by Barry Eisler
I had the cab stop before reaching Omotesando-dori, then got out and walked the four blocks back to the Blue Note. I was careful to scope the likely places, but things looked clear.
There was already a long line waiting for the second set. I walked over to the ticket window, where I was told the second set was sold out unless I had a reservation.
Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. But Midori would have, if she really had wanted me to come. “I’m a friend of Kawamura Midori’s,” I said. “Fujiwara Junichi…?”
“Of course,” the clerk responded immediately. “Kawamura-san told me you might be coming tonight. Please wait here—the second set will start in fifteen minutes, and we want to make certain you have a good seat.”
I nodded and stepped to the side. As promised, the crowd from the first set started filing out five minutes later, and, as soon as they were clear, I was taken inside, down a wide, steep staircase, and shown to a table right in front of the empty stage.
No one would ever confuse the Blue Note with Alfie. First, the Blue Note has a high ceiling that conveys a feeling of spaciousness totally unlike Alfie’s almost cave-like intimacy. Also, the whole feel is high-end: plush carpeting, expensive-looking wood paneling, even some flat panel monitors in an antechamber for the obsessive-compulsives who need to surf the Internet between sets. And the crowd is different at the Blue Note, too: first, you can’t even fit a crowd into Alfie, and second, the people at Alfie are there only for the music, whereas, at the Blue Note, people also come to be seen.
I looked around the room as the second-set crowd flowed in, but nothing set off my radar.
If you wanted to get to her, and you had a choice of seats, where would you go? I thought. You’d stay close to one of the entrances to this floor. That would give you an escape route, if you needed one, and it would keep the entire room in front of you, so you could watch everyone else from behind, instead of the reverse.
I swiveled and looked behind me as though searching for an acquaintance. There was a Japanese man, mid-forties, sitting all the way in the left rear, near one of the exits. The people next to him were talking to one another; he was obviously alone. He was wearing a dark rumpled suit that fit him like an afterthought. His expression was bland, too bland for my taste. This was a crowd composed of enthusiasts, sitting in twos and threes, waiting eagerly for a performance. Mr. Bland felt like he was trying to be unobtrusive. I filed him as a strong possible.
I swiveled in the other direction. Same seat, right rear. Three young women who looked like office ladies on a night out. No apparent problem there.
Mr. Bland would be able to watch me throughout the performance, and I needed to avoid his mistake of conspicuous aloneness. I mentioned to the people around me I was a friend of Midori’s and was here at her invitation; they started asking me questions, and pretty soon we were shooting the shit like old friends.
A waitress came by and I ordered a twelve-year-old Cragganmore. The people around me followed suit—I was a friend of Kawamura Midori’s, so whatever I ordered, it must have been cool. They probably didn’t know whether they had just ordered scotch, vodka, or a new kind of beer.
When Midori and her trio walked down the side of the room, everyone started clapping. Another thing about Alfie: There, when the musicians first appear, the room fills with reverential silence.
Midori took her place at the piano. She was wearing faded blue jeans and a black velvet blouse, low cut and clinging, her skin dazzling white against it. She tilted her head forward and touched her fingers to the keys, and the audience grew silent, expectant. She spent a long moment frozen that way, staring at the piano, and then began.
She started slowly, with a coy rendering of Thelonious Monk’s “Brilliant Corners,” but overall she played harder than she had at Alfie, with more abandon, her notes sometimes struggling with the bass and drums, but finding a harmony in the opposition. Her riffs were angry and she rode them longer, and when she came back the notes were sweet but you could still sense a frustration, a pacing beneath the surface.
The set lasted for ninety minutes, and the music alternated from smoky and melodic, to elegiac and sad, then to a giddy, laughing exuberance that shook the sadness away. Midori finished in a mad, exhilarating riff, and when it was over the applause was unrestrained. Midori stood to acknowledge it, bowing her head. The drummer and bassist were laughing and wiping dripping sweat from their faces with handkerchiefs, and the applause went on and on. What Midori felt when she played, the place her music took her, she had taken the audience there, too, and the clapping was filled with real gratitude. When the acclamation finally faded, Midori and her trio left the stage, and people started to get up and move about.
A few minutes later she reappeared and squeezed in next to me. Her face was still flushed from the performance. “I thought I saw you here,” she said, giving me a mild check with her shoulder.
“They were expecting me at the ticket window. Thank you.”
She smiled. “If I hadn’t told them, you wouldn’t have gotten in, and you can’t hear the music very well from the street, can you?”
“No, the reception is certainly better from where I’m sitting,” I said, looking around as though taking in the grandeur of the Blue Note, but in fact scoping for Mr. Bland.
“Do you want to get something to eat?” she asked. “I’m going to grab something with the band.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t going to have a chance to probe for information with other people around, and I wasn’t eager to broaden my intentionally small circle of acquaintances.
“Hey, this is your big night, your first gig at the Blue Note,” I said. “You probably want to enjoy it yourselves.”
“No, no,” she said, giving me another shoulder check. “I’d like you to come. And don’t you want to meet the rest of the band? They were great tonight, weren’t they?”
On the other hand, depending on how the evening progressed, you might have a chance to talk to her alone a bit later. “They really were. The audience loved you.”
“We were thinking The Living Bar. Do you know it?”
Good choice, I thought. The Living Bar is an atmospheric place in Omotesando, absurdly named as only the Japanese can name them. It was close by, but we’d have to turn at least five corners to walk there, which would allow me to check behind to see if Mr. Bland was following.
“Sure. It’s a chain, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but the one in Omotesando is nicer than the others. They serve lots of interesting little dishes, and the bar is good, too. Good selection of single malts. Mama says you’re a connoisseur.”
“Mama flatters me,” I said, thinking that if I wasn’t careful, Mama would put together a damn dossier and start handing it out. “Let me just pay for the drinks.”
She smiled. “They’re already paid for. Let’s go.”
“You paid for me?”
“I told the manager that the person sitting front center was my special guest.” She switched to English: “So everything is on the house, ne?” She smiled, pleased at the chance to use the idiom.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Can you wait just a few minutes? I’ve got a few things to take care of backstage first.”
Getting to her backstage would be too difficult to bother trying. If they were going to make a move, they’d make it outside. “Sure,” I said, getting up and shifting so my back was to the stage and I could see the room. Too many people were up and milling about, though, and I couldn’t spot Mr. Bland. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Right here—five minutes.” She turned and walked backstage.
Fifteen minutes later she reappeared through a curtain at the back of the stage. She had changed into a black turtleneck and black slacks. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, her face perfectly framed.
“Sorry to make you wait. I wanted to change—a performance is hard work.”
“No problem,” I said, taking her in. “Y
ou look great.”
She smiled. “Let’s go! The band is out front. I’m starving.”
We headed out the front entrance, passing a number of lingering fans who thanked her on the way. If you wanted to get to her and could time it right, I thought, you’d wait at the bottom of the stairs of the Caffe Idee, where you’d have a view of both the front and side entrances.
Sure enough, Mr. Bland was there, strolling away from us with studied nonchalance.
So much for Benny’s forty-eight hours, I thought. It was probably just his version of “Act now—offer expires at midnight.” Something he picked up in a sales course somewhere.
The bassist and drummer were waiting for us, and we strolled over. “Tomo-chan, Ko-chan, this is Fujiwara Junichi, the gentleman I mentioned,” Midori said, gesturing to me.
“Hajimemashite,” I said, bowing. “Konya no ensou wa, saikou ni subarashikatta.” It’s good to meet you. Tonight’s performance was great.
“Hey, let’s use English tonight,” Midori said, switching over as she did so. “Fujiwara-san, these guys both spent years in New York. They can order a cab in Brooklyn as well as you can.”
“In that case, please call me John,” I said. I extended my hand to the drummer.
“You can call me Tom,” he said, shaking my hand and bowing simultaneously. He had an open, almost quizzical expression, and was dressed unpretentiously in jeans, a white-oxford cloth shirt, and a blue blazer. There was something sincere in the way he had combined his Western and Japanese greetings and I found I liked him immediately.
“I remember you from Alfie,” the bassist said, extending his hand carefully. He was dressed predictably in black jeans, turtleneck, and blazer, the sideburns and rectangular glasses all trying a bit too hard for The Look.
“And I remember you,” I said, taking his hand and consciously injecting some warmth into my grip. “You were all wonderful. Mama told me before the performance you were all going to be stars, and I can see she was right.”
Maybe he knew I was soft-soaping him, but he must have felt too good after the performance to care. Or his personality was different in English. Either way, he gave me a small but genuine-looking smile and said, “Thank you for mentioning that. Call me Ken.”
“And call me Midori,” Midori cut in. “Now let’s go, before I starve!”
During the ten-minute walk to Za Ribingu Baa, as the locals called it, we all chatted about jazz and how we had discovered it for ourselves. Though I was ten years older than the oldest of them, philosophically we were all purists of the Charlie Parker/Bill Evans/Miles Davis school, and conversation was easy enough.
Periodically I was able to glance behind us as we turned corners. On several of these occasions I spotted Mr. Bland in tow. I didn’t expect him to move while Midori was with all these people, if that’s what he had in mind.
Unless they were desperate, of course, in which case they would take chances, maybe even move sloppily. As we walked my ears were intensely focused on the sounds behind us.
The Living Bar announced its existence in the basement of the Scène Akira building with a discreet sign over the stairs. We walked down and into the entranceway, where we were greeted by a young Japanese man with a stylish brush cut and a well-tailored navy suit with three of its four buttons fastened. Midori, very much the leader of the group, told him we wanted a table for four; he answered “kashikomarimashita,” in the most polite Japanese and murmured into a small microphone next to the register. By the time he had escorted us inside, a table had been prepared and a waitress was waiting to seat us.
The crowd wasn’t too dense for a Saturday night. Several groups of glamorous-looking women were sitting in high-backed chairs at the black varnished tables, wearing expertly applied makeup and Chanel like it was made for them, their cheekbones in sharp relief in the subdued glow of the overhead incandescent illumination, their hair catching the light. Midori put them to shame.
I wanted the seat facing the entrance, but Tom moved too quickly. I was left facing the bar.
As we ordered drinks and enough small appetizers to make for a reasonable meal, I saw the man who had escorted us inside walk Mr. Bland over to the bar. Mr. Bland sat with his back to us, but there was a mirror behind the bar and I knew he had a good view of the room.
While we waited for our order to arrive, we continued our safe, comfortable conversation about jazz. Several times I considered the merits of removing Mr. Bland. He was part of a numerically superior enemy. If an opportunity presented itself to reduce that number by one, I would take it. If I did it right, his employers would never know of my involvement, and taking him out could buy me more time to get Midori out of this.
At some point, after much of the food had been consumed and we—along with Mr. Bland—were on our second round of drinks, one of them asked me what I did for a living.
“I’m a consultant,” I told them. “I advise foreign companies on how to bring their goods and services into the Japanese market.”
“That’s good,” Tom said. “It’s too hard for foreigners to do business in Japan. Even today, liberalization is just cosmetic. In many ways it’s the same Japan as during the Tokugawa bakufu, closed to the outside world.”
“Yes, but that’s good for John’s business,” Ken added. “Isn’t it, John? Because if Japan didn’t have so many stupid regulations, if the ministries that inspect incoming food and products weren’t so corrupt, you would need to find a different job, right?”
“Come on, Ken,” Midori said. “We know how cynical you are. You don’t have to prove it.”
I wondered if Ken might have had too much to drink.
“You used to be cynical, too,” he went on. He turned to me. “When Midori came back from Julliard, she was a radical. She wanted to change everything about Japan. But I guess not anymore.”
“I still want to change things,” Midori said, her voice warm but firm. “It’s just that I don’t think a lot of angry slogans will make any difference. You have to be patient, you have to pick your battles.”
“Which ones have you picked lately?” he asked.
Tom turned to me. “You have to understand, Ken feels like he sold out by doing gigs at established places like the Blue Note. Sometimes he takes it out on us.”
Ken laughed. “We all sold out.”
Midori took a sip of her drink. “Come on, Ken, give it a rest.”
Ken looked at me. “What about you, John? What’s the American expression: ‘Either you’re a part of the solution, or you’re a part of the problem?’”
I smiled. “There’s a third part, actually. ‘Or you’re a part of the landscape.’”
Ken nodded as though internally confirming something. “That’s the worst of all.”
I shrugged. He didn’t matter to me and it was easy to stay disengaged. “The truth is, I hadn’t really thought of what I do in these terms. Some people have a problem exporting to Japan, I help them out. But you make some good points. I’ll think about what you’re saying.”
He wanted to argue and didn’t know what to do with my agreeable responses, which was fine. “Let’s have another drink,” he said.
“I think I’ve reached my limit,” Midori said. “I’m ready to call it a night.”
As she spoke I noticed Mr. Bland, who was studiously looking elsewhere, clicking a small device about the size of a disposable lighter that he was resting on one knee and pointing in our direction. Fuck, I thought. A camera.
He’d been taking Midori’s picture, and I would be in the shots. This was the kind of risk I’d be taking if I stayed close to her now.
Okay. I’d have to leave with the three of them, then invent an excuse, maybe that I left something, double back to the bar and catch him as he was leaving to follow Midori again. I wasn’t going to let him keep that camera, not with my pictures in it.
But Mr. Bland gave me another option, instead. He got up and started walking in the direction of the restroom.
�
��I’m going to head home, too,” I said, standing up, feeling my heart beginning to beat harder in my chest. “Just need to hit the restroom first.” I eased away from the table.
I followed a few meters behind Mr. Bland as he maneuvered along the polished black floor. I kept my head down slightly, avoiding eye contact with the patrons I was passing, my heart thudding steadily in my ears. He opened the restroom door and went inside. Before the door swung closed, I caught it and followed him in.
Two stalls, two urinals. I could see in my peripheral vision that the stall doors were open a crack. We were alone. The thudding of my heart was loud enough to block out sound. I could feel the air flowing cleanly in and out of my nostrils, the blood pumping through the veins of my arms.
He turned to face me as I approached, perhaps recognizing me from his peripheral vision as one of the people who was with Midori, perhaps warned by some vestigial and now futile instinct that he was in danger. My eyes were centered on his upper torso, not focusing on any one part of him, taking in his whole body, the position of his hips and hands, absorbing the information, processing it.
Without breaking stride I stepped in and blasted my left hand directly into his throat, catching his trachea in the V created by my thumb and index finger. His head snapped forward and his hands flew to his throat.
I stepped behind him and slipped my hands into his front pockets. From the left I retrieved the camera. The other was empty.
He was clawing ineffectually at his damaged throat, silent except for some clicking from his tongue and teeth. He started to stamp his left foot on the ground and contort his torso in what I recognized as the beginning of panic, the body moving of its own primitive accord to get air—air!—through the broken trachea and into the convulsing lungs.
I knew it would take about thirty seconds for him to asphyxiate. No time for that. I swept my right arm clockwise around his neck, bowed him back, and snapped his neck.