A Clean Kill in Tokyo

really. Don’t you sometimes feel like you’re being screwed by the status quo and all the people who profit from it? And doesn’t that piss you off?”
    “Sometimes, yes,” I said, carefully.
    “Well, it pisses me off a lot. That’s all Ken meant.”
    “Forgive me for saying so, but wasn’t your father a part of that status quo?”
    A long pause. “We had our differences.”
    “That must have been hard.”
    “It was, sometimes. For a long time we were pretty alienated.”
    I nodded. “Were you ever able to mend fences?”
    She laughed softly, but without mirth. “My father found out he had lung cancer just a few months before he died. The diagnosis made him reassess his life, but that didn’t give us long to work things out.”
    The information caught me by surprise. “He had lung cancer? But… Mama mentioned a heart attack.”
    “He had a heart condition, but always smoked anyway. All his government cronies did, and he felt he needed to do it to fit in. He was so much a part of the system, in a way, he gave his life for it.”
    I took a sip of the smoky liquid and swallowed. “Lung cancer is a terrible way to go,” I said. “At least, the way he died, he didn’t suffer.” The sentiment was weirdly heartfelt.
    “That’s true, and I’m grateful for it.”
    “Forgive me if I’m prying, but what do you mean when you say the diagnosis made him reassess his life?”
    She was looking past me, her eyes unfocused. “In the end, he realized that he had spent his life being part of the problem, as Ken would say. He decided he wanted to be part of the solution.”
    “Did he have time to do that?”
    “I don’t think so. But he told me he wanted to do something, wanted to do something right, before he died. The main thing was that he felt that way.”
    “How do you know he didn’t have time?”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, her eyes coming back to me.
    “Your father—he’s diagnosed, suddenly face-to-face with his own mortality. He wants to do something to atone for the past. Could he have? In such a short time?”
    “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, and instantly I knew I had bumped up against that defensive wall again.
    “I’m thinking about what we talked about the other day. About regret. If there’s something you regret, but you’ve only got a short time to do something about it, what do you do?”
    “I imagine that would be different for everyone, depending on the nature of your regrets.”
    Come on, Midori, work with me.
“What would your father have done? Was there anything that could have reversed the things he came to regret?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    But you do know,
I thought.
A reporter he was meeting with contacted you. You know, but you’re not telling me.
    “What I mean is, maybe he was trying to do something to be part of the solution, even if you couldn’t see it. Maybe he talked to his colleagues, told them about his change of heart, tried to get them to change theirs… who knows?”
    She was quiet, and I thought,
That’s it, that’s as far as you can possibly push it, she’s going to get suspicious and clam up on you now for sure.
    But after a moment she said, “Are you asking because of a regret of your own?”
    I looked at her, simultaneously disturbed by the truth of her question and relieved at the cover it afforded me. “I’m not sure,” I said.
    “Why don’t you just tell me?”
    I felt like I’d been hit with an aikido throw. “No,” I said, my voice low.
    “Am I that hard to talk to?” she asked, her voice gentle.
    “No,” I said, smiling into her dark eyes. “You’re easy. That’s the problem.”
    She sighed. “You’re a strange man, John. You’re so obviously uncomfortable talking about yourself.”
    “I’m more interested in you.”
    “In my father.”
    “I thought there’d be a lesson there for me. That’s all.”
    “Some lessons you have to learn for yourself.”
    “I try to learn them from others when I can. I’m sorry for pressing.”
    She gave me a small smile. “This is all still a little recent.”
    “Of course it is,” I said, recognizing the dead end. I looked at my watch. “I should get you home.”
    This was apt to be tricky. On the one hand, we had undeniable chemistry, and it wasn’t inconceivable that she would invite me up for a drink or something. If she did, I’d get a chance to make sure her apartment was secure, although I would have to be careful once we were inside. I