by Barry Eisler
I was already in character. My heart was pounding and I was juiced with adrenaline. Fuck it. I paused and said in Japanese, “Mori-san? Is that you?”
All three turned, the one in the center slightly more quickly. I saw his face. It was him.
“Yes, I’m Mori,” he said, annoyance in his tone. “Who’s that?”
My heart was slamming harder. I tightened my hand around the cloth-covered rock. I was only three meters away.
I thought I was going to be able to get closer before he would react. But something in my demeanor cued him. He flinched and turned to the rear car door. Grabbed the handle. Started to open it. Everything happening now in slow motion through my adrenalized vision.
“You like fucking my wife?” I shouted. “You like fucking my wife?”
He yanked the door open and started to pull himself inside. I grabbed him by the collar with my free hand, hauled him back, and straight-armed the rock into the back of his head. It connected with a satisfying crunch and I felt the rigidity flow out of his body. His companions jumped back, one of them crying out, “Oi!” I barely heard him.
Mori slumped over the trunk. I still had my hold on his collar and used it to drag him face down to the pavement. “You like fucking my wife?” I screamed again, sounding as hysterical as I felt. I reared up and smashed the rock into the back of his head again. This time, there was nowhere for him to float with the blow, and I heard the crack of his skull opening. I hit him a third time, still screaming. And then again.
I let the rock fall from the furoshiki and took off in the direction I had come from. The whole thing had taken maybe ten seconds. I’d given no one time to react. Maybe the driver would think to try to chase me, but it was a one-way street and he was pointed in the wrong direction. And I thought it would be some time before his companions recovered from their shock, and even then I doubted they’d have the stomach to come after someone who had just done what they’d witnessed. Still, I cut through the first alley I came to, and then a parking lot, and a minute later I was out of Akasaka proper, on quiet, deserted neighborhood streets. I stopped running and made myself walk at a normal pace, my breath heaving in and out of my chest. Relax, I told myself. Relax. You’re a civilian again. Just a normal salaryman. Relax.
I ducked into an alley and let the shakes pass through me. Killing with electricity was better than killing with a gun, and killing with a gun was better than killing with a rock. It was a matter of proximity, and therefore of intimacy. It wasn’t logical—dead was dead, whether brained with a rock or bombed from thirty thousand feet—but it was true. I’d killed at close range in Vietnam and Cambodia, and I reminded myself this was no different—ethically, morally, whatever. I reminded myself that Mori was in the life and knew he was taking his chances, or should have known. But even so, the shakes were bad this time.
The way Mori had reacted had spooked me. He’d seen the violence in my demeanor, the intent. Some of that had been deliberate: I wanted it to look like a brutal crime of passion, barely planned and hastily executed, the antithesis of a detached, professional hit. To bolster that impression, I had played a role, that of enraged, jealous husband, which is what I wanted the witnesses to report and the police to investigate, and playing that role involved making myself feel like the role. But that wasn’t all of it. Some of what Mori had sensed, I thought, was simply a part of who I was. Or, to put it another way, my very presence had warned him of what I was going to do. If he’d been a little faster, or I a little slower, that warning might have made the difference. And it was the same with those chinpira in Ueno. Whether it was overt posturing or subliminal messaging, either way I was inadvertently warning people of what I was about to do, and therefore giving them time to prepare. Was there any upside to that? No, there wasn’t. In the field, if something represents only a cost and no offsetting benefit, you jettison it. I had to find a way to jettison this, too—to control those unconscious, nonverbal signals, retract them, conceal them. There had to be a way to be able to do great violence, ultimate violence, without any outward manifestation ahead of the violence itself. I thought something like that would be rare. Certainly I’d never seen anything like it myself. But if there were a way to acquire it, it would offer significant tactical advantages.
I realized I was distracting myself from the nature of what I had just done by focusing on the tactics. I’d done so many after-action reports after missions that the reflex was now ingrained. I found myself grateful for that.
I left the alley and ditched the glasses in a garbage bin. The furoshiki went into a sewer drain. I scrubbed the slickness out of my hair, loosened the tie, and kept walking. Five minutes later, I was riding Thanatos north on Uchibori-dōri. It was only when I was under the bright lights of the main road that I noticed my sleeve was flecked with blood and gore. It didn’t show up too badly on the dark jacket, but on the white sleeve it was impossible to miss.
Shit. I should have stashed a change of clothes somewhere. How could I have been so stupid?
I pulled over and rolled up my shirtsleeves, just enough so they didn’t show beyond the edges of the jacket. Then I found a public restroom, where I examined myself in a mirror and scrubbed the gore off my hands. At a discount store, I bought a tee shirt and a pair of jeans. None of the costume changes was particularly expensive, but I was far from rich, and between the various props, the nightly hotel rooms, and gas for Thanatos, I was glad I had a load of cash waiting for me back at the hotel, with more on the way.
I stopped in a park and changed into my new clothes, using the tie to wrap the shirt and suit around a rock and sink the whole package into a pond. Doubtful anyone would ever find it; if they did, it would offer no connection to me. Routine forensic DNA analysis was still far in the future.
Back on Thanatos, clean and in my new clothes, I started to feel calmer, more detached. But I was still horrified to consider how much I’d just relied on luck. How well did I really know the areas in which I was operating? Kita Senju might have been another city. And even Akasaka…I knew the main streets, sure, but the alleyways? The hidden passages between and through buildings? And what kind of shape was I in? For the mat, top shape, sure, and if I ever had to use judo to save my life, maybe I’d manage, as I had when Pig Eyes had attacked me at the Kodokan. But what if I had to run, really run? The half a kilometer out of Akasaka had gassed me. What if I’d needed to go farther? Could I have outlasted whoever was chasing me? Probably not. And that wasn’t good.
I needed to game things out better in my head. I needed to take what I’d learned about combat—the mentality, the preparation, the focus—and apply it in life generally. I needed to stop pretending there was some clear dividing line between the military and the civilian, the jungle and the city, war and peace. There wasn’t. Not before, and certainly not now.
I called Miyamoto from a payphone. “It’s done,” I told him in my disguised voice.
“Already?”
For some reason, the comment annoyed me. “How long did you want to wait?”
“I didn’t. I’m just…surprised. That you were able to do it so quickly.”
“I want you to get me the balance of what you owe me tomorrow. Same place, same rules. Place it there at eleven in the morning. Do you understand?”
“Of course. The money will be there. But listen. I’d like to have a way of contacting you. You seem…very professional. I’m sure the people I represent would like to do business with you again.”
I almost said no. But then I thought, What’s the downside?
“I’ll leave you a number where you can reach me,” I said. “In the same place you leave the money, after I retrieve it. Now, repeat back to me how, where, and when you’re going to leave me the balance.”
He did. When he was done, I said, “I know we have a mutual friend. But you should know, if I see anyone trying to make me when I go to retrieve that payment, I will hold you personally accountable.”
“I’m going to place the
envelope there myself. As I did last time. No one else will even know where to look.”
I hung up. I didn’t feel great. But I reminded myself that sometimes there’s just what you can do, and what you can’t.
I’d done it. Now I had to live with it.
chapter
twenty-five
I headed back to the hotel in Uguisudani. The closer I got, the more nervous I felt. The night before had been magical, but then Sayaka and I had both gone back to our separate lives. Did she feel the same way I did? What was she thinking? Would it be awkward? And she was probably wondering all the same about me. Or wasn’t she? That would be worse, much worse.
But at the same time, worrying about Sayaka was a relief. I felt like I was riding away from someone else, some other part of myself, and leaving him behind. Thinking of Sayaka made me feel like…like what she imagined me to be. Wanted me to be. I was different with her. She’d said as much, and I felt it, too. I wanted to make it so that one world would have nothing to do with the other. And that by stepping into that world, I’d close the door on the other. It felt possible. It felt good.
She was at the desk when I walked in. She smiled when she saw me, but there was tension in her expression, too.
“Hey,” I said, walking over. “You look good.”
That seemed to relax her a little. “Yeah? So do you.”
I had to push back an image of Mori, but I managed. “Hey, no flirting with the customers.”
She laughed a little at that. There was an awkward pause.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Last night—”
“I know.”
I felt myself flush. “You don’t even know what I was going to say!” Actually, neither did I.
She laughed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I was just going to say…it was amazing. I kept thinking about it today.” It sure as hell beat everything else I was thinking about, but I kept that part to myself.
She smiled. “Yeah, me too. I couldn’t wait for tonight. Well, for tomorrow morning. When I get off here.”
“Sure you can’t slip away for a special, really loyal customer?”
“This place? Even if I could, and I can’t, no. This is just to pay the bills. I don’t want to have any other associations with it.”
“All right, I guess I can wait. Can I kiss you goodnight?”
She looked around nervously. “Okay, but make it quick—I really don’t need some drunken salaryman seeing us making out and getting the idea that’s what I’m here for.”
She unlocked the door and I ducked inside. I really just meant to give her a simple goodnight kiss, but it pretty instantly turned into more than that. She broke it off, breathing hard. “Get out of here, you. You’re too tempting.”
“Oh man, so are you.”
I went back around. “I have to charge you,” she said. “They know when a room’s been used because of the maid service. Otherwise, I wouldn’t.”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t want to get you in trouble.” I gave her the money and took the key. “What time should I come down?”
“I get off at seven. But don’t meet me here. I don’t want people to see us together. Just come to my apartment, anytime after seven-thirty. Okay?”
“I can’t wait.”
She smiled. “Neither can I.”
chapter
twenty-six
I spent the following morning at Sayaka’s. It was amazing—as good as the first time, and maybe even better, because now the ice was broken and we were getting a little more used to each other.
Several hours in, she was lying on her back, drifting in and out of sleep. I was turned on my side, my head propped on my fist, watching her. I didn’t want to get too comfortable—it would have felt great to nod off, but I had to meet Miyamoto at noon. And retrieve the money beforehand. I didn’t want it exposed for longer than necessary.
She glanced at me, her lids heavy. “What?”
“What, what?”
“Why are you looking at me?”
“I like looking at you.”
She smiled and touched my cheek. “You’re sweet.”
I kissed her fingers. “You really think so?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Some people think I have a temper.”
“Not with me.”
I kissed her softly on the lips. “I like how I am with you.”
She didn’t say anything. She just smiled, tracing my ear, my jaw, my lips.
I glanced at the clock by the bed. “I have to go.”
“Work?”
“Yeah.”
“Still don’t want to tell me?”
“I can’t.”
“Jun, you’re not married, are you? I mean, you said you’d only been with one girl, but…”
The question caught me so off guard it made me laugh. But of course I could instantly see why she’d be concerned. “No.”
“I didn’t think so, but then…I wondered. It’s weird knowing so little about you.”
“I told you. You know me better than most.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“It feels like that. But then I feel like…maybe I’m being naïve.”
I stroked her cheek. “You’re not naïve.”
“I’ve never thought so, anyway.”
“You’re not. Let me just get out of this jam—a work jam, it’s not marriage or a relationship or anything like that. And then we’ll see, okay?”
I looked at her for a long moment. I guess my expression must have been kind of dopey. She said, “What?”
I smiled. “I just feel lucky.”
There was a pause. She said, “Do you want to stay here tonight? You can if you want.”
“I kind of like seeing you at the hotel. I think I’d miss you if you weren’t here.”
She laughed. “You really are sweet. Okay, then, see you tonight?”
I kissed her. “See you tonight.”
I rode Thanatos to Ginza. On the way, that phrase, I feel lucky, kept echoing in my mind. It was bugging me, and I didn’t know why. I pushed it aside. There was one small thing I needed to take care of, and then I’d retrieve the money. I had to focus.
I found a guy delivering bento lunches on a motor scooter—an ordinary guy, doubtless unimaginative but responsible, and also doubtless in need of cash given the likely wages of the bento delivery industry. I asked him if he’d like to make a quick ten thousand yen. All he had to do was open a bank account for me, Taro Yamada, the Japanese equivalent of John Smith, right here at the local branch of the Taiyō Bank. I’d give him the cash, he’d sign the paperwork, ten thousand yen for fifteen minutes’ labor. He didn’t hesitate. It was done and he was back on his scooter before those bento lunches even had a chance to cool. Next, I called a telephone answering service and established an account for someone named John Smith, setting up payment through the new bank account.
The necessary infrastructure established, I rode Thanatos to Aoyama-itchōme and got on the Ginza line from there. I pulled on my little disguise as the train left the station, and when I got out at Gaienmae, I saw no one lingering after the train had departed. I picked up the envelope as I had last time, and taped my alter ego’s new phone number to the bottom of the seat. Now if Miyamoto needed to reach the contract killer I’d put him in touch with, he could. Ten minutes later, I was back on Thanatos, with ten thousand dollars in a bag around my shoulder. Not bad.
I headed over to Akasaka-mitsuke, parked near the New Otani, and walked the rest of the way. Miyamoto wasn’t there yet. Rather than wait for him in the lobby, I strolled around the hotel, imagining how I would get to me if I were the opposition. It was a good game and I knew I needed to practice, to get as fluent in the city as I had become in the jungle.
I knew that in McGraw’s imagination, or at least in his hopes, my meetings with Miyamoto were always super cloak-and-dagger. And initially they had been, at least to some extent. But
over time, it had become increasingly relaxed. So I wasn’t at all perturbed when Miyamoto came in and waved as soon he saw me.
He came over and bowed low. “Thank you again for the great service you have done me.”
Of course, I played dumb. “What do you mean?”
“The…friend you introduced me to. He proved most helpful. Professional and discreet.”
“Really? He didn’t say anything to me. Well, discreet, as you say. But I’m glad it worked out. Your people were…pleased?”
“Very pleased. It seems I’m now worthy of a whole new level of respect, and I owe it all to you. It has been my good fortune to know you.”
Good fortune…luck again. Why was that notion bothering me? Again, I pushed it aside. “You don’t owe me anything,” I said. “I just hope you don’t get a promotion out of this—I’d miss our meetings.”
He laughed. “Do you have a little time? The hotel’s garden is wonderful—over four hundred years old. A beautiful sight to contemplate while drinking tea.”
So we spent an hour or so enjoying tea in the lounge overlooking the garden. Miyamoto commented on my new apparent mindfulness in the way I sipped and savored, saying he was honored I had listened to his silliness. I told him it was my honor that he would so patiently instruct someone so unworthy. It was easy to switch bags naturally when we stood to go. As I headed toward the back exit, Miyamoto said, “I won’t forget what you did for me, or that I owe you a service in return.”
“Really, you are much too kind. All I did was offer an introduction.”
“And you are much too modest. I am in your debt.”
“Okay, you can pay for the tea again next time.”
He laughed. “That will hardly suffice. But yes. Until we meet again.”
A number of things had been roiling my mind, including that weirdly disturbing notion of luck and fortune, and though I’d suppressed it all while chatting with Miyamoto, I wanted to think carefully about what was bothering me now. So I rode Thanatos the short distance to Zenpuku-ji, a small temple constructed in 824, making it Tokyo’s oldest after Sensō-ji in Asakusa. Zenpuku-ji was a quiet space with a giant ginkgo tree said to be as old as the temple itself, with both the tree and the temple surrounded by graves, many of them ancient. It would be a good place to work things through. In my experience, nothing fosters more sober, careful thought, more honest reflection, than finding oneself the sole living trespasser in a sanctum of the dead.