RainStorm

opportunities. And you
    know what they say about opportunity, buddy. It only knocks once."
    We were silent again for a moment. I asked, "Why'd they
    send you?"
    He reached down and rubbed his knee. "You know why. We
    know each other, they figure you trust me." He smiled. "Don't you?"
    "Sure," I told him. "Completely."
    "Well, that's it," he went on, pretending he was too slow to understand
    sarcasm. "Plus, I figure they want you to hear from me
    that what they've got in mind is real, get you interested that way.
    I'm like a customer reference, you know what I mean?"
    "Sure," I said again.
    "Okay, so here's the score. I've been doing some work for Uncle
    Sam, deniable shit, off the books. High risk, high 'they'll fuck
    you in the end' potential, but lucrative."
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah. They thought you might be interested. But contacting
    you wasn't my idea, by the way. I didn't even know you were still
    around, man. A lot of people we knew in 'Stan, they're not breathing
    so much these days."
    "Whose idea, then?"
    "Look, there's a program. Something new, something big.
    They're hiring people like me and you, paying good money, is
    what I'm saying."
    "Dox, do you know what a 'pronoun' is?"
    He frowned. Then his face brightened. "Ah, I know what you
    mean. I keep saying 'they' and shit like that. Not telling you who
    really."
    I looked at him and waited.
    He smiled and shook his head. "C'mon, man, you know who
    'they' is. Christians In Action." He shivered in mock excitement.
    "The Company."
    "Right."
    "They've got some sort of new mandate. You should hear it
    from them."
    "I'd like to hear it from you first."
    "Hey, I don't have all the details. And I can't give you the
    specifics about what I've been up to. I'll just tell you that they're
    paying me a lot of money to make certain people who are causing
    problems stop causing problems. They want to make the same offer
    to you."
    "Through your handler?"
    He nodded. "I've got a number for you to call."
    I wrote the number down in code, then left him there and made
    my way back to Naomi's apartment. The move was predictable, and
    I took extensive precautions. The caution was mostly reflex, though.
    If they'd wanted to kill me, they wouldn't have sent someone I
    knew to contact me first. They would have known that doing so
    would only tune up my alertness, possibly even convince me to run.
    No, I had a feeling Dox's story was straight. But no sense being
    sloppy, regardless.
    I thought on the way to Naomi's about what Dox had told me.
    The Agency must have connected the bodies outside Naomi's
    Tokyo apartment with the contemporaneous death of Yukiko, the
    ice bitch who had set up and then disposed of Harry after the yakuza had used him to find me. They knew, despite the absence of
    real proof, that I'd been involved in all those killings. They knew
    that Naomi and Yukiko had both been dancers at the same No-gizaka
    club. It wouldn't be too great a leap to deduce, from the
    pieces they had, a connection between Naomi and me.
    I used the intercom at the front entrance. Naomi was surprised that I was back, but she buzzed me in. I took the stairs. She was
    waiting, holding the door open for me.
    I went in. The room smelled of brewing coffee. Her hair hung
    wet against the shoulders of a white terrycloth robe--she had just
    gotten up and out of the shower, it seemed.
    "Someone was following me this morning," I told her.
    "Following you?" she asked.
    "Yeah. Not in a good way."
    "A mugger?"
    "Not a mugger. A pro. Someone who knew just where to go."
    She looked at me, her expression more frightened than confused.
    "Tell me what's going on, Naomi."
    There was a long pause, then she said, "I didn't tell them anything."
    "Tell who?"
    "I don't know exactly. They call every month or so. It started when I came back to Brazil from Tokyo. Someone came to Sce-narium
    and started asking me about you."
    "Describe him."
    "He called himself Kanematsu. American, but ethnic Japanese.
    He had slicked hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Thirtyish, I think,
    but younger-looking. He told me he was with the U.S. government
    and that he was a friend of yours but wouldn't say more than that."
    Kanezaki again, operating under a pseudonym. "What did you
    tell him?" I asked.
    She looked at me, her expression an odd mixture of vulnerability
    and defiance. "I told him I knew you, yes, but that I didn't
    know where you were or how to find you."
    If that was true, it was also smart. If she'd denied even knowing
    me they