“Yeah.”

“I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Are you free right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I need you to go outside and call me from a pay phone. There’s one near the Lawson’s at Azabu Iikura Katamachi, to the left as you’re facing the store. Use it. I’ll give you my number.”

“This line is okay, you know that.”

“Just in case. This is sensitive.” I used our usual code to give him my cell phone number.

Ten minutes later the unit rang. “Okay, what’s so sensitive?” he asked.

“I think someone might be following you.”

There was a short silence. “Are you serious?”

“Stop looking over your shoulder. If they’re there right now I don’t want you to tip them off. You wouldn’t see them that way anyway.”

Another silence. Then: “I don’t get it. I’m awfully careful.”

“I know you are.”

“Why do you think this?”

“Not over the phone.”

“You want to meet?”

“Yes. But I want you to pick something up first. I’ve inserted a note behind the back cover of the second-to-the-back issue of this week’s TV Taro in the Lawson’s you’re next to. Go inside and retrieve the note. Make sure you make it look natural, in case somebody’s close. Pick up a carton of milk, some prepared food, like you’re just grabbing something quick and easy for dinner to take back to your apartment. Take it all home, wait a half-hour, then go out and call me again from a different phone. Be ready for a two-hour walk.”

“Will do.”

A half-hour passed. The cell phone rang again.

“You retrieve it?” I asked.

“Yeah. I see what you’re up to.”

“Good. Just follow the route. Start at eight thirty sharp. When you’re done, wait for me at the place I’ve indicated on the note. You know how to interpret the place I’ve indicated.”

My reference to “interpretation” was a reminder that he wasn’t to take our meeting place literally, but was instead to use the Tokyo Yellow Pages per our usual code to divine my true intent. If people were following Harry and they moved on him right now, presumably they’d pick up the note, see the location of the meet, and go to the wrong place to ambush me.

“Understood,” he said.

“Be cool. You’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ll explain everything when I see you. And don’t worry if I’m a little late.”

“No worries. I’ll see you later.”

I hung up.

Harry had been clean when we’d gotten together at Teize, but that didn’t mean he’d been clean beforehand. I’d taught him to start out his SDRs unobtrusively, acting like any other civilian so that anyone who might be watching him would be lulled into believing he was no more than that. But the low-level stuff was only for the outset. As the route progresses, it becomes increasingly aggressive, less concerned with lulling potential followers and more concerned with forcing them into the open. You get off a subway car and wait until the platform is completely empty, then get back on a train going in the opposite direction. You turn corners, stop, and wait to see who rushes around just behind you. You use a lot of elevators, which forces followers to snuggle up with you shoulder-to-shoulder or let you go. Et cetera. The idea is that it’s better to get caught acting like a spy than it is to lead the bad guys to the source you’re trying to protect in the first place.

Harry would have observed the protocol on his way to Teize when we met there. And, as his counter-surveillance moves became more aggressive, his followers would have had to choose between being spotted, on the one hand, and giving up the quarry so as not to alert him and trying again another day, on the other. If they’d chosen door number 2, Harry would have shown up at the meeting clean, never knowing that he’d been followed a little while earlier.

And, having seen him engage in blatant counter-surveillance tactics, his followers would then assume that he had something to hide, perhaps the very thing they were looking for. They would intensify coverage as a result.

Tonight’s exercise was intended to determine whether all this was indeed the case. The route I’d devised was designed to take whoever might be following Harry in a circle through the Ebisu Garden Palace, a multistoried outdoor shopping arcade that would afford me several opportunities to unobtrusively watch him and whatever might be trailing in his wake. It was aggressive enough to enable me to spot a tail, but not so aggressive as to scare the tail off. Except at the end, when Harry would pull away in front and I would close in from behind.

At eight o’clock I made my way to the Rue Favart restaurant on the corner of Ebisu 4-chome, across from the Sapporo Building. I wanted to get there early to ensure that I would get one of the three window seats on the restaurant’s third floor, which would give me a direct view of the sidewalk that Harry would shortly be using. If the tables were taken, I would have time to wait. I was hungry, too, and the Rue, with its eclectic collection of pastas and sandwiches, would be a good spot to fuel up. I had enjoyed the place from time to time while living in Tokyo and was looking forward to being back.

I followed a waitress up the wooden stairs to the third floor, taking in the zany décor on the way-lime green walls with enormous flower murals, helter-skelter chairs and tables of wood and metal and molded plastic. The window seats were indeed all occupied when I arrived, but I told the waitress not to worry, I would be happy to wait for the privilege of such a splendid view. I sat on a small sofa, enjoying an iced coffee and the hallucinatory ceiling murals of beetles and moths and dragonflies. After a half-hour, the two office ladies at one of the window seats departed, and I took their table.

I ordered the shiitake mushroom risotto and a minestrone soup, asking if they could bring it in a hurry because I was hoping to catch a nine thirty movie. I would need to leave immediately after Harry passed by, and had to time things right.

I thought about what I would do if my experiment were successful-that is, if I confirmed that Harry was indeed being followed. The answer, I supposed, depended largely on who they were, and why they were interested. My main concern was that nothing should interfere with my preparations for departure, which, now that I had finished the “favor” for Tatsu, I was going to have to accelerate. I had to protect my plans, even if it meant leaving Harry on his own.

The risotto was good, and I would have liked more time to enjoy it at my leisure. Instead, I ate quickly, watching the street below. When I was done, I checked my watch. Just enough time for one of the Rue’s celebrated hot cocoas, dense concoctions crafted with pure cocoa and dollops of whipped cream, of which the Rue serves no more than twenty a day. I ordered one and savored it while I waited and watched.

I saw Harry at a little after nine, moving clockwise from Ebisu station toward Kusunoki-dori. He was moving quickly, as I’d instructed him. At this time of the evening, Ebisu comprises mostly pleasure-seekers attracted to the swank restaurants and bars of the Garden Court complex. The pace of the area is accordingly relaxed. Anyone attempting to match Harry’s speed would find himself out of sync with the area’s rhythms, and therefore conspicuous.

I spotted the first likely candidate as Harry turned right onto Kusunoki-dori at the Ebisu 4-chome police box. A young Japanese in a navy suit, slight of build, with gelled hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was following about ten meters behind Harry on the opposite side of the street-sound technique, as most people are aware, if at all, only of what is transpiring directly behind them. I couldn’t yet be sure, of course, but from his position and his manner, and his pace, I had a feeling.

Harry continued to move away from my position. Two groups of young Japanese now appeared farther back in his wake, but I dismissed them as unlikely. Their manner was too relaxed, and they were too young.