Graveyard of Memories

by Barry Eisler

Who could say? Maybe Fukumoto’s wife was out then, having her hair done or at a weekly coffee klatch or whatever. Maybe for discretion, Fukumoto preferred to meet just before school got out, when the fewest people would be around. Maybe he’d just been horny and picked up the phone. I knew she was no call girl, though—there was that expensive car, for one thing, which felt like a gift from a rich patron. And the fact that inside her car was an opener to Fukumoto’s garage. Not something he would give to a casual acquaintance. No, my gut told me the woman in the Porsche was Fukumoto’s mistress.

  But I cared about all that only secondarily. What mattered to me most right then was that if I could get to her car, I could get to that garage door opener. And if I could get to the garage door opener, I could get to Fukumoto.

  I followed her to Daikanyama, northeast of Denenchofu and just west of the Yamanote, hanging back, keeping plenty of traffic between us. A yellow Porsche wasn’t exactly hard to keep in view, even from a distance. She parked on the street and went into one of the clothes boutiques Daikanyama was known for.

  These days, I would never have plunged ahead with so little preparation. Hell, I never would have plunged ahead with so little thought. But back then, I was young, and impulsive, and stupid. I didn’t know how much you could manage luck, and why it’s critical to at least try.

  Instead, the sum of my analysis was more or less, Never going to be a better chance than this one.

  I parked Thanatos a little ways off. I strolled along the sidewalk, pausing to look at the Porsche as though admiring it. It was a new model, and in fact sported one of the jikōshiki license plates the authorities had started offering just a couple years earlier—essentially a numerical vanity plate, green by day, glow-in-the-dark by night. This one had been issued by Shinagawa, number 1972. I guessed the idea was to proclaim the car’s model year to anyone who cared.

  I looked around—lots of people, no one paying me any particular attention. I snatched the garage door opener off the visor, walked back to Thanatos, and buzzed off. I could be back in Denenchofu in no time. I doubted Fukumoto would be expecting company so soon after his mistress had departed. With luck, he might even be enjoying a little postcoital nap.

  So far, it had all gone smoothly, the timing and the circumstances all lining up right. I should have realized it had all been just a little too easy. But I didn’t.

  chapter

  nineteen

  I stopped at a pharmacy and bought a few medical supplies, including latex gloves. I didn’t need anything but the gloves, but I thought it would be lower profile to look as though I was preparing for surgery rather than for crime. Would it matter? Probably not, but I saw no downside to obscuring the centrality of the gloves. I was learning.

  I also went to a discount store and bought several items for the kind of light disguise I’d used when I retrieved the file from Miyamoto, this time deciding on a dark nylon windbreaker instead of a wool one. I also bought a cheap kitchen knife in a plastic sheath. A gun would have been better than a knife, but I had no way of acquiring one, and I didn’t want to go in without some kind of weapon at hand. I wasn’t worried about how I would take care of Fukumoto—other things being equal, I was confident I could use an improvised blunt object or even my hands for that. The problem was, I didn’t know what kind of opposition I might encounter, and I didn’t want to be holding nothing when I encountered it.

  Before parking Thanatos at the station, I removed the license plate and hid it under a vending machine. Then I slipped on the windbreaker and the rest of my light disguise, and walked the kilometer or so to Fukumoto’s house, nothing on my person but the latex gloves and knife in my pocket and the garage door opener in my hand.

  I took a quick walk past the front of the house. Everything looked the same as it had when I’d been here just forty-five minutes earlier. A hit of adrenaline radiated out from my gut. I went down the side street. All clear. I breathed slowly in and out, willing myself to stay calm, stay relaxed.

  I hit the remote-control button and watched the door slowly ascend. I saw the car I had glimpsed earlier—a Mercedes, this one a full-sized sedan, black. The other space was empty, some oil and transmission fluid stains in the concrete. Obviously, there were ordinarily two cars parked here, and one of them was out now. My chances of finding Fukumoto alone would never be better. I stepped inside and hit the button again, and while the door descended, I pulled the gloves on, moved up to the wall alongside the door to the house, and got out the knife. I didn’t know where Fukumoto would be inside, or whether he would hear the garage door. But if he came out to investigate, I wanted to be ready.

  The garage door closed, and I was suddenly enveloped in darkness. My eyes were used to the bright light outside, and it would take a few minutes for my night vision to kick in. Shit, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, nothing to do but wait. My heart was thudding and I concentrated on breathing slowly, in and out, managing my nervousness the way I had in combat.

  There was actually a decent amount of light seeping in along the seams of the garage door, and it didn’t take long before I could make things out. Besides the Mercedes, there wasn’t much. Car wax and other cleaning products on a shelf. Weights, piled up in a corner and looking as though they hadn’t been used in years. Some tools hanging on the wall—screwdrivers, a saw, pliers. A nice-sized claw hammer.

  I darted over to the wall, grabbed the hammer, and returned to my position alongside the door. Keeping the knife and the hammer in one hand, I tried the knob with the other, slowly and gently. I was expecting it to be locked, and was prepared to pick it. But I was pleasantly surprised when it turned.

  I inhaled and exhaled deeply, then pulled the door open a crack. Snuck a quick peek, then jerked my head away. Fragments of a kitchen. Other than that, nothing. I looked again. No one was there. I opened the door a fraction wider and snuck another quick peek. Again, no one.

  I dropped down and opened the door wide, scanning, ready to slam the door and fall back if anyone opened fire. Nothing but a large eat-in kitchen, neat, clean, and empty.

  I stuck my head inside for an instant and pulled back. The quick peek revealed a doorway to the left and another straight ahead. A dining room and living room, I guessed.

  I stuck my head in a third time, and this time held the position, listening. I thought I heard voices, but from far off and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. People? A radio or television, maybe?

  I eased the door closed, crept across the kitchen, and stopped alongside the doorway to what I guessed was the living room. Again, I paused to listen intently. I could hear the voices slightly better from here. They were male, and I was pretty sure they were live, not television or radio, but I still couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  I snuck a peek. A staircase to the right; an empty corridor and an open door at the end of it. The voices were coming from there.

  I crept down the corridor, my back to one wall, scanning in all directions, planning contingencies, mapping escape routes. There was probably a science to securing a house and I promised myself I would learn it, but in the meantime skills honed in the jungle were translating reasonably well. The carpet was plush and my footsteps were silent. I could hear the voices more clearly now—two of them. It sounded like a management meeting, something about putting a new guy in charge of collections. But I barely processed the words—it was the tone I was keyed on, and the tone I overheard was even, involved, engaged. They were paying attention to each other and their conversation, not to anything outside the room. I held the knife in my left hand and the hammer in my right. I took a step, stopped, listened. Repeat. And again.

  When I was ten feet away, one of those steps caused a floorboard to squeak. Loudly.

  I froze. The conversation I’d been overhearing stopped. Dead silence. Not another word, not even a “What was that?” or a mild “Did you hear something?”

  The decision happened instantaneously, automatically. If there had been anything other t
han silence, I might have paused to wait them out, to see if there would be an opportunity to get a little closer and gain additional surprise. But that absolute silence—it felt like certainty, like preparation, like hard men reaching for weapons. It felt like if I didn’t move now, I’d cede all the initiative. The only question was attack, or fall back.

  I chose attack.

  Juiced on adrenaline, I sprinted forward and burst into the room, bellowing a wild kiyai. A drawing room of some kind, and four men, all in suits. Two seated on either side of a coffee table at the far end of the room, two in chairs closer to me. One of the two at the far end I recognized from the file photo as Fukumoto. The other was a similar age and looked like management. The third and fourth looked like security—younger, punch-permed, their jackets tight over muscular physiques. And Muscle One and Muscle Two were already coming to their feet, as I had imagined, and reaching under their jackets.

  There’s a reason battle cries are as old as war. Whether Comanche, or rebel yell, or banzai, or whatever, an atavistic primate roar can be tremendously intimidating and disorienting to the enemy. So yelling again like a madman, I launched the hammer at Muscle One, the one to my left. He was spooked by my sudden appearance and my screaming, and too focused on trying to access his weapon even to flinch. The hammer sailed into his face with a tremendous crack of metal on bone. I was already turning and charging at Muscle Two. His eyes were bulging in a sign of near panic and he was back-pedaling directly away from me. About a decade later, a guy named Dennis Tueller in Utah would show that inside twenty-one feet against a knife, trying to get a gun out is typically a losing bet, especially if you’re backing straight up rather than getting off the line. This guy wouldn’t be around for the study. He did manage to get out his pistol, but I slapped my free hand over the muzzle and turned it away, at the same instant plunging the knife into his belly. He shrieked and jerked back and I stabbed him again. And again. He gave up the gun and tried to turn away. I was all the way back in the war now, charging an ambush, a demon, a berserker, a fucking killing machine. Muscle Two collapsed and fetaled up. I pointed the gun at his head and tried to pull the trigger. What the fuck? I looked—a Browning Hi Power, cocked and locked. No wonder Muscle Two hadn’t gotten off a shot, even to the side. I thumbed the safety down and shot him in the head. I strode over to Muscle One. He was splayed on his back, blood flowing from a gash in his forehead. I fired directly into the gash.

  Fukumoto and the other guy were on their feet now, but there was no way out of the room except through me, and neither wanted to charge me first. I advanced into the room, the gun up, my teeth clenched, snarling like a werewolf.

  Fukumoto raised his hands and screamed, “Nande temae?” What do you want? I shot him in the face and he went down. The other guy braced to try to run past me, but I was already swiveling. The first shot hit him in the neck. He spun away and fell. I moved forward and shot him in the back of his head. I went back to Fukumoto and put another round in his head, too, then did the same for Muscle One and Muscle Two. I paused, panting. The room stank of gun smoke and blood. And shit—someone had lost control of his bowels. For an instant, I didn’t know where I was, the carnage and the smell all dragging me back to the jungle, but my eyes telling me I was in somebody’s goddamn drawing room.

  I focused on my breathing, slowing it down, cuing my heart rate to do the same. I tried to think. Was there anything I needed to do? Any evidence I was leaving behind, anything I could manipulate to fool the police and the mob?

  Nothing came to me. It was all too unfamiliar, too confusing. I couldn’t transition from combat to crime scene. All I could think to do was get the fuck out before reinforcements showed up.

  I wanted to keep the gun, but I realized I couldn’t. It might be useful, but no way was I going to carry around the murder weapon. I tossed it onto Muscle Two’s corpse.

  But wait, Muscle One had one, too. At least, it looked like he’d been going for one.

  I knelt and opened Muscle One’s jacket. There it was, another Hi Power, in his waistband. I searched through his pants. No spare magazine. Guess he wasn’t expecting a drawn-out gun battle. I checked the load. The magazine was full—thirteen rounds. Wait, would Muscle Two have a spare? I thought probably not. Besides, he was lying in an enormous pool of blood and I didn’t want it creating shoe prints through the house. But shit, I could have taken the magazine from Muscle Two’s gun—it would still have five rounds in it. Instead, I’d tossed it onto his corpse, which was now surrounded by a moat of blood. Drag a couch over, lean down, and retrieve it? No, not worth the time. One gun would have to do.

  I glanced around the room one more time. Had I missed anything? Wait, the knife, the knife. I’d paid cash but still, better not to leave it. I’d dropped it after taking the gun from Muscle One…where? I looked around frantically. There. I picked it up, wiped it on his pants leg, and slid it into the sheath. Wait, goddamn it, the hammer, too. Maybe better not to leave it. What would be the theory behind someone attacking four armed yakuza with a hammer? I couldn’t articulate why at that moment, but I thought the hammer should go back where it belonged. I picked it up. Shit, it had a good amount of blood on it. I hurried to the kitchen, grabbed a few paper towels, and cleaned it off. What about you? I glanced down at the windbreaker. Yeah, there was some blood on it, but most of it wiped off easily, and the dark color took care of the rest. I pocketed the towels and headed back into the garage. I replaced the hammer on the shelf. Okay, good to go.

  I took two deep breaths, and was about to hit the garage door opener when the door engaged and started to rise of its own accord. For a split instant, all I could think was, What the fuck? And then I realized, Someone’s here. I dashed around to the front of the Mercedes and squeezed down below the bumper, my back against the wall, the Browning in my hand.

  The door kept going up. I snuck a peek under the car. I saw the wheels of another car, paused in the short driveway while the door ascended. As soon as it was fully open, the car eased forward into the open space. I scrunched down lower. The car stopped, the motor died, and the driver-side door opened. I saw a pair of sensible pumps and two thick ankles in stockings. The wife? Probably. Kill her, or let her go? Safer to kill her. But I hesitated. The door closed. The ankles appeared on the far side of the garage, crossed behind the Mercedes, and moved to the interior garage door. Now or never. But I hesitated again. I heard the sound of a key sliding into a lock, the key turning, a pause, a little under-the-breath hmmph, the key turning again, the interior door opening. The exterior door started to close—she must have pressed a button. I heard the interior door close. The second it did, I sprang out, dashed forward between the cars, and rolled under the door just in time. I got to my feet, peeled off and pocketed the gloves, and walked as quickly as reasonably possible toward the station. If I was lucky, she would pause in the kitchen, go upstairs, do some chores or whatever before finding what I’d left behind. If I was unlucky, she would head straight to that drawing room and immediately call the police, or more yakuza, or both. I might have only a few minutes.

  I made it back to Thanatos, retrieved and secured the license plate, and roared off. I crossed the Tama River and followed it south for a few kilometers, tossing the knife in along the way and leaving the gloves, windbreaker, and other disguise items buried in various trash bins. Then I went back to Daikanyama, hoping I might find the girl’s Porsche still there so I could replace the garage door opener. But, unsurprisingly, she was gone. I cruised around the streets for about a half hour, hoping she might have just driven the car to another boutique—it was hot enough that she might have done so to avoid the walk—but I saw no sign of the car. A bit of a shame. It would have been good for the police to have no idea how someone had gained access to the house. With no signs of forced entry, they might have formed a working theory of “someone the victims knew,” something like that. As it was, I was reasonably optimistic they would reflexively classify the whole thing as a yakuza hit, an
d that the yakuza would do the same. If a bunch of mobsters wanted to start killing each other in retaliation, that was fine with me. I preferred them trying to kill each other rather than coming after me.

  And then I realized…would the girl say anything to the police when she discovered the garage door opener was missing? “Hi, I was his mistress, I couldn’t help notice the garage door opener he gave me went missing from my car on the day of the murders.” I seriously doubted she would come forward. And even if she did, so what? Maybe she was being tailed by the yakuza team that had carried out the hit. Maybe they had intel about her relationship, and the plan all along was to get the garage door opener and use it to gain entry to the residence. It didn’t matter how it all played out, as long as none of it could lead back to me. And I didn’t see how it could.

  I stopped in a park to think a little more. You okay? I asked myself.

  What? Never better.

  In the movies, they always make sure the hero kills only in self-defense, typically in the instant before the bad guy gets the drop on him. Even in that film Miyamoto had mentioned, Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood blows away a guy who had kidnapped, tortured, and killed a teenage girl only when the guy goes for a gun.

  To me, that’s all bullshit. More than anything else, killing is about survival. About doing everything you can to deceive, and cheat, and stack the odds in your own favor. You don’t wait for the other guy to go for his gun; you shoot him before he has a chance. If he has his back to you, that’s even better. If you can call in an air strike, that’s better still. You don’t just do everything you possibly can to prevent a fight from being fair—preventing the fight from being fair is the entire point. Do you want the enemy to have as good a chance of killing you as you have of killing him? Or do you want to make sure he gets no chance at all? As far as I’m concerned, the people who think a fair fight is desirable can go ahead and die in one. I wanted to live, and that meant hitting the yakuza hard, and unexpectedly, and never, ever giving up even the smallest advantage.