At first glance, with its Swiss-cheesed blade, it indeed looked like a piece of junk. As he bent and ran a finger along the random pattern of pocks and holes, every square millimeter of his skin began to tingle. He lifted it and rested it on his palms. These weren't rusted out or eaten out—these had been melted out.

    He raised it and peeked through one of the holes. He experienced an instant of vertigo as he seemed to be standing on a low bridge looking out at a bustling city filled with rough-clad Asian men and kimonoed women. Then it all disappeared in a blinding flash as bright as the sun.

    He snatched the blade away from his face and stood blinking at the purple afterimage.

    "What's the matter?" Gerrish said.

    Tom took another quick peek. This time all he saw was Gerrish.

    "Nothing."

    He lowered the blade again for a closer look. The jihada—the steel of the cutting edge—was unmarred. The swordsmith must have concentrated the best steel there. The hamon—the temper line—undulated like a series of gentle waves on a placid lake.

    Tom moved down to the naked tang. This was where the swordsmith traditionally carved his mei—his signature. No signature here, only a Kanji symbol:

    This was it—the Gaijin Masamune. He was holding the fucking Gaijin Masamune.

    He noticed his hands starting to shake so he put it down. Not an easy thing to do. Maybe the hardest thing he'd ever done.

    "I—" He swallowed around a dry tongue. "I was right the first time out: It's a piece of junk, good only for sentimental value."

    "But it's so sharp," Gerrish said. "Watch this."

    He stepped into the kitchen and returned with an apple. He lifted the sword by the tang and dropped the apple onto the upturned edge. A whole apple hit the blade. Two halves bounced onto the table.

    "Yeah. Sharp."

    Tom wanted to say, What else would you expect from a Masamune blade, especially one tempered in ground-zero atomic fire? But he held his tongue. This asshole had no idea what he had. Cutting an apple—like using a CO2 laser to make a paper doll. Christ.

    He saw the smear of apple juice on the blade and wanted to scream at Gerrish to wipe it off.

    No way was he walking out of here without that blade. Like leaving a small child alone with a pedophile. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

    He pulled a Ziploc bag from his pocket.

    "Brought you a present. Since you're gonna keep this piece of junk, it might as well have a handle—what the Japs call a tsuka."

    He sat on the couch, pushed the apple halves aside, and dumped the contents on to the table next to the sword. Two pieces of halved bamboo, a bamboo peg, a piece of cloth, and strips of tightly wound silk.

    "You don't really—"

    "Sure I do. My way of saying thanks for letting me see it, even if it is junk." He held up the two pieces of bamboo. "These make up the ho."

    He fitted them around the tang, noting how they obscured the gaijin symbol. He shook his head in wonder, thinking, You could own this thing all your damn life and never know you had the fucking Gaijin Masamune.

    He picked up the bamboo peg.

    "This is the mekugi and it fits through the holes in the ho and the tang to hold everything together."

    That done, he wrapped the red cloth around the ho and began winding the silk cord around the cloth in a crude approximation of the traditional diamond pattern tsuka-ito. Once the sword was his, he'd fashion a suitably magnificent tsuka. But for now, this was all he had time for. He'd even skipped installing a hilt—the round, ornate tsuba. He wouldn't need one for what he had planned.

    Finally he was done. To his collector's eye the job looked like crap. But to Gerrish…

    "Hey, you're really something." He reached for it. "Thanks a lot."

    Tom shook his head. Holding the katana handle with two hands now, he rose and faced Gerrish, pointing the blade at his chest.

    "I'm taking this."

    Gerrish's expression hardened. "No way. That's mine, O'Day."

    "We both know it's not, or you wouldn't have come to me to fence it."

    Gerrish stepped forward, reaching, but backed off when Tom gave the blade a couple of back-and-forth swings.

    "Uh-uh. Look, I'm not out to steal it. I'll give you a good price for it. A damn good price."

    Gerrish's eyes narrowed. "So it's not as worthless as you said."

    "It's junk, but it's unique junk. I want it for my collection."

    "No—"

    "Hughie, babes, listen to me." He briefly freed a hand from the grip to fish a wad of hundreds from his pocket. He tossed it on the table. "A thousand bucks. Yours."

    "It's not for sale."

    What was wrong with this jerk? He was a small-time burglar in a crummy apartment. A cool thousand in cash sitting before him for the taking and he was turning it down?

    What gives?

    "Look, one way or another I'm walking out the door with this katana. You try to stop me"—he swung the blade in a quick horizontal arc—"off with your head."

    He smiled as he said it. A joke. But something happened during that swing. His already long arms seemed to stretch even farther of their own accord just as Gerrish took a step forward.

    At first he thought nothing had happened. A bowel-wrenching near miss. Gerrish stopped cold, a puzzled look on his face. Then Tom noticed a thin red line appear across the front of his throat. Gerrish's hands fluttered like uncertain butterflies toward his neck just as the wound burst open and spewed blood in all directions.

    Gerrish stood there with a dumbfounded expression, a human fire hydrant with a sprinkler cap, his mouth working but only bubbling gurgles issuing from the slash. He pressed his hands over the wound, trying to close it, trying to stanch the flow.

    Tom backed away, his stomach threatening to toss up the Big Mac he'd gobbled on his way over. He glanced down at the blade. Not a drop of blood along the tip. The slice had been so clean he hadn't felt the slightest tug of resistance.

    "Hey, man, I didn't mean…" The words clogged in his throat. What could he say?

    He looked back at Gerrish and saw blood still spurting from between his fingers. He began to sway as his arms dropped and hung limp at his sides. Then he keeled over, tilting to his right in slow motion like a falling tree. He landed on his side, then flopped onto his back.

    Tom dropped the katana and hurried over to him. Gerrish's eyes were fixed on the ceiling with a glazed, dead stare. Blood continued to pump weakly from his throat. Finally that stopped too.

    Tom's knees weakened and he would have collapsed onto the body had his hand not found the arm of the sofa.

    Oh man, oh shit, oh fuck, he'd killed him. Hadn't meant to. Almost seemed the blade had done it by itself. But here was Gerrish, horribly dead. And who was gonna believe it was an accident? Tom had already been through the system on possession of stolen property. He had a record. They'd say he was trying to steal the sword and Gerrish caught him. He was cooked, he was fried, he was—

    Wait. Whoever found the body wouldn't know about the sword, and neither would the cops—not if the sword wasn't here when they arrived. No murder weapon—that would mess up the investigation. No one had seen him go into the apartment. If no one saw him go out…

    But he couldn't simply stroll out of here carrying a katana. He stepped back to the front hall. Hadn't he seen—?

    Yes. A short runner. Perfect. Now, if he could just remember everything he touched and wipe it down…