I’d already eaten the poison, might as well lick the plate

“I’d already eaten the poison, might as well lick the plate” is Jake Adelstein’s expression of grim resolve when he returns to the story of Tadamasa Goto’s liver transplant after Helena vanishes. Its significance lies in the reversal it makes: prior exposure to danger is not a warning to stop, but a reason to carry on.

Meaning and Context

The phrase appears after Adelstein has confirmed that Helena has disappeared from both her apartment and her job as an English teacher, leaving her belongings behind and no forwarding address. Unsure what to do, he goes to work and decides to follow up on the lead she had pursued. The immediate setting gives the expression its force: his renewed investigation follows a personal and professional crisis, not a resolution of the danger around him.

Adelstein knows that the International Entertainment Association is associated with the Goto-gumi. He does not know whether Tadamasa Goto had any part in Helena’s disappearance, and explicitly treats that possibility as unconfirmed. Still, he wants to find out. He also recognizes that the liver-transplant story should have been resumed earlier, even though it had diverted him from his research into human trafficking.

Function in the Narrative

The poison and the plate compress Adelstein’s calculation into a deliberately stark image. He believes that returning to the story may put him at risk and anger Tadamasa Goto again, but thinks he may already have incurred that danger. The expression therefore conveys neither safety nor certainty; it frames continued reporting as a choice made after the perceived point of no return.

The decision produces investigative progress. Adelstein begins to work out how Tadamasa Goto entered the United States, with a clue and a knowledgeable source willing to talk. The phrase thus marks a hinge between Helena’s disappearance and renewed reporting on Goto: a declaration of resolve whose immediate consequence is movement in the investigation, not proof of who was responsible for Helena’s vanishing.