“The fifty is nonnegotiable. If you want it done, I’ll get it done. But the price is fifty thousand.”
There was a pause. “All right. Agreed. Payment upon delivery.”
“No. Half upon delivery. The other half up front.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t know you. I’m not going to leave twenty-five thousand dollars someplace and then have you tell me it wasn’t there.”
“We would face the same difficulty upon completion.”
“Upon completion, at least I’ll have completion. Before that, all I have is risk.”
I paused as though torn between the promise of the big payday, on the one hand, and bending my rules, on the other.
“All right,” I said. “But you know what the collateral will be in the event of default.”
“Yes, I do.”
I thought of Mad Dog. Was I going to have to worry about someone else at the ambush beyond my alter ego?
“One other matter,” I said. “Have you hired anyone else for this?”
“What? No, why would I do that?”
“I wouldn’t know your reasons. Redundancy, perhaps. A plan B. That’s not what matters. What matters is, you need to know my rules. When you hire me, it’s an exclusive. I won’t tolerate someone else tripping up the smooth running of my operation. That is also nonnegotiable, and also subject to collection of collateral upon default.”
“I understand. You don’t have to worry, there’s no one else. Hell, how many people do you think I could staff this with, anyway, at fifty grand a pop?”
“Again, I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, then. You’re it, and that’s it. Now, how soon can you do this?”
“Impossible to say right now. It depends on too many factors.”
“I might have something that could fix him in time and place for you. Would that be worth a discount?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. All right, I’ll give it to you anyway. I need this done.”
“How will you get it to me?”
“Check in with me again tomorrow. With a little luck, I’ll have something then.”
“Regardless, we have a contract?”
“If you can guarantee success within a week, we do.”
“I can’t guarantee it. But I can tell you it’s likely. With good information from you, very likely.”
“Well, if you want the money, get it done. And hopefully I’ll have more intel for you tomorrow.”
I hung up. I should have felt relieved, excited, triumphant.
Instead, all I could feel was that weight. I wondered if I would ever get used to it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I picked up my bag from the locker at Tokyo Station, tossed the gun I’d used to kill the driver into the Sumida River, then spent the night at a love hotel in Shinjuku, wanting to be far away from the scene of the latest crime. I made sure there were no streetwalkers in the neighborhood, and parked Thanatos far away. I barely slept. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sayaka. She didn’t know the first thing about protecting herself, not from something like this, and even if she did, what could she have done? Yes, I was pretty sure they would bide their time with her, waiting to see whether the threat they’d established would be sufficient to get me to walk right into whatever ambush they had in store. But still, I couldn’t know any of that. I couldn’t be certain. So I was gambling, gambling with Sayaka’s life. But I didn’t know what else I could do. I told myself again and again that this was the least worst option. And tried not to imagine anything beyond that.
I went out early the next morning, and took a walk around Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park. The pond, with a circumference of about two kilometers, had three sections, one of which — called the Lotus Pond for reasons impossible to miss upon even a casual glance — was in the summer almost completely covered with giant lotus plants. Here and there, in those areas where the lotuses were less thick, ducks and other migratory birds swam and fed, and enormous, listless carp glided along, nudging at the mud, searching for whatever carp subsist on. I was glad to see the area was fairly empty in the early morning hours — on summer evenings, it could be crowded. There were a few dog walkers; some pensioners doing Tai Chi; an apparent nature photographer with a camera on a tripod. I examined the area carefully, trying to imagine everything, anticipate everything. If I could make it work, I decided, this was the spot.
When I was satisfied with my preparations, I went to a payphone and called McGraw, this time as myself. I told him I’d gotten his message.
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “Look, you know me. You know my values. Maybe they’re not good values, but they’re consistent. And like I’ve been telling you, for me, this is business. I made a bad business call, and now I’m trying to make it right.”
“Business? That’s what you call threatening a girl in a wheelchair?”
“What are you talking about?”
Was he playing dumb? Or had that been Mad Dog, acting on his own? No way to know, at least for now. I decided to drop it. “What do you want?”
“Look, I know you’re pissed and that’s understandable. But if you act on that, you’ll be doing something dangerous, probably suicidal. I’m not threatening you, just telling you the facts. Whereas, if you can set that temper aside and look at the situation dispassionately, you’ll see that what I’m offering you has a huge upside. More flexibility than what you’ve been doing, and ten times the money, maybe more. We each have something the other could use. I don’t understand why you would just walk away from that.”
I noticed he wasn’t calling me son anymore. Yeah, well, now he was trying to flatter and lull me, not keep me in my place. He might not have thought I was ineducable, but he must have still thought I was dumb.
“What are you proposing?” I said, playing along.
“Just meet me. I’ll tell you all about the program, and how you fit into it. You name the place. I’d suggest someplace public, where we’ll both feel comfortable, but other than that, your call.”
Sure, something public. As though that would make a difference. As though the assassin you think you just hired to take me out would find a few patrons in a restaurant a meaningful impediment.
What McGraw didn’t realize was that I wanted something public. But for my reasons, not his.
“How about Shinobazu Pond?”
“Sure, that would be fine. Where specifically?”
“You know the Benten Shrine, on Benten Island? Right in the center.”
“Of course I do.”
“I’ll meet you there tomorrow morning. Eight o’clock.”
“That would be fine. I’ll look forward to it.”
“If I see any yakuza, they better finish me this time.”
“There won’t be any yakuza, or anyone else. This is just you and me.”
I hung up. So far, so good.
My next call was to Tatsu. He’d offered to help me beyond just getting me Kei Takizawa’s information, and I was going to have to take him up on it. “Hey,” I said, when he picked up. “It’s me again.”
There was a pause that made me decidedly uncomfortable. “Why are you calling me?”
I went from decidedly uncomfortable to distinctly on edge. “What do you mean?”
“Kei Takizawa was murdered in her apartment early this morning.”
I felt gut-punched. “Oh, fuck.”
“This time, I’m going to need you to explain your whereabouts.” His voice was cold.
“Damn it, Tatsu. I told her to call you. I told her not to go back to her apartment.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Can you meet right now? I’ll tell you everything.”
Twenty minutes later, we were walking around the pond. I told him what had happened the night before. I told him where I’d stayed, and that the clerk would probably remember me.