She nodded. “He asked me what language we used when we were together. I told him mostly English. His English isn’t so good, but he told me if he heard anything wrong, anything that sounded like a warning, he would feed me to the dog. He was listening right next to me. I was afraid if I tried to warn you, you might say something back and he would know what I had done. But I tried to tell you, in a way you wouldn’t notice or comment on right away. Did you notice?”
I nodded. “ ‘Would love to,” ’ I said, pronouncing it the way she had.
“Sim. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I was too scared. He would have known.”
I smiled. “That was perfect,” I said. “It was good thinking. Obrigado.”
I was cradling my wrist in front of me and she looked at it. “What happened to your arm?” she asked.
“Murakami’s dog.”
“Jesus! Are you all right?”
I looked at my forearm. The leather jacket had kept the animal’s teeth from breaking the skin, but the area was purple and badly swollen and I thought something might be broken.
“I’ll be okay,” I said. “It’s you I’m worried about. There was a triple murder outside your building just now. As soon as someone finds one of the bodies, which isn’t going to be hard to do, the police are going to subpoena the security tapes from every building in the area. They’ll see you getting escorted by a guy with a white dog, the same white dog that’s getting cold now with its master a few meters from your building. You’re going to have a lot of questions to answer.”
She looked at me. “What should I do?”
“If you get picked up, tell the truth. You won’t want to mention that you opened the door just now-it’ll make you look complicit. But don’t deny that someone came up here and tried to get in. They’re going to see me on the security tapes, although I was careful to hide my face.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“But the police aren’t your real problem. Your real problem is going to be the associates of the men who came here tonight. They’re going to come after you, either for revenge, or as a way to get to me, or both.”
The color drained away beneath her caramel skin. “He would have killed me tonight, wouldn’t he,” she said.
I nodded. “If I had shown up as he hoped, they would have killed me and then eliminated you as a potential witness and loose end. My not showing up made you less of a liability. In their minds, killing you became not worth the trouble. It’s that simple.”
“Meu deus,” she said, swallowing. She was pale.
“Pack a bag,” I said. “Do it quickly. Take a cab to Shinjuku or Shibuya, someplace where there are still people around. Get another cab there. Stay at a love hotel, someplace with automated check-in. Use cash, no credit cards. First thing in the morning, take a train to Nagoya or Osaka, someplace with a major airport. Get the first flight out. It doesn’t matter where it’s going. Once you’re out of the country, you’ll be safe. You can find your way home from there.”
“Home?”
I nodded. “Brazil.”
She was silent for a long moment. Then she took my good hand in both of hers. She looked at me. “Come with me,” she said.
Looking into those green eyes, I almost could have said yes. But I didn’t.
“Come with me,” she said again. “You’re in danger, too.”
And then, in that instant, I realized I’d created a new nexus, another Harry or Midori, that a determined pursuer like the Agency or Yamaoto might follow as a way of getting to me. And this one was heading straight to Brazil. Where Yamada-san, my alter ego, had planned to establish himself.
I think I smiled a little bit at the irony, the jokes fate likes to play, because she said, “What?”
I shook my head. “I can’t travel now. Even if I could, it would be too dangerous for you to try to travel with me. Just go. I’ll find a way to contact you in Salvador after you’re back there.”
“Will you really?”
“Yes.”
There was a long pause. Then she looked at me. “I don’t think you’ll really come. That’s okay. But contact me and tell me that. Don’t make me wait, not knowing. Don’t do that to me.”
I nodded, thinking of Midori, the way she had said, Let’s see how you like the uncertainty.
“I’ll contact you,” I said.
“I don’t know where I’ll be exactly, but you can contact me through my father. David Leonardo Nascimento. He’ll know how to find me.”
“Go,” I said. “You don’t have much time.”
I turned to leave, but she caught me and stepped in close. She put her hands on my face and kissed me hard. “I’ll be waiting,” she said.
22
I MADE MY way out of the area on foot. I didn’t want to be seen, not even by an anonymous taxi driver.
I cleaned myself up in an all-night sauna, then stopped at a twenty-four-hour drugstore and bought a bottle of ibuprofen. I ate a half-dozen dry. My arm was throbbing.
Finally, I found a business hotel in Shibuya and collapsed into comalike sleep.
The sound of my pager awoke me. I heard it in my dreams as an automated garage door, then as a vibrating cell phone, then finally in the wakeful world for what it was.
I checked the readout. Tatsu. About fucking time. I went out, found a pay phone, and called him. It was already midday.
“Are you all right?” he asked me.
He must have heard about the carnage. “Never a cop around when you need one,” I told him.
“Forgive me for that.”
“If I’d gotten killed, I wouldn’t have. Under the circumstances, though, I feel magnanimous. I could use a doctor for an injured arm.”
“I’ll find someone. Can you meet me right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Where we parted last time.”
“Okay.”
I hung up.
I did an SDR that took me to Meguro station. Tatsu and Kanezaki were standing by the wickets.
Oh good, I thought. I needed a surprise.
I walked over. Tatsu pulled me aside.
“The theory is that there is a gang war under way,” he said to me. “An internal yakuza conflict. It will blow over.”
I looked at him. “You’ve heard, then.”
He nodded.
“Well?” I said. “Didn’t your parents teach you to say thank you?”
His face broke into a surprised grin and he actually patted me on the back. “Thank you,” he said. He looked at my arm, which I was cradling unnaturally close to my body. “I know someone who can take a look at that. But I think you’ll want to hear Kanezaki first.”
The three of us walked across the street to a coffee shop. As soon as we were seated and had ordered, Kanezaki said, “I learned something about your friend’s death. It’s not much, but you helped me out the way you promised, so I’ll tell you.”
“All right,” I said.
Kanezaki glanced at Tatsu. “Uh, Ishikura-san here briefed me on your meetings with Biddle and Tanaka. He told me that Biddle asked you to kill me.” He paused for a second. “Thanks for not taking him up on that,” he said.
“Doitashimashite,” I said, shaking my head slowly. Don’t mention it.
“After the last time we met,” he went on, “I wanted more information. For leverage over Biddle, to make sure he knew I had something on him in case he decided to try anything again.”
Fast learner, I thought. “What did you do?”
“I bugged his office.”
I looked at him, half-surprised, half-impressed by his apparent audacity. “You bugged the Chief of Station’s office?”
He smiled in a young, self-satisfied way that reminded me for a moment of Harry. “I did. His office is only swept for bugs every twenty-four hours, at regular intervals. Back at Headquarters I took the locks and picks course, so getting into his office to place the bug was no problem.”