A Clean Kill in Tokyo

they staring like that? I reached up with my hand, felt the wetness on my cheek. Shit, I was bleeding. He’d scratched the hell out of my face.
    I walked to my building as quickly as I could, wincing as I went up the two flights of steps. I let myself in, then wet a washcloth at the bathroom sink and wiped some of the blood off my face. The image staring back at me from the mirror looked bad, and it was going to be a while before it started to look better.
    The apartment felt strange. It had always been a haven, an anonymous safe house. Now it had been exposed, by Holtzer and the Agency—two ghosts from a past I thought I’d left behind. I needed to know why they were after me. Professional? Personal? With Holtzer, probably both.
    I grabbed the things I needed, shoved them into a bag, and headed for the door, turning once to glance around before leaving. Everything looked the same as always; there was no sign of the people who’d been here. I wondered if I would see the place again.
    Outside, I headed in the direction of Sugamo. From there I could catch the Yamanote line back to Shibuya, back to Midori. Maybe the mobile phones would provide some clues.

CHAPTER 13
    B y the time I reached the hotel, the pain in my back had become a dull throbbing. My left eye was swollen—he’d gotten a finger in it at one point—and my head ached, probably from when he’d tried to tear loose one of my ears.
    I shuffled past the old woman at the front desk, flashing my keys as I went by so she’d know I was already registered. She glanced up and then went back to her reading. I tried to give her only my right profile, which was in better shape than the left. She didn’t seem to notice my face.
    I knocked on the door so Midori would know I was coming and then let myself in with the key.
    She was sitting on the bed, and jumped when she saw my swollen eye and the scratches on my face. “What happened?” she gasped, and despite the pain, the concern in her voice warmed me.
    “Someone was waiting at my apartment,” I said, locking the door behind me. I let my coat fall off my back and eased myself onto the couch. “It looks like we’re both pretty popular lately.”
    She came over and knelt next to me, her eyes searching my face. “Your eye looks bad. Let me get you some ice.”
    I watched her walk away. She was wearing jeans and a navy sweatshirt she must have picked up while I was out, and with her hair tied back I had a nice view of the proportions of her shoulders and waist, the curve of her hips. The next thing I knew I was wanting her so much I almost could have forgotten the pain in my back. There was nothing I could do about it. As any soldier who’s really been through it can tell you, extreme horniness is a reaction to combat. One second you’re fighting for your life, and then when it’s over you’ve got a hard-on the size of Mt. Fuji. I don’t know why it happens, but it does.
    She came back with some ice in a towel and I shifted on the couch, embarrassed. Electric pain jolted through my back but it didn’t make a dent in my predicament. She knelt again and held the ice against my eye, smoothing my hair back at the same time. Better if she’d just dumped the cubes in my lap.
    She eased me back on the couch and I grimaced, intensely aware of how near she was. “Does that hurt?” she asked, her touch instantly becoming tentative.
    “No, it’s okay. The guy who cut up my face hit me in the back with a cane. It’ll be okay.”
    Midori held the ice against my eye, her free hand warm on the side of my head, while I sat stiffly, afraid to move, and the moment spun slowly out.
    At one point, she shifted the ice and I reached to take it from her, but she continued to hold it and my hand wound up covering hers. The back of her hand was warm against my palm, the ice cold on my fingertips. “That’s good,” I told her. She didn’t ask whether I meant the ice or her hand. I wasn’t sure myself.
    “You were gone for a long time,” she said after a while. “I didn’t know what to do. I was going to call you, but then I was starting to think, maybe you and those men in my apartment set this up, like good cop, bad cop, to get me to trust you.”
    “I would have thought the same. I can imagine how this must all seem to you.”
    “It was starting to seem pretty unreal, actually. Until I saw you again.”
    I looked at the towel, now speckled red where it had been pressed against my face. “Nothing like a