Barry Eisler - The Last Assassin

There was another pause. She said, 'This whole situation.'

Yeah, me too, I wanted to say. Instead I asked, 'Have you got a place to stay? Hotel?'

'Not yet. I barely had time to make it to the airport.'

Even cranky as she was, I wanted her to stay with me, but operationally it would be safer for her to stay somewhere else. On the other hand, I didn't want her to think I didn't want her. On the other other hand…

Jesus. I couldn't take much more of this.

'I'm at the Hilton, in Shinjuku,' I said. 'It's not La Florida, but it'll do. You're welcome to stay with me, if you like.'

There was a pause. She said, 'I think it's better if I stay somewhere else.'

I might have asked, Better, why? Is this personal, or operational? But it seemed better to let it alone.

'Tell me about your cover,' I said, 'and I'll make a reservation for you somewhere appropriate.'

She was quiet for a moment, imagining. Then she said, 'I live in Paris. My philandering husband died recently, leaving me with nothing but debts. I need a way to make money, and I want to get away from everything connected with my old life, do something exciting, have an adventure. When I heard about Whispers, it sounded like exactly what I needed.'

I didn't have to ask her about the details. I'd seen her in action before and knew that soon enough all the lies would be carefully thought through and intricately connected.

'Probably Le Meridien Pacific in Shinagawa, then. Makes sense that you'd choose a French chain, and there are only two in Tokyo. The other's in Odaiba, a little far from the center of things. The one in Shinagawa isn't a bad hotel. Close to where Dox is staying, too.'

'Okay.'

I took out my mobile phone and called information, which connected me to the hotel. I asked them if they had availability tonight and for the next five nights. They told me they did. I said I would call back and clicked off.

'They've got rooms,' I said. 'Just tell them you had a reservation, and they'll think they lost it. No big deal for anyone as long as there's still availability. It would look strange if you showed up without a reservation, or if you made one a half hour before checking in.'

'I know.'

I glanced over. 'One other thing. See if you can rent a mobile phone through the hotel. The one you use in France won't work here. I'd get you one myself, but…'

'I know. We need something backstopped.'

Damn, she was touchy. Well, I'd rather irritate her by pointing out the obvious than take a chance on overlooking something important.

'What name will you be using at the hotel?' I asked.

'Laure Kupfer.'

'Kupfer with a K?'

'Yes.'

I told her my mobile number. She wrote it down. I told her where Dox was staying, just a short walk from Le Meridien, and that we should plan to meet in his room at seven o'clock that evening unless I heard from her otherwise.

We drove the rest of the way in silence. When I dropped her off, she said she wanted to sleep for a few hours. That sounded like a good idea. It was around four in the morning in Paris, and if things went well at her audition tonight she might be out late.

'Do you have money?' I asked her.

She shook her head.

I reached into a pocket and pulled out some bills. I counted out ten ten-thousand-yen notes and extended them to her. 'This is about eight hundred dollars,' I said. 'Not sure what that is in Euros – maybe seven, seven-fifty, I think.'

'I'll find an ATM,' she said, making no move to take the money.

'That'll be a waste of time,' I said. 'You can pay me back if you want.'

After a moment, she took the money. 'I'll call you later,' she said, and was gone.

I needed to clear my head, so I drove the van into Jingumae and parked, then made my way to a place I liked there called Volontaire. Coffeehouse by day and bar by night, Volontaire opened in 1977, around the time I returned to Tokyo following the late unpleasantness of my mercenary days, and I'd spent some time there while living in the city. Hidden on the second floor of a dilapidated wedge of a building off Meiji-dori, Volontaire is the ultimate neighborhood place, seating fewer than a dozen people on faded red velour-covered stools tucked up against a peeling L-shaped counter, with the space behind the bar given over more to a couple thousand vinyl jazz albums than to bottles of booze, and featuring a bathroom so tiny that its door folds in half so as to avoid banging into the toilet and sink inside.

I navigated up the spiral staircase bolted to the building's façade and went through the tiny exterior door. The place hadn't changed at all, not at all. The mama-san was behind the bar, working the espresso machine. I recognized her from before, and, in keeping with the overall timelessness of the place, she seemed not to have aged: a smart, good-looking woman, probably in her fifties, but who could really say? She called out irasshaimase – welcome – without looking up. When she saw me a moment later, she smiled and said, 'Hisashiburi desu ne.' It's been a long time.

That's the problem with the really great bars. They remember their customers.

'So da ne,' I said, offering agreement without inviting conversation, and went in. The door closed behind me and the sounds of traffic outside faded away.

The place was half full – it was lunchtime, not yet coffee hour – and I took a stool along the short end of the bar. Alto sax Lou Donaldson's 'Light Foot' was playing, and the album was displayed face out on one of the shelves for all to see. Volontaire's customers come for the music as much as the atmosphere, and like to know what they're listening to.

I ordered the house blend and a roast beef sandwich, then let the smell of the beans, the assured notes of Donaldson's sax, and that wonderful feeling of being alone in a place with some history and gravitas, open my mind and help me start to think.

I hoped I was doing the right thing. Not just in asking for Delilah's help, but in the entire enterprise. I'd started off hoping to see Midori and my son and now found myself in a war, struggling simply to get back to the status quo antebellum. Every move I made seemed to hold in equal measure the promise of a complete fix and the threat of the worst possible outcome.

And I'd been hiding from that outcome, I'd been refusing to face it. Even when Tatsu had brought it up in the hospital, saying how afraid he was that he might have put my son in danger, I'd cut him off with some bromide about how we were just going to make everything all right.

But maybe we weren't. Things went wrong in war, they always did. You could manage the influence of luck and chance but never eliminate them as factors. And if my luck turned sour now, or if I did something sloppy like what had happened in Manila not so long ago…

Say it, goddamnit. Face it.

Midori and my tiny boy would be slaughtered before I could even try to stop it. And it would be my fault.

A chill swept through me as the reality of the concept settled into my gut, my bones.

For the first time, I was facing a real risk, so much so that suddenly all the risks I'd ever run previously felt like silly games by comparison. Up until now, the only chips I'd ever laid on the table had been my own. This time, if I lost a round, my son's life was the collateral to be foreclosed.

I recognized that in some ways I was making a mistake thinking about it. If you focus on the risks, they'll multiply in your mind and eventually paralyze you. You want to focus on the task, instead, on doing what needs to be done.

So why was I tormenting myself like this? It was counterproductive, it was…

You know why.

I sighed. There was an alternative. And I had to face it squarely, choose it or discard it deliberately and consciously. Otherwise I was never going to be able to clear my mind and act decisively.