I had a few items hidden in my place in Sengoku, among them an alias passport, which I’d want if I had to leave the country suddenly. I told her to go out only when she really had to, knowing that she would need to buy food and a change of clothes, and not to use plastic for any purchases. I also told her that, in case anyone had her cell phone number, we needed to keep our conversations brief, and that she should assume someone was listening to anything we said. I took the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro, a crowded, anonymous commercial and entertainment center in the northwest of the city, then got off and flagged down a cab outside the station. I took the cab to Haku-san, a residential neighborhood about a ten-minute walk from my apartment, where I got out and dialed the voice-mail account that’s attached to the phone in my apartment. The phone has a few special features. I can call in anytime from a remote location and silently activate the unit’s speakerphone, essentially turning it into a transmitter.
