Hard Rain

Rose," the voice said. I heard J-Pop playing in the
    background and imagined dancers on the twin stages.
    "Hello," I said, in Japanese, raising my voice slightly to disguise it.
    "Can you tell me who's there tonight?"
    The voice intoned a half-dozen names. Naomi was among them. So was
    Yukiko.
    "Great," I said. "Are they all there until three?"
    iHai, so desu." Yes, they are.
    "Great," I said again. "I'll see you later."
    I hung up.
    I caught a cab to Shibuya, then did a foot SDR to Minami-Aoyama. I
    remembered Yukiko's address from the time I had checked out her and
    Naomi's backgrounds from Osaka, and I had no trouble finding her
    apartment building. The main entrance was in front. An underground
    garage was off to one side, accessible only by a grated metal door
    controlled by a magnetic card reader in a center island. No other ways
    in or out.
    I thought of her white M3. Assuming that the night I had seen her in
    it wasn't an anomaly, it was her commuting vehicle. She wouldn't be
    driving it to Harry's tonight, and Murakami would either be unreachable
    for the moment or he would have told her to stay away. I judged that
    there was an excellent possibility that she would be pulling in
    sometime after three.
    I found a nearby building separated from its neighbor by a long, narrow
    alley. I moved into the shadows there and opened my bag of goodies. I
    took out the cologne and applied a heavy dose to my nostrils. Then I
    closed the bag and stashed it there, and walked into nearby Roppongi.
    It didn't take me long to find a homeless man who looked about the
    right size. He was sitting on a cinder block in the shadows of one of
    the elevated expressways of Roppongi-dori, next to a cardboard and tarp
    shelter. He was wearing overlarge brown pants cinched tight with a
    worn belt, a filthy checked button-down shirt, and a fraying cardigan
    sweater that two generations earlier might have been red.
    I walked over to him. "Fuku o kokan site kurenai ka?" I asked,
    pointing to my chest. You want to trade clothes?
    He looked at me for a long moment as though I was unhinged. "Nandatte?"
    he asked. What the hell are you talking about?
    "I'm serious," I said in Japanese. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime
    opportunity."
    I shrugged off the nylon windbreaker I was wearing and handed it to
    him. He took it, his expression briefly incredulous, then wordlessly
    began to slip out of his rags.
    Two minutes later I was wearing his clothes. Even through the heavy
    layer of cologne, the smell was horrific. I thanked him and headed
    back to Aoyama.
    Back in the alley, I pulled on the fright wig and secured it with the
    wool hat, then popped in the false teeth. I lit a cigarette and let it
    burn down, then rubbed a mixture of ashes and spit onto my face. I lit
    a match and took a quick look at myself in a sawed-off dental mirror I
    keep on my key chain. I barely recognized what I saw, and I smiled a
    rotten-toothed smile.
    I slipped on the gloves and walked out to the garage entrance of
    Yukiko's building. I took the fishing line and translucent tape, but
    left the bag and the rest of its contents in the alley. There was a
    security camera mounted just above the grated garage door. I cut a
    wide path around it, then re-approached from the side farther from the
    street. The corner of the building jutted out a few centimeters,
    apparently for aesthetic reasons. I slid down low, using the jutting
    design for partial concealment. The average person pulling in or out
    wouldn't notice me. Anyone who did would assume I was just some
    homeless man, probably drunk and passed out there. My getup was
    insurance against the very small chance that someone might call the
    cops. If anyone did show up to investigate, my appearance and smell
    would be a strong incentive for them to just tell me to be on my way
    and leave it at that.
    It was late, and not too many people were coming or going. After
    nearly an hour, I heard what I'd been waiting for: a car pulling into
    the driveway.
    I heard it stop in front of the door, the engine idling. I pictured
    the driver rolling down the window, inserting a magnetic card into the
    reader. A moment later I heard the mechanical whine of the door
    rising. I counted ten seconds off before the sound stopped. I heard
    the car pull in.
    The mechanical whine started again. I counted off five seconds, on the
    assumption that, with the assistance of gravity, the door would drop
    more quickly than it had risen. Then I darted out from