A Lonely Resurrection

article about it in the
Asahi Shinbun
a few years ago. Supposed to dramatically reduce the chances of heart problems.”
    He was silent for a moment, then shrugged and said, “He was not a good man.”
    Was this his way of telling me he knew I did Holtzer but didn’t care? If so, what was he going to ask in return?
    “How did you hear about all this?” I asked.
    He looked down at the table, then back at me. “Some of Mr. Holtzer’s associates from the CIA’s station in Tokyo contacted the Metropolitan Police Force. They were less concerned about the fact of his death than they were about the manner of it. They seem to believe you killed him.”
    I said nothing.
    “They wanted the assistance of the Metropolitan Police Force in locating you,” he went on. “My superiors informed me that I was to offer full cooperation.”
    “Why are they coming to you for help?”
    “I suspect the Agency has been tasked with trying to eliminate some of the corruption that is paralyzing Japan’s economy. The United States is concerned that if the situation worsens, Japan’s finances could collapse. A ripple effect, and certainly a global recession, would follow.”
    I understood Uncle Sam’s interest. Everyone knew the politicians were focused more on ensuring that they got their share of graft from rigged public works and yakuza payoffs than they were on resuscitating a dying economy. You could smell the rot from afar.
    I took another sip of the Dalmore. “Why do you suppose they’d be interested in me?”
    He shrugged. “Perhaps revenge. Perhaps as part of some anticorruption effort. Perhaps both. After all, we know Holtzer was issuing intelligence reports identifying you as the ‘natural causes’ assassin behind the deaths of so many Japanese whistleblowers and reformers.”
    Just like Holtzer,
I thought. Getting credit for the intelligence reports while using the subject for his own ends. I remembered how he had looked when I left him slumped and lifeless in his rent-a-car in that suburban Virginia parking garage, and I smiled.
    “You don’t seem terribly concerned,” Tatsu said.
    I shrugged. “Of course I’m concerned. What did you tell them?”
    “That, so far as I knew, you were dead.”
    Here it comes, then.
“That was good of you.”
    He smiled slightly, and I saw a bit of the wily, subversive bastard I had liked so much in Vietnam, where we had met when he was seconded there by one of the precursors of the Keisatsucho.
    “Not so good, really. We’re old friends, after all. Friends should help each other from time to time, don’t you agree?”
    He knew I owed him. I owed him just for letting me go after I’d ambushed Holtzer outside the naval base at Yokosuka, despite all the years he’d spent trying to ferret me out previously. Now he was putting the Agency off my scent, and I owed him for that, too.
    The debts were only part of it, of course. There was also an implicit threat. But Tatsu had a soft spot for me that kept him from being too direct. Otherwise, he would have dispensed with all the win-win, we’re old pals bullshit and would have just told me that if I didn’t cooperate he’d share my current name and address with my old friends at Christians In Action. Which he could very easily do.
    “I thought you wanted me to retire,” I said again, knowing I’d already lost.
    He reached into his breast pocket and took out a manila envelope. Placed it on the table between us.
    “This is a very important job, Rain-san,” he said. “I wouldn’t ask for this favor if it weren’t.”
    I knew what I would find in the envelope. A name. A photograph. Locations of work and residence. Known vulnerabilities. The insistence on the appearance of “natural causes” would be implicit, or delivered orally.
    I made no move to touch the envelope. “There’s one thing I need from you before I can agree to any of this,” I told him.
    He nodded. “You want to know how I found you.”
    “Correct.”
    He sighed. “If I share that information with you, what would stop you from disappearing again, even more effectively this time?”
    “Probably nothing. On the other hand, if you don’t tell me, there’s no possibility that I would be willing to work with you on whatever you’ve got in that envelope. It’s up to you.”
    He took his time, as though pondering the pros and cons, but Tatsu always thinks several moves ahead and I knew he would have anticipated this. The hesitation was theater,