Rainfall

my bona fides.”

    He made no move to sit. “You could have learned most of that without Midori telling you, and filled in the gaps by educated guessing — especially if you were the one following me.”

    I shrugged. “And then I imitated her voice and called you an hour ago?”

    He hesitated, then walked over and sat, his back straight and his hands on the table. “All right. What can you tell me?”

    “I was going to ask you the same question.”

    “Look, I’m a reporter. I write stories. Do you have information for me?”

    “I need to know what’s on that disk.”

    “You keep talking about a disk.”

    “Mr. Bulfinch,” I said, focusing for an instant on the street, which was still empty, “the people who want that disk think that Midori has it, and they are more than willing to kill her to retrieve it. Your meeting her at Alfie while you were being watched is probably what put her in the danger she’s in. So let’s stop fucking around, okay?”

    He took off his glasses and sighed. “Assuming for a moment there is a disk, I don’t see how knowledge of what’s on it would help Midori.”

    “You’re a reporter. I assume you would be interested in publishing the hypothetical disk’s contents?”

    “You could assume that, yes.”

    “And I would also assume that certain people would want to prevent that publication?”

    “That would also be a safe assumption.”

    “Okay, then. It’s the threat of publication that’s making these people target Midori. Once the contents of the disk are published, Midori would no longer be a threat, is that right?”

    “What you’re saying makes sense.”

    “Then it seems we want the same thing. We both want the contents of the disk published.”

    He shifted in his seat. “I see your point. But I’m not going to be comfortable talking about this unless I see Midori.”

    I considered for a moment. “Are you carrying a cell phone?”

    “Yes.”

    “Show it to me.”

    He reached into the left side of the blazer and withdrew a small flip-top unit.

    “That’s fine,” I said. “Go ahead and put it back in your pocket.” As he did so, I pulled out a pen and small sheet of paper from my own jacket pocket and started jotting down instructions. My gut told me he wasn’t wired, but no one’s gut is infallible.

    “Until I say otherwise, under no circumstances do I want to see you reaching for that phone,” my note read. “We’ll walk out of the restaurant together. When we step outside, stop so I can pat you down for weapons. After that, go where I motion you to go. At some point I’ll let you know that I want you to start walking ahead, and at some point I’ll tell you where we’re going. If you have questions now, write them down. If you don’t, just hand back this note. Starting now, do not say a word unless I speak first.”

    I extended the note to him. He took it with one hand while slipping on his glasses with the other. When he was done reading, he pushed it across the table to me and nodded.

    I folded the note up and put it back in my jacket pocket, followed by the pen. Then I placed a thousand-yen note on the table to cover the coffee I had been drinking and motioned him to leave.

    We got up and walked outside. I patted him down and was unsurprised to find that he was clean. As we moved down the street I was careful to keep him slightly in front of me and to the side, a human shield if it came to that. I knew every good spot in the area for surveillance or an ambush, and my head swept back and forth, looking for someone out of place, someone who might have followed Bulfinch to the restaurant and then set up to wait outside it.

    As we walked I called out “left” or “right” from behind him by way of directions, and we made our way to the Spiral Building. We walked through the glass doors and into the music section, where Midori was waiting.

    “Kawamura-san,” he said, bowing, when he saw her. “Thank you for your call.”

    “Thank you for coming to meet me,” Midori replied. “I’m afraid I wasn’t completely candid with you when we met for coffee. I’m not as ignorant of my father’s affiliations as I led you to believe. But I don’t know anything about the disk you mentioned. No more than you told me, anyway.”

    “I’m not sure what I can do for you, then,” he said.

    “Tell us what’s on the disk,” I replied.

    “I don’t see how that would help you.”

    “I don’t see how it could