A Lonely Resurrection

resources.”
    “So?” he said again, his tone petulant.
    “So they know Yamaoto from his connections with Holtzer. They ask him for his help. He has his people check domiciles and employment records in concentric circles moving outward from the Chuo-ku postmark. Maybe they access tax records, find out where an unusually named Haruyoshi is employed. Now they’ve got your whole name, but they can’t find out where you live, because you’re careful to protect that. They try to follow you from work, maybe, but you show them you’re too surveillance conscious and it doesn’t work. So Yamaoto gets your boss to take you somewhere to ‘celebrate,’ somewhere where you’ll meet a real heart-stopper, someone who can find out where you live so they can follow you more often, hoping you’ll drop your guard and lead them to me.”
    “Then why is she still with me?”
    I looked at him. It was a good question.
    “I mean, if her job was just to get my home address, she would have been gone the first time I took her home. But she’s not. She’s still with me.”
    “Then maybe her role was to watch you, learn your routines, find some information that would help her people get closer to finding me. Maybe listen in on your calls, alert her people if or when one of us got in touch with the other. I don’t know for sure.”
    “I’m sorry. It’s too far-fetched.”
    I sighed. “Harry, you’re not in a good position to be objective here. You have to acknowledge that.”
    “And you are?”
    I looked at him. “What possible reason would I have to distort any of this?”
    He shrugged. “Maybe you’re afraid I won’t help you anymore. You said it yourself: ‘You can’t live with one foot in daylight and the other in shadows.’ Maybe you’re afraid I’ll move into the daylight and leave you behind.”
    I felt a wave of angry indignation and willed it back. “Let me tell you something, kid,” I said. “In a very short while, I plan to be living in the daylight myself. I won’t need your ‘help’ after that. So even if I were the selfish, manipulative piece of shit you seem to think I am, I wouldn’t have any motive to try to keep you in the shadows.”
    He flushed. “I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment.
    I waved a hand. “Forget it.”
    He looked at me. “No, really. I’m sorry.”
    I nodded. “Okay.”
    We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, “Look, I’ve got an idea of what you feel for this woman, okay? I saw her. She’s a head-turner.”
    “She’s more than that,” he said softly.
    The dumb, sappy bastard. His only hope with that ice bitch would be that she’d recognize how helpless he was and have some scruples about whatever it was she was up to.
    I wouldn’t count on it, though.
    “The point is,” I said, “it doesn’t give me any pleasure to give you reason to doubt. But I’m telling you, there’s something wrong here, Harry. You need to be careful. And nothing makes you less careful than the kind of feelings that have taken hold of you right now.”
    After a while he said, “I’ll think about what you’ve said. Okay?”
    He didn’t look like he’d think about it, though. He looked like he wanted to jam his hands over his ears. Stick his newly coiffed head in the sand. Hit the Delete key on everything I’d told him.
    “Look, I’m going to see her tonight,” he said. “I’ll watch more closely. I’ll keep in mind what you’ve said.”
    I realized I’d been wasting my time.
    “I thought you were smarter than this,” I said, shaking my head. “I really did.”
    I stood and dropped a few bills on the table. I left without even looking at him.
    I walked to the train station, thinking about what I had told Tatsu earlier, about risk and reward.
    Harry had a lot to offer. I supposed he always would. But he wasn’t being careful anymore. Keeping him in my life now entailed more risk than it had previously.
    I sighed. Two goodbyes in one night. It was depressing. And it wasn’t as though I had a whole Rolodex full of friends.
    But no sense being sentimental about it. Sentiment is stupid. On balance, Harry had become a liability. I had to leave him behind.

PART III
    God. That bastard, he doesn’t exist.
    —Samuel Beckett

CHAPTER 14
    I made my way back to the Imperial, entering the hotel through the Hibiya Park side. In my mind, any place I’m staying is a potential choke point for an ambush, and my radar bumped up a notch as I moved through the spacious lobby