A Lonely Resurrection

Yamada-san, my alter ego, had planned to establish himself.
    I think I smiled a little bit at the irony, the jokes fate likes to play, because she said, “What?”
    I shook my head. “I can’t travel now. Even if I could, it would be too dangerous for you to try to travel with me. Just go. I’ll find a way to contact you in Salvador after you’re back there.”
    “Will you really?”
    I nodded. “Yes.”
    There was a long pause. Then she looked at me. “I don’t think you’ll really come. That’s okay. But contact me and tell me that. Don’t make me wait, not knowing. Don’t do that to me.”
    I nodded, thinking of Midori, the way she had said,
Let’s see how you like the uncertainty.
    “I’ll contact you,” I said.
    “I don’t know where I’ll be exactly, but you can contact me through my father. David Leonardo Nascimento. He’ll know how to find me.”
    “Go,” I said. “You don’t have much time.”
    I turned to leave, but she caught me and stepped in close. She put her hands on my face and kissed me hard. “I’ll be waiting,” she said.

CHAPTER 22
    I made my way out of the area on foot. I didn’t want to be seen, not even by an anonymous taxi driver.
    I cleaned myself up in an all-night sauna, then stopped at a twenty-four-hour drugstore and bought a bottle of ibuprofen. I ate a half adozen dry. My arm was throbbing.
    Finally, I found a business hotel in Shibuya and collapsed into coma-like sleep.
    The sound of my pager awoke me. I heard it in my dreams as an automated garage door, then as a vibrating mobile phone, then finally in the wakeful world for what it was.
    I checked the readout. Tatsu. About fucking time. I went out, found a payphone, and called him. It was already midday.
    “Are you all right?” he asked me.
    He must have heard about the carnage. “Never a cop around when you need one,” I told him.
    “Forgive me for that.”
    “If I’d gotten killed, I wouldn’t have. Under the circumstances, though, I feel magnanimous. I could use a doctor for an injured arm.”
    “I’ll find someone. Can you meet me right now?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Where we parted last time.”
    “Okay.”
    I hung up.
    I did an SDR that took me to Meguro Station. Tatsu and Kanezaki were standing by the wickets.
    Oh good,
I thought.
I needed a surprise.
    I walked over. Tatsu pulled me aside.
    “The theory is that there is a gang war under way,” he said to me. “An internal yakuza conflict. It will blow over.”
    I looked at him. “You’ve heard, then.”
    He nodded.
    “Well?” I said. “Didn’t your parents teach you to say thank you?”
    His face broke into a surprised grin and he actually patted me on the back. “Thank you,” he said. He looked at my arm, which I was cradling unnaturally close to my body. “I know someone who can take a look at that. But I think you’ll want to hear Kanezaki first.”
    The three of us walked across the street to a coffee shop. As soon as we were seated and had ordered, Kanezaki said, “I learned something about your friend’s death. It’s not much, but you helped me out the way you promised, so I’ll tell you.”
    I waited.
    Kanezaki glanced at Tatsu. “Uh, Ishikura-san here briefed me on your meetings with Biddle and Tanaka. He told me Biddle asked you to kill me.” He paused for a second. “Thanks for not taking him up on that.”
    “Doitashimashite,”
I said, shaking my head slowly. Don’t mention it.
    “After the last time we met,” he went on, “I wanted more information. For leverage over Biddle, to make sure he knew I had something on him in case he decided to try anything again.”
    Fast learner,
I thought. “What did you do?”
    “I bugged his office.”
    I looked at him, half-surprised, half-impressed by his apparent audacity. “You bugged the Chief of Station’s office?”
    He smiled in a young, self-satisfied way that reminded me for a moment of Harry. “I did. His office is only swept for bugs every twenty-four hours, at regular intervals. Back at Headquarters I took the locks and picks course, so getting into his office to place the bug was no problem.”
    “Impressive security.”
    He shrugged. “Security is generally effective against outside threats. But it wasn’t designed with inside threats in mind. Anyway, I can get in and out pretty much as I need to, putting the bug down to listen in, then removing it to avoid the sweeps.”
    “You overheard something about Harry,” I said.
    He nodded. “Yesterday,