Rainfall

consciously injecting some warmth into my grip. “You were all wonderful. Mama told me before the performance that you were all going to be stars, and I can see that she was right.”

    Maybe he knew I was soft-soaping him, but he must have felt too good after the performance to care. Or his personality was different in English. Either way, he gave me a small but genuine-looking smile and said, “Thank you for mentioning that. Call me Ken.”

    “And call me Midori,” Midori cut in. “Now let’s go, before I starve!”

    During the ten-minute walk to
Za Ribingu Baa
, as the locals called it, we all chatted about jazz and how we had discovered it for ourselves. Although I was ten years older than the oldest of them, philosophically we were all purists of the Charlie Parker/Bill Evans/Miles Davis school, and conversation was easy enough.

    Periodically I was able to glance behind us as we turned corners. On several of these occasions I spotted Mr. Bland in tow. I didn’t expect him to move while Midori was with all these people, if that’s what he had in mind.

    Unless they were desperate, of course, in which case they would take chances, maybe even move sloppily. My ears were intensely focused on the sounds behind us as we walked.

    The Living Bar announced its existence in the basement of the Scène Akira building with a discreet sign over the stairs. We walked down and into the entranceway, where we were greeted by a young Japanese man with a stylish brush cut and a well-tailored navy suit with three of its four buttons fastened. Midori, very much the leader of the group, told him we wanted a table for four; he answered “
Kashikomarimashita”
in the most polite Japanese and murmured into a small microphone next to the register. By the time he had escorted us inside, a table had been prepared and a waitress was waiting to seat us.

    The crowd wasn’t too dense for a Saturday night. Several groups of glamorous-looking women were sitting in high-backed chairs at the black varnished tables, wearing expertly applied makeup and Chanel like it was made for them, their cheekbones in sharp relief in the subdued glow of the overhead incandescent illumination, their hair catching the light. Midori put them to shame.

    I wanted the seat facing the entrance, but Tom moved too quickly and took it himself. I was left facing the bar.

    As we ordered drinks and enough small appetizers to make for a reasonable meal, I saw the man who had escorted us inside walk Mr. Bland over to the bar. Mr. Bland sat with his back to us, but there was a mirror behind the bar, and I knew he had a good view of the room.

    While we waited for our order to arrive, we continued our safe, comfortable conversation about jazz. Several times I considered the merits of removing Mr. Bland. He was part of a numerically superior enemy. If an opportunity presented itself to reduce that number by one, I would take it. If I did it right, his employers would never know of my involvement, and taking him out could buy me more time to get Midori out of this.

    At some point, after much of the food had been consumed and we, along with Mr. Bland, were on our second round of drinks, one of them asked me what I did for a living.

    “I’m a consultant,” I told them. “I advise foreign companies on how to bring their goods and services into the Japanese market.”

    “That’s good,” Tom said. “It’s too hard for foreigners to do business in Japan. Even today, liberalization is just cosmetic. In many ways it’s the same Japan as during the Tokugawa
bakufu
, closed to the outside world.”

    “Yes, but that’s good for John’s business,” Ken added. “Isn’t it, John? Because, if Japan didn’t have so many stupid regulations, if the ministries that inspect incoming food and products weren’t so corrupt, you would need to find a different job,
ne
?”

    “C’mon, Ken,” Midori said. “We know how cynical you are. You don’t have to prove it.”

    I wondered if Ken might have had too much to drink.

    “You used to be cynical, too,” he went on. He turned to me. “When Midori came back from Julliard in New York, she was a radical. She wanted to change everything about Japan. But I guess not anymore.”

    “I still want to change things,” Midori said, her voice warm but firm. “It’s just that I don’t think a lot of angry slogans will make any difference. You have to be patient, you have to pick your battles.”

    “Which ones have