A Lonely Resurrection

it.”
    “What kind of trouble?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
    “Why did you tell me that bullshit about being an accountant?”
    I shrugged. “I was looking for information. I didn’t see the need to tell you very much.”
    We were quiet for a few minutes. The waiter came by with the food and drinks. I went for the tea first. It warmed me considerably. The Highland Park was even better.
    “I needed that,” I said, leaning back against the wall, heat radiating from my gut.
    She picked up a spring roll. “Have you really been to Brazil?” she asked.
    “Yes.” It was a lie, but perhaps the moral equivalent of the truth. I couldn’t very well tell her I was learning all I could about the country in preparation for a first and permanent trip there.
    She took a bite of the spring roll and chewed it, her head cocked slightly to the side as though in consideration of something. “Tonight, when I saw who you were with, I was thinking that maybe you learned a few lines of Portuguese just to get me to open up. That I was in some kind of trouble.”
    “No.”
    “So you weren’t trying to meet me in particular.”
    “You were dancing when I came in that night, so I asked about you. It was just a coincidence.”
    “If you’re not an American accountant, who are you?”
    “I’m someone who. . . performs services for people from time to time. Those services put me in touch with a lot of different players in the society. Cops and yakuza. Politicians. Sometimes people on the fringe.”
    “You have that on your business card?”
    I smiled. “I tried it. The print was too small to read.”
    “You’re what, a private detective?”
    “In a way.”
    She looked at me. “Who are you working for now?”
    “I told you, right now I’m just trying to help a friend.”
    “Forgive me, but that sounds like bullshit.”
    I nodded. “I can see where it would.”
    “You looked pretty comfortable with Murakami tonight.”
    “Did that bother you?”
    “He scares me.”
    “He should.”
    She picked up her Highland Park and leaned back against the wall. “I’ve heard some bad stories about him.”
    “They’re probably true.”
    “Everyone’s afraid of him. Except for Yukiko.”
    “Why do you think that is?”
    “I don’t know. She has some kind of power over him. No one else does.”
    “You don’t like her.”
    She glanced at me, then away. “She can be as scary as he is.”
    “You said she’s comfortable doing things that you’re not.”
    “Yes.”
    “Something to do with those listening devices?”
    She upended her drink and finished it. Then she said, “I don’t know for sure there are listening devices, but I think there are. We get a lot of prominent customers—politicians, bureaucrats, businessmen. The people who own the club encourage the girls to talk to them, to elicit information. All the girls think the conversations are taped. And there are rumors that certain customers even get videotaped in the lap dance rooms.”
    I was gaining her confidence. And the way she was talking now, I knew I could get more. A gambler will agonize for hours over whether to put his chips on, say, the red or the black, and then, when the croupier spins the wheel, he’ll double or even triple the bet, as a way of bolstering his conviction that he must have been betting right. If he were betting wrong, why would he be putting all that extra money down?
    I pointed to her glass. “Another?”
    She hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
    I finished mine and ordered two more. The walls flickered in the candlelight. The room felt close and warm, like an underground sanctuary.
    The waiter brought the drinks. After he had moved silently away, I looked at her and said, “You’re not involved in any of this?”
    She looked into her glass. Several seconds went by.
    “You want an honest answer, or a really honest answer?” she asked.
    “Give me both.”
    “Okay,” she said, nodding. “The honest answer is no.”
    She took a sip of the Highland Park. Closed her eyes.
    “The really honest answer is, is. . .”
    “Is, not yet,” I said quietly.
    Her eyes opened and she looked at me. “How do you know?”
    I watched her for a moment, feeling her distress, seeing an opportunity.
    “You’re being suborned,” I said. “It’s a process, a series of techniques. If you even half realize it, you’re smarter than most. You’ve also got a chance to do something about it, if you want