Hard Rain

by Barry Eisler

  “Not at all. Would love to see you.”

  That was odd. She’d pronounced “would” like something halfway to “we’d.” The blurring was contrary to her usual Portuguese accent. A message? A warning?

  I looked at my watch. It was almost one thirty. “I’ll be there in about an hour.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  I heard her click off.

  Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what.

  There was the oddity of her having contacted me. And the story about having come home early, although I suppose the latter might adequately explain the former. Her tone seemed pretty normal. But there was that peculiarly pronounced word.

  The question was, what would I do if I knew it was a setup? Not what I would do if I suspected, but if I knew.

  I went to another pay phone and called Tatsu. I got his voice mail. I tried again. No dice. He must have been on a stakeout or something.

  Well, he does have a day job, I thought. But shit.

  The safe thing, the smart thing, would have been to stay away until I could go in with backup. But there might be an opportunity here, and I didn’t want to let it slip.

  I took a cab to the edge of Azabu Juban. I knew the security layout outside Naomi’s apartment well, of course, having reconnoitered and exploited it myself the night I had waited for her in the rain. The building on that perpendicular side street, with the awning and the plastic garbage bins, was a perfect spot. If someone were waiting for me, he’d wait there. Just like I had waited for her.

  I was making my way to the end of the street that led to the back of the building when I heard the buzz of a two-cycle motorbike coming toward me. It was a pizza delivery scooter with a portable warmer strapped to the back and a sign advertising the shop that had dispatched it. I watched carefully to confirm that it was nothing other than what it seemed. Yeah, just a young guy trying to make a few extra yen with a late night job. I could smell the pizza from inside the warmer.

  I had an idea.

  I flagged him down. He pulled up next to me.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I asked him in Japanese. “For ten thousand yen.”

  His eyes widened a bit. “Sure,” he said. “What is it?”

  “There’s a building at the end of this street, on the right as you approach it from this direction. It’s got an awning and a bunch of garbage containers stacked up along its side. I think a friend of mine might be waiting for me there, but I want to surprise him. Can you drive past it from the other direction, take a good look as you go by, and tell me if you see anyone there?”

  His eyes widened more. “For ten thousand yen? Yeah, I can do that.”

  I pulled out my wallet and took out a five-thousand-yen note. “Half now, half when you get back,” I said.

  He took the money and buzzed off. Three minutes later he was back.

  “He’s there,” he said. “Right where you told me.”

  “Thanks,” I said, nodding. “That was a lifesaver.” I gave him the other five thousand yen. He looked at it, his expression momentarily unbelieving. Then he broke into an enormous sunny grin.

  “Thanks!” he said. “This is great! Anything else you need?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “Not tonight.”

  He looked a little wistful, then smiled again as though he knew he’d been hoping for too much. “Okay, thanks again,” he said. He gunned the engine and drove away.

  I untaped the baton and palmed it in my right hand. I took out Yukiko’s pepper spray and held it in my left. I moved with the furtiveness I had learned in long-range recon patrols in Vietnam, hugging the buildings I passed, checking each corner, each hot spot, confirming it was clear before advancing farther.

  It took me almost a half-hour to cover the hundred meters to the ambush site. When I was three meters away, the cover provided by the garbage bins had thinned too much for me to go any farther. I hunkered low, waiting.

  Five minutes went by. I heard the strike of a match, then saw a cloud of blue smoke waft out from just beyond a stack of containers. Whoever was waiting there wasn’t Murakami. Murakami wouldn’t have done something so stupid.

  I eased the pepper spray back into a pocket and slowly extended the baton to its full length, tugging at the end to ensure that the components were locked in position, gripping it in my right hand. I watched the smoke rising from in front of me and timed the inhalations and exhalations. I waited until I knew he was inhaling, when his attention would be somewhat distracted by the pleasure of sucking in all that tasty nicotine. In, out. In, out. In . . .

  I leaped out from where I was crouching and shot forward, the baton arm curled past my neck as though I was trying to scratch my opposite shoulder, my free hand up, defending my face and head. I covered the distance in an instant and saw the man as soon as I cleared the edge of the garbage containers just behind him. It was one of Murakami’s bodyguards, wearing a black waist-length leather jacket, with shades and a wool watch cap for light disguise. He’d heard the sudden sound of my approach and was in the midst of turning his head toward me when I burst into his position.

  His mouth started to drop open, the cigarette dangling uselessly from his lips. His right hand went for one of the coat pockets. I saw everything slowly, clearly.

  I stepped in with my right foot and whipped the baton into the side of his face. His head ricocheted left from the force of the blow. The shades flew off. The cigarette shot out of his mouth, tumbling like a spent rifle cartridge, followed by an explosion of teeth and blood. He staggered back into the building and started to slide down the wall. I stepped in close and brought the butt end of the baton up under his chin, arresting his descent.

  “Where’s Murakami?” I asked.

  He coughed up a mass of blood and dental matter.

  I patted him down while he gagged and tried to collect himself. I found a Kershaw knife like Murakami’s in his coat and a cell phone in a belt clip. I pocketed both.

  I pressed hard with the baton. “Where is he?” I asked again.

  He coughed and spat. “Naka da,” he said, the words deformed by his injuries. Inside.

  “Where’s your other man?”

  He groaned and tried to reach for his face. I shoved the baton up into his neck. He grimaced and lowered his arms.

  “Where’s your other man?” I asked again.

  He sucked and wheezed. “Omote da.” In front.

  Made sense. That’s the coverage I would have used.

  I brought the baton down and jabbed its tip into his solar plexus. He doubled over with a grunt. I stepped behind him, brought the baton across his windpipe, and jammed a knee into his spine. I arched back, pulling him backward with the baton and pushing forward with my knee. His hands flew to the steel to relieve the pressure but it was already too late. His larynx was crushed. He struggled silently for another half-minute and then sagged back into me.

  I eased him down to the ground and looked around. All quiet. I pulled off his cap and coat and slipped them on. I hunted around on the ground for the shades—there they were. I pulled them on, too.

  I dragged the body as deeply as I could into the shadows, then picked up his still-lit cigarette and stuck it in my mouth. I slammed the baton onto the pavement to close it, slipped it in one of the coat pockets, and palmed the pepper spray.

  Unlike the back of the building, the front offered no perpendicular streets and thus fewer vantage points. There was really only one good spot there, I knew: the alley alongside the building directly across the street.

  I walked around to the front of the building, the shades and hat on, the cigarette burning. I kept my head down and my eyes forward, the same posture these guys would have been using to avoid witnesses and cameras.

  I saw him across the street as soon as I rounded the corner. He was dressed like his recently deceased partner. I made my way directly to his position, moving fast, confidently. The shades we were wearing were great for light disgu
ise, but were hell on night vision. He thought I was his partner. He stepped out of the shadows as though to greet me, perhaps unsure of why I had abandoned my post.

  When I was three meters away I saw him purse his lips in confusion. At two meters his jaw started to drop open as he realized something was definitely wrong. At one meter all his questions were answered with a mouthful of pepper spray.

  His hands flew to his face and he staggered backward. I spat out the cigarette, dropped the canister into a jacket pocket, and withdrew the baton. I snapped it open, stepped behind him, and whipped it across his windpipe the way I had done to his buddy, this time with a stronger cross grip that crushed the carotids along with the larynx. His fingers clawed at the metal and his feet scrabbled for purchase for a few seconds as I dragged him back into the alley, but by the time we had reached the shadows he was dead. I patted him down and found another knife and another cell phone. I left the knife. The cell phone I took.

  I collapsed and pocketed the baton and made my way to the end of the street, where I found a pay phone. I didn’t know if Naomi had caller ID and didn’t want to take a chance on trying her from one of the cell phones I had just acquired.

  I called her. She picked up on the third ring, her voice a little uncertain. “Hello?”

  “Hey, it’s me.”

  A pause. “Where are you?”

  “I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. I’m sorry.”

  Another pause. “That’s okay. It’s fine.” She sounded relieved.

  “I just wanted to let you know. I’ll be in touch soon, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I hung up and returned to the back of her building. I eased into the shadows next to the body I had left there.

  One of the cell phones I was carrying started to vibrate. I pulled it out and opened it.

  “Hai,” I said.

  I heard Murakami’s signature growl and felt adrenaline dump into my system. “He’s not coming tonight,” he said. “I’ll be down in a minute. Call Yagi-san and be ready to move.”

  I guessed Yagi was one of the guys I’d taken out. “Hai,” I said.

  He clicked off.

  I dropped the cell phone back in the coat pocket. I took out the baton and kept it retracted in my right hand. I held the pepper spray in my left. My heart was thudding steadily in my chest. I took in a deep breath through my nose, held it, and let it out.

  The back entrance was the less obvious, less trafficked choice. Also, it lacked a security camera. I knew he’d come out there, just like I had.

  I stayed at the edge of the diffused light from a nearby streetlamp, where Murakami would see me but where my appearance would be obscured by shadows. I needed him to come as close as possible, to maximize the element of surprise. Surprise might be the only advantage I would have over him.

  Two minutes later he emerged from the rear door. I hung back just inside the shadows, the shades on, the hat pulled low.

  There was a dog with him, straining on a leash. It took me a second to recognize it without the muzzle. The white pit bull, the one that had been in the car after my fight with Adonis.

  Oh fuck.

  I almost turned and ran for it. But a dog’s most atavistic instincts are triggered by flight, and there was too great a chance that the thing would have caught me and brought me down from behind. I’d have to play this out.

  At least Murakami’s attention was partly engaged by the animal. He saw me and lifted his head in curt acknowledgment, then looked down at the dog, which had begun to growl.

  Nice doggy, I thought. Nice fucking doggy.

  They came closer. Murakami looked up at me again, then back to the dog. The damn thing was really growling now, staccato killing sounds that rumbled up from deep in its chest.

  Murakami didn’t seem unduly concerned. I guessed that a dog that took gunpowder and steroids with its Alpo and jalapeño pepper suppositories for dessert might growl at the fucking wind, and that Murakami would be used to the behavior, might even welcome it.

  They came closer. The dog was starting to get out of control, snarling and straining at the leash. Murakami looked down at it. I heard him say, “Doushitanda?” What the hell is with you?

  Then his head started to come up. He wasn’t as close as I wanted, but I knew his next glance was going to put things together. I wasn’t going to get a better opportunity.

  I leaped out at them and closed the distance in two long strides. Murakami reacted instantly, releasing the leash and getting his hands up to protect his upper body and head.

  It was a well-trained reaction and I’d been expecting it. Ignoring the dog, which I ranked as the lesser threat, I dropped to a crouch, cocked my right arm back, and whipped it forward like a tennis backhand. The baton started telescoping out. By the time it reached Murakami’s lead ankle, it had achieved its proper twenty-six inches. The impact of that steel to his ankle was one of the best feelings I’d ever known. If I’d missed, I would have been dead a few seconds later.

  But I didn’t miss. I felt bone shatter under the steel and heard Murakami howl. An instant later all I could see was white dog, coming at me like a cruise missile.

  I managed to get my left arm up in front of my throat. The dog shot forward and clamped onto it just above the wrist. There was an explosion of pain. The impact knocked me backward.

  I knew if I fell to my back with that creature on top of me there wouldn’t even be body parts for the clean-up crew afterward. Partly by instinct, partly by judo training, I let our paired momentum somersault us backward and rolled into a squat on the other end of it. The dog still had me just above the wrist, snarling and shaking its head, holding on in a dead game grip the way it had been trained. I couldn’t feel anything in my arm anymore.

  I tried to bring the baton up and crack the thing over the head, but I couldn’t. The dog’s claws scraped against the pavement, seeking purchase, leverage from which it could force me over onto my back.

  I dropped the baton and reached around with my good hand, scrabbling for its testicles. The beast dodged left, then right, knowing what I was going for. I found it anyway. I grabbed that canine package and yanked downward as hard as I’ve ever yanked anything in my life. The jaws loosened and I jerked my arm free.

  I lurched to my feet. The dog writhed for a moment, then got its legs under it. It snarled and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

  I glanced at my left hand. It was clamped around the pepper spray canister with rigor mortis determination. The tendons must have locked up from the pressure of the animal’s jaws.

  The dog’s muscles coiled together. I pried the canister loose with my good hand. The dog leaped. I turned the canister forward and depressed the trigger.

  There was a satisfying sound of gas escaping under pressure, and a red cloud hit the beast directly in the face. Its momentum carried it into me and knocked me backward, but it was jerking and slobbering now, no longer attacking. I kicked out from under its twitching body and rolled to a crouch.

  The dog started writhing on the ground, rubbing its snout frantically into the tarmac as though trying to wipe off the substance that was causing its agony. I held the canister closer. When the animal turned its wheezing face toward me, I aimed directly into its nose and depressed the trigger. A thick cloud jetted out, and then, just as suddenly, died, the canister’s contents exhausted.

  But it was enough. The dog’s body launched into spasms that made its previous writhing look like playful stretching by comparison. Oleoresin capiscum irritant is ordinarily nonfatal, but I thought a concentrated dose like the one the dog had just received might prove the exception.

  I looked over at Murakami. He was on his feet, but was keeping his weight entirely off his wounded ankle. He had the Kershaw in his right hand, held close to his body.

  I looked down and saw the baton. I swept it up in my good hand and approached him, my left arm hanging uselessly.

  He was growling from deep in his chest, sounding not u
nlike his dog.

  I moved around him in a wary circle, forcing him to adjust, trying to gauge the extent of his mobility. I knew the ankle shot had been potent. I also knew that he might try to exaggerate the extent of the damage, to get me to overcommit and attempt to finish him too quickly. If he could grab the baton or otherwise get inside my guard, his knife and two good arms would prove decisive.

  So I took my time. I feinted with the baton. Left, then right. I circled toward the knife hand, making it more difficult for him to snatch something with his free fingers, keeping him moving, stressing the ankle.

  I let him get used to the left/right feints. Then I ran one straight up the middle, jabbing the steel directly at his face and neck. He parried with his free hand, trying to grab the baton, but I’d been expecting it and snapped the unit out of the way in time. The, just as suddenly, I backhanded it in, cracking him along the side of his skull.

  He dropped to one knee but I didn’t rush in. My gut told me he was faking, again trying to lure me inside, where he could neutralize the greater distance afforded by the baton.

  Blood ran down from the side of his head. He looked at me and for a split instant I saw fear sweep across his face like a sheet of driving rain. His feints hadn’t worked and he knew it. He knew I was going to wear him down carefully, methodically, that I wasn’t going to do anything stupid that he could exploit.

  His only chance would be something desperate. I circled again and waited for it.

  I let him get a little bit closer, close enough to give him hope.

  I feinted and dodged, forcing him to move on his ankle. He was panting now.

  With a loud kiai he lunged at me, reaching with his free hand, hoping to snag a jacket sleeve and reel me into the knife.

  But his ankle slowed him down.

  I took a long step back and to the side and snapped the baton down on his forearm. I traded force for accuracy and speed, but it was still a solid shot. He grunted in pain and I took two more steps back to assess the damage. He held his injured arm against his body and looked at me. He smiled.

  “C’mon,” he said. “I’m right here. Finish me off. Don’t be afraid.”