important analysts when I’m not getting drunken Americans out of the Kabukicho tank. This is a good way.”
“It’s none of my business, but no boyfriend, no husband, no-”
“It is none of your business. I have a career. It’s enough for now. Swagger, what are you up to?”
“I have two items of business and I need your help.”
“You are putting me at a terrible disadvantage. My official responsibility is to turn you in, cut a deal with the Japanese, get you out of here before you do some real harm or get yourself in real trouble. I have to do that. It’s nothing personal. You seem like a decent enough guy. But there is such a thing as duty.”
“I know about duty.”
“I know you do. I looked carefully at your record. You left everything in Vietnam. I get it, I respect it, it moves me. But I cannot let you get in trouble and I cannot let you screw things up for our country over here. You understand that?”
“Sure. I understand. But let me just tell you a thing or two. Then you decide what to do.”
“Oh, this should be rich.”
He told her the story, his assumptions and where they’d led him, leaving out only his quiet alliance with the Japanese Self-Defense Force airborne boys. He ended with the motorcycle adventure and the admission of the police officer.
She was silent for a while.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “Maybe he just said that to please you. You’d damned near killed him, you were sitting on his chest like a baboon, you’d technically assaulted him so you’d committed about your twenty-third felony, and since he was Japanese he was used to indirection, politeness, lowered voices, discretion. You probably scared him so much he would have said anything to get you out of his face.”
“Maybe so. But how did he know about the two sword identifiers before I told him? He knew. If nothing else, that proves the sword was valuable and not some piece of war junk. If it was valuable, the whole thing swings into line. You know how nuts these people are about swords. In Dr. Otowa’s office I felt like I was visiting the pope. It’s a religion.”
Again she looked off.
“Look, give me a few more days,” he said. “And just a little help, okay? I won’t break any more laws or beat anybody up or chase them with a motorcycle.”
“What is it?”
“The officer. He said he heard the kid on the other end of the phone call somebody ‘Isami-sama.’ Kondo Isami. He said that was the name of a great swordsman and killer. Anyhow, I need to talk to somebody who knows yakuza. I have to find out who this guy who calls himself ‘Kondo Isami’ is. I can’t just walk into a cop station and ask to see the file on Kondo Isami. You must have a contact somewhere, a cop, someone in the media, some spook or something, someone who knows someone who would know this stuff. If this Kondo is a real guy, if he has a past, if he fits, then we’ve got something, at least a next step. If he’s nobody, if it’s nothing, I’m on the first plane home. I tried, I failed.”
“No more felonies. No bull-nose macho Marine Corps bullshit. Don’t call in any napalm strikes.”
“No napalm.”
“Call me at my office tomorrow afternoon. I may have something for you. You can stay out of trouble till then?”
“Sure.”
“Take a steam bath or something?”
“Sure.”
“And you said you had other business. Two pieces. That was one.”
“The child.”
“Miko?”
“Yeah. I have to know. What’s happening with her?”
“She’s in a hospital. There are few orphanages in Japan. Orphaned children go to relatives. But there are no relatives left. So the social services people put her in a Catholic children’s hospital. She’s not doing well. There’s no one for her. She lost everything one night, and now she sleeps on a cot. She thinks the Tin Man is going to come and rescue her, poor thing. I haven’t figured out who the Tin Man is.”
“That’s so sad.”
“So it goes on the wicked planet Earth.”
“Nobody visits her?”
“Not anymore.”
“Can I visit her?”
“Not a good idea.”
“She needs someone.”
“It’s not possible.”
“Miss Okada, don’t you want these people? They killed a family and orphaned a four-year-old child. They have to be punished. Don’t you see that? Didn’t you send me an autopsy report? I have an idea in my head this professional objectivity is a game; you want these guys as bad as I do.”
“I didn’t send you anything. That’s a delusion on your part. But it’s not the serious delusion. The serious delusion is that you want to believe that you and I are buddies, in this together, in a quest for justice. No way. I work for the United States government, which is where my loyalties begin and end. Don’t romanticize me, because I’ll disappoint you. Here’s the reality: you have one inch of leash. You pursue this investigation for a little while longer. If you develop some evidence, you make sure it comes to me first, last, and only. If it’s of value, I will see that it gets to the proper Japanese authorities, and at that point our interest ends. The Japanese system will deal with it, or maybe it won’t, because that’s the reality. If you break my rules, I’ll report you in a flash and you’re on your way to a Japanese prison.”
“I would say you drive a hard bargain, except you don’t bargain at all.”
“No, I don’t. You can’t go samurai on me, do you understand? If you samurai up, I will have to take you down hard. I do not bullshit, Swagger, and I tell you loud and clear: if I have to, pardner, I will bust you up so bad you’ll wish you’d never entered this rodeo.”
23
Of course she drove a red Mazda RX-8. Long hair flying, wearing aviator’s teardrop sunglasses, she flew through the Tokyo traffic like a ninja, cursing at the slower, veering in and out, braking hard, gunning too fast, rushing through the gears, utterly confident in the left-handed driving. It was late afternoon of the following day, and when he called her, she told him she’d pick him up.
But they didn’t go to any reporter. Instead, they pulled into a large building of gray brick, clearly Catholic, from the religious statue in the front yard. She drove around the side to the parking lot that faced a playground behind a cyclone fence.
“You stay here,” she said. “I don’t want her seeing you. We don’t know what she remembers, what her associations are. Believe me, this child doesn’t need any more trauma. It’s hard enough.”
He sat in the car as Okada disappeared into the building and, ten minutes later, emerged with the child.
Bob watched. Immediately he saw the difference. Where Miko had been a force of nature, a naturally gregarious, adventurous child, now she held tightly to Susan’s hand and didn’t seem to want to go out on her own. Susan took her to a swing, sat her on it, and pushed, but in a few seconds the child began to holler.
They were too far away for Bob to hear, but he saw Susan take the child off the swing and hold her. Then they walked to a slide and, tentatively, Miko climbed and desultorily descended the gleaming surface. But there was no liberation, no surrender to the giddy power of gravity; it was a glum trip.
The visit lasted a few minutes. Miko seemed fearful, constricted, clinging neurotically to Susan, who was talking gently to her but without much effect.
