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Has Mr. Nii turned a corner and become a model citizen? Is he now selling life insurance, Popeye’s chicken, Nikes, porn? It doesn’t seem likely. Far more likely: he’s made that dream contact, he’s been taken in by somebody, cleaned up, spiffed up, given a haircut, he’s put on a suit and a pair of expensive Italian pointed-toe black shoes, he’s learned how to tie a tie and cut his nails, and now he moves discreetly and invisibly through the world of yak crime, violent when necessary but not spastically violent, pointlessly violent, the violence of sudden rage. No, now it’s controlled and deployed by a much wiser boss.

Nii? You see Nii? Any word of Nii? Where’s Nii hang? Remember Nii? That kid, Nii, always gets in trouble, ran with the Diamondbacks. Funny you should mention the Diamondbacks as I think the new bouncer at the Milk was a Diamondback for a while.

Nii? Oh, yeah, Nii. Okay guy, I guess, don’t know what happened to him. Not that you’d notice him. He was what you call your averagelooking guy, nothing about him stood out. Oh, one thing I remember, yeah, he used to like to go to a bar called Celtic Warrior. He always had a samurai thing. He saw himself as the last of the Toshiro Mifunes. Yeah, Celtic Warrior, it’s in Nishi Azabu.

Which is how come Nick found himself sitting in Celtic Warrior in Nishi Azabu on a Thursday night, alone at the bar, nursing a bourbon and water and a headache, trying to maintain his sanity as a bad multiracial goth band played heavily Japanese-influenced Celtic war melodies, an assault on the ears almost too intense to be described, much less endured. The joint was typical plastic shit, with shields and those ridiculous western knight swords like the old kings used hanging crosswise all over the place, and big mock-metallic triangles everywhere, crap out of Black Shield of Falworth, all Hollywood phony, all plastic. Some mooseheads and deer hung on the walls too, and there was even a stained-glass window behind the bar. It was so Camelot, or a Japanese version of an American version of a story that had never been true in the first place.

And that’s when he saw Nii.

It would have been so easy to miss him. It was only the sullenness in the eyes, their lack of dynamism that clued Nick in. The guy had bulked up considerably, and cleaned up; he now wore a neat crew cut moussed to an inch and a half of vertical, a white shirt, a dark suit, a tie. He could have been any salaryman unless you looked carefully at the fastidious way in which the collar of the jacket fitted the broad neck so perfectly, the way the suit hung with just the faintest dapple to it, picking up a sheen, the razor-vivid line of the trousers crease, their wondrous drape and flow that only the finest silks achieved, and the black shoes that seemed so standard but were actually extremely expensive British oxfords, worn generally by CEOs, ambassadors, and power lawyers. He was $6,000 in wardrobe trying to pass as $400 in wardrobe.

His whole manner was refined, poised, amused, confident. Say, hadn’t he come up in the world? And he wore his kingliness well, as Nick observed how extravagantly he was treated by the waitstaff and how generously-but quietly-he responded. He was a happy man, Nick realized; good job, plenty of dough to spend, the future looking brighter and brighter.

Nick watched the play of the evening. Occasionally a band member would come over and pay homage to Nii, occasionally the staff. Others came and paid honor and were rewarded with a smile or a touch; girls too, he seemed to be catnip to girls, that gangster thing just drives them wild.

And after a time luxuriating in the pride of having Made Good, Nii spoke to a young woman-the most childish woman there, Nick noted-and she trotted off to get her coat and tell her friends she wouldn’t be going home with them. The two walked out, holding hands, and Nick let a long minute pass before leaving a generous mound of yen on the bar and following.

He shadowed for a while from across the street, and eventually Nii took the little date into a nice apartment building and upstairs. Quickly enough Nick dashed across the street and sited himself a little to the oblique so he could see two sides of the structure. He prayed that Sir Lancelot Nii’s place was on one of these two sides, and indeed, within a few minutes, a light on the fifteenth floor came on. Nick counted windows, establishing how far from the corner the apartment was, so that he could get into it tomorrow.

Nick got there early. He was wearing a wig, a dark mop, because it occurred to him that it wouldn’t do to let the world on to the fact that a blond-haired man much too old for blond hair was stalking a well-known yakuza killer.

It didn’t take long; a Mercedes pulled up, a black S-Class limo, and Nii, crisply dressed for work, and the girl, looking as if she’d had her brains fucked out and couldn’t even comb her hair, stepped into it and it sped away.

Nick had a little thrill. Was Kondo in that car? It was unlikely Kondo would pick up his own crew. More likely he hired a limo service to round the boys up and bring them where they would do that day’s business.

Nick crossed the road, went to the apartment’s foyer, flashed a credential at the doorman. It was quite an impressive piece of paper, signifying him to be a representative of the Domestic Appropriations committee of the Diet. It was entirely authentic, in its original owner’s name, and a Kabukicho forgery expert had expertly glued Nick’s picture on it.

“I’m taking depositions on the land scandal,” Nick said. “Mr. Ono,” that being the first name he’d cross-referenced with a phone number listed to that address.

“I shall buzz him, sir.”

“Not if you want to keep your job, you won’t.”

“Yes sir.”

“And you won’t tell the houseboy either. I know how these places work. You call the houseboy, tip him, and he gets to Ono before I do, Ono has time to destroy incriminating documents, Ono gives the houseboy a huge tip, and he splits it with you. I’m not stupid.”

“Sir, Joji’s on fourteen; he won’t be involved.”

“You make sure Joji stays on fourteen.”

“Yes sir.”

Nick knew Ono lived on seventeen and so he took the elevator up to that floor, got out, and took the stairway down to fifteen. He quickly established the door that had to lead to Nii’s and went down to fourteen. He found the houseman, a dull-looking Korean, smoking a cigarette in a closet on break.

“Oh, there you are, Joji,” he said. “Dammit, I do this twice a week! I locked myself out of my apartment. Can you let me in?”

Joji looked at him dully, trying to place him.

“It’s me, Nii, fifteen-oh-four, come on, Joji, I’m late.”

If Joji hesitated it was only to secure a bigger tip; Nick slipped him a 5,000-yen note, and they went upstairs. Joji used his house key and headed back to his cigarette.

Nick was alone in the apartment. Very nice. Had Nii gone so far as to hire a decorator? The place was very much your modern yakuza, without frill or kitsch. No books, but one whole wall given over to a sound system and just about every western rock or rap CD ever cut, a shelf or two of Shogun AV’s teacher-blows-Koichi-and oh, say, naughty, naughty, even a few black-market items involving young girls. Nii, you’ve got some sick bugs in you. There was also, of course, a TV screen big enough to land a jet on.

Skipping through the apartment, Nick counted clichés: the furniture was black leather and chrome with a few modernist gewgaws here and there, crystal sculptures signifying crystal sculpture, a horrible and therefore priceless piece of modern art on the big wall.

Another room was the workout palace, which explained Nii’s new body. The space was half dojo; a wall rack held a batch of swords, some wood, some steel, for cutting. In the corner lay a pile of tatami mats.