A Lonely Resurrection

managed to buy off the tumult of the surrounding city and send it somewhere else. There’s a sort of relaxed class about the place. Its women, known locally as
shiroganeze
, look at home in their furs as they promenade their toy poodles and Pomeranians between visits to tea shops and boutiques and salons; its men, secure behind the wheels of the Beamers and Benzes that carry them to their high-powered jobs; its children, relaxed, carefree, not yet even aware that their neighborhood is the exception to life in Tokyo and elsewhere, not the rule.
    Tatsu’s man picked us up as promised and drove us the ten minutes to Shirokanedai.
    Tanaka lived in an oversized, two-story detached house in Shirokanedai 4-chome, across from the Sri Lankan Embassy. Its most distinguishing characteristic, aside from its size, were the cars parked in its driveway: a white Porsche 911 GT with a massive spoiler, and a bright red Ferrari Modena. Each was spotless and gleaming and I wondered whether Tanaka actually drove them or merely exhibited them as trophies.
    The property was gated and sat on an elevated plot of land that gave it the feel of a castle looking down upon the lesser dwellings around it. Tatsu and I got out and went through the gate, which was unlocked. He pressed a button next to the double wooden doors and a long series of baritone chimes issued from within.
    A moment later a young woman answered the door. She was pretty and looked Southeast Asian, maybe Filipina, and was dressed in a classic black-and-white maid uniform, complete with some sort of white lace cap atop her upturned coiffure. The getup was just this side of what a medium-class pervert might ask for in one of Tokyo’s “image clubs,” where customers can be serviced by girls dressed as students, nurses, or any other profession whose uniform might provoke a fetish, and I wondered what the full range of this woman’s household duties might actually be.
    “May I help you?” she asked in accented Japanese, looking first at Tatsu, then at me.
    “I am Keisatsucho Department Head Ishikura Tatsuhiko,” Tatsu said in English, producing his ID, “here to speak with Tanaka-san. Would you get him for me?”
    “Is Tanaka expecting you?” she asked, switching to English.
    “I don’t believe so,” Tatsu said, “but I am certain he will be happy to see me.”
    “Just a moment, please.” She closed the door and we waited.
    A minute later the door opened, this time by a man. I recognized him instantly: the guy I had noticed at Damask Rose, with the chemically and surgically maintained superficially youthful appearance.
    “I am Tanaka,” the man said in Japanese. “How may I be of assistance?”
    Tatsu displayed his ID again. “I would like to ask you a few questions. For the moment, my interest in you is peripheral and unofficial. Your cooperation, or lack of it, will determine whether my interest changes.”
    Tanaka’s expression was impassive, but the tension in his body and angle of his head told me Tatsu had his full attention. Despite all the lawyers I had no doubt were in his employ, despite likely entourages of sycophants and underlings, this was a man who was afraid of real trouble, the kind of real trouble he would have just seen when he looked in Tatsu’s eyes.
    “Yes, please, come in,” he told us. We took off our shoes and followed him through a circular entranceway with a floor of checkerboard black-and-white marble tiles. At the rear was a winding stairwell; to the sides were reproductions of Greek statues. We entered a mahogany-paneled room with four sides of floor-to-ceiling bookcases. Like the cars out front, the books looked as though they were frequently dusted and never read.
    Tatsu and I sat on a burgundy pincushion leather couch. Tanaka sat across from us in a matching armchair. He asked us if he could offer us something to eat or drink. We declined.
    “I didn’t get your associate’s name,” Tanaka said, looking at me.
    “His presence here, like mine, is unofficial for now,” Tatsu said. “I hope we can keep it that way.”
    “Of course,” Tanaka said, in his nervous eagerness overlooking the fact that Tatsu had ignored his question. “Of course. Now, please tell me whatever it is you need.”
    “Someone is attempting to implicate you in a U.S. program that directs funds to certain Japanese politicians,” Tatsu said. “Although I believe you are involved in this program, I don’t believe you are responsible for it. But