Hard Rain by Barry Eisler Read Free Book Online Page A

who were looking for a suitable
    Japanese victim, had paid a hell of a dividend.
    And yet, despite my efforts, he could also be astonishingly naive. I
    would never tell anyone the kind of thing he had just told me. You
    don't give away an advantage like that.
    "The NSA should never have let you go, Harry," I told him. "You're a
    privacy nut's worst nightmare."
    He laughed, but a little uncertainly. Harry has a hard time knowing
    when I'm teasing him. "Their loss," he said. "They had too many
    rules, anyway. It's much more fun working for a big-five consulting
    firm. They've got so many other problems, they don't even bother
    trying to monitor what I'm up to anymore."
    That was smart of them. They couldn't have kept up with him, anyway.
    "What's going on?" I asked.
    "Nothing really. Just wanted to catch up with you while I could. I
    had a feeling that, if your business here was done, you might leave
    soon."
    "I guess you were right."
    "Is it... done?"
    Harry has long since figured out what I do, although he also
    understands that it would be taboo to actually ask. And he must have
    known what it meant when he had contacted me earlier that evening, at
    my specific request, to tell me precisely where and when I could find
    thejakuza.
    "It's done," I told him.
    "Does that mean you won't be around much longer?"
    I smiled, absurdly touched by his hangdog tone. "Not much longer, no.
    I was going to call you before I left."
    "Yeah?"
    "Yeah." I looked at my watch. "In fact, what are you doing right
    now?"
    "Just getting up, actually."
    "Christ, Harry, it's ten at night."
    "I've been keeping some strange hours lately."
    "I believe it. Tell you what. Why don't we meet for a drink. For
    you, it can be breakfast."
    "What have you got in mind?"
    "Hang on a minute." I grabbed a copy of the Tokyo Yellow Pages from
    under the phone, and flipped through the restaurant section until I
    found the place I was looking for. Then I counted ahead five listings,
    per our usual code, knowing that Harry would count five backward from
    whatever I told him. Not that anyone was listening hell, I couldn't
    imagine who could listen, if Harry didn't want them to but you don't
    take chances. I'd taught him to always use a layered defense. To
    never assume.
    "How about Tip-Top, in Takamatsu-cho," I said.
    "Sure," he said, and I knew he understood. "Great place."
    "I'll see you when you get there," I told him.
    I hung up, then pulled a handkerchief out of a pants pocket and wiped
    down the receiver and the buttons. Old habits die hard.
    The place I had in mind was called These Library Lounge, pronounced
    "Teize' by the locals, a small bar with the feel of a speakeasy nestled
    on the second floor of an unremarkable building in Nishi-Azabu.
    Although it inhabits the city's geographical and psychological center,
    Teize is suffused by a dreamy sense of detachment, as though the bar is
    an island secretly pleased to find itself lost in the vast ocean of
    Tokyo around it. Teize has the kind of atmosphere that quickly seduces
    talk into murmurs and weariness into languor, peeling away the
    transient concerns of the day until you might find yourself listening
    to a poignant Johnny Hodges number like "Just a Memory' the way you
    listened to it the first time, without filters or preconceptions or the
    notion that it was something you already knew; or taking a saltwater
    and iodine sip of one of the Islay malts and realizing that this, this
    exactly, is the taste for which the distiller must have mouthed a
    silent prayer as he committed the amber liquid to an oak cask thirty
    years before; or glancing over at a group of elegantly dressed women
    seated in one of the bar's quietly lit alcoves, their faces glowing,
    not yet lined, their faith that havens like this one exist as if by
    right reflected in the innocent timbre of their laughter and the
    carefree cadences of their conversation, and remembering without
    bitterness what it felt like to think that maybe you could be