Rainfall

couldn’t go back to the life I’d left behind. I wanted to come back to Asia, because Asia was where my ghosts were least restless, but it was more than just geography. All the things I’d done made sense in war, they were justified by war, I couldn’t live with them outside of war. So I needed to stay at war.”

    Her eyes were pools of darkness. “But you can’t stay at war forever, John.”

    I gave her a wan smile. “A shark can’t stop swimming, or it dies.”

    “You’re not a shark.”

    “I don’t know what I am.” I rubbed my temples with my fingers, trying to work through the images, past and present, that were colliding in my brain. “I don’t know.”

    We were quiet for a while, and I felt a pleasant drowsiness descend. I was going to regret all this. Some lucid part of my mind saw that clearly. But sleep seemed so much more urgent, and anyway what was done was already done.

    I slept, but the pain in my back kept the sleep fitful, and in those moments where consciousness briefly crested I would have doubted everything that had happened if she hadn’t been lying next to me. Then I would slide down into sleep again, there to struggle with ghosts even more personal, more terrible, than those of which I could tell Midori.

PART TWO

When your sword meets that of your enemy, you can never waver, but must instead attack with the complete resolution of your whole body . . .

    — MIYAMOTO MUSASHI,
A Book of Five Rings

14

    THE NEXT MORNING I was sitting with my back to the wall at my favorite vantage point in Las Chicas, waiting for Franklin Bulfinch to show himself.

    It was a crisp, sunny morning, and between the bright light streaming through the windows and the overall hip atmosphere on which Las Chicas prides itself, I felt comfortable in my light-disguise knockoff Oakley shades, which I had picked up en route.

    Midori was safely ensconced in the music section of the nearby Spiral Building on Aoyama-dori, close enough to meet Bulfinch quickly if necessary but far enough to be safe if things got hairy. She had called Bulfinch less than an hour earlier to arrange things. Most likely he was a legitimate reporter and would come to the meeting alone, but I saw no advantage in giving him time to deploy additional forces if I was mistaken.

    Bulfinch was easy to spot as he approached the restaurant, the same tall, thin guy in wireless glasses I had seen on the train. He had a long stride and an erect, confident posture, and again struck me as having an aristocratic air. He was wearing jeans and tennis shoes, dressed up with a blue blazer. He crossed the patio and stepped inside the restaurant proper, pausing to look right, then left, searching for Midori. His eyes passed over me without recognition.

    He wandered back in the direction of the rest room, presumably checking the separate dining space in the back of the building. I knew he’d be back in a moment, and used the time to watch the street a little longer. He’d been followed at Alfie, and it was possible that he was being followed now.

    The street was still empty when Bulfinch returned to the front of the restaurant a minute later. His eyes swept the space again. When they were pointed in my direction, I said quietly, “Mr. Bulfinch.”

    He looked at me for a second before saying, “Do I know you?”

    “I’m a friend of Midori Kawamura. She asked me to come in her stead.”

    “Where is she?”

    “She’s in some danger right now. She needs to take care in her movements.”

    “Is she coming here?”

    “That depends.”

    “On what?”

    “On whether I decide that it’s safe.”

    “Who are you?”

    “As I said, a friend, interested in the same thing you are.”

    “Which is?”

    I looked at him through my shades. “The disk.”

    He paused before saying, “I don’t know about a disk.”

    Right.
“You were expecting Midori’s father to deliver you a disk when he died on the Yamanote three weeks ago. He didn’t have it with him, so you followed up with Midori after her performance at Alfie the following Friday. You met her in the Starbucks on Gaienhigashi-dori, near Almond in Roppongi. That’s where you told her about the disk, because you hoped she might have it. You wouldn’t tell her what’s on the disk because you were afraid doing so would compromise her. Although you had already compromised her by showing up at Alfie, because you were followed. All of which will be sufficient, I hope, to establish