Rainfall

solve this mystery, I would take the risk.

    I told him what I had seen at Alfie and afterward, of following the stranger to the apartment in Daikanyama.

    He shook his head. “What are the chances that you would run into Kawamura’s daughter like that? Unbelievable.”

    I looked at him closely, not sure that he believed me. “
Seken wa semai yo
,” I said. It’s a small world.

    “Or it could be karma,” he said, his face unreadable.

    Christ, how much does this kid know?
“I didn’t know you believed in karma, Harry.”

    He shrugged. “You think there’s a connection with the break-in at Kawamura’s apartment?”

    “Could be. The guy on the train was looking for something on Kawamura. Couldn’t find it. So he breaks into Kawamura’s apartment. Still can’t find it. Now he thinks the daughter has it, I guess because she would have her father’s things.”

    The waitress brought us the two
yuzukiri
. Without a sound she knelt on the
tatami
, placed each dish on the table, slightly repositioned them in accordance with some strict mental framework, stood, bowed, and departed.

    When we were done eating, Harry leaned back against the wall and belched long and low. “It was good,” he admitted.

    “I know.”

    “I want to ask you a question,” he said. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

    “Okay.”

    “What’s your angle on this? Why are you looking so hard? It’s not like you.”

    I thought about telling him that I was doing it for a client, but I knew he wouldn’t buy that.

    “Some of what’s been happening doesn’t jibe with what the client told me,” I said. “That makes me uncomfortable.”

    “This uncomfortable?”

    I could see he was in a relentless mood today. “It reminds me of something that happened to me a long time ago,” I said, telling him the truth. “Something I want to make sure never happens again. Let’s leave it at that for now.”

    He held up his hands for a moment, palms forward in a gesture of supplication, then leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. “Okay, the guy you followed, we can assume he lives in the apartment building. A good number of foreigners live in Daikanyama, but I can’t imagine there are more than a dozen or so in that one building. So we’re already in decent shape.”

    “Good.”

    “The mama-san said he told her he was a reporter?”

    “She did, but that doesn’t mean much. I think he showed her a card, but it could have been fake.”

    “Maybe, but it’s a start. I’ll try to cross-check the foreigners I find at that apartment address against the declarations kept at the Nyukan, see if any of the people I identify are with the media.” The Nyukan, or Nyukokukanrikyoku, is Japan’s immigration bureau, part of the Ministry of Justice.

    “Do that. And while you’re at it, see if you can get me the girl’s home address. I tried one-zero-four, but it’s unlisted.”

    He scratched his cheek and looked down, as though trying to hide a smile.

    “What,” I said.

    He looked up. “You like her.”

    “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Harry . . .”

    “You thought she was going to open up for you, and instead she blew you off. Now it’s a challenge. You want another chance.”

    “Harry, you’re dreaming.”

    “Is she pretty? Just tell me that.”

    “I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.”

    “So she’s pretty. You like her.”

    “You’ve been reading too many
manga
,” I said, referring to the thick, often lascivious pulp comic books that are so popular in Japan.

    “Okay, sure,” he said, and I thought,
Christ, he really does read that shit. I’ve hurt his feelings
.

    “C’mon, Harry, I need your help to get to the bottom of this. That guy on the train was expecting Kawamura to be carrying something, which is why he patted him down. He didn’t find it, though — otherwise, he wouldn’t have been asking Midori questions. Now you tell me: Who currently has possession of all of Kawamura’s belongings, including the clothes he was wearing and personal effects he was carrying when he died?”

    “Midori, most likely,” he allowed with a small shrug.

    “Right. She’s still the best lead we’ve got. Get me the information, and we’ll go from there.”

    We talked about other matters for the duration of our lunch. I didn’t tell him about the CD. He’d already leaped to enough conclusions.

7

    THE NEXT DAY I got a page from Harry, who used a preset