Zero Sum (A John Rain Novel)

by Barry Eisler

  “Does that mean you want to see me again?”

  There was another pause. I gripped the phone hard, knowing it was a stupid thing to say, that I shouldn’t be playing with any additional fire when I had so many conflagrations to attend to.

  Then, her voice slightly husky, she said, “Very much.”

  “When?” I said with no hesitation at all, continuing an unbroken stupid streak.

  “The next few days are difficult and I don’t think I can get away.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said, not faking my disappointment at all. “What could be that important?”

  “The exhibit I curated—there’s a private dinner and showing at the museum Friday night. I have a lot to do to get ready. But call me Friday. I might even be able to see you that night.” She paused, then added, “And stay at a better hotel this time, all right?”

  Amazing, how a simple command like that, said in the right tone and by the right person, could produce such an instantaneous hard-on. But there you have it.

  “I will,” I said, aware my mouth had gone slightly dry. And then, without thinking, added, “Wear something you won’t mind getting torn off.”

  There was a sharp little exhalation. Then she said, “I have to go. Call me Friday or I’ll be very angry.”

  She hung up, leaving me standing there in the grip of a paralyzing mix of excitement and self-recrimination.

  Focus. You need to focus. You want to see Maria? You need to be alive for that.

  I stayed at a business hotel just outside Yoshiwara. I thought about using one of the local love hotels, but my paranoia—or call it survival instinct—was on high alert, and it was too easy for me to imagine Victor getting a call from someone who saw me in the area. Unlikely, I knew, but there was little cost to avoiding the possibility entirely.

  There were various advantages and disadvantages to the terrain around the several toruko Oleg favored. But the one common denominator was that I wouldn’t be able to reach any of them without being spotted on the approach. If I’d known the exact place and time, I would have posed as a customer, gone to the bordello in question just ahead of Oleg, and hit him from inside, thereby avoiding his sentry entirely. But with the kind of intel available, I’d inevitably be getting there after the sentry was already in position. That meant I needed a way to get past him without his recognizing me—or to get close before he could do anything about it.

  I thought about what Tatsu had said at the izakaya—that he could tell when I was nervous because I made jokes. I sensed that was true, and wondered what other tells might be giving me away. When I’d first gone to see Victor, for example. How was I acting? How did I present myself?

  I realized I’d been nervous then, too, and had been compensating with a certain degree of cockiness. I’d gone in there feeling like a MACV-SOG veteran and mercenary badass, wearing the attitude like an amulet. I’d known guys in Vietnam who’d handled the fear in a similar way—for example, by stenciling on their flak jackets mottos like Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because I’m the meanest motherfucker in the valley.

  But it was one thing to stencil something like that on a flak jacket. It was another to wear it in environments where stealth—where being underestimated or, better yet, unnoticed—was a critical advantage. I needed to work on setting aside badass and cultivating bland.

  At the same time, I realized my mistake with Victor might have been fortuitous. He and his men knew me in a certain guise now. If I could conceal that guise—no, not conceal it, replace it—they might not see me coming until it was too late.

  The first step was to go to a men’s store in Ueno and outfit myself like a salaryman: gray suit, white shirt, cheap shoes and belt, boring tie. I made sure to choose a separate jacket and pants so I could get a jacket several sizes too big—I was planning on wearing more than just a shirt under it.

  Next, I bought an attaché case, hair gel, and a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses, explaining to the saleswoman that I wanted the nonprescription display version, because they would make me look more intelligent for an upcoming interview. Finally, I stopped at a jewelry store for a gold band. If the guy wondered why I was getting a ring for myself, he didn’t ask. Maybe he thought I’d lost mine and was afraid of having to explain the circumstances of its disappearance to my wife. It didn’t matter. The point was, the details counted. Getting them right might not help. But getting them wrong could only hurt.

  At a sporting-goods store, surrounded by aerobics outfits and waffle-soled running shoes, I picked out a pair of dumbbells and a few small plates, along with some athletic tape. Most of it was for appearances—buying a single dumbbell, or dumbbells with no plates, would have been strange, and therefore memorable—and a few blocks from the store I tossed what I didn’t need into a sewer. What I kept was a single bar, a little over a foot long and about five pounds of solid iron, the length of which I wrapped in tape to improve the grip. Screwed tightly to one end of the bar was one of the iron collars. Swung even at half speed, it would be more than enough to break an arm or cave in a skull. And I wouldn’t be swinging at half speed, or anywhere near it.

  My next stop was a motocross store, where I picked up a state-of-the-art bodysuit—the chest, back, shoulders, and forearms all constructed with Kevlar—and an additional, extra-large Kevlar vest. Oleg’s apparent obsession with knives and rat poison suggested I might want more over my skin than just a shirt and suit jacket when I ran into him. I knew Kevlar wouldn’t stop all knife strikes—a powerful thrust with the right blade, for example, particularly if I were pinned against a wall or the ground, would likely penetrate—but it would offer some decent protection.

  Back at the hotel, I removed all but the lower back plates from the vest, got out of my clothes, and pulled on the vest inside out and backward, adjusting the Velcro straps until the lower back plates were positioned over my stomach. Then I got into the bodysuit, again adjusting the Velcro straps until I had a proper fit. I shadowboxed in front of the mirror, and was pleased with how light it all was, and how much mobility I had.

  The new clothes fit perfectly over the armor. The shirt was a little snug, but not unduly so, and the larger jacket was just right for my newfound girth. My face might have appeared a bit thin in comparison with my body, but I doubted anyone would notice the incongruity. To the extent anything registered with witnesses at all, and to the extent they might recall it, it would be an image of a man heavier than I was. And for purposes of lulling Oleg’s sentry, adding thirty or so pounds to my appearance was a plus, as well.

  And then I practiced. I slicked my hair and put on the glasses and donned the protective gear under the suit and went out. I threw the attaché case up against a wall a few times to make sure it didn’t look too new, then filled it with magazines so even the weight would be right, and to make it more effective as a shield, if it came to that. And then I spent time riding trains and visiting coffee shops and interacting with various Tokyoites. I sensed I needed to do more than just get used to the costume. I needed to inhabit the role, make it a part of who I really was, and see that it worked so I would be confident in my own performance when it counted most.

  Just before midnight on the second day, while I was lying in the hotel bed, staring at the ceiling, the radio crackled on the nightstand next to me. My heart started pounding. I grabbed the radio and keyed the mic.

  “What time?” I said.

  Tatsu’s voice: “Four o’clock.”

  That was our prearranged code. He’d told me about five places. We’d numbered them accordingly. And agreed that we’d refer to whichever it was as one o’clock, two o’clock, etc. Not the world’s greatest code, but the radio wasn’t secure and it was better to be oblique. Number four was a place called Super Doll, almost at the geographical heart of Yoshiwara. And, by dictate of Murphy’s law, of the five it had the most difficult approach.

  I dropped the radio and rolled out of bed, already dressed and
ready—hardly the first time I’d slept in combat gear. My fingertips and palms were covered with the athletic tape—as effective as gloves in preventing prints, but less noticeable. And the attaché case and dumbbell bar were already wiped down and sterile. All I needed to do was tighten the tie, pull on the shoes, slip on the jacket, and grab the attaché case, to the bottom of which I had taped the bar. I was out the door in less than two minutes.

  The night air was cool, with little cones of mist spinning slowly under the streetlights I passed, and the streets were slumber-quiet. I pictured the club as I walked. It occupied a two-story building set on the corner of a couple of typically dim and narrow Yoshiwara streets, the entrance maximally far from the corner. Across from it was a small parking lot that created a sort of plaza surrounded by an eclectic combination of old wooden houses, some small apartment buildings, and several additional brothels. There were no hidden approaches: no nearby alleyways or cross streets, no good way to get close before revealing myself. The disguise would be my only concealment.

  I did one last mental run-through of the approach I’d decided on. Then I buried all that deep inside my persona: a salaryman, leaving an office function late, and deciding on a nervous nightcap in Yoshiwara before going home and lying to my wife. I pictured the whole thing: a tiny apartment in nearby Nippori; a dutiful marriage; a baby on the way. An early-morning commute, crushed inside a subway car with a thousand other stoic workers. The pressure, the bills, the worries. And every now and then, a stolen night like this one. That’s why I was here. That’s who I was. There was nothing else.

  I crossed into Yoshiwara, a few touts calling out to me from in front of places with names like Race Queen and Fantasy Land and Honey Pot, the pavement lit now only by the neon of the club signs and the glow of a few solitary vending machines. My heart rate was elevated, but no more so than that of the salaryman I was, nervous about this illicit foray, looking for a place that felt right to me.

  Fifty feet ahead was the club, a skinny tout in a white shirt and dark tie loitering at the corner about thirty feet to the left of the entrance, where he could better engage passersby. He spotted me and called out, “Irasshaimase.” To my right was the parking lot, about a third full. As I passed the parked cars, I got my first glimpse of the club’s entrance. Alongside it was Oleg’s man, one of the two who had patted me down on my visits to Victor’s office, standing unobtrusively to the right of the doorway, but for his position in the shadows looking like nothing more than one of the area touts. I let my gaze move casually past him, then back to the tout. I had seen nothing in the sentry’s expression or posture that would indicate he had recognized me. And why would he? The streets were dim and shadowy. I was still fairly far off. This was a different place, not a setting in which he would expect me. Most of all, I was a different person now.

  The tout was twenty feet away now. “Dōzo,” he called out, gesturing toward the club entrance. “Dōzo, okyakusama.” Feel free, honorable customer.

  I slowed to let him know I might be interested, which increased his apparent ardor. “Ii desu yo,” he said, with a politician’s smile. It’s all good. “Ii desu yo. Dōzo.”

  I stopped when I was just to his left, positioning him between the sentry and me. “Kirei desu ka?” I said, my tone uncertain. Are they pretty?

  “Mochiron,” he said, taking my left arm and gently pulling me toward the entrance. “Saikō desu yo.” Of course. The best.

  I allowed him to guide me along, asking him hushed and nervous questions as we walked about how much, how long, what services were available, were the girls really pretty. All just excuses to keep my face down and toward him, and concealed from the sentry. With luck, I’d be escorted right past him without his giving it a second thought.

  Ten feet to the sentry now. The tout continued his practiced enticements about how beautiful the girls were and how everything was available, whatever services I desired, his tone infused with the pleasure and goodwill of a man who senses he has already earned a commission for his services. I kept the sentry in my peripheral vision. He was watching our approach, but hadn’t changed his posture.

  Five feet. The sentry was looking at me more closely now. He glanced at my hands, but with one around the handle of the attaché case and the other open and palm-in, he couldn’t see the tape. I kept my gaze off him and continued my babbling about what to expect inside the club.

  We reached the glass doors and they opened from within. A doorman dressed the same as the tout stepped out, bowing obsequiously low and holding the door for me, purring, “Dōzo, okyakusama, dōzo.”

  Through the glass, I was aware of the sentry frowning as he stared at me. He sensed something was wrong, I could tell—he had seen this face before, in some other place or context he couldn’t quite process. He wasn’t yet sufficiently certain to act. But there was no doubt he was heading in that direction, and might get there any second.

  Immediately I understood that plan A—ghosting right past him—had failed. I felt a hot hit of adrenaline in my gut and my heart kicked into overdrive as I realized it was time for plan B.

  I switched the attaché case to my left hand and with the right ripped loose the dumbbell bar. Dropping the case, I leaped to my right, past the door and in front of the sentry, the warrior erupting through and shredding the meek salaryman persona. I brought my arm out and back as though I was about to slam home a tennis forehand, the heft of the iron bar and the screwed-on collar satisfying, deadly, in my fist. The sentry’s mouth dropped open and he began to duck and turn away, his arms coming up to protect his head, everything happening in slow-motion now in my adrenalized vision.

  I’d anticipated his flinch and compensated for it easily, leaning in to lengthen my reach and extending the bar farther as I whipped it forward, the weighted end sizzling in and smashing his right hand into the side of his face. He staggered with the force of the blow and I stepped in closer, letting the bar continue on its trajectory past him, then backhanded it into the opposite side of his head. The rigidity flowed out of his body and he sank to his knees, his arms falling away from his head, and I raised the bar and brought the weighted end down directly onto the top of his head, smashing it through his skull.

  I spun back to the door. The doorman, his mouth open in a perfect O of shock and terror, had gripped the handle with both hands and was trying to pull it shut. I grabbed the edge of the door, and supercharged with adrenaline, flung it open. It rocketed past me and shattered against the concrete wall, glass spraying out over the concrete.

  The tout turned and ran. The doorman backed away, his hands raised in fear and supplication. I swept up the attaché case and strode inside.

  A third man was coming from around a desk. Whatever he saw of the tableau before him and of my expression, it made him stop. I charged directly into him, dropping the attaché case again en route. I grabbed him by the throat with my free hand, raised the bar, its end now mottled with blood and gristle, and slammed him into the wall behind him.

  “The Russian,” I growled in Japanese. “Oleg. What room is he in?”

  His hands went uselessly to my grip on his throat and he glanced in terror at the dripping bar. “T-twelve,” he stammered.

  “If that’s wrong,” I said, gripping his throat tighter and looking into his eyes, “I’m coming back for you.”

  He shook his head frantically. “Twelve. I swear.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs. End of the hallway.”

  I released his throat, grabbed the attaché case, and took the stairs three at a time. I passed half a dozen doors, all numbered, all closed. I hadn’t meant to shatter the front door—an overreaction produced by fear and adrenaline—but it seemed it hadn’t alarmed anyone on the second floor, at least not enough to induce them to come out and investigate.

  The last room on the right was marked twelve. I stood outside it for a second, sucked in a deep breath, raised a leg, and blasted open the door with a kick. I forced myself to h
esitate for an instant before charging inside, pausing just long enough outside the door for a visual sweep of the room, trading speed of entry for some intelligence about what I was about to run into.

  The room was dark, and in the light spilling in from the corridor, I took in a naked girl cowering on the floor alongside a bath to the left. On some instinctive, nonverbal level, I understood instantly what this meant: Oleg had heard the door slam and shatter. Unlike the other patrons, he had paranoid combat reflexes that would always assume the worst, and cue him to act accordingly. He had leaped from the bath, threatened the girl into petrified silence, killed the lights, and positioned himself—

  I felt him coming before I even saw him. I pivoted and instinctively brought up the attaché case just as a naked, dripping Oleg hove out of the darkness on my right, his teeth bared, his right arm retracted, a blade gleaming in the corridor light—

  If I hadn’t paused before entering, he might have had me. But my position just outside the door meant he couldn’t attack in a straight line, that he had to adjust and turn in to me, and in the extra second that took him, I brought the attaché case around just enough to get it between the knife and my guts. Still, he stabbed with such ferocity that the blade plunged through both sides of the case and the magazines inside it, jamming the case back into me, where the tip was stopped by the Kevlar vest plates.

  He reacted instantly, yanking back the knife, but instead of resisting, which might have allowed him to clear the blade, I twisted the case and pushed it into him, keeping the weapon stuck in place. He swore something in Russian and backed into the room, jerking at the knife, trying desperately to clear it, and as he did so, I raised the bar and whipped it down onto his wrist, breaking it. He howled and lost his grip, and his injured arm reflexively retracted to his chest.

  Disarmed, facing an attacker with a weapon, and reduced to a single working arm, most men would have backpedaled. A few might have tried to engage and neutralize the weapon they were up against. Only the best would do what Oleg did—which was to attack back.