Rainfall

you’re giving it to me? The people who want it would have paid you for it. Quite a lot, you know.”

    “I want you to understand something,” I said. “If you were to fail to publish what’s on that disk, your failure might cost Midori her life. If that were to happen, I would find you, and I would kill you.”

    “I believe you.”

    I looked at him a moment longer, then reached into my breast pocket and took out the disk. I handed it to him and walked back to the station.

    I ran an SDR to Shinbashi, thinking about Tatsu on the way. Until the contents of the disk were published, it wasn’t just Midori who was in danger, I knew; it was also Tatsu. And while Tatsu was no soft target, he wasn’t bulletproof, either. It had been a lot of years since I had seen him, but we had covered each other’s backs once. I owed him a heads-up at least.

    I called the Keisatsucho from a pay phone at Shinbashi Station. “Do you know who this is?” I asked in English after they had put me through to him.

    There was a long pause. “
Ei, hisashiburi desu ne
.” Yes, it’s been a long time. Then he switched to English — a good sign, because it meant he didn’t want the people around him to understand. “Do you know that the Keisatsucho found two bodies in Sengoku? One of them had been carrying a cane. Your fingerprints were on it. I’ve wondered from time to time whether you were still in Tokyo.”

    Damn,
I thought,
must have grabbed the cane at some point without even realizing it.
My fingerprints were on file from the time I returned to Japan after the war — I was technically a foreigner, and all foreigners in Japan get fingerprinted.

    “We tried to locate you,” he went on, “but you seemed to have vanished. So I think I understand why you’re calling, but there is nothing I can do for you. The best thing you can do now is to come to the Keisatsucho. If you do, you know I will do everything I can do to help you. You make yourself look guilty by running.”

    “That’s why I’m calling, Tatsu. I’ve got information about this matter that I want to give to you.”

    “In exchange for what?”

    “For you doing something about it. Listen to what I’m saying, Tatsu. This isn’t about me. If you act on the information I’ve got, I’ll turn myself in afterwards. I’ll have nothing to be afraid of.”

    “Where and when?” he asked.

    “Are we alone on this line?” I asked.

    “Are you suggesting that this line could be tapped?” he asked, and I recognized the old subversive sarcasm in his voice. He was telling me to assume that it was.

    “Okay, good,” I said. “Lobby of the Hotel Okura, next Saturday, noon sharp.” The Okura was a ridiculously public place to meet, and Tatsu would know that I would never seriously suggest it.

    “Ah, that’s a good place,” he answered, telling me he understood. “I’ll see you then.”

    “You know, Tatsu, it sounds crazy, but sometimes I miss the times we had in Vietnam. I miss those useless weekly briefings we used to have to go to — do you remember?”

    The CIA head of the task force that ran the briefings invariably scheduled them for 16:30, leaving him plenty of time afterwards to chase prostitutes through Saigon. Tatsu rightly thought the guy was a joke, and wasn’t shy about pointing it out publicly.

    “Yes, I remember,” he said.

    “For some reason I was especially missing them just now,” I said, getting ready to give him the day to add to the time. “Wished I had one to attend tomorrow, in fact. Isn’t that strange? I’m getting nostalgic in my old age.”

    “That happens.”

    “Yeah, well. It’s been a long time. I’m sorry we lost touch the way we did. Tokyo’s changed so much since I first got here. We had some pretty good times back then, didn’t we? I used to love that one place we used to go to, the one where the mama-san made pottery that she used to serve the drinks in. Remember it? It’s probably not even there anymore.”

    The place was in Ebisu. “It’s gone,” he said, telling me he understood.

    “Well,
shoganai, ne
?” That’s life. “It was a good place. I think of it sometimes.”

    “I strongly advise you to come in. If you do, I promise to do everything I can to help.”

    “I’ll think about it. Thanks for the advice.” I hung up then, my hand lingering on the receiver, willing him to understand my cryptic message. I didn’t know what I was going to do if he didn’t.

21

    THE PLACE