Rainfall

much more intimate act in Japan than it is in the States. There are plenty of Japanese women who will allow a man into their bodies before permitting him to enter their apartments, and the hotels serve this aspect of the market, as well.

The people we were up against weren’t stupid, of course. They might guess that a love hotel would make an expedient safe house. That would be my guess, if the tables were turned. But with about ten thousand rabu hoteru in Tokyo, it would still take them awhile to track us down.

We got out of the cab and walked to Shibuya 2-chome, which is choked with small love hotels. I chose one at random, where we told the old woman standing inside at the front desk that we wanted a room with a bath, for a yasumi — a stay, not just a rest. I put cash on the counter and she reached underneath, then handed us a key.

We took the elevator to the fifth floor, and found our room at the end of a short hallway. I unlocked the door and Midori went in first. I followed her in, locking the door behind me. We left our shoes in the entranceway. There was only one bed — twins in a love hotel would be as out of place as a Bible — but there was a decent-sized couch in the room that I could curl up on.

Midori sat down on the edge of the bed and faced me. “Here’s where we are,” she said, her voice even. “Tonight three men were waiting for me in my apartment. They claimed to be police, but obviously weren’t — or, if they were police, they were on some kind of private mission. I’d think you were with them, but I saw how badly you hurt them. You asked me to go somewhere safe with you so you could explain. I’m listening.”

I nodded, trying to find the right words to begin. “You know this has to do with your father.”

“Those men told me he had something they wanted.”

“Yes, and they think you have it now.”

“I don’t know why they would think that.”

I looked at her. “I think you do.”

“Think what you want.”

“You know what’s wrong with this picture, Midori? Three men are waiting for you in your apartment, they rough you up a little, I appear out of nowhere and rough them up a lot, none of this exactly an average day in the life of a jazz pianist, and the whole time you’ve never once suggested that you want to go to the police.”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you want to? You can, you know.”

She sat facing me, her nostrils flaring slightly, her fingers drumming along the edge of the bed. Goddamnit, I thought, what does she know that she hasn’t been telling me?

“Tell me about your father, Midori. Please. I can’t help you if you don’t.”

She leaped off the bed and faced me squarely. “Tell you?” she spat. “No, you tell me! Tell me who the fuck you are, or I swear I will go to the police, and I don’t care what happens after that!”

Progress, of a sort, I thought. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything!”

“Okay.”

“Starting with, who were those men in my apartment?”

“Okay.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know who they are.”

“But you knew they were there?”

She was going to pull hard at that loose thread until the entire fabric unraveled. I didn’t know how to get around it. “Yes.”

“How?”

“Because your apartment is bugged.”

“Because my apartment is bugged . . . Are you with those men?”

“No.”

“Would you please stop giving me one-word answers? Okay, my apartment is bugged, by who, by you?”

There it was. “Yes.”

She looked at me for a long beat, then sat back down on the bed. “Who do you work for?” she asked, her voice flat.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Another long beat, and the same flat tone: “Then tell me what you want.”

I looked at her, wanting her to see my eyes. “I want to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Her face was expressionless. “And you’re going to do that by . . .”

“These people are coming after you because they think you have something that could harm them. I don’t know what. But as long as they think you have it, you’re not going to be safe.”

“But if I were to just give whatever it is to you . . .”