“That’s it. That’s Tadaaki Omoto’s place. God, it looks like a place where they sell cheeseburgers.”

“Tatsuya Omote. Can’t you get the name right?”

“You’re very edgy, Ms. Okada. I know what you need. How about some shopping? It’s time to go shopping.”

“What?”

“Sure, that always settles folks down. Let’s go buy some stuff.”

He got out of the car and strode across the lot. A few steps behind, she followed. He went straight to the liquor store. By the time she’d caught up to him, he had bought a pint of Jack Daniel’s.

“This is a very fine drinking whiskey,” he said. “Would you like some?”

“Swagger, I-”

He paid, about 3,600 yen. He held the bottle out to her, but she shook her head no.

“Okay, in a few minutes. Now, what about a nice cup of noodles?”

“Mr. Swagger, have you had a breakdown? Really, I-”

“No, ma’am, I am fit as a fiddle. I do think we should have some noodles.”

“You are-”

“We should watch for a while before I go into my Toshiro imitation. Come on.”

So the samurai and his companion went into Solo’s noodle-rama and had a nice cup of noodles each, and a diet Coke. It was actually pretty good. They sat near the window.

“What do you see?” she asked.

“Well, I see a large Mercedes S-Class, black, very shiny, parked in the lot. Your standard yakmobile.”

“You have no idea how many of them are in there. We should call the police.”

“Yes, and what do they find? An old man polishing a sword in the presence of several thugs in suits. Where would the crime be? Would the old man say, ‘These guys have terrorized me into polishing this stolen sword’? He would not, because he fears retaliation, and rightfully so. The cops would say, ‘How is this sword stolen? Has it been reported stolen?’ And of course we’d have to answer, ‘We have no proof except for the crazy accusations of Slim Whitman here who claims it’s a sword he brought into the country a few months ago.’ Then the yaks would say, ‘And here’s the license for the sword,’ which they got from Yano-san. So the sword goes back to the yaks, we’re booted out of town, and Mr. Tatsuya-”

“Mr. Omote, dammit. Can’t you get anything right?”

“Mr. Omote gets back to polishing. Meanwhile, the cops discover my passport ain’t no good and I’m arrested. That don’t sound too good to me.”

“Come on.”

She led him back to the car.

“Get in.”

She opened her purse, a rather large green leather bag, and handed it to him. He looked inside and saw the grip of a small pistol.

“It’s a sterile Chinese Makarov. I got it from a couple of the Agency clowns on the fourth floor. It’s loaded with some magic candy called three-eighty hollowpoints, whatever that means, it had the boys all giggly. Take it.”

“No.”

“Swagger, you can’t go in there with just-”

“Yes, I can. This game is called swords. It’s their game. I beat them at it and that makes me the winner. And throw that thing into Tokyo Bay. It’ll get you sent to Japanese women’s prison for the next fourteen years and they don’t have no Kate Spade bags there.”

“I hope you survive long enough to tell me how a bumpkin from Utah who sounds like Johnny Cash before the cure can identify a Kate Spade.”

“I’m from Idaho out of Arkansas. My daughter made me buy her one. I also bought one for my wife. You must do okay. They ain’t cheap. Sure you won’t have a drink?”

The question wasn’t even sane enough for an answer. She just looked at him. He took the small, flat brown bottle out of the paper bag, cranked off the cap, smiled, toasted her, and said, “Cheers.”

Then he poured some of it into his hair, and ruffled his hair with his other hand.

He splashed some on his neck.

He handed her the bottle.

He pulled down his tie and unbuttoned four buttons on his shirt and tugged his shirt up on the left side.

“‘The foundation of the Way is always deception.’ Yagyu, sixteen thirty-five,” he said.

“All right, Swagger. I give up. Go to your little war.”

“See ya,” he said, stepping out.

“I’ll be waiting for you to come out, that is, if you come out.”

Nii was amazed. The old man, barefoot and in black like some kind of hipster, with glasses so big they blew his eyes up like a bug’s, sat on a low stool on a platform. He looked like some kind of musical performer. He was bent over the long curve of steel, his eyes fiercely concentrating, his left hand securing the blade against a block of wood, his right gripping a piece of flat stone. A water bucket sat at his right foot.

He was in the part of the process called finishing. It had been a long, slow war, starting with foundation stones and the full power of his imagination and his stamina and his know-how, all applied against the blade in an act that was part love and part hate and all art. The blade, for its part, fought him stubbornly. Its scars were proudly earned in forgotten battles, its surface was stained by the blood of many, some justly taken, some not so justly taken. It did not want to return to the ceremonial pristine.

In the war, the old man’s weapons were stones. There were dozens of them, each with a specific name, a specific grain, a specific face, to be used in one place, in one direction-arato, kongoto, binsui, kasisei, chunagura, koma-nagura, uchigumori hato, uchigumori-to-and the art of the campaign was in knowing the place for each in the time-consuming ritual. The old man’s face was as wrinkled as a prune’s, but his hair was long and fluffy. He looked more like a saxophonist than a warrior, but a warrior he was, and the glitter of a million particles of ground steel were the evidence of his attack, even if, every hour, he vacuumed them up, for an unvanquished particle could slide between stone and blade and cause havoc.

Nii watched as something beautiful emerged with slow precision out of something mundane. What had seemed to be a common chunk of old steel, smeared, spotted with rust, nicked, and hazed, was now an elegant sweep of colors and textures. It didn’t shine, not really; it glowed, as if lit from within. Somehow as the old metal was removed, the blade regained its life and power. It was alive now. The smeary, milky line (or smudge, really) of the hamon ran along the whole edge. The tip, kissaki, was cruel and perfect, a couple of inches of eloquent steel that would penetrate anything. The thicker metal of the mune had a golden quality, substantial and embracing, solid yet giving rather than crudely strong and brittle. And the two grooves (bo-hi, they were called) gave the blade an aerodynamic purity and would make it sing as it cleaved the air. It looked hungry for blood. It was one of those objects that was sacred and profane at once. It wanted but one thing, to drink more blood, and yet it was also an expression of the distilled genius of the people of the little island who had created and spread its soul and spirit across half the known world. Nii knew none of this. He could express nothing of it. He felt all of it. It had gotten his mind, for once, off little girls.

The old man worked steadily, without seeing anything but the sword, six inches from his face. He was, in his way, too cool to see the gaudy, fashion-obsessed yaks of the world. He communicated to them that, though loud and forceful, they were trivial, meaningless. He lived to work. He accepted that day some weeks ago when they had simply shown up with guns and a large pile of money.

“You will do this work. This work and no other. You will keep it secret from everybody. You will be watched. You must finish by the first week in December.”

“It cannot be done in that time.”

“Yes, it can,” Kondo had said to him. “You must know who I am, and what I am capable of. I would hate to spill your blood-”

“Life, death, it’s the same.”

“To you, in your eighties, but perhaps not to children, grandchildren, wife, friends, and so forth. We will leave a big hole in this small town.”