Rain Fall (18 page)

With a quick, economical movement she raised her right hand and wiped the edge of one eye, then the other. “He told me about all the things he had been involved in, all the things he had done. He told me he wanted to do something to make it right, that he would have done something much sooner but he had been a coward, knowing he would be killed if he tried. He also said that he was afraid for me, that the people he was involved with wouldn’t hesitate to attack someone’s family to send a message. He was planning to do something now, something that would make things right, he told me, but if he did it I might be in danger.”

“What was he going to do?”

“I don’t know. But I told him I couldn’t accept being a hostage to a corrupt system, that if we were going to reconcile he would have to act without regard to me.”

I considered. “That was brave of you.”

She looked at me, in full control again. “Not really. Don’t forget, I’m a radical.”

“Well, we know he was talking to that reporter, Bulfinch, that he was supposed to deliver a disk. We need to figure out what was supposed to be on it.”

“How?”

“I think by contacting Bulfinch directly.”

“And telling him what?”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

We were quiet for a minute, and I started to feel exhaustion setting in.

“Why don’t we get some sleep,” I said. “I’ll take the couch, all right? And we can talk more tomorrow. Things will seem clearer then.”

I knew they couldn’t become more murky.

I
GOT UP
early the next morning and went straight to Shibuya Station, telling Midori that I would call her later on her cell phone, after I picked up some things that I needed. I had a few items hidden in my place in Sengoku, among them an alias passport, which I’d want if I had to leave the country suddenly. I told her to go out only when she really had to, knowing that she would need to buy food and a change of clothes, and not to use plastic for any purchases. I also told her that, in case anyone had her cell phone number, we needed to keep our conversations brief, and that she should assume someone was listening to anything we said.

I took the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro, a crowded, anonymous commercial and entertainment center in the northwest of the city, then got off and flagged down a cab outside the station. I took the cab to Haku-san, a residential neighborhood about a ten-minute walk from my apartment, where I got out and dialed the voice-mail account that’s attached to the phone in my apartment.

The phone has a few special features. I can call in
anytime from a remote location and silently activate the unit’s speakerphone, essentially turning it into a transmitter. The unit is also sound activated: if there’s a noise in the room, a human voice, for example, the unit’s speakerphone feature is silently activated and it dials a voice-mail account that I keep in the States, where telco competition keeps the price of such things reasonable. Before I go home, I always call the voice-mail number. If someone has been in my apartment in my absence, I’ll know.

The truth is, the phone is probably unnecessary. Not only has no one ever been in my apartment unannounced; no one even knows where I really live. I pay for a six-mat flat in Ochanomizu, but I never go there. The place in Sengoku is leased under a corporate name with no connection to me. If you’re in this line of work, you’d better have an additional identity or two.

I looked up and down the street, listening to the beeps as the call snaked its way under the Pacific. When the connection went through, I punched in my code.

Every time I’ve done this, except for when I periodically test the system, I’ve listened to a mechanical woman’s voice say, “You have no calls.” I was expecting the same today.

Instead the message was “You have one call.”

Son of a bitch.
I was so startled I couldn’t remember what button to press to hear the message, but the mechanical voice prompted me. Barely breathing, I pressed the “one” key.

I heard a man’s voice, speaking Japanese. “Small place. Hard to catch him by surprise when he comes in.”

Another man’s voice, also in Japanese: “Wait here,
on the side of the
genkan.
When he arrives, use the pepper spray.”

I knew that voice, but it took me a minute to place it—I was used to hearing it in English.

Benny.

“What if he doesn’t want to talk?”

“He’ll talk.”

I was gripping the phone hard.
That piece of shit Benny. How did he track me down?

When did this message get recorded? What was that special-functions button . . . Goddamnit, I should have run through this a few more times for practice before it really mattered. I’d gotten complacent. I hit six. That speeded up the message. Shit. I tried five. The mechanical woman informed me that this message was made by an outside caller at 2:00
P
.
M
. That was California time, which meant that they entered my apartment at about 7:00 this morning, maybe an hour ago.

Okay, change of plan. I saved the message, hung up, and called Midori on her cell phone. I told her I had found out something important and would tell her about it when I got back, that she should wait for me even if I was late. Then I backtracked to Sugamo, once notorious as the site of a SCAP prison for Japanese war criminals, now better known for its red-light district and accompanying love hotels.

I picked the hotel that was closest to Sengoku. The room they gave me was dank. I didn’t care. I just wanted a landline, so I wouldn’t have to worry about my cell phone battery dying, and a place to wait.

I dialed the phone in my apartment. It didn’t ring, but I could hear when the connection had gone
through. I sat and waited, listening, but after a half hour there still wasn’t any sound and I started to wonder if they’d left. Then I heard a chair sliding against the wood floor, footsteps, and the unmistakable sound of a man urinating in the toilet. They were still there.

I sat like that all day, listening in on nothing. The only consolation was that they must have been as bored as I was. I hoped they were as hungry.

At around 6:30, while I was doing some judo stretches to keep limber, I heard a phone ring on the other end of the line. Sounded like a cellular. Benny answered, grunted a few times, then said, “I have something to attend to in Shibakoen—shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

I heard his buddy answer,
“Hai,”
but I wasn’t really listening anymore. If Benny was going to Shibakoen, he’d take the Mita line subway south from Sengoku Station. He wouldn’t have driven; public transportation is lower profile, and there’s nowhere for nonresidents to park in Sengoku anyway. From my apartment to the station, he could choose more or less randomly from a half dozen parallel and perpendicular streets—one of the reasons I had originally chosen the place. The station was too crowded; I couldn’t intercept him there. Besides, I didn’t know what he looked like. I had to catch him leaving the apartment or I was going to lose him.

I bolted out of the room and flew down the stairs. When I hit the sidewalk I cut straight across Hakusan-dori, then made a left on the artery that would take me to my street. I was running as fast as I could while trying to hug the buildings I passed—if I timed this
wrong and Benny emerged at the wrong moment, he was going to see me coming. He knew where I lived, and I couldn’t be certain any longer that he wouldn’t know my face.

When I was about fifteen meters from my street I slowed to a walk, staying close to the exterior wall of an enclosed house, controlling my breathing. At the corner I crouched low and eased my head out, looking to the right. No sign of Benny. No more than four minutes had passed since I’d hung up the phone. I was pretty sure I hadn’t missed him.

There was a streetlight directly overhead, but I had to wait where I was. I didn’t know whether he’d make a right or left leaving the building, and I had to be able to see him when he exited. Once I’d gotten my hands on him, I could drag him into the shadows.

My breathing had slowed to normal when I heard the external door to the building slam shut. I smiled. The residents know the door slams and are careful to let it close slowly.

I crouched down again and peered past the edge of the wall. A pudgy Japanese was walking briskly in my direction. The same guy I had seen with the attaché case in the subway station at Jinbocho. Benny. I should have known.

I stood up and waited, listening to his footsteps getting louder. When he sounded like he was about a meter away, I stepped out into the intersection.

He pulled up short, his eyes bulging. He knew my face, all right. Before he could say anything I stepped in close, pumping two uppercuts into his abdomen. He dropped to the ground with a grunt. I stepped
behind him, grabbed his right hand, and twisted his wrist in a pain-compliance hold. I gave it a sharp jerk and he yelped.

“On your feet, Benny. Move fast, or I’ll break your arm.” I gave his wrist another hard jerk to emphasize the point. He wheezed and hauled himself up, making sucking noises.

I shoved him around the corner, put him facefirst against the wall, and quickly patted him down. In his overcoat pocket I found a cell phone, which I took, but that was all.

I gave a last jerk on his arm, then spun him around and slammed him up against the wall. He grunted but still hadn’t recovered enough wind to do more. I pinched his windpipe with the fingers of one hand and took an undergrip on his balls with the other.

“Benny. Listen very carefully.” He started to struggle, and I pinched his windpipe harder. He got the message. “I want to know what’s going on. I want names, and they better be names I know.”

I relaxed both grips a little, and he sucked in his breath. “I can’t tell you this stuff, you know that,” he wheezed.

I took up the grip on his throat again. “Benny, I’m not going to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know. But if you don’t tell me, I’ve got to blame you, understand? Tell me quick, no one’s going to know.” Again, a little more pressure on the throat—this time, cutting off all his oxygen for a few seconds. I told him to nod if he understood, and after a second or two with no air, he did. I waited another second anyway, and when the nodding got vigorous, I eased off the pressure.

“Holtzer, Holtzer,” he rasped. “Bill Holtzer.”

It was an effort, but I revealed no surprise at the sound of the name. “Who’s Holtzer?”

He looked at me, his eyes wide. “You know him! From Vietnam, that’s what he told me.”

“What’s he doing in Tokyo?”

“He’s CIA. Tokyo chief of station.”

Chief of station? Unbelievable. He obviously still knew just which asses to kiss.

“You’re a damn CIA asset, Benny? You?”

“They pay me,” he said, breathing hard. “I needed the money.”

“Why is he coming after me?” I asked, searching his eyes. Holtzer and I had tangled when we were in Vietnam, but he’d come out on top in the end. I couldn’t see how he’d still be carrying a grudge, even if I still carried mine.

“He said you know where to find a disk. I’m supposed to get it back.”

“What disk?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that in the wrong hands it would be detrimental to the national security of the United States.”

“Try not to sound like the Stepford bureaucrat, Benny. Tell me what’s on the disk.”

“I don’t know! Holtzer didn’t tell me. It’s need-to-know—you know that, why would he have told me? I’m just an asset, no one tells me these things.”

“Who’s the guy in my apartment with you?”

“What guy . . . ,” he started to say, but I snapped his windpipe shut before he could finish. He tried to suck
in air, tried to push me away, but he couldn’t. After a few seconds, I eased off the pressure.

“If I have to ask you something twice again, or if you try to lie to me again, Benny, it’s going to cost you. Who is the guy in my apartment?”

“I don’t know him,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing. “He’s with the Boeicho Boeikyoku. Holtzer handles the liaison. He just told me to take him to your apartment so we could question you.”

The Boeicho Boeikyoku, or Bureau of Defense Policy, National Defense Agency, is Japan’s CIA.

“Why were you following me in Jinbocho?” I asked.

“Surveillance. Trying to locate the disk.”

“How did you find out where I live?”

“Holtzer gave me the address.”

“How did he get it?”

“I don’t know. He just gave it to me.”

“What’s your involvement?”

“Questions. Just questions. Finding the disk.”

“What were you supposed to do with me after you were done asking me your questions?”

“Nothing. They just want the disk.”

I pinched shut his windpipe again. “Bullshit, Benny, not even you could be that stupid. You knew what was going to happen afterwards, even if you wouldn’t have the balls to do it yourself.”

It was coming together. I could see it. Holtzer tells Benny to take this “Boeikyoku” guy to my apartment to “question” me. Benny figures out what’s going to happen. The little bureaucrat is scared, but he’s caught in the middle. Maybe he rationalizes that it’s not really
his affair. Besides, Mr. Boeikyoku would take care of the wet stuff; Benny wouldn’t even have to watch.