19
THE NEXT AFTERNOON I did an SDR that finished at JR Harajuku station. I exited and let the eternal river of hip-hop shoppers, attired in ways that an extraterrestrial would probably find welcoming, carry me onto Takeshita-dori, Tokyo’s teen shopping mecca. Only in Tokyo could the jam-packed bizarrerie of a byway like Takeshita-dori exist side by side with the elegant teahouses and antiques shops of Brahms-no-komichi, and the stark contrast is one of the reasons Harajuku has always been one of my favorite parts of the city.
Tatsu had assured me that Biddle employed no bodyguards, but there’s nothing like independent verification to lower my blood pressure. There were a number of points from which I might approach Jardin de Luseine, and I moved around each of them, probing, imagining where I might position watchers if I were protecting someone in the restaurant. I walked in tightening concentric circles until I was sure that no one was positioned outside. Then I made my way back to Takeshita-dori, where I cut across an alley that ran alongside the restaurant itself.
I spotted him through the enormous plate-glass window on the alley side of the building. He was sitting alone, reading a newspaper, sipping something from a china cup. The same man I had seen in the photograph, elegantly dressed in a single-breasted blue pinstriped suit, a white shirt with a spread collar, and a burgundy rep tie. Overall the impression was fastidious, but not overly so; less American, more British; CEO rather than spymaster.
He was sitting in one of the window seats, with his profile to the alley, and that told me a lot: he was insensitive to his surroundings; he didn’t understand that glass is no deterrent to a sniper, or to an ordinary gunman; he thought like a civilian, not a spy. I watched him silently for a moment, imagining high native intelligence, within which he would take refuge when he found himself inadequate to the demands of the real world; Ivy League schools and possibly a graduate degree, from which he would have learned much about office corridors and nothing of the street; a passionless but adequate marriage to a woman who had borne him the required two or three children while dutifully following him from post to career-building post, hiding her growing sense of loss and inchoate desperation behind cocktail party smiles and repairing with increasing frequency to a refrigerated bottle of Chablis or Chardonnay to beat back the long silences of listless afternoons.
I went inside. The door opened and closed with an audible clack, but Biddle didn’t look up to check on who had entered.
I moved across the dark wood floor, beneath the Art Deco chandeliers, around Victorian tables and chairs, alongside a grand piano. Only when I was actually standing in front of him did he raise his head from his reading. It took him a half-second to recognize me. When he did he recoiled. “What the hell!” he stammered.
I sat across from him. He started to get up. I restrained him with a firm hand on his shoulder.
“Stay seated,” I said quietly. “Keep your hands where I can see them. I’m only here to talk. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”
His eyes bulged. “What the hell!” he said again.
“Calm down,” I told him. “You’ve been looking for me. Here I am.”
He exhaled sharply and swallowed. “Sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t expect to see you like this.”
I waited.
“All right,” he said, after a moment. “The first thing I should mention is that this has nothing to do with William Holtzer.”
I kept waiting.
“I mean, he didn’t have many supporters. He isn’t missed.”
I doubted Holtzer’s own family would miss him. I waited some more.
“So what we want, the reason we’ve been looking for you,” he went on, “is, we want you to, ah, interfere with someone’s activities.”
A new euphemism, I thought. So exciting.
“Who?” I asked, to let him know that he was finally on the right track.
“Well, just a second. Before we talk about that, I need to know, are you interested?”
I looked at him. “Mr. Biddle, I’m sure you know that I’m selective about whose activities I’ll ‘interfere’ with. So without knowing who, I couldn’t tell you whether I’d be interested or not.”
“It’s a man. A principal.”
I nodded. “Good.”
“ ‘Good’ meaning, you’re interested?”
“Meaning you haven’t made me uninterested, so far.”
He nodded. “You know the person we’re talking about. You met him recently, when he was following an acquaintance of yours.”
Only long-practiced discretion prevented me from showing my surprise. “Tell me,” I said.
“Kanezaki.”
“Why?”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘why’?”
“Let’s just say that my unhappy history with your organization necessitates higher than usual levels of disclosure.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you more than I have already.”
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to.”
“Or you won’t take the job?”
“Or I will take your life.”
He blanched, but other than that kept his composure. “I don’t really think this conversation calls for threats,” he said. “We’re discussing a business proposition.”
“ ‘Threats,” ’ I said, my tone thoughtful. “I’ve survived for a long time by identifying and preemptively eliminating ‘threats.’ So here’s my business proposition to you. Convince me that you’re not a ‘threat,’ and I won’t eliminate you.”
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “Do you know who I am?”
“Tell me, so we can get it right on the headstone.”
He glowered at me. After a moment, he said, “All right, I’ll tell you. But only because it makes sense for you to know, not because of your threats.” He took a sip from the china cup. “Kanezaki is a rogue. He’s been running a secret program that could cause embarrassment on both sides of the Pacific if it were to get out.”
“Crepuscular?” I asked.
His mouth dropped open. “You know… how could you possibly know about that? From Kanezaki?”
You dumb bastard, I thought. Whatever I knew, you just confirmed it.
I looked at him. “Mr. Biddle, how do you think I’ve lasted as long as I have in this line of work? I make it my business to know what I’m stepping into and whether the reward is worth the risk. That’s how I stay alive and my clients get their money’s worth.”
I waited while he digested this new worldview.
“What else do you know about this?” he asked after a moment, trying to be shrewd now.
“Plenty. Now tell me why you’ve decided that Kanezaki has become a liability. From what I understand, up until now he’s been your golden boy.”
He crinkled his nose as though at an offensive odor. “In his own mind he’s golden. Forgive me, but simply having Japanese blood doesn’t give someone special insights into this country.”
I shook my head to show him that of course his comment didn’t offend me.
“Insight into this country, any country, takes years of education, experience, sensitivity,” he said. “But this kid, he thinks he knows enough to design and run his own damn foreign policy.”
I nodded to show that I was sympathetic to his point, and he continued.
“All right, you know there was a program. But it was shut down six months ago. I don’t necessarily agree with the shutdown, but my private thoughts on the matter are irrelevant. What is relevant is that Kanezaki has been continuing it on his own.”
“I can see where that would be a problem,” I said.
“Yes, well, it’s a shame in some ways. He’s got a lot of passion and he’s not without talent. But this matter must be put to rest, before some real damage occurs.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
He looked at me. “I want you to… look, I understand that you can arrange these things so that it looks as though the person did it himself.”