Rainfall

bowing again as I left.

I headed back to the Mita line. If I had really been concerned that someone was tailing me I would have caught a cab, but I wanted to see if I could spot Attache Man again. I waited on the platform while two trains pulled in and departed. Anyone trying to follow me would have had to stay on the platform, also — incongruous behavior that makes a person stand out in sharp relief. But the platform was deserted, and Attache Man was gone. Probably it had been nothing.

I thought of Midori again. It was her second night at the Blue Note, and she’d be starting her first set in about an hour. I wondered what she would think when I didn’t show for the second time. She was human; she would probably assume that I hadn’t been interested, that maybe she had been a little too forward in inviting me. It was unlikely that I would ever see her again, or if we did by chance bump into each other, it would be slightly awkward but polite, two people who met and started an acquaintanceship that somehow didn’t take off, certainly nothing out of the ordinary. She might ask Mama about me at some point, but all Mama knows is that I pop into Alfie from time to time without warning.

I wondered what it would have been like if we’d met under other circumstances. It could have been good, I thought again.

I almost laughed at the absurdity. There was no room for anything like that in my life, and I knew it.

Crazy Jake again: There’s no home for us, John. Not after what we’ve done.

That was about the truest advice I’d ever been given. Forget about her, I thought. You know you have to.

My pager buzzed. I found a pay phone and dialed the number.

It was Benny. After the usual exchange of bona fides, he said, “There’s another job for you, if you want it.”

“Why are you contacting me this way?” I asked, meaning why not the bulletin board.

“Time-sensitive matter. You interested?”

“I’m not known for turning away work.”

“You’d have to bend one of your rules on this one. If you do, there’s a bonus.”

“I’m listening.”

“We’re talking about a woman. Jazz musician.”

Long pause.

“You there?” he said.

“Still listening.”

“You want the details, you know where to find them.”

“What’s the name?”

“Not over the phone.”

Another pause.

He cleared his throat. “All right. Same name as a recent job. Related matter. Is that important?”

“Not really.”

“You want this?”

“Probably not.”

“Significant bonus if you want it.”

“What’s significant?”

“You know where to find the details.”

“I’ll take a look.”

“I need an answer within forty-eight hours, okay? This needs to be taken care of.”

“Don’t they all,” I said, and hung up.

I stood there for a moment afterwards, looking around the station, watching people bustling back and forth.

Fucking Benny, telling me, “This needs to be taken care of,” letting me know that someone else would be doing it if I didn’t.

Why Midori? A connection with Bulfinch, the reporter. He had sought her out, I saw that at Alfie, along with Telephone Man. So whoever Telephone Man worked for would assume that Midori had learned something she wasn’t supposed to, or maybe that her father had given her something, something Bulfinch was after. Something not worth taking any chances over.

You could do it, I thought. If you don’t, someone else will. You’d at least do it right, do it fast. She wouldn’t feel anything.

But they were just words. I wanted to feel that way but couldn’t. What I felt like instead was that her world should never have collided with mine.

A Mita-sen train pulled in, heading in the direction of Otemachi, the transfer point to Omotesando and the Blue Note. An omen, I thought, and got on it.

10

IF YOU WANT to survive as long as I have in the world I inhabit, you’ve got to think like the opposition. I