VIII

托鉢笠 TAKUHATSUGASA

You must understand that
there is more than one path
to the top of the mountain.
— Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

TOKYO, JAPAN—A FAMILIAR FACE has taken its nightly position above the towering skyscrapers and the buzzing, neon-drenched streets. It’s the moon gleaming down with its rocky, crater-ridden expression, but only half of its face is starlit tonight. Like me it has another side, a dark half lingering beyond the edge of what’s visible.

The moonlight finds me on the thirty-third floor of Otemachi Tower, through the nine meter floor-to-ceiling windows of the Aman Hotel’s lobby where I’m enjoying a cup of hōjicha. It’s just after midnight and I’m alone in the lounge, which resembles the inside of a paper lantern, with intricate square-patterned lattice dividing the area into smaller sections of purposefully positioned chairs, sofas and tables. The quiet is only occasionally interrupted by distant echoing conversations in Japanese and footsteps click-clacking across a stone floor.

The tea is hot when it slips past my lips from the small, handleless cup. Its taste is sweet and smokey and completely lacking in the typical bitterness of green teas. While taking another careful sip the pocket of my LaMarque moto jacket starts vibrating. I place the cup on the table in front of me and then lean back in the club chair while reaching to take out my phone.

My fingerprint unlocks the screen and I tap the notification. It’s an email from Takuya Yamazaki. Hello, Ms. Gorgo. Attached is your finalized contract offer from Miracle Galaxy Pro. The terms are as expected. I will see you in the morning at the signing.

Can you believe it? ME?! The scourge of Moldova! Here in Japan where I am persona non grata. Don’t believe me? You should have seen me yesterday trying to pass through customs. Picture me bent over while some lady with cat ears searches my insides for drugs or perhaps an IED, not to be confused with an IUD, though I supposed an intrauterine device could count as shrapnel.

What did I do to deserve such special treatment? Let’s rewind for those new to the class.

It’s the 29th of July 2021. Nippon Budokan. Olympics. 78kg Finals. National hero Shori Hamada tries to trip me but she loses her balance and stumbles. I use her momentum to throw her over my hip to the mat, ending the match with an ippon victory and winning the gold. The crowd is stunned at the ceremony when I receive my medal while Shori next to me is forced to listen to Limba Noastră. I imagine this is what it would be like if the Japanese people were forced to give Godzilla a gold medal after flattening Tokyo.

Oh, I’m not done. Then this woman had the audacity to attack me after my match at Equinox II when UPRISING came to Korakuen Hall here in Tokyo. The poor girl, she tried to throw me to the canvas, I expect she would have considered that some sort of moral victory. I don’t like moral victories. I like actual victory. So I kicked her in the head and left her lying in the middle of the ring.

Needless to say, some people might take offense to my presence here.

“Hello, sumimasen,” a soft little voice says to me. I look up from my phone to see the konsheruju bent forward on his hips. When my eyes meet his, his head bows and he apologizes for interrupting.

“Nothing to worry about,” I say while putting away my phone. “What is it?”

He holds out an envelope. After I take it, he bows his head again before asking if I require anything. Yeah yeah yeah, he’s being nice to me so I must not be that hate, right? This hotel is four grand a night. For that much cashola I expect unquestioning subservience and at least one orgasm before I check out. That reminds me. I have a shiatsu scheduled in my room later in the morning.

“What’s your name,” I say while glancing at the envelope. ゴルゴ is printed on the face which I recognize as my name but only because I’ve seen it written that way before. I have a slight ear for the language but when it comes to reading you might as well pluck out my eyeballs and hang them from your car mirror.

“I am Yuki,” he says, again bowing his head. He’s kind of dainty, isn’t he? Soft features. Round cheeks. A side-parted mop of hair that reminds me of those terrible emo bands from when I was a child.

I tear into the envelope. “I have a proposal for you, Yuki. What if I put you in my pocket and we went shopping together? I could slip you treats when no one is looking and you can tell me how fantastic I look in everything I try on.”

He stammers, “I…I don’t understand your question.”

There’s a card inside. The stock is thick and cream colored and there’s a subtle relief to the surface, like it’s stamped with thousands of tiny triangles. I unfold it and see three lines of black inset text.

虎
白
3-4 KAGURAZAKA SHINJUKU-KU

“Mysterious,” I say to myself while flipping it over to find nothing on the back. Looking up at the konsheruju, I show him the card and ask about the characters above what I assume is an address. “What’s that say?”

“Kohaku,” he answers quickly.

“What’s a kohaku?”

“Oh, it’s a very nice restaurant. We make many reservations on behalf of guests every day.”

“Curious,” I wonder out loud. “If this were a respectable date I’d expect a time of arrival and a name for the reservation. This feels more like a swipe right and then wake up in the morning missing a kidney scenario. I suppose the only way to find out is to head over there. Yuki, my good fellow, could you arrange for a car while I finish my tea? I shan’t be late! I mean, I can’t really be late. There’s no time.”

“Oh, the restaurant is most certainly closed.”

“Nooo,” I say with my hand on my chest, conjuring a little Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven. I make a ghastly face at the idea of whittle ol me wandering around Neo Tokyo after hours. “Alas, poor Yuki, I mustn’t allow fear to dissuade me from this engagement. Now go and call the car. And make sure the driver speaks at least a little English or else I’m going to have to use Google Translate and nobody wants that.”

“Very well,” he says before bowing his head again and then scurrying off. I’m already looking up Kohaku on my phone. Oh la la. According to Michelin, the food is a ‘fusion of Japanese and Western’ and the chef ‘invents new flavors not found in existing concepts.’ I’m going to hold out hope I’m being invited to some sort of super secret bourgeoisie dinner and not a House of Blue Leaves scenario. The Kill Bill version. Not the mental asylum from the play of the same name. Actually, both sound rather much like a bad time all around.

“Oh, I don’t know,” the Other Me says like a chainsaw whispering sweet nothings in my metaphysical ear. “The Kill Bill version might be fun. A shame we didn’t pack a yellow jumpsuit.”

“Or a sword,” I add.

DAVID BOWIE IS SINGING ABOUT putting out fires with gasoline as the Mercedes turns the corner and continues down a narrow corridor. The driver, aptly named Hank, is not Japanese at all. He’s an American. How dreadfully boring. I came to Japan for the experience! I don’t want to be chauffeured around by a twenty something white guy from…let’s go with Oregon.

“Hank, where are you from?”

The driver’s green eyes look past the fringe of his blond bangs and he says, “Portland.”

“Oregon?”

He clicks his teeth. “Nah, Maine. It’s funny. I always get that.”

Goddamnit.

“Hey,” he says, getting my attention away from the lights of the passing buildings. “Are you, like, someone famous?”

“Totally,” I say flatly. “Super famous. Why?”

He gives a little shrug. “Well, when the call came in, our chat—”

“Who’s chat?”

“Oh,” he says awkwardly. “Sorry. The drivers, we all have a Line. Anyway, our chat was just people saying some rather unpleasant things about you and refusing to take the call. I figured you must be a celebrity because pretty much every bad client story involves someone famous. Regular rich folk aren’t usually that interesting.”

“You know, Hank,” I start while my hand grabs the seat in front of me and pulls, pushing my face closer and into the dim light of the dash’s LED screen. “For a chauffeur you talk a lot.” Oh, and I’m giving him a toothy grin. I’m sure that’s confusing for him. Do I think his chattiness is cute or do I want to stab him in the throat with a screwdriver?

“Yeah, I get that.” He gives a little uncomfortable laugh. “My ma use to say I could—”

“No,” I say sharply, slicing his words off like a knife through a piece of meat.

He looks at me in the mirror. “What?”

“I don’t want to hear about your mother, your girl back home, your dog, your dog’s dog, your first kiss, or any bits of country wisdom you brought with you to Tokyo.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, ma’am. I just—I just…yeah, like you said. So I’ll just focus on driving. Hey, look at that. We’re almost there. Time flies, hey?”

He’s turning the wheel and the car is slowing. I’m already yanking on the handle before it comes to a stop. The door swings outward and I’m staring down a narrow alleyway. I look back to Hank with a cocked eyebrow.

He says, “Oh, yeah, it’s halfway down that alley on the right. I’ve brought clients here before. Granted, it’s usually when the restaurant is open. During the day.”

I get out and look around for anything suspicious but what would I know suspicious looks like, right? There are people walking around, mostly in small groups of two or three, and there goes an idiot on an electric scooter. I watch them for a moment hoping they get plastered by a car at the next intersection. No dice.

“Ma’am,” Hank says. I bend my head down.

“Stop calling me ma’am. I’m younger than you.”

“Sorry, M…Miss… I’m going to pull forward a little bit while I wait. I didn’t want you to think I left.”

“Hank, if you leave, I will make it my life’s mission to murder you in the worst way possible.” I shut the door before he can ask about which way is the worst. I’ll let him stew on that for the duration of my visit while 

It’s a narrow alley. Well, yes, of course it’s narrow. That’s kind of the thing about alleyways. Anyway, the path is sandwiched between closed shops and glowing vending machines. The heels of my Louboutin boots clap off the asphalt and bounce between the buildings while I look for the entrance for the restaurant.

A clatter behind me snaps my eyes over my shoulder. It’s an old man pushing the shudders down over his shopfront. That’s a shame. Where are the masked assassins? Where are the furries?! See, it isn’t fear that’s causing my heart to thumpa-thumpa-thump or the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck. It’s the thrill of the what if. Things have been so terribly boring this whole week and it just hit me—I’ve never killed anyone in Japan. Well, that’s it then. Before my time in Japan comes to an end, I will have to kill someone. Trigger warning.

“Yelena Gorgo,” a high, whispery voice says. When I look forward, there’s a woman standing next to a bamboo facade. She’s petite and neatly dressed in a floral-printed kimono with a white sash. Her left arm slips from the other’s sleeve and points toward an opening in the wall and the warm light shining a skewed block of light on the ground.

I stop in front of her but look inward, bending my neck to see the small porch behind the bamboo exterior and then, further up a small set of stairs, a glass door. It’s etched with the same letters on the invitation.

“Is this Kohaku?”

“Hai.”

“And who’s inside?”

She hesitates but then answers, “Your host.”

“Just my host?”

“Īe.”

“I didn’t think so. Well, shall we then? We must not keep them waiting.”

She bows her head in kind and says, “Kochira e dōzo. This way, please.” I follow her up the steps toward the door which is now open, being held so by a middle-aged man in a dark suit. This one doesn’t bow when I approach. Instead he quickly pats me up and down to make sure I’m not armed. I’m not a big fan of guns, actually. I’d rather pistol whip someone to death than shoot them. And they’re loud and I value my hearing. Also, knives are way cooler.

Once inside I quickly look around. The construction reminds me of a Japanese restaurant in Copenhagen my father took me to. Traditional with very little American influence, which is unexpected since the food is a mishmash of both cultures. The kitchen is on my left behind the sushi bar. Table seating is to the right. There’s no one in either area so I imagine this means a late-late dinner is definitely not in the cards.

She takes me through the empty restaurant to the back and down a long corridor. It turns right and continues to a dead end. Along both sides of the hall are multiple sliding doors. I think they’re called shōji. They’re made of squares of paper framed with bamboo. We walk past the first three sets before stopping at the fourth on the left. She slides the shōji open and moves aside to allow my entrance.

The Other Me says from somewhere, “Here goes nothin’.”

I walk into a psychedelic mind trip where everything is saturated with a cold blue light emitted from dozens of tiny LED bulbs extending down on pencil-thin rods from the tall, exposed ceiling. The walls are not covered in plaster or stone but rather high definition panels linked together in a series, with each section displaying dripping inkblots taking form in shifting, transitioning Japanese iconography. Behind me the shōji slides closed. I look back only for a moment before turning my attention to the head of this bizarre room where my host awaits me.

He’s a man, that’s to be certain, but his face from the nose up is hidden beneath a conical straw hat that you usually see being worn by Buddhist monks. His kimono is black with white fringes along the collar and sleeves, in which his hands are tucked. He sits lotus style on a decorative rug, perched atop a three foot dais.

He is flanked by two others. To my left, a woman sits on the steps leading up the dias, leaning back and relaxed with one leg stretched out and the other bent slightly for her right hand to dangle over. Her hair is chopped in aggressive chunks that dart asymmetrically over her face like a raven’s wing that, along with her double rider leather jacket, gives her a punk rock look that clashes with all this Japanese regalia.

A katana is slung over her back, the handle rising over her shoulder, and I can make out the handle of a pistol jutting out from the inside of her jacket. Her almond-shaped eyes watch me with a soulless gaze of someone whose spirit was ripped away long ago. She isn’t just some woman—her stare feels like an attack. She’s a predator.

Standing on the stairs opposite her is a thirty-something man, tall and lean, wearing a sharp tailored suit, all black, with hair slicked back and a smooth complexion. If the woman is the muscle then this one is the emissary. He descends from the dais to the floor and takes three steps forward then stops. His posture is straight but fluid and he almost glides across the floor.

The man in the straw hat speaks first with a deep, poetic voice, uttering a line of Japanese which I cannot understand, but the words begin filtering through his emissary’s mouth. “Welcome, Yelena Gorgo,” the man in the suit translates in perfect English without a trace of an accent. “Thank you for accepting my invite. I am Shōgun Fukuyama. These are my associates Kaito and Yaponchik.”

Kaito, the emissary, dips his head when he says his own name as he continues to translate. Yaponchik doesn’t move an inch. Her eyes remain surgically locked on me, following my every move. Yaponchik—I know that name. It means Little Japanese in Russian. She was mentioned in my father’s journals from long ago. She was Tibor Petrov’s half-Japanese, half-Siberian bodyguard.

For those not in the know, Petrov was a Russian mobster who came up with the underground fight promotion The Circuit. My father competed in the promotion and they had some less than friendly interactions. After INTERPOL shut down the Circuit. Petrov turned witness and fed them a bunch of nonsense about dad. US authorities used his testimony to lock my father up in a high security mental hospital. After dad got out, Petrov even hired a hitman to kill him.

I take a beat to take in this bizarre situation I find myself in. My eyes move back and forth from Fukuyama and Kaito. “I’m a little confused. So which one should I look at when I talk?” Neither responds so I take a stab and point at Fukuyama.

“You. Probably you. Anyway, so here I am.” I take a step forward but quickly stop because I see Yaponchik go on alert, her hand moving inside her jacket for the gun, even though there are still more than twenty paces between me and Fukuyama.

“You must excuse Yaponchik,” Fukuyama says through Kaito. “Though I do not doubt you are here for a peaceful discussion, she is not so easily convinced. Please, come forward so that we may talk without raised voices.”

Funny. Here I thought I was walking into a trap but it turns out they are more worried about me than I am of them. As I approach Yaponchik slowly pulls her hand from inside her jacket and places it empty on her knee. The Other Me surfaces from the void to whisper, “Isn’t this something. And you were worried there were going to be ninja hitmen.”

“I never said ninjas,” I tell her then turn my attention back to Fukuyama. “Why am I here? What is it you want from me?”

Kaito translates, “There is a debt to be paid. We’re here to negotiate the terms of its settlement.”

“Oh really,” I say while tapping my chin. “That’s curious, given that we’ve never met before.”

“The debt, “ Fukuyama’s translator says, “was your father’s prior to his death.”

“I’m going to have to see the receipts.”

He ignores my interruption, continuing, “I’ve been watching you for some time now. I wanted to see how much alike you are to your father. Supairaru-san was the onmyōji, a man of two sides. A positive and a negative, eternally bound to one another. On one side was a professional wrestler who enjoyed playing the bogīman character for the few companies that would hire him. On the other side was the real bogīman—a monster, a murderer, and a criminal.”

I keep my emotions contained and hide the confusion and anger as to how he knows so much about dear old Daddy Spiral. Though I cannot see his eyes hiding beneath the hat I can feel them on me, studying me, waiting to see any weakness in my cool, calm exterior.

“What does this have to do with me?”

“Nihon’nobunkade wa, kodomo wa—” Fukuyama starts to say. Kaito renders his words into English. “In our culture, children inherit the debts of their parents.”

Another step forward and I’m within arm’s reach of the dais. Yaponchik rises to her feet and reaches back to grip the handle of her sword. She’s ready to draw the Japanese steel from its sheath until—

“Yaponchik!” Fukuyama bellows. “Ken o hikanaide kudasai!”

Kaito does not translate but the effect is obvious. Yaponchik lets the katana sink back into its sheath as she turns to bow her head to her master. “Sen no shazai, Shōgun.” Yaponchik sits back down like a scolded dog and stares at me from under her brow, full of anger but does not dare speak.

I say to Fukuyama, “I have a hard time believing my father owed you money.”

“It wasn’t money your father owed us, but rather chaos.”

“Chaos,” I say, unable to contain a sharp HA that followed the word out my lips. “Did he also rack up an astounding bill of sunshine and rainbows? Give me a break. Since when did the Yakuza start peddling in the abstract?”

“Yakuza,” Fukuyama says with a growing smile. “Watashi wa yakuzade wa arimasen—”

“I am not Yakuza,” Kaito translates. “I am a businessman. An investor who invests in people like I did with your father when he was in Valor Pro Wrestling, in which I was a silent partner.”

“I’ve heard this story,” I say with a wave of my hand. “The CEO was running it into the ground and burning through money. She lied to my father during contract negotiations and then reneged on the terms.”

“Yes,” Kaito says, “Vanessa Byrne was a poor choice of chief executive officer but removing her required convincing the other partners, many of whom were unwilling to even discuss her removal. So we hired Supairaru-san to remove her from her position. In return, we promised to fulfill the guarantees in his contract.”

Remove her. We all know what that means, don’t we? With a wag of my finger I say, “And if he failed to get away with it, no one would believe him if he said a man wearing a basket for a hat hired him to do it.”

Fukuyama is silent. Kaito looks over his shoulder briefly at his boss before turning his eyes back to me. “In a sense,” he says.

“Dad left VPW after he received his cancer diagnosis.” My eyes lead me away from the dias to walk over toward one of the motion displays. The inkblot morphs at a crawling pace into a rising sun over a stream. In the dark circle I can see my face reflected in the glossy screen. Wait, it’s not my face. It’s my other face and she has a very Gorgo-like smile.

I say with a chuckle, “I’ll take a flying guess that he didn’t see any point in taking out Vanessa if he wasn’t going to be around to benefit from it.”

“Perhaps,” Fukuyama is translated. “But his reasons do not nullify the terms of our agreement.”

“Can’t argue there,” I say while walking back to the dias. “But Valor Pro Wrestling doesn’t exist anymore so what’s the point of—” I run my finger across my neck while making a slicing sound on the back of my tongue. “You know, it’s funny how so many promotions spring up every day and how many of those close so quickly after. You’d think people would stop opening wrestling companies. Save themselves the ulcers.”

Kaito says over Fukuyama’s intense Japanese tenor, “You are correct. At face value it would seem rather strange to want Ms. Byrne dead given that VPW has been closed for going on five years now but like your father, she owes a debt. After her mismanagement drove the company to close, many millions disappeared from the accounts, leaving me and my partners—”

“Hōrudingu baggu,” Fukuyama says abruptly in broken English.

“Yes,” Kaito says. “Holding the bag.”

“Okay you got me,” I say with a snap of my fingers then motion toward Yoponchik. “But why not just send her to deal with Vanessa?” The woman with the sword doesn’t break her cold, unrelenting stare at me.

Fukuyama says through Kaito, “I am a patient man, Ms. Gorgo. There is no longer a VPW to take control of and recovering the money was never a priority. So I waited.”

“You didn’t think to ask my brother, huh?”

“I did meet your brother,” his words are translated, “in Greece, two years ago. It became quickly apparent that he had little in common with Supairaru-san. He was playing a character for television. We did not trust he could adequately see to our demands.”

“What makes you think I’m any different,” I say with a tilt of my head. “Maybe I’m a good little girl who is using her father’s reputation on television for the exposure? Ever think of that?” I point a thumb back to the door. “So I’ll walk out of here right now and you’ll forget about Vanessa taking the big dirt nap sooner rather than later.”

“You are your father’s daughter,” Kaito rephrases on behalf of his master. “You inherited whatever it was inside of him that made him the way he was. The demon.”

“A demon,” I restrain the urge to double over and hee-haw like a drunk donkey at a stand-up show. “Now I’ve heard everything. I’m not sure where you get your information from but—”

“Tibor Petrov,” Fukuyama says clearly.

Ah, shit.

Kaito adds, “He was assassinated in his hotel room three years ago—”

Double shit.

“—by you,” he finishes.

Fukuyama reveals his hands from his sleeves and claps his hands once. At once, the display panels cut away from the trippy ink paintings to what appears to be a security feed of a penthouse apartment. Of course I recognize it because I was there. It’s a hotel in Hungary.

See, there’s me coming into frame now, walking over dead bodies to approach Tibor Petrov who appears surprisingly relaxed on the sofa. I sit down in front of him. The video fast forwards and then stops right before I cut his throat open with my father’s straight razor.

I’m disguised of course but apparently not well enough. I ask him where that video came from. If the authorities had seen it, surely INTERPOL would have plastered it all over the internet way back when it happened.

“Petrov came to me in 2019 with a suitcase filled with five million in US currency,” Fukuyama’s words morph into English through his emissary. “He wanted sanctuary. I provided it. We had cameras installed inside the penthouse to monitor his comings and goings but more importantly any visitors who may come calling on him.”

“And then there’s the police woman in New Orleans who disappeared out of thin air,” Fukuyama’s words morph into English through his emissary. Fukuyama claps his hands again. The panels flash to a newspaper clipping repeated across each display. The headline reads HERO DETECTIVE, FAMED AUTHOR MISSING. Underneath, a floated picture shows Alexandra Dupin.

Oh, Alex. My own personal Mrs. Robinson. Part of me wishes I hadn’t disposed of her so quickly. We could have had some real fun beforehand but I mustn’t get too distracted. Business first, then play. Alex deserves what I did to her. She single handedly robbed me of many years with my father in her crusade to keep him locked away.

Kaito translates, “Someone might wonder what connects these two seemingly random tragedies, but of course we know that thread’s name is Supairaru-san. We know it was you who killed Petrov and we know you are the reason Detective Dupin will never write another book based on your father. When I look at you, I don’t see a character. I see your father. I see the same disease in your eyes as his. It’s a madness, but unlike most people who are in a constant state of insanity, your father thrived. He persevered. He used it to his advantage.”

I say at the end of a long breath, “He saw behind the curtain.”

“And so do you.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” the Other Me says as she steps out from my subconscious mind to twirl around the room in a tutu with a red-smeared grin cut across her face. She’s on her toes, nimbly dancing around and doing pirouettes, until suddenly stopping mid-twist, as if a metaphysical pause button had been hit. Her head cranks toward me, a notch at a time, like a broken toy.

“Vanessa is on the list, after all.”

My father’s list. The one he gave me prior to his death. A list of names that had wronged him in life. I say to her, “I’ve already scratched off two, remember? We’ve been a little busy and besides, we agreed taking some time off from the Spiral Vengeance Tour would be a good idea. Let the heat die down. No one cared about that piece of shit Tibor Petrov but Alex Dupin’s disappearance drew a lot of media attention. They’re still talking about her in New Orleans. We have to be careful. Otherwise someone might start connecting dots.”

“Careful?” The Other Me places her head in the crook where my neck meets my shoulder. Her hands roam about my body, slipping underneath my jacket. “Don’t forget. This whole pro wrestler racket is for funsies. The List is more important. Besides, what are ya so worried about, dollface? Prison? The needle? A lifetime of eating nothing but bologna sandwiches and ramen? Diddling your cell mate with a broom handle? Together we are invincible. No one can stop us.”

“Maybe,” I say. Wait, was that out loud?

Kaito responds to me, “What do you mean by maybe?”

The Other Me has returned to her house in my mind. Shit, think of something! “Maybe…I’ll snuff the woman out for you. What’s in it for me?”

Fukuyama starts speaking. Kaito says, “Handle Ms. Byrne and we will consider the agreement with your father fulfilled. If you wish to continue our relationship afterward, there are many ways in which we could aid you in Miracle Galaxy Pro. Yes, we are quite aware of their offer to you. I apologize for keeping you up at this late hour, given your early appointment to sign the contract. I don’t want to jeopardize your career here in Japan—unless you give me no choice.”

I stare at Basket Head for a moment. I’m not really thinking about it. I’m going to do it but not because he wants me to. I’m going to rub Vanessa out of existence like a smudge of graphite with an eraser because she’s on the List.

“Okay, chief. I’ll take care of her. Where is she holed up these days?”

Fukuyama turns his head toward his translator and gives him a single short nod. Kaito bows his head to his master before stepping away from the dias. He says, “She’s currently living in San Francisco.” He leads me away from Fukuyama and Yaponchik. “I will forward the address. Keep in mind she has 24/7 security on the premises and at least one guard is with her everywhere she goes.”

He slides the shōji open for me and dips his head. I look over at Fukuyama and then to Kaito and say with an awkward look, “I guess that’s my cue. Ah, next time, let’s plan this out a little better. I really would have liked to try their rolls here.”

No reply. The door slides shut behind me and I make my way back through the restaurant. The hostess isn’t waiting to see me out but the guard at the front door is still there, eyeing the alley through the glass. He opens it up for me. Such a gentleman.

Hank is waiting for me where he promised. Music that I don’t recognize is vibrating the car’s metal and glass. I lean against the Mercedes for a moment while my eyes move to look back at the mouth of the alley. What are the chances? I’m in Japan for two days and I already know where to find the next two people on my list. Vanessa Byrne and Shōgun Fukuyama.

I lift the handle and open the door. Oh god, is that the Flaming Lips?

“HANK,” I yell while bending down to slip into the backseat.

“Yeah,” he yells over the music while twisting to look at me.

I give him a bright-eyed pageant smile before my hand shoots out to grab him by the back of his suit’s collar. I yank him hard and scream in his face. “Turn the fucking music off or I’ll feed you feet first into a meat grinder.”