Barry Eisler - The Last Assassin

Saturday night, I could walk right up to Yamaoto and blow my own brains out in front of his eyes. Then we'd be quits. Any motivation he or the Chinese might have to harm Midori or my son would end with their ability to harm me thereby. It would be the closest thing possible to a guarantee of their safety.

I didn't want to do it. If I had to do it, if I knew it was the only way, I would. But how could I, while there was still a chance of succeeding by something less extreme?

My own father died just after I turned eight. I grew up without him, and his loss and subsequent absence were the first and perhaps most significant of the scars that shaped what I became. What would it be like for my own son to grow up without me? Would the lack of a father harm him the way it had me? Or would it even make a difference, if I had never been there to begin with?

It didn't matter. My desire to be part of his life, and to have him as part of mine, had impelled me to risk seeing Midori in the first place. My feelings in that regard were as strong now as ever.

Besides, I could hold suicide in reserve. If at any time I concluded it was my only means of preventing harm to my son, I would do it willingly, gratefully. But not now. Not while there was still a chance of a better way.

I'd talk to Dox, though, make sure he knew how to get my share of what we'd taken at Wajima to Midori and Koichiro. Just in case.

I realized I might have been rationalizing. I didn't care. I wasn't going to offer Yamaoto my life until I'd taken my best shot at ending his.

I felt something closing into place in my mind, the old emotional bulkheads, sealing up everything behind them, enabling me to do what I needed to. A part of me was appalled that I retained the ability even under the current circumstances. But I also knew from long experience that it was the only way to get the job done.

I looked down and saw I hadn't touched my coffee or sandwich. Enough. I fueled up and started thinking about the tools we would need for tomorrow night.

That evening, I went to see Dox at the Prince in Shinagawa. I stopped at the incongruous Dean & DeLuca on the way and picked up sandwiches and side dishes for three.

He opened the door when I knocked and looked behind me. 'Where's your lady?'

'Coming soon, as far as I know. Don't call her that.'

I walked in and he closed the door behind me. 'You have a fight?' he asked.

'I don't know what's going on.'

'You must be making her sullen again.'

'I guess so.'

'You keep this up, she's going to defect to me. And you won't be able to blame me when it happens.'

I rubbed my sore thigh. 'You can have her.'

'Sorry, man, that must have been a bad fight you had.'

I started taking the food from the bags and putting it on the desk.

'Mmm, that smells tasty,' Dox said. 'But I guess we ought to wait for your lady.'

I glared at him, only to meet the irrepressible grin.

While we waited for Delilah, I took out the plans and drew a grid over them. Top to bottom, I lettered A through K. Left to right, I numbered one through twenty-four. When I was done, we had a convenient and reliable way of discussing every position in the club.

A few minutes later, there was a knock. Dox looked through the peephole, then opened the door. It was Delilah.

'Well, hello there,' he said. 'Ain't you a sight for sore eyes.'

She was, too. She was wearing a black cocktail dress made of some kind of embroidered lace, with a satin capelet thrown over her shoulders. She had on high-heeled shoes, but not stilettos, which would have been too much, and was carrying a black silk beaded evening bag. Her hair was pulled back, and she had employed just a little smoky gray eye shadow and a hint of gloss on her lips.

'Dox,' she said, smiling. She came in and he closed the door behind her. Then she turned and kissed him on both cheeks, European style. I saw the dress had an exceptionally low-cut, open back. The revealed skin and musculature of her back was gasp-inducing erotic, and the material below hugged her ass exactly right – as though her body, not the dress, was responsible for the arresting effect. The overall impression was sophisticated, confident, and sexy as hell.

I saw Dox blushing from the kiss and could have laughed. She'd had that effect on him the first time he saw her in Phuket, and it had never gone away.

'Honey,' he said, 'if they don't offer you a job on the spot tonight, they are either crazy or blind or both.'

Her smile widened. She looked him over and said, 'You kept the beard off. You look great.'

'Well, someone once told me I have good bones, and that was the end of that.'

She laughed, then turned to me and nodded. I nodded back.

The room was noticeably quiet for a moment. Dox looked at Delilah, then at me. 'I don't mean to pry,' he said, 'but I'm detecting some animosity in the air. Is this little tiff the two of you seem to be having going to make it hard for us to work together?'

Delilah and I looked at each other and said in stereo, 'No.'

Dox nodded. 'Good, I feel reassured already.'

The room was quiet for another moment. To fill the silence, I said to Delilah, 'You look good. You bring that outfit with you?'

She shook her head. 'There are so many French designers in Tokyo, I might as well have been shopping in Paris.'

I passed out sandwiches and we ate sitting on the double beds. Dox did a nice job of keeping the conversation going, asking Delilah what she thought of Tokyo, things like that.

'I like it,' she said. 'I slept for a few hours, then spent the afternoon and evening shopping and riding the trains. For some reason I didn't expect to see so many westerners.'

'Depends on where you are in the city,' I said. 'Where we're going to be operating, you won't look out of place at all. In some of the eastern and outlying areas, you would.'

She nodded. 'I did a walk-through past the club. Minami Aoyama is what, upscale boutiques and restaurants?'

'That's about right,' I said. 'Classy and cool. Perfect venue for Whispers.'

'Right next to Roppongi, too,' Dox added. 'Which is my favorite part of town.'

Roppongi is one of the city's entertainment districts, the premier place for foreign men chasing Japanese women, and Japanese women who want to be chased.

Delilah looked at him. 'I've heard about Roppongi. I strolled around a bit, but it didn't seem like much.'

Dox grinned. 'It's different at night.'

Delilah smiled. 'I reckon it is,' she said in her best southern drawl.

That broke Dox up. I didn't share his reaction.

'All right, here's the plan,' I said. 'Delilah, you go to the club tonight. You want to get inside and see as much as possible. Ideally, you'll find a way to get invited back for tomorrow night, when Yamaoto will be there with Big Liu. But at a minimum, you can confirm certain critical details just by getting inside tonight.'

'How confident are you that I'm going to be able to just walk in there?' she asked. 'From the way you've described the place, it sounds like they're pretty careful people.'

'There's no way to find out except to try,' I said. 'But I have a feeling it'll be easier than you think. It's not a big cash business, so they're not concerned about getting knocked over. Even if there were a lot of cash, it's a yakuza operation, who's going to rob it? And whatever other trouble they might be looking for and trying to screen out, it doesn't look like you.'

'What about language? I speak about three words of Japanese.'

'English will be fine. Almost all their members will speak at least a little. And even if their English is terrible, it'll make them feel cosmopolitan to use it with you.'

Dox added, 'I've, uh, heard there are plenty of foreign hostesses in Japan who don't speak Japanese. 'Course I don't know for sure. John's really the one to ask about that.'