The Last Assassin

nasai,” with a passable Japanese accent. Good night.
    Midori smiled back and said, “Buenas noches.”
    The woman closed the door behind her.
    We stood there. I heard a clock ticking on the wall.
    “How…how old is he?” I asked, after a moment.
    “Fifteen months.”
    That would be about right. Almost exactly two years since our last night in Tokyo.
    “I heard you call him Koichiro,” I said, remembering my conversation with Tatsu.
    She nodded.
    “It’s a good name.”
    She nodded again.
    I tried to think of something that wouldn’t sound banal. Nothing would come.
    “You’re happy?” I asked.
    Still just a nod.
    “Damn it, Midori, will you at least say something to me?”
    “Your minute is up.”
    I glanced away, then back to her. “You don’t really mean that.”
    “Maybe you forgot. You killed my father.”
    I imagined myself saying, Come on, haven’t we been over all that? I decided it would be the wrong approach.
    “Then why did you have the baby?” I asked.
    She looked at me, her expression frozen in neutral. “When I learned I was pregnant,” she said, “I realized I wanted a baby. The fact that it was your baby was incidental.”
    She was being so hurtful, it occurred to me that maybe it was deliberate. That she was protecting herself from something she was afraid of.
    “Look, I can imagine how you feel…” I started to say.
    “No, you can’t.”
    “I’ve told you, I’m sorry for what happened with your father. But you know I did everything I could to make things right afterward. To carry out his wishes.”
    I thought about adding, And remember, he was dying of lung cancer anyway. At least the way I did it, he didn’t suffer.
    But I had a feeling she might take that as a rationalization. And maybe it was.
    “Well, you didn’t do enough,” she said.
    “This is punishment, then,” I said.
    There was a long pause. She said, “I don’t want you in his life. Or mine.”
    There it was. The very thing, the very words I’d been afraid of. Hanging in the air between us.
    “What are you going to tell him?” I asked. “That his father is dead?”
    It would be a sensible enough lie. But the thought of it horrified me. Because I realized if she said it, in many ways that mattered it would actually be so.
    “I haven’t figured it all out,” she said.
    “Well, maybe you should. Maybe you should think about what something like that would cost him.”
    She laughed harshly, I supposed at my impertinence.
    “Can I ask you a question?” she asked.
    I nodded.
    “When was the last time you killed someone?”
    I tried to think of how to answer. A long moment went by.
    She laughed again. “Don’t you see right there that something’s wrong? How many people have to think about a question like that?”
    I felt myself flush. “You want to know the last time I killed someone? It was about a month ago. And the guy I killed was one of the worst bomb makers in the world. You know what killing him did? It saved who knows how many lives.”
    “I imagine that’s what all killers tell themselves.”
    The anger I’d been trying to contain suddenly burst through. “And that’s what I imagine all yuppie jazz pianists tell themselves, because it makes them feel so fucking superior.”
    She glared at me. Good, I thought. I needed that.
    “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe my problem is rationalization. But yours is denial. You think you can live a squeaky-clean life like this one without someone else getting his hands dirty? Do you really want Koichiro to grow up in a world where no one’s out there trying to cull the same kinds of people who leveled the towers just two miles south of here?”
    We were silent for a moment, glaring at each other, breathing hard.
    “But you’re still killing people,” she said.
    I closed my eyes. “Look, I’ve been trying to change. To do something good. And a lot of that…a lot of that is because of you. And your father.”
    There was another pause. She said, “Maybe you’re right, maybe what you’re doing keeps children like Koichiro safe in their beds at night. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about you. The life you lead and the things you do, it would put Koichiro himself at risk. Can’t you see that?”
    I almost sagged under the weight of her words. After all, hadn’t I needed to find the gaps in Yamaoto’s surveillance just to achieve this single clumsy visit?
    “I know you care about me,” she went