A Clean Kill in Tokyo

Ken,” Midori said. “We know how cynical you are. You don’t have to prove it.”
    I wondered if Ken might have had too much to drink.
    “You used to be cynical, too,” he went on. He turned to me. “When Midori came back from Julliard, she was a radical. She wanted to change everything about Japan. But I guess not anymore.”
    “I still want to change things,” Midori said, her voice warm but firm. “It’s just that I don’t think a lot of angry slogans will make any difference. You have to be patient, you have to pick your battles.”
    “Which ones have you picked lately?” he asked.
    Tom turned to me. “You have to understand, Ken feels like he sold out by doing gigs at established places like the Blue Note. Sometimes he takes it out on us.”
    Ken laughed. “We all sold out.”
    Midori took a sip of her drink. “Come on, Ken, give it a rest.”
    Ken looked at me. “What about you, John? What’s the American expression: ‘Either you’re a part of the solution, or you’re a part of the problem?’”
    I smiled. “There’s a third part, actually. ‘Or you’re a part of the landscape.’”
    Ken nodded as though internally confirming something. “That’s the worst of all.”
    I shrugged. He didn’t matter to me and it was easy to stay disengaged. “The truth is, I hadn’t really thought of what I do in these terms. Some people have a problem exporting to Japan, I help them out. But you make some good points. I’ll think about what you’re saying.”
    He wanted to argue and didn’t know what to do with my agreeable responses, which was fine. “Let’s have another drink,” he said.
    “I think I’ve reached my limit,” Midori said. “I’m ready to call it a night.”
    As she spoke I noticed Mr. Bland, who was studiously looking elsewhere, clicking a small device about the size of a disposable lighter that he was resting on one knee and pointing in our direction.
Fuck,
I thought.
A camera.
    He’d been taking Midori’s picture, and I would be in the shots. This was the kind of risk I’d be taking if I stayed close to her now.
    Okay. I’d have to leave with the three of them, then invent an excuse, maybe that I left something, double back to the bar and catch him as he was leaving to follow Midori again. I wasn’t going to let him keep that camera, not with my pictures in it.
    But Mr. Bland gave me another option, instead. He got up and started walking in the direction of the restroom.
    “I’m going to head home, too,” I said, standing up, feeling my heart beginning to beat harder in my chest. “Just need to hit the restroom first.” I eased away from the table.
    I followed a few meters behind Mr. Bland as he maneuvered along the polished black floor. I kept my head down slightly, avoiding eye contact with the patrons I was passing, my heart thudding steadily in my ears. He opened the restroom door and went inside. Before the door swung closed, I caught it and followed him in.
    Two stalls, two urinals. I could see in my peripheral vision that the stall doors were open a crack. We were alone. The thudding of my heart was loud enough to block out sound. I could feel the air flowing cleanly in and out of my nostrils, the blood pumping through the veins of my arms.
    He turned to face me as I approached, perhaps recognizing me from his peripheral vision as one of the people who was with Midori, perhaps warned by some vestigial and now futile instinct that he was in danger. My eyes were centered on his upper torso, not focusing on any one part of him, taking in his whole body, the position of his hips and hands, absorbing the information, processing it.
    Without breaking stride I stepped in and blasted my left hand directly into his throat, catching his trachea in the V created by my thumb and index finger. His head snapped forward and his hands flew to his throat.
    I stepped behind him and slipped my hands into his front pockets. From the left I retrieved the camera. The other was empty.
    He was clawing ineffectually at his damaged throat, silent except for some clicking from his tongue and teeth. He started to stamp his left foot on the ground and contort his torso in what I recognized as the beginning of panic, the body moving of its own primitive accord to get air—
air!
—through the broken trachea and into the convulsing lungs.
    I knew it would take about thirty seconds for him to asphyxiate. No time for that. I swept my right arm clockwise around his neck, bowed him