John Rain 08: Graveyard of Memories (7 page)

There was a pause, then, “Make it look natural.”

“How am I going to do that?”

“What, now you’re asking me to micromanage you? You’ll figure something out. What we don’t want is for the LDP Executive Council chairman to eat a bullet, not unless the coroner would prove it came from his own gun and by his own hand. He’s not the prime minister, not even close, but a straight-up assassination of a prominent political figure would bring down way more heat than anyone is willing to accept. Do this well, and you’ll be in a position to call in a lot of favors. But don’t fuck it up. You’ll find yourself in a very uncomfortable position if you do.”

“Give me the information on the two yakuza first.”

He laughed. “Do you know something called the ‘call-girl principle,’ son?”

“Not exactly.”

“It means the value of services rendered plummets immediately after the rendering. Right now, you need me, so you like my price, or at least you’re willing to pay it. Once I give you the two yakuza, all you’ll want to know is what I’ve done for you lately.”

“If I do Ozawa first, how do I know you’ll follow through with the information I need?”

“If I don’t, will you kill me?”

I looked at him, and a strange chill settled inside me. “I think I’d have to, yeah.”

He laughed. “I told you. You’re not as dumb as you act.”

chapter
seven

B
ack on Thanatos, bombing through night Tokyo, I was roiled with conflicting emotions. Relief that I had a potential solution to my yakuza problem. Fear at how extreme and unlikely the solution was. Anxiety at the implications of what I had just agreed to do—those I could imagine, and even more, those I was probably missing. But for now, there was nothing I could do but wait for McGraw’s intel and continue to avoid places like the Kodokan, where Mad Dog and his friends would be looking for me.

I shoved it all aside and thought about the girl at the hotel, instead. I liked how unruffled she’d been in the face of that drunken guy’s bullshit. And how tough she’d been with me after. And the wheelchair…why? Something congenital? An accident? The reason the sight of it had surprised me so much was that she had struck me as so competent, confident, in control. I realized these weren’t qualities I associated with someone needing a wheelchair, and that my unconscious expectations were simply assumptions based primarily on foolish prejudice, itself likely the product of a lack of thought and experience. Was it weird I found her attractive? I decided I didn’t care. I didn’t even know if she could have sex. But…I wondered. Anyway, thinking about her was much more enjoyable than pondering the guerrilla war I was about to wage against mobsters determined to kill me.

I knew I shouldn’t go back to the same hotel, especially not twice in a row. But I told myself there would be no harm. It wasn’t like the girl knew my name, or even the first thing about me. There was no way anybody could trace me there. One night, two nights, it wasn’t going to make any difference. I needed a place to stay. And someplace familiar wouldn’t be the worst thing.

It didn’t take long to get back to Uguisudani, park the bike, and run the gauntlet of streetwalkers again. As I walked through the front entrance of the hotel, I was suddenly gripped by doubt. Maybe I was being stupid. Maybe she would think I was a creep for coming back. Maybe she wouldn’t even be there.

But she was. A different sweatshirt this time—gray, and no lettering. Other than that, she looked just the same. Just as good.

She glanced up and saw me. There was a pause, then she said, “I didn’t expect to see you back here.” There was a slight emphasis on the “you.” Other than that, her tone was as neutral as her expression.

She was listening to jazz again. I wondered who, and why she seemed to like it so much.

“Yeah, well, the Imperial was full.”

I thought that was reasonably funny, but she acknowledged it with only the barest hint of a smile. “Let me guess. A stay?”

“How’d you know?”

“Intuition.”

Her expression was still so neutral, I had no idea what she was thinking. I said, “What are you…doing here? This job, I mean.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean…you’re young. You know, mostly it’s an
oba-san
.”

“You stay at love hotels often?”

I felt myself blush. “No. Everyone knows that.”

She shrugged. “If you say so.”

Man, I was really striking out. “So really, why?”

“The interesting people I meet.”

The robot-neutral affect was killing me. Laughing to conceal my embarrassment at what I thought was a dismissal, I pulled out a five-thousand-yen note and slid it under the glass. “I guess it would work for that.”

She slid the bill into a drawer and came out with a thousand-yen note. She held it, not yet pushing it under the glass, and looked at me as though trying to decide something. “A job where I can sit is good. One where I can sit and study is even better.”

I grabbed onto the reprieve. “What are you studying?”

“English.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” This time her tone wasn’t neutral. It was vaguely irritated.

Jesus, I couldn’t seem to say anything right. “I mean, what do you want to do with it?”

I thought I detected something in her eyes—amusement, maybe? As though I was a well-meaning pet that was maybe just cute enough to deserve a little patience. But overall, other than the fact that she was talking, there was no evidence that she was the least bit interested in me. It was disconcerting.

“You might have noticed, I need a job that requires a lot of sitting. If I speak English, maybe I can get something a little better than this one.”

“I don’t know. I speak English, and it hasn’t helped me get the job I want.”

“What job do you want?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s part of the problem.”

That glimmer of amusement flashed in her eyes again, then was gone. “Do you really speak English?”

I nodded. “I’m half American.” I didn’t know why I said it. It wasn’t something I ordinarily shared with Japanese.

She scrutinized my face, searching, I knew, for the mongrel in it. “Now that you mention it, I think I can see it. Your mother was Japanese?”

I shook my head. “Father.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“Both places.”

“You’re lucky. America’s where I want to go.”

“Why?”

She looked around. “Because I hate it here.”

Given my own love-hate relationship with the country, I wasn’t sure how to respond. So I just nodded.

She looked at me. “You don’t?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Were they hard on you?” She didn’t need to be more specific than that. She was talking about the
ijimekko
—school bullies.

“Sometimes.” A monumental understatement.

She held my gaze for a moment, then slid the thousand-yen-note under the glass, followed by a room key. I took both, feeling I was being dismissed, trying to think of something I could use to engage her further, coming up with nothing.

Finally, in a fit of creativity, I said, “I’m Jun.” Jun was my given name, bastardized to John in English.

She nodded as though this was possibly the least interesting thing she’d ever heard.

“What’s your name?” I said, going double or nothing.

She looked at me for a long beat. I imagined I knew what a microbe felt like under a microscope.

“Why would you want to know my name?” she said.

“I don’t know. So I have something to call you, I guess. Wait, now you’re going to ask why I would need to call you something, right?”

She raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly as though impressed by what a quick study I was.

“I don’t know,” I said, flailing but plunging ahead regardless. “In case I’m back here. If I come back, it could be the third time I talk to you. I feel like the third time I talk to someone, I should know her name. I’m not sure why. It just feels…like I should.” I realized I was babbling and couldn’t seem to find the off switch.

“I’m not familiar with that custom.”

Jesus
. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s because I just made it up.”

She smiled at that, I thought half out of good humor, half out of pity. “Well, Jun, if you come back again and we talk for a third time, maybe I’ll tell you my name then.”

I tried to think of something witty to say and couldn’t. So I just nodded and took the key, then headed for the elevator. I hoped she would think my wordless exit was confident and cool. But I was pretty sure she knew better.

chapter
eight

I
went out early the next morning, the same time as the day before. I wanted to catch the girl again before the shift change.

She watched me wordlessly as I slid the key under the glass. “Don’t you ever get any sleep?” I asked, casting about for something to start a conversation.

She shrugged. “Sometimes I nod off. It’s usually pretty quiet after three or four.”

“Well,” I said, screwing up my courage, “this makes three times.”

She looked at me, saying nothing.

“So…you know, the custom. I thought you’d tell me your name.”

“Doesn’t feel like three times to me. I’ve been up all night.”

“Hmm, I think that’s a technicality.”

“Just trying to respect your custom.”

Was she trying not to smile? I couldn’t tell. “You’re really not going to tell me your name?”

“How old are you?”

The question caught me off guard. “Why?”

“Are you sensitive about your age?”

“What? No. I’m twenty.” That was true. By about a week.

She raised her eyebrows. “Are you lying to me?”

“No, why would I lie?”

“Because you look like a kid.”

I felt myself blush, doubtless reinforcing the impression. “People have always said that about me. I think it’s because I have small ears.”

“What?”

“It’s true. Small ears make you look younger. Because your ears grow by about one one-hundredth of an inch per year. That’s why old people have big ears. I read it in a magazine.” I turned my head. The crew cut I’d worn in the military had grown out, but my hair was still short enough for her to see.

She took a long look, then laughed. “I think you might be right.”

It was the first time I’d heard her laugh. I liked the fact of it as much as the sound. Before I could think of some way to keep the conversational ball in the air, she said, “Actually, I can’t figure out how old you are. I was thinking pretty young. But with that drunken guy yesterday, you looked…”

She trailed off. I waited, wondering what she thinking. Finally, she said, “I don’t know. Serious, I guess. Even scary. Not like a kid.”

At that point in my life, girls were still a mystery, and trying to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of conversation with an attractive woman made me feel anxious and awkward. But violence…violence I knew. I supposed it stood to reason that I would come across as ungainly in romance, and confident, even imposing, in a confrontation. I could see where the contrast might have confused her. But it wasn’t something I wanted to explain. Instead, I said, “How about you?”

“What about me?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“That’s a good age.”

She frowned. “Good for what?”

“I don’t know. Just sounds…good.” I imagined a fighter jet burning into the tarmac and exploding in flames.

She shook her head and laughed again. “Why aren’t you in school?”

“You mean college?”

“Assuming you graduated from high school.”

I hadn’t, in fact, having skipped out during my junior year to lie about my age and join the army. But I didn’t expect she would find any of that particularly impressive.

“I don’t know. I guess I haven’t gotten around to it.”

The truth was more complicated than that. At the time, life in Tokyo’s universities was dominated by various radical student factions, some complaining about Japan’s complicity in America’s war in Vietnam; others about how the American military was going to remain on Okinawa even after returning the island to Japan; and still others agitating for socialism, communism, real disarmament, discontinuation of construction at the new airport in Narita, and other such things. Several Tokyo universities had been paralyzed by student occupations and pitched battles with police—armed battles featuring tear gas, rocks, and staves. There had been rampages, bombings, arson, hundreds of arrests. I didn’t see any real difference between the students and the Japanese Red Army, which was busy hijacking airplanes and taking hostages in pursuit of paradise on earth. At best, they all struck me as pampered narcissists and dangerously misguided dreamers. Maybe they meant well, but to me it all felt like the same undifferentiated mob that had meant well during the riots that killed my father. I’d seen how the world really worked, and had paid for the privilege. I had nothing in common with any of them. I would make my own way.

“How about you?” I said. “Did you…are you in college?”

She frowned, but with a hint of amusement. “Don’t you have anything better to do than hang around here talking to me?”

“Not really. I mean, yes, but…”

She looked at me with an expression that could probably best be described as “charitable.”

“Do you like jazz?” I asked, flailing.

“What gave you that idea?”

“Well, you’re always listening to it on that tape recorder.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

I realized I should have quit while I was ahead. “Okay,” I said, “I guess I should go.”

“Okay.”

“Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“Maybe.”

“Bye.”

She gave me a tiny wave, half friendly, half dismissal, from behind the glass.

I headed south on Thanatos for a while, going nowhere in particular, nursing my wounded dignity. Then I shrugged it off and started to focus. I stopped at a payphone and called my answering service, hoping I’d have some word from McGraw. Instead, the woman on the morning shift told me, “You have a message from a Miyamoto-san. He asks that you call him back.”

Miyamoto? I wondered why he was contacting me. We’d had coffee together a few times—Miyamoto was talkative for a courier, and though I recognized social contact would at best be frowned upon by the people we worked for, I was too green to know I should rebuff him. He was friendly and inquisitive, unabashed about asking questions that were uncharacteristically direct for a Japanese: how was it to grow up in both countries, what was life like in the American army, had it been uncomfortable for me to fight in a western war against Asians, things like that. I liked that he took an interest, and that his questions were tinged with sympathy rather than judgment. He himself had fought with the Imperial Army in the Philippines, and though he claimed not to have distinguished himself, I sensed he was being modest. All soldiers are liars: either they exaggerate, or they downplay. I’d asked him what the hell he was doing carrying a bag at his age. He’d laughed and told me that as a younger man he’d foolishly made an enemy, and that this enemy, as chance would have it, had risen to prominence among the people with whom Miyamoto worked. The menial job was supposed to be an ongoing humiliation, but Miyamoto professed not to care. He loved Tokyo, he said, loved watching it change, the seasons along with the skyline. And the walking was good for him. Life was strange, and if it was his karma to be a courier for someone else’s cash, why should he complain?