The Last Assassin

The swinging doors opened. I glanced over. A black man in a suit started to walk inside. He froze when he saw the tableau. 'Oh, my God,' he said.

'I was attacked,' I said, in a high, frightened voice, looking at his feet to make it harder for him to see my face. 'Find a policeman. Please.'

He backed out through the door. I really had to hurry now.

I ducked into the handicap stall and shoved my pants and shoes into the carry-on. When I came out I had to jump over the pool of blood spreading on the tiled floor. I wanted to wipe down the surfaces I'd touched, but there just wasn't time. I went out the swinging doors. The area was clear. I kept my head down and headed straight for a taxi stand.

Ten minutes later, I was in the back of a cab, heading into Manhattan. I started to feel giddy. A crazy thought zigged through my mind – Damn, the things you have to do to get a knife in New York – and I almost laughed.

It was finally over with Yamaoto. I had just finished my last job. And Midori and Koichiro were safe.

52

I called Midori from the cab to let her know I was coming. But she didn't answer. I used the mobile browser on the phone to check her website. She had a gig at a place called Detour in the East Village. I called the club. The woman I spoke to told me Midori wouldn't be there that night. She had had to cancel.

'Do you know why?' I asked.

'No, I'm sorry. A personal matter, that's all I know.'

I told the driver to take me to Greenwich Village, corner of Seventh Avenue and Bleecker. I would walk to her apartment from there.

By the time the cab dropped me off, the trendy Village dinner scene was in full swing. I watched the laughing, contented hipsters and yuppies walking past me in their distressed leather jackets and Tod's shoes. It was like being on some surreal movie set.

I approached Midori's apartment carefully. Tatsu had said there were only two, but caution is a lifelong reflex for me.

When I was satisfied I wasn't going to run into another welcoming committee, I walked up to the front door. The doorman was there, the same guy as last time.

'I'm here to see Midori Kawamura,' I told him.

'Is she expecting you?'

'She should be.'

He nodded and went inside. I sensed I was supposed to wait, but I followed him in. He didn't protest.

He picked up the phone and input a number. A moment later, he said, 'Hello, Ms Kawamura. You have a visitor here. He says you're expecting him.'

He paused, then looked at me. 'What's your name?'

'Jun,' I said.

He repeated my name into the phone. Then he looked at me again and said, 'She can't come down.'

I snatched the phone out of his hand. He jumped back, startled. I raised the phone to my ear and said, 'Either you come down, or I'm coming up.'

There was a pause, then she said, 'Wait.'

I put the phone back in its cradle. The doorman looked at me, angry, obviously trying to decide what to do.

'Let it go,' I said, giving him a flat stare. 'You don't want to get in the middle of this.'

After a moment, he nodded. I stepped outside again and watched the street.

Two minutes later, Midori came out. She was wearing black jeans and a gray sweatshirt. Koichiro was in her arms, wrapped in the blue fleece blanket.

She was holding him with his back to me, but he twisted around and looked. When he saw my face, he smiled. I felt something crack inside me.

'I don't care how you feel about me,' I said. 'I just came to tell you it's over. You're both safe.'

Her eyes darted left on the sidewalk, then right. Christ, she was jumpy. It wasn't like her. Well, no wonder.

'Do you understand what I'm saying?' I went on. 'Those men. They're not going to bother you anymore. No one's going to bother you.'

Koichiro said, 'Inu!' Dog!

She speaks Japanese with him, I thought. It couldn't have been more of a non sequitur.

Damn, there was something about her, it felt like she was going to pop out of her skin.

'You're safe,' I said again.

She looked up and down the street.

'Yamaoto's dead, too,' I said. 'No one's going to…'

I looked at her, and all at once I realized. I just knew.

'They're not coming here,' I said, my voice sounding far away to me. 'You can stop looking around. They were already waiting, at the airport.'

She stared at me, saying nothing.

My mind knew it was true, but my heart wouldn't believe it. I tilted my head and looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. As indeed, in an important sense, I was.

'You knew I'd come running if you refused to hide,' I said slowly, almost thinking out loud. 'You knew that would get me on the first flight from Tokyo. And when I did just what you knew I would, when I told you I was on my way, you told them. You told them exactly where to wait.'

I kept looking at her, trying to take it all in. She had set me up like a pro. I was trying to fit this new understanding of what she was capable of into the way I'd always known her, and I couldn't quite manage it.

'Do you know what they were going to do to me?' I asked, thinking, Maybe she didn't, she couldn't have…

She nodded and finally spoke. 'I know.'

I shook my head, trying to understand. 'Is this about your father?'

'No,' she said, holding Koichiro closer. 'It's about my son.'

I paused, then said, 'But I'd fixed everything. Those two were the last ones, and they're gone now, too. I'm done. I'm out, like I told you.'

She laughed harshly. 'And you accuse me of being in denial? What you do is like fighting a hydra. Everyone you kill, it creates two more. If you can't see that, you're insane.'

I didn't respond. My thoughts were sluggish. I felt dizzy, as though I'd been punched in the head.

Koichiro said, 'Inu!' again.

I looked away, trying to collect myself.

'You know who showed up here right after you did?' I heard Midori say. 'Some blond bitch who said she knew you. She told me you were a danger to Koichiro and me, and warned me to stop seeing you. And you know what? She was right. She was absolutely right.'

I looked at her. 'She… came here?'

She shook her head in disgust. 'Why do you look so surprised? You're trailing a poisonous wake, Jun. And every port you pull into, it washes up behind you.'

I licked my lips and tried to think of something to say. Nothing came out.

'Just go,' she said after a moment. 'Just go and never come back.'

I looked at Koichiro. He was still smiling at me, not understanding.

'What about Koichiro?' I said.

'When he's old enough, I'll tell him you're dead. That's what I was planning to do anyway, after tonight. And you are. You really are.' She turned and took him back inside without another word.

I stood there for a long time, watching the building, thinking maybe she would come out again, and I could explain better, or she could, or maybe in some other way we could make it as though none of this had really happened. I hadn't killed her father, I hadn't continually brought danger onto her and our son, she hadn't betrayed me to men who two hours earlier had tried to gut me in some airport toilet stall.

But she didn't come. And it all did happen.

I'd been ready to do anything to protect them, even suicide. I should have realized Midori would be willing to go at least that far.

I watched the building longer. Eventually I started to shiver. Finally I turned to go. It was strange to think how close my son was, and yet now how impossibly far.

53

I took a train to D.C. and spent a few sleepless hours in a motel there. I was reasonably sure the police in New York would have pictures of me from JFK video cameras. The pictures wouldn't be great, but I didn't want to take chances. New York area airports would be a bit hot for me for a while.