I’d learned to ignore McGraw’s gibes — or at least to try to — by reminding myself it didn’t matter if he liked me as long I got paid. The substantive part of his question was about my left eye, which was partially closed from one of the punches thrown in Ueno, the area around it purplish and swollen. Not quite a classic black eye, but in the neighborhood. I could have passed it off as a judo injury, but there was no point in lying — I was here to tell him the truth. Mostly.
“I got jumped in Ueno today,” I said. “After the exchange. That’s why I called.”
This was the first time I had contacted him to set up a meeting. Ordinarily, it was the other way around. We used payphones and a preset code to keep our connection secure.
He studied my face, frowning. “What do you mean, ‘jumped’?”
I told him what had happened. He listened carefully, asking for a detail here, a clarification there. The waitress brought our beers, but I didn’t touch mine, wanting to get the story out first. From his patient demeanor and probing questions, I sensed McGraw would be a good interrogator, and I was glad I wasn’t trying to lie. Though I was downplaying the way I’d gotten in the chinpira’s face.
When I was done, he looked away for a moment, drumming his fingers on the table as though contemplating something. “You’re sure this was a coincidence?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“When I hand it over to you, that bag has a lot of cash in it. Don’t tell me you’ve never peeked.”
Better to neither confirm nor deny. I said, “It happened after the exchange.”
He looked at me for a long moment as though wondering how I could be so dumb. “Maybe these three geniuses didn’t know you’d made an exchange. The bags are identical, remember?”
I hadn’t thought of that. I said nothing.
He took a swallow of beer. “You’re being as discreet for the exchanges with Miyamoto as I am for the exchanges with you, right? Turn a corner, stand next to him on a train, nice and casual, bam and you’re done, right?”
I decided his characterization was close enough for government work. “Right.”
“Then maybe they were following you, they missed your discreet exchange, so they thought you still had the original bag. You said the third guy ran off with it.”
“He did, but…it felt like he was just grabbing at me to pull me off his friend.”
“Why’d he run off with it, then?”
I had trouble articulating it, but I tried. “In fights…people repeat things. Whether it’s working or not. When they grab something, they hold on. They don’t think to drop it. Even if it’s useless to them. That’s what this felt like to me.” Although, I had to admit to myself, it could also have been what McGraw was describing.
He nodded slowly, looking at me as though he could see right through me. “You do a good SDR after the exchange?”
SDR was Agency-speak for Surveillance Detection Run. A route designed to force any surveillance to either reveal itself or lose you.
“Of course,” I said automatically.
But the truth was, I hadn’t. I’d done the exchange with Miyamoto, and yet not only did I not do anything afterward to make sure I hadn’t been picked up by anyone who might have been following Miyamoto, I didn’t even leave the scene. I didn’t game out whatever vulnerabilities the exchange might have created; I took no steps to mitigate; I just assumed I was done for the day and could wander among the Ueno street stalls as clueless and carefree as a civilian. It was sloppy, it was stupid, and it was nothing I was going to admit to McGraw. I’d learned my lesson. He didn’t need to know how.
He took a long swallow of beer and belched. “Tell me again…what did you say to this guy?”
I shrugged. “It was all in Japanese.”
“Translate for me.”
“More or less, ‘You’re being annoying and you should watch where you’re going yourself.’”
He laughed. “That’s the literal translation?”
I took a sip of beer. “Pretty much.”
“Son, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’m not asking what you said, I want to know what it meant.”
The first time he’d called me “son,” I made the mistake of telling him to knock it off. Maybe it was just what he called everyone younger than, say, forty, but I didn’t like it. In response, naturally, he’d made a habit of it. As I had made a habit of suppressing the urge to punch him in the throat in response.
“Maybe…‘Go fuck yourself, asshole,’” I said quietly, imagining I was saying it to McGraw.
He laughed again. “You do realize that ‘Go fuck yourself, asshole’ does not constitute de-escalation, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Is it going to happen again?”
I didn’t like being talked to like I was a stupid child, even if in fact I had behaved like one. But I needed the damn job. And getting irritated at him now, I realized, would be the most elegant demonstration possible that it would happen again, or at least that it was likely. What I needed to demonstrate was the opposite.
“No,” I said evenly. “It was stupid mistake, I shouldn’t have let it happen, it won’t happen again.”
He nodded and took a swallow of beer. “Look, I don’t want to make too big a deal of it. It sounds like no harm, no foul. Though we better hope you didn’t kill that one guy, and that there’s not a serious investigation if you did. But I can monitor all that. The more important thing is whether I can trust you. You have a little bit of a reputation, did you know that?”
I looked at him, tamping down the anger. First, talking to me like an adult chastising a child. And now, bringing up this shit. I reminded myself again that he might have been testing me — trying to get a reaction, or to determine whether I had sufficient self-control to prevent one.
I sipped my beer, deliberately casual. “I know there are people who might want you to think that, sure.”
He smiled, seemingly pleased at the response. “Yes, there are. But why?”
I started to answer, then stopped myself. I didn’t have to answer his questions; he was just making me feel like I had to. Probably deliberately. I had the sudden and uncomfortable sense that as deadly as I had proven myself in combat, in other contexts I was naïve. And part of my naïveté lay in my assumption that the people I was dealing with were no more cunning or sophisticated than I was. A mistake I never would have made in the jungle.
So instead of answering, I said, “Why don’t you tell me?”
This time, he didn’t smile. “Don’t be coy with me. Your Agency contact with SOG. William Holtzer. You had a problem with him and you broke his nose. Don’t tell me it didn’t happen — two army officers saw the whole thing and filed a report. And don’t tell me the guy was an asshole and deserved it. I’m sure he was and I’m sure he did. That’s not the point, any more than it was the point with these punks you fucked up, or maybe even killed, earlier today.”
I’d had enough of his condescension. Who did he think he was talking to? I imagined myself grabbing him by the hair, dragging him out of his chair, putting fear into him and maybe leaving some bruises to make sure the lesson took. But I willed the image away, knowing if I didn’t, it would come to the surface.
He looked at me. “So what is the point, son? Why are we having this conversation?”
It’s a test. Don’t let it be personal. Don’t let him push your buttons.
It wasn’t easy, but I managed. I said, “The point is, I have to use better judgment and better self-control.” I paused and looked at him. “Even when I’m dealing with assholes.”