“Of course.”
“Go in through the Number Three entrance. Walk onto the side of the platform where Shibuya-bound trains arrive. As you walk down the platform, on your left you’ll see two sets of benches, each consisting of five chairs for a total of ten. Do you understand so far?”
“Yes.”
“Tape the envelope to the back of the first chair you pass, the one right in the corner. Do it by eight o’clock tonight, and I’ll retrieve it at some point afterward. When the job is done, we’ll do the same thing with the remaining payment.”
“But…that’s a lot of money, to just leave there in the station.”
“When you see the spot, you’ll understand it’s sufficiently secure. It won’t remain there long, I assure you. But understand one other thing, too.”
“Yes?”
“It should be obvious to you why it’s best if we make our connection as minimal as possible. And equally obvious that, for my own security, I don’t want anyone to see my face. I expect you to respect my wish for privacy. So, as I approach the platform — maybe on train, maybe on foot, maybe on one side, maybe the other — if I see anyone I think is there to make me — to identify me, that is — you will never hear from me again. Do we have an agreement?”
There was a pause. “We do.”
“Repeat my instructions, so we can be sure there are no misunderstandings.”
He did. When he was done, I said, “Good. The package will be in place by eight o’clock tonight?”
“It will be in place.”
I hung up, thinking that’s what an experienced contract killer would do at that point, and went to get some breakfast. The metabolism of a twenty-year-old isn’t something that can be ignored for long. Once I’d fueled up, I rode Thanatos to Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics mecca. I visited a variety of stores, and bought five items: an iron, a curling iron, an extension cord, a roll of electrical tape, and a volt-ohm milliammeter, or VOM, a device for measuring electrical current. I was no electrical expert, though I did gradually and painstakingly acquire such expertise later, in no small part by “listening” to things, as the old nandemoya had described it, but I knew the basics. The danger from shocks isn’t voltage as such, but rather amperage. That is, other things being equal, it’s not the overall power that’s most directly the danger, but instead how quickly that power moves through your body. This is why even relatively low-voltage systems like home wiring can be fatal. The current is moving fast. As long as resistance is low — the way it is when, say, your skin is wet — a low-voltage shock can be enough to cause ventricular fibrillation and immediate unconsciousness, followed rapidly, absent intervention, by death.
I made one last purchase at a drugstore — mineral salts, advertised as offering relief from arthritis and a variety of skin problems, and therefore presumably something similar to what the proprietors of Daikoku-yu put in the water of their own special soaking tubs. Then I took my purchases back to a dilapidated love hotel in Ueno, all molded ferroconcrete and plastic cupids, where I paid for a rest in a deluxe room with an ofuro—a bath.
As soon as I was in the room with the door locked behind me, I turned on the bathwater, keeping it piping hot to replicate the conditions at Daikoku-yu as closely as possible. I closed my eyes, and imagined the mineral baths at Daikoku-yu. From what I knew, I thought if the electricity were introduced between Ozawa and the drain or faucet — either of which would function as a ground — much of it would bypass Ozawa. But if Ozawa were between the source of the electricity and the drain or faucet, it would have to go through him.
When the tub was full, I shut off the water, lay the VOM on the adjacent, closed toilet, ran one of the electrical leads into the water, and taped the other to the faucet. There was no outlet within reach of the tub, and I was glad I’d thought to pick up an extension cord along with the other items. I plugged the curling iron into the extension cord and the extension cord into a wall socket in the bedroom. Then I went back to the bathroom, wrapped a towel around the curling iron, and pitched it into the bath.
Nothing seemed to happen, and I realized I was half expecting something dramatic — sparks, hissing, arcs of lightning. I smiled, thinking I had seen too many movies. I yanked the plug from the outlet and checked the VOM. The needle had moved to 35 milliamps — a severe shock, no doubt, but would it be enough to be fatal? I repeated the operation, this time with the iron, and was rewarded with a reading of 76 milliamps.
Next, I dumped in the bath salts and stirred them around until they were dissolved, then repeated my experiment. The amperage more than doubled because of the better conductivity of the salt water—72 milliamps for the curling iron, and a whopping 160 milliamps for the iron. I assumed the iron was producing the more impressive results because of its larger heating element.
Whatever kind of overcurrent protection the hotel had — and given its parlous state, “whatever kind” might easily have meant “none”—160 milliamps in the bath hadn’t been enough to trip it. With a little luck, things at Daikoku-yu would be similarly lax. And if Ozawa’s way of grabbing the faucet to pull himself up was a habit, and if I could time things right, I could deliver the shock into the water and from there right through his chest and out through his arm, which would be attached to a metal pipe that would offer the path of least resistance, and therefore the most attractive route for the jolt I planned to deliver.
I had a sudden moment of doubt. Yes, the salt water was a better conductor, but electricity seeks the path of least resistance. What if, relative to the salt water, Ozawa’s body was more resistant than it would be relative to fresh water, and therefore pulled in less electricity?
I decided I’d have to take the chance. If he wasn’t in one of the small tubs — both of which were filled with mineral water — none of this was going to work no matter what. There was too much water in the main bath; there would be other people in it; and I wouldn’t have unobtrusive access in any event. Regardless of salinity, I thought if I got the iron in the water in the right spot, and if Ozawa’s hand were on the faucet at the right moment, his body would conduct enough of the electricity to stop his heart.
I left the hotel and headed over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Library, where I spent several hours perusing a series of old medical and engineering tomes on the effects of electricity on the body. It seemed there was a sweet spot for inducing a ventricular fibrillation: between 100 and 200 milliamps. Lower than a hundred, and although the muscles in the vicinity of the shock might seize up, the heart itself wouldn’t be sufficiently affected. And shocks over 200 milliamps seemed to induce the heart itself to seize, protecting it from arrhythmia, while also involving the risk of burns. But those numbers were about conductivity in the water or at contact with the skin. They didn’t account for the possibility of funneling the shock directly through someone’s chest. On balance, I decided the curling iron would be the better alternative. High enough amperage to induce an arrhythmia; not so high that it might cause marks on the skin or prevent an arrhythmia entirely. Also, the curling iron was significantly smaller and less obtrusive than the clothes iron.
When I was done at the library, I stopped at several hardware stores and picked up a variety of door locks. Then I went to a discount store and bought a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses, a cloth surgical mask, and a heavy wool jacket that would add the appearance of twenty pounds to my build. Hell, yes, it would look like a disguise, for anyone inclined to pay attention to such things, but this was long before 9/11 and the birth of the national surveillance state. If someone wanted to ride the Tokyo subway looking like a movie star hiding from paparazzi while sweating off a few pounds in an unseasonable jacket, no one was going to give him a hard time about it.