Joyce claimed to be unamused, though in truth maybe she wasn't all that heartbroken to have the place to herself for the afternoon. He grabbed his coat and said don't throw out The Week in Review.
The streets were now at a standstill, so the prospect of finding, let alone traveling in, a taxi was implausible in the extreme. As a result Senator Jack O'Donnell shared the Broadway local with several hundred of his lesser-heeled constituents and finally managed to get down to Sheridan Square, from which it was only a few mushy blocks over to my place.
Ben greeted him at the door with me not far behind, doubtless looking as if I'd just stumbled in from a three-day forced march. Without a word he passed over his coat, then followed me downstairs where Tam was still going through the line of printouts spread across the dining room table, translating onto one of my yellow legal pads.
I pointed him in the direction of the coffee urn stationed in the kitchen. He poured a cup, then came around and plopped down on the couch.
"Walton"—he sampled his brew, then set it down—"you're not going to believe what your goddam client did Friday. Swear to God, your man actually threatened me, the bastard, a not-too-subtle warning to back off."
"Jack, that's small potatoes." I straddled one of the dining room chairs. "What would you say to a possible play by our friend Matsuo Noda that makes Pearl Harbor look like a gesture of Japanese-American solidarity?"
"Two days ago I might have thought you'd been smoking a controlled substance. Now, I'm not so sure."
"Well, we're still piecing it together. I don't think anybody could even imagine what's really afoot. One thing's for sure, though—this is big." I paused. "It might even be that Noda is somehow fronting for MITI, though I'm still not totally convinced."
I'd been turning that possibility over, but I somehow couldn't buy it all the way. Wasn't Matsuo Noda's style. He was a loner.
"MITI?" He looked at me. "That's government, right? The Ministry of . . ."