Graveyard of Memories

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

I spent the next few days in a torment about whether to contact Sayaka. I was reasonably confident that, with Mad Dog believing I was dead, she would be safe. And that probably no one was watching her. Probably. But if I was wrong, I could get her killed. I kept morbidly imagining what it would have been like to tear back to the hotel on Thanatos that night and find her not alive and angry, but raped and beaten and dead. The thought was unbearable. I’d been lucky the first time had been just a threat. I doubted I’d get so lucky again.

When I was ready, I called Tatsu. We met at Meiji Shrine. He looked long and hard at my shaved head when we saw each other, but said nothing. As we strolled beneath the shrine’s towering trees, he told me how things had gone at Ueno and with McGraw. He’d handled everything just as I had hoped, and no one suspected anything. I briefed him on what I’d learned from McGraw. It was the least I could do.

“You’re lucky you were able to speak to him,” he told me. “It must have been just afterward that someone executed him at Zōshigaya Cemetery.”

“I know, I saw something on the news. Maybe someone in his organization learned he was flapping his gums.”

“Indeed,” he said dryly. It wasn’t always easy for me to know what Tatsu was thinking. But one thing was becoming clear about his general philosophy: being a cop was more about the ends than it was about the means.

“Will you be able to use any of what I’ve told you?” I asked.

“I think so, though it will take some time, and some maneuvering. I understand the corruption goes to the very top — Finance Minister Satō, Air Force Chief of Staff Genda, even Prime Minister Tanaka. But with the information you’ve given me, I can make at least some of it come out.”

“What about the States? McGraw suggested he was spreading the skim to American politicians, too.”

“It would be naïve to believe otherwise. Whether anyone will care is another story. But supposedly there’s a senator named Frank Church who’s forming a committee on intelligence and other abuses. This might interest him, too. I’ll get him what I can.”

We walked. It was pleasant under the trees, cool for a summer morning, quiet. The shrine itself was an oasis of stillness within the swirling city around it. It was the kind of place I loved in Tokyo. The kind of place I would miss.

“It’s been relatively quiet for the Keisatsucho since you died,” he said. “Other than McGraw, no more bodies turning up.”

“Well, that’s good. I’m sure you guys need a break from time to time.”

“Yes. Though I keep expecting to hear about Fukumoto Junior’s untimely demise. But for the moment, he seems to be all right.”

Mad Dog. Punting on him wasn’t easy for me. I reminded myself for probably the hundredth time it was the right call, the only call. McGraw’s death could be attributed to a dispute with the guy he had hired to kill me. Mad Dog dying right afterward would be too much of a coincidence. Tatsu had handled the discrepancies with the yakuza’s body, but if anyone started looking too closely, the story would unravel. And if the story unraveled, Sayaka would be at risk again. So Mad Dog got to live. I took some small comfort in knowing my decision was a sign of greater maturity and self-control. But still, it was killing me.

“As long as Mad Dog thinks I’m dead,” I said, “he has nothing to fear from me.”

“But while he’s alive, you won’t be safe in Japan.”

Christ. Was Tatsu encouraging me to go after Mad Dog? I would have loved to, but I didn’t want to tell him why I couldn’t.

“Of course,” he went on, “Fukumoto Junior is weak, and not widely respected. He is seen in certain quarters as illegitimate, the product of nepotism. His enemies might even learn of his role in his own father’s death. I wouldn’t want to be him if that information were to emerge.”

I looked at him. Was he telling me he was going to make that happen?

“Anyway,” he continued, “perhaps you’ll be able to return sooner than you imagine.”

“I don’t know what will be here for me when I do.”

“I’ll be here. Perhaps we can work together again.”

I laughed. “Oh, have we been working together?”

He shrugged. “Not always intentionally, but our activities often seem to dovetail, do they not? Would it be a bad thing if that were to…continue?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.” I doubted I would, though. I had no desire to ever again be part of anyone else’s larger strategy. I might be a contractor, but I was never going to be an employee.

“You know,” he said, “there’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

“Yes?”

“I said there had been no more bodies as such, but there was another shooting. Just last night.”

“Really?”

“Yes. A quite prominent LDP politician. Nobuo Kamioka. You might know the name.”

“No, it doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Indeed. What’s strange is that he was shot in the spine. He’ll never walk again, but his assailant didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe the assailant missed.”

“Kamioka claims the assailant was a Buddhist monk. And that before pulling the trigger, the monk told him, ‘Karma is a bitch.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

“Only that, if karma’s a bitch, I hate to think of what it’s got in store for me.”

“A coincidence, then, that you called me only this morning, not before?”

“What, do you think I had something to take care of first?”

He shrugged. “I was expecting you to call sooner. The very morning you were ‘killed’ in Ueno Park, in fact.”

“Sorry. I got hung up.”

“I have the strangest feeling ballistics will match the bullet that killed McGraw with the one that paralyzed Kamioka.”

“Think you’ll find the gun?”

“No, I’m quite certain we won’t.”

“Well, that’s a shame.”

He glanced at my scalp. “I also wondered about your new hairstyle.”

“Just a summer look. I’ll probably grow it out again.”

He gave up and we walked in silence again. At the exit at Harajuku, he handed me a passport. “You can go anywhere now,” he said. “But where?”

Tokyoites surged past us in all directions, going to work, going for coffee, going shopping, going home. The scene was madcap, frenetic, like something played back on film at just slightly faster than normal speed. The sun moved behind a dark cloud, and for a moment the city looked lit in sepia.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But when I open a newspaper and read about a scandal involving American payoffs to Japanese politicians? I’ll think of you.”

He smiled. “I don’t think Fukumoto Junior will last.”

“We’ll see.”

“But other than that, I hope Tokyo will be peaceful for a while.”

I thought of Sayaka. “I’m sure it will be.”