Hard Rain

on. I saw Naomi hand some bills to the driver, who returned
    change. The door swung wide and she stepped out. She was wearing a
    black, thigh-length coat, light wool or cashmere, and she pulled it
    close around her. The door shut and the cab sped away.
    She opened the umbrella and started toward the entrance. I stepped
    from under the awning. "Naomi," I said quietly.
    She spun around and I heard her inhale sharply. "What the hell?" she
    exclaimed in her Portuguese-accented English.
    I raised my hands, palms forward. "I just want to talk to you."
    She looked over her shoulder for a moment, perhaps gauging the distance
    to her door, then turned back to me, apparently reassured. "I don't
    want to talk to you." She emphasized the first and last words of the
    sentence, her accent thickening somewhat in her agitation.
    "You don't have to if you don't want to. I'm just asking, that's
    all."
    She looked around again. She had good danger instincts. Most people,
    perceiving a threat, give it their full focus. That makes them easy
    prey if the 'threat' was just a feint and the real ambush comes from
    the flank.
    "How do you know where I live?" she asked.
    "I looked it up on the Internet."
    "Really? You think with this kind of job I'd just list my address?"
    I shrugged. "You gave me your e-mail address. With a little
    information to start with, you'd be surprised what you can find out'
    Her eyes narrowed. "Are you a stalker?"
    I shook my head. "No."
    It was starting to rain harder. I realized that, some physical
    discomfort aside, the weather hadn't been such bad luck. She was dry
    and poised under her umbrella; I was wet and almost shivering. The
    contrast would help her feel more in control.
    "Am I in trouble?" she asked.
    That surprised me. "What kind of trouble?"
    "I didn't do anything wrong. I'm not involved with anything, I'm just
    a dancer, okay?"
    I didn't know where she was going, but I didn't want to stop her.
    "You're not involved?" I parroted.
    "I'm not involved! And I don't want to be. I mind my own business."
    "You're not in trouble, at least not with me. I really just want to
    talk with you."
    "Give me one good reason why."
    "Because you trust me."
    Her expression was caught between amused and incredulous. "I trust
    you?"
    I nodded. "You warned me about the listening devices in the club."
    She closed her eyes for a moment. "Jesus Christ, I knew I was going to
    regret that."
    "But you knew you would regret it more if you had said nothing."
    She was shaking her head slowly, deliberately. I knew what she was
    thinking: I do this guy a favor, now I can't get rid of him. And he's
    trouble, trouble I don't want.
    I pushed dripping hair back from my forehead. "Can we go someplace?"
    She looked left, then right. The street was empty.
    "All right," she said. "Let's get a taxi. I know a place that's open
    late. We can talk there."
    We found a cab. I got in first and she slid in behind me. She told
    the driver to take us to 3-3-5 Shibuya-ku, south side of Roppongi-dori.
    I smiled.
    "Tantra?" I asked.
    She looked at me, perhaps a little nonplussed. "You know it?"
    "It's been around for a long time. Good place."
    "I didn't think you'd know it. You're a little ... older."
    I laughed. If she'd been trying to get a rise out of me, she had
    missed the mark. I'm never going to be sensitive about my age. Most
    of the people I knew when I was younger are already dead. That I'm
    still breathing is actually a point of pride.
    "Tantra is like sex," I told her, smiling a little indulgently. "Every
    generation thinks it's the one that discovered it."
    She looked away and we drove in silence. I would have preferred to
    have the cab take us someplace within walking distance rather than to
    the actual address, per my usual practice. Given the overall
    circumstances of the evening, though, I judged the likelihood of a
    problem stemming from Naomi's lack of security consciousness to be
    manageably low.
    A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a nondescript office
    building. I paid the driver and we got out. The rain had stopped but
    the street was empty, almost forlorn. If I hadn't known where we were,
    I would have thought it an odd place to get out of a cab in the middle
    of the night.
    Behind us, a dimly lit'T' glowed softly above a basement stairwell, the
    only external sign of Tantra's existence. We moved down the steps,
    through a pair of imposing metal doors, and into a candlelit foyer that
    led like a short tunnel to the seating