“Harry, isn’t it fantastic?” Gen stepped next to him at the grate. In a navy coat and cap, he looked like a midshipman in a ticker-tape parade. As the sun had set, the temperature had dropped enough to turn breath to clouds. Gen slapped his hands together to keep them warm; they were gloved, as if he might have to ride away at any second on his motorbike. “What a day! Unbelievable results. Naval Operations is over the moon. I wish I could tell you. What we did today, Harry, was turn the world upside down, nothing less. American control of the Pacific? Gone! British control of Asia? Gone! The white man in Asia? Gone. And oil from the Indies? All we want! Remember how yesterday you were warning me about American bombers over Tokyo? There are no more American bombers, there’s hardly an American navy. Admit it, you were wrong. Tokyo will never see an American bomber. We called their bluff, Harry, is what we did.”

Harry hadn’t seen Gen coming. He looked around. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking a break, first one since yesterday. Naval Operations is crowded, a madhouse, and I needed a shave and a decent cup of coffee. The whole town is crazy, like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. It’s inspiring. How about you?”

“I’ve been lucky, too. The Kempeitai started to take me in but made a call and had to let me go.”

“Harry, the navy protects its friends. You don’t have anything to worry about. Where’s Michiko, isn’t she along?”

“She ditched me. You know, it turned out that she’s some kind of patriotic fanatic. Won’t have anything more to do with me. Then there’s Haruko.”

Gen frowned as if it were unfair how a headless girl could cast a shadow on a glorious day. “Any news there?”

“Not that I know of. I could make a wild guess.”

The press of bodies wanting their turn at good fortune pushed Gen and Harry down the steps. As they descended, Gen said, “Troops are being recalled, all leaves are canceled. Ishigami will probably be back in China within a day or two.”

“So you think Ishigami did it?” Harry asked.

“Isn’t that what you think?”

Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairs for a cigarette. His last pack of Luckies, the end of the line. He shared one with Gen. “Well, I’ve seen Ishigami at work. The colonel is a real craftsman even under pressure. I saw him take off five heads in a row with only one false swing. Haruko alone suffered two unnecessary cuts. Made me wonder.”

“The less we hear about Haruko, the better. You know what I’m looking forward to, Harry? The two of us going back to California when the war is over. San Francisco. Hollywood. But this time as conquerors.”

“When is that?”

“Soon. The C in C’s got it all worked out, a negotiated peace that leaves the Pacific to us. After all, we won.”

A scholar gathered a crowd with an impromptu speech on how the number eight symbolized Japan: the Eight Views of Japanese places, the Eight Great Islands that made up Japan, and now the victorious December Eight. A boy with a popgun startled pigeons. He aimed at Harry, but the sight of Gen made him post arms and salute. A policeman gave Harry a long scrutiny.

Gen asked, “Is somebody following you?”

“I think so.”

“Shozo and Go?”

“I haven’t seen them today, but I’m sure I will.”

“Have you been back to your place since the news?”

“No.”

“Harry, they’re probably waiting for you. I’ve been protecting you, but what if they take you in and don’t call me?”

“You think there’s a chance of that?”

“With Thought Police? Are you kidding? I heard that all Americans except diplomats are being taken to Sugamo Prison. If Shozo and Go get you back there, they’ll throw away the key.”

“Well, what’s your plan?”

“Get you to a naval base, put you under protective custody until things get sorted out. If everything goes according to plan, you could find yourself in a great situation.”

“You could put me in charge of Hawaii?”

“The sky’s the limit.”

Harry blew on his hands. It wasn’t this cold in Hawaii. “What’s happening to the British?”

“Same as Americans. The diplomats are going to have to camp out in the embassy for a while.” Gen looked at his watch. “I don’t have to be back at Operations for another hour. Let’s just see if Shozo’s waiting for you.”

“You’d do that? Go to the club with me?”

“Of course.”

As they moved toward the lights of the Rokku, Harry was struck by the deference paid by the crowd to the sight of such a dashing officer, and by how Gen took admiration as his due. The drumming of the temple fell behind, but a separate, deeper drumming kept pace.

“I still can’t get over Haruko,” Harry said. “Why would Ishigami want to kill her?”

“That’s what I asked you when I found you with her.”

“And I appreciate that. But why would anyone want to kill Haruko? Killing Michiko, that I could understand. Maybe it was a mistake. I have a theory. You know how Haruko imitated Michiko. I can see someone being confused, especially in bad light. Someone goes with certain expectations, hasn’t done this sort of thing before and wants to be fast. That might account for the less than accurate swings, too, don’t you think? Some people think chopping a head off is like hitting a golf ball. It’s not.”

Harry shouldered his way through the excitement caused by a newsstand offering postcards of warships. A display of Ginger Rogers photos hit the ground. The drumming grew closer, a bubbling timpani, a reverberation that Harry felt through his bones.

“Another thing,” he said. “When a real swordsman uses his sword, he flicks the blood off with a swing that produces a telltale kind of spray that wasn’t there with Haruko. Ishigami is sort of fastidious about that.”

Gen asked, “Did Michiko see anyone?”

“No, she was gone.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m just speculating. Whoever it was, what if they were after Michiko and killed the wrong woman? It could be someone who even knew Haruko. If he phoned her or saw her, and if he was a friend, she would have said where Michiko was. She would have even told him how Michiko stole her dress, probably even described it. She did to me.”

“She liked to gossip.”

“But then, after the call, she got up the nerve to go to the ballroom and get her dress back. No one expected that.”

“She was a stupid girl.”

“She was crazy about you.”

The Rokku marquees, the fanciful swirls and fans and rays of colored lightbulbs, made a cold blaze in the night. Poster samurai hiked their swords. When Harry stopped, the drumming subsided. But a drunk tripped out of a sake stall into the middle of the pavement and collided with a vendor carrying a rack of candlelit paper lanterns. The lanterns caught fire as they rolled around the ground and chased the crowd, laughing, to either side so that Harry had a clear view of Gen’s Harley-Davidson idling at a low throb no more than fifty feet behind. Hajime sat on the bike and Ishigami in the sidecar, both in uniform, with the same regimental tab. It dawned on Harry rather late that Hajime had probably served under the colonel in China. Was that a smile on Ishigami’s lips or only patience?

Harry was curious. “When did you tell the colonel about you and Hawaii?”

“This morning. Can you imagine me being on the team that planned the raid?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I just wanted one accomplishment, Harry, that was all mine, not handed to me by you or Ishigami. It was top-secret. There was so much pressure from the top to confirm information that only you had.”

“Why try to hurt Michiko?”

“She was always in the way. I thought that if she was gone and I was the only one between you and Ishigami that you’d finally tell the truth about the oil tanks. I tried to carry out my assignment, please the colonel and save you, too. Do you understand the problem?”

“That’s a balancing act,” Harry granted. He stepped on his cigarette. “So now what?”