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fifth floor, doing a last 180-degree sweep with my eyes before the doors closed.

    Predictably, there was a crowd of people outside the club’s door, which was papered over with posters, some new, some faded, advertising the acts that had appeared here over the years. There was a young guy in a cheap European-cut suit with his hair slicked back standing at the door and checking reservations. “
Onamae wa
?” he asked me, as I made my way forward across the short distance from the elevator. Your name? I told him I didn’t have a reservation, and he looked pained. To spare him the anguish of explaining that I wouldn’t be able to see the performance, I told him I was an old friend of Mama’s and needed to see her, could he just get her? He bowed, stepped inside, and disappeared behind a curtain. Two seconds later Mama came out. Her posture was businesslike, no doubt in preparation for making an excruciatingly polite but firm Japanese apology, but when she saw me her eyes crinkled up in a smile.

    “Jun-chan! Hisashiburi ne!”
she greeted me, smoothing her skirt with her hands.
Jun
is Mama’s pet name for Junichi, my Japanese first name, bastardized to John in English. I bowed to her formally but returned her welcoming smile. I explained that I just happened to be in the neighborhood and hadn’t had a chance to make a reservation. I could see that they were crowded and didn’t want to be a bother . . .

    “Tonde mo nai!”
she interrupted me. Don’t be ridiculous! She hustled me inside, dashed behind the bar, and whisked the bottle of Cao Lila I kept there off a shelf. Snatching a glass, she returned to where I was standing and motioned me to a seat at a table in the corner of the room.

    She sat with me for a moment, poured me a drink, and asked me if I was with someone — I don’t always come to Alfie alone. I told her it was just me, and she smiled. “
Un ga yokatta ne
!” she said. My good luck! Seeing Mama made me feel good. I hadn’t been there in months, but she knew exactly where my bottle was; she still had her tricks.

    My table was close to the small stage. The room was shadowy, but a light hanging from the ceiling illuminated a piano and the area just to the right of it. Not a great view of the entrance, but you can’t have everything.

    “I’ve missed you, Mama,” I told her in Japanese, feeling myself unwind. “Tell me who’s on tonight.”

    She patted my hand. “A young pianist. Kawamura Midori. She’s going to be a star, she’s already got a gig at the Blue Note this weekend, but you can say you saw her at Alfie in the early days.”

    Kawamura is a common Japanese name, and I didn’t think anything of the coincidence. “I’ve heard of her, I think, but don’t know her music. What’s she like?”

    “Wonderful — she plays like an angry Thelonious Monk. And completely professional, not like some of the young acts we book here. She lost her father only a week and a half ago, poor thing, but she kept her engagement tonight.”

    That’s when the name struck me. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said slowly. “What happened?”

    “Heart attack on Tuesday morning, right on the Yamanote. Kawamura-san told me it wasn’t a complete surprise — her father had a heart condition. We have to be grateful for every moment we’re given,
ne
? Oh, here she comes.” She patted me on the hand again and slipped away.

    I turned and saw Midori and her trio walking briskly, expressionless, toward the stage. I shook my head, trying to take it all in. I had come to Alfie to get away from Kawamura and everything associated with him, and instead here was his ghost. I would have gotten up and left, but that would have been conspicuous.

    And at the same time there was an element of curiosity, as though I was driving back past the results of a car accident I had caused, unable to avert my eyes.

    I watched Midori’s face as she took up her post at the piano. She looked to be in her mid-thirties