Rainfall

side, not even waiting until he got to the crosswalk. His surveillance moves were blatant: hanging up the phone the instant the stranger had emerged, the constant visual contact with the exit before that, the sudden move across the street. He was following too closely, too, a mistake because it allowed me to fall in behind him. For a second I wondered if he might be working with the stranger, maybe as a bodyguard or something, but he wasn’t close enough to have been effective in that capacity.

They turned right onto Gaienhigashi-dori in front of the Almond Cafe, Telephone Man following by less than ten paces. I crossed the street to follow, hurrying because the light had already changed.

This is stupid, I thought. You are in the middle of someone else’s surveillance. If there’s more than one and they’re using film, you could get your picture taken.

I imagined Benny, putting a B-team on Kawamura, playing me for a fool, and I knew I would take the risk.

I followed them for several blocks, noting that neither exhibited any concern about what was going on behind him. From the stranger I saw no surveillance-detection behavior — no turns or stops that, however innocent seeming, would have forced a follower to reveal his position.

At the fringes of mad Roppongi, where the crowds began to thin, the stranger turned into one of the Starbucks that are exterminating the traditional kissaten, the neighborhood coffee shops. Telephone Man, constant as the North Star, found a public booth a few meters farther on. I crossed the street and entered a place called the Freshness Burger, where I ordered their eponymous entree and took a seat at the window. I watched the stranger order something inside Starbucks and then sit down at a table.

My guess was that Telephone Man was alone. If he had been part of a team, it would have made sense for him to peel off and change places at some point to avoid detection. Also, my periodic checks as we progressed down the street hadn’t identified anyone behind me. If he had been with a team and they were as clueless as he appeared to be, I would have made them easily as we moved along.

I sat quietly, monitoring the street, watching the stranger sipping his Starbucks beverage and checking his watch. Either he was waiting for someone to meet him there, or he was killing time before a meeting somewhere else.

Turned out it was door number one. After about half an hour had gone by, I was surprised to see Midori heading down the street in our direction. She was checking storefronts as she walked, finally seeing the Starbucks sign and heading in.

Telephone Man pulled out a cell phone, pressed a key, and held the unit to his ear. Nice move for a guy standing in a public phone booth. He hadn’t needed to input the whole number, I noted, so whomever he was calling was a speed dial, someone he would call frequently.

The stranger stood when he saw Midori approaching his table and bowed formally. The bow was good, and I knew this was someone who had been in Japan for some time, who would be comfortable with the language and culture. Midori returned his bow but at a lesser angle, uncertainty in her stance. I sensed that they were not well acquainted. My guess was that Alfie had been their first meeting.

I glanced over at Telephone Man and saw him put away his cell phone. He stayed where he was.

The stranger gestured for Midori to sit; she accepted, and he followed suit. He gestured to the counter, but Midori shook her head. She wasn’t ready to break bread with this man.

I watched them for about ten minutes. As their conversation progressed, the stranger’s gestures took on an air of entreaty, while Midori’s posture grew increasingly rigid. Finally she stood up, bowed quickly, and began to back away. The stranger returned her bow, but much more deeply, and somehow awkwardly.

Which one to follow now? I decided to leave the decision to Telephone Man.

As Midori exited the Starbucks and headed back in the direction of Roppongi, Telephone Man watched her go but held his position. So it was the stranger he wanted, or wanted more.

The stranger left shortly after Midori, returning to Hibiya Station on Roppongi-dori. Telephone Man and I followed, maintaining our previous positions. I stayed with them down to the tracks, waiting a full car’s length down from both until an Ebisu-bound train arrived and we all boarded. I kept my back to them, watching in the reflection of the glass, until the train stopped in Ebisu and I saw them exit.

I stepped off a moment later, hoping the stranger would be heading away, but he was coming toward me. Shit. I slowed my pace, then stopped in front of a station map, examining it at such an angle that neither would be able to see my face as he passed.

It was late, and there were only a half dozen people leaving the station with us. I kept a full riser of stairs between us as we left the bowels of the station, then let them pull a good twenty meters ahead before emerging from the station entrance to follow.

At the edge of Daikanyama, an upscale Tokyo suburb, the stranger turned into a large apartment complex. I watched him insert a key in the entrance door, which opened electronically and then closed behind him. Telephone Man also took obvious note, then continued for about twenty paces past the entrance, where he stopped, pulled out his cell phone, pressed a key, and spoke briefly. Then he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and sat down on the curb.

No, this guy wasn’t on the stranger’s team, as I had briefly wondered. He was tailing him.

I moved into the shadows at the back of a small commercial parking lot and waited. Fifteen minutes later a scarlet racing-style motorcycle, its exhaust modified to produce the maximum Godzillalike rumble, roared onto the street. The driver, in matching scarlet racing leathers and full helmet, pulled up in front of Telephone Man. Telephone Man gestured to the stranger’s building and got on the back of the bike, and they blasted off into the night.

A safe bet that the stranger lived here, but the building housed hundreds of units and I had no way of telling which was his or of checking for a name. There would be at least two points of egress, as well, so waiting would be useless. I stayed until the sound of the motorcycle had disappeared before getting up and checking the address. Then I headed back toward Ebisu Station.

5

FROM EBISU I took the Hibiya line to Hibiya Station, where I would change to the Mita line and home. I never change trains directly, though, and I emerged from the station first to run an SDR.

I stopped in a Tsutaya music shop and made my way past the teenyboppers in their grunge costumes listening to the latest Japanese pop sounds on the headphones the store provides, bobbing their heads to the music. Strolling to the back of the store, I paused now and then to look at CDs on shelves that faced the door, glancing up to see who might be coming in behind me.