A Lonely Resurrection

have blamed me for disappearing any more than he expected me to blame him for tracking me down.
    “There has been no mention of your name in any of this,” he told me. “Only a photograph. And the technicians tasked with checking for the matches the system spits out have no knowledge regarding the basis of my interest. To them, you are simply one of many criminals the Metropolitan Police Force is tracking. And I have taken other steps to ensure security, such as coming alone tonight and informing no one of my movements.”
    This was a dangerous thing for Tatsu to admit. If it were true, I could solve pretty much all my problems just by taking out this one man. Again, he was showing me that he trusted me, that I could trust him in return.
    “You’re taking a lot of chances,” I said, looking at him.
    “Always,” he said, returning my gaze.
    There was a long silence. Then I said, “No women. No children. It has to be a man.”
    “It is.”
    “You can’t have involved anyone else in this. You work with me, it’s an exclusive.”
    “Yes.”
    “And the target has to be a principal. Taking him out can’t just be to send a message to someone. It has to accomplish something concrete.”
    “It will.”
    Having established my three rules, it was now time to apprise him of the consequences for breaking them.
    “You know, Tatsu, outside of professional reasons—meaning combat or a contract—there’s only one thing that has ever moved me to kill.”
    “Betrayal,” he said, to show me he clearly understood.
    “Yes.”
    “Betrayal is not in my nature.”
    I laughed, because this was the first time I had ever heard Tatsu say something naïve. “It’s in everyone’s nature,” I told him.
    We had worked out a system by which we could communicate securely, including simple codes and access to a secure site I continued to maintain for sensitive communications. I had told him I would contact him afterward, but now I wondered whether that would be necessary. Tatsu would learn of the yakuza’s accident from independent sources and know I had held up my end. Besides, the less contact with Tatsu, the better. Sure, we had a history. Respect. Even affection. But it was hard to believe the alignment of our interests would last, and, in the end, that alignment, or its lack, would be all that mattered. A sad thought, in certain respects. There aren’t many people in my life, and, now that things had turned out all right, I realized I had on some level enjoyed this latest encounter with my old friend and nemesis.
    Sad also because it forced me to admit something I had been avoiding: I was going to have to leave Japan. I’d been preparing for such a contingency, but it was sobering to acknowledge the time might be at hand. If Tatsu knew where to find me, and came to believe I’d gotten back in the game in a way that was inhibiting his life’s work of fighting corruption in Japan, it would be too easy for him to have me picked up. Conversely, if I agreed to play by his rules, it would be too easy for him to drop in periodically and ask for a “favor.” Either way, he’d be running me, and I’ve lived that life already. I didn’t want to do it again.
    My pager buzzed. I checked it and saw a five-digit sequence that told me it was Harry.
    I finished eating and motioned to the waiter that I was ready for the check. I looked around the restaurant one last time. The office party had broken up. The Americans remained, the white noise of their conversation warm and enthusiastic. The couple was still there, the young man’s posture steadfastly earnest, the girl continuing to parry with quiet laughter.
    It felt good to be back in Tokyo. I didn’t want to leave.
    I walked out of the restaurant, pausing to enjoy the feel of Nishi-Azabu’s cool evening air, my eyes reflexively sweeping the street. A few cars passed, but otherwise it was as quiet as Aoyama Cemetery, brooding and dark, silently beckoning, across from where I stood.
    I looked again at the stone steps and imagined myself traversing them. Then I turned left and continued the clockwise circle I had started earlier that evening.

CHAPTER 3
    I called Harry from a public phone on Aoyama-dori.
    “Are you on a secure line?” he asked, recognizing my voice.
    “Reasonably secure. Public phone. Out of the way location.” The location mattered, because governments monitor certain public phones—the ones near embassies and police stations, for example, and those