A Clean Kill in Tokyo

the whole of Shibuya feels like a giant sleeping off a hangover. You can still sense the merriment, the heedless laughter of the night before, you can hear it echoed in the strange silences and deserted spaces of the area’s twisting backstreets. The drunken voices of karaoke revelers, the unctuous pitches of the club touts, the secret whispers of lovers walking arm in arm, all are departed, but somehow, for just a few evanescent hours in the quiet of early morning, their shadows linger, like ghosts who refuse to believe the night has ended, that there are no more parties to attend.
    I walked, in the company of those ghosts, following a series of alleys that more or less paralleled Aoyama-dori, the main artery connecting Shibuya and Aoyama. I had gotten up early, easing out of the bed as quietly as I could to let Midori sleep, and had taken the disk to Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics Mecca, where I tried to play it on a PC in one of the enormous, anonymous computer stores. No dice. It was encrypted.
    Which meant I needed Harry’s help. The realization wasn’t comfortable: given Bulfinch’s description of the disk’s contents—that it contained evidence of an assassin or assassins specializing in natural causes—I knew what was on the disk could implicate me.
    I called Harry from a payphone in Nogizaka. He sounded groggy, and I figured he’d been sleeping, but I could feel him become alert when I mentioned the construction work going on in Kokaigijidomae—our signal for an immediate, emergency meeting. I used our usual code to tell him I wanted to meet at the Doutor Coffee Shop on Imoarai-zaka in Roppongi. It was near his apartment, so he would be able to get there fast.
    He was already waiting when I arrived twenty minutes later, sitting at a table in back, reading a paper. His hair was matted down on one side and he looked pale. “Sorry to get you up,” I said, sitting across from him.
    He shook his head. “What happened to your face?”
    “Hey, you should see the other guy. Let’s order some breakfast.”
    “I think I’ll just have coffee.”
    “You don’t want eggs or something?”
    “No, just coffee is good.”
    “Sounds like it was a rough night,” I said, trying to imagine what that would consist of for Harry.
    He looked at me. “You’re scaring me with the small talk. I know you wouldn’t have used the code unless it was something serious.”
    “You wouldn’t forgive me for getting you up otherwise,” I said.
    We ordered coffee and breakfast and I filled him in on everything that had happened since the last time I saw him, beginning with how I met Midori, through the attacks outside her apartment and mine, the meeting with Bulfinch, the disk. I didn’t tell him about the previous night. I just told him we were using a love hotel as a safe house.
    Looking at him there, feeling his concern, I realized I trusted him. Not just because I knew that, operationally, he had no way to hurt me, which was my usual reason for extending some minimal measure of trust, but because he was worthy of trust. Because I wanted to trust him.
    “I’m in a bit of a tight spot here,” I told him. “I could use your help. But… you’re going to need to know some fairly deep background first. If that’s not comfortable for you, all you need to do is say so.”
    He reddened slightly, and I knew it meant a lot to him that I would ask for his help, that I needed him. “It’s comfortable,” he said.
    I told him about Holtzer and Benny, the apparent CIA connection.
    “I wish you’d told me earlier,” he said when I was done. “I might have been able to do more to help.”
    I shrugged. “The less you know, the less I have to worry about you.”
    He nodded. “Typical CIA outlook.”
    “Takes one to know one.”
    “No, no. Remember, I worked at the Puzzle Palace. It’s the Agency types who turn paranoia into a point of pride. Anyway, why would I want to hurt you?”
    “Just being careful, kid,” I said. “It’s nothing personal.”
    “You saved my butt that time in Roppongi, remember? You think I’d forget that?”
    “You’d be surprised what people forget.”
    “Not me. Anyway, has it occurred to you how much I’m trusting you by letting you share this information with me, letting you make me a potential point of vulnerability? I know how careful you are, and I know what you’re capable of.”
    “I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” I said, concerned and not showing it.
    He