The Last Assassin (7 page)

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I went to another Internet café and checked the bulletin board. There was a message waiting: the Chinese kid's name was Eddie Wong. He was a
ma jai
, a foot soldier with a New York branch of United Bamboo, the Taiwanese triad, and the noodle place on Mulberry was their headquarters. Wong was only twenty-two, but he had an extensive criminal record in his hometown of Taipei, mostly drug smuggling but also extortion. He was known to carry a Balisong, the Filipino butterfly knife, and apparently was quick to use it.

The bald guy I'd seen him talking to was Waiyee Chan, the local gang's
dai lo
, or leader. If the gang leader was meeting directly with a mere soldier, Tatsu suggested, the matter must be important to the leader personally. United Bamboo had been at war with the yakuza in Tokyo, but currently there was an uneasy accommodation there. Tatsu speculated that the lull was the result of United Bamboo's assistance to Yamaoto in New York in exchange for some quid pro quo in Japan, just as Dox and I had speculated earlier. He was trying to find out more.

That night, Dox and I set up as we had the previous evening. This time, when Dox called me to confirm that Wong was at Zinc again, I got up and headed to the West Village.

I was more heavily disguised than before. I had a wig sprouting from under the baseball cap, horn-rimmed glasses, and two layers of thick fleece under the windbreaker that added the appearance of twenty-five or thirty pounds. I reconnoitered the area on foot, my posture, gait, and presence maximally unobtrusive. I checked the spots I would have used to watch the apartment. I even checked the local watering holes in case Wong had a partner who was waiting in the area to pick Midori up after her performance at Zinc. Everything was clear. I parked myself in a jazz joint called 55 Club a block from her building and waited.

A half hour later my phone buzzed. I went outside to answer it.

“Set's over,” Dox said. “Midori just got in a cab.”

“And our friend?”

“He's staying put for the moment. Just like last night.”

“Has he used a phone?”

“No.”

“All right. Sounds like we're in business.”

“You know, I've been thinking. Just because he didn't go there last night doesn't mean he's going to do the same tonight. What if…”

“Look, if he hasn't followed her yet, he's not going to. Not tonight, anyway. And I've checked all the possible spots around her apartment. It's clear. This is my chance.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I'll be fine.”

“I'm not saying you won't. But why don't I just swing by and have a look anyway. Can't hurt to have me around.”

“I appreciate that. But I'd rather…do this alone. You know?”

There was a pause. Then he sighed and said, “It's your party, man.”

Part of me was trying to speak up, to tell me he was right, it couldn't hurt. But things felt under control. Midori would either invite me inside or send me packing. All I needed was a minute either way.

“I'll call you after,” I told him. “I'll let you know.”

“All right. Be careful, partner.”

I closed the phone and turned it off. This was apt to be delicate and I didn't want any interruptions.

I walked partway down the street and pulled off the baseball cap and wig. I started to pocket the wig, but then imagined Midori seeing it protruding from one of my pockets and decided to toss it instead. It would have made her too suspicious, and at this point it had served its purpose. I stuffed the baseball cap in one of the windbreaker's pockets. I waited. A few minutes later, a cab approached from down the street. I started walking toward it.

The cab stopped in front of Midori's building. The door opened. I paused ten feet away on the sidewalk.

Midori got out. She thanked the driver and closed the door. The cab pulled away.

Midori looked up and saw me. She froze.

I tried to say something, but nothing came out. A long moment went by.

Finally I said, “Midori.”

She watched me. I wanted to look around, to check my surroundings. I fought the urge. She had always hated that kind of awareness. It made her distrust me.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“You know why.”

“How did you…” she started to say, then stopped. She'd probably decided it didn't really matter. Or that she didn't want to know.

“Can I come up?”

She was silent.

“Just for a minute,” I heard myself saying.

After a moment, she nodded. We went inside. Although I hadn't seen any cameras, I assumed they would have some sort of remote security in the lobby and I kept my head down. Midori said, “Hello, Ken,” to the doorman, and we got in the elevator. She didn't look at me on the ride up. We didn't speak.

We got out on the seventeenth floor and walked down the corridor. She unlocked a door and we stepped into a nicely furnished living room. Dark wood floors, Gabbeh rugs, black-and-white photos of leafless winter trees. Comfortable-looking upholstered chair and couch. Some sort of indoor infant swing set was parked in a corner, surrounded by brightly colored toys. We took off our jackets and shoes and moved inside. I peeled off the double fleece, too. I didn't need it now and it was warm in the apartment.

A pretty brown-skinned woman emerged from behind the door to what I assumed was a bedroom. She glanced at me, then looked at Midori.

“Everything okay, Digne?” Midori asked.

The woman nodded. “The little angel is sleeping. I give him a big bottle before he goes to sleep.”

Her accent was Latina. I guessed El Salvador.

Midori nodded. “Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow night?”

“Of course.” The woman picked up a coat from the couch, slipped on her shoes, and paused at the door. She smiled and said,
“Oyasumi nasai,”
with a passable Japanese accent. Good night.

Midori smiled back and said,
“Buenas noches.”

The woman closed the door behind her.

We stood there. I heard a clock ticking on the wall.

“How…how old is he?” I asked, after a moment.

“Fifteen months.”

That would be about right. Almost exactly two years since our last night in Tokyo.

“I heard you call him Koichiro,” I said, remembering my conversation with Tatsu.

She nodded.

“It's a good name.”

She nodded again.

I tried to think of something that wouldn't sound banal. Nothing would come.

“You're happy?” I asked.

Still just a nod.

“Damn it, Midori, will you at least say something to me?”

“Your minute is up.”

I glanced away, then back to her. “You don't really mean that.”

“Maybe you forgot. You killed my father.”

I imagined myself saying,
Come on, haven't we been over all that?
I decided it would be the wrong approach.

“Then why did you have the baby?” I asked.

She looked at me, her expression frozen in neutral. “When I learned I was pregnant,” she said, “I realized I wanted a baby. The fact that it was your baby was incidental.”

She was being so hurtful, it occurred to me that maybe it was deliberate. That she was protecting herself from something she was afraid of.

“Look, I can imagine how you feel…” I started to say.

“No, you can't.”

“I've told you, I'm sorry for what happened with your father. But you know I did everything I could to make things right afterward. To carry out his wishes.”

I thought about adding,
And remember, he was dying of lung cancer anyway. At least the way I did it, he didn't suffer.

But I had a feeling she might take that as a rationalization. And maybe it was.

“Well, you didn't do enough,” she said.

“This is punishment, then,” I said.

There was a long pause. She said, “I don't want you in his life. Or mine.”

There it was. The very thing, the very words I'd been afraid of. Hanging in the air between us.

“What are you going to tell him?” I asked. “That his father is dead?”

It would be a sensible enough lie. But the thought of it horrified me. Because I realized if she said it, in many ways that mattered it would actually be so.

“I haven't figured it all out,” she said.

“Well, maybe you should. Maybe you should think about what something like that would cost him.”

She laughed harshly, I supposed at my impertinence.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asked.

I nodded.

“When was the last time you killed someone?”

I tried to think of how to answer. A long moment went by.

She laughed again. “Don't you see right there that something's wrong? How many people have to think about a question like that?”

I felt myself flush. “You want to know the last time I killed someone? It was about a month ago. And the guy I killed was one of the worst bomb makers in the world. You know what killing him did? It saved who knows how many lives.”

“I imagine that's what all killers tell themselves.”

The anger I'd been trying to contain suddenly burst through. “And that's what I imagine all yuppie jazz pianists tell themselves, because it makes them feel so fucking superior.”

She glared at me.
Good,
I thought.
I needed that.

“Maybe you're right,” I said. “Maybe my problem is rationalization. But yours is denial. You think you can live a squeaky-clean life like this one without someone else getting his hands dirty? Do you really want Koichiro to grow up in a world where no one's out there trying to cull the same kinds of people who leveled the towers just two miles south of here?”

We were silent for a moment, glaring at each other, breathing hard.

“But you're still killing people,” she said.

I closed my eyes. “Look, I've been trying to change. To do something good. And a lot of that…a lot of that is because of you. And your father.”

There was another pause. She said, “Maybe you're right, maybe what you're doing keeps children like Koichiro safe in their beds at night. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you. The life you lead and the things you do, it would put Koichiro himself at risk. Can't you see that?”

I almost sagged under the weight of her words. After all, hadn't I needed to find the gaps in Yamaoto's surveillance just to achieve this single clumsy visit?

“I know you care about me,” she went on. “And that, even though you haven't met him, you care about Koichiro. Why would you want to put us in danger?”

I closed my eyes and exhaled. I had no argument. She was right. I wondered what the hell I'd been thinking, why I had come here.

A long, silent moment spun out.

“All right,” I said, nodding. “Okay.”

She looked at me. I saw sympathy in her eyes and it hurt.

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded again. “Could I just see…my son?”

“I don't think…”

I looked at her. “Please. Don't turn me away without that.”

After a long moment, she gestured toward the door Digne had come through earlier. She turned and I followed her.

It was a small bedroom in the corner of the building, with curtained windows on two of its walls. I saw a crib, a changing table, a rocking chair. A lamp shaped like a bunny had been turned to a low, comforting setting.

We walked over to the crib. I put my hands on the edge and looked down into it.

On the mattress, covered in a blue fleece blanket, was a little person with a dark head of hair. His eyes were shut and he had a tiny nose and I could see his chest rising and falling as he slept.

For the first time, I understood that all of this was real. This child was mine. I was his father.

I felt tears trying to surface and blinked them down. I couldn't remember the last time I'd cried and I wasn't going to start tonight, in front of Midori.

“Could I…would it be all right if…” I started to say.

Midori looked at me, then nodded. She reached into the crib and carefully lifted out Koichiro, still wrapped in his blue blanket. She kissed him softly on the forehead, then looked at me again. Her eyes were wide and honest and I saw that she was afraid. But she was doing this anyway. Fuck, I had to blink again.