“Is he still in any danger?”
He chuckled ruefully. “Not if those receipts are no longer in play, no.”
“You don’t seem too upset.”
He shrugged. “I’m a professional. None of this is personal for me. I hope the same goes for you.”
“What happens to Crepuscular?”
He sighed and looked a little wistful. “Crepuscular? It’s gone. It was shut down six months ago.”
He was already reciting the official story. No wonder he’d recovered his serenity so quickly. He knew he wasn’t going to face any personal-meaning career-repercussions.
I looked at him for a long time. I thought of Harry, of Tatsu, most of all of Midori. Finally I said, “I’m going to let you leave here, Biddle. The smart thing would be to kill you, but I won’t. That means you owe me. If you repay that debt by trying to get back into my life, I’ll find you.”
“I believe you,” he said.
“When we walk out of here tonight, we walk away-agreed?”
“We still need you,” he said. “There’s still a place for you.”
I waited for a moment in the darkness. He realized that he hadn’t answered my question. I saw him flinch.
“Agreed,” he said, his voice low.
I turned and left. He could find his own way out.
I met Tatsu the next day, on a sunny boulevard beneath a maple tree in Yoyogi Park. I briefed him on what I’d learned from Biddle.
“Kanezaki recovered the receipts,” he told me. “And promptly destroyed them. It’s as though they never existed. After all, Crepuscular was discontinued six months ago.”
“That kid is naïve, but he’s got balls,” I said.
Tatsu nodded, his eyes momentarily melancholy. “He has a good heart.”
I smiled. It wouldn’t be like Tatsu to admit that someone might have a good head.
“I have a feeling you haven’t seen the last of him,” I said.
He shrugged. “I would hope not. Getting those receipts back was lucky. But I have much more to do.”
“You can only do so much, Tatsu. Remember that.”
“But still we must do something, ne? Don’t forget, modern Japan was born of samurai from the southern provinces seizing the imperial palace in Kyoto and declaring the restoration of the Meiji emperor. Perhaps something like that could happen again. Perhaps a rebirth of democracy.”
“Perhaps,” I said.
He turned to me. “What will you do, Rain-san?”
I looked out at the trees. “I’m thinking about that.”
“Work with me.”
“You’re a broken record, Tatsu.”
“You sound like my wife again.”
I laughed.
“How does it feel, to have been part of something larger than yourself?” he asked.
I held up my taped and plastered arm. “Like this,” I said.
He smiled his sad smile. “That only means you are alive.”
I shrugged. “I admit it beats the alternatives.”
“If you need anything, ever, call me,” he said.
I stood. He followed suit.
We bowed and shook hands. I walked away.
I walked for a long time. East, toward Tokyo station, toward the bullet train that would take me back to Osaka. Tatsu knew where to find me there, but I could live with that for the time being.
I wondered what I would do when I got there. Yamada, my alter ego, was nearly ready to move. But I no longer knew where to send him.
I needed to contact Naomi. I wanted to contact her. I just didn’t know what I was going to say.
Yamaoto was still out there. Tatsu had dealt him a few solid blows, but he was still standing. Probably still looking for me. And maybe the Agency with him.
As I walked, the sky grew darker. A wind shook the branches of the city’s pollution-inured trees.
Tatsu had been upbeat. I wondered what deep wellspring fed his optimism. I wished I could share it. But I was too aware of Harry in the ground, of Midori gone for good, of Naomi waiting for an uncertain answer.
Fat droplets of rain started splattering against the city’s concrete skin, against the glass windows of its eyes. A few people with umbrellas opened them. The rest ran for cover.
I walked on, through it all. I tried to think of it as a baptism, a new beginning.
Maybe it was. But what a lonely resurrection.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Readers familiar with Roppongi and Akasaka-Mitsuke in Tokyo will note that while several hostess bars and “gentlemen’s clubs” resemble Damask Rose, none is an exact match. Otherwise, the Tokyo and Osaka locales that appear in this book are described as I have found them.
DEEPEST THANKS
To a remarkable transpacific team of agents and editors: my agents, Nat Sobel and Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates in New York and Ken Mori of Tuttle Mori in Tokyo; and my editors, David Highfill of Putnam in New York and Masaru Suzuki of Sony’s Village Books in Tokyo, for all their continued enthusiasm, insight, and support.
To my dear friend and sensei Koichiro Fukasawa of Wasabi-Communications, for continuing to shine a clear light on so much of Japan and the Japanese-and for a great website, too.
To Evan Rosen, M.D., Ph.D., and Peter Zimetbaum, M.D., both of the Harvard medical system, for consistently overcoming their queasiness at my questions about the medical implications of killing techniques, for accepting that the Hippocratic oath might not apply to fiction, and for assisting John Rain in all his endeavors with their considerable knowledge and imaginative faculties.
To Lori Andreini, for her insights into what sophisticated, sexy women like Midori and Naomi wear and how they think, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
To Ernie Tibaldi, a thirty-one-year veteran agent of the FBI, for generously sharing his extensive surveillance and investigative experiences, for recommending many good books and other sources of information, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
To Carla Mendes, for furthering my understanding of Brazil and Brazilians and for refining Rain’s attempts at Portuguese.
To Marc “Animal” MacYoung and Peyton Quinn, warrior philosophers both, for their many excellent books and videos on violence and street etiquette. In particular, John Rain owes to MacYoung his philosophy regarding unarmed defenses against the knife, and to Quinn the notion of being “interviewed” as a potential victim.
To Masao Miyamoto, for his horrifyingly humorous book Straitjacket Society, some of whose ideas on the nature of Big Brother in Japan Tatsu has borrowed.
To Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, for his disturbing, original book, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, which provided so many insights into the origins and psychology of John Rain.
To Alex Kerr, for his book Dogs and Demons, a meticulously researched and argued account of Japanese corruption and an insensate bureaucracy gone mad, which provided some of the back story for the novel.
To Alan Eisler, Judy Eisler, Dan and Naomi Levin, Matthew Powers, Owen Rennert, David and Shari Rosenblatt, Ted Schlein, Hank Shiffman, and Pete Wenzel, for helpful comments on the manuscript and many valuable suggestions and insights along the way.
To Rick Kennedy and the staff of Tokyo Q, for introducing John Rain to several of the Tokyo bars and restaurants that appear in this book.
To the proprietors of the following establishments, all wonderful places to call one’s office: Bar Satoh in Miyakojima-ku, Osaka; Café Borrone in Menlo Park, California; Las Chicas in Aoyama, Tokyo; the public library in Mountain View, California; These Library Lounge in Nishi Azabu, Tokyo.
Most of all, to a great editor, my fiercest supporter, and my best friend, my wife, Laura.