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2f4da89
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Karate moved slowly through the lobby. His gaze went to Belghazi and his eyes hardened in a way that would mean nothing to most people but that meant a great deal to me. From this gaze I understood Karate wasn't looking at a man. No. What I saw instead was a hunter acquiring a target.
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Barry Eisler |
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a517472
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He shrugged. "You know I was in the dark about all that as much as you were. This time it's straightforward. And sanctioned." "Sanctioned by whom?" He looked at me. "By the proper authorities." "All right," I said, taking a sip from the porcelain demitasse. "Tell me." He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. "After nine-eleven, Congress took the shackles off the Agency. There's a new spirit in the place. We're pushing the envelope..
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Barry Eisler |
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64b8a7a
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His eyes were still on me, but they no longer perceived. I stepped back, out of their sightless ambit, and paused to observe the scene. It looked like what it almost was: a weightlifting addict, alone and late at night, tries to handle more than he can, gets caught under the bar, suffocates and dies there. A bizarre accident.
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Barry Eisler |
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2fd32e0
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Within days, perhaps hours, the discarded remnants of this last job would have been bleached of any trace of their origins, each just another nameless, colorless item among nameless, colorless souls, the flotsam and jetsam of loneliness and despair that fall from time to time into Tokyo's collective blind spot, and from there into oblivion.
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Barry Eisler |
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4141967
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Tokyo is so vast, and can be so cruelly impersonal, that the succor provided by its occasional oasis is sweeter than that of any other place I've known. There is the quiet of shrines like Hikawa, inducing a somber sort of reflection that for me has always been the same pitch as the reverberation of a temple chime; the solace of tiny nomiya, neighborhood watering holes, with only two or perhaps four seats facing a bar less than half the leng..
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Barry Eisler |
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9b17f1c
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People put out signals--body language, gait, clothes, facial expression, posture, attitude, speech, mannerisms--that can tell you where they're from, what they do, who they are. Most importantly, do they fit in.
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Barry Eisler |
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2c4c3f0
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People put out signals--body language, gait, clothes, facial expression, posture, attitude, speech, mannerisms--that can tell you where they're from, what they do, who they are. Most importantly, do they fit in. Because if you don't fit in, the target will spot you, and after that you won't be able to get close enough to do it right. Or a cop will spot you, and you'll have some explaining to do. Or a countersurveillance team will spot you, ..
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Barry Eisler |
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34ad875
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I heard laughter and looked up. Some kids at the terminal next to me, playing an online game. I wondered for a moment how I had gotten here. And I wondered if maybe this is what Tatsu had meant when he said I could never retire. That I would inevitably ruin every other possibility.
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Barry Eisler |
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599497f
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We shall not cease from exploration, some poet wrote. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. How incredibly fucking depressing.
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Barry Eisler |
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3079a50
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The Nigerians were gauntleting the entranceway. They bowed obsequiously low for Murakami and breathed "Irasshaimase" in unison. The one on the right spoke into his lapel mike. We walked down the steps. The ruddy-faced man I had seen there last time looked up. He saw Murakami and swallowed."
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Barry Eisler |
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e591505
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Why didn't you just come to my apartment?" He smiled. "Where you live is always where you are most vulnerable because it represents a possible choke point for an ambush. And I would not wish to surprise a man like you where he felt most vulnerable. Safer, I judged, to approach you on neutral ground, where you might even see me coming, ne?"
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Barry Eisler |
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3456bd1
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I wondered if she had bought the story. If she hadn't thanked Harry for his response, I would have known she hadn't bought it, because she was classy and it wouldn't have been like her not to respond. But the thank-you might have been automatic, sent even in the presence of continued suspicions. It could even have been duplicitous, intended to lull Harry into thinking she was satisfied when in fact the opposite was true.
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Barry Eisler |
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abb19e4
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I knew the persona I was inhabiting--moneyed Japanese gaming enthusiast--would lack crucial verisimilitude if the persona in question had never set eyes on Las Vegas.
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Barry Eisler |
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371cf4b
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I played baccarat at the upscale Bellagio; roulette at the off-strip Rio; craps at the fading Riviera, whose attempts to match the gayness and glitter around her felt forced, artificial, like makeup layered on by a woman who recognizes she was never beautiful to begin with and has now, in addition, grown colorless and old.
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Barry Eisler |
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7567673
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I walked the short distance to Nogizaka, then strolled up and down Gaienhigashi-dori. It took awhile, but I finally spotted it. There was no sign, only a small red rose on a black awning. The entrance was flanked by two black men, each of sufficient bulk to have been at home in the sumo pit. Their suits were well tailored and, given the size of the men wearing them, must have been custom-made. Nigerians, I assumed, whose size, managerial ac..
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Barry Eisler |
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934098d
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On the other stage, there was a girl who looked like a mix of Japanese and something Mediterranean or Latin. A good mix. She had that silky, almost shimmering black hair so many modern Japanese women like to ruin with chapatsu dye, worn short and swept over from the side. The shape of the eyes was also Japanese, and she was on the petite side. But her skin, a smooth gold like melted caramel, spoke of something else, something tropical. Her ..
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Barry Eisler |
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0024b0f
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But it seemed clever and careful was exactly what drew the attention of God's Eye.
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Barry Eisler |
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71a32d9
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Gradually our surroundings became more residential. We passed wide, open doorways. These I checked automatically, but they offered no danger, only miscellaneous domestic scenes: four elderly women absorbed in a game of mahjong; a group of boys surrounding a television; a family at the supper table. We passed an old shrine, its red paint peeling in the tropical moisture. Incense from the brazier within pervaded my senses with the recollected..
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Barry Eisler |
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cfc8bb5
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I was impressed. I had been taking care not to stand out or to otherwise become memorable, and he had spotted me anyway. He was well attuned to his environment, to the patterns that might at some point make the difference between winning and losing. Or living and dying.
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Barry Eisler |
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433d04c
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What makes humans special is our need to rationalize our actions.
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rationalization
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Barry Eisler |
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80d53f0
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Rain shook his head. "I don't like meetings generally. I especially don't like ones that are unnecessary and proposed by someone else."
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Barry Eisler |
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2705579
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Is there any teacher better, more patient, more determined than fate?
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teaching
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Barry Eisler |
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d26bbe1
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Rationalization was my narcotic. And, as with all drugs, over time, I habituated to mine. I needed more and more to accomplish less and less. Eventually, there was no dose at all that could confer the comfort I craved.
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Barry Eisler |
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9852ea5
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That was the dirty little secret of 9/11,
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Barry Eisler |
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922b076
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It was fascinating, how people could be so reluctant to recognize blackmail, how eager they could be to convince themselves it was something else, even something fundamentally mutually cooperative. And sometimes it seemed the more powerful the individual, the greater the capacity for self-deception. He
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Barry Eisler |
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298307b
|
know. I get it. Because when I knew but they didn't know I knew, that was good. But when they knew that I knew but I didn't know they knew, that was bad. But now that I know they know that I know, and they don't know it, it's good again.
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Barry Eisler |
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d2b7df1
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A turtle doesn't get up on a bookshelf by itself,
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Barry Eisler |
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84aebee
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In the scope of the universe, and the arc of justice, my life is of little consequence.
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Barry Eisler |
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7069646
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Both women had been wearing earbuds--one of the many things Livia taught her self-defense students never to do, because demonstrating both that you can't hear and that you're too naive to know better is a beacon to predators.
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Barry Eisler |
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eea6928
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But denial . . . well, you know what they say about denial." Ben nodded, seeing where this was going now, not wanting to show what he really thought of it. "It has no survival value."
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Barry Eisler |
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0fa05eb
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And Harry's bug and video detector was blessedly quiescent.
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Barry Eisler |
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b5d9e9f
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She winced. "I'm glad you came." I didn't know what to make of the inconsistency between her reaction and her words. "You must have a lot of questions," I said. She shook her head. "I just want to make sure you enjoy yourself tonight." "I think I know why you're acting this way," I started to say. She cut me off with a suddenly raised hand. "How about that lap dance?" she asked. Her tone was inviting, but her eyes were somewhere between ser..
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Barry Eisler |
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c511e9c
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The mindfulness he spoke of was called nen in Japanese--an acknowledgment, an appreciation, of the importance of small things. The things that make living more worthwhile. And that, in my work, make it more probable, as well.
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Barry Eisler |
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7d7c30b
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He moves like a cat, hears like a dog, and hides like a rabbit. And strikes like a damn rattlesnake.
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Barry Eisler |
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04fdf8e
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There they were, fanned out behind him like two points at the base of a moving scalene triangle.
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Barry Eisler |
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dde524e
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If you want something you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before.
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Barry Eisler |
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0dba592
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In some ways, the neighborhood was the poster child for bad zoning. There were shiny glass-and-steel condominiums across from corrugated and I-beam parking garages. Single-family homes perched alongside recycling plants and foundries. A new multistory school turned its proud granite facade away from its neighbor, a dilapidated relic of a car repair shop, like an ungrateful child ashamed of an ailing parent.
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Barry Eisler |
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767554b
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of eternity.
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Barry Eisler |
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c5c2809
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The months and days are the travelers of eternity. --Basho
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Barry Eisler |
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3413ba6
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And divorce was the chemotherapy of marriage, so expensive and toxic that only couples in extremis would attempt it as a cure. And if half of marriages were so cancerous that they justified treatment with the equivalent of chemotherapy, what did that say about the others? How many of the nondivorced had just learned to live with the illness because the cure seemed even worse than the disease?
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Barry Eisler |
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5cd4191
|
A friend who loves Paris once told me, 'There aren't many things we humans need to do. We need to eat, we need to drink, we need to make love. And the French attitude is, okay, we should do those things very well.
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Barry Eisler |
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83a61ed
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But accurate insights might have helped me. Medicine isn't supposed to taste good--that's what candy is for. Medicine is supposed to make you better.
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Barry Eisler |
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cd4a0ad
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Trust your gut. When you felt something was off, you had to believe that feeling, even if you couldn't articulate the basis.
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Barry Eisler |
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eb3495f
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Gavin de Becker had written a great book on the topic--The Gift of Fear.
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Barry Eisler |