A Lonely Resurrection

while his remaining man scanned the alley.
    I noted the absence of defensive wounds on the corpse—no slash marks on the hands or wrists. He hadn’t even gotten his arms up to protect himself, let alone managed to fire his weapon. The poor bastard. The gun might have made him feel overconfident. A common error. In some conditions, and a narrow alley can be one of them, a blade will beat a bullet.
    Tatsu stood and looked at me. His tone was calm but I could see quiet rage in his eyes.
    “Murakami?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    “Those men inside, they’re his?”
    I nodded again.
    “There is a large Mercedes parked in front of the building. I am guessing he arrived in it, and was planning to leave in it. Now he will be forced to rely on taxis or public transportation. He could not have done that”—he gestured to the downed man—“without getting a substantial amount of blood on him. We’ll have men here shortly to search the area. We may be able to track him.”
    “I don’t think so,” I said.
    His nostrils flared. “One of the two men inside looked well enough to interrogate,” he said. “That will also be useful.”
    “Was there anyone out front when you arrived?” I asked. “Murakami cleared the place out just before you got here.”
    “There were several men outside,” he said. “They scattered when they saw us. They won’t be of immediate use.”
    “I’m sorry about your man,” I told him, not knowing what else to say.
    He nodded slowly, and for a moment his features seemed to sag. “His name was Fujimori. He was a good man, capable and idealistic. Later today I will have to tell these things to his widow.”
    He straightened, as though collecting himself. “Brief me now on what happened, then go, before the other officers arrive.”
    I told him. He listened without a word. When I was done, he looked at me and said, “Meet me at Christie teashop in Harajuku tonight at seven o’clock. Don’t disappear. Don’t make me have to find you.”
    I knew Christie, having been there many times while living in Tokyo. “I’ll be there,” I said.
    “Where is the gun?”
    “Inside. In a gym bag, by the front entrance. I’d like to keep it.”
    He shook his head. “I was asked about it today. I need to account for it or there will be trouble. I may be able to get you another.”
    “Do that,” I said, thinking of the confident way Murakami had drawn his Kershaw.
    He nodded, then looked at his fallen comrade. His jaw clenched, then released. “When I catch him,” he said, “that’s what I’m going to do to him.”

CHAPTER 17
    I walked out to Kototoi-dori and found a cab. Although their functioning was temporarily disrupted by what had just gone down at the
dojo,
with Murakami’s people aware I was in Asakusa, the subway station would have been too likely a spot for an ambush.
    The meeting Tatsu had demanded was over six hours away, and the bizarre, floating feeling of having nowhere to go and nothing to do was getting to me. I felt a rush of what someone ought to name post-traumatic-extreme-horniness disorder, and thought about calling Naomi. She’d be home right now, maybe just waking up. But with Murakami onto me, I didn’t want to go anywhere where there was even a small chance I might be anticipated.
    My pager buzzed. I checked it, saw a number I didn’t recognize.
    I dialed the number from a payphone. The other party picked up on the first ring.
    “Can you tell who this is?” a male voice asked in English.
    I recognized the voice. Kanezaki, my latest friend from the CIA.
    “Please, just listen to what I have to say,” he went on. “Don’t hang up.”
    “How did you get this number?” I asked.
    “Phone records—calls made from payphones near your friend’s apartment. But I had nothing to do with what happened to him. I just found out about it. That’s why I’m calling you.”
    I thought about that. If Kanezaki had a way of accessing a record of calls made from those payphones, he might have managed to zero in on my pager number. Harry’s practice had been to use various local payphones to page me, after which he would return to his apartment and wait for my call. With access to the records, you might spot a pattern—the same number being called from various payphones in the neighborhood. If there were several hits, and I imagined there would be, you just call them all and eliminate the false positives by trial and error. I supposed this was a possibility Harry and