I took a cab to Azabu Juban subway station, then walked around 3-chome until I found her building. Standard upscale apartment manshon, tan ferroconcrete, new and spiffy-looking. Straightforward front entrance with double glass doors, electronically controlled. Security camera mounted on the ceiling just inside the glass.
The building was on the corner of a one-way street. I moved to the back, where I found a secondary entrance-smaller, more discreet than the first, something that only residents would use. This one had no camera.
The second access point complicated things. If I waited at the wrong entrance, I would miss her entirely.
I considered. All these streets were one-way, one of Azabu Juban’s trademarks. If she were coming from Damask Rose, the cab would have to pass the second entrance first. Most likely she would get out there. Even if the cab continued around to the front, though, I’d have time to dash around behind it and get to her before she went inside.
Okay. I looked around for the right place. Ordinarily, when I’m setting someone up, I try for maximum concealment and surprise. But that’s prior to a fatal encounter. Here, I was hoping just to talk. If I scared her too much, made her feel too vulnerable, she would just run inside and that would be the end of it.
There was a perpendicular side street that led to where I was standing, dead-ending just to the side of the second entrance to her building. I walked down it. I noticed an awning on the side of the building to my left, under the shadow of which were stacked several large plastic garbage bins. I could wait in those shadows quietly, and even someone walking right past me would be unlikely to notice.
I checked my watch. Almost two. I killed time walking around the neighborhood. I passed no more than a half-dozen people. By three the area would be almost completely deserted.
I thought about what I’d seen at the club earlier. I knew from Tatsu that Yamaoto relied in part on blackmail and extortion to run his network of compliant politicians. Tatsu had told me that the disk Midori’s father had taken from Yamaoto contained, among other things, video of politicians in compromising positions. Tatsu had also told me that Yamaoto and Murakami were connected. So it seemed likely that Damask Rose was one of the places at which Yamaoto went about capturing politicians in the midst of embarrassing acts.
Meaning that someone in Yamaoto’s network now had my face on film. That would have been bad under any circumstances. But Murakami’s new interest made things worse. I judged it probable that Murakami might show the video to someone as part of a further background check. He might even show it to Yamaoto, who knew my face. And I’d used the weightlifter’s name as an introduction to Murakami’s dojo. If they figured out who they were actually dealing with, they’d also figure out that the weightlifter’s “accident” had been anything but.
I tried to put together the rest of it. Yukiko, meaning someone higher up at Damask Rose, meaning perhaps Yamaoto, was trying to get hooks into Harry. If they were interested in Harry, it would only be because Harry might lead them to me.
What about the Agency? They’d been following Harry. According to Kanezaki, as a conduit to me. The question was, were Yamaoto and the CIA working together in some capacity, or was their interest merely convergent? If the former, what was the nature of the connection? If the latter, what was the nature of the interest?
Naomi might be able to help me answer these questions, if I played it right. I needed to resolve things quickly, too. Even if Harry’s relevance to these people was only as a means of getting close to me, he could still be in danger. And if Murakami figured out that Arai Katsuhiko was really John Rain, both Harry and I were going to have a significant problem on our hands.
At just before three, it started raining. I walked quickly back to her apartment and took up my position in the shadows near her building. I was out of the rain under the awning, but it was getting chilly. My leg ached from where Adonis had kicked me. I stretched to stay limber.
At 3:20, a cab turned onto the street. I watched it from the shadows until it passed me. There, in back, Naomi.
The cab turned left and stopped just beyond the secondary entrance to the building. The automatic passenger door opened a crack and the dome light went on. I saw Naomi hand some bills to the driver, who returned change. The door swung wide and she stepped out. She was wearing a black, thigh-length coat, light wool or cashmere, and she pulled it close around her. The door shut and the cab sped away.
She opened the umbrella and started toward the entrance. I stepped from under the awning. “Naomi,” I said quietly.
She spun around and I heard her inhale sharply. “What the hell?” she exclaimed in her Portuguese-accented English.
I raised my hands, palms forward. “I just want to talk to you.”
She looked over her shoulder for a moment, perhaps gauging the distance to her door, then turned back to me, apparently reassured. “I don’t want to talk to you.” She emphasized the first and last words of the sentence, her accent thickening somewhat in her agitation.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m just asking, that’s all.”
She looked around again. She had good danger instincts. Most people, perceiving a threat, give it their full focus. That makes them easy prey if the “threat” was just a feint and the real ambush comes from the flank.
“How do you know where I live?” she asked.
“I looked it up on the Internet.”
“Really? You think with this kind of job I’d just list my address?”
I shrugged. “You gave me your e-mail address. With a little information to start with, you’d be surprised what you can find out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you a stalker?”
I shook my head. “No.”
It was starting to rain harder. I realized that, some physical discomfort aside, the weather hadn’t been such bad luck. She was dry and poised under her umbrella; I was wet and almost shivering. The contrast would help her feel more in control.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked.
That surprised me. “What kind of trouble?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not involved with anything, I’m just a dancer, okay?”
I didn’t know where she was going, but I didn’t want to stop her. “You’re not involved?” I parroted.
“I’m not involved! And I don’t want to be. I mind my own business.”
“You’re not in trouble, at least not with me. I really just want to talk with you.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
“Because you trust me.”
Her expression was caught between amused and incredulous. “I trust you?”
I nodded. “You warned me about the listening devices in the club.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Jesus Christ, I knew I was going to regret that.”
“But you knew you would regret it more if you had said nothing.”
She was shaking her head slowly, deliberately. I knew what she was thinking: I do this guy a favor, now I can’t get rid of him. And he’s trouble, trouble I don’t want.
I pushed dripping hair back from my forehead. “Can we go someplace?”
She looked left, then right. The street was empty.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s get a taxi. I know a place that’s open late. We can talk there.”
We found a cab. I got in first and she slid in behind me. She told the driver to take us to 3-3-5 Shibuya-ku, south side of Roppongi-dori. I smiled.
“Tantra?” I asked.
She looked at me, perhaps a little nonplussed. “You know it?”
“It’s been around for a long time. Good place.”
“I didn’t think you’d know it. You’re a little… older.”