Hard Rain

lying."
    Tatsu had a nose for that sort of thing, and I trusted his judgment.
    "I'm surprised you didn't suspect I was involved in some of this," I
    said.
    He paused for a moment before answering. "I might have. But, although
    I don't pretend to understand how you do what you do, I know you. You
    could not kill a child. Not that way."
    "I've told you as much," I said.
    "I am not talking about what you told me. I am talking about what I
    know."
    I felt bizarrely appreciative of his confidence.
    "In any event," he continued, 'some of your movements, as recorded on
    the Osaka security camera network, provided you with an alibi."
    I raised my eyebrows. "Your cameras are good enough to track me, but
    not good enough to spot someone wrapping people in plastic and dumping
    them off roofs?"
    "As I have told you, the networks are far from perfect. I do not have
    control over their operation." He looked at me. "And I am not the
    only one with access."
    I took a last sip of tea and asked a waitress for some more hot water.
    We sat in silence until it had arrived.
    I picked up the delicate china cup and looked at him. "Tell me
    something, Tatsu."
    "Yes."
    "These questions. You already know the answers."
    "Of course."
    "Then why are you asking me?"
    He shrugged. "I believe this man we are dealing with is a sociopath.
    That he is capable of killing under any set of circumstances. I am
    trying to understand how such a creature operates."
    "Through me?"
    He nodded his head once in acknowledgment.
    "I thought you just said I'm not the right model." My tone was more
    forceful than I had intended.
    "You are as close to such a creature as I have known. Which makes you
    ideally suited to hunt him."
    "What do you mean, "hunt him"?"
    "He is careful in his movements. Not an easy man to track. I have
    leads, but they would need to be followed."
    I took another sip of tea, considering. "I don't know, Tatsu."
    "Yes?"
    "The first guy, with the business fronts, okay, he was strategic. I
    understand. But this guy, the dog fighter, he's just muscle. Why
    aren't you going after Yamaoto and the other kingpins?"
    "The "kingpins," as you put it, are difficult to get to. Too many
    bodyguards, too much security, too much visibility. Yamaoto in
    particular has hardened his defenses, I believe out of fear that you
    may be hunting him, and is now as inaccessible as the Prime Minister.
    And even if they could be gotten to, there are many like them in the
    various factions, waiting to take their places. They are like shark's
    teeth. Knock one out, and there are ten rows waiting to fill in the
    gap. After all, to be a kingpin is not so hard. What does it take?
    Some political acumen. A capacity for rationalization. And greed. Not
    a particularly rare profile."
    He took a sip of his tea. "Besides, this man is no ordinary foot
    soldier. He is ruthless, he is capable, he is feared. An unusual
    individual, whose loss would not be a trivial blow to his masters."
    "All right," I said. "What are you offering me? Given that I'm under
    no obligation."
    "I have no money to offer you. Even if I did, I doubt that I could
    match what Yamaoto and the Agency were paying you previously."
    He might have been trying to get a rise out of me with that. I ignored
    it.
    "I'm sorry to be so blunt, old friend, but you're asking me to take a
    hell of a risk. Just spending time in Tokyo entails risks for me, you
    know that."
    He looked at me. When he spoke, his tone was measured, confident. "It
    would not be like you to assume that your risk from Yamaoto and the CIA
    is confined only to Tokyo," he said.
    I wasn't sure where he was going with that. "It's where the risk is
    most pronounced," I said.
    "I've told you, Yamaoto has felt compelled to live a much more heavily
    defended existence since the last time you saw him. He has curtailed
    his political appearances, he no longer trains at the Kodokan, he
    travels only surrounded by bodyguards. My understanding is that he
    does not enjoy these new restrictions. My understanding, in fact, is
    that he resents them. Most of all, he resents the cause of them."
    "You don't have to tell me Yamaoto has a motive," I said. "I know what
    he'd like to do to me. And it's not just business, either. He's the
    kind of man who would feel humiliated, enraged by how I helped steal
    that disk from him. He's not going to forget that."
    "Yes? And none of this keeps you awake at night?"
    "If I let that kind of shit keep me awake at night, I'd have bags