by Barry Eisler
What was different, I thought, was that up until now, everything had been sanctioned by war. Well, the chinpira in Ueno hadn’t been war, but it had been self-defense, and that’s close enough. Even the civilians—and there had been civilians, and I would carry that with me forever—it had all been under the rubric of war; it had all been hot-blooded. I had been a soldier, my presence in battle sanctioned even if some of what I’d done had crossed a line, even if some of what happened had slipped out of my control. No, because some of it had slipped out of my control. As opposed to now, when I was being fully deliberate. That was the difference, and I felt like understanding it was important.
What was strange, and unsettling, was that none of it felt remotely as awful as it should have. I should have been wracked by conscience, tormented by guilt, appalled that I had done something enormous, irrevocable. I should have been gripped by what that poet said—“The awful daring of a moment’s surrender / Which an age of prudence can never retract.” I should have known I had crossed a bridge too far, and arrived in a land offering no hope of return passage.
Instead, mostly it felt like just another step, an incremental movement along a path I’d been traveling for years.
chapter
eighteen
I headed out at just before six the next morning. Sayaka was dozing when I emerged from the stairs, but woke from the sound of the door.
“Sorry,” I said, walking over to the window. Jazz issued softly from her cassette deck. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“It’s okay. You’re up early.”
“Places to go, people to meet.”
She looked at me. “Problems to solve.”
I shook my head. “It’s really nothing. Almost done.”
“Whatever you say.”
“So…see you tonight?”
She nodded and smiled a little ruefully. I wondered if she was having second thoughts. I almost said something that would let her off the hook, but then I thought maybe she would take it the wrong way and think I was the one having second thoughts. Better to just let it go.
I enjoyed a breakfast of fatty tuna and rice at a stall in Tskuji, adjacent to the massive wholesale fish market of the same name, then walked to the nearby Nakagin Tower. I was early, but McGraw was already waiting. He had his camera with him and I supposed if anyone asked, he was here to capture the Tower Of The Future in the bright morning light. He nodded when he saw me and walked over.
“Nice work,” he said by way of greeting. “I read about it in the paper this morning.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need his assessment. I knew the work was good. Though I also felt I’d been luckier than I deserved.
“You know,” he went, on, “if you hadn’t called me last night and I’d just heard about this, I’d have thought it was a coincidence.”
“If you’d told me it was a coincidence and you didn’t owe me for it, it wouldn’t have gone over well.”
He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “How’d you do it? The paper says it was some sort of heart attack in a bathhouse.”
“Maybe it was.”
“You did something to electrocute him, didn’t you?”
“How would I do something like that?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“What do you care? It’s done. Now give me what you owe me. The files on the yakuza.”
“I’m saying, if you’ve got a knack for this kind of thing, you could make a hell of a living. Being a bagman is bullshit. You know what certain people would pay to have problem individuals die of natural causes?”
“I don’t want to do this for a living. I just want to go on living. Now where are the fucking files?”
If he made anything of my newfound irritability and assertiveness, he didn’t comment. He shrugged and said, “Café de l’Ambre.”
“What is that?”
“A coffee shop in Ginza. Eight-chōme, ten-fifteen. Not far from Shinbashi Station. How’d you like Lion?”
“I liked it fine.”
“You’ll like this, too. Sit at the counter, seat second farthest from the entrance. The file’s under the seat. Oh, and try the Number Three blend. It’s the house specialty.”
“What is it with you and coffee shops?”
He chuckled. “Tokyo has some of the best coffee around, son, and I’ve been all over the world. If I have to spend time somewhere for a dead drop, I might as well enjoy myself. You only live once. Remember that.”
I didn’t like all the hoops he made me jump through to get these files, but I told myself not to look at it that way. It was just good tradecraft. I hadn’t wanted to meet face-to-face with Miyamoto, had I? McGraw was just being careful, not playing games.
“Just one thing,” he said. “At the moment, there’s only one file—on Fukumoto Senior.”
I looked at him, thinking, If you fucking try to cheat me, McGraw…
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll get you the one on Mad Dog. We don’t have much that’s actionable on these two, and putting together the basics on the father seemed like the priority. He’s the one in charge. Meaning in charge of having you hunted down and killed. I would have had them both ready, but I never thought you’d manage Ozawa so fast. At least now you have something to work with while I assemble what you need on the son.”
I nodded slowly, not liking it, but not finding a further reason to protest, either. I realized that if McGraw tried to screw me, I would kill him. I would have to, like I’d told him earlier. I already had the yakuza after me. Adding the CIA seemed like not so much.
“Relax,” he said again, probably reading my thoughts from my expression. “I’ll get you the other file.”
I considered telling him what would happen if he didn’t, but recognized that doing so would have been childish, the product of ego. Worse, because he already knew what would happen, verbalizing it could only serve to dilute the strength of the threat. Because why would anyone waste breath describing what was already axiomatic?
I didn’t realize it right away, but that was a big moment in my development. Self-awareness leading to self-control. I had a long way to go, but you have to start somewhere.
It took me a little while to find the coffee shop—it was small and the signage was modest, just an illuminated placard over the window reading CAFÉ DE L’AMBRE. COFFEE ONLY. For some reason, I liked that. It was so confident, so assertive. Almost a fuck-off to anyone inclined to order a muffin or macchiato.
I stepped into the air-conditioned coolness of a small, unpretentious shop. A middle-aged woman behind an old-fashioned cash register to my left asked, “How many?” I told her it was just me, and she came around and escorted me the eight feet or so to the counter. To my right were six tables for two people each, a bench against the back wall, chairs facing it; to my left, an L-shaped counter with ten stools, the farthest two forming the short end of the L. The tables were full, but there were a few seats open at the counter, including the second farthest from the entrance, just around the bend on the short end of the L, the one McGraw had used for the dead drop.
I sat and looked around. Everything was old, dark wood: the walls, the ceiling, the counter itself. Old-school didn’t even begin to describe it. Behind the counter was an ancient balance-beam scale, a hand-cranked grinder, and an icebox—an actual wooden icebox, not a refrigerator. The air was suffused with the delicious smell of coffee.
There was a small black-and-white television playing atop the icebox. The LDP had named Ozawa’s replacement—a surprisingly young-looking guy named Gai Kawasaki. I wondered how he’d managed to leapfrog all the septuagenarians who must have been in line ahead of him. Maybe McGraw had done something to help—a quid pro quo for Kawasaki promising to be a better team player than Ozawa. A reporter put a microphone in his face, and Kawasaki spoke smoothly and reassuringly of Ozawa’s legacy, how no one could hope to fill the great man’s shoes but that Kawasaki would humbly try for the sake of the party and the nation, et
c.
I immediately sensed the thoughtfulness behind McGraw’s tradecraft: people who sat at the counter would mostly be alone. The farthest seat, at the end of the counter, would be naturally attractive to anyone who didn’t want to sit between two people. If there were other open seats, it would be a little odd to take one adjacent to one already occupied. Meaning that statistically, that second-farthest seat was likely to be available just a little more often than the others. McGraw might have used the booth behind one of the tables, but people who came with a companion were more likely to linger, and if the dead drop were occupied, there might be a substantial wait. At the counter, seats would open more quickly. Of course, there were no guarantees, but McGraw’s way made it more likely things would go more smoothly. Focusing on the details, gaming things out…it all offered only an advantage. Again, not something I was unfamiliar with in a combat context. But I could see the importance of adapting the concept for urban environments. McGraw was an asshole, but that didn’t mean there was nothing I could learn from him.
I sat and waited while the maastaa prepared a cup of coffee. He was a rugged-looking man of about sixty in shirtsleeves and a sweater vest, with a full head of steel-gray hair and solemn eyes behind a large pair of glasses. There was no coffeepot to pour from; instead, the Café de l’Ambre method seemed to be the preparation of a single cup at a time. I watched as he poured ground beans into a cloth filter held in a wire, placed the filter over a copper pot, then slowly poured water over the coffee from a boiling kettle, his arm moving the filter in a slight circle as he did so, his head cocked to the side so he could better observe the steaming water trickling into the ground beans, the flow starting at the center, then working its way out, then back in again. After a moment, he set down the kettle, waited while the last of the boiling water flowed through the coffee, briefly heated the pot over an open flame, poured it into a china cup, and placed the cup in a waiting saucer in front of the customer. Then he made his way down the counter to me.
I bowed my head in greeting. “Omakase de onegai-shimasu.” I’ll have whatever you recommend. McGraw might know coffee, but I doubted he knew it as well as this guy.
He nodded. “Strong? Mild?”
“Please, I know little about coffee but am trying to learn. Whatever the master himself believes I would enjoy.”
He considered me for a moment, then nodded and placed a saucer in front of me. He turned to the shelves behind him, considering among the various glass jars stored there. After a moment, he selected one and prepared my coffee as he had the cup before it, this time first grinding the beans in the hand crank. He set the cup in the saucer and said, “This is a 1952 Brazilian Bourbon. Rare and delicate. A bit more expensive, but if it isn’t to your taste, I’ll only charge you for a regular cup.”
“I didn’t know there were aged coffees. I thought fresh was better.”
He gave a quiet harrumph. “It’s like wine. You wouldn’t lay down a Beaujolais, but drinking a Premier Cru Bordeaux right away would be infanticide. The right coffee can become quite special with age. Subtler, more complex. But you have to know what to look for in the beans.”
At the time, I didn’t know the first thing about wine, so I decided to take his word for it. I picked up the cup and held it for a moment, feeling the warmth in my hands, letting the aroma drift upward, remembering to be mindful. It smelled delicious—strong but balanced, assertive but not overpowering. I moved the cup closer and was rewarded with a different spectrum of fragrances: toffee, maybe, or caramel. I closed my eyes and took a small sip. It was delicious: rich but with no bitterness, with hints of the toffee the aroma had promised.
I nodded my gratitude, thinking any words I might offer would be superfluous. The maastaa nodded back, clearly pleased. “You say you know little of coffee. Perhaps you know more than you think.”
“I’m really just trying to learn.”
He bowed. “Sekiguchi desu.” I’m Sekiguchi.
I bowed my head in return. “Yamada desu.” I thought it best not to use my real name. Yamada was the Japanese equivalent of Smith or Jones.
“Come back some time, Yamada-san. It will be my pleasure to teach coffee to one who appreciates it so much.”
I bowed my head at the compliment. Sekiguchi moved off to attend to another customer, and I enjoyed the cup he had prepared me. It really was outstanding. I was amazed to think of the swill I’d been drinking when there were places like this in Tokyo.
After a few minutes, I looked around. People were talking, or reading, or silently contemplating the subtleties of whatever it was they were drinking. No one was paying me any attention. I reached under the seat, felt the envelope taped in position, pulled it free, and pocketed it. Unsurprisingly, McGraw had taped it dead center, presumably to minimize the chance that someone momentarily gripping the edge of the seat might feel something with his fingertips. I finished my coffee, thanked Sekiguchi and assured him I would see him again, and headed out into the wet Ginza heat.
I rode to nearby Hibiya Park, where I sat at a bench in the shade of some trees and opened the file. Fukumoto lived in Denenchofu, an upscale, leafy suburb of single-family houses in the southwest of the city, outside the Yamanote. The headquarters of the Gokumatsu-gumi was in Shinjuku, and presumably he would spend substantial time there, but attacking a yakuza stronghold seemed like a fairly bad idea and I didn’t even consider it. The Gokumatsu-gumi controlled Shinjuku’s prostitution, ran most of the city’s pachinko parlors through an affiliated Korean gang, and managed various nightclub interests. Beyond that was loan sharking, extortion, strikebreaking, and drug trafficking. Fukumoto had personal investments in several hostess bars throughout the city. But trying to get to him at one of the clubs sounded like a shell game to me, with a low probability of success.
I grimaced. It was an analyst’s file, not an operator’s. McGraw was fucking me.
Then I took a deep breath. Maybe there was another way of looking at it. Presumably, McGraw had wanted Ozawa dead for some time, and the Ozawa file had been a reflection of that desire. But no one had planned a hit on Fukumoto. McGraw was playing catch-up. He hadn’t had time to put together something more focused.
All right. At least I had a home address. I could do a drive-by. Nothing for the development of appropriate tactics like seeing the actual terrain.
I stashed my bag in a locker in Tokyo Station, then rode to Denenchofu. I found Fukumoto’s house easily enough—it was the most impressive in an already wealthy neighborhood. The style was slick and contemporary, and Fukumoto had obviously chosen it not just for its looks, but also for its security. Situated on a corner lot, it was a three-story structure surrounded by a high metal wall, with the front entrance protected by an exterior gate and a dog run around the side similarly secured. There was a two-car garage with a vertical door—closed, unsurprisingly. I considered how I might get inside. The wall looked easy enough to climb, but I had to assume there were additional precautions on the other side. It would be a shame to pirouette perfectly over, only to land in a den of Rottweilers. I might have a shot outside the house, while Fukumoto was coming or going, but I doubted it—that garage door looked designed to get him in and out of the structure without ever having to expose himself. This was obviously no soft target like Ozawa, but rather a guy who knew he had serious enemies, who understood that his house was a potential vulnerability where he would need to be extra careful.
I circled the block, looking for possibilities, seeing none. I rode through the neighborhood. It was extremely quiet—not even any children in the streets, though I imagined that would change soon, as schools got out. The area’s torpor wasn’t going to make things easier for me—I saw nowhere I could conceal myself outside the house, whether to gather intelligence for later, or to find a way in now. Which, I supposed, was part of the reason Fukumoto would have chosen this neighborhood.
I decided I could afford one more drive past the house. But no more than that today, in case anyone was
watching. As I turned onto the street facing the garage door, I saw a car nosing its way out. Son of a bitch. I was already going slowly and I dropped back even further on the throttle. But just as I was getting my hopes up that I was actually going to be able to follow Fukumoto, the rest of the car revealed itself. A yellow Porsche 911 Targa, the roof removed, with a Japanese woman alone at the wheel. She had on a pair of oversized sunglasses that did little to conceal her beauty. She paused at the edge of the street to check for traffic, saw me, and waited. Without thinking, I pulled over and waved for her to go. She smiled, looking even more confident and gorgeous as she did so; reached up to the visor and touched something; and pulled out. I heard the mechanical sound of a motor engaging and realized she had pressed an automatic garage door unit, and that the sound I heard was of the door closing. Damn, if I gunned it, I thought I might be able to scoot inside just before the door reached the ground. But the woman had paused at the corner to check for traffic. Too great a likelihood she would hear Thanatos’s engine and see me in the rearview.
She made a left, and as soon as she was gone I gunned the bike forward, but too late. The door was already too low for me to have time to get off the bike and slide under it. I leaned down and saw a shiny chrome bumper and a single pair of wheels, and then it was gone, the door connecting solidly with the ground. The hell with it, I thought. If I couldn’t improvise one way, I’d improvise another.
I pulled forward and glanced left. She was at the end of the street, her left turning signal blinking. I eased out and headed in her direction, hanging well back.
I followed her onto the main road, speculating. Her looks, the car…obviously, this wasn’t the cleaning woman. And she was far too young to be Fukumoto’s wife, given that he had an adult son. So what was she doing at Fukumoto’s house in the middle of the day?