A Clean Kill in Tokyo

purview. He had refused the usual attaché’s cushy life of writing reports from a villa, insisting instead on operating in the field.
    His superiors had been horrified at his effectiveness, he had once told me bitterly over substantial quantities of sake, and had studiously ignored the intelligence he produced. In the end his persistence and courage had been wasted. I wished he could have learned from the experience.
    But I supposed that was impossible. Tatsu was true samurai, and would continue serving the same master no matter how many times that master ignored or even abused him. Devoted service was the highest end he knew.
    It was unusual for the
Keisatsucho
to be investigating a simple break-in. Something about Kawamura’s death, and his dealings prior, must have attracted Tatsu’s attention. It wouldn’t be the first time I had felt my old comrade-in-arms watching me as though through a one-way mirror, seeing a shape behind the glass but not knowing whose, and I was glad I’d dropped off his radar so many years earlier.
    “You don’t have to tell me whether you knew about this,” Harry said, interrupting my musings. “I know the rules.”
    I considered how much I should reveal. If I wanted to learn more, his skills would be helpful. On the other hand, I didn’t like the idea of his getting any closer to the true nature of my work. He was getting uncomfortably close already. Tatsu’s name on that report, for example. I had to assume Harry would follow that link, tap into Tatsu’s conspiracy theories, and sense a connection to me. Hardly proof beyond a reasonable doubt, of course, but between them, Harry and Tatsu would have a significant number of puzzle pieces.
    Sitting there in Las Chicas, sipping my chai latte, I had to admit that Harry could become a problem. The realization depressed me.
Christ,
I thought,
you’re getting sentimental.
    Maybe it was time to get out of this shit. Maybe this time it really was.
    “I didn’t know about it,” I said after a moment. “This is an unusual case.” I saw no harm in telling him about the stranger on the train, and did so.
    “If we were in New York, I’d tell you it was a pickpocket,” he said when I was done.
    “I thought the same thing when I first saw it. But pickpocket would be a piss-poor career choice for a white boy in Tokyo. You have to blend.”
    “Target of opportunity?”
    I shook my head. “Not too many people are that shameless and cold-blooded. I doubt one of them just happened to be standing next to Kawamura that morning. I think the guy was a Kawamura contact, there for some kind of exchange.
    “Why do you suppose the
Keisatsucho
is investigating a simple break-in in a Tokyo apartment?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said, though Tatsu’s involvement made me wonder. “Maybe Kawamura’s position in the government, the recency of his death, something like that. That’s the theory I’d go on.”
    He looked at me. “Are you asking me to dig?”
    I should have let it go. But I’d been used before. The feeling that it had happened again would keep me awake at night. Had Benny put a B-team on Kawamura? I figured I might as well let Harry provide some clues.
    “You will anyway, right?” I asked.
    He blinked. “Can’t help myself, I guess.”
    “Dig away then. Let me know what else you find. And watch your back, hotshot. Don’t get sloppy.”
    The warning was for both of us.

CHAPTER 3
    T elling Harry to watch his back made me think of Jimmy Calhoun, my best friend in high school, of who Jimmy was before he became Crazy Jake.
    Jimmy and I joined the Army together when we were barely seventeen. I remember the recruiter telling us we would need parental permission to join. “See that woman outside?” he had asked us. “Give her this twenty, ask her if she’ll sign as your mother.” She did. Later, I realized this woman was making her living this way.
    Jimmy and I had met, in a sense, through his younger sister, Deirdre. She was a beautiful, black-haired girl, and one of the few people who was nice to the awkward, out-of-place kid I was in Dryden. Some idiot told Jimmy I liked her, which was true, of course, and Jimmy decided he didn’t like a guy with slanty eyes hitting on his sister. He was bigger than I was, but I fought him to a standstill. After that, he respected me, and became my ally against the Dryden bullies, my first real friend. Deirdre and I started dating, and woe to anyone who gave Jimmy a hard time