Rainfall

I could imagine heads bowed collectively in shame in the Japanese fashion. After a while one of the men spoke up: “We may spot him with the girl.”

“Yes, that’s possible. He’s obviously protecting her. We know he saved her from Ishikura’s men outside her apartment. And his reaction to my questions about her whereabouts was defensive. He may have feelings for her.” I heard him chuckle. “A strange basis for a romance.”

Ishikura? I thought.

“In any event, Rain’s loss is not fatal,” Yamaoto continued. “The girl poses much more of a danger: she is the one Ishikura Tatsuhiko will be looking for, and he has as good a chance of finding her as we do — perhaps better, judging from his speed in preempting us at her apartment. And if he finds the disk, Ishikura will know what to do with it.”

Tatsu? Tatsu is looking for the damn disk, too? Those were his men at her apartment?

“No more chances,” Yamaoto went on. “No more loose ends. When the girl resurfaces, eliminate her immediately.”

“Hai,” several voices replied in chorus.

“Unfortunately, in the absence of the disk’s return or certification of its destruction, eliminating the girl will no longer provide us with complete security. It’s time to remove Ishikura Tatsuhiko from the equation, as well.”

“But, toushu,” one of the voices said, “Ishikura is a Keisatsucho department head. Not an easy man to eliminate without causing collateral problems. Moreover . . .”

“Yes, moreover, Ishikura’s death will make him a martyr in certain circles by providing elegant supporting evidence for all his conspiracy theories. But we have no choice. Better to have evidence of such theories than what’s on the disk, which is proof itself. Do your utmost to make Ishikura’s demise seem natural. Ironic, that at the moment we need him most, the man supremely capable of such art is unavailable to us. Well, take what inspiration you can from him. Dismissed.”

That was it. I removed the headphones and looked at Harry. “It’s still transmitting?”

“Until the battery runs out — about three weeks. I’ll keep monitoring it.”

I nodded, realizing that Harry was almost certainly going to hear things from that room that would lead back to me. Hell, Yamaoto’s comments were already damning if you were smart and had context: the reference to the “strange basis” of my attachment to Midori, and to the irony of having lost the services of the man “supremely capable” of effecting death by natural causes.

“I don’t think Midori should hear what’s on that tape,” I said. “She knows enough. I don’t want to . . . compromise her further.”

Harry bowed his head and said, “I completely understand.”

All at once, I knew that he knew.

“It’s good that I can trust you,” I said. “Thank you.”

He shook his head. “Kochira koso,” he said. The same here.

The buzzer rang. Harry pressed the intercom button, and Midori said, “It’s me.”

Harry hit the entrance buzzer, and we took up our positions, this time with me at the door and Harry at the window. A minute later I saw Midori walking down the hallway with a rectangular cardboard box in her arms. Her face broke into a smile when she saw me, and she covered the distance quickly, stepped inside the genkan, and gave me a quick hug.

“Every time I see you, you look worse,” she told me, stepping back after a moment and setting the box on the floor. It was true: my face was still smudged with dirt from my tumble on the subway tracks, and I knew I looked exhausted.

“I feel worse, too,” I said, but smiling to let her know she made me feel good.

“What happened?”

“I’ll give you the details in a little while. First, Harry tells me you’re going to give us a piano recital.”

“That’s right,” she said, reaching down and stripping tape off the box. She popped open the end and slid out an electronic keyboard. “Will this work?” she said, holding it up to Harry.

Harry took it and examined the jack. “I think I’ve got an adapter here somewhere. Hang on.” He walked over to the desk, pulled open a drawer filled with electronic components, and tried several units before finding one that satisfied him. He set the keyboard down on the desk, plugged it into the computer, and brought the scanned image of the notes up onto the monitor.

“The problem is that I can’t play music and Midori can’t run the computer. I think the shortcut will be to get the computer to apply the patterns of sounds to the representation of notes on the page. Once it’s got enough data to work with, the computer will interpret the musical notes as coordinates in the lattice, then use fractal analysis until it can discern the most basic way the pattern repeats itself. Then it will apply the pattern to standard Japanese through a code-breaking algorithm I’ve set up, and we’ll be in.”

“Right,” I said. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

Harry gave me his trademark “you-are-a-complete-knuckle-dragger” look, then said, “Midori, try playing the score on the monitor and let’s see what the computer can do with the data.”

Midori sat down at the desk and lifted her fingers over the keyboard. “Wait,” Harry said. “You’ve got to play it perfectly. If you add or delete a note, or play one out of order, you’ll create a new pattern, and the computer will get confused. You have to play exactly what appears on the screen. Can you do that?”

“I could if this were an ordinary song. But this composition is unusual. I’ll need to run through it a few times first. Can you disconnect me from the computer?”

“Sure.” He dragged and clicked the mouse. “Go ahead. Tell me when you’re ready.”