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each other, William Holtzer died of a heart attack in
    the parking garage of a hotel in suburban Virginia?"
    I remembered how Holtzer had mouthed the words I was the mole ... I was
    the mole ... when he thought I was going to die. How he had set me
    against my blood brother, Crazy Jake, in Vietnam, and gloated about it
    afterward.
    "Why do you ask?" I said, my tone casual.
    "Apparently, his death came as a surprise to people who knew him in the
    intelligence community," he went on, ignoring my question, 'because
    Holtzer was only in his early fifties and also kept physically fit."
    Not physically fit enough for three hundred and sixty joules from a
    modified defibrillator, I thought.
    "It just goes to show you, you can't be too careful," I said, taking a
    sip of the twelve-year-old Dalmore I was drinking. "I take a baby
    aspirin myself, once a day. There was an article about it in the Asahi
    Shimbun a few years ago. Supposed to dramatically reduce the chances
    of heart problems."
    He was silent for a moment, then shrugged and said, "He was not a good
    man."
    Was this his way of telling me he knew I did Holtzer but didn't care?
    If so, what was he going to ask in return?
    "How did you hear about all this?" I asked.
    He looked down at the table, then back at me. "Some of Mr. Holtzer's
    associates from the CIA's station in Tokyo contacted the Metropolitan
    Police Force. They were less concerned about the fact of his death
    than they were about the manner of it. They seem to believe you killed
    him."
    I said nothing.
    "They wanted the assistance of the Metropolitan Police Force in
    locating you," he went on. "My superiors informed me that I was to
    offer full cooperation."
    "Why are they coming to you for help?"
    "I suspect that the Agency has been tasked with trying to eliminate
    some of the corruption that is paralyzing Japan's economy. The United
    States is concerned that if the situation worsens, Japan's finances
    could collapse. A ripple effect, and certainly a global recession,
    would follow."
    I understood Uncle Sam's interest. Everyone knew the politicians were
    focused more on ensuring that they got their share of graft from rigged
    public works and jakuza payoffs than they were on resuscitating a dying
    economy. You could smell the rot from afar.
    I took another sip of the Dalmore. "Why do you suppose they'd be
    interested in me?"
    He shrugged. "Perhaps revenge. Perhaps as part of some anti
    corruption effort. After all, we know Holtzer was issuing intelligence
    reports identifying you as the "natural causes" assassin behind the
    deaths of so many Japanese whistle-blowers and reformers. Perhaps
    both."
    Just like Holtzer, I thought. Getting credit for the intelligence
    reports while using the subject for his own ends." I remembered how he
    had looked when I left him slumped and lifeless in his rent-a-car in
    that suburban Virginia parking garage, and I smiled.
    "You don't seem terribly concerned," Tatsu said.
    I shrugged. "Of course I'm concerned. What did you tell them?"
    "That, so far as I knew, you were dead."
    Here it comes, then. "That was good of you."
    He smiled slightiy, and I saw a bit of the wily, subversive bastard I
    had liked so much in Vietnam, where we had met when he was seconded
    there by one of the precursors of the Keisatsucho.
    "Not so good, really. We're old friends, after all. Friends should
    help each other from time to time, don't you agree?"
    He knew I owed him. I owed him just for letting me go after I'd
    ambushed Holtzer outside the naval base at Yokosuka, despite all the
    years he'd spent trying to ferret me out previously. Now he was
    putting the Agency off my scent, and I owed him for that, too.
    The debts were only part of it, of course. There was also an implicit
    threat. But Tatsu had a soft spot for me that kept him from being too
    direct. Otherwise, he would have dispensed with all the win-win, we're
    old pals bullshit and would have just told me that if I didn't
    cooperate he'd share