Aces Abroad

ZERO HOUR

Lewis Shiner

The store had a pyramid of TV sets in the window, all tuned to the same channel. They tracked a 747 landing at Narita Airport, then pulled back to show an announcer in front of a screen. Then the airport scene switched to a graphic featuring a caricature of Tachyon, a cartoon jet, and the English words Stacked Deck.

Fortunato stopped in front of the store. It was just getting dark, and all around him the neon ideograms of the Ginza blazed into red and blue and yellow life. He couldn't hear anything through the glass, so he watched helplessly while the screen flashed pictures of Hartmann and Chrysalis and Jack Braun. He knew they were going to show Peregrine an instant before she flashed on the screen, lips slightly parted, her eyes starting to look away, the wind in her hair. He didn't need wild card powers to have predicted it. Even if he'd still had them. He knew they'd show her because it was the thing he feared. Fortunato watched his reflected image superimposed over hers, faint, ghostlike.

He bought a Japanese Times, Tokyo's biggest Englishlanguage paper. "Aces Invade Japan," the headline said, and there was a special pullout section with color photographs.

The crowds surged around him, mostly male, mostly in business suits, mostly on autopilot. The ones that noticed him gave him a shocked glance and looked away again. They saw his height and thinness and foreignness. If they could tell he was half-Japanese, they didn't care; the other half was black American, kokujin. In Japan, as in too many other parts of the world, the whiter the skin the better.

The paper said the tour would be staying at the newly remodeled Imperial Hotel, a few blocks from where Fortunato stood. And so, Fortunato thought, the mountain has come to Muhammad. Whether Muhammad wants it or not.

It was time, Fortunato thought, for a bath.

Fortunato crouched by the tap and soaped himself all over, then carefully rinsed it off with his plastic bucket. Getting soap into the ofuro was one of two breaches of etiquette the Japanese would not tolerate, the other being the wearing of shoes on tatami mats. Once he was clean, Fortunato walked over to the edge of the pool, his towel hanging to cover his genitals with the casual skill of a native Japanese.

He slipped into the 115-degree water, giving himself over to the agonizing pleasure. A mixture of sweat and condensation immediately broke out across his forehead and ran down his face. His muscles relaxed in spite of himself. Around him the other men in the ofuro sat with their eyes shut, ignoring him.

He bathed about this time every day. In the six months he'd spent in Japan he'd become a creature of habit, just like the millions of Japanese around him. He was up by nine in the morning, an hour he'd seen only half a dozen times back in New York City. He spent the mornings in meditation or study, going twice a week to a zen Shukubo across the bay in Chiba City.

In the afternoons he was a tourist, seeing everything from the French Impressionists at the Bridgestone to the woodcuts at the Riccar, walking in the Imperial Gardens, shopping in the Ginza, visiting the shrines.

At night there was the mizu-shobai. The water business. It was what they called the huge underground economy of pleasure, everything from the most conservative of geisha houses to the most blatant of prostitutes, from the mirrorwalled nightclubs to the tiny red-light bars where, late at night, after enough saki, the hostess might be talked into dancing naked on the Formica counter. It was an entire world catering to the carnal appetite, unlike anything Fortunato had ever seen. It made his operations back in New York, the string of high-class hookers that he'd naively called geishas, seem puny in comparison. In spite of everything that had happened to him, in spite of the fact that he was still trying to push himself toward leaving the world entirely and shutting himself in a monastery, he couldn't stay away from these women. The jo-san, the play-for-pay hostesses. If only to look at them and talk to them and then go home alone to masturbate in his tiny cubicle, in case his burned-out wild card ability had started to come back, in case the tantric power was beginning to build inside his Muladhara chakra.

When the water wasn't painful anymore, he got up and soaped and rinsed again and got back into the ofuro. It was time, he thought, for a decision. Either to face Peregrine and the others at the hotel, or leave town entirely, maybe stay a week at the Shukubo in Chiba City so he wouldn't run into them by accident.

Or, he thought, the third way. Let fate decide. Go on about his business, and if he was meant to find them, he would.

It happened five days later, just before sunset on Tuesday afternoon, and it was not an accident at all. He'd been talking to a waiter he knew in the kitchen of the Chikuyotei, and he'd taken the back door into an alley. When he looked up, she was there.

"Fortunato," she said. She held her wings straight out behind her. Still, they nearly touched the walls of the alley. She wore a deep blue off-the-shoulder knit dress that clung to her body. She looked to be about six months pregnant. Nothing he'd seen had mentioned it.

There was a man with her, from India or somewhere near it. He was about fifty, thick in the middle, losing his hair.

"Peregrine," Fortunato said. She looked upset, tired, relieved-all at once. Her arms came up and Fortunato went to her and held her gently. She rested her forehead on his shoulder for a second and then pulled away.

"This… this is G. C. Jayewardene," Peregrine said. The man put his palms together, elbows out, and ducked his head. "He helped me find you."

Fortunato bowed jerkily. Christ, he thought, I'm turning Japanese. Next I'll be stammering nonsense syllables at the beginning of every sentence, not even be able to talk anymore. "How did you know…" he said.

"The wild card," Jayewardene said. " I saw this moment a month ago." He shrugged. "The visions come without my asking. I don't know why or what they mean. I'm their prisoner."

"I know the feeling," Fortunato said. He looked at Peregrine again. He reached out and put a hand on her stomach. He could feel the baby moving inside her. "It's mine. Isn't it?"

She bit her lip, nodded. "But that's not the reason I'm here. I would have left you alone. I know it's what you wanted. But we need your help."

"What kind of help?"

"It's Hiram," she said. "He's disappeared."

Peregrine needed to sit down. In New York or London or Mexico City there would have been a park within walking distance. In Tokyo the space was too valuable. Fortunato's apartment was a half-hour train ride away, a four-tatami room, six feet by twelve, in a gray-walled complex with narrow halls and communal toilets and no grass or trees. Besides, only a lunatic would try to ride a train at rush hour, when whitegloved railroad employees stood by to shove people into already-packed cars.

Fortunato took them around the corner to a cafeteriastyle sushi bar. The decor was red vinyl, white Formica, and chrome. The sushi traveled the length of the room on a conveyor belt that passed all the booths.

"We can talk here," Fortunato said. "But I wouldn't try the food. If you want to eat, I'll take you someplace else-but it'd mean waiting in line."

"No," Peregrine said. Fortunato could see that the sharp vinegar and fish smells weren't sitting well on her stomach. "This is fine."

They'd already asked each other how they'd been, walking over here, and both of them had been pleasant and vague in their answers. Peregrine had told him about the baby. Healthy, she said, normal as far as anyone could tell. Fortunato had asked Jayewardene a few polite questions. There was nothing left but to get down to it.

"He left this letter," Peregrine said. Fortunato looked it over. The handwriting seemed jagged, unlike Hiram's usual compulsive penmanship. It said he was leaving the tour for "personal reasons." He assured everyone he was in good health. He hoped to rejoin them later. If not, he would see them in New York.

"We know where he is," Peregrine said. "Tachyon found him, telepathically, and made sure he wasn't hurt or anything. But he refuses to go into Hiram's brain and find out what's wrong. He says he doesn't have the right. He won't let any of us talk to Hiram, either. He says if somebody wants to leave the tour it's not our business. Maybe he's right. I know if I tried to talk to him, it wouldn't do any good."

"Why not? You two always got along."

"He's different now. He hasn't been the same since December. It's like some witch doctor put a curse on him while we were in the Caribbean."

"Did something specific happen to set him off?"

"Something happened, but we don't know what. We were having lunch at the Palace Sunday with Prime Minister Nakasone and all these other officials. Suddenly there's this man in a cheap suit. He just walks in and hands Hiram a piece of paper. Hiram got very pale and wouldn't say anything about it. That afternoon he went back to the hotel by himself. Said he wasn't feeling good. That must have been when he packed and moved out, because Sunday night he was gone."

"Do you remember anything else about the man in the suit?"

"He had a tattoo. It came out from under his shirt and went down his wrist. God knows how far up his arm it went. It was really vivid, all these greens and reds and blues."

"It probably covered his whole body," Fortunato said. He rubbed his temples, where his regular daily headache had set in. "He was yakuza."

"Yakuza…" Jayewardene said.

Peregrine looked from Fortunato to Jayewardene and back. "Is that bad?"

"very bad," Jayewardene said. "Even I have heard of them. They're gangsters."

"Like the Mafia," Fortunato said. "Only not as centralized. Each family-they call them clans-is on its own. There's something like twenty-five hundred separate clans in Japan, each with its own oyabun. The oyabun is like the don. It means 'in the role of parent.' If Hiram's in trouble with the yak, we may not even be able to find out which clan is after him."

Peregrine took another piece of paper out of her purse. "This is the address of Hiram's hotel. I… told Tachyon I wouldn't see him. I told him somebody should have it in case of emergency. Then. Mr. Jayewardene told me about his vision…"

Fortunato put his hand on the paper but didn't look at it.

"I don't have any power left," he said. " I used everything I had fighting the Astronomer, and there isn't anything left." It had been back in September, Wild Card Day in New York. The fortieth anniversary of Jetboy's big fuckup, when the spores had fallen on the city and thousands had died, Jetboy among them. It was the day a man named the Astronomer chose to get even with the aces who had hounded him and broken his secret society of Egyptian Masons. He and Fortunato had fought it out with blazing fireballs of power over the East River. Fortunato had won, but it had cost him everything.

That had been the night he had made love to Peregrine for the first and last time. The night her child had been conceived.

"It doesn't matter," Peregrine said. "Hiram respects you. He'll listen to you."

In fact, Fortunato thought, he's afraid of me and he blames me for the death of a woman he used to love. A woman Fortunato had used as a pawn against the Astronomer, and lost. A woman Fortunato had loved too. Years ago.

But if he walked away now he wouldn't see Peregrine again. It had been hard enough to stay away from her, knowing that she was so close by. It was a whole other order of difficult to get up and walk away from her when she was right there in front of him, so tall and powerful and overflowing with emotions. The fact that she carried his child made it even harder, made just one more thing he wasn't ready to think about.

"I'll try," Fortunato said. "I'll do what I can."

Hiram's room was in the Akasaka Shanpia, a businessman's hotel near the train station. Except for the narrow hallways and the shoes outside the doors, it could have been any middle-price hotel in the U.S. Fortunato knocked on Hiram's door. There was a hush, as if all noises inside the room had suddenly stopped.

" I know you're in there," Fortunato said, bluffing. "It's Fortunato, man. You might as well let me in." After a couple of seconds the door opened.

Hiram had turned the place into a slum. There were clothes and towels all over the floor, plates of dried-out food and smudged highball glasses, stacks of newspapers and magazines. It smelled faintly of acetone and a mixture of sweat and old booze.

Hiram himself had lost weight. His clothes sagged around him like they were still on hangers. After he let Fortunato in, he walked back to the bed without saying anything. Fortunato shut the door, dumped a dirty shirt off a chair, and sat down. "So," Hiram said at last. "It would seem I've been ferreted out."

"They're worried. They think you might be in some kind of trouble."

"It's nothing. There's absolutely nothing for them to be concerned about. Didn't they get my note?"

"Don't bullshit me, Hiram. You've gotten messed up with the yakuza. Those are not the kind of people you take chances with. Tell me what happened."

Hiram stared at him. "If I don't tell you, you'll just come in and get it, won't you?" Fortunato shrugged, another bluff. "Yeah. Right."

" I just want to help," Fortunato said.

"Well, your help is not required. It's a small matter of money. Nothing else."

"How much money?"

"A few thousand."

"Dollars, of course." A thousand yen were worth a little over five dollars U.S. "How did it happen? Gambling?"

"Look, this is all rather embarrassing. I'd prefer not to talk about it, all right?"

"You're saying this to a man who was a pimp for thirty years. Do you think I'm going to come down on you? Whatever you did?"

Hiram took a, deep breath. "No. I suppose not."

"Talk to me."

"I was out walking Saturday night, kind of late, over on Roppongi Street…"

"By yourself?"

"Yes." He was embarrassed again. "I'd heard a lot about the women here. I just wanted to… tantalize myself, you know? The mysterious Orient. Women who would fulfill your wildest dreams. I'm a long way from home. I just… wanted to see."

It wasn't that different from what Fortunato had been doing the last six months. "I understand."

"I saw a sign that said `English-speaking hostesses.' I went in and there was a long hallway. I must have missed the place the sign was for. I went back into the building a long way. There was a padded kind of a door at the end, no sign or anything. When I got inside, they took my coat and went away with it somewhere. Nobody spoke English. Then these girls more or less dragged me over to a table and got me buying them drinks. There were three of them. I had one or two drinks myself. More than one or two. It was a sort of a dare. They were using sign language, teaching me some Japanese. God. They were so beautiful. So… delicate, you know? But with huge dark eyes that would look at you and then skitter away. Half shy and half… I don't know. Challenging. They said nobody had ever drunk ten jars of saki there before. Like no one had ever been quite man enough. So I did. By then they had me pretty well convinced I would get all three of them for a reward."

Hiram started to sweat. The drops ran down his face and he wiped them off with the cuff of a stained silk shirt. "I was… well, very aroused, shall we say. And drunk. They kept flirting and touching me on the arm, so lightly, like butterflies landing on my skin. I suggested we go somewhere. They kept putting me off. Ordering more drinks. And then I just lost control."

He looked up at Fortunato. "I haven't been… quite myself lately. Something just came over me in that bar. I guess I grabbed one of the girls. Sort of tried to take her dress off. She started screaming and all three of them ran away. Thep the bouncer started hustling me toward the door, waving a bill in my face. It was for fifty thousand yen. Even drunk I knew there was something wrong. He pointed at my coat and then at a number. Then the jars of saki and more numbers. Then the girls and more numbers. I think that was what really got to me. Paying so much money just to be flirted with."

"They were the wrong girls," Fortunato said. "Christ, there's a million women for sale in this town. All you have to do is ask a taxi driver."

"Okay. Okay. I made a mistake. It could happen to anybody. But they went too far."

"So you walked out."

"I walked out. They tried to chase me and I glued them to the floor. Somehow I got back to the hotel. It took me forever to find a cab."

"Okay," Fortunato said. "Where exactly was this place? Could you find it again?"

Hiram shook his head. "I tried. I've spent two days looking for it."

"What about the sign? Do you remember anything about it? Could you sketch any of the characters?"

"The Japanese, you mean? No way."

"There must have been something."

Hiram closed his eyes. "Okay. Maybe there was a picture of a duck. Side view. Looked like a decoy, back home. Just an outline."

"Okay. And you've told me everything that happened at the club."

"Everything."

"And the next day the kobun found you at lunch." "Kobun?"

"The yakuza soldier."

Hiram blushed again. "He just walked in. I don't know how he got past the security. He stood right across the table from where I was sitting. He bowed from the waist with his legs spread; his right hand is out like this, palm up. He introduced himself, but I was so scared I couldn't remember the name. Then he handed me a bill. The amount was two hundred and fifty thousand yen. There was a note in English at the bottom. It said the amount would double every day at midnight until I paid it."

Fortunato worked the figures out in his head. In U.S. money the debt was now close to seven thousand dollars. Hiram said, "If it's not paid by Thursday they said…"

"What?"

"They said I would never even see the man who killed me."

Fortunato phoned Peregrine from a pay phone, colorcoded red for local calls only. He fed it a handful of ten-yen coins to keep it from beeping at him every three minutes.

"I found him," Fortunato said. "He wasn't a lot of help."

"Is he okay?" Peregrine sounded sleepy. It was all too easy for Fortunato to picture her stretched out in bed, covered only by a thin white sheet. He had no powers left. He couldn't stop time or project his astral body or hurl bolts of prana or move around inside people's thoughts. But his senses were still acute, sharper than they'd ever been before the virus, and he could remember the smell of her perfume and her hair and her desire as if they were there all around him.

"He's nervous and losing weight. But nothing's happened to him yet."

"Yet?"

"The yakuza want money from him. A few thousand. It's basically a misunderstanding. I tried to get him to back down, but he wouldn't. It's a pride thing. He sure picked the country for it. People die from pride here by the thousands, every year."

"You think it's going to come to that?"

"Yes. I offered to pay the money for him. He refused. I'd do it behind his back, but I can't find out which clan is after him. What scares me is it sounds like they're threatening him with some kind of invisible killer."

"You mean, like an ace?"

"Maybe. In all the time I've been here I've only heard about one actual confirmed ace, a zen roshi up north on Hokkaido Island. For one thing, I think the spores had pretty much settled out before they could get here. And even if any did, you might never hear about them. We're talking about a culture here that makes self-effacement into a religion. Nobody wants to stand out. So if we're up against some kind of ace, it's possible nobody's even heard of him."

"Can I do anything?"

He wasn't sure what she was offering and he didn't want to think too hard about it. "No," he said. "Not now"

"Where are you?"

"A pay phone, in the Roppongi district. The club where Hiram got in trouble is somewhere around here."

"It's just… we never really had a chance to talk. With Jayewardene there and everything."

"I know."

"I went looking for you after Wild Card Day. Your mother said you were going to a monastery."

"I was. Then when I got here I heard about that monk, the one up on Hokkaido."

"The ace."

"Yeah. His name is Dogen. He can create mindblocks, a little like the Astronomer could, but not as drastic. He can make people forget things or take away worldly skills that might interfere with their meditation or-"

"Or take away somebody's wild card power. Yours, for instance."

"For instance."

"Did you see him?"

"He said he'd take me in. But only if I gave up my power."

"But you said your power was gone."

"So far. But I haven't given it a chance to come back. And if I go in the monastery, it could be permanent. Sometimes the block wears off and he has to renew it. Sometimes it doesn't wear off at all."

"And you don't know if you want to go that far."

"I want to. But I still feel… responsible. Like the power isn't entirely mine, you know?"

"Kind ou I never wanted to give mine up. Not like you or Jayewardene."

"Is he serious about it?"

"He sure seems to be."

"Maybe when this is over," Fortunato said, "him and me can go see Dogen together." Traffic was picking up around him; the daytime buses and delivery vans had given way to expensive sedans and taxis. "I have to go," he said.

"Promise me," Peregrine said. "Promise me you'll be careful."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I promise."

The Roppongi district was about three kilometers southwest of the Ginza. It was the one part of Tokyo where the clubs stayed open past midnight. Lately it was overrun with gayin trade, discos and pubs and bars with Western hostesses. It had taken Fortunato a long time to get used to things closing early. The last trains left the center of the city at midnight, and he'd walked down to Roppongi more than once during his first weeks in Tokyo, still looking for some elusive satisfaction, unwilling to settle for sex or alcohol, not ready to risk the savage Japanese punishment for being caught with drugs. Finally he'd given it up. The sight of so many tourists, the loud, unceasing noise of their languages, the predictable throb of their music, were not worth the few pleasures the clubs had to offer.

He tried three places and no one remembered Hiram or recognized the sign of the duck. Then he went into the north Berni Inn, one of two in the district. It was an English pub, complete with Guinness and kidney pie and red velvet everything. About half the tables were full, either of foreign tourists in twos and threes, or large tables of Japanese businessmen.

Fortunato slowed to watch the dynamics at one of the Japanese tables. Expense accounts kept the water trade alive. Staying out all night with the boys from the office was just part of the job. The youngest and least confident of them talked the loudest and laughed the hardest. Here, with the excuse of alcohol, was the one time the pressure was off, their only chance to fuck up and get away with it. The senior men smiled indulgently. Fortunato knew that even if he could read their thoughts there wouldn't be much there to see. The perfect Japanese businessman could hide his thoughts even from himself, could efface himself so completely that no one would even know he was there.

The bartender was Japanese and probably new on the job. He looked at Fortunato with a mixture of horror and awe. Japanese were raised to think of gaijin as a race of giants. Fortunato, over six feet tall, thin, his shoulders hunched forward like a vulture's, was a walking childhood nightmare. "Genki desu-ne?" Fortunato asked politely, with a little bow of the head. "I'm looking for a nightclub," he went on in Japanese. "It has a sign like this." He drew a duck on one of the red bar napkins and showed it to the bartender. The bartender nodded, backing away, a rigid smile of fear on his face.

Finally one of the foreign waitresses ducked behind the bar and smiled at Fortunato. " I have a feeling Tosun is not going to do well here," she said. Her accent was Northern England. Her hair was dark brown and pinned up with chopsticks, and her eyes were green. "Can I help?"

"I'm looking for a nightclub somewhere around here. It's got a duck on the sign, like this one. Small place, doesn't do a lot of gaijin trade."

The woman looked at the napkin. For a second she had the same look as the bartender. Then she worked her face around into a perfect Japanese smile. It looked horrible on her European features. Fortunato knew she wasn't afraid of him. It had to be the club. "No," she said. "Sorry"

"Look. I know the yakuza are mixed up in this. I'm not a cop, and I'm not looking for any trouble. I'm just trying to pay a debt for somebody. For a friend of mine. Believe me, they want to see me."

"Sorry"

"What's your name?"

"Megan." The way she thought before saying it told Fortunato she was lying.

"What part of England are you from?"

"I'm not, actually." She casually crumpled the napkin and threw it under the bar. "I'm from Nepal." She gave him the brittle smile again and walked away.

He'd looked at every bar in the district, most of them twice. At least it seemed that way. Hiram could, of course, have been half a block farther on in the wrong direction, or Fortunato could simply have missed it. By four A. M. he was too tired to look anymore, too tired even to go home.

He saw a love hotel on the other side of the Roppongi Crossing. The hourly rates were on the high, windowless walls by the entrance. After midnight it was actually something of a bargain. Fortunato went in past the darkened garden and slipped his money through a blind slot in the wall. A hand slid him out a key.

The hall was full of size-ten foreign men's shoes paired off with tiny zori or doll-sized spike heels. Fortunato found his room and locked the door behind him. The bed was freshly made with pink satin sheets. There were mirrors and a video camera on the ceiling, feeding a big-screen TV in the corner., By love hotel standards the room was pretty tame. Some eatured jungles or desert islands, beds shaped like boats or cars or helicopters, light shows and sound effects.

He turned out the light and undressed. All around him his oversensitive hearing picked up tiny cries and shrill, stifled laughter. He folded the pillow over his head and lay with his eyes open to the darkness.

He was forty-seven years old. For twenty of those years he'd lived inside a cocoon of power and never noticed himself aging. Then the last six months had begun to teach him what he'd missed. The dreadful fatigue after a long night like this one. Mornings when his joints hurt so badly it was hard to get up. Important memories beginning to fade, trivia haunting him obsessively. Lately there were the headaches, and indigestion and muscle cramps. The constant awareness of being human, being mortal, being weak.

Nothing was as addictive as power. Heroin was a glass of flat beer in comparison. There had been nights, watching an endless throng of beautiful women move down the Ginza or the Shinjuku, virtually all of them for sale, when he'd thought he couldn't go on without feeling that power again. He'd talked to himself like an alcoholic, promising himself he'd wait just one more day. And somehow he'd held oui. Partly because the memories of his last night in New York, of his final battle with the Astronomer, were still too fresh, reminding him of the pain the power had cost him. Partly because he was no longer sure the power was there, whether Kundalini, the great serpent, was dead or just asleep.

Tonight he'd watched helplessly as a hundred or more Japanese lied to him, ignored him, even humiliated themselves rather than tell him what they so obviously knew. He'd started to see himself through their eyes: huge, clumsy, sweaty, loud, and uncivilized, a pathetic barbarian giant, a kind of oversized monkey who couldn't even be held accountable for common politeness.

A little tantric magick would change all that. Tomorrow, he told himself. If you still feel this way tomorrow then you can go ahead, try to get it back.

He closed his eyes and finally fell asleep.

He woke up with an erection for the first time in months. It was fate, he told himself. Fate that brought Peregrine to him, that provided the need for him to use his power again.

Was that the truth? Or did he just want an excuse to make love to her again, an outlet for six months of sexual frustration?

He dressed and took a cab to the Imperial Hotel. The tour took up an entire floor of the new thirty-one-story tower, and everything inside was scaled up for Europeans. The halls and the insides of the elevators seemed huge to Fortunato now. By the time he got off on the thirtieth floor his hands were shaking. He leaned against Peregrine's door and knocked quietly. A few seconds later he knocked again, harder.

She answered the door in a loose nightgown that touched the floor. Her feathers were ruffled and she could hardly open her eyes. Then she saw him.

She took the chain off the door and stood aside. He shut the door behind him and took her in his arms. He could feel the tiny creature in her belly moving as he held her. He kissed her. Sparks seemed to be crackling around them, but it could have been just the strength of his desire, breaking out of the chains he'd kept it in for so long.

He pulled the straps of her nightgown down along her arms. It fell to her waist and revealed her breasts, their nipples dark and puffy. He touched one with his tongue and tasted the chalky sweetness of her milk. She put her arms around his head and moaned. Her skin was soft and fragrant as the silk of an antique kimono. She pulled him toward the unmade bed and he broke away from her long enough to take off his clothes.

She lay on her back. The pregnancy was the summit of her body, where all the curves ended. Fortunato knelt next to her and kissed her face and throat and shoulders and breasts. He couldn't seem to get his breath. He turned her on her side, facing away from him, and kissed the small of her back. Then he reached up between her legs and held her there, feeling the warmth and wetness against his palm, moving his fingers slowly through the tangle of her pubic hair. She undulated slowly, clutching a pillow in both hands.

He lay down behind her and went into her from behind. The soft flesh of her buttocks pressed into his stomach and his eyes went out of focus. "Oh, God," he said. He began to move slowly inside her, his left arm under her and cupping one breast, his right hand lightly touching the curve of her stomach. She moved with him, both of them in slow motion, her breath coming harder and faster until she cried out and ground her hips against him.

At the last possible moment he reached down and blocked his ejaculation at the perineum. The hot fluid flooded back into his groin and lights seemed to flash around him. He relaxed, ready to feel his astral body come loose from his flesh.

It didn't happen.

He put his arms around Peregrine and held onto her fiercely. He buried his face in her neck, let her long hair cover his head.

Now he knew. The power was gone.

He had a single bright moment of panic, then exhaustion carried him on into sleep.

He slept for an hour or so and woke up tired. Peregrine was on her back, watching him.

"You okay?" she said. "Yeah. Fine."

"You're not glowing."

"No," he said. He looked at his hands. "It didn't work. It was wonderful. But the power didn't come back. There's nothing there."

She turned on her side, facing him. "Oh, no." She stroked his cheek. "I'm sorry"

"It's okay," he said. "Really. I've spent the last six months going back and forth, afraid the power would come back, then afraid it wouldn't. At least now I know" He kissed her neck. "Listen. We need to talk about the baby."

"We can talk. But it's not like I expect anything from you, okay? I mean, there's some things I should probably have told you. There's a guy on the tour name of McCoy. He's the cameraman for this documentary we're doing. It looks like it could get serious with us. He knows about the baby and he doesn't care."

"Oh," Fortunato said. "I didn't know."

"We had a big fight a couple of days ago. And seeing you again-well, that really was something, that night back in New York. You're quite a guy. But you know there couldn't ever be anything permanent between us."

"No," Fortunato said. "I guess not." His hand moved reflexivelv to stroke her swollen stomach, tracing blue veins against the pale skin. "It's weird. I never wanted kids. But now that it's happened, it's not like I thought it would be. It's like it doesn't really matter what I want. I'm responsible. Even if I never see the kid, I'm still responsible, and I always will be."

"Don't make this harder than it has to be. Don't make me wish I hadn't come to you with this."

"No. I just want to know that you're going to be okay. You and the baby both."

"The baby's fine. Other than the fact that neither one of us has a last name to give it."

There was a knock at the door. Fortunato tensed, feeling suddenly out of place. "Peri?" said Tachyon's voice. "Peri, are you in there?"

"Just a minute," she said. She put on a robe and handed Fortunato his clothes. He was still buttoning his shirt when she opened the door.

Tachyon looked at Peregrine, at the rumpled bed, at Fortunato. "You," he said. He nodded like his worst suspicions had just proved out. "Peri told me you were… helping."

Jealous, little man? Fortunato thought. "That's right," he said.

"Well, I hope I didn't interrupt." He looked at Peregrine. "The bus for the Meiji Shrine is supposed to leave in fifteen minutes. If you're going."

Fortunato ignored him, went to Peregrine, and kissed her gently. "I'll call you," he said, "when I know something."

"All right." She squeezed his hand. "Be careful."

He walked past Tachyon and into the hall. A man with an elephant's trunk instead of a nose was waiting there. "Des," Fortunato said. "It's good to see you." That was not entirely true. Des looked terribly old, his cheeks sunken, the bulk of his body melting away. Fortunato wondered if his own pains were as obvious.

"Fortunato," Des said. They shook hands. "It's been a long time."

"I didn't think you'd ever leave New York."

"I was due to see a little of the world. Age has a way of catching up with one."

"Yeah," Fortunato said. "No kidding."

"Well," Des said. "I have to make the tour bus."

"Sure," Fortunato said. "I'll walk you."

There was a time when Des had been one of his best customers. It looked like those times were over.

Tachyon caught up with them at the elevator. "What do you want?" Fortunato said. "Can't you just leave me alone with this?"

"Peri told me about your powers. I came to tell you I'm sorry. I know you hate me. Though I don't really know why. I suppose the way I dress, the way I behave, is some kind of obscure threat to your masculinity. Or at least you've chosen to see it that way. But it's in your mind, not mine." Fortunato shook his head angrily.

"I just want one second." Tachyon closed his eyes. The elevator chimed and the doors opened.

"Your second's up," Fortunato said. Still he didn't move. Des got on, giving Fortunato a mournful look, and the elevator closed again. Fortunato heard the cables creaking behind bamboo-patterned doors.

"Your power is still there."

"Bullshit."

"You're shutting it inside yourself. Your mind is full of conflicts and contradictions, holding it in."

"It took everything I had to fight the Astronomer. I hit empty. The bottom of the barrel. Cleaned out. Nothing left to recharge. Like running a car battery dry. It won't even jumpstart. It's over."

"To take up your metaphor, even a live battery won't start when the ignition key is turned off. And the key," Tachyon said, pointing at his forehead, "is inside." He walked away and Fortunato slammed the elevator button with the flat of his hand.

He called Hiram from the lobby.

"Get over here," Hiram said. "I'll meet you out front."

"What's wrong?"

"Just get over here."

Fortunato took a cab and found Hiram pacing back and forth in front of the plain gray facade of the Akasaka Shanpia. "What happened?"

"Come in and see," Hiram said.

The room had looked bad before, but now it was a disaster. The walls were spattered with shaving cream, the dresser drawers had been thrown into the corner, the mirrors were shattered and the mattress ripped to shreds.

"I didn't even see it happen. I was here the whole time and I didn't see it."

"What are you talking about? How could you not see it?" Hiram's eyes were frantic. "I went to the bathroom about nine this morning and got a glass of water. I know everything was okay then. I came back in here and put the TV on and watched for maybe half an hour. Then I heard something that sounded like the door slamming. I looked up and the room was like you see it. And this note was in my lap."

The note was in English: "Zero hour comes tomorrow. You can die this easy. Zero man."

"Then it is an ace."

"It won't happen again," Hiram said. He obviously didn't even believe himself. "I'll know what to look for. He couldn't fool me twice."

"We can't risk it. Leave everything. You can buy some new clothes this afternoon. I want you to hit the street and keep moving. Around ten o'clock go into the first hotel you see and get a room. Call Peregrine and tell her where you are."

"Does she… does she know what happened?"

"No. She knows it's money trouble. That's all."

"Okay. Fortunato, I…"

"Forget it," Fortunato said. "Just keep moving."

The shade of the banyan tree had saved a little coolness from the morning. Overhead the milk-colored sky was thick with smog. Sumoggu, they called it. It was easy to see what the Japanese thought of the West by the words they borrowed: rashawa, rush hour; sarariman, salary man, executive; toire, toilet.

It helped to be here in the Imperial Gardens, an oasis of calm in the heart of Tokyo. The air was fresher, though the cherry blossoms wouldn't be blooming for another month. When they did, the entire city would turn out with cameras. Unlike New Yorkers, the Japanese could appreciate the beauty that was right in front of them.

Fortunato finished the last piece of boiled shrimp from his bento, the box lunch he'd bought just outside the park, and tossed the box away. He couldn't seem to settle down. What he wanted was to talk to the roshi, Dogen. But Dogen was a day and a half away, and he would have to travel by airplane; train, bus, and foot to get there. Peregrine was grounded by her pregnancy, and he doubted Mistral was strong enough for a twelve-hundred-mile round trip. There was no way he could get to Hokkaido and back in time to help Hiram.

A few yards away an old man raked the gravel in a rock garden with a battered bamboo rake. Fortunato thought of Dogen's harsh physical discipline: the 38,000-kilometer walk, equivalent to a trip all the way around the earth, lasting a thousand days, around and around Mt. Tanaka; the constant sitting, perfectly still, on the hard wooden floors of the temple; the endless raking of the master's stone garden.

Fortunato walked up to the old man. "Sumi-masen," he said. He pointed to the rake. "May I?"

The old man handed Fortunato the rake. He looked like he couldn't decide if he was afraid or amused. There were advantages, Fortunato thought, to being an outsider among the most polite people on earth. He began to rake the gravel, trying to raise the least amount of dust possible, trying to form the gravel into harmonious lines through the strength of his will alone, channeled only incidentally through the rake. The old man went to sit under the banyan tree.

As he worked, Fortunato pictured Dogen in his mind. He looked young, but then most Japanese looked young to Fortunato.` His head was shaved until it glistened, the skull formed from planes and angles, the cheeks dimpling when he spoke. His hands formed mudras apparently of their own volition, the index fingers reaching to touch the ends of the thumbs when they had nothing else to do.

Why have you called me? said Dogen's voice inside Fortunato's head.

Master! Fortunato thought.

Not your master yet, said Dogen's voice. You still live in the world.

I didn't know you had the power to do this, Fortunato thought.

It is not my power. It is yours. Your mind came to me. I have no power, Fortunato thought.

You are filled with power. It feels like Chinese peppers inside my head.

Why can't I feel it?

You have hidden yourself from it, the way a fat man tries to hide himself from the yakitori all around him. This is how it is in the world. The world demands that you have power, and yet the use of it makes you ashamed. This is the way Japan is now. We have become very powerful in the world, and to do it we gave up our spiritual feelings. You have to make the decision. If you want to live in the world you must admit your power. If you want to feed your spirit, you must leave the world. Right now you are pulling yourself into pieces.

Fortunato knelt in the gravel and bowed low. Domo arigatb, o sensei. Arigato meant "thank you," but literally it meant "it hurts." Fortunato felt the truth inside the words. If he hadn't believed Dogen, it wouldn't have hurt so much. He looked up and saw the old gardener staring at him in abject fear, but at the same time making a series of short, nervous bows from the waist so as not to seem rude. Fortunato smiled at him and bowed low again. "Don't worry," he said in Japanese. He stood up and gave the old man back his rake. "Just another crazy gaijin."

His stomach hurt again. It wasn't the bento, he knew. It was the stress inside his own mind, eating his body up from within.

He was back on Harumi-Dori, heading toward the Ginza corner. He'd been wandering for hours, while the sun had set and the night had flowered around him. The city seemed like an electronic forest. The long vertical signs crowded each other down the entire length of the street, flashing ideograms and English characters in blazing neon. The streets were crowded with Japanese in jogging outfits or jeans and sport shirts. Packed in with the regular citizens were the sararimen in plain gray suits.

Fortunato stopped to lean against one of the graceful f-shaped streetlights. Here it is, he thought, in all its glory. There was no more worldly a place on the planet, no place more obsessed with money, gadgets, drinking, and sex. And a few hours away were wooden temples in pine forests where men sat on their heels and tried to turn their minds into rivers or dust or starlight.

Make up your mind, he told himself. You have to make up your mind.

"Gaijin-san! You like girl? Pretty girl?"

Fortunato turned around. It was a tout for a Pinku Saron, a unique Japanese institution where the customer paid by the hour for a bottomless saki cup and a topless jo-san. She would sit passively in his lap while he fondled her breasts and drank himself into a state where he was prepared to go home to his w*. It was, Fortunato decided, an omen.

He paid three thousand yen for half an hour and walked into a darkened hallway. A soft hand took his and led him downstairs into a completely dark room filled with tables and other couples. Fortunato heard business being discussed all around him. His hostess led him to one end of the room and sat him with his legs pinned under a low table, his back supported by a legless wooden chair. Then she gracefully moved into his lap. He heard her kimono rustle as she opened it to free her breasts.

The woman was tiny and smelled of face powder, sandalwood soap, and, faintly, of sweat. Fortunato reached up with both hands and touched her face, his fingers tracing the lines of her jaw. She paid no attention. "Saki?" she asked.

"No," Fortunato said. "I-ie, domo. " His fingers followed the muscles of her neck down to her shoulders, out to the edges of her kimono, then down. His fingertips brushed lightly over her small, delicate breasts, the tiny nipples hardening at his touch. The woman giggled nervously, raising one hand to cover her mouth. Fortunato laid his head between her breasts and inhaled the aroma of her skin. It was the smell of the world. It was time either to turn away or surrender, and he had backed himself into a corner, left himself without the strength to resist.

He gently pulled her face down and kissed her. Her lips were tight, nervous. She giggled again. In Japan they called kissing suppun, the exotic practice. Only teenagers and foreigners did it. Fortunato kissed her again, feeling himself stiffening, and the electricity went through him and into the woman. She stopped giggling and began to tremble. Fortunato was shaking too. He could feel the serpent, Kundalini, begin to wake up. It moved around in his groin and began to uncoil through his spine. Slowly, as if she didn't understand what she was doing or why, the woman touched him with her little hands, putting them behind his neck. Her tongue touched him lightly on his lips and chin and eyelids. Fortunato untied her kimono and opened it up. He lifted her easily by the waist and sat her on the edge of the table, putting her legs over his shoulders, bending to open her up with his tongue. She tasted spicy, exotic, and in seconds she had come alive under him, hot and wet, her hips moving involuntarily.

She pushed his head away and leaned forward, working at his trousers. Fortunato kissed her shoulders and neck. She moaned softly. There didn't seem to be anyone else in the hot, crowded room, no one else in the world. It was happening, Fortunato thought. Already he could see a little in the darkness, see her plain, square face, the lines beginning to show under her eyes, seeing how her looks had consigned her to the darkness of the Pinku Saron, wanting her even more for the desire he could see hidden inside her. He lowered her onto him. She gasped as he went into her, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Yes, he thought. Yes, yes, yes. The world. I surrender. The power rose inside him like molten lava.

It was a little after ten when he walked into the Berni Inn. The waitress, the one who'd told him her name was Megan, was just coming out of the kitchen. She stopped dead when she saw Fortunato. The waitress behind her nearly ran into her with a tray of meat pies.

She stared at his forehead. Fortunato didn't have to see himself to know that his forehead had swollen again, bulging with the power of his rasa. He walked across the room to her. "Go away," she said. "I don't want to talk to you."

"The club," Fortunato said "The one with the sign of the duck. You know where it is."

"No. I never-"

"Tell me where it is," he ordered.

All expression left her face. "Across Roppongi. Right at the police box, down two blocks, then left half a block. The bar in front is called Takahashi's."

"And the place in back? What's it called?"

"It hasn't got a name. It's a yak hangout. It's not the Yamaguchi-gumi, none of the big gangs. Just this one little clan."

"Then why are you so afraid of them?"

"They've got a ninja, a shadow-fighter. He's one of those what-you-call-thems. An ace." She looked at Fortunato's forehead. "Like you, then, isn't he? They say he's killed hundreds. Nobody's ever seen him. He could be in this room right now. If not now, then he will be later. He'll kill me for having told you this."

"You don't understand," Fortunato said. "They want to see me. I've got just the thing they want."

It was the way Hiram had described it. The hallway was raw gray plaster and the door at the end of it was padded in turquoise Naugahyde with big brass nailheads. Inside, one of the hostesses came up to take Fortunato's jacket. "No," he said in Japanese. "I want to see the oyabun. It's important." She was still a little stunned just by the way he looked. His rudeness was more than she could deal with. "W-w-wakarimasen," she stammered.

"Yes, you do. You understand me perfectly well. Go tell your boss I have, to speak to him. Now."

He waited next to the doorway. The room was long and narrow, with a low ceiling and mirrored tiles on the. left-hand wall, above a row of booths. There was a bar along the other wall, with chrome stools like an American soda fountain. Most of the men were Koreans, in cheap polyester suits and wide ties. The edges of tattoos showed around their collars and cuffs. Whenever they looked at him, Fortunato stared back and they turned away.

It was eleven o'clock. Even with the power moving through him, Fortunato was a little nervous. He was a foreigner, out of his depth, in the middle of the enemy's stronghold. I'm not here for trouble, he reminded himself. I'm here to pay Hiram's debt and get out.

And then, he thought, everything will be okay. It was not even midnight Wednesday, and Hiram's business was nearly settled. Friday the 747 would be off for Korea and then the Soviet Union, taking Hiram and Peregrine with it. And then he would be on his own, able to think about what came next. Or maybe he should get on the plane himself, go back to New York. Peregrine said they had no future together, but maybe that wasn't true.

He loved Tokyo, but Tokyo would never love him back. It would see to all his needs, give him enormous license in exchange for even the smallest attempt at politeness, dazzle him with its beauty, exhaust him with its exquisite sexual pleasures. But he would always be a gaijin, a foreigner, never have a family in a country where family was more important than anything.

The hostess crouched by the last booth, talking to a Japanese with long permed hair and a silk suit. The little finger of his left hand was missing. The yakuza used to cut their fingers off to atone for mistakes. The younger kids, Fortunato had heard, didn't hold much with the idea. Fortunato took a breath and walked up to the table.

The oyabun sat next to the wall. Fortunato figured him to be about forty. There were two jo-san next to him, and another across from him between a pair of heavyset bodyguards. "Leave us," Fortunato ordered the hostess. She walked away in the middle of her protest. The first bodyguard got up to throw Fortunato out. "You too," Fortunato said, making eye contact with each of them and each of the girls.

The oyabun watched it all with a quiet smile. Fortunato bowed to him from the waist. The oyabun ducked his head and said, "My name is Kanagaki. Will you sit down?"

Fortunato sat across from him. "The gaijin Hiram Worchester has sent me here to pay his debt." Fortunato took out his checkbook. "The amount, I believe, is two million yen."

"Ah," Kanagaki said. "Another 'ace.' You have provided us with much amusement. Especially the little red-haired fellow"

"Tachyon? What does he have to do with this?"

"With this?" He pointed to Fortunato's checkbook. "Nothing. But many jo-san have tried to bring him pleasure these past few days. It seems he is having trouble performing as a man."

Tachyon? Fortunato thought. Can't get it up? He wanted to laugh. It certainly explained the little maids, rotten mood at the hotel. "This has nothing to do with aces," Fortunato said. "This is business."

"Ah. Business. Very well. We shall settle this in a businesslike way." He looked at his watch and smiled. "Yes, the amount is two million yen. In a few minutes it will become four million. A pity. I doubt you will have time to bring the gaijin Worchester-san here before midnight."

Fortunato shook his head. "There is no need for Worchester-san to be here in person."

"But there is. We feel there is some honor at stake here."

Fortunato held the man's eyes. " I am asking you to do the needful." He made the traditional phrase an order. " I will give you the money. The debt will be canceled."

Kanagaki's will was very strong. He almost managed to say the words that were trying to get out of his throat. Instead he said in a strangled voice, "I will honor your face."

Fortunato wrote the check and handed it to Kanagaki. "You understand me. The debt is canceled."

"Yes," Kanagaki said. "The debt is canceled."

"You have a man working for you. An assassin. I think he calls himself Zero Man."

"Mori Riishi." He gave the name in Japanese fashion, family name first.

"No harm will come to Worchester-san. He is not to be harmed. This Zero Man, Mori, will stay away from him." Kanagaki was silent.

"What is it?" Fortunato asked him. "What is it you're not saying?"

"It's too late. Mori has already left. The gaijin Worchester dies at midnight."

"Christ," Fortunato said.

"Mori comes to Tokyo with a great reputation, but we have no proof. He was very concerned to make a good impression."

Fortunato realized he hadn't checked with Peregrine. "What hotel? What hotel is Worchester-san staying in?" Kanagaki spread his hands. "Who knows?"

Fortunato started to get up. While he'd been talking to Kanagaki, the bodyguards had come back with reinforcements. They surrounded the table. Fortunato couldn't be bothered with them. He formed a wedge of power around himself and sprinted for the door, pushing them aside as he ran.

Outside, the Roppongi was still crowded. Over at Shinjuku station the late-night drinkers would be trying to push their way onto the last trains of the night. On the Ginza they would be lining up at the cab stands. It was ten minutes to midnight. There wasn't time.

He let his astral body spring loose and rocket through the night toward the Imperial Hotel. The neon and mirrored glass and chrome blurred as he picked up speed. He didn't slow until he was through the wall of the hotel and hovering in Peregrine's room. He let himself become visible, a glowing, golden-rose image of his physical body.

Peregrine, he thought.

She rolled over in bed, opened her eyes. Fortunato saw, with a small, distant sort of pang, that she was not alone. I need to know where Hiram is.

"Fortunato?" she whispered, then saw him. "Oh my God."

Hurry. The name of the hotel.

"Wait a minute. I wrote it down." She walked naked over to the phone. Fortunato's astral body was free of lust and hunger, but still the sight of her moved him. "The Ginza Dai-Ichi. Room eight oh one. He says it's a big H-shaped building by the Shimbashi station-"

I know where it is. Meet me there as fast as you can. Bring help.

He couldn't wait for her answer. He snapped back to his physical body and lifted it into the air.

He hated the spectacle of it. Being in Japan had made him even more self-conscious than he ever had been in New York. But there was no choice. He levitated straight up into the sky, high enough that he couldn't make out the faces turned up to stare at him, and arced toward the Dai-Ichi Hotel.

He got to the door of Hiram's room at twelve midnight. The door was locked, but Fortunato wrenched the bolts back with his mind, splintering the wood around them.

Hiram sat up in bed. "Wha-" Fortunato stopped time.

It was like a train grinding to a halt. The countless tiny sounds of the hotel slowed to a bass growl, then hung in the silence between beats. Fortunato's own breathing had stopped.

There was nobody in the room but Hiram. It hurt Fortunato to make his head turn; to Hiram it would have seemed like he was moving in a blur of speed. The sliding doors to the bathroom were open. Fortunato couldn't see anyone in there either.

Then he remembered how the Astronomer had been able to hide from him, to make Fortunato not see him. He let time begin to trickle past him again. He brought up his hands, fighting the heavy, clinging air, and framed the room, making an empty square bordered by his thumbs and index fingers. Here was the closet, the doors open. Here was a stretch of bamboo-patterned wall with nothing in it. Here was the foot of the bed, and the edge of a samurai sword moving slowly toward Hiram's head.

Fortunato threw himself forward. His body seemed to take forever to rise into the air and float toward Hiram. He opened his arms and knocked Hiram to the floor, feeling something hard scrape the bottoms of his shoes. He rolled onto his back and saw the sheets and mattress slowly splitting in two.

The sword, he thought. Once he convinced himself it was there, he could see it. Now the arm, he thought, and slowly the entire man took shape in front of him, a young Japanese in a white dress shirt and gray wool pants and bare feet.

He let time start again before the strain wore him out completely. He heard footsteps in the hall. He was afraid to look away, afraid he might loose the killer again. "Drop the sword," Fortunato said.

"You can see me," the man said in English. He turned to look toward the door.

"Put it down," Fortunato said, making it an order now, but it was too late. He no longer had eye contact and the man resisted him.

Without thinking, Fortunato looked at the doorway. It was Tachyon, in red silk pajamas, Mistral behind him. Tachyon was charging into the room, and Fortunato knew the little alien was about to die.

He looked back for Mori. Mori was gone. Fortunato went cold with panic. The sword, he thought. Find the sword. He looked where the sword would have to be if it were slicing toward Tachyon and slowed time again.

There. The blade, curved and impossibly sharp, the steel dazzling as sunlight. Come to me, Fortunato thought. He pulled at the blade with his mind.

He only meant to take it from Mori's hands. He misjudged his own power. The blade spun completely around, missing Tachyon by inches. It whirled around ten or fifteen times and finally buried itself in the wall behind the bed.

Somewhere in there it had sliced off the top of Mori's head.

Fortunato shielded them with his power until they were on the street. It was the same trick Zero Man had used. No one saw them. They left Mori's corpse in the room, his blood soaking into the carpet.

A taxi pulled up and Peregrine got out. The man who'd been in bed with her got out behind her. He was a bit shorter than Fortunato, with blond hair and a mustache. He stood next to Peregrine and she reached out and took his hand. "Is everything okay?" she said.

"Yeah," Hiram said. "It's okay."

"Does this mean you're back on the tour?"

Hiram looked around at the others. "Yeah. I guess I am."

"That's good," Peregrine said, suddenly noticing how serious everyone was. "We were all worried about you." Hiram nodded.

Tachyon moved next to Fortunato. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Not only for saving my life. You probably saved the tour as well. Another violent incident-after Haiti and Guatemala and Syria-well, it would have undone everything we were trying to accomplish."

"Sure," Fortunato said. "We probably shouldn't hang around here too long. No point in taking chances."

"No," Tachyon said. "I guess not."

"Uh, Fortunato," Peregrine said. "Josh McCoy." Fortunato shook his hand and nodded. McCoy smiled and gave his hand back to Peregrine. "I've heard a lot about you."

"There's blood on your shirt," Peregrine said. "What happened?"

"It's nothing," Fortunato said. "It's all over now"

"So much blood," Peregrine said. "Like with the Astronomer. There's so much violence in you. It's scary sometimes." Fortunato didn't say anything.

"So," McCoy said. "What happens now?"

"I guess," Fortunato said, "me and G. C. Jayewardene will go see a man about a monastery"

"You kidding?" McCoy said.

"No," Peregrine said. "I don't think he is." She looked at Fortunato for a long time, and then she said, "Take care of yourself, will you?"

"Sure," Fortunato said. "What else?"

"There it is," Fortunato said. The monastery straggled across the entire hillside, and beyond it were stone gardens and terraced fields. Fortunato wiped the snow from a rock next to the path and sat down. His head was clear and his stomach quiet. Maybe it was just the clean mountain air. Maybe it was something more.

"It's very beautiful," Jayewardene said, crouching on his heels.

Spring wouldn't get to Hokkaido for another month and a half. The sky was clear, though. Clear enough to see, for instance, a 747 from miles and miles away. But the 747s didn't fly over Hokkaido. Especially not the ones headed for Korea, almost a thousand miles to the southwest.

"What happened Wednesday night?" Jayewardene asked after a few minutes. "There was all kind of commotion, and when it was over Hiram was back. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not much to tell," Fortunato said. "People fighting over money. A boy died. He'd never actually killed anybody, as it turned out. He was very young, very afraid. He just wanted to do a good job, to live up to the reputation he'd invented for himself." Fortunato shrugged. "It's the way of the world. That kind of thing is always going to happen in a place like Tokyo." He stood up, brushing at the seat of his pants. "Ready?"

"Yes," Jayewardene said. "I've been waiting for this a long time."

Fortunato nodded. "Then let's get on with it."