A Lonely Resurrection

“That was three songs, so thirty thousand yen. And you should tip the doorman ten percent. Ken?”
    Ken must have been the Nigerian, because a second later the semicircular sofa was pulled aside and there he was. I took out my billfold and paid each of them.
    “Thank you,” I said to Naomi. I beamed like a well-satisfied customer. “That was. . . special.”
    She smiled back in a way that made me glad she didn’t have a weapon.
“Kochira koso,”
she replied. The pleasure was mine.
    She escorted me back to my seat. I switched on the unit en route. Murakami and Yukiko were waiting for us.
    “Yokatta ka?”
Murakami asked me, showing me the false teeth. Good?
    “Maa na,”
I told him. Good enough.
    He took Yukiko’s hand and started moving away. “We’ll discuss our business another time,” he said.
    “When?”
    “Soon. I’ll find you at the
dojo.”
    He didn’t like to make appointments any more than I did. “Morning? Evening?” I asked.
    “Morning. Soon.” He turned to Naomi and said, “Take good care of him.” Naomi bowed her head to show that she most certainly would.
    Murakami and Yukiko left. A minute later the detector started buzzing—continuous, so audio only. I’d been right about the house rules.
    Naomi and I made small talk for a few minutes for the benefit of the microphones. Her tone was cool and correct. I knew our little encounter hadn’t turned out quite the way she had planned, but she had managed to distract me from my questions, which was what she had really been after. Probably she was telling herself the fight had been a draw, that she could settle for that.
    She didn’t know it had only been round one.
    I told her I was bushed and had to go. “Come back anytime,” she said with a sarcastic smile.
    “For another one of those lap dances?” I asked, returning the smile. “Absolutely.”
    I walked up the stairs and out onto Gaienhigashi-dori. When I got to the street a horn tooted. It was Yukiko, driving by in a white BMW M3, Murakami in the passenger seat. She waved, then disappeared onto Aoyama-dori.
    It was just past one in the morning. The club closed at three. Naomi would be heading home at some point thereafter.
    I’d done the computer check. I knew where home was. The Lion’s Gate Building, Azabu Juban 3-chome.
    The trains had already stopped running. I doubted she’d have a car: keeping one in the city is too expensive and the trains go everywhere, anyway. Getting home would mean a taxi.
    I took a cab to Azabu Juban subway station, then walked around 3-chome until I found her building. Standard upscale apartment
manshon,
tan ferroconcrete, new and spiffy looking. Straightforward front entrance with double glass doors, electronically controlled. Security camera mounted on the ceiling just inside the glass.
    The building was on the corner of a one-way street. I moved to the back, where I found a secondary entrance—smaller, more discreet than the first, something only residents would use. This one had no camera.
    The second access point complicated things. If I waited at the wrong entrance, I would miss her entirely.
    I considered. All these streets were one-way—one of Azabu Juban’s trademarks. If she were coming from Damask Rose, the cab would have to pass the second entrance first. Most likely she would get out there. Even if the cab continued around to the front, though, I’d have time to dash around behind it and get to her before she went inside.
    Okay. I looked around for the right place. Ordinarily, when I’m setting someone up, I try for maximum concealment and surprise. But that’s prior to a fatal encounter. Here, I was hoping just to talk. If I scared her too much, made her feel too vulnerable, she would just run inside and that would be the end of it.
    There was a perpendicular side street that led to where I was standing, dead-ending just to the side of the second entrance to her building. I walked down it. There was an awning on the side of the building to my left, under the shadow of which were stacked several large plastic garbage bins. I could wait in those shadows quietly, and even someone walking right past me would be unlikely to notice.
    I checked my watch. Almost two. I killed time walking around the neighborhood. I passed no more than a half-dozen people. By three the area would be almost completely deserted.
    I thought about what I’d seen at the club earlier. I knew from Tatsu that Yamaoto relied in part on blackmail and