by Barry Eisler
“Not a problem,” he said when I was done. “Forbes has a relationship with Lawrence Livermore. They’ll help us. As soon as it’s cracked, we publish.”
“You know that every day that goes by without that publication, Midori’s life is in danger.”
“Is that why you’re giving it to me? The people who want it would have paid you for it. Quite a lot, you know.”
“I want you to understand something,” I said. “If you were to fail to publish what’s on that disk, your failure might cost Midori her life. If that were to happen, I would find you, and I would kill you.”
“I believe you.”
I looked at him a moment longer, then reached into my breast pocket and took out the disk. I handed it to him and walked back to the station.
I ran an SDR to Shinbashi, thinking about Tatsu on the way. Until the contents of the disk were published, it wasn’t just Midori who was in danger, I knew; it was also Tatsu. And while Tatsu was no soft target, he wasn’t bulletproof, either. It had been a lot of years since I had seen him, but we had covered each other’s backs once. I owed him a heads-up at least.
I called the Keisatsucho from a pay phone at Shinbashi Station. “Do you know who this is?” I asked in English after they had put me through to him.
There was a long pause. “Ei, hisashiburi desu ne.” Yes, it’s been a long time. Then he switched to English — a good sign, because it meant he didn’t want the people around him to understand. “Do you know that the Keisatsucho found two bodies in Sengoku? One of them had been carrying a cane. Your fingerprints were on it. I’ve wondered from time to time whether you were still in Tokyo.”
Damn, I thought, must have grabbed the cane at some point without even realizing it. My fingerprints were on file from the time I returned to Japan after the war — I was technically a foreigner, and all foreigners in Japan get fingerprinted.
“We tried to locate you,” he went on, “but you seemed to have vanished. So I think I understand why you’re calling, but there is nothing I can do for you. The best thing you can do now is to come to the Keisatsucho. If you do, you know I will do everything I can do to help you. You make yourself look guilty by running.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Tatsu. I’ve got information about this matter that I want to give to you.”
“In exchange for what?”
“For you doing something about it. Listen to what I’m saying, Tatsu. This isn’t about me. If you act on the information I’ve got, I’ll turn myself in afterwards. I’ll have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Where and when?” he asked.
“Are we alone on this line?” I asked.
“Are you suggesting that this line could be tapped?” he asked, and I recognized the old subversive sarcasm in his voice. He was telling me to assume that it was.
“Okay, good,” I said. “Lobby of the Hotel Okura, next Saturday, noon sharp.” The Okura was a ridiculously public place to meet, and Tatsu would know that I would never seriously suggest it.
“Ah, that’s a good place,” he answered, telling me he understood. “I’ll see you then.”
“You know, Tatsu, it sounds crazy, but sometimes I miss the times we had in Vietnam. I miss those useless weekly briefings we used to have to go to — do you remember?”
The CIA head of the task force that ran the briefings invariably scheduled them for 16:30, leaving him plenty of time afterwards to chase prostitutes through Saigon. Tatsu rightly thought the guy was a joke, and wasn’t shy about pointing it out publicly.
“Yes, I remember,” he said.
“For some reason I was especially missing them just now,” I said, getting ready to give him the day to add to the time. “Wished I had one to attend tomorrow, in fact. Isn’t that strange? I’m getting nostalgic in my old age.”
“That happens.”
“Yeah, well. It’s been a long time. I’m sorry we lost touch the way we did. Tokyo’s changed so much since I first got here. We had some pretty good times back then, didn’t we? I used to love that one place we used to go to, the one where the mama-san made pottery that she used to serve the drinks in. Remember it? It’s probably not even there anymore.”
The place was in Ebisu. “It’s gone,” he said, telling me he understood.
“Well, shoganai, ne?” That’s life. “It was a good place. I think of it sometimes.”
“I strongly advise you to come in. If you do, I promise to do everything I can to help.”
“I’ll think about it. Thanks for the advice.” I hung up then, my hand lingering on the receiver, willing him to understand my cryptic message. I didn’t know what I was going to do if he didn’t.
21
THE PLACE I’D mentioned in Ebisu was a classic Japanese izakaya that Tatsu had introduced me to when I came to Japan after the war. Izakaya are tiny bars in old wooden buildings, usually run by an ageless man or woman, or a couple, who lives over the store, with only a red lantern outside the entrance to advertise their existence. Offering refuge from a demanding boss or a tedious marriage, from the tumult of the subways and the noise of the streets, izakaya serve beer and sake long into the night, as an endless procession of customers take and abandon seats at the bar, always to be replaced by another tired man coming in from the cold.
Tatsu and I had spent a lot of time at the place in Ebisu, but I had stopped going there once we lost touch. I kept meaning to drop by and check in on the mama-san, but the months had turned to years and somehow it just never happened. And now, according to Tatsu, the place wasn’t even there anymore. Probably it had been torn down. No room for a little place like that in brash, modern Tokyo.
But I remembered where it had been, and that’s where I would wait for Tatsu.
I got to Ebisu early to give myself a chance to look around. Things had really changed. So many of the wooden buildings were gone. There was a sparkling new shopping mall near the station — used to be a rice field. It made it a little hard to get my bearings.
I headed east from the station. It was a wet day, the wind blowing mist from an overcast sky.
I found the place where the izakaya had been. The dilapidated but cozy building was gone, replaced by an antiseptic-looking convenience store. I strolled past it slowly. It was empty, the sole occupant a bored-looking clerk reading a magazine under the store’s fluorescent lights. No sign of Tatsu, but I was nearly an hour early.
I wouldn’t have come back, if I’d had an alternative, once I knew the place was gone. Hell, the whole neighborhood was gone. It reminded me of the last time I’d been in the States, about five years before. I’d gone back to Dryden, the closest thing I had to a hometown. I hadn’t been back in almost twenty years, and some part of me wanted to connect again, with something.
It was a four-hour drive north from New York City. I got there, and about the only thing that was the same was the layout of the streets. I drove up the main drag, and instead of the things I remembered I saw a McDonald’s, a Benetton, a Kinko’s Copies, a Subway sandwich shop, all in gleaming new buildings. A couple of places I recognized. They were like the ruins of a lost civilization poking through dense jungle overgrowth.
I walked on, marveling at how once-pleasant memories always seemed to be rendered painful by an alchemy I could never quite comprehend.
I turned onto a side street. A small park was wedged between two nondescript buildings. A couple of young mothers were standing by one of the benches, strollers in front of them, chatting. Probably about goings-on in the neighborhood, how the kids were going to be in school soon.
I circled around behind the new shopping mall, then came back through it, along a wide outdoor esplanade bright with chrome and glass. It was a pretty structure, I had to admit. A couple of high-school kids passed me, laughing. They looked comfortable, like they belonged there.
I saw a figure in an old gray trench coat coming toward me from the other end of the plaza, and although I couldn’t make out the face I recognized the gait, the postur
e. It was Tatsu, sucking a little warmth from a cigarette, otherwise ignoring the damp day.
He saw me and waved, tossing away the cigarette. As he came closer I saw that his face was more deeply lined than I remembered, a weariness somehow closer to the surface.
“Honto ni, shibaraku buri da na,” I said, offering him a bow. It has been a long time. He extended his hand, and I shook it.
He was looking at me closely, no doubt seeing the same lines on my face that I saw on his, and perhaps something more. This was the first time Tatsu had seen me since my plastic surgery. He must have been wondering at how age seemed to have hidden the Caucasian in my features. I wondered if he suspected something besides the passage of time behind my changed appearance.
“Rain-san, ittai, what have you done this time?” he asked, still looking at me. “Do you know how much trouble it will mean if someone finds out that I’ve met you without arresting you? You are a suspect in a double murder. In which one of the victims was well connected in the LDP. I am under substantial pressure to solve this, you know.”
“Tatsu, aren’t you even going to tell me it’s good to see me? I have feelings, you know.”
He smiled his sorrowful smile. “You know it’s good to see you. But I would wish for different circumstances.”
“How are your daughters?”
The smile broadened, and he nodded his head proudly. “Very fine. One doctor. One lawyer. Luckily they have their mother’s brains, ne?”
“Married?”
“The older is engaged.”
“Congratulations. Sounds like you’ll be a grandfather soon.”
“Not too soon,” he said, the smile evaporating, and I thought I’d hate to be the kid Tatsu caught fooling around with one of his daughters.
We headed back across the mall, past a perfect reproduction French château that looked homesick in its current surroundings.
The small talk done, I got to the point. “Yamaoto Toshi, head of Conviction, has put a contract out on your life,” I told him.
He stopped walking and looked at me. “How do you know this?”
“Sorry, no questions about how.”
He nodded. “Your source must be credible, or you wouldn’t be telling me.”
“Yes.”
We started walking again. “You know, Rain-san, there are a lot of people who would like to see me dead. Sometimes I wonder how I’ve managed to keep breathing for all this time.”
“Maybe you’ve got a guardian angel.”
He laughed. “I wish that were so. Actually, the explanation is simpler. My death would establish my credibility. Alive, I can be dismissed as a fool, a chaser of phantoms.”
“I’m afraid circumstances have changed.”
He stopped again and looked at me closely. “I didn’t know you were mixed up with Yamaoto.”
“I’m not.”
He was nodding his head, and I knew that he was adding this bit of data to his profile of the mysterious assassin.
He started walking again. “You were saying. ‘Circumstances have changed.’ ”
“There’s a disk. My understanding is that it contains information implicating various politicians in massive corruption. Yamaoto is trying to get it.”
He knew something about the disk — I’d heard Yamaoto saying on the transmitter that Tatsu had sent men to Midori’s apartment, after all — yet he said nothing.
“You know anything about this, Tatsu?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m a cop. I know a little about everything.”
“Yamaoto thinks you know a lot. He knows you’re after that disk. He’s having trouble getting it back, so he’s trying to eliminate loose ends.”
“Why is he having trouble getting the disk back?”
“He doesn’t know where it is.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t have it.”
“That is not what I asked you.”
“Tatsu, this isn’t about the disk. I came here because I learned that you’re in danger. I wanted to warn you.”
“But the missing disk is the reason I’m in danger, is it not?” he said, affecting a puzzled, innocent look that would have fooled someone who didn’t know him. “Find the disk; remove the danger.”
“Ease up on the inakamono routine,” I said, telling him I knew he wasn’t a country bumpkin. “I’ll tell you this much. The person who has the disk is in a position to publish what’s on it. That should remove the danger, as you put it.”
He stopped and grabbed my arm. “Masaka, tell me you didn’t give that fucking disk to Bulfinch.”
Alarm bells started going off in my head.
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because Franklin Bulfinch was murdered yesterday in Akasaka Mitsuke, outside the Akasaka Tokyu Hotel.”
“Fuck!” I said, momentarily forgetting myself.
“Komatta,” he swore again. “You gave it to him, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Damn it! Did he have it with him when he was killed?”
Outside the Akasaka Tokyu — a hundred meters from where I gave it to him. “What time did it happen?” I asked.
“Early afternoon. Maybe two o’clock. Did he have it with him?”
“Almost certainly,” I told him.
His shoulders slumped, and I knew he wasn’t playacting.
“Damn it, Tatsu. How do you know about the disk?”
There was a long pause before he answered. “Because Kawamura was supposed to give the disk to me.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“Yes,” he went on, “I had been developing Kawamura for quite some time. I had strongly encouraged him to provide me with the information that is now on that disk. It seems that, in the end, everyone trusts a reporter more than a cop. Kawamura decided to give the disk to Bulfinch instead.”
“How do you know?”
“Kawamura called me the morning he died.”
“What did he say?”
He looked at me, deadpan. “ ‘Fuck off. I’m giving the disk to the Western media.’ It’s my fault, really. In my eagerness, I’d been putting too much pressure on him. I’m sure he found it unpleasant.”
“How did you know it was Bulfinch?”
“If you wanted to give this kind of information to someone in the ‘Western media,’ who would you go to? Bulfinch is well known for his reporting on corruption. But I couldn’t be sure until this morning, when I learned of his murder. And I wasn’t completely certain until just now.”
“So this is why you’ve been following Midori.”
“Of course.” Tatsu has a dry way of saying “of course” that always seems to emphasize some lack of mental acuity on the part of the listener. “Kawamura died almost immediately after he called me, meaning it was likely that he was unable to deliver the disk to the ‘Western media’ as planned. His daughter had his things. She was a logical target.”
“That’s why you were investigating the break-in at her father’s apartment.”
He looked at me disapprovingly. “My men performed that break-in. We were looking for the disk.”
“Two chances to look for it — the break-in, and then the investigation,” I said, admiring his efficiency. “Convenient.”
“Not convenient enough. We couldn’t find it. This is why we turned our attention to the daughter.”
“You and everyone else.”
“You know, Rain-san,” he said, “I had a man following her in Omotesando. He had a most unlikely accident in the bathroom of a local bar. His neck was broken.”
Christ, that was Tatsu’s man. So maybe Benny had been serious about giving me forty-eight hours to accept the Midori assignment. Not that it mattered anymore. “Really,” I said.
“On the same night I had men waiting at the daughter’s apartment. Despite being armed, they were ambushed and overcome by a single man.”
“Embarrassing,” I said, waiting for more.
He took out a cigarette
, studied it for a moment, then placed it in his mouth and lit it. “Academic,” he said, exhaling a cloud of gray smoke. “It’s over. The CIA has the disk now.”
“Why do you say that? What about Yamaoto?”
“I have means of knowing that Yamaoto is still searching for the disk. There is only one other player in this drama, besides me. That player must have taken the disk from Bulfinch.”
“If you’re talking about Holtzer, he’s working with Yamaoto.”
He smiled the sad smile. “Holtzer isn’t working with Yamaoto, he’s Yamaoto’s slave. And, like most slaves, he’s looking for a way to escape.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Yamaoto controls Holtzer through blackmail, as he controls all his puppets. But Holtzer is playing a double game. He plans to use that disk to bring Yamaoto down, to cut the puppet master’s strings.”
“So Holtzer hasn’t told Yamaoto that the Agency has the disk.”
He shrugged. “As I said, Yamaoto is still looking for it.”
“Tatsu,” I said quietly, “what’s on that disk?”
He took a tired pull on his cigarette, then blew the smoke skyward. “Videos of extramarital sexual acts, audio of bribes and payoffs, numbers of secret accounts, records of illegal real estate transactions and money laundering.”
“Implicating Yamaoto?”
He looked at me as though wondering how I could be so slow. “Rain-san, you were a great soldier, but you would make a very shitty cop. Implicating everyone but Yamaoto.”
I was silent for a moment while I tried to connect the dots. “Yamaoto uses this information as blackmail?”
“Of course,” he replied in his dry way. “Why do you think we have had nothing but failed administration after failed administration? Eleven prime ministers in as many years? Every one of them has either been an LDP flunky or a reformer who is immediately co-opted and defused. This is Yamaoto, governing from the shadows.”
“But he’s not even part of the LDP.”
“He doesn’t want to be. He is much more effective governing as he does. When a politician displeases him, incriminating information is released, the media is instructed to magnify it, and the offending politician is disgraced. The scandal reflects only on the LDP, not on Conviction.”