just don't know why we can't admit it to ourselves. I bet sales of Prozac would go down if we could.'
'Maybe,' I said, absently.
'You see my point, though, right? You are what you are, just like that hunter. The rest is just excuses for what you want to do anyway.'
'I hope this doesn't mean you think you're the bear.'
He laughed. 'What I'm trying to say is, at some point, you should face up to your nature. I think you'd be more at peace with yourself if you would. Hell, look at me. Why do you think the ladies like me so much? I mean, aside from the generous nature of my natural endowments. It's because I'm comfortable in my own skin. Ladies like that kind of thing.'
I closed my eyes. 'If you see another way out of this situation, tell me, and I'll take it.'
'I don't know that there is another way, right now. But that ain't really the point, and you know it.'
I nodded. 'Look, I need to go. We've got to leave for Tokyo early in the morning and I haven't even made reservations yet and I'm running on fumes.'
'Shit, man, don't look so glum. Last night was a near thing, but you handled it. How many people you think could have come through like that? You're goddamn exceptional is what you are. And now you've got a good plan for fixing things and a good partner to help you. So snap out of this misery or I swear I'll kick your ass right here in this restaurant.'
'All right,' I said, giving him a wan smile. 'I'll think about what you said.'
He laughed again. 'You mean you'll try to find reasons to reject it. And you might find a few. But they won't last you. Because what I'm telling you is the truth.'
13
I left for Tokyo from JFK in the morning. I would have preferred an indirect route, but we didn't have a lot of time. For security, Dox was traveling separately, and we would link up again at Narita.
Before going through security, I found a restroom at the end of the departures area. It was more distant from the check-in lines and from security screening than any of the others I had passed and, I hoped, would therefore be frequented by fewer travelers. I used a length of duct tape to secure the Strider to the underside of one of the toilets. I figured there was at least a fifty-percent chance it would be found by a cleaning crew, but if I got lucky, it would be waiting when I got back after finishing my business with Yamaoto, and I would be saved the hassle of having to get a new one.
I arrived at Narita late in the afternoon of the following day. After taking steps to verify the absence of a local welcoming committee, I found Dox and we caught a Narita Express train to Tokyo Station. The big man seemed perfectly at ease in the Asian surroundings, and I remembered how much time he had spent in the region. As for me, my feelings were, as always, mixed at being back here. For a long time, Tokyo had been the closest thing I had to a place I might call home. But it's not as though I ever belonged here, either, or ever really would.
While Dox roamed the mazelike station, I stopped at the local Vodafone shop so Mr Watanabe could buy another pair of prepaid cell phones. I would have preferred not to put the additional stress on the Watanabe identity, but the mini-bazaars for black market phones that were running out of Shin-Okubo and Ueno when I lived in Tokyo had been cleaned up, and I didn't have time to go searching for wherever they might have been reconstituted. Anyway, the connection between Cingular in the States and Vodafone in Japan seemed manageably remote. I would have asked Dox to buy the phones, but I was determined to do everything I could, to obscure his involvement.
When the phones were taken care of, I called Midori. She didn't pick up, but I left her a voice mail giving her the new mobile number. Even if she didn't need to reach me, or want to, I wanted to show her I could be there for her, and for Koichiro, even if only by phone. I didn't want her to think I was going to just disappear like a ghost, the way I had when she'd first left Tokyo.
We headed out. I wanted to see Tatsu right away, so Dox, who had spent enough time in Tokyo to know his way around, went to outfit himself with his customary personal cutlery while I headed to Jikei hospital. I caught the Yamanote line train to Shinbashi Station and walked the short distance from there. It was a cool but clear evening, and it felt good to be outside after the long trip from New York.
I circled the hospital, checking the hot spots, and used a side entrance to go in. On my own I felt secure, but Tatsu was a known nexus of mine, with plenty of his own enemies, and in going to see him I might be walking into an ambush. Nothing set off my radar. I went to the information desk in the bustling reception area and told one of the women sitting there that I wanted to see Ishikura Tatsuhiko, a patient. The woman checked the computer and told me that Ishikura-san was in the hospital's Oncology Clinic.
The sounds around me faded out. A wave of cold stole across my face and neck and spread through my gut. The woman gave me directions but I just stared at her, not hearing. I asked her to repeat herself but then after I walked away I realized I couldn't remember most of what she had said. I followed signs, feeling lost in the winding, fluorescent-lit corridors.
I found the ward, but couldn't recall the room number the receptionist had told me. I asked a nurse and she escorted me down the hall. Outside one of the doors stood an athletic-looking crew-cut Japanese man in a gray suit. There was a bulge under his jacket and a communication device in one of his cauliflower ears. He looked at me as I approached and I made sure to let him see my hands.
We stopped outside the door. While the man patted me down, the nurse poked her head inside and said in Japanese, 'Excuse me, Ishikura-san, you have a visitor…'
The nurse gestured to the room. The bodyguard walked me in, staying just behind me.
Tatsu was propped up in bed, surrounded by the usual depressing hospital machinery, an IV line snaking into his arm and a tube up his nose. I'd seen him only a month before, but he was ten kilos lighter now and looked as many years older. Whatever he had, it was eating him alive, and I could instantly see that all the machinery and IV lines in the world were nothing but a sick joke by comparison.
