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I took a cab to Hiro and walked. Tatsu was already sitting at the counter when I came in. He got up, shuffled over, and shook my hand. He was wearing a broad smile and it felt good to be with someone who was so happy to see me. Then I realized he was getting the same smile from me.
It was early enough so that we were able to get a table. We ordered marukyu ramen, prepared with fresh noodles and homemade Hokkaido mozzarella over a miso base, and a couple of Yebisu beers. We made small talk throughout the meal, just as we had discussed, and I was almost alarmed at how much I enjoyed his conversation. Dining with company was becoming addictive.
When we were done with the ramen and lingering over a second beer, I asked, “Is everything all right?”
“ ‘All right’?”
“You said you wanted to talk about something personal. Which, as everyone knows, isn’t like you.”
He smiled. “Everything is fine, thank you.”
“Your family? Your daughters?”
“Everyone is fine, fine. I’m a grandfather now, you know. My eldest daughter.”
“Yes, you mentioned she was pregnant last time we talked. A boy, right?”
He nodded, and for a moment there was no trace of the sadness that I could usually see in his eyes. “A beautiful little boy,” he said, beaming.
I bowed my head. “Congratulations, my friend. I’m happy for you.”
He nodded again. “Anyway. The personal matter isn’t mine. It’s yours.”
I shook my head, not following him.
He reached into a battered briefcase, pulled out a manila envelope, and handed it to me. I reached inside and withdrew a short stack of black-and-white photos. Even before my mind grasped the content, I noted the circumstances: from the slightly blurred background, compressed perspective, and shallow depth of field, I knew the photos were taken from a distance through a telephoto lens.
In them, Midori sat at an outdoor restaurant table in what looked like America, maybe New York. A baby stroller was parked next to her. A Japanese child, not much more than an infant, sat on her lap, facing her. Midori was making a face-pursing her lips and puffing out her cheeks-and the child was reaching for her nose, laughing.
My heart started thudding. It always does, when I pause to really imagine her, to indulge the razor-clear memories of the time we spent together. But seeing a photograph, literally a snapshot of the life she was living a world away, heightened the reaction. I tried not to show it.
“She’s… married?” I asked, warring emotions roiling inside me.
“No. Not married.”
“Then…”
I looked at him. He nodded and smiled, a profound and strangely gentle sympathy in his eyes.
My instincts, so keenly honed for combat, can be almost laughably useless in matters of the heart. The pounding in my chest intensified, my body understanding fully even as my mind struggled to catch up. I looked away, not wanting him to see my face.
I remembered our last night together, in a room at the Park Hyatt in Tokyo nearly two years earlier. We had made love furiously, despite Midori’s new knowledge of who I was and what I had done to her father; despite our understanding that it would be the last time; despite knowing the cost.
I didn’t know what the hell to say. “Oh, my God,” I think is what came out.
I tried to pull myself together, but couldn’t really manage it. Eventually, though, I was able to revert to some sort of operational default. I found myself asking, “Who took the photo? You?”
There was a pause, then he said, “No. It was taken by Yamaoto’s people.”
I looked at him. My expression was neutral again. Thinking of Yamaoto helped me focus. It put me back on familiar ground.
“Why?”
“She is your only known civilian nexus. Yamaoto has people watch her from a distance, from time to time, in case you reappear in her life.”
“Bastard needs a course in anger management.”
“You defeated him twice. First, in intercepting the disk. Second, in dispatching his lieutenant, Murakami. He is a vain man with a long memory.”
“Is she… are they, in danger?”
“I don’t believe so. He is interested in her only as a means to get to you.”
“How did you acquire the photo?”
“A search of one of his affiliates’ belongings.”
“Sanctioned search?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“Then there’s a chance the affiliate doesn’t know the photos are missing.”
“I can assure you he doesn’t. My men downloaded the contents of his digital camera, but otherwise didn’t molest it. He has no way of knowing his belongings were examined. Yamaoto has no way of knowing you have discovered the existence of… your son.”
There was a strange corporeality to those last words. They seemed to linger in the air.
A son, I thought. It made no sense. My father had a son. But not I.
“It’s… he’s a boy?” I asked.
He nodded. “I made some discreet inquiries. She calls him Koichiro. Ko-chan.”
“How do you even know… how can you be sure he’s mine?”
He shrugged. “He looks like you, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t even go there. I felt confused, and realized I was in some kind of mild shock.
“Why did you show me this?” I asked, feeling like I was groping, flailing. I was thinking, Because I had made my adjustment. It was over, she might as well have been dead and gone, I was consoling myself with memories.
Tormenting yourself, you mean.
“Would you have preferred that I hadn’t?” he asked.
“What’s the difference? Even if I wanted to, even if she wanted me to, I couldn’t contact her while Yamaoto is watching.”
I paused and felt a flush of anger. I looked at him and said, “That’s why you told me.”
He shrugged. “Certainly some of my motives were selfish. Some weren’t. You know as well as I do that you need a co
“Right. To get out of the killing business, all I need to do is kill a few more people.”
“It does seem paradoxical when you put it that way. But yes, I believe you have accurately described the heart of the matter.”
I shook my head, trying to understand. “I can’t see them unless I take out Yamaoto first.”
“Yes.”
“And Yamaoto is smart. He understands this dynamic. Which means he’s probably tightened his security as a result.”
“He most certainly has.”
I looked at him. “For Christ’s sake, why don’t you just arrest this fucking guy? What do they pay you for?”
“Yamaoto is a prominent politician, with many protectors, as you know. If I tried to arrest him, I would simply lose my job. He is inaccessible by ordinary means.”
“I don’t even know if she would see me. Why hasn’t she contacted me?”
“Does she have your address?”
“No. But she could have contacted you.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps she is ambivalent. Who wouldn’t be? True, she didn’t contact you. On the other hand, she had your baby. She is the mother of your son.”
“Oh, my God,” I said again. I felt dizzy.
“It’s a strange thing, having a child,” he said. “It completely alters your most fundamental priorities. When my eldest daughter was born, I realized that I would do anything-anything-to protect her. If I had to set myself on fire to save her from something, I would do it with the utmost relief and gratitude. It’s quite a thing, quite a privilege, to care about someone so much that the measure of the worth of your own life is changed by it.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for all that,” I said. I felt like I was outside my body, that someone else was talking.
“Of course you’re not. No one ever is. Because there’s a responsibility that comes with the privilege.” He licked his lips. “When my little son died, there was nothing I could do to save him. All the things I would have done, would have been overjoyed to do, were meaningless. You can’t imagine the impact of knowing that the most precious thing over which you have full control-your own life-is useless as barter or bribe to save the life of your child.”