The 47th Samurai

33

With your typical order of yakitori, you got four edible, even delicious skewers of meat and one so repugnant it was almost kind of funny. The smell of chicken cooked on an open fire filled the place. No Popeye’s ever smelled so good. At other tables men and women were lustily gobbling their food. Bob had eaten the hearts, he’d eaten the meat, he’d eaten the gizzards, he’d eaten the other strange things, but he was left with the knees.

Well, maybe they weren’t knees. Maybe they were elbows. Whatever, they were twisted little chunks of glistening sinew. Even the flames of Mama-san’s blazing fire behind the bar hadn’t blackened them. In truth, in the curves and folds of each there seemed to be some gobbet of protein, and maybe a truly hungry man would scrape it out and go to town, but he just didn’t have the heart. Instead, he looked across the smoky space, across the rude tables and floor, half-expecting Toshiro to come blasting in and start cutting people at any damn time, until he caught Mama-san’s eye, pointed to his empty plate, and somehow communicated the idea, Bring me another order, touched his empty Coke can to request more of that too. She nodded. He could have been in the fourteenth century, except for the Coke. He went back to the puzzle before him.

He almost had it. He’d been scouting Tokyo by bike for a nice private place for his meet with Kondo and finally found just what the doctor ordered: he’d have the man travel to Asakusa and walk the street outside the shrine, where all the stalls were. For some reason, that zone closed early and went largely unpatrolled. He’d meet him there, in the street, and he wouldn’t jump until he was satisfied the man was alone, not trailing a crew of goons. He didn’t want to fight six again, or more likely thirty, for Kondo would travel with his specially chosen group.

Now he worked on his code, primitive as it was, finding the right words in The Nobility of Failure, marking page number, paragraph, sentence, and word so that the message was shaping up to read “Dear Yuki, 233-2-4- 3,” denoting page 233, second paragraph, fourth sentence, third word. It went on and on, gibberish if you didn’t know the key. Decoded, it would read “Asakusa, Temple Street, midnight tonight, alone.”

He felt her before he saw her. She strode in manfully, as per her style, and sat down. He didn’t look up for the longest time.

“I’m almost done with this. I think I’ve got it set up just right.”

It was several minutes before he finished, and when he came out of his zone of concentration there was another interruption, as Mama-san brought the plate of skewered chicken parts and another Coke, asked Susan what she wanted, and received only a drink order, then scurried away.

“You shouldn’t be anywhere near us tomorrow night, in case it goes bad. But I wanted you to see what I was doing; I told you I’d keep you in the loop.”

Then, finally, he looked at her and knew instantly that something was wrong.

“All right,” he said, “what’s up? You haven’t said a thing.”

“You remember I once told you I wasn’t a bullshitter?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to start now. I’ll be honest and blunt, all right. So no matter what, you can never say, She misled me.”

“Oh, Christ, Susan. I don’t like where this is going.”

“I’m closing you down, Swagger. It’s over. It’s finished. Time to go home.”

He didn’t feel anger or rage or betrayal. She had never exactly pretended to be his pal in this and had always told him she’d do what was best by the rules of her duty, not her feelings. And she’d never quite bought into it, the whole warrior thing. On the way back from the fight at the polisher’s, with the blood soaking his pants and spattered on his face, she’d said nothing except:

“Did you hurt anybody?”

“No, but I killed five men.”

“Oh, god.”

“It wasn’t no movie. It was like a pie fight in a sausage factory. I didn’t like one goddamn thing about it, but they would have cut me deep as I cut them, so I did what I had to. The old man is fine and has left. I have the sword, so that’s fine. The yaks will clean up, once they find out, because they don’t want no cops nosing into their business. It’ll be fine, no mess.”

She had only said, “No mess this time.”

Now she said, “This can go one of three ways. I hope you see that it is best if it goes the first way.”

“And that would be?”

“You give me your false passport. You go out with me to a government van and you are driven to a U.S. Air Force base not far from here. I have arranged, or rather with some dickering and string pulling the ambassador has arranged, for you to be flown home, gratis, by the United States Air Force, outside all channels. You will be landed in California, escorted to the gate, and permitted to exit. That’s the end of your involvement. What has happened over the past few weeks here in Japan ceases to exist. There was no-I can’t even remember what your passport says.”

“Thomas Lee.”

“There was no Thomas Lee. He’s gone, you’re gone, it’s over. You go back to Arkansas.”

“Idaho.”

“Whatever. Meanwhile, the ambassador finds a way to slip a report on your findings that I have written to certain sympathetic Japanese Ministry of the Interior officials. It will give them some guidance. I hope they act on it, and I feel certain that within the Ministry of the Interior, there is a clique that will want very hard to proceed. It may take some time and there will be no illusion of progress for a long time. But eventually, as the Japanese sort this out, they will proceed and the thing will be done, and those who killed Philip Yano will be punished. In any event, since we now have the sword, the immediate plan of the man who styles himself a shogun has been disrupted. He will not win reelection to AJVS, he will be undercut and destroyed. So that’s something. And in the end, we will achieve justice.”

“You know that won’t happen.”

“Way number two. Exactly the same outcome, except that you make some sort of ruckus or act irresponsibly. Four large gentlemen enter the restaurant. They happen to be former South Korean Special Forces guys who handle contract work for certain embassy departments when needed. They are very tough. Something like seventeen black belts among them. Lots of combat. They subdue you. It hurts. Then you are taken to the van, only you are wearing handcuffs and are severely bruised. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Swagger, don’t do that. Don’t put yourself and me and them and everybody through that. It would be such a waste, so foolish, so pointless. It would break my heart.”

“Okada-san, possibly at this moment I ain’t too worried about your heart.”

“Way number three. You bolt. There’s probably a rear entrance to this joint, and you are, as we know, an extremely capable, resilient, creative man, particularly in dark arts like escape and evasion. You break out, you get away, and try and finish on your own. Then we snitch you out to the Japanese authorities. A tall gaijin with no Japanese language skills, I don’t like his odds. Maybe it takes two days, maybe it takes three. But they catch you, divine that your passport is fake, read our signals and see we are not interested in helping, and off you go, before the judges. No juries in Japan. Second offense, off you go to prison. Five, maybe ten years. What a waste. What a foolish, sad, absurd ending. What a way for a great hero to end his days. No wife, no daughter. I will come visit you until I get bored, and then I won’t anymore.”

“What about way number four?” he said.

“There is no way number four.”

“Way number four: You send the big boys back to their cages. We proceed. I only need two days more. I meet Kondo Isami on the street at Asakusa at midnight. Your four ROK Special Forces guys handle security, so there ain’t no interruption. Kondo and I fight.”

“That is one of the things I am trying to prevent. He will kill you.”

“Maybe. Or I will kill him. If the first happens, you go ahead with your plans. On the other hand, if the second happens, you go ahead with your plans. Maybe the Japanese eventually bring down Yuichi Miwa, maybe not. The point is, the man who killed Philip Yano and his family is dead. Justice has been served. Or someone has died trying to do that justice. He failed, but at least he tried. Somebody called it ‘the nobility of failure.’ That’s the world I’d rather live or die in.”

“No. It’s not going to happen. It has been decided. We cannot have a dangerous, violent American citizen in this country illegally mixing it up with Japanese criminal elements, in ways that can’t be controlled and could explode into scandal, damage, death, anarchy, humiliation at any moment. We need the Japanese, we need their cooperation in a lot of bigger battles. There’s a war going on, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Philip Yano noticed. He lost an eye and a career in that war.”

“What happened to Phil Yano and his family was a tragedy and an atrocity. But the wicked, wicked world is full of tragedies and atrocities, and they can’t all be avenged. Other things may matter more, like national security, like smooth relations between allies, like truth in dealing with allies, like any number of things that will be decided by people who see the big picture and live with responsibilities you and I can’t imagine.”

“What is Okada-san’s attitude in all this? I hear the State Department, I don’t hear Okada-san.”

“Okada-san is samurai. She works for a daimyo. She lives to serve him. It defines her. She obeys her daimyo. She made peace with that decision years ago. Her feelings are her business and nobody else’s. Duty is the only thing that counts. Now, Swagger, please, finish your motherfucking chicken skewers and leave quietly with me. It’s the best way. It’s the only way.”

“You are a tough one, Okada-san. I give you that. Nothing gets in the way. Professional to the core. You sure you weren’t a marine?”

“If it matters, I hate to see this end. What you’ve done-well, I’ve never seen anything like it. But that’s neither here nor there. I am samurai. I obey my daimyo. Now it’s time to-”

A strange noise came between them.

“Shit,” she said.

She bent, picked her green Kate Spade bag off the floor, and fished out her cellular. It buzzed irritatingly.

“Your daimyo wants an update.”

“It’s not my daimyo’s number.”

She popped the thing open.

“Yes. I see. No, no, that was the right thing to do. And when? All right, thanks. I don’t know. I-I just don’t know. No, don’t call them. I don’t know, I have to think. If you call them, it makes even more problems.”

She closed the phone and put it back in her purse.

“So,” he said. “Let’s go to the van. Let’s get this over with.”

“No,” she said. “It’s all changed.”

He saw now something in her eyes that could have been the beginning of tears. Even her tough warrior’s face and its self-willed impassivity, a signal mark of her beauty, seemed slightly affected. Gravity somehow had altered it into something darker, sadder, and more tragic.

“That was Sister Caroline at the hospital. Armed men just broke in and kidnapped Miko Yano.”