Rainfall

of the building. I knew he’d be back in a moment, and used the time to watch the street a little longer. He’d been followed at Alfie, and it was possible that he was being followed now.

The street was still empty when Bulfinch returned to the front of the restaurant a minute later. His eyes swept the space again. When they were pointed in my direction, I said quietly, “Mr. Bulfinch.”

He looked at me for a second before saying, “Do I know you?”

“I’m a friend of Midori Kawamura. She asked me to come in her stead.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in some danger right now. She needs to take care in her movements.”

“Is she coming here?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I decide that it’s safe.”

“Who are you?”

“As I said, a friend, interested in the same thing you are.”

“Which is?”

I looked at him through my shades. “The disk.”

He paused before saying, “I don’t know about a disk.”

Right. “You were expecting Midori’s father to deliver you a disk when he died on the Yamanote three weeks ago. He didn’t have it with him, so you followed up with Midori after her performance at Alfie the following Friday. You met her in the Starbucks on Gaienhigashi-dori, near Almond in Roppongi. That’s where you told her about the disk, because you hoped she might have it. You wouldn’t tell her what’s on the disk because you were afraid doing so would compromise her. Although you had already compromised her by showing up at Alfie, because you were followed. All of which will be sufficient, I hope, to establish my bona fides.”

He made no move to sit. “You could have learned most of that without Midori telling you, and filled in the gaps by educated guessing — especially if you were the one following me.”

I shrugged. “And then I imitated her voice and called you an hour ago?”

He hesitated, then walked over and sat, his back straight and his hands on the table. “All right. What can you tell me?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

“Look, I’m a reporter. I write stories. Do you have information for me?”

“I need to know what’s on that disk.”

“You keep talking about a disk.”

“Mr. Bulfinch,” I said, focusing for an instant on the street, which was still empty, “the people who want that disk think that Midori has it, and they are more than willing to kill her to retrieve it. Your meeting her at Alfie while you were being watched is probably what put her in the danger she’s in. So let’s stop fucking around, okay?”

He took off his glasses and sighed. “Assuming for a moment there is a disk, I don’t see how knowledge of what’s on it would help Midori.”

“You’re a reporter. I assume you would be interested in publishing the hypothetical disk’s contents?”

“You could assume that, yes.”

“And I would also assume that certain people would want to prevent that publication?”

“That would also be a safe assumption.”

“Okay, then. It’s the threat of publication that’s making these people target Midori. Once the contents of the disk are published, Midori would no longer be a threat, is that right?”

“What you’re saying makes sense.”

“Then it seems we want the same thing. We both want the contents of the disk published.”

He shifted in his seat. “I see your point. But I’m not going to be comfortable talking about this unless I see Midori.”

I considered for a moment. “Are you carrying a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Show it to me.”

He reached into the left side of the blazer and withdrew a small flip-top unit.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Go ahead and put it back in your pocket.” As he did so, I pulled out a pen and small sheet of paper from my own jacket pocket and started jotting down instructions. My gut told me he wasn’t wired, but no one’s gut is infallible.

“Until I say otherwise, under no circumstances do I want to see you reaching for that phone,” my note read. “We’ll walk out of the restaurant together. When we step outside, stop so I can pat you down for weapons. After that, go where I motion you to go. At some point I’ll let you know that I want you to start walking ahead, and at some point I’ll tell you where we’re going. If you have questions now, write them down. If you don’t, just hand back this note. Starting now, do not say a word unless I speak first.”

I extended the note to him. He took it with one hand while slipping on his glasses with the other. When he was