A Lonely Resurrection

mixed blood and childhood bereavement; a paternalistic urge to protect her from the mistakes she was going to make; a sad sexual longing that was like an elegy for Midori.
    It was getting late. “Will you forgive me if I forgo the lap dance?” I asked her.
    She smiled. “That’s fine.”
    I stood to go. She got up with me.
    “Wait,” she said. She took out a pen. “Give me your hand.”
    I held out my left hand. She held it and began to write on my palm. She wrote slowly. Her fingers were warm.
    “This is my private email address,” she said when she was done. “It’s not something I give customers, so please don’t share it. Next time you have a trip to Salvador, let me know. I’ll tell you the best places to go.” She smiled. “And I wouldn’t mind hearing from you if you find yourself back in Tokyo, either.”
    I smiled into her green eyes. The smile felt strangely sad to me. Maybe she didn’t notice.
    “You never know,” I said.
    I settled the bill at the door, in cash as always. I took a card, then walked up the stairs without looking back.
    The early morning air of Nogizaka was cool and slightly damp. Light from streetlamps lay in weak yellow pools. The pavement was slick with urban dew. Tokyo slumbered around me, dreamless and indifferent.
    Goodbye to all that,
I thought, and began walking toward the hotel.

CHAPTER 5
    I went straight to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of Harry, of Harry with Yukiko. I knew something was wrong there. What would this girl, or whoever she worked for, want with a guy like Harry?
    I supposed he might have made an enemy with one of his hacking stunts. Even if he had, though, tracing the problem back to him would be a bitch. And what would be the point of setting him up with the girl?
    Harry had told me his boss had taken him to Damask Rose to “celebrate” the night Harry had met Yukiko. If the girl had been a setup, Harry’s boss must have been complicit. I chewed on that.
    I thought about going to the guy. I could find out his name, where he lived, brace him one morning on his way to the office.
    Tempting, but even if I got the information I wanted, the incident would cause problems for Harry, possibly severe ones. No go.
    Okay, try something else. Maybe someone was interested in Harry only as a conduit to me.
    But nobody knows about Harry,
I thought.
Not even Tatsu.
    There was Midori, of course. She knew where he lived. She’d sent him that letter.
    Nah, I don’t see it.
    I got up and paced the room. Midori had connections in the entertainment world. Use those connections, have someone get close to Harry as a way of finding me?
    I remembered that last night with her at the Imperial Hotel, how we’d been standing, my arms around her from behind, her fingers intertwined with mine, the way her hair smelled, the way she tasted. I pushed away the memory.
    I realized that, for the moment, there was no way of knowing who was behind Harry’s improbable romance. So I put aside Midori and concentrated on what, not who.
    What makes me a hard target is that I have no fixed points in my life—no workplace, no address, no known associates—that someone can hook into and use to get to me. If someone had established a connection from Harry to me, he’d have that fixed point. He could be expected to exploit it.
    That meant people would be watching Harry. Not just through Yukiko. They’d have to tail him, as often as possible.
    But he’d been clean when I’d seen him at Teize. He’d told me as much, and I knew for sure that I’d been clean afterward.
    I decided to conduct an experiment. It was a bit risky, but not as risky as leveling with Harry about his situation, given his current state of mind. I’d need another night in Tokyo to do it right. No problem with that. While closing in on the weightlifter, I’d been staying in appropriately anonymous city hotels for one week at a time—not wishing to attract attention with longer stays—and the New Otani reservation was good for another three nights anyway.
    I looked at the digital clock on the bedstand. It was past four in the morning. Christ, I was keeping the same hours as my lovesick friend.
    I’d call him in the evening, when we’d both be awake. More importantly, when Yukiko would be at Damask Rose, and Harry, presumably, would be alone. Then, based on the outcome of my little experiment, I’d decide how much to tell him.
    I got back in bed. The last thing I thought of before drifting off