A Lonely Resurrection

wouldn’t be able to get to me, they had a good fix on Harry and Midori.
    No, killing this kid wasn’t going to get the Agency out of my life. Or out of Harry’s or Midori’s.
    “I’ll think about your proposal,” I told him. “You can tell your superiors I said so.”
    “I didn’t propose anything. I was only speculating. If I tell my superiors what we just talked about, I’ll be sent back to Langley for a desk job.”
    “Tell them anything you want. If I’m interested, I’ll get in touch with you. You personally. If I’m not interested, I’ll expect you to understand that my silence means no. I’ll also expect you to stop trying to find me, especially through other people. If I learn you aren’t respecting these wishes, I’ll hold you responsible. You, personally. Do you understand?”
    He started to say something, then gagged. I saw what was coming and stepped out of the way. He leaned over and vomited.
    I took it as a yes.
    • • •
    I walked back to Ebisu and caught a Yamanote train to Shibuya. I took the Miyamasuzaka exit to Shibuya 1-chome, then walked the short distance to the Hatou coffee shop. Windowless Hatou, with its dark wood floors and tables and long
hinoki
counter, its hundreds of exquisite porcelain cups and saucers, and its expertly prepared brews, had been one of my regular haunts while I lived in Tokyo, or at least as regular as I allowed any one place to become. I missed it.
    I walked in the street-level door. The counterman issued a low
irasshaimase
but didn’t look up. Instead, he continued pouring steaming water from a silver pot into a filter perched over a blue porcelain demitasse. He was leaning to the side so that he was eye level with the pot, his arm describing small circles in the air to ensure the water dripped uniformly through the grounds in the filter. He looked like he was painting, or conducting a miniature orchestra. It was a pleasure to behold such practiced devotion and I couldn’t help pausing to watch.
    When he was done he bowed and welcomed me again. I returned the gesture and made my way to the back. I turned left at the end of the L-shaped room and saw Harry sitting at one of the three back tables.
    “Hey,” he said, standing up and offering his hand.
    I shook it. “Glad to see you found the place okay.”
    He nodded. “Your directions were good.”
    I looked at the table, empty but for a glass of ice water. “No coffee?”
    “I didn’t know when you were going to get here, so I ordered two old beans demitasses. Something called the Nire Blend. It takes a half hour to prepare. I figured you’d like it—the waitress says it’s ‘exceptionally intense.’”
    I smiled again. “It is. I’m not sure it’ll be to your taste.”
    He shrugged. “I like to try new things.”
    Yukiko,
I thought.
    We sat down. “Well? How did it turn out?” he asked.
    I took out Kanezaki’s wallet and slid it across the table to him. “You were being followed,” I said.
    He opened it and looked at the ID inside. “Oh, shit,” he said softly. “CIA?”
    I nodded.
    “But how? Why?”
    I briefed him on my conversation with Kanezaki.
    “So it looks like they were interested in me only because they’re interested in you,” he said, when I was done.
    I nodded slowly. “It looks that way.”
    “I wonder if they know who I am, other than that I’m somehow connected to you.”
    “Impossible to say. They might have cross-checked with other agencies, in which case they would know you were once with the NSA. But they’re not always so thorough.”
    “They did a nice job of tracking me from that letter, though. Stupid of me to send it.”
    “There’s more than meets the eye there. The letter alone doesn’t sound like enough. But I didn’t have time to ask.”
    We were quiet for a minute. Then he said, “It might have been enough. I only signed it with my first name, but my parents chose three
kanji
, not the usual two.” On his hand he traced the characters for “spring,” “giving,” and “ambition,” an unusual spelling for a common name.
    “They must have been watching Midori, too,” I said.
    He nodded. “Yeah. She was a known point of contact. They might have been doing spot surveillance and mail checks, hoping she’d hear from you. Instead they got me.”
    “I’ll buy that,” I said.
    “And I mailed that letter near the main Chuo-ku post office, not so far from where I work. There would have been a postmark. They could have used