A Lonely Resurrection

egress. If Midori had anyone following her, either with her knowledge or without, they’d have a hard time remaining unexposed while we moved.
    We took the stairs to the mezzanine level. With the exception of the dozen or so patrons seated in the restaurants we passed, there was no one about. I checked behind us while we waited at the bar entrance to be seated. No one approached. It seemed she was alone.
    We sat next to each other in one of the high, semicircular booths, hidden from the entrance. Anyone hoping to confirm our presence now would have to come inside and reveal himself. I ordered us a couple of eighteen-year-old Bunnahabhains from the bar’s excellent single malt menu.
    The feeling was a bit odd under the circumstances, but I was glad to be back at the Old Imperial. Windowless and low-ceilinged, dark and subdued, intimate despite its spaciousness, the bar has an air of history, of gravitas, perhaps a consequence of being the sole surviving feature of the hotel’s martyred progenitor. Like the hotel itself, the Old Imperial feels a bit past its prime, but retains a dignified beauty and mysterious allure, like a grande dame who has seen much of life, known many lovers, and kept many secrets, who doesn’t bother dwelling on the glory of her more exuberant youth but who hasn’t forgotten it, either.
    We sat in silence until the drinks had arrived. Then she said, “Why?”
    I picked up my Bunnahabhain. “You know why. I was hired.”
    “By whom?”
    “By the people your father took that disk from. The same people who thought you had it, who were trying to kill you.”
    “Yamaoto?”
    “Yes.”
    She looked at me. “You’re an assassin, aren’t you? When there are rumors the government has someone on the payroll, they’re talking about you, right?”
    I let out a long exhalation. “Something like that.”
    There was a pause. Then she asked, “How many people have you killed?”
    My eyes moved to my glass. “I don’t know.”
    “I’m not talking about Vietnam. Since then.”
    “I don’t know,” I said again.
    “Don’t you think that’s too many?” The mildness of her voice made the question worse.
    “I don’t. . . I have rules. No women. No children. No acts against nonprincipals.” The words echoed flatly in my ears like a moron’s mantra, talismanic sounds suddenly stripped of their animating magic.
    She laughed without mirth. “‘I have rules.’ You sound like a whore who wants credit for virtue because she won’t kiss the clients she fucks.”
    It stung. But I took it.
    “And then your friend from the Metropolitan Police Department told me you were dead. And you let me believe it. Do you know I grieved for you? Do you know what that’s like?”
    I grieved for you, too,
I wanted to say.
    “Why?” she asked. “Why would you put me through that? Even beyond what you did to my father, why would you put me through that?”
    I looked away.
    “Tell me, goddamn it,” I heard her say.
    I gripped my glass. “I wanted to spare you. From this. . . knowledge.”
    “I don’t believe you. I half knew anyway. What did you think I would think when the evidence of corruption on that disk, which my father died trying to get, wasn’t published? When I tried to find out what had been done with your remains so I could offer my respects, but couldn’t?”
    “I didn’t know it wouldn’t be published,” I said, not looking at her. “In fact I thought it would be. But regardless, I expected you to forget about me. At times I had my doubts, but what could I do at that point? Just show up in your life and explain? What if I’d been wrong, what if you had forgotten, you didn’t suspect, you’d gotten on with your life the way I’d hoped?” I looked at her. “I would have just caused you more pain.”
    She shook her head. “You couldn’t have caused me more pain if you’d tried.”
    There was a long silence. I said, “Are you going to tell me how you found me?”
    She shrugged. “Your friend from the Metropolitan Police Department.”
    I was taken aback. “Tatsu contacted you?”
    She shook her head. “I contacted him. Several times, in fact. He kept blowing me off. Last week I came back to Tokyo and went to his office. I told a receptionist that if Ishikura-san didn’t see me I would contact the press, I would do everything I could do to make a public scandal. And I would have, you know. I wasn’t going to give up.”
    She’d been brave, even a little reckless.