Rain Fall

by Barry Eisler

  “Right here — five minutes.” She turned and walked backstage.

  Fifteen minutes later she reappeared through a curtain at the back of the stage. She had changed into a black turtleneck, silk or a fine cashmere, and black slacks. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, her face perfectly framed.

  “Sorry to make you wait. I wanted to change — a performance is hard work.”

  “No problem,” I said, taking her in. “You look great.”

  She smiled. “Let’s go! The band is out front. I’m starving.”

  We headed out the front entrance, passing a number of lingering fans who thanked her on the way. If you wanted to get to her and could time it right, I thought, you would wait at the bottom of the stairs of the Caffe Idee, where you would have a view of both the front and side entrances. Sure enough, Mr. Bland was there, strolling away from us with studied nonchalance.

  So much for Benny’s forty-eight hours, I thought. It was probably just his version of “Act now — offer expires at midnight.” Something he picked up in a sales course somewhere.

  The bass guitarist and drummer were waiting for us, and we strolled over. “Tomo-chan, Ko-chan, this is Fujiwara Junichi, the gentleman I mentioned,” Midori said, gesturing to me.

  “Hajimemashite,” I said, bowing. “Konya no enso wa saiko ni subarashikatta.” It’s good to meet you. Tonight’s performance was a great pleasure.

  “Hey, let’s use English tonight,” Midori said, switching over as she did so. “Fujiwara-san, these guys both spent years in New York. They can order a cab in Brooklyn as well as you can.”

  “In that case, please call me John,” I said. I extended my hand to the drummer.

  “You can call me Tom,” he said, shaking my hand and bowing simultaneously. He had an open, almost quizzical expression, and was dressed unpretentiously in jeans, a white oxford-cloth shirt, and a blue blazer. There was something sincere in the way he had combined his Western and Japanese greetings, and I found I liked him immediately.

  “I remember you from Alfie,” the bassist said, extending his hand carefully. He was dressed predictably in black jeans, turtleneck, and blazer, the sideburns and rectangular glasses all trying a bit too hard for The Look.

  “And I remember you,” I said, taking his hand and consciously injecting some warmth into my grip. “You were all wonderful. Mama told me before the performance that you were all going to be stars, and I can see that she was right.”

  Maybe he knew I was soft-soaping him, but he must have felt too good after the performance to care. Or his personality was different in English. Either way, he gave me a small but genuine-looking smile and said, “Thank you for mentioning that. Call me Ken.”

  “And call me Midori,” Midori cut in. “Now let’s go, before I starve!”

  During the ten-minute walk to Za Ribingu Baa, as the locals called it, we all chatted about jazz and how we had discovered it for ourselves. Although I was ten years older than the oldest of them, philosophically we were all purists of the Charlie Parker/Bill Evans/Miles Davis school, and conversation was easy enough.

  Periodically I was able to glance behind us as we turned corners. On several of these occasions I spotted Mr. Bland in tow. I didn’t expect him to move while Midori was with all these people, if that’s what he had in mind.

  Unless they were desperate, of course, in which case they would take chances, maybe even move sloppily. My ears were intensely focused on the sounds behind us as we walked.

  The Living Bar announced its existence in the basement of the Scène Akira building with a discreet sign over the stairs. We walked down and into the entranceway, where we were greeted by a young Japanese man with a stylish brush cut and a well-tailored navy suit with three of its four buttons fastened. Midori, very much the leader of the group, told him we wanted a table for four; he answered “ Kashikomarimashita” in the most polite Japanese and murmured into a small microphone next to the register. By the time he had escorted us inside, a table had been prepared and a waitress was waiting to seat us.

  The crowd wasn’t too dense for a Saturday night. Several groups of glamorous-looking women were sitting in high-backed chairs at the black varnished tables, wearing expertly applied makeup and Chanel like it was made for them, their cheekbones in sharp relief in the subdued glow of the overhead incandescent illumination, their hair catching the light. Midori put them to shame.

  I wanted the seat facing the entrance, but Tom moved too quickly and took it himself. I was left facing the bar.

  As we ordered drinks and enough small appetizers to make for a reasonable meal, I saw the man who had escorted us inside walk Mr. Bland over to the bar. Mr. Bland sat with his back to us, but there was a mirror behind the bar, and I knew he had a good view of the room.

  While we waited for our order to arrive, we continued our safe, comfortable conversation about jazz. Several times I considered the merits of removing Mr. Bland. He was part of a numerically superior enemy. If an opportunity presented itself to reduce that number by one, I would take it. If I did it right, his employers would never know of my involvement, and taking him out could buy me more time to get Midori out of this.

  At some point, after much of the food had been consumed and we, along with Mr. Bland, were on our second round of drinks, one of them asked me what I did for a living.

  “I’m a consultant,” I told them. “I advise foreign companies on how to bring their goods and services into the Japanese market.”

  “That’s good,” Tom said. “It’s too hard for foreigners to do business in Japan. Even today, liberalization is just cosmetic. In many ways it’s the same Japan as during the Tokugawa bakufu, closed to the outside world.”

  “Yes, but that’s good for John’s business,” Ken added. “Isn’t it, John? Because, if Japan didn’t have so many stupid regulations, if the ministries that inspect incoming food and products weren’t so corrupt, you would need to find a different job, ne?”

  “C’mon, Ken,” Midori said. “We know how cynical you are. You don’t have to prove it.”

  I wondered if Ken might have had too much to drink.

  “You used to be cynical, too,” he went on. He turned to me. “When Midori came back from Julliard in New York, she was a radical. She wanted to change everything about Japan. But I guess not anymore.”

  “I still want to change things,” Midori said, her voice warm but firm. “It’s just that I don’t think a lot of angry slogans will make any difference. You have to be patient, you have to pick your battles.”

  “Which ones have you picked lately?” he asked.

  Tom turned to me. “You have to understand, Ken feels like he sold out by doing gigs at established places like the Blue Note. Sometimes he takes it out on us.”

  Ken laughed. “We all sold out.”

  Midori rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Ken, give it a rest.”

  Ken looked at me. “What about you, John? What’s the American expression: ‘Either you’re a part of the solution, or you’re a part of the problem’?”

  I smiled. “There’s a third part, actually: ‘Or you’re a part of the landscape.’ ”

  Ken nodded as though internally confirming something. “That’s the worst of all.”

  I shrugged. He didn’t matter to me, and it was easy to stay disengaged. “The truth is, I hadn’t really thought of what I do in these terms. Some people have a problem exporting to Japan, I help them out. But you make some good points. I’ll think about what you’re saying.”

  He wanted to argue and didn’t know what to do with my agreeable responses, which was fine. “Let’s have another drink,” he said.

  “I think I’ve reached my limit,” Midori said. “I’m ready to call it a night.”

  As she spoke I noticed Mr. Bland, who was studiously looking elsewhere, clicking a small device about the size of a disposable lighter that he was resting on one knee and pointing in our direction. Fuck, I thought. A camera.

  He’d been taking Midor
i’s picture, and I would be in the shots. This was the kind of risk I’d be taking if I stayed close to her now.

  Okay. I’d have to leave with the three of them, then invent an excuse, maybe that I left something, double back to the bar and catch him as he was leaving to follow Midori again. I wasn’t going to let him keep that camera, not with my pictures on the film in it.

  But Mr. Bland gave me another option, instead. He got up and started walking in the direction of the rest room.

  “I’m going to head home, too,” I said, standing up, feeling my heart beginning to beat harder in my chest. “Just need to hit the rest room first.” I eased away from the table.

  I followed a few meters behind Mr. Bland as he maneuvered along the polished black floor. I kept my head down somewhat, avoiding eye contact with the patrons I was passing, hearing my heart thudding steadily in my ears. He opened the rest-room door and went inside. Before the door had quite swung closed, I opened it and followed him in.

  Two stalls, two urinals. I could see in my peripheral vision that the stall doors were open a crack. We were alone. The thudding of my heart was loud enough to block out sound. I could feel the air flowing cleanly in and out of my nostrils, the blood pumping through the veins of my arms.

  He turned to face me as I approached, perhaps recognizing me from his peripheral vision as one of the people who was with Midori, perhaps warned by some vestigial and now futile instinct that he was in danger. My eyes were centered on his upper torso, not focusing on any one part of him, taking in his whole body, the position of his hips and hands, absorbing the information, processing it.

  Without pausing or in any way breaking my stride I stepped in and blasted my left hand directly into his throat, catching his trachea in the V created by my thumb and index finger. His head snapped forward and his hands flew to his throat.

  I stepped behind him and slipped my hands into his front pockets. From the left I retrieved the camera. The other was empty.

  He was clawing ineffectually at his damaged throat, silent except for some clicking from his tongue and teeth. He started to stamp his left foot on the ground and contort his torso in what I recognized as the beginning of panic, the body moving of its own primitive accord to get air, air, through the broken trachea and into the convulsing lungs.

  I knew it would take about thirty seconds for him to asphyxiate. No time for that. I took hold of his hair and chin in a sentry removal hold and broke his neck with a hard clockwise twist.

  He collapsed backward into me and I dragged him into one of the empty stalls, sitting him on the toilet and adjusting his position so that the body would stay put. With the door closed, anyone coming in to use the bathroom would see his legs and just think the stall was occupied. With luck, the body wouldn’t be discovered until closing time, long after we were gone.

  I eased the door shut with my right hip and used my knee to close the latch. Then, gripping the upper edge of the stall divider, I pulled myself up and slid over to the stall on the other side. I pulled a length of toilet paper from the dispenser and used it to wipe the two spots that I had touched. I jammed the toilet paper in a pants pocket, took a deep breath, and walked back out into the bar.

  “All set?” I asked, walking up to the table, controlling my breathing.

  “Let’s go,” Midori said. The three of them stood up, and we headed toward the cashier and the exit.

  Tom was holding the bill, but I took it from him gently and insisted that they all let me pay; it was my privilege after the pleasure of their performance. I didn’t want to take a chance on anyone trying to use a credit card and leaving a record of our presence here tonight.

  As I was paying, Tom said, “I’ll be right back,” and headed toward the rest room.

  “Me, too,” Ken added, and followed him.

  I imagined vaguely that the body could slide off the toilet while they were in there. Or that Murphy’s Law would make an appearance in some other way. The thoughts weren’t unduly troubling. There was nothing I could do but relax and wait until they had returned.

  “You want a walk home?” I asked Midori. She had mentioned during the evening that she lived in Harajuku, although of course I already knew that.

  She smiled. “That would be nice.”

  Three minutes later, Tom and Ken returned. I saw them laughing about something as they approached us, and knew that Mr. Bland had gone undiscovered.

  We stepped outside and walked up the steps into the cool Omotesando evening.

  “My car’s at the Blue Note,” Ken said when we were outside. He looked at Midori. “Anyone need a ride?”

  Midori shook her head. “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “I’ll take the subway,” I told him. “But thanks.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Tom said, diffusing the slight tension I could feel brewing as Ken did the math. “John, it was nice meeting you tonight. Thank you again for coming, and for the dinner and drinks.”

  I bowed. “My pleasure, really. I hope I’ll have another opportunity.”

  Ken nodded. “Sure,” he said, with a demonstrable lack of enthusiasm. Tom took a step backward, his cue to Ken, I knew, and we said good night.

  Midori and I strolled slowly in the direction of Omotesando-dori. “Was that okay?” she asked when Tom and Ken were out of earshot.

  “I had a good time,” I told her. “They’re interesting people.”

  “Ken can be difficult.”

  I shrugged. “He was a little jealous that you had invited someone else to tag along, that’s all.”

  “He’s just young. Thanks for handling him gently tonight.”

  “No problem.”

  “You know, I don’t usually invite people I’ve only just met to come to a performance, or to go out afterwards.”

  “Well, we’d met once before, so your guideline should be intact.”

  She laughed. “You feel like another single malt?”

  I looked at her, trying to read her. “Always,” I said. “And I’ve got a place I think you’ll like.”

  I took her to Bar Satoh, a tiny second-story establishment nestled in a series of alleys that extend like a spider’s web within the right angle formed by Omotesando-dori and Meiji-dori. The route we took gave me several opportunities to check behind us, and I saw that we were clean. Mr. Bland had been alone.

  We took the elevator to the second floor of the building, then stepped through a door surrounded by a riot of gardenias and other flowers that Satoh-san’s wife tends with reverence. A right turn, a step up, and there was Satoh-san, presiding over the solid cherry bar in the low light, dressed immaculately as always in a bow tie and vest.

  “Ah, Fujiwara-san,” he said in his soft baritone, smiling a broad smile and bowing as he caught sight of us. “Irrashaimase.” Welcome.

  “Satoh-san, it’s good to see you,” I said in Japanese. I looked around, noting that his small establishment was almost full. “Is there a possibility that we could be seated?”

  “Ei, mochiron,” he replied. Yes, of course. Apologizing in formal Japanese, he had the six patrons at the bar all shift to their right, freeing up an additional seat at the far end and creating room for Midori and me.

  Thanking Satoh-san and apologizing to the other patrons, we made our way to our seats. Midori’s head was moving back and forth as she took in the décor: bottle after bottle of different whiskeys, many obscure and ancient, not just behind the bar but adorning shelves and furniture throughout the room, as well. Eclectic Americana like an old Schwinn bicycle suspended from the back wall, an ancient black rotary telephone that must have weighed ten pounds, a framed photograph of President Kennedy. As a complement to his whiskey-only policy, Satoh-san plays nothing but jazz, and the sounds of singer/poet Kurt Elling issued warm and wry from the Marantz vacuum-tube stereo in the back of the bar, accompanied by the low murmur of conversation and muffled laughter.

  “I . . . love this place!” Midori whispered to me in English as we sat down.


  “It’s great, isn’t it?” I said, pleased that she appreciated it. “Satoh-san is a former sarariman who got out of the rat race. He loves whiskey and jazz, and saved every yen he could until he was able to open this place ten years ago. I think it’s the best bar in Japan.”

  Satoh-san strolled over, and I introduced Midori. “Ah, of course!” he exclaimed in Japanese. He reached under the bar, shuffling things around until he found what he was looking for: a copy of Midori’s CD. Midori had to beg him not to play it.

  “What do you recommend tonight?” I asked him. Satoh-san makes four pilgrimages a year to Scotland and has introduced me to malts that are available almost nowhere else in Japan.

  “How many drinks?” he asked. If the answer were several, he would conduct a tasting, starting with something light from the Lowlands and progressing to the iodine tang of the Islay malts.

  “Just one, I think,” I responded. I glanced at Midori, who nodded her head.

  “Subtle? Strong?”

  I glanced at Midori again, who said, “Strong.”

  Satoh-san smiled. “Strong” was clearly the answer that he was hoping for, and I knew he had something special in mind. He turned and took a clear glass bottle from in front of the mirror behind the bar, then held it before us. “This is a forty-year-old Ardbeg,” he explained. “From the south shore of Islay. Very rare. I keep it in a plain bottle because anyone who recognized it might try to steal it.”

  He took out two immaculate tumblers and placed them before us. “Straight?” he asked, not knowing Midori’s preferences.

  “Hai,” she answered, to Satoh-san’s relieved nod of approval. He carefully poured off two measures of the bronze liquid and recorked the bottle.

  “What makes this malt special is the balance of flavors — flavors that would ordinarily compete with or override one another,” he told us, his voice low and slightly grave. “There is peat, smoke, perfume, sherry, and the salt smell of the sea. It took forty years for this malt to realize the potential of its own character, just like a person. Please, enjoy.” He bowed and moved to the other end of the bar.