Hard Rain

spits out have no knowledge regarding the basis of
    my interest. To them, you are simply one of many criminals that the
    Metropolitan Police Force is tracking. And I have taken other steps to
    ensure security, such as coming alone tonight and informing no one of
    my movements."
    This was a dangerous thing for Tatsu to admit. If it were true, I
    could solve pretty much all my problems just by taking out this one
    man. Again, he was showing me that he trusted me, that I could trust
    him in return.
    "You're taking a lot of chances," I said, looking at him.
    "Always," he said, returning my gaze.
    There was a long silence. Then I said, "No women. No children. It
    has to be a man."
    "It is."
    "You can't have involved anyone else in this. You work with me, it's
    an exclusive."
    "Yes."
    "And the target has to be a principal. Taking him out can't just be to
    send a message to someone. It has to accomplish something concrete."
    "It will."
    Having established my three rules, it was now time to apprise him of
    the consequences for breaking them.
    "You know, Tatsu, outside of professional reasons -meaning combat or a
    contract there's only one thing that has ever moved me to kill."
    "Betrayal," he said, to show me that he clearly understood.
    "Yes."
    "Betrayal is not in my nature."
    I laughed, because this was the first time I had ever heard Tatsu say
    something naive. "It's in everyone's nature," I told him.
    We had worked out a system by which we could communicate securely,
    including simple codes and access to a secure electronic bulletin board
    that I continued to maintain for sensitive communications. I had told
    him I would contact him afterward, but now I wondered whether that
    would really be necessary. Tatsu would learn of the jakuza's accident
    from independent sources and know that I had held up my end. Besides,
    the less contact with Tatsu, the better. Sure, we had a history.
    Respect. Even affection. But it was hard to believe that the
    alignment of our interests would last, and, in the end, that alignment,
    or its lack, would be all that mattered. A sad thought, in certain
    respects. There aren't many people in my life, and, now that things
    had turned out all right, I realized I had on some level enjoyed this
    latest encounter with my old friend and nemesis.
    Sad also because it forced me to admit something I had been avoiding: I
    was going to have to leave Japan. I'd been preparing for such a
    contingency, but it was sobering to acknowledge that the time might be
    at hand. If Tatsu knew where to find me, and came to believe that I'd
    gotten back in the game in a way that was inhibiting his life's work of
    fighting corruption in Japan, it would be too easy for him to have me
    picked up. Conversely, if I agreed to play by his rules, it would be
    too easy for him to drop in periodically and ask for a 'favor." Either
    way, he'd be running me, and I've lived that life already. I didn't
    want to do it again.
    My pager buzzed. I checked it, saw a five-digit sequence that told me
    it was Harry, that he wanted me to call him.
    I finished eating and motioned to the waiter that I was ready for the
    check. I looked around the restaurant one last time. The office party
    had broken up. The Americans remained, the white noise of their
    conversation warm and enthusiastic. The couple was still there, the
    young man's posture steadfastly earnest, the girl continuing to parry
    with quiet laughter.
    It felt good to be back in Tokyo. I didn't want to leave.
    I walked out of the restaurant, pausing to enjoy the feel of
    Nishi-Azabu's cool evening air, my eyes reflexively sweeping the
    street. A few cars passed, but otherwise it was as quiet as the Aoyama
    cemetery, brooding and dark, silently beckoning, across from where I
    stood.
    I looked again at the stone steps and imagined myself traversing them.
    Then I turned left and continued the counterclockwise semicircle I had
    started earlier that evening.
    Three.
    I called Harry from a public phone on Aoyama-dori. "Are you on a
    secure line?" he asked, recognizing my voice.
    "Reasonably secure. Public phone. Out-of-the-way location." The
    location mattered, because governments monitor certain public phones
    the ones near embassies and police stations, for example, and those in
    the lobbies of higher-end hotels, to which the nearby lazy can be
    counted on to repair for their 'private' conversations.
    "You're still in Tokyo," he said. "Calling from a Minami-Aoyama pay
    phone."
    "How do you