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marriage with you would actually be like. Michiko, if you’re not going to shoot me, could you get me a drink?”
    “So irritating. Why do you have a gun?”
    “An old friend came by.”
    “And left you this?”
    “I’ll give it back tomorrow.” He pointed to the water. “Michiko, I do believe there’s room for you.”
    “Harry, we know from experience there is not. Why are you giving a speech to bankers tomorrow?”
    “Why not? I’m a respectable businessman.”
    “Respectable? Have you ever looked at yourself, Harry?”
    “Well, you’re not exactly the girl next door, either. Okay, I’m going to see bankers in the morning to screw them out of some money. I’m going to be charming and well rested. That means that right now I will enjoy a soak and a cigarette. Unless you are going to shoot me, of course.”
    “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
    “I explained before that I can’t.”
    “But you always have an angle.” The Nambu had a dart-shaped sight. Harry waited for it to waver. Not a millimeter. “Who is this?” Michiko asked.
    Harry wafted steam aside and saw that in her other hand, Michiko held the newspaper picture of Ishigami. “Where did you get that?”
    “Your German friend. Who is it?”
    “An officer we knew in China. I guess he’s back.”
    “Yes. He came to the club tonight after you left.”
    As the news sank in, the bath seemed warmer.
    “Tonight?”
    “Yes.”
    “Exactly what happened?” Harry asked.
    “He went to the bar and asked for you. Kondo said he didn’t know where you were. The colonel asked where you lived, and Kondo said he didn’t know that, either. They talked a little.”
    That was okay, Harry thought. The bartender had four sons in the military. Ishigami wouldn’t hurt Kondo. “Did he talk to anyone else?”
    “The German.”
    “Willie? What did Willie say?”
    “He doesn’t speak Japanese. The colonel saw this picture on the table and was amused.”
    Ishigami amused? That didn’t sound pretty.
    “Was he in uniform?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did he threaten anyone?”
    “No.”
    Harry was relieved at that. Sometimes soldiers busted up cafés out of patriotic fervor. Harry paid for protection from that sort of agitation, and whether he was leaving town or not, he disliked being out good money.
    “As soon as he was gone, I came looking for you.”
    That was pure Michiko, Harry thought. She saw no contradiction in holding a gun on him while expressing concern for his safety.
    “Then nothing really happened, right?”
    Her eyes narrowed, and Harry waited. He could tell she was mustering an attack on a new front. “If there’s a war, what will you do?”
    “There won’t be a war.”
    “If there is.”
    “There won’t be.”
    “If.”
    A man stands on a rock in a river, and sooner or later he slips. Harry regretted his words even as they left his mouth: “I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do. I’m not going to be a sucker, a fall guy, the chump left holding the bag.”
    She lowered the gun.
    “Ah. That’s all I need to know.”
    “Michiko, don’t take that the wrong way. That doesn’t mean I’m skipping—”
    But she disappeared from the doorway.
    The news that Ishigami hadn’t forgotten was unnerving. Harry had blithely assumed that no one would survive four years of leading bayonet charges on the China front, yet here he was at the Happy Paris. Ishigami, Ishigami, Ishigami. Sounded like the sweep of legs through high grass. It was like walking down through a misty valley and seeing a white kimono far behind but gaining.
    Of course Harry was skipping town. Any sane person would. People expected war back in June, and now they were in December, each day like a drop of water trying to fall. The way he saw it, the Westerners trapped in Tokyo were there for a reason. They could have gotten out earlier, but they were grown-ups who had made decisions to stick by their Japanese investments or their Japanese wives. Missionaries wanted to scoop a