Barry Eisler - Hard Rain

“Mr. Biddle takes afternoon tea weekdays at Jardin de Luseine, in Harajuku,” he said. “Building Two. On Brahms-no-komichi.”

“A man of habit?”

“Apparently, Mr. Biddle believes that a faithful routine is good for the mind.”

“It might be,” I said, considering. “But it can be hell on the body.”

He nodded. “Why don’t you join him tomorrow?”

I looked at him. “I might do that,” I said.

I walked for a long time after leaving Tatsu. I thought about Murakami. I tried to find the nexus points, the intersections between his fluid existence and the more concrete world around him. There wasn’t much: the dojo , Damask Rose, maybe Yukiko. But I knew he’d be staying away from all of those for a while, possibly a long while, just as I would. I also knew he’d be running the same game against me. I was glad that, from his perspective, the good nexus points would seem to be in short supply.

Still, I wished I could have held on to Tatsu’s Glock. Ordinarily, I don’t like to carry an unambiguous weapon. Guns are noisy and ballistics tests can connect the bullet you left behind to the weapon that’s still in your possession. Besides, getting caught with a firearm in Japan is a guaranteed ticket to jail. Knives aren’t much better. A knife makes a mess that can get all over you. And any cop worth a damn in any country will treat someone caught with a concealed knife-even a small one-as dangerous and warranting additional scrutiny. With Murakami out there and on to me, of course, the risk and reward ratio of a concealed weapon had changed somewhat.

I wondered whether Tatsu would get anything useful out of the guy whose knee I had broken. I doubted it. Murakami would know that Tatsu was working that angle, and adjust his patterns to account for anything his captured man might reveal under pressure.

Yukiko might have some useful information. Murakami would have anticipated that route, too, but it was still worth exploring. Especially because, after what they had done to Harry, my interest in Yukiko had become independent of my interest in her boss.

I pictured her, the long hair, the aloof confidence. She might be taking precautions, after Harry. Murakami might even have warned her to be careful. But she was no hard target. I could get to her. And I thought I knew how.

I went to a spy paraphernalia shop in Shinjuku to buy a few things I would need. What the store offered to the public was almost scary: pinhole cameras and phone taps. Taser guns and tear gas. Diamond-bit drills and lock picks. All available “for academic purposes only,” of course. I contented myself with a Secret Service-style ASP tactical baton, a nasty piece of black steel that collapsed to nine inches and telescoped to twenty-six with a snap of the wrist.

Next stop was a sporting goods store, where I bought a roll of thirty-pound test high-impact monofilament fishing line, white sports tape, gloves, a wool hat, long underwear, and a canvas bag. Third stop, a drugstore for some cheap cologne, a hand towel, and a pack of cigarettes and matches. Next, a local Gap for an unobtrusive change of clothes. Then a novelty shop for a fright wig and a set of rotted false teeth. Finally, a packaging supply house, for a twenty-five-meter roll of translucent packing tape. Shinjuku , I thought, like an advertising jingle. For All Your Shopping Needs .

I holed up in another business hotel, this time in Ueno. I set my watch alarm for midnight and went to sleep.

When the alarm woke me, I slipped the long underwear on under my clothes and secured the baton to my wrist with two lengths of the sports tape. I wet the towel and wrung it out, put it and the other gear I had bought into the canvas bag, and walked out to the station, where I found a pay phone. I still had the card I had taken on my first night at Damask Rose. I called the phone number on it.

A man answered the phone. It might have been Mr. Ruddy, but I wasn’t sure.

“ Hai , Damask Rose,” the voice said. I heard J-Pop playing in the background and imagined dancers on the twin stages.

“Hello,” I said, in Japanese, raising my voice slightly to disguise it. “Can you tell me who’s there tonight?”

The voice intoned a half-dozen names. Naomi was among them. So was Yukiko.

“Great,” I said. “Are they all there until three?”

“ Hai, so desu .” Yes, they are.

“Great,” I said again. “I’ll see you later.”

I hung up.

I caught a cab to Shibuya, then did a foot SDR to Minami-Aoyama. I remembered Yukiko’s address from the time I had checked out her and Naomi’s backgrounds from Osaka, and I had no trouble finding her apartment building. The main entrance was in front. An underground garage was off to one side, accessible only by a grated metal door controlled by a magnetic card reader in a center island. No other ways in or out.

I thought of her white M3. Assuming that the night I had seen her in it wasn’t an anomaly, it was her commuting vehicle. She wouldn’t be driving it to Harry’s tonight, and Murakami would either be unreachable for the moment or he would have told her to stay away. I judged that there was an excellent possibility that she would be pulling in sometime after three.

I found a nearby building separated from its neighbor by a long, narrow alley. I moved into the shadows there and opened my bag of goodies. I took out the cologne and applied a heavy dose to my nostrils. Then I closed the bag and stashed it there, and walked into nearby Roppongi.

It didn’t take me long to find a homeless man who looked about the right size. He was sitting on a cinder block in the shadows of one of the elevated expressways of Roppongi-dori, next to a cardboard and tarp shelter. He was wearing overlarge brown pants cinched tight with a worn belt, a filthy checked button-down shirt, and a fraying cardigan sweater that two generations earlier might have been red.

I walked over to him. “ Fuku o kokan site kurenai ka ?” I asked, pointing to my chest. You want to trade clothes?

He looked at me for a long moment as though I was unhinged. “ Nandatte ?” he asked. What the hell are you talking about?

“I’m serious,” I said in Japanese. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

I shrugged off the nylon windbreaker I was wearing and handed it to him. He took it, his expression briefly incredulous, then wordlessly began to slip out of his rags.

Two minutes later I was wearing his clothes. Even through the heavy layer of cologne, the smell was horrific. I thanked him and headed back to Aoyama.

Back in the alley, I pulled on the fright wig and secured it with the wool hat, then popped in the false teeth. I lit a cigarette and let it burn down, then rubbed a mixture of ashes and spit onto my face. I lit a match and took a quick look at myself in a sawed-off dental mirror I keep on my key chain. I barely recognized what I saw, and I smiled a rotten-toothed smile.

I slipped on the gloves and walked out to the garage entrance of Yukiko’s building. I took the fishing line and translucent tape, but left the bag and the rest of its contents in the alley. There was a security camera mounted just above the grated garage door. I cut a wide path around it, then reapproached from the side farther from the street. The corner of the building jutted out a few centimeters, apparently for aesthetic reasons. I slid down low, using the jutting design for partial concealment. The average person pulling in or out wouldn’t notice me. Anyone who did would assume I was just some homeless man, probably drunk and passed out there. My getup was insurance against the very small chance that someone might call the cops. If anyone did show up to investigate, my appearance and smell would be strong incentive for them to just tell me to be on my way and leave it at that.