Rainfall

me I was able to see a squat and ugly Japanese man standing about five meters back and to the left. He had a nose that looked like a U-turn — it must have been broken so many times he gave up having it set. He was watching the scene in the foyer, and seemed uncertain of what to do. Something about his posture, his appearance, told me he wasn’t a civilian. Probably he was with the three on the floor.

    I steered Midori to the right, keeping clear of the flat-nosed guy’s position. “How could you know . . . how could you know that there were men in my apartment?” she asked. “How did you know what was happening?”

    “I just knew, okay?” I said, turning my head, searching for danger, as we walked. “Midori, if I were with these people, what would I gain from this charade? They had you exactly where they wanted you. Please, let me help you. I don’t want to see you get hurt. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

    I saw the flat-nosed guy go inside as we moved away from the scene, I assumed to help his fallen comrades.

    If they had been planning to take her somewhere, they would have had a car. I looked around, but there were too many vehicles parked in the area for me to be able to pinpoint theirs.

    “Did they say where they were going to take you?” I asked. “Who they were with?”

    “No,” she said. “I told you, they only said they were with the police.”

    “Okay, I understand.” Where the hell was their car? There might have been more of them.
All right, go, just keep on walking, they’ll have to show themselves if they want to take you
.

    We cut across the dark parking lot of the building across from hers, emerging onto Omotesando-dori, where we caught a cab. I told the driver to take us to the Seibu Department Store in Shibuya. I checked the side views as we drove. There were few cars on the road, and none seemed to be trying to tail us.

    What I had in mind was a love hotel. The love hotel is a Japanese institution, born of the country’s housing shortage. With families, sometimes extended ones, jammed into small apartments, Mom and Dad need to have somewhere to go to be alone. Hence the
rabu hoteru
— places with rates for either a “rest” or a “stay,” famously discreet front desk, no credit card required for registration, and fake names the norm. Some of them are completely over-the-top, with theme rooms sporting Roman baths and Americana settings, like what you’d get if you turned the Disney Epcot Center into a bordello.

    Beyond Japan’s housing shortage, the hotels arose because inviting a stranger into your home tends to be a much more intimate act in Japan than it is in the States. There are plenty of Japanese women who will allow a man into their bodies before permitting him to enter their apartments, and the hotels serve this aspect of the market, as well.

    The people we were up against weren’t stupid, of course. They might guess that a love hotel would make an expedient safe house. That would be my guess, if the tables were turned. But with about ten thousand
rabu hoteru
in Tokyo, it would still take them awhile to track us down.

    We got out of the cab and walked to Shibuya 2-chome, which is choked with small love hotels. I chose one at random, where we told the old woman standing inside at the front desk that we wanted a room with a bath, for a
yasumi
— a stay, not just a rest. I put cash on the counter and she reached underneath, then handed us a key.

    We took the elevator to the fifth floor, and found our room at the end of a short hallway. I unlocked the door and Midori went in first. I followed her in, locking the door behind me. We left our shoes in the entranceway. There was only one bed — twins in a love hotel would be as out of place as a Bible — but there was a decent-sized couch in the room that I could curl up on.

    Midori sat down on the edge of the bed and faced me. “Here’s where we are,” she said, her voice even. “Tonight three men were waiting for me in my apartment. They claimed to be police, but obviously weren’t — or, if they were police, they were on some kind of private mission. I’d think you were with them, but I saw how badly you hurt them. You asked me to go somewhere safe with you so you could explain. I’m listening.”

    I nodded, trying to find the right words to begin. “You know this has to do with your father.”

    “Those men told me he had something they wanted.”

    “Yes, and they think you