“Maybe so. But how did he know about the two sword identifiers before I told him? He knew. If nothing else, that proves the sword was valuable and not some piece of war junk. If it was valuable, the whole thing swings into line. You know how nuts these people are about swords. In Dr. Otowa’s office I felt like I was visiting the pope. It’s a religion.”

Again she looked off.

“Look, give me a few more days,” he said. “And just a little help, okay? I won’t break any more laws or beat anybody up or chase them with a motorcycle.”

“What is it?”

“The officer. He said he heard the kid on the other end of the phone call somebody ‘Isami-sama.’ Kondo Isami. He said that was the name of a great swordsman and killer. Anyhow, I need to talk to somebody who knows yakuza. I have to find out who this guy who calls himself ‘Kondo Isami’ is. I can’t just walk into a cop station and ask to see the file on Kondo Isami. You must have a contact somewhere, a cop, someone in the media, some spook or something, someone who knows someone who would know this stuff. If this Kondo is a real guy, if he has a past, if he fits, then we’ve got something, at least a next step. If he’s nobody, if it’s nothing, I’m on the first plane home. I tried, I failed.”

“No more felonies. No bull-nose macho Marine Corps bullshit. Don’t call in any napalm strikes.”

“No napalm.”

“Call me at my office tomorrow afternoon. I may have something for you. You can stay out of trouble till then?”

“Sure.”

“Take a steam bath or something?”

“Sure.”

“And you said you had other business. Two pieces. That was one.”

“The child.”

“Miko?”

“Yeah. I have to know. What’s happening with her?”

“She’s in a hospital. There are few orphanages in Japan. Orphaned children go to relatives. But there are no relatives left. So the social services people put her in a Catholic children’s hospital. She’s not doing well. There’s no one for her. She lost everything one night, and now she sleeps on a cot. She thinks the Tin Man is going to come and rescue her, poor thing. I haven’t figured out who the Tin Man is.”

“That’s so sad.”

“So it goes on the wicked planet Earth.”

“Nobody visits her?”

“Not anymore.”

“Can I visit her?”

“Not a good idea.”

“She needs someone.”

“It’s not possible.”

“Miss Okada, don’t you want these people? They killed a family and orphaned a four-year-old child. They have to be punished. Don’t you see that? Didn’t you send me an autopsy report? I have an idea in my head this professional objectivity is a game; you want these guys as bad as I do.”

“I didn’t send you anything. That’s a delusion on your part. But it’s not the serious delusion. The serious delusion is that you want to believe that you and I are buddies, in this together, in a quest for justice. No way. I work for the United States government, which is where my loyalties begin and end. Don’t romanticize me, because I’ll disappoint you. Here’s the reality: you have one inch of leash. You pursue this investigation for a little while longer. If you develop some evidence, you make sure it comes to me first, last, and only. If it’s of value, I will see that it gets to the proper Japanese authorities, and at that point our interest ends. The Japanese system will deal with it, or maybe it won’t, because that’s the reality. If you break my rules, I’ll report you in a flash and you’re on your way to a Japanese prison.”

“I would say you drive a hard bargain, except you don’t bargain at all.”

“No, I don’t. You can’t go samurai on me, do you understand? If you samurai up, I will have to take you down hard. I do not bullshit, Swagger, and I tell you loud and clear: if I have to, pardner, I will bust you up so bad you’ll wish you’d never entered this rodeo.”

23

Of course she drove a red Mazda RX-8. Long hair flying, wearing aviator’s teardrop sunglasses, she flew through the Tokyo traffic like a ninja, cursing at the slower, veering in and out, braking hard, gunning too fast, rushing through the gears, utterly confident in the left-handed driving. It was late afternoon of the following day, and when he called her, she told him she’d pick him up.

But they didn’t go to any reporter. Instead, they pulled into a large building of gray brick, clearly Catholic, from the religious statue in the front yard. She drove around the side to the parking lot that faced a playground behind a cyclone fence.

“You stay here,” she said. “I don’t want her seeing you. We don’t know what she remembers, what her associations are. Believe me, this child doesn’t need any more trauma. It’s hard enough.”

He sat in the car as Okada disappeared into the building and, ten minutes later, emerged with the child.

Bob watched. Immediately he saw the difference. Where Miko had been a force of nature, a naturally gregarious, adventurous child, now she held tightly to Susan’s hand and didn’t seem to want to go out on her own. Susan took her to a swing, sat her on it, and pushed, but in a few seconds the child began to holler.

They were too far away for Bob to hear, but he saw Susan take the child off the swing and hold her. Then they walked to a slide and, tentatively, Miko climbed and desultorily descended the gleaming surface. But there was no liberation, no surrender to the giddy power of gravity; it was a glum trip.

The visit lasted a few minutes. Miko seemed fearful, constricted, clinging neurotically to Susan, who was talking gently to her but without much effect.

It was almost more than Bob could take. He found his muscles tensing, his jaw clenching, and his anger rising.

I don’t care what I said to Susan, he thought. The man who did this to her will feel fear too. Then I will cut him.

The woman and the child went inside and Bob tried to relax, but his mind was too buzzed. He wished he had a drink, but that would not solve anything. Instead, he climbed out, took a few drafts of fresh air, and tried to calm down. Pretty soon Susan arrived, and they drove off.

“Let me ask you something,” he said as she gunned through the busy avenues. “When this is over and let’s assume I’m still standing, I ain’t in no jail, and I’m headed back to the States-”

“No.”

“You don’t know where I’m going.”

“Sure I do. I know exactly where you’re going. You want to adopt her.”

“I am already a father. Some say I’m a good one.”

“I’m sure you’re a great one. Moreover, you could make her a wonderful home in the West, and sooner rather than later she’d heal, though never completely, and she’d come back to us and she’d become happy and productive and have a wonderful life. That doesn’t matter.”

“What matters?”

“Connections, which you don’t have.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s very hard for foreigners to adopt a child in Japan. First, few of them are available. I’m not sure if she qualifies. Then there’s the shape of your eyes. They’re round. The Japanese are disinclined to let a westerner adopt a Japanese child, unless there’s some prior connection. It’s not like China or Korea where cute girl babies are a cash crop for American yuppies.”

“There’s no hope?”

“Not a whisper. Not an eyelash.”

“Suppose your boss, Mr. Ambassador, used his influence.”

“He wouldn’t do it for me, why would he do it for you? I don’t have the juice, you don’t have the juice.”

“That sucks.”

“It does indeed. But the world is full of terrible injustices. Ninety-eight percent of them can’t be helped or fixed. This is one of them. Concentrate on the two percent that can. Ah, here we are.”

Nick Yamamoto lived in a quiet Tokyo residential neighborhood a few kilometers geographically and several universes culturally from Kabukicho. His was one of those nondescript wooden homes behind a fence that was attached to other homes on either side, all of them squashed together like french fries in a greasy bag. They had no trouble parking in the quiet neighborhood, slipped through the gate, and knocked.