47

He came out of unconsciousness on the second day and floated through a semiconscious state, aware of bindings on many parts of his body, aware of the ceiling, of the occasional Japanese medical staffer, and the slow passage of time.

On the third day, he could sit upright, and some clarity and memory returned; on the fourth, more clarity, more memory. It was around then that his Japanese caretakers were subtly replaced by two clean-cut American boys, whom he took to be, on no evidence except that they called him Gunny, navy corpsmen working in mufti. They were good kids, though, and who knew from what secret installation they had been assigned.

On the fifth, his brain had settled enough so that he could watch the television. He quickly discovered a nation in-well, not exactly mourning but something like morbid fascination, perhaps, a sense of mass irony, perhaps, a secret pleasure in the tragedy of the other. This was occasioned by the sudden death of Yuichi Miwa, aka “the Shogun,” one of Japan’s leading geniuses of the silver screen, the porn billionaire, the founder of the aggressive Shogunate AV company, and later publisher, radio station owner, media mogul, playboy, and nationalist crusader.

Swagger watched without comment the coverage on bilingual TV news. The man, by rumors all but awarded the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, had died suddenly of a stroke. Swagger was one of the few who knew whose stroke it was, and with which weapon it had been delivered. But watching, Swagger could tell: the Japanese weren’t that broken up about it, not really. Miwa was, after all, a pornographer. In any event, soon enough the news passed from attention.

He managed to gain access to a laptop, pulled up the Japan Times site, and got the articles from two days after his fight on the island. On the national page, he found the brief item he was looking for: an unknown body had been located in Kiyosumi Gardens, presumably a yakuza or someone who had run afoul of the yakuza, given the gravity of the cuts that had killed him. A police captain was quoted expressing concern that while the Brotherhood of the 8-9-3 was frequently violent, these crimes almost always took place in tenderloin areas such as Kabukicho; the captain worried that a corpse in the elegant, historical glades of Kiyosumi Gardens indicated some new phase in criminal culture.

There was no other coverage; no one visited him, no one asked for a debriefing, a statement, a comment, an account. He simply lay there, regathering his strength, reading newspapers, watching the tube, eating cold eggs, cucumber sandwiches, and many kinds of fish and cutlets.

A week into it, his wounds were checked, rebandaged, painkillers and more antibiotics provided, and then he was declared well enough to travel. The young men brought him a new suit, as well as his fraudulent passport under the name Thomas Lee.

“Gunny, I’m told that when you get to LAX, someone from State will meet you. He’ll ask you to surrender this passport. It’ll then disappear. I don’t know a thing about this, but they told me to tell you that Thomas Lee will also disappear.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Oh, you know. The guys in the suits. That’s all I can say.”

“Got you, son.”

He got into his clothes and assembled his meager possessions-the passport, the United ticket for the flight scheduled for 7 p.m. that night. The keys to his bike were missing. It didn’t matter.

The hospital insisted on a wheelchair, and one of the corpsmen wheeled him, ridiculously, to the van, a tan, unmarked Ford. The cold air was like Boise in January. He climbed in slowly, using his uncut arm and his uncut leg for leverage.

“Got everything, Gunny?”

“Enough to get me back.”

“We’re off. We’ll get you there in plenty of time.”

Nobody talked on the long drive to Narita. It was essentially the second time he’d been ejected from Japan, and he knew he was lucky he wasn’t in prison. The traffic, the small, crowded neighborhoods, the driving ranges, all fled by unremarkably, and two hours later, the low, sleek hull of Narita’s No. 2 terminal came into view.

At the curbside, he got out, as did one of the corpsmen.

“Ben’s going to park the van. I hope you don’t mind, but we’re supposed to stay with you till you get beyond security.”

“Sure, you have a job to do, like everybody.”

That ordeal went smoothly. He checked in, displayed his passport, got his boarding pass-well, well, the flight was first class, so much easier-and the two young guys took him to security.

“This is always a pain,” he said. “I have a steel hip, so bells go off.”

“No problem,” said one of the kids. “We’ll help.”

“Look,” he said, “is this it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, nobody’s debriefed me, nobody’s taken a statement, nobody’s even asked any questions. I don’t know what happened to some people who were involved with me. There was a little girl who-”

“Gunny, we’re just pharmacist’s mates. We don’t make policy. This is the way they want it.”

“Them again.”

“Sorry, Gunny.”

“I just have to make sure this little girl is all right. I mean, she was just a kid.”

“I don’t have any information for you, Gunny. They didn’t say anything.”

“Oh…okay, okay.”

So he turned to security and this time, at least, the bell didn’t go off. Without ceremony he was through. He nodded at the boys across the rope line, and they nodded back but made no move to leave. As this was the only exit, clearly they were to stay until eight-ball Swagger had safely departed.

He walked toward the gate, skipping the mall area where, a few months ago, he’d so memorably fallen off the wagon. He felt-well, what? Not satisfied, not really. Old. His wounds hurt, his gait was stiff, he needed another painkiller, but at least he wasn’t on crutches or in some kind of a chair. He also felt oddly empty. The light was gray and somber, perfect for his mood: used up, useless, spent, irrelevant. Maybe even disappointed. Couldn’t put a finger on it. It was over, was all, back to the world, DEROS, all that good shit.

Till the end, he kept his hope up. Perhaps Okada-san would show up, perhaps she’d have Miko along and they could have a nice farewell chat. That way there’d be some finality to it, some sense of ending. But it didn’t happen and then the flight was called.

The blade flew against the scrub, bit hard and clean, and sent a sheaf of cuttings flying through the air, where a harsh wind sprayed them across the slope. Back and forth, back and forth, the scythe ate the brambles as Bob found his rhythm, leaning in, uncoiling lightly, and cutting.

He had to start over, of course. During the months in California and Japan, the slope had grown out. Now, under a lowering winter sky, you could hardly tell where he’d cut and where he hadn’t. This was his fourth day here, the air was raw and the wind sharp, but on some principle that he could not name, he had come back, taken up the scythe, and again laid into the long job.

“That is not what is eating you,” Julie said. “You don’t give a damn about that slope. Something is eating you alive. I can tell. You’d better get some help.”

“Sweetie, I am fine. I started a job, now I will finish it.”

“You should talk to someone about Japan. Maybe not me, maybe not anyone here in town, but a specialist. I have never seen you so low since the day you showed up in my front yard shot full of holes all those years ago. Bob, if you don’t deal with it, this’ll be the one that kills you.”

“Nothing bad happened in Japan,” he said. “Everyone says it was a big success, and that we got a job done. Now I am back, everything is fine, and I have this thing to do.”

“Yes, and you came home like you always do, tired and sad with a whole new set of scars. You only get scars like that in fights to the death. But it’s even worse than that. I can tell. Someone died, someone you cared about, and you don’t have any way to scream about it. Honey, you’ve got to find a place to scream.”