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149d131
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He shrugged. "Maybe you're afraid I won't help you anymore. You said it yourself: 'You can't live with one foot in daylight and the other in shadows.' Maybe you're afraid I'll move into the daylight and leave you behind." I felt a wave of angry indignation and willed it back. "Let me tell you something, kid," I said. "In a very short while, I plan to be living in the daylight myself. I won't need your 'help' after that. So even if I were th..
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Barry Eisler |
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43d4e5e
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We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, "Look, I've got an idea of what you feel for this woman, okay? I saw her. She's a head-turner." "She's more than that," he said softly. The dumb, sappy bastard. His only hope with that ice bitch would be that she'd recognize how helpless he was and have some scruples about whatever it was she was up to. I wouldn't count on it, though. "The point is," I said, "it doesn't give me any pleasure to give y..
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Barry Eisler |
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efc7cf8
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Her English, though accented, was idiomatic. She would have learned it young enough to pick up the idiom, but not quite young enough to eradicate the accent.
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Barry Eisler |
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dc28b23
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Naomi, you think this is all an accident? It's a science. There are people out there who are experts at getting others to do tomorrow what was unthinkable today.
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Barry Eisler |
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128a3db
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Yukiko walked over, her mouth stretching into a feline grin at the sight of Murakami. Naomi followed a moment later. She was wearing another elegant black cocktail dress, this one silk, fitted at the waist but loose above it. The diamond bracelet glittered on her left wrist as before. She saw me, and her expression started to break into a smile that aborted itself when her eyes shifted from my face to Murakami's. She must have known him, an..
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Barry Eisler |
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f59fdba
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I considered. As Tatsu noted, if word got out, the efficacy of the camera network would be compromised. But there was more.
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Barry Eisler |
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ed8e4d8
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I can't tell you. But we know." She took a sip of caipirinha. "Just trust me." I laughed. She retracted her head in mock indignation. "But I trusted you. I got you out of his suite, didn't I?" "When you thought I had a videotape. That's not trust, it's duress."
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Barry Eisler |
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4e81e67
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I finished eating and motioned to the waiter that I was ready for the check. I looked around the restaurant one last time. The office party had broken up. The Americans remained, the white noise of their conversation warm and enthusiastic. The couple was still there, the young man's posture steadfastly earnest, the girl continuing to parry with quiet laughter.
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Barry Eisler |
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e887500
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I reached the end of the street and turned right. There they were, about twelve meters away. The Japanese guy had his left side to me. He was talking to the American. The American was facing me, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was holding a lighter at waist level, flicking it, trying to get it going. I forced myself to keep my pace casual, just another pedestrian. My heart began to beat harder. I could feel it pounding in my chest, behi..
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Barry Eisler |
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14f2070
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A bodyguard. Sounded possible. The guy hadn't recognized me, I'd seen that. He was probably here just for protection and surveillance tag team. Or he could have been the triggerman. The Agency relies on contractor cutouts for its wetwork, people like me. He might have been one of them.
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Barry Eisler |
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c4f277e
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Goddamn it, I thought, at the mention of her name. I just couldn't get clear of these people. They were like cancer. You think you've cut it out, it always comes back.
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Barry Eisler |
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96fb156
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The teeming scene in front of the station made familiar Tokyo look deserted by comparison. The street stretching out before me between rows of crumbling low-rises and slumped office buildings looked like a river of people gushing through a ravine. Cars jerked through congested intersections, pedestrians flowing around them like T cells attacking a virus.
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Barry Eisler |
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0c3d3d8
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There was a time when I didn't seem to need such things, when I would have been amused and perhaps even vaguely disgusted at the notion of living like some sort of psychic vampire, a lingering revenant pressed up against one-way glass, looking with forlorn and futile eyes at the ordinary life fate had denied him.
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Barry Eisler |
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cf092ea
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He wiped his brow. "So. Consider this state of affairs from Yamaoto's perspective. He understands that, with the immune system suppressed, there must eventually be a catastrophic failure of the host. There have been so many near misses--financial, ecological, nuclear--it is only a matter of time before a true cataclysm occurs. Perhaps a nuclear accident that irradiates an entire city. Or a countrywide run on banks and loss of deposits. What..
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Barry Eisler |
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dec3e8a
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Maybe." "You can't retire." I paused. When I spoke, my voice was quiet, not much more than a whisper. "I hope you're not saying you might interfere." He didn't flinch. "There would be no need for me to interfere," he said. "You don't have retirement in you. I wish you could recognize that. What will you do, find an island somewhere, spend time on the beach catching up on all the books you've been missing? Join a go club? Anesthetize yoursel..
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Barry Eisler |
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c1208fa
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She spun around and I heard her inhale sharply. "What the hell?" she exclaimed in her Portuguese-accented English. I raised my hands, palms forward. "I just want to talk to you." I used English because it was the language of the persona she'd initially met me in--the one she had initially trusted. She looked over her shoulder for a moment, perhaps gauging the distance to her door, then turned back to me, apparently reassured. "I don't want ..
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Barry Eisler |
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b17a4da
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You start slow. You find the subject's limits and get him to spend some time there. He gets used to it. Before long, the limits have moved. You never take him more than a centimeter beyond. You make it feel it's his choice.
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Barry Eisler |
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17df250
|
suffering in the midst of the vast city from solitude so acute that not even the narcotic of late-night television talk shows could distract them from occasional nocturnal forays in search of signs of other life; even other furita, on their way back to their parents' houses, which, to make their meager ends meet, they still inhabited, who might share a tired cigarette and an unfunny joke before sleeping off the morning, then rising to do it..
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Barry Eisler |
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e698572
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A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a nondescript office building. I paid the driver and we got out. The rain had stopped but the street was empty, almost forlorn. If I hadn't known where we were, I would have thought it an odd place to get out of a cab in the middle of the night.
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Barry Eisler |
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c3c1599
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A vending machine hung tilted from the wall, advertising laundry soap at fifty yen a packet to customers who might as well have been ghosts.
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Barry Eisler |
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c1e9b61
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The waiter brought the drinks. After he had moved silently away, I looked at her and said, "You're not involved in any of this?" She looked into her glass. Several seconds went by. "You want an honest answer, or a really honest answer?" she asked. "Give me both." "Okay," she said, nodding. "The honest answer is no." She took a sip of the Highland Park. Closed her eyes. "The really honest answer is, is..." "Is, not yet," I said quietly. Her ..
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Barry Eisler |
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0c9c6e6
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I wiped water from my face and thought, Time to go. But I remained. "Thanks for an interesting evening," she said, after a pause. "You're not a bad guy, for a stalker." I gave her a half smile. "That's what people tell me." There was an odd moment of quiet. Then she stepped in close and hugged me, her face against my shoulder. I was surprised. My arms moved reflexively around her. Just a little comfort, I thought. You were rough on her befo..
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Barry Eisler |
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bbba269
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I shifted my head slightly. The corners of our mouths brushed together. I felt her breath on my cheek. Then we were kissing. Her mouth was warm and soft. Our tongues entwined and simultaneously I thought Oh, you fucking idiot and Oh, that feels so good.
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Barry Eisler |
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7f54185
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I squeezed her hips, then ran my hands up and over the curve of her ribs to her breasts. Her nipples were hard under the wet fabric of her dress. Her body radiated heat. I heard myself groan. It sounded like capitulation.
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Barry Eisler |
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f80ed94
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The feeling was a bit odd under the circumstances, but I was glad to be back at the Old Imperial. Windowless and low-ceilinged, dark and subdued, intimate despite its spaciousness, the bar has an air of history, of gravitas, perhaps a consequence of being the sole surviving feature of the hotel's martyred progenitor. Like the hotel itself, the Old Imperial feels a bit past its prime, but retains a dignified beauty and mysterious allure, lik..
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Barry Eisler |
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7388505
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She looked at me. "You're an assassin, aren't you? When there are rumors the government has someone on the payroll, they're talking about you, right?" I let out a long exhalation. "Something like that." There was a pause. Then she asked, "How many people have you killed?" My eyes moved to my glass. "I don't know." "I'm not talking about Vietnam. Since then." "I don't know," I said again. "Don't you think that's too many?" The mildness of he..
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Barry Eisler |
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28910e7
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She laughed. "Good. You still haven't told me what you were afraid of." I thought for a moment. Drowsiness was settling on me like a blanket. "Of getting involved. Like you said, I haven't been with someone for a long time."
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Barry Eisler |
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138cda0
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I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixture of gratitude and longing, streaked with guilt and regret. And in a flash of insight, cutting with cold clarity through the fog of my fatigue, I realized what I hadn't been able to articulate earlier, not even to myself, when she'd asked me wh..
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Barry Eisler |
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e7c7bd8
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But, like all indulgences that are valued not just for their product but for their process, the sento will never entirely disappear. For in the unhurried rituals of scrubbing and soaking, and in the perspective of profound relaxation that can only be derived from immersion in water the meek might describe as scalding, there are qualities of devotion, and celebration, and meditation, qualities that are necessary concomitants to a life worth ..
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Barry Eisler |
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229d7dc
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I didn't think you'd know it. You're a little... older." I laughed. If she'd been trying to get a rise out of me, she had missed the mark. I'm never going to be sensitive about my age. Most of the people I knew when I was younger are already dead. That I'm still breathing is actually a point of pride."
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Barry Eisler |
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a4e1509
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We put our shoes away. I had already purchased the necessary accouterments at the convenience store across the street--shampoo, soap, scrubbing cloth, and towels--and handed Tatsu what he needed as we went in. We paid the proprietor the government-mandated and subsidized four hundred yen apiece, walked up the wide wooden stairs to the changing area, undressed in the unadorned locker room, then went through the sliding glass door to the bath..
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Barry Eisler |
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f27f95d
|
I moved deeper into the comforting gloom, along a stone walkway covered in cherry blossoms that lay like tenebrous snow in the glow of lamplights to either side. Just days earlier, these same blossoms had been celebrated by living Tokyoites, who came here in their drunken thousands to see reflected in the blossom's brief and vital beauty the inherent pathos of their own lives. But now the blossoms were fallen, the revelers departed, even th..
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Barry Eisler |
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cb36cee
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I walked on, my footfalls melancholy, respectful of the thick silence around me. Unlike the surrounding city, Aoyama Bochi is changeless, and I had no difficulty finding what drew me despite the decades that had passed since I had last come here.
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Barry Eisler |
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33094fb
|
I waited a moment, then lowered myself, cross-legged, to the earth. Some of the graves were adorned with flowers, in various stages of freshness and decay. As though the dead could smell the bouquets.
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Barry Eisler |
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13c1985
|
I could feel her soft shape, the heat of her, conducted with electric clarity through the wet of our clothes. I felt my body responding. I knew she felt it, too. Ah, shit.
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Barry Eisler |
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fe5c19a
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Between her hand over my heart and her hips at my crotch, she might as well have been administering a polygraph.
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Barry Eisler |
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ab4fefd
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Then she reached lower and started to ease my pants down. I stopped her so I could get my shoes and socks off first. Pants-pooled-at-the-ankles is too helpless a posture for me.
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Barry Eisler |
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12c10c7
|
Shoganai," I said. Literally, There is no way of doing it. "Yes," he said, nodding. "Elsewhere they have Cest la vie, or That's life."
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Barry Eisler |
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857366b
|
If you live only for yourself, dying is an especially scary proposition.
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fear
life-lessons
lonely
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Barry Eisler |
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5d959c0
|
We found a cab. I got in first and she slid in behind me. She told the driver to take us to 3-3-5 Shibuya-ku, south side of Roppongi-dori. I smiled. "Tantra?" I asked. She looked at me, perhaps a little disappointed. "You know it?" "It's been around for a long time. Good place." "I didn't think you'd know it. You're a little... older." I laughed. If she'd been trying to get a rise out of me, she had missed the mark. I'm never going to be se..
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Barry Eisler |
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7f9d6ef
|
The owner of a coffee shop sat diminished in the back of his deserted establishment, waiting for patronage that had long since vanished.
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Barry Eisler |
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eb95a0b
|
Death catches everyone eventually, and I had never harbored any illusions about its ability to catch me. That it had hesitated so long to do so seemed born more of a desire to mock me than of any real inclination to wait. Death had tired of that game, and had finally moved in to collect what we all owe.
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life-lessons
full-circle
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Barry Eisler |
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83cab76
|
Only teasing', Death seemed to be saying over his shoulder with a rictus smile, with good humor and an oddly paternal affection. 'Take care of yourself, okay? We'll play again.
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game-of-life
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Barry Eisler |
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4f9369c
|
The second guy moved the gun, trying to track me, the movements overlarge and shaking. Then, maybe because he saw the cool bead I was drawing on him, his nerve broke. He started shooting in a spray-and-pray pattern, his eyes closed, his body hunching forward involuntarily. Pffft. Pffft. Pffft. Small clouds of dust kicked up along the concrete around me, puffing out lazily in my adrenalized slow-motion vision. I heard the sounds of ricochets..
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Barry Eisler |