A Lonely Resurrection

I should have considered, but it didn’t really matter. Even if someone managed to intercept my number, as Kanezaki seemed to have done, they’d learn nothing more than a pager address.
    “I’m listening,” I said.
    “I want to meet with you,” he said. “I think we can help each other.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yes. Look, I’m taking a big chance doing this. I know you might think I had something to do with what happened to your friend, and that you might want payback.”
    “You might be right.”
    “Yeah, well, I know you can find me eventually anyway. I figure I’m better off explaining what I think happened, rather than having to worry for the rest of my life about you sneaking up behind me.”
    “What do you propose?” I asked.
    “A meeting. Anyplace you want, as long as it’s public. I know if you listen to me you’ll believe me. But I’m afraid you might try to do something before you’ve listened. Like you did the last time we saw each other.”
    I considered. If it was a setup, there were two ways in which they might try to get at me. The first way would be to have people watching Kanezaki, people who would move in as soon as I appeared on the scene. The second would be to monitor him remotely, with some kind of a transmitter, the way they had once done when Holtzer had tried to nail me after proposing a similar “meeting.”
    The second way was more likely, because I would have a harder time spotting Kanezaki’s team if they didn’t have to keep him in visual contact. I could use Harry’s bug detector to eliminate the second possibility. I’d have to take him someplace deserted to eliminate the first.
    “Where are you right now?” I asked him.
    “Toranomon. Near the embassy.”
    “You know Japan Sword? The antique sword shop in Toranomon three-chome, near the station?”
    “I know it.”
    “Go there. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”
    “Okay.”
    I clicked off. Actually, I had no intention of going to the sword shop, much as I enjoy browsing there from time to time. But I wanted Kanezaki and anyone he was with to take the trouble to set up there, while I established myself in a more secure venue.
    I took a series of cabs and trains to the Imperial Palace Wadakuramon Gate. With its swarms of tourists, batteries of security cameras, and phalanxes of cops protecting the important personages inside, the Wadakuramon Gate would be a highly inconvenient place to have to gun someone down, if that’s what Kanezaki and company had in mind. Having him go there after I was already set up would force a potential surveillance team to move quickly, giving me a better chance to spot them.
    I used Tatsu’s mobile phone to call Kanezaki again when I had arrived. “Change of plans,” I told him.
    There was a pause. “Okay.”
    “Meet me at the Imperial Palace Wadakuramon Gate, across from Tokyo Station. Come right now. I’m waiting in front. Approach me from Tokyo Station so I can see that you’re alone.”
    “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    I clicked off.
    I found a taxi on Hibiya-dori, which intersects the boulevard that leads from Tokyo Station to the Imperial Palace. I got in and asked the driver to wait, explaining that I would be meeting a friend here shortly. He clicked on the meter and we sat in silence.
    Ten minutes later, I saw Kanezaki approaching as I had requested. He was looking around, but didn’t spot me in the cab.
    I cracked the window. “Kanezaki,” I said. “Get in.”
    The driver activated the automatic door. Kanezaki hesitated—a cab obviously wasn’t quite the “public” place he had been hoping for. But he got over it and slid in next to me. The door closed and we drove off.
    I told the driver to take us in the direction of Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics mecca. I watched behind us but didn’t see any unusual activity. No one was scrambling to keep up with him. It looked like he was alone.
    I reached over and patted him down. Other than his mobile phone, keys, and a new wallet, he wasn’t carrying anything. Harry’s detector stayed quiet.
    I had the driver use backstreets to lessen the chance that someone could be tailing us. We got out near Ochanomizu Station, and from there continued a series of swift moves in trains and on foot to ensure we were alone.
    I finished the route in Otsuka, the extreme north of the Yamanote line. Otsuka is a neighborhood kind of place, albeit a somewhat seedy one, with a generous offering of massage parlors and love