fabric unraveled. I didn’t know how to get around it. “Yes.”
“How?”
“Because your apartment is bugged.”
“Because my apartment is bugged . . . Are you with those men?”
“No.”
“Would you please stop giving me one-word answers? Okay, my apartment is bugged, by who, by you?”
There it was. “Yes.”
She looked at me for a long beat, then sat back down on the bed. “Who do you work for?” she asked, her voice flat.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Another long beat, and the same flat tone: “Then tell me what you want.”
I looked at her, wanting her to see my eyes. “I want to make sure you don’t get hurt.”
Her face was expressionless. “And you’re going to do that by . . .”
“These people are coming after you because they think you have something that could harm them. I don’t know what. But as long as they think you have it, you’re not going to be safe.”
“But if I were to just give whatever it is to you . . .”
“Without knowing what the thing is, I don’t even know if giving it to me would help. I told you, I’m not here for whatever it is. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Can’t you see what this looks like from my perspective? ‘Just hand it over so I can help you.’ ”
“I understand that.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me about your father.”
There was a long pause. I knew what she was going to say, and she said it: “This is why you were asking all those questions before. You came to Alfie and, God, everything . . . You’ve just been using me from the beginning.”
“Some of what you’re saying is true. Not all of it. Now tell me about your father.”
“No.”
I felt a flush of anger in my neck. Easy, John. “The reporter was asking, too, wasn’t he? Bulfinch? What did you tell him?”
She looked at me, trying to gauge just how much I knew. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”