Hard Rain

know."
    "Your people were following Harry. And I know his death was no
    accident. If you can't do any better than what you've already told me,
    I'm going to start assuming that it was you."
    "I'm telling you, I don't know who did it. Even assuming it wasn't an
    accident'
    "How did you find out where Harry lived in the first place?"
    He repeated Kanezaki's story about Midori's letter.
    "With only that to go on, you must have used local resources," I
    suggested.
    He looked at me. "You seem to know a lot. But I'm not going to start
    confirming or denying the specifics of local resources for you. If you
    suspect local resources might have been involved in your friend's
    death, I can't help you. As I said, I don't know."
    I wasn't going to get any more out of him in a place like this. I
    wished for a second we were alone.
    I got up to go. "I'll be in touch," I said.
    Tatsu and I had agreed to meet in Yoyogi Park after I'd braced Biddle.
    I went there, taking the usual precautions. He was already waiting,
    sitting on a bench beneath one of the park's thousands of maple trees,
    reading a newspaper, looking like some of the retirees in the area who
    were passing the day doing the same thing.
    How did it go?" he asked.
    I briefed him on what Biddle had told me.
    "I know of Tanaka," he said when I was done. "His father founded an
    electronics company in the twenties that survived the war and prospered
    afterward. Tanaka sold it when his father died and has been living off
    the considerable proceeds ever since. He is said to have an enormous
    libido, particularly for a man nearing seventy. He is also said to be
    addicted to codeine and other narcotics."
    "What about his politics?"
    "He has none, so far as I know."
    "Then why would he want to fund an Agency program to aid reformers?"
    "I'd like you to help me find out."
    "Why?"
    He looked at me. "I need a bad cop. And we may get a lead about
    Murakami."
    "Nothing from the guy you took into custody?"
    He shook his head. "The problem is that he is much more afraid of his
    boss than he is of me. But I've always been impressed by how much a
    man's attitudes will change at between forty-eight and seventy-two
    hours of sleep deprivation. We may learn something yet."
    He took out his cell phone and input a number. Asked a few questions.
    Listened. Issued instructions. Then he said, "So da. So da. So."
    That's right. That's right. Yes.
    He hung up and turned to me. "One of my men is on his way to pick us
    up now. He will take us to Tanaka's residence, which is in
    Shirokanedai."
    Shirokanedai is arguably Tokyo's poshest neighborhood. Apart from the
    main artery of Meguro-dori, which runs through it, its narrow streets
    of elegant single-family homes and apartments are astonishingly hushed
    and peaceful, as though the neighborhood's money has managed to buy off
    the tumult of the surrounding city and send it somewhere else. There's
    a sort of relaxed class about the place. Its women, known locally as
    shiroganeze, look at home in their furs as they promenade their toy
    poodles and Pomeranians between visits to tea shops and boutiques and
    salons; its men, secure behind the wheels of the Beemers and Benzes
    that carry them to their high-powered jobs; its children, relaxed,
    carefree, not yet even aware that their neighborhood is the exception
    to life in Tokyo and elsewhere, not the rule.
    Tatsu's man picked us up as promised and drove us the ten minutes to
    Shirokanedai.
    Tanaka lived in an oversized, two-story detached house in Shirokanedai
    4-chome, across from the Sri Lankan embassy. Its most distinguishing
    characteristics, aside from its size, were the cars parked in its
    driveway: a white Porsche 911 GT with a massive spoiler, and a bright
    red Ferrari Modena. Each was spotless and gleaming and I wondered
    whether Tanaka actually drove them or merely exhibited them as
    trophies.
    The property was gated and sat on an elevated plot of land that gave it
    the feel of a castle keep looking out upon the lesser dwellings around
    it. Tatsu and I got out and went through the gate, which was unlocked.
    He pressed a button next to the double wooden doors and I heard a long
    series of baritone chimes from within.
    A moment later a young woman answered the door. She was pretty and
    looked Southeast Asian, maybe Filipina, and was dressed in a classic
    black-and-white maid's uniform, complete with some sort of white lace
    cap atop her upturned coiffure. The getup was just this side of what