Rainfall

off. “Let me see your hands. Palms forward, up in the air.” I didn’t really think he was going to try to just shoot me, but I wasn’t going to give him the chance, either.

    “I should ask the same thing of you.”

    “Just do it.” He hesitated, then leaned back and raised his hands. “Now lace your fingers and put your hands on the back of your neck. Then turn around and look out the driver-side window.”

    “Oh, come on, Rain. . . ,” he started to say.

    “Do it. Or I’m gone.” He glared at me for a second and then complied.

    I slid in next to him and gave the driver the business card with the Ikebukuro address, telling him to drive us there. It didn’t matter where he took us. I just didn’t want to say anything out loud. Then I squeezed Holtzer’s laced fingers together with my left hand while I patted him down with my right. After a minute I moved away from him, satisfied that he wasn’t carrying a weapon. But that was only half my worry.

    “I hope you’re happy now,” he said. “Do you mind telling me where we’re going?”

    I thought he might ask. “You wearing a wire, Holtzer?” I said, watching his eyes. He didn’t answer.
Where would it be
? I thought. I hadn’t felt anything under his shirt.

    “Take off your belt,” I told him.

    “Like hell, Rain. This is going too far.”

    “Take it off, Holtzer. I’m not playing games with you. I’m about halfway to deciding that the way to solve all my problems is just to break your neck right here.”

    “Go ahead and try.”

    “
Sayonara
, asshole.” I leaned toward the driver. “
Tomatte kudasai
.” Stop here.

    “Okay, okay, you win,” he said, raising his hands as if in surrender. “There’s a transmitter in the belt. It’s just a precaution. After Benny’s unfortunate accident.”

    Was he telling me not to worry, that Benny didn’t even matter? “
Iya, sumimasen
,” I said to the driver. “
Itte kudasai
.” Sorry. Keep going.

    “Good to see that you’ve still got the same high regard for your people,” I said to Holtzer. “Give me the belt.”

    “Benny wasn’t my people,” he said, shaking his head at my obvious obtuseness. “He was fucking us just like he tried to fuck you.” He slipped off the belt and handed it to me. I held it up. Sure enough, there was a tiny microphone under the buckle.

    “Where’s the battery?” I asked.

    “The buckle is the battery. Nickel hydride.”

    I nodded, impressed. “You guys do nice work.” I rolled down the window and pitched the belt out into the street.

    He lunged for it, a second late. “Goddamnit, Rain, you didn’t have to do that. You could have just disabled it.”

    “Let me see your shoes.”

    “Not if you’re planning on throwing them out the window.”

    “I will if they’re wired. Take them off.” He handed them over. They were black loafers — soft leather and rubber soles. No place for a microphone. The insides were warm and damp from perspiration, which indicated that he’d been wearing them for a while, and there were indentations from his toes. Obviously not something that the lab boys put together for a special occasion. I gave them back.

    “All right?” he asked.

    “Say what you’ve got to say,” I told him. “I don’t have much time.”

    He sighed. “The incident outside your apartment was a mistake. It never should have happened, and I want to personally apologize.”

    It was disgusting, how sincere he could sound. “I’m listening.”

    “I’m going out on a limb here, Rain,” he said in a low voice. “What I’m about to tell you is classified . . .”

    “It better be classified. If all you’ve got to tell me is what I can read in the paper, then you’re wasting my time.”

    He scowled. “For the last five years, we’ve been developing an asset in the Japanese government. An insider, someone with access to everything. Someone who knows where all the bodies are buried — and I’m not just being figurative here.”

    If he was hoping for a reaction, he didn’t get one, and he went on. “We’ve gotten more and more from this guy over time, but never anything that went beyond deep background. Never anything we could use as leverage. You following me?”

    I nodded. Leverage in the business means blackmail.

    “It’s like a Catholic schoolgirl, you know? She keeps saying no, you’ve just got to find another way, because hey, in the end, you know she wants it.” He grinned, the fleshy