I sat and looked around. Everything was old, dark wood: the walls, the ceiling, the counter itself. Old-school didn’t even begin to describe it. Behind the counter was an ancient balance-beam scale, a hand-cranked grinder, and an icebox — an actual wooden icebox, not a refrigerator. The air was suffused with the delicious smell of coffee.
There was a small black-and-white television playing atop the icebox. The LDP had named Ozawa’s replacement — a surprisingly young-looking guy named Gai Kawasaki. I wondered how he’d managed to leapfrog all the septuagenarians who must have been in line ahead of him. Maybe McGraw had done something to help — a quid pro quo for Kawasaki promising to be a better team player than Ozawa. A reporter put a microphone in his face, and Kawasaki spoke smoothly and reassuringly of Ozawa’s legacy, how no one could hope to fill the great man’s shoes but that Kawasaki would humbly try for the sake of the party and the nation, etc.
I immediately sensed the thoughtfulness behind McGraw’s tradecraft: people who sat at the counter would mostly be alone. The farthest seat, at the end of the counter, would be naturally attractive to anyone who didn’t want to sit between two people. If there were other open seats, it would be a little odd to take one adjacent to one already occupied. Meaning that statistically, that second-farthest seat was likely to be available just a little more often than the others. McGraw might have used the booth behind one of the tables, but people who came with a companion were more likely to linger, and if the dead drop were occupied, there might be a substantial wait. At the counter, seats would open more quickly. Of course, there were no guarantees, but McGraw’s way made it more likely things would go more smoothly. Focusing on the details, gaming things out…it all offered only an advantage. Again, not something I was unfamiliar with in a combat context. But I could see the importance of adapting the concept for urban environments. McGraw was an asshole, but that didn’t mean there was nothing I could learn from him.
I sat and waited while the maastaa prepared a cup of coffee. He was a rugged-looking man of about sixty in shirtsleeves and a sweater vest, with a full head of steel-gray hair and solemn eyes behind a large pair of glasses. There was no coffeepot to pour from; instead, the Café de l’Ambre method seemed to be the preparation of a single cup at a time. I watched as he poured ground beans into a cloth filter held in a wire, placed the filter over a copper pot, then slowly poured water over the coffee from a boiling kettle, his arm moving the filter in a slight circle as he did so, his head cocked to the side so he could better observe the steaming water trickling into the ground beans, the flow starting at the center, then working its way out, then back in again. After a moment, he set down the kettle, waited while the last of the boiling water flowed through the coffee, briefly heated the pot over an open flame, poured it into a china cup, and placed the cup in a waiting saucer in front of the customer. Then he made his way down the counter to me.
I bowed my head in greeting. “Omakase de onegai-shimasu.” I’ll have whatever you recommend. McGraw might know coffee, but I doubted he knew it as well as this guy.
He nodded. “Strong? Mild?”
“Please, I know little about coffee but am trying to learn. Whatever the master himself believes I would enjoy.”
He considered me for a moment, then nodded and placed a saucer in front of me. He turned to the shelves behind him, considering among the various glass jars stored there. After a moment, he selected one and prepared my coffee as he had the cup before it, this time first grinding the beans in the hand crank. He set the cup in the saucer and said, “This is a 1952 Brazilian Bourbon. Rare and delicate. A bit more expensive, but if it isn’t to your taste, I’ll only charge you for a regular cup.”
“I didn’t know there were aged coffees. I thought fresh was better.”
He gave a quiet harrumph. “It’s like wine. You wouldn’t lay down a Beaujolais, but drinking a Premier Cru Bordeaux right away would be infanticide. The right coffee can become quite special with age. Subtler, more complex. But you have to know what to look for in the beans.”
At the time, I didn’t know the first thing about wine, so I decided to take his word for it. I picked up the cup and held it for a moment, feeling the warmth in my hands, letting the aroma drift upward, remembering to be mindful. It smelled delicious — strong but balanced, assertive but not overpowering. I moved the cup closer and was rewarded with a different spectrum of fragrances: toffee, maybe, or caramel. I closed my eyes and took a small sip. It was delicious: rich but with no bitterness, with hints of the toffee the aroma had promised.
I nodded my gratitude, thinking any words I might offer would be superfluous. The maastaa nodded back, clearly pleased. “You say you know little of coffee. Perhaps you know more than you think.”
“I’m really just trying to learn.”
He bowed. “Sekiguchi desu.” I’m Sekiguchi.
I bowed my head in return. “Yamada desu.” I thought it best not to use my real name. Yamada was the Japanese equivalent of Smith or Jones.
“Come back some time, Yamada-san. It will be my pleasure to teach coffee to one who appreciates it so much.”
I bowed my head at the compliment. Sekiguchi moved off to attend to another customer, and I enjoyed the cup he had prepared me. It really was outstanding. I was amazed to think of the swill I’d been drinking when there were places like this in Tokyo.
After a few minutes, I looked around. People were talking, or reading, or silently contemplating the subtleties of whatever it was they were drinking. No one was paying me any attention. I reached under the seat, felt the envelope taped in position, pulled it free, and pocketed it. Unsurprisingly, McGraw had taped it dead center, presumably to minimize the chance that someone momentarily gripping the edge of the seat might feel something with his fingertips. I finished my coffee, thanked Sekiguchi and assured him I would see him again, and headed out into the wet Ginza heat.
I rode to nearby Hibiya Park, where I sat at a bench in the shade of some trees and opened the file. Fukumoto lived in Denenchofu, an upscale, leafy suburb of single-family houses in the southwest of the city, outside the Yamanote. The headquarters of the Gokumatsu-gumi was in Shinjuku, and presumably he would spend substantial time there, but attacking a yakuza stronghold seemed like a fairly bad idea and I didn’t even consider it. The Gokumatsu-gumi controlled Shinjuku’s prostitution, ran most of the city’s pachinko parlors through an affiliated Korean gang, and managed various nightclub interests. Beyond that was loan sharking, extortion, strikebreaking, and drug trafficking. Fukumoto had personal investments in several hostess bars throughout the city. But trying to get to him at one of the clubs sounded like a shell game to me, with a low probability of success.
I grimaced. It was an analyst’s file, not an operator’s. McGraw was fucking me.
Then I took a deep breath. Maybe there was another way of looking at it. Presumably, McGraw had wanted Ozawa dead for some time, and the Ozawa file had been a reflection of that desire. But no one had planned a hit on Fukumoto. McGraw was playing catch-up. He hadn’t had time to put together something more focused.