RainStorm

would have known she was lying. They would have assumed
    the rest was a lie, too, and might have started to pressure her.
    "And after that?"
    She shrugged. "I get a call once a month or so. Always from the
    same guy. And I always tell him the same thing."
    I nodded, considering. "What did they offer you?" I asked.
    She looked down, then back at me. "Twenty-five thousand U.S."
    "Just for putting them in touch with me?"
    She nodded.
    "Well, it's good to be appreciated," I said. "Did the guy you met
    leave you any way of contacting him?"
    She got up and walked into her bedroom. I heard a drawer open,
    then close. She came back and wordlessly handed me a card. It included
    an e-mail address and a phone number. The latter had a
    Tokyo prefix. It was the same number I had just gotten from Dox.
    "Twenty-five thousand is a lot of money," I said, flipping the
    card around in my fingers.
    She stared at me.
    "You were never tempted to take it?" I asked.
    Her eyes narrowed. "No."
    "Not even with everything you've invested in the restaurant?
    That kind of cash would be a big help."
    "You think I'm going to give you up?" she asked, her voice rising.
    "For money?"
    I shrugged. "You never told me about any of this. Until I
    pressed you."
    "I was afraid to tell you."
    "And you kept the card. A keepsake? Souvenir?"
    There was a pause. She said, "Fuck you, then."
    I told myself that I should have seen this coming.
    I told myself that it was all right, that I wasn't disappointed, that
    it was better this way.
    I wondered in a detached way whether it was all part of some
    cosmic punishment for Crazy Jake, the blood brother I had killed in Vietnam. Or perhaps for the other things I've done. To be periodically tantalized by the hope of something real, something
    good, always knowing at the same time that it was all going to turn
    to dust.
    Maybe she didn't say anything. Maybe they nailed you some other way.
    Then why didn't she say anything to you? And why did she keep
    that card?
    I had convinced myself that, in Rio, I had become safe enough
    to see her. I realized now that I'd been wrong. The disease I carried
    was still communicable.
    And still potentially fatal. Because, even if I could trust her to
    stay quiet, the Agency was watching her. She had become a focal
    point, a nexus, just like Harry had been. And Harry had wound up
    dead. I didn't want that to happen to her.
    Well, now for the hard part. You don't have to like it, a boot camp
    instructor had once told me. You just have to do it.
    I looked at her for a long moment. Her eyes were angry, but I
    saw hope in them, too. Hope that I would put my arms around her
    and pull her close, apologize, say I'd just been startled, that I'd been
    out of line.
    I got up and looked into those beautiful green eyes, now widening
    with surprise, with hurt. I wondered if she could see the sadness
    in mine.
    "Goodbye, Naomi," I said.
    I left. I told myself again that I wasn't disappointed, that I wasn't
    even terribly surprised. I learned a long time ago not to trust, that
    faith is to life what sticking your chin out is to boxing. I told myself
    it was good to get some further confirmation of the essential
    accuracy of my worldview.
    I took extra precautions to ensure I wasn't being followed. Then
    I went to a quiet beach near Grumari and sat alone and looked out
    at the water.
    Don't blame Naomi, I thought. Anyone would have given you up.
    Not Midori, was the reply. And then I thought, No, you're just trying
    to turn her into something too good to be true, something impossible.
    But maybe she really was that good, and now I was just trying
    to dampen it, debase it, cheapen the consequence of what I'd lost.
    I guess you can never really know, I thought. But then how do you
    decide?
    Doesn't matter how it gets decided. Just that you do the deciding.
    I shook my head in wonder. Midori was still throwing me off,
    all these months later and half a world away. Making me doubt myself,
    my judgments.
    What does that tell you?
    That one I didn't answer. I already knew.
    I sat and thought for a long time. About my life in Rio. About
    how Naomi had come into it, and how she was then suddenly
    gone. About what I ought to do now.
    A breeze kicked up along the sand. I felt empty. The breeze
    might have been blowing straight through me.
    I supposed I could just leave it all behind me. Bolt for the exit
    again, go somewhere new, invent another Yamada.
    I shook my head, knowing I wasn't ready for that, not so