Sensei By John Donohue

Synopsis:

In every caste, the modus operandi is the same, and the only clue
available is a cryptic message scrawled on the wall bearing the
signature "Ronin" the Japanese word for a master less samurai.

Connor Burke, a part-time college teacher with a passion for the
martial arts, is called in to help out with the investigation by his
brother, an NYPD detective.  With the help of his teacher, the master
warrior Yamashita Sensei, Burke begins to follow the trail of clues
that stretches across time and place, ultimately confronting his own
fears, his sense of honor, and the ruthless killer who calls himself
Ronin.

Combining the exotic world of the Japanese martial arts with the gritty
nuts and bolts of a murder investigation, Sensei is a riveting thriller
that explores the links between people as they struggle for mastery,
identity, and a sense of belonging.

Also by John Donohue

Complete Kendo

Herding the Ox: The Martial Arts as Moral Metaphor Warrior Dreams: The
Martial Arts and the American Imagination The Human Condition in the
Modern Age

The Forge of the Spirit: Structure, Motion, and Meaning in the Japanese
Martial Tradition onohue

Thomas Dunne Books St.  Martin's Minotaur New York

sei.  Copyright 2003 by John Donohue.  All rights reserved.  Printed in
the United States of America.  No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or
reviews.  For information, address St.  Martins Press, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donohue, John.

Sensei John Donohue.

ISBN0-3I2-288I2-3 1. New York (NY.) Fiction.  2. Serial murders
Fiction.  3. College teachers Fiction.  4. Martial arts fiction, lcsh
I. Title.

PS3604.O638 S46 2003 8I3'.6 dc2I

First Edition: April 2003

10 987654321

for Clare Donohue,

first teacher,

with love

Acknowledgments

A number of people have been instrumental in assisting in the writing
of this book, and I would like to thank them.

Charles Fieramusca, former head of Homicide for the Buffalo Police
Department and assistant professor in Medaille College's Criminal
Justice Program, patiently answered my grisly questions and gave me the
benefit of his expertise and insight regarding investigative
procedure.

Kimura Hiroaki, one in a long line of excellent martial arts sensei I
have studied under, taught me the types of lessons you don't get in
school.

Deepest thanks go to my agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, for his
invaluable support.  My editor, Carolyn Chu, is a rare find.  Her high
level of expectation and unabashed enthusiasm for the project made
writing the book a continuing revelation and a joy.

Most important, I would like to thank my wife, Kitty, who, as in all
things, has encouraged and supported me in ways beyond measure.  Her
kind yet critical reading of the chapters and her willingness to enter
with me into Burke's world have made the process of writing this book
one of the best things we have done together, which is saying a lot.

S E I

Prologue

With what I know now, I can pretty much make sense of the whole thing.
It's taken a while.  Like making sense of the first file Micky showed
me.  The crime scene pictures, the coroner's report, the notes from the
investigating officers initially seemed disconnected a wealth of
jumbled facts that didn't hang together.  Random acts.  A scene of
senseless violence.

But the accretion of facts, the stories spun by witnesses, build on
you.  And then you can say here is where it begins.  It's not that
things are inevitable; they just look that way in retrospect.  What you
are left with is the sense of something that grows over time, the
result of a thousand small and seemingly insignificant events.  You can
ask why.  And to answer you can point to any one of the facts you
uncover.  But once isolated by clinical explanation, it's not very
convincing.  Or satisfying.

We're all looking for answers of some type.  And we search for them in
different ways and along different paths.  We hope that knowledge
brings control.  But life reveals this notion to be a comforting
fiction.

It's like explaining a storm.  Waves are spawned by the dance of
gravity and wind and tide.  They gain strength and momentum until they
hurl themselves at us, standing surprised and stupid on the shore. It's
a hard lesson.  Meteorology provides faint comfort to the survivors.

Ronin

He slipped into the empty building before anyone else.  Fitness is big
business in LA, so it must have still been dark, hours before the
overachievers got there.

The killer knew his quarry well.  The patterns would not have changed,
even in America.  The master soon-to-be victim would pad quietly into
his training hall hours ahead of anyone else.  He trained fighters, but
a sound business was a diversified business, and he had branched out
into general fitness and health.  It meant a big jump for the bottom
line.  His school was clean and upscale, with a reception area and
account reps who kept the budget fed, smoothly enticing the hesitant
and recording it all on the PCs that sat like putty-colored fetishes in
the office cubicles.  For the master, even after fifteen years in
America, it was, ultimately, a distraction.  The noise, the coming and
going, the lack of focus that was LA all made it harder and harder for
him to find time to pursue his art.  And he was, despite all his
success, still an artist at heart.  Which was why, increasingly, he
found himself before dawn, alone in the training hall, pushing himself
further and further, in fierce pursuit of the moment when he and his
art became inseparable.

His name was Ikagi, and he had been training in karate for over forty
years.  He had the tubular build of martial artists all those movie
fighters look like weight lifters because that's what they spend most
of their time doing.  Ikagi was a professional of the old school.  In
his time in LA he had led and harassed legions of aspiring black belts
into his demanding vision of the martial arts.  And he was no less
strict with himself.  Photos of him over the years showed a man who
looked like a human howitzer shell.  Even that morning, at fifty-eight
years of age, his workout would be grueling.  His fingers were thick
and strong from countless sessions of tameshiwari board breaking.  His
feet were tough and dry from hours of work on the hardwood floor of the
training hall, you could see the calluses clearly in the stark
contrasts of the crime scene shots taken later they stood out as white
patches, even with all that blood around.

Ikagi had come in off the street and changed into the white uniform of
the karate student.  His belt had become tattered and ragged over the
years, but it still made a crisp black contrast to the pure white of
the karate gi.  He probably knelt and faced the small shrine at the
head of the training hall.  His students said that this was his usual
pattern.  Then the warm-ups and stretches would begin.  Before dawn,
Ikagi would be lost in a daily fine-tuning of his art: the punches
moving faster and faster, a faint white blur in the predawn light; the
kicks precise, balanced, and focused.

His attacker could have jumped in at any point, although the medical
examiner's report suggests that the master wasn't dead for more than an
hour before the building manager found him at five-thirty.  Ikagi had
probably just begun his routine when the challenger appeared.

The evidence suggests that Ikagi knew something of the threat by this
time.  Some faint rumbling was coming from Japan.  And it quickly
became clear to the sensei just what the intruder wanted.  Ikagi was a
little bull of a man, and he would have demanded to know why.  Whether
he was surprised to learn the reason, whether he was surprised to see
his old student there in the flesh is anyone's guess, although they say
some of the really good masters have a type of sixth sense about this
sort of thing.  Ikagi didn't mention anything to his family or friends
beforehand, but that's no real clue.  If you look at pictures of people
like him, even when they're smiling, the eyes give you nothing.

Ikagi could have known that death was waiting that morning, but he said
nothing to anyone.

The ritual of the challenge was almost certainly performed.  The
attacker enjoyed the symbolic trappings.  The ritual was important.  He
was most probably dressed in street clothes it's a bit hard making your
getaway dressed like an Asian assassin, even in LA but he most
certainly would have followed all the Japanese etiquette: the bows, the
ritual introductions and presentation of training pedigree, the request
for a "lesson."

When the fight was actually underway, it was nothing like anything most
of us have ever seen.  In the first place, it was fast.  Fighters at
this level of proficiency, going for the kill, do not waste time.  The
more time you spend, the more fatigued you get.  The more opportunities
for error.  For the killing blow.

These two opponents knew more about unarmed fighting than most people
alive.  It wasn't just that the blows uncoiled like a viper's strike.
The reflexes at this level are so accelerated that feints and counter
feints occur with a subtle speed that means most people wouldn't even
notice them taking place.  There was some minor lividity on the
victim's hands and feet, but they were so callused that it doesn't
really tell us much.  Ikagi was a karateka,

though, and he probably unleashed the arsenal of kicks and punches that
formed the heart of his art.

He got as good as he gave: his forearms and shins were bruised from
parrying attacks.  He had scuff marks on the shoulder from rolling on
the hard floor, which means that they used everything they could think
of, from strikes to throws.  Ikagi must have tried a choke hold at one
point, "You can tell, because he had the telltale bruise on the top of
his hand between the thumb and first finger.  He tried to slide in the
choke and the opponent defended by lowering the jaw, using the bone to
protect the potentially vulnerable artery in the neck.

The cops dusted the floor of the training hall to get a sense of how
things went.  The two fighters ranged all over the surface, lunging,
tumbling, breathing hard in a feral type of ballet.  Ultimately, they
ended up near the weapons rack.  I think the attacker panicked.  Maybe
it was doubt, rising like smoke in the heat of the contest.  Maybe the
jet lag.  Ikagi was not just good, he was one of the best, and the
whole thing was probably not turning out as planned.  So when they
tumbled into the corner, there were all those wooden staffs, stacked up
like spears in a medieval castle.  It must have seemed to the attacker
like the answer to a prayer.

Ikagi probably smiled to himself when his opponent grabbed one of the
staffs.  Only the master would know that these were the beginner's
weapons, made of inferior wood, which he could snap in two with little
effort.  And we know that, at some point, he did.  Tiny wood fragments
were found along the ridge of the palm exactly where you would expect
them if you broke something with a sword hand strike.  The attacker,
wielding what he thought was a potent weapon, must have been
momentarily stunned when the power of Ikagi s attack snapped the staff
in two.

But the recovery was equally sudden.  The staff became a spike.

The first strike must have been almost instinctual a straight thrust,
hard and quick, into the midsection.  The pain must have been intense
for Ikagi, but the blood trail shows us he didn't collapse.  After that
first, electric jolt, the gasp as the point was driven home, Ikagi
pressed the attacker for some time.

Did the jagged end of the staff stay buried in Ikagi's guts, or did the
attacker yank it out right away?  It's hard to tell.  Eventually, the
loss of blood slowed the master down.  The floor was growing slick. And
then the attacker finished it.

He plunged that spike into the old man, perforating the abdomen
repeatedly.  There was massive trauma there.  It went beyond
functionality.  Did the attacker enjoy it?  The gasp each time as he
drove the point home?  The growing sense of domination?  Did he smile
even as Ikagi's lips were yanked back in a rictus of pain?

These are questions for the shrinks.  That morning, it didn't matter.
It was over.  Ikagi lay there, agony dulled only by a lifetime of
discipline.  He attempted to reach the phone, slid in the fluids
pouring out of him, and faded away.  As he slipped out of this life,
his athlete's heart pumped faithfully away, the pulse growing faster
and threadier as shock set in and he died.

The killer paused long enough to leave a clue as to what he had become.
And a warning.  He dipped his finger in the blood and wrote in Japanese
on the wall.  The photo of it was mixed in with all the others, and
even with the morbid fascination of Ikagi's death captured from all
angles, the calligraphy was crude yet effective, demanding attention.

"Ronin."  The characters read.  "Wave Man."

A master less samurai.

TWO

Heiho

You could usually hear a pin drop in that room.  The slanting rays of
the sun came in through the high windows.  The angle was acute enough
so that you never had to worry about being blinded (an important thing
in a place where people hacked at each other with oak swords), but it
showed the dust motes dancing around.  Less wary students had been
distracted by them.  We had all been with Yamashita Sensei for a while,
however, and that morning when he strode onto the floor, all eyes were
riveted on him.

Yamashita was a small person: in street clothes he probably would have
seemed surprisingly nondescript.  In the martial arts dojo, his
presence was palpable.  It wasn't just the way he was dressed.  Most of
us had been banging around the martial arts world for years and so were
pretty much used to the exotic uniforms.  Yamashita was usually dressed
like any other senior instructor in some of the more traditional arts:
a heavy quilted top like the ones judo players wore and the pleated
split skirt pants known as ha kama  The wide legs of his uniform
swished quietly as he knelt in front of the class.  Even in this small
action, there was a decisive precision.  He gazed at us, his round head
swiveling slowly up and down the line.

Other than his head, nothing moved, but you could almost feel the
energy pulsing off him and washing over you.  He was the

most demanding of taskmasters at the best of times, but today we were
all tremendously apprehensive.

Yamashita was wearing white.

In Japan, white is the color of emptiness and humility.  Many of us had
started our training in arts like judo or karate, where the uniforms
known as gi were traditionally white as a symbol of humility.  Most
mainline Japanese instructors I knew frowned on the American urge to
branch out into personal color statements with their uniforms.  The
message was clear: a gi is not an expression of individuality.  People
wanting to make statements should probably rent billboards and avoid
Japanese martial arts instructors.  They are not focused on your needs.
They are concerned only with the pursuit of the Way.  You are free to
come along.  But your presence is not necessary.

You have to get used to that sort of attitude.  In the martial arts,
nobody owes you anything, least of all your teacher.  The assumption is
that you are pretty much worthless and lucky to be in the same room
with your sensei.  You do what he says.  You don't talk back, You don't
ask rude questions.  You don't cop an attitude that's the sensei's
prerogative.

In the sword arts Yamashita teaches, only the high-ranking teachers are
eligible to wear white.  Yamashita could.  He had done so in Japan for
years.  But he didn't do it much here.  If he was wearing white today,
it meant that he was symbolically adopting the attitude that he was the
lowliest of students.  Humility is nice, of course.  The only drawback
here was that, if Yamashita was being humble, it meant that, as his
students, we were somewhere way down in the crud with other lower forms
of life.

As we sat there eyeing him warily, I heard some very quiet sighs up and
down the line: we were in for a rough workout.

You don't get in the door of this particular dojo without having
considerable experience and martial aptitude.  In the first place,

it's hidden in Brooklyn among the warehouses down by the East River. We
occasionally have trouble with our cars being broken into and stuff
like that, but then a few us go out and spread the word that Mr.
Yamashita is beginning to get annoyed.  He's been in the same location
for ten years and has had a number of "conversations" with the more
felonious of his neighbors there are people walking those streets whose
joints will never work correctly again.

The neighborhood is dirty and smelly and loud.  Once you get inside the
dojo, however, the rest of the world disappears.  The training hall is
a cavernous space.  The walls are unadorned grayish white and the floor
is polished hardwood.  There are no decorations on the walls, no
posters of Bruce Lee or the Buddha.  To one side there's a small office
area with a battered green metal desk and two doors leading to the
changing rooms.  Other than the weapons racks, that's it.  There is
absolutely nothing to distract you from the task at hand.  It also
means, of course, that there is nowhere to hide, either.

We don't do a great deal of conditioning.  What we do is basics.

Yamashita's idea of basics, of course, is bewildering.  He thinks
basics are essentially illustrated through application.  This is where
the bang and crunch comes in, but with a difference.  Anybody can slam
someone into submission take a look at any tough-guy competition or
kick-boxing match.  Yamashita is after something different.  He thinks
that the essence of any particular technique should be demonstrated by
its effectiveness.  He doesn't separate form from results.  He doesn't
even admit they are two separate things.  He likes us to destroy with
elegance.

There are technical terms for this in Japanese.  They can isolate the
mechanics of technique and ri the quality of mastery that allows you to
violate the appearance of form yet still remain true to its essence.
It's hard to explain how they differ and how to separate them, since
most of us have spent years in pursuit of ji and are pretty much
conditioned to follow its dictates.  Yamashita doesn't seem to have
much of a problem, however.  He prowls the floor like a predator
correcting, encouraging, and demonstrating.  And woe to the unlucky
pupil whose focus slips during the exercise: Yamashita screams, "Mm
ri," no til and slams you to the floor.  It's a unique pedagogical
technique, but it works for him.

So, beyond the sighs of anticipation, once the lesson started, none of
us spent much time worrying about how tough things were.  In the dojo
of Yamashita Sensei, the only way to be is fully present and engaged in
the activity at hand.  The unfocused are quickly weeded out and rarely
return.  The rest of us endure, in the suspicion that all this will
lead to something approximating the fierce skill of our master.

We were working that day on some tricky techniques that involve
pressure on selected nerve centers in the forearm.  At about the time
when most of us were slowing down shaking our arms out in an effort to
get the nerves to stop jangling Yamashita called that part of the
lesson quits and picked up a bokken.  We scurried to the lower end of
the floor and sat down as he began his instructions.

The bokken is a hardwood replica of the katana the two-handed long
sword used by the samurai.  It has the curve and heft of a real sword
and so is used to train students of the various sword arts that have
evolved over the centuries in Japan.  In the right hands, hardwood
swords can be very dangerous.  They have been known to shatter the
shafts of katana, and people like the famous Miyamoto Musashi, armed
with a bokken, used to regularly go up against swordsmen armed with
real swords.  The results were never pretty, but Musashi used to walk
away intact, bokken in hand.

Bokken are also used in set series of training techniques called kata,
which is typically how Yamashita had us tram with bokken.

Kata means "form": they are prearranged exercises.  Don't be fooled,
though.  Kata practice in Yamashita's dojo is enough to make your hair
stand on end.  When we perform kata, we do them in pairs of attacker
and defender, and the movements flow and the blade of the bokken moans
through the air as it blurs its way to the target.  There's nothing
like the sight of an oak sword slashing at your head to focus your
mind.

I was backpedaling furiously to dodge a slashing kesa-girl the cut that
with a real sword would cleave you diagonally from your shoulder to the
opposite hip when movement on the edge of the practice floor caught my
eye.

The visitors filed swiftly in, bobbing their heads briefly in that
really poor American version of bowing.  There were three of them in
street clothes and the fourth was dressed in a ha kama and top.  The
outfit caught my eye: the top was crimson red and looked like it was
made out of some silky sort of material, the ha kama was a crisp jet
black.  Quite the costume, really, especially when its wearer had a
shaved brown head the shape of a large bullet.  He had come to make a
statement, I guess.  They sat quietly with their backs against the
wall, watching the class with that hard-eyed, clenched-jaw look that is
supposed to intimidate you.  I suppose I should have been impressed,
but my training partner would not let up.  She was about as fierce and
wiry as they come.  And her sword work had a certain whip and quick
snap to it, a slightly offbeat rapid rhythm that was hard to defend
against,

even though in kata you theoretically know what's happening.  She
wasn't at all impressed with the visitors.  She was a relatively new
student who was mostly intent on making one of Yamashita's senior
pupils me look less than accomplished.

So even though I was pretty curious about these guys Yamashita did not,
as a rule, tolerate visitors and one of them was dressed like he came
to play I quickly got more interested in not making a fool out of
myself during bokken practice.

It's a pride thing.  There's a lot of talk in the martial arts about
letting go of your ego and all that, and we try, we really do, but the
fact is that, at this level, you have invested a tremendous amount of
time and effort into developing your skills and attaining a certain
ranking in the dojo, and you really get just a bit ticked off when
something happens to threaten that.  All the bowing and titles, the
uniforms and colored belts, are about status, your sense of worth. It's
a closed little world with its own system for ranking you, but it's
still a status system, and human beings respond to that.

This woman was good with her weapon.  I could sense that and so could
she.  She was pressing me a bit altering the tempo of the moves,
delivering her cuts with something close to full force, shortening the
time between parry and counter delivering a type of challenge to see
whether I could meet it.

I could, of course, but that wasn't the real point.  For me, the
challenge was how to respond to her force with something more refined.
It meant that instead of parrying her cuts with a force that would make
our bokken bark out with the shock of impact, I needed to finesse it a
bit.

I changed the angles slightly, moving my body just out of the line of
attack, which served to place me out of the radius of her strikes.  I
tried to keep my hands supple as I parried, accepting the force of her
blows and redirecting them slightly, but things were getting a bit
sweaty and I didn't want the sword flying out of my hands and shooting
across the room.  It happens occasionally, and if nobody gets hit we
all laugh and the one who let go gets ribbed unmercifully, but this was
not a situation where I was willing to get laughed at.

I knew this woman was a relative beginner at the dojo, and I counted on
her weapon fixation.  It was an unfair advantage in a way, but it's
also an example of what Yamashita calls heiho strategy.

Between shifting slightly and redirecting a bit more through the next
series of movements in the kata, I built up enough frustration in my
partner for her to over commit in her next strike a little too much
shoulder in the technique, her head leading into it and it was all
over.  I simply let go of my bokken with my left hand, entered into her
blind side, led her around in a tight little circle and took the sword
away.  It wasn't a move that was in the kata, but Yamashita tells us
any time you can do tachi-dori (sword taking), you should, just to keep
your partner on his or her toes.

The pivot took her around on her toes, all right.  She knew what was
happening about a split second after the spin began, but it was too
late to get out of it.  I handed her back the bokken.  She smiled a bit
ruefully and we bowed just as Yamashita called the class to order in
preparation to bow out.

He glided to the head of the room and waited for us to line up.  He was
studiously avoiding looking at the gang of four in the back of the
room, but you could tell from his body language that he was annoyed.

You don't come dressed to play unless you've been invited.  Only the
sensei can give permission for a student to train in the dojo.  If you
show up uninvited and suited up, it means that either you don't know
anything about Japanese martial arts teachers and are in real risk of
being beaten up, or you are purposefully being insulting and wish to
challenge the sensei to a match.  In which case, it is anyone's guess
who gets beaten up.

I've seen this happen before.  Not often, but you don't tend to forget
it once you've seen it.  Especially if you're a student of the teacher
being challenged.  You get used as a type of canon fodder for your
teacher.  He sends you or one of your pals out to fight the challenger,
he watches the action, analyzes the skill level of the opponent.  If
the first student gets beaten, a more advanced pupil goes next, and so
on up the line.  By the time the challenger reaches the sensei (if he
lasts that long), he has either revealed his strengths and weaknesses
and so can be defeated, or become so tired that he's no longer much of
a challenge to the sensei.  It's not fair, of course.  It's heiho.

We all knelt, a solid dark blue line stretching down the length of the
dojo.  Yamashita sat quietly for a minute, then turned to one of his
senior pupils, a mild-mannered Japanese-American guy named Ken, who sat
next to me at the end of the line reserved for higher ranks.  He looked
like he was dreading what was about to happen.  Yamashita said to him,
"I see we have visitors.  Perhaps you would invite the colorful one to
speak with me."

Ken bowed, got up, and scurried to the back of the room to deliver the
invitation.  The guy in the red top nodded, exchanged a series of
ritual handshakes with his companions, and stepped onto the training
floor.  He struck a ready pose and let out a loud "UUUS."  A few of us
rolled our eyes.  Some of the karate schools out there think that kind
of thing makes you seem like a real hard charger.

Yamashita nodded slightly and Red Top moved forward.

"I regret that I was unable to welcome you properly to my dojo.  I am
equally distressed to say that I do not know who you are or what you
want, since we have not been properly introduced."  The words came out
quickly but were carefully pronounced.  Sensei doesn't really have much
of an accent, but when he is annoyed his words are very precisely
formed.  I don't know if Red Top was picking it up or not, but there
wasn't one of us who doubted that Yamashita Sensei was really ticked
off.

"Mitchell Reilly, Sensei."  He bowed, properly this time.  Ken caught
my eye.  Mitch Reilly ran a notorious jujutsu school, pretty much
specializing in combat arts of the
one-hundred-ways-to-pluck-their-eyeballs-out variety.  He was a
mainstay of the non-traditional African-American martial arts
community.  He was built like a refrigerator and I could see his
knuckles were enlarged from the damage too much board breaking creates.
Mitch Reilly had the reputation of being a really savage competitor, a
fair technician, and a guy staggering under the weight of a giant
ego.

"So, Mr.  Reilly.  I must assume that there is a reason for your
presence here.  The school is hard to find and only a man in need of
something would make a journey through such a dangerous
neighborhood."

Reilly looked contemptuous.  "No problem.  I can take care of
myself."

"And," Yamashita continued, "the obvious care with which you have
selected your... charming costume tells me that you are, perhaps,
interested in ... ?"  He let the question hang in the air.

I sat and watched the steam start to come out of Reilly s ears.  I have
to admit, he got it under control fairly well, which was a sign that he
was probably a dangerous man.  When the faint trembling stopped, Reilly
finished Yamashita's sentence.

"A match," he said.  "I'm challenging you."

You had to admire him.  The guy pulled no punches.  He was probably
five years older than I was in his early forties and had been banging
around the martial arts for at least two decades, and now felt he was
ready to take on the closest thing the New York area had to a bona fide
master.  Most people don't even know Yamashita exists.  He came to New
'fork years ago from Japan for reasons none of us can fathom and hones
our technique with a type of quiet brutality.  The senior Japanese
sensei send their most promising pupils to him, but he's never appeared
in Black Belt, hasn't written a book divulging the ancient, secret
techniques of the samurai elite, and doesn't have a listing in the
Yellow Pages.  Which was why Reilly's presence and his challenge was so
odd.

You could see Yamashita's quandary.  Reilly was fairly dangerous in a
savage, commonplace kind of way.  Yamashita was a harsh teacher, but he
never needlessly put any of us in danger of serious injury.  It was
beneath Sensei's dignity to accept the challenge, but you could almost
hear the clicks in his brain as he weighed various other options. Would
this match serve any type of purpose in terms of teaching his students?
Who would be the most appropriate opponent?  Ken was a senior student
and could be a logical choice.  We all knew and Sensei did too that his
wife had just had a baby and that a great deal of Ken's mental energy
was not totally focused on training at this time. He was good (even on
his bad days) but a match like this was bound to be one where both
parties limped away.  Ken didn't need that right now and Yamashita knew
it.

Yamashita's head swiveled along the line of students, weighing each one
for potential, for flaws, like a diamond cutter rooting carefully
around a draw of unfinished stones.  The more experienced among us sat,
trying to be totally numb about the situation, not really focusing on
Reilly, listening to the hum of the fluorescents and the faint rumble
of trucks.  The newer students sat in various states: the smart ones
were secretly appalled at the prospect; the really dense were
excited.

When he called me, I tried to feel nothing.  "Professor," Yamashita
said.  Ever since they found out I teach in college, the nickname has
stuck.  It could have been worse.  Early on I had worked out at a kendo
school where the Japanese kids simply called me "Big Head."

I bowed and scooted up to the front.  In this situation, you sit
formally, facing the sensei, which put me right next to Redly.

"This is Dr.  Burke," he told Reilly.  "I am sure you will find him
instructive."

Reilly jerked his head around to size me up.  I looked back: flat eyes,
sitting there like a blue lump with relaxed muscles, no energy given to
the opponent.

"You think you want a piece of me, asshole?"  Out of the side of his
mouth, like he'd picked it up from old Bogart movies.  I swung around
you could see a slight jerk before he realized what I was up to and
bowed, saying nothing.  Silent.  Passive.  A shade.  Heiho was keeping
yourself in shadow.

Reilly looked back at Sensei.  ""You must be joking.  I'm not fucking
around with this piece of shit."

Yamashita is funny about foul language.  He spends his days teaching
people how to do serious harm to others, but he has this real thing
about keeping conversation civil.  Part of it's just that Japanese
politeness, but I think the other part is that he is a man dedicated to
an art that celebrates control of one sort or another, and foul
language strikes him either as the result of a bad vocabulary and poor
imagination or as a lack of mastery over one's temper.  In either case,
this kind of language is forbidden in his dojo.  Reilly may not have
known it, but he had just committed a gross breach of etiquette.

"I am sorry, Mr.  Reilly.  I regret that we cannot accommodate you in
your request for a lesson.  You are clearly not ready for any serious
training."  With that, Yamashita looked right through him and stood up
like he was preparing to leave the floor.

"Wait a minute..."  Reilly shot up and looked like he was going to
reach for the old man.  Which was how I got to wondering about whether
I could poleax him.  I was targeting him for a knuckle strike right
below the ear (I figured with any luck I could dislocate his jaw), but
there was really no need.  Yamashita had about reached the limits of
his patience.

As Reilly came at him, Yamashita shot in, a smooth blur.  There was an
elbow strike in there somewhere before he whipped Reilly around to
break his balance.  Then Yamashita was behind him, clinging like a
limpet and bringing Reilly slowly down to the floor.  The choke was (as
always) precisely executed: the flow of blood to the brain was
disrupted as he brought pressure to bear on the arteries and Reilly was
out cold.

Yamashita stood up and beckoned to Reilly's pals.  "Remove him.  Do not
come back."  Not even breathing hard.  They dragged Reilly off the
practice floor and trundled him away.

"What a foolish man.  An arrogant and violent man."  He looked around
at us all, then turned to me.  "I am surprised at you, Burke.  I would
have tried for the jaw dislocation.  Work on your reaction time,
please."

He glided away and the lesson ended.

THREE

The Smell of Money

I live in Brooklyn because the rents are cheaper and Yamashitas dojo is
there, but I work in Bloomington, a planned suburb on Long Island that,
among its other unremarkable features, harbors the pedestrian
university that employs me.

Of course, it's not that I really work there.  Dorian, like many other
colleges, pays a horde of part-time teachers to do the dirty work of
modern education.  As an adjunct instructor I labor in obscurity so
that the full-time professors can think deeply in a measured, quiet,
unpressured life that, in my more bitter moments, I think must be like
the early onset of Alzheimer's.

A part-time college instructor typically makes about an eighth of the
pay of a real professor, with no benefits, medical coverage, or job
security.  Everyone loves us because we're cheap, docile, and actually
teach for a living.  For our part, we labor on in the blind hope that
we will somehow be plucked from anonymity and elevated to full-time
status, where you work about nine months out of the year.

So I wandered in that day, my bag crammed with unmarked student tests
and a collection of battered paperbacks, with the resignation of a
gladiator who knew that his sword was made of lead.

The letters for appointments for next semester were due out today, and
I was not particularly optimistic.

The battered common room where I had staked out a claim to an ugly
industrial gray metal desk and lopsided typing chair was fairly quiet
as well.  My mailbox, one in a series of slots labeled with neatly
typed paper slips (easily replaced), was filled with the usual junk.
There was an announcement about an upcoming faculty meeting they insist
on sending these things to adjuncts, even though were not eligible to
attend a perky newsletter for resume-writing workshops and other
forlorn hopes; a flyer on blue paper advocating attendance at a
continuing education seminar, "Selling Real Estate with Feng Shui," and
a message that I was wanted in the dean's office.

Dorian is a small, obscure place, but even small ponds have big fish. I
headed down the hallway toward the administrative offices.  The
university's brick buildings are old and heavy with the accumulated
aroma of particulate matter: dust and plaster for certain, asbestos
probably, and old paper.  The halls smell old and used except when you
approach the dean's suite.  Here, the paint is brighter and everything
smells like furniture polish and new carpets.

I once heard a full professor say that a dean had the education of a
philosopher, the heart of an accountant, and the soul of a weasel.
Joseph Ceppaglia was a slim, gray, academic weasel of the first order.
He had a mop of salt-and-pepper hair, which he patted absently in
moments of thought; a Douglas Fairbanks mustache; and every other month
he tried to stop smoking through a variety of useless stratagems.  He
was slim and articulate, wily, and immensely pleased with himself.

He didn't get up from behind the desk, just swiveled around to see me
better.  "Hey, Burke.  What have you been up to?"  I didn't know it
then, but it would be a question I'd hear asked more than once.  The
dean was chewing nicotine gum furiously and bending a paper clip back
and forth.

And he had a plan.  Which was how, the next day, I ended up in "officer
country," waiting to meet the president.

This is not something mere mortals look forward to at the university.
President Peter Domanova was an old-style autocrat.  He was notorious
for firing people on the spot, for denying tenure recommendations, and
generally outraging the rank and file.  He did have a few good points:
sometimes he fired people who deserved it and, most important for the
university, he was a relentless shmoozer who had managed to raise quite
a few dollars for the institution.

Occasionally you caught glimpses of him churning across campus with any
number of flunkies in his wake, but most contact with the troops took
the form of various combative memos that ended up in everyone's
mailboxes.  The president thought of himself as something of an
intellectual.  He had graduated from Oxford, so maybe at one time this
delusion actually held some water.  He was on the far side of sixty
now, however, and although he could be eloquent and charming, mostly
Domanova came across as a cranky snob.

Ceppaglia had told me to "dress nice" for the meeting, which meant that
I had to wear the one good blue suit I owned.  The men in my family
call them "wedding and funeral rigs."  The dean had been a font of
gratuitous advice about what to wear and what to say.  But, true
survivor that he was, Ceppaglia escorted me to the door of the
presidential suite, wished me luck, and hightailed it out of there
before I did something that got us both fired.

I sat in the muted air of the reception room while prim and efficient
secretaries shuttled to and fro.  Phones chirped discretely.

The furniture was cherry and polished and dust free.  It was like being
in a bubble.

Then the presidential portal opened.  Polite laughter and the sound of
gruff instructions spilled out into the hush and a cluster of harried
suits tumbled out of the office, gazing back in there with the fixation
of men who are still fascinated with their latest brush with death.

I was up.  My basic plan for this interview was to say as little as
possible, make the president feel I was competent, and escape with my
life.

President Domanova beckoned magisterially from behind a desk the size
of a pool table, inviting me in, and actually got up to shake my
hand.

"Dr.  Burke.  Good.  Good."  He had an exaggerated Mediterranean accent
of some sort, all rolling r's and carefully enunciated sentences.  He
talked as if he enjoyed the way words felt as they came out.  "The Dean
tells me that you are an accomplished Orientalist.  Sit down."

The president tended to talk at you, not with you.  The sentences came
out in tight little clusters, abruptly.  They had more to do with some
weird internal dialogue he was having in there than with anything
occurring on the outside.

I shook hands, nodded at my Oriental expertise, and sat down.

Domanova picked up some papers and gave them a quick glance.  "A decent
university degree," he mused.  "Some articles in minor scholarly
journals, two books, with one forthcoming."

He looked up as if he was thinking, "you have been teaching for us for
how long?"

He knew the answer as well as I did.  It was right there in front of
him.  "Three years, sir."

"Three years."  He smirked.  "With our illustrious historians."

"Yes."

He got a bit more animated then, putting both hands flat on the slab in
front of him and looking at me intently.  "They are a total
embarrassment, Burke.  I wonder you can tolerate them."

What do you say to something like this?  That adjuncts are on the
bottom of the university food chain and that down there you get
acclimated to a great deal of murk?  I just sat there.

He shot back in his chair.  If I did that in my office, I would go
flying backward and end up on the floor.  The president's chair was
made of sterner stuff, however.  Leather, with those tasteful little
studs along the edges of the seams.

"So," he said finally, indicating the snappy repartee was about over,
"I assume Dean Ceppaglia has described the nature of the assignment?"

"You need someone with expertise in the martial arts and Japanese
culture to develop some descriptive material for an art exhibit being
run by a potential donor.  I don't see a problem, sir."

"Yes."  Something shutter like flickered in Domanova's eyes.  "You
understand that remuneration will be arranged with the client and not
the university?"  I nodded, but I don't think he was even watching for
the prompt.  The presidential close was coming.  "Fine.  My secretary
will provide you with the name of the individual.  Good day."

And just like that, it was over.  He shot back into his seat and
whirled away to gaze out the window.  Like posing for a portrait:
Brooding Intellectual Surveys His Domain.  The afternoon sun lit up his
craggy face and the shoulders of his expensive suit.  For a university
president, he had an awful lot of dandruff.

The name in the file I got from the president's office was Robert
Akkadian.  The martial arts universe is not that large, so I had heard
of him.  Akkadian, or Bobby Kay as he was known on the street, had been
an early promoter on the New Ifork karate tournament scene.  He saw the
business potential in the arts.  Over twenty or so years he had
gradually gotten his fingers into every piece of the martial arts pie
he could.  He was doing pretty well by now.  I was surprised that he
was rubbing elbows with Domanova, given his semi sleazy origins.

Then again, as the Chinese say, money has no smell.

Akkadian had gone upscale, with an office in Manhattan that was part of
his Samurai House art gallery.  I strode through the glass doors off
the street and entered the lobby.  It featured an eight-foot waterfall
splashing down a black rock face.  The waterworks bifurcated the lobby
into two halves one devoted to the gallery and the other to offices.  I
wandered over to the right to the office suite area.  It was sedate,
with muted tans and greens, bleached wood wainscoting, and
appropriately innocuous prints that Westerners would think of as
vaguely Asian in character.  The receptionist was blonde, with that
shiny, brittle look you get from spending too much time worrying about
how well your cheekbones are showing.  She gave me a smile, though, and
ushered me into Akkadian's office.

Bobby had a horsey face and a mane of longish hair that looked like it
was dyed to match the expensive camel-hair jacket he was wearing.  His
office was dominated by an expanse of U-shaped desk with the cyclops
monolith of the desktop computer squatting in the corner every modern
executive's little electric shrine.

The desk surface was uncluttered.  Some papers were fanned out in front
of his chair the way a magician spreads out a deck of cards before
beginning the act.  I wouldn't have been surprised to find out they
were glued together to make that display.  The whole office didn't
really feel like it was an actual work site.  It had all the qualities
of a replica showroom labeled "Important Executive."

The Important Executive came around to greet me.  "Hello, Professor,
thanks for coming by."  He shook my hand and I noticed him taking a
look at it.  I was probably something of a disappointment.  I'm not
really big and I don't look particularly dangerous.  Akkadian was
checking to see whether I had the signs of hand conditioning you see in
some karate students: enlarged knuckles, calluses, etc.  My fingers are
a bit thick.  Weird muscles have also developed in my forearms, but the
only sign of advanced training in my hands is the bulge in the web
between my thumb and forefinger I've developed from all the sword work
with Yamashita.

He motioned me to a small sitting area of low chairs and we sat.  Bobby
and I chatted pleasantly, mostly about his experience training and deep
love for the martial arts.  He knew something of my background and I
talked a bit about Yamashita.

"You know," he smiled, "despite appearances, the Manhattan martial arts
scene is a pretty small world."

I nodded.  "Seems that way sometimes."

"But I don't hear much about Yamashita Sensei," he commented.  Which
was true.  My teacher is almost as secretive as he is selective.  "It
would be fantastic to be able to visit the dojo.  He really sounds
impressive."

The subject of visitors was not one I cared to bring up with my teacher
just now.  I smiled noncommittally and nodded again.  I noticed I was
doing a lot of it lately.  After a while I said, "I hope I can be of
some help to you.  You need some PR pieces done for a sword exhibit?"

That got him back on track.  "Yeah.  Let me show you what we've got
planned."  He gestured me toward the desk.  It looked like it was made
of marble.

We wandered over to the desk and he pushed the fan of papers to one
side.  To my surprise, they actually were unconnected.  He ruined the
display effect, but the creature outside would probably come in later
and restore it.  "I've managed to get some fantastic blades for this
show.  You would not believe what a pain the Japanese have been about
letting this stuff out of the country.  The security bond alone is
killing me."

He opened a manila file and spread out some papers.  "What I'm putting
together, Professor Burke, is a display of rare Japanese weapons, all
of which have a documented association with some of the most famous
warriors in martial arts history."

I looked at one sheet of paper.  It listed a series of weapons types,
descriptions of individual pieces, and estimated value.  There were
katana the long sword of the samurai as well as short swords and
knives, the spears known as yari, and naginata long poles with wicked
curved blades used to hack riders out of the saddle.  They would
interest any martial arts freak, but what was really fascinating were
the names of the original owners of these items.

"Wow," I said, looking at the list.

Akkadian looked pleased, "You bet.  Some of these pieces are being
allowed out of Japan for the first time.  Some of them, as a matter of
fact, are already here.  And every one of them linked to famous
warriors."

He read aloud from the list: "Yagyu Munenori, Yamaoka Tesshu," he
paused significantly, then continued, "... Miyamoto Musashi."

I could feel Bobby eyeing me for a reaction.  He's famous, but Musashi
had never been one of my favorites.  He's known as the "sword saint,"
but it was a funny kind of sainthood.  He was a minor
seventeenth-century samurai whose single-minded pursuit of dominance in
swordsmanship carried him through untold duels.  Musashi pioneered the
simultaneous use of two swords in

Japanese swordsmanship but often faced his opponents armed with nothing
but a wooden weapon.  Once he used a carved-down boat oar.  Whatever
weapon he used, the results were always the same: a crumpled form in
the dirt and Musashi stalking away, never satisfied, always hungry for
another opponent.  He always struck me as a man with something to
prove.

He's known today for writing A Book of Five Rings, a treatise on
strategy in swordsmanship.  It's been touted as some sort of major work
on strategy for today's businessmen, and deluded MBA students read it,
thinking a tough merger negotiation is the twentieth-century equivalent
of a sword duel.  The dust jacket claims it's the secret guide to
strategy for Japanese executives, but if you go to Japan, it's hard to
come by and only antiquarians are familiar with it.

But I had to admit that it was a brilliant move.  The weapons assembled
were bound to draw a crowd.

Which was pretty much how he laid it out and where I came in.  Bobby
was a bit of an egotist, but he was also shrewd enough to know what he
didn't know.  A show like this would have martial artists as well as
scholars coming out of the woodwork.  Some in both groups would be
lunatics, but a significant number would be fairly well informed.  As a
result, Bobby needed to make sure that his display hype was
historically accurate.  He could have tried to get some reputable name
to do it, but Bobby was not really connected with those circles.

Domanova, like a shark smelling blood in the water, had sensed that
Bobby was rapidly emerging as a successful and wealthy entrepreneur in
search of some respectability.  If I could do Bobby a favor on the
cheap, the relationship with Domanova would grow and everyone would be
happy.  The president would give him a patina of respectability.  Bobby
would be slowly courted and stroked you could imagine the dorsal fins
circling and eventually cajoled into making a sizable donation to the
university.

It was a very finely choreographed dance where need, ego, money, and
illusion swirled together.  In higher education they call it
"institutional development."

I don't pretend to understand all that, but my role in the process was
pretty straightforward.  Bobby called in his shiny receptionist to make
copies of the documents in the folder and asked me to come up with some
stuff on the different historical figures and their role in Japanese
warrior culture.  "Nothing too complicated, now, Professor," he
reminded.  "A little blood, a little guts, a little budo..."  he
grinned at me with that long horse face and I felt the urge to grin
back.  Bobby was not my kind of person, but it was hard not to respond
to someone who was so obviously having so much fun.

"You ever been to Samurai House before, Mr.  Burke?"  I shook my head
and he headed for the door, giving me a "come along" jerk of the
head.

"I've been working on this place for years.  Started as an Asian
antique center.  Ydu know vases, lacquer screens, that kind of stuff. I
got a sense, though, that this martial arts thing was going to be big.
So over time, I've been adding things a mail-order house here, videos,
a gallery for traveling displays ..."

"Diversification," I commented.

He smiled.  "It's a beautiful thing.  My latest thing is the training
and exhibition hall.  Check it out."

The office suite was tucked away in a corner of the business part of
the complex.  From the other side of the lobby waterworks, you entered
the public area through large wood doors that matched all the furniture
in the office suite.  On this side, instead of an office reception
area, there was a rock garden, you walked around it and could then
access the training and exhibition hall.  "Some of the stuff's in there
now," Bobby said as we walked past the garden.  "Got a special security
detail to watch it."

We went in through those sliding paper screen doors the Japanese call
shop.  The dojo was bright and airy, with a good, hardwood floor and
tasteful decorations.  Of course, in a real dojo there are no
decorations, but this was America.  I had seen worse a lot of people
fill their schools with all kinds of Asian schlock and they end up
looking like bad Chinese restaurants.

He watched me as I took a look around.  "Pretty nice, huh?"

I had to admit that Bobby (or his interior designer) had done a good
job.  It was impressive.  "Looks like you've got it all figured out," I
commented

He grinned again, "you bet.  And, as a perk, I get to work out here."

"You still train?"  I asked.  What with all the diversification.

"I try to keep my hand in," he said with the false-modest smirky kind
of reply people use in the martial arts when they want you to
understand that they are good.  "I'm training with this guy now; he's
incredible."

Bobby glanced at his watch.  Was that alligator for the band?  "As a
matter of fact, it's about time for my workout.  Would you care to
watch?"

And on cue, Mitch Reilly walked in to the dojo.

In street clothes he looked almost normal, although the tight polo
shirt stretched across his torso gave the impression that this was a
man who spent a great deal of time lifting weights and looking at
himself in the mirror.  He probably got along pretty well with Bobby's
receptionist.  Reilly came up short when he saw us and glared at me for
a minute.

"Mitch," I said, just to annoy him.

He looked at Akkadian.  "What's going on here, Bobby?"

Bobby Kay did not get where he is by being dense.  He looked at me,
then at Mitch, and realized that what he had here were two unstable
elements in very close proximity.  He moved in so he was at least
partly between us.  "Professor Burke is doing some consulting for the
gallery.  I didn't realize you knew each other."

"It's a brief acquaintance," I noted.

Mitch muttered something under his breath.  It sounded like
"asshole."

Bobby didn't pick that up.  "I had just invited him to watch our
workout."

Reilly bristled.  "I don't like outsiders watching me train, Bobby."
Akkadian looked a bit put out.

I jumped in.  "It's OK, Mr.  Akkadian.  Maybe some other time."  I held
up the file he gave me.  "I'll get to work."  For a minute, I had the
urge to tell him to get someone else for his trainer.  But, hey, he was
hiring me to do some writing, not to manage his business affairs.

As I walked out, Bobby Kay looked a bit disappointed.  But I figured he
wasn't half as disappointed as he would have been if I told him the
last time I saw Mitch Reilly, Yamashita had knocked him out and Mitch
had wet his pants.

FOUR

Trails

Owl's Head Park is in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and looks out over the
Narrows leading into New "fork Harbor.  It's one of the few parts of
the borough left where you can still see how hilly it was before all
that building effectively erased any of the land's texture.  Every
morning I run up the hill in Owl's Head, down the other side, and onto
the pedestrian walk that borders the choppy gray water that churns
between Brooklyn and Staten Island.  It was almost summer, and I was
praying for an offshore breeze.  They built a sewage treatment plant
right near the park in a fit of excellent urban planning and now it
pretty much smells like you think it would.  It helps when the breeze
blows in from the ocean.

Yamashita's a big believer in running.  He thinks it aids the
cardiovascular fitness of his advanced students, and he's right.  Once
you get to a certain level in martial arts training, the physical
effort sort of peaks out and technique takes over.  What makes a novice
collapse in a sweaty heap, gasping for breath, does not have the same
effect on you.  But Yamashita insists that we stay fit, which means
some sort of cross-training.

One of his favorite stones is the one about the American who goes over
to Okinawa to live out a life-long dream of training with this karate
master.  The guy gets there for his first day of training and the
master asks him, "What's the best self-defense technique?"

The American is pretty pleased with himself because he knows the
answer.  "Run away, Sensei," he says.

The old master nods sagely.  "Good."  Then, he adds, "Start running."

The American is absolutely perplexed.

The master repeats.  "Start running.  If I can catch you, I will beat
you up."

And off they go, the student tearing down the street, running for his
life, while this ancient karate teacher chugs relentlessly after him.

I'm not even sure whether the old guy catches the student, but
Yamashita thinks it is tremendously entertaining.  Like most things he
tells us, the story has a point: a good martial artist needs to stay in
shape.

So I run.

I hate running, even after all this time.  I use it as an exercise in
concentration and breath control.  I tend to make up little chants to
keep time with the flopping of my sneakers.  I know the scientifically
engineered, dayglow, roll bar-equipped and heel-cup-enhanced
productions I wear are more properly referred to as running shoes, but
I grew up calling them sneakers and I like to keep the memory alive.
When I was a kid, you rooted around for these things in bins that
smelled like inner tubes and contained hundreds of mismatched pairs.
They cost seven bucks then, which is why I have a minor stroke every
time I buy new ones today.

Mostly, I use the rhythm of exercise as an aid to thinking.  It helps
focus me, like the repetitious chants used in Shinto ceremonies that
are believed to get the attention of the spirits.  And, of course, when
I think, I'm no longer dwelling on how much I hate running.

All the research I had been doing made me think about Yamashita, the
closest I had ever come to a true master.  I had presented myself to
him years ago, with formal written recommendations from highly
respected teachers.  I knelt on the wood floor in the formal position,
bowed, and offered him the neatly brushed testimonials with both hands,
which is a sign of respect.  I waited.

I knew that there was something missing from the training I had
received up to that point.  It was a quiet but insistent urging.  My
teachers could see it in me, revealed in my technique: it's hard to be
focused when you're craning your neck to see around a bend.  Whatever I
was looking for, they knew they couldn't provide it.  It must be a hard
realization for any teacher to come to.  So they passed me on to a
higher level of intensity.

I knew a bit about Yamashita, even then.  His prowess in swordsmanship,
as a fighter with or without weapons, was grudgingly admitted by the
more mainstream teachers.  Stories about the rigor of his training were
used to scare cocky black belts into a type of humility.  So when I
came before him that day, I looked at him carefully to see what part of
my future was revealed in his form.

He was stocky and about average size for a Japanese man of his age. I'm
not much bigger, but Yamashita radiated a type of power that you could
feel.  His hair was cut so short that from a distance he appeared
totally bald.  His eyes were hard and dark, and the expression on his
face was one of total reserve.  The fingers of his hands were thick and
strong looking as they reached for the introductions I brought.

Yamashita glanced once at me, read the letters, and grimaced.

"So," he said.  "Return tomorrow.  We will see."

You couldn't tell whether he was pleased, annoyed, or optimistic.  And
in the early days of working with him, I despaired of ever finding out.
But over the years, as I passed from one level to another, a subtle
form of communication began to take place.  I don't know whether it was
just that I got more used to the nuances in him, or whether his
training was making me more perceptive, but there it was.  And, as I
persevered on the hard course he charted for me, there were times when
I swear I could see a glint of approval or satisfaction in his eyes.
And just that hint was enough to keep me going.  He was my sensei,
after all.

In the last few days, there had been a subtle increase in the intensity
of training.  Not that things weren't normally pretty intense.  But
there was a pattern, a flow to the logic of what my teacher did.  The
years with him ingrain the pattern in you.  And what we were doing
lately seemed somehow out of synch.  You could sense it in the nature
of his comments to his students, in the stiff set of his back as he
stalked the dojo floor.  I wondered what Yamashita was up to.

Any sensei is a bit mercurial at times they do it to keep you guessing.
Part of the mystery of a really good martial arts teacher is the way in
which you're perpetually surprised by things, kept just slightly off
balance.  I had a karate teacher years ago, and every time I thought,
OK this guy has shown me just about everything he's got, he would waltz
in and do something I had never seen before.  Then he would look at me
like he could read my mind.

Yamashita was a master of this type, but even more so.  You could glean
clues of the inner workings of the man from the comments he would make
after training.  The students sit, row after row of sweaty swordsmen in
dark blue, slowing their breathing and listening to the master.  When
he was pleased, Yamashita would offer parables that reinforced an
important lesson.  At that point in the training session, you're so
used up that the mind is extremely open.  As a result, the stories and
advice are imprinted in your memory in a tremendously vivid way.

But there was none of that lately, just gruff admonitions to train
harder.  In response, each of us came back for more training even
though its purpose was a mystery.

I slogged on in the rhythm of the run, mulling the situation over.
There was nothing to be done.  My teacher would reveal his purpose in
time.  Or not.  It was his choice.  He was the master.  I thought about
something else.

I had finished up Bobby Kay's project.  It was not exactly a brain
teaser.  I e-mailed the file and mailed a disk and a hard copy to him
just in case.  Now I was waiting for the check.  The school semester
was ending.  It was the beginning of the lean season for all part-time
college teachers like me, and Bobby's payment loomed large in my
imagination.  So I made up a little chant that kept my mind off the
sheer boredom of running: Bobby Kay.  Yau must pay.

I was on the hundredth repetition of my little mantra: Bob-by Kay.  You
Must Pay.  It went well with the in and out of my breath.  People were
passing, going the other way, runners or people on mountain bikes, and
I noticed after a while that I was getting some funny looks.  Couldn't
have been the sneakers; they were as high tech as everyone else's.  I
was also pretty sure that I hadn't been actually chanting Bobby's name
out loud.  Then I started to pick up the crunch of car tires slowly
approaching me.

The unmarked cop car came grinding up behind me with its light flashing
and gave me a quick bloop on the siren just for kicks.  I was glad for
the breather.

There were two of them, and they had that cop look about them: faces
that told you everyone is guilty of something, everyone lies.  The
driver was sandy haired with a clipped, military-style mustache.  The
other guy had a shock of dark reddish brown hair with a two-inch white
streak to one side of his widow's peak.  They were in shirts and ties,
which told me they were detectives, "You could eye their shoulder
harnesses and hardware (gun belts being a pain in a car).  I peeked m
the back.  Their sports jackets were neatly folded in the backseat, and
the floors were cluttered with paper wrappers and empty coffee cups.  I
didn't look too hard, though.  Cops get nervous when you appear too
focused.

The drivers window geared down.  I took one look and tried the
time-honored civilian opener.

"What seems to be the problem, Officer?"

The driver eyed me silently, then looked at his partner.  "How
original."

"You don't get conversation like this just anywhere," the guy with the
white streak commented.

Mustache continued.  "Burke."  It was a rhetorical question: they
weren't nosing pedestrians to either side of the path just for fun.
They were looking for someone in particular.  I nodded.

"We're looking for some information.  Could you come with us,
please?"

I knew I hadn't done anything.  But there's something about the Law.  I
got that feeling in my stomach.  Like I had just gotten on an elevator
that suddenly lurched down.

A black guy shot by on some in-line skates.  "Hey man," he called,
"don't let them roust you without ID.  Could be anyone down here, know
what I'm saying?"  He had turned around to deliver this advice, skating
backward.  A few bicyclists swerved madly out of his way, and he spun
forward and rolled on without giving us another look.

"I suppose I should ask for some ID."  I'm not proud about some things:
I took the skater's advice.

The driver made a show of patting himself absently and muttered, "Hmmm
... badges ... badges."

His partner chimed in with a really bad Mexican accent.  "Badges?
Badges?  We don't need no stinking badges."  I tried to place it.
Treasure of the Sierra Madrel I always get those bandits mixed up with
the ones from The Magnificent Seven.

They both chortled.  Cop humor.  The driver with the mustache flashed a
detective's shield.

'"You want me up front or in the back?"  I asked.  The sweat was
beginning to pop out now that I had stopped running.  I was hoping all
the crud in the back of the car wouldn't stick to me.

"You sit next to me, Bruce Lee," the driver said.

His partner got out, eased the jackets over and settled into the
backseat.  It was an oddly fastidious motion.  The jackets looked clean
and pressed.  They were the only tidy thing in the vehicle.  I got in,
bumping my knee on the radio console mounted on the dash, and we rolled
slowly down the path until they could exit and we headed back onto the
streets.  No one said anything.  The radio made soft gobbling noises. I
asked if I could roll down my window.  The driver eyed me and, deciding
I wasn't about to make a break for it, rolled it down with the power
console on his left.  I turned to look over my shoulder at the cop with
the white streak.

"So Mick," I asked, "how's Mom?"

My brother, with the inevitability of salmon spawning and other
inherited urges, was the latest product of the Brooklyn Irish diaspora
who had flowed in childhood to Long Island and ebbed back home to the
NYPD.  He had been a rambunctious kid.  He grew into a quiet adult who
seemed to smother some deep, unanswerable anger and keep it under
control only with a minute by minute exertion of willpower.  He's like
a lot of cops I know: a basically good guy who has seen too many bad
things and is baffled, frustrated, and personally affronted by them and
who, at a moment's notice, could go off like a rocket.

The family is mostly relieved he has found a constructive outlet for
his energies.  Micky is generous to his friends, an accomplished
carpenter in his spare time, and a good husband and father.  He also
tends to wander off at family parties and stare vacantly into the
distance while sucking on a Marlboro, seeing things the rest of us
don't.  Or don't want to.

It's a measure of his self-control that he's made detective.  Since he
essentially gets to wander the city with his partner, Art, tracking
down criminals from the mobile trash bin they call a car, and doing it
relatively free of supervision, Micky likes his job and is good at
it.

Art Pedersen is a stockier version of Micky.  He's also a little less
gloomy.  Art gets to play Good Cop most of the time, although I imagine
that when the two of them begin to really work on an interrogation,
it's probably hard for the perp to tell the difference between the Good
Cop and the Bad Cop.  Art is a movie buff, and after years of traveling
together, the two of them have developed this annoying habit of
recycling old lines of film dialogue into their conversation.  They
find it tremendously amusing.  Many criminals, not as steeped in
cinema, find it totally baffling.

Now I was treated to some of their patented charm.  My older brother
didn't rise to the bait of my question.  He just eyed me and said
flatly, "What have you been up to, you moron?"

FIVE

Message

"Nothing much," I replied.  "The teaching, working out."

We were driving on Fourth Avenue, heading north.  This time of morning,
it was a better bet than the Gowanus.  Neither Art nor Micky said much.
They had that smoldering cop silence about them, which was unusual. One
of these guys was my brother, and Art had been his partner for eight
years, so he was no stranger to me either.  But I wasn't getting any
information from either of them.  They drove and watched out the window
as the tired-looking brick of Brooklyn slid by.  Somewhere down these
streets, our parents had roller-skated as children.

""You're a little off the beaten path here, Mick," I said.

"Yeah," he admitted.  Then he began to grope around for a Marlboro.

"Don't you light up one of those things in my car," Art warned him.  He
had quit about two years ago and was slowly, inexorably, forcing Micky
into doing the same.  "You light up in here, we're gonna end up like a
bunch of hams cured in a smokehouse."

"Ah, gimme a break, Art."

"Give ME a break.  Idiot," Art fumed.

"Asshole," Micky mumbled.  It was like listening to a crabby married
couple.  But I noticed that Micky didn't light up.

They also didn't say much about why we were heading over the Brooklyn
Bridge into Manhattan.

Eventually, however, the stop and go of city traffic seemed to shake
something out of them.

"Still doing that martial arts stuff?"  Art asked.

I grinned.  "Oh, yeah.  A deadly weapon."

Micky snorted.  "Some people never learn.  Black belt, no black belt.
No one can dodge a bullet."

"The trick," I said in my best Asian master voice, "is being where the
bullet is not."

Art looked at me like I was insane.

"What's this I hear about you working for Bobby Kay?"  Micky slipped
the question in, but I sat up a little straighter.

"Yeah," I admitted.  "How d'you find that out?"

Art slewed the car around a cab that shot across two lanes without
warning to pluck up a fare, cursed under his breath, and asked, "You
read the paper this morning, Connor?"

"No.  Why?"

Micky was rooting around in the trash in the back and came up with a
copy of the Daily News.  He slapped it onto the seat back between us
and said "Check it out, buddy boy."

The headline read "Kung Fu Killer" with the sort of creative
alliteration I usually associate with the Post.  The crux of the
article was a homicide.  Early this morning, Mr.  Robert Akkadian,
noted entrepreneur, had gone to his Samurai House gallery for a
scheduled early appointment with his personal trainer.  The trainer,
identified as Mitchell Reilly, a martial arts expert, had been found in
Samurai House's performance space, dead of an apparent broken neck.
While NYPD was still investigating the cause of death, the News
speculated it was caused by a "karate chop.  "Theft does not appear to
have been a motive for the killing and the investigation was ongoing.

"Oooh," I said, "a karate chop.  Hence the visit.  Bobby Kay turn me
in, fellas?"

I said it half-kidding, but the response I got was anything but. "Look,
Connor," my brother said, "we just need to talk with you a bit on
this."  Micky wasn't exactly apologetic.  If it bothered him at all to
pick up his own brother for questioning, it didn't show.  Just doing
his job.  The questions were really almost automatic for him by this
time.

"C'mon, Mick.  You don't seriously think I'm a suspect!"  Micky held up
a calming hand.  Art, however, wasn't going to let it go.  Today, he
was Bad Cop.

"Akkadian likes you for it."  There was silence.  "Here's what we've
got, Connor," Art continued.  "The esteemed Mr.  Akkadian, noted
entrepreneur and tough guy wanna-be, gets a call from his janitorial
staff early this A.M. to hightail it to his office.  By the time he
gets there, the uniforms are on the scene stretching yellow tape.  Old
Bob takes a good look around.  Pokes about in his office.  Then he goes
over to the gallery.  He takes one good look and that about does it."

"You mean he said I did it?"  I asked skeptically.

"Well," Art continued, "first he had to stop barfing.  Then he got
cleaned up and started talking.  And ..."

"Presto," Micky concluded, "your name pops up."

I looked from one to the other and couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Here's where we are, Connor," Art went on.  "You doing a job for Bobby
Kay.  Reilly in the mix.  The two of you have some sort of
confrontation.  Some sort of mysterious martial arts stuff.  Mitch
tells Bobby about it.  Day or so later, Mitch turns up dead.  So..."

"So," Micky picked up the thread, "we got Bobby Kay babbling about some
karate-grudge death match.  I personally think it's a crock, but..."

"Motive."  Art held up his hand, index finger pointing up like a DA
making a telling point to a jury.

"Then we got all this 'death touch' hype.  You should read the Post's
version."  Micky was digging around back there looking for it but gave
up after a few seconds.

"So now, Mr.  Martial Arts Expert," Art said, holding up finger number
two, "we got the means."

'"You do anything last night, Connor?  Out with friends?  A date?"

"No."  I got a sinking feeling as Micky ran down the list of
possibilities, trying to see whether I had an alibi.  "I stayed in
grading papers."

"Phone calls?"  I shook my head.

"And," Art said with a flourish, raising finger three, "opportunity."

We came to a halt in front of Samurai House.  There was a police
cruiser on the scene and a cop by the door.

"Hey, come on.  "You guys can't be serious," I protested.

Art let out a long, fuming sigh.  He put a cardboard sign with an NYPD
sticker on the dash and shut the car down.

"Nah," Micky said.  "We'll have to run it down in terms of an
alibi..."

"And you'll have to make a statement... prints, that sort of thing,"
Art added.

"But what we really want is some advice on this one," Micky said as he
climbed out of the backseat.

The three of us stood for a minute, looking at the front of Samurai
House, the chrome and granite looking no worse for wear and the
business of the city flowing past it as if nothing had happened there.
But the cops were coming and going.  Thirty minutes ago, I'd been
running by the shore.  Now I was in a very different world.  Forensic
guys in white coats were taking out little paper bags with stuff in
them.  Radios gabbled.  My T-shirt had dried and my legs had that good,
used feel they get from exertion.  Though I stood there in my hi-tech
sneakers, feeling fit, it didn't do much for my confidence.

Micky tapped me lightly on the shoulder and took me by the arm.  "Don't
worry," he said quietly in a voice I recognized as my brother's. "It'll
be OK."

"Besides," Art concluded, "we're afraid if we tried to take you in,
you'd kill us with your freakin' ninja death touch."

"Be afraid, Art.  Be very afraid."  I used my most menacing voice, but
it was an effort.

Art appeared unimpressed.  "Come on," he said as we walked toward the
door, "you ever been on a crime scene, Connor?"

"No."  I watched Micky dawdle on the pavement, fingering his pack of
cigarettes and wondering whether he could get in a quick smoke.

"One cardinal rule," Art continued.  "OK."  I looked over at him.
"Don't touch anything."

We went in past the uniformed cop, whose eyes briefly refocused as we
approached, but glazed over once the boys flashed their shields.  The
waterfall bur bled with a relentless lack of consideration for the
solemnity of crime.  The plastic yellow crime scene tape was strung
across the scenic little entrance Bobby Kay had showed me with such
pride the other day.  Inside the gallery, the room was empty.  I let
out some air, realizing that I had been holding my breath in
anticipation of having to see the body.

But it was long gone.  There was the taped outline of Reilly's last
earthly location on the floor, but that was about it.  The room was an
empty one to begin with, so there wasn't much to look at.  There were
some small pieces of paper and tape laying around the detritus of the
crime scene people but not much else.

Then I saw the wall.

I could feel their eyes on me, but Micky and Art didn't say much.  It's
a thing cops develop.  They're hunters of a sort.  They learn by
watching and waiting.  They were both very still.

I did a double take and moved slowly toward the wall and what was
written there.  It must have been done with one of those thick magic
markers.  The black strokes had none of the esthetics of brushwork, but
they were well formed and confident, nonetheless.  It was calligraphy
of a type.  I had seen the characters before.

"Oh, man," I murmured.

"Can you read that, Connor?"  Micky asked.

"Lookin for a translation.  We got a call in for a PD liaison from
Chinatown, but no luck yet," Art added in explanation.

I turned to look at them.  "You sure this wasn't here before?  Not part
of Kay's show?"

Art flipped through his notebook.  "No such luck.  This wall was set to
have a display hung on it and was painted last week."

"We're assuming whoever got in here and nailed the victim did it,"
Micky added.  "No trace of the magic marker, right?"  He looked at Art,
who shook his head.  Micky ran a hand through his white streak and
squinted at me.  Our Dad used the same expression: a squint created
from a lifetime of looking at the world through the smoke from a Lucky
Strike.  "So, can you read it?"

"Oh, I can read it," I said.

"What's it say?  "They asked in unison.

I looked from one to the other.  A uniformed cop drifted closer to
eavesdrop.  "Fellas," I said, "let's get a cup of coffee."

We ended up in a diner, hunched over the table in a booth near the
back.  The waitress wandered over, a Pyrex in hand, and topped up our
cups.

"Thanks, that's it," Art said to her.  She looked disappointed that he
didn't ask for donuts, but Art struggled manfully against stereotype.

Then they sat there and simply looked at me with the flat expectancy of
their profession.

"What you've got here," I lectured, "is a message in Japanese.  It
says, "I am here."  "

"Ooh.  Ominous," my brother said.

"What's really interesting is that the note is signed."  I dipped my
finger in the coffee cup and drew the characters we had seen from the
wall on a napkin.  "The characters read ro-run.  Translates as 'wave
man.""

"Sailor?"  Art suggested.

"Hmmm.  Surfer?"  Micky countered.

"Psycho surfer," Art grinned, happy with the sound of it.

"Guys," I said, trying to rein them in a bit, "in feudal Japan, a
warrior without a master to serve was called a ronin, wave man.  He was
adrift, without moorings, without social place."

"Like Palladin," Micky said, eyeing Art.

"Have Gun Will Travel."  Art, more than equal to the task, barely
missed a beat.

"Well, yeah," I admitted, "although it doesn't have quite the same
attraction for the Japanese.  A ronin was an essentially tragic figure.
In Japan, your identity is bound up with the group.  The individual
outside group boundaries is an outcast.  He has no status.  In stories
about a ronin, it usually doesn't end well for him."

Art snapped his fingers and pointed across the formica.  "Like
Shane."

"Well, yeah," I said, "but Americans tend to romanticize the gunslinger
story.  It pops up everywhere.  Cowboy flicks.  Private-eye flicks. Cop
flicks.  Same story, different costumes.  The lone fighter is heroic
for us, not really tragic."

"I think Shane pretty well captured the tragic aspect," Art began as a
protest.

"So, what's that got to do with offing this Redly guy-" Micky wanted to
get to the point before Art digressed into the lesser known works of
Jack Palance and Alan Ladd.

"Hey, you're the detectives," I countered.  "Detect."

"What we have here ..."  Art began.

Micky picked up the thread.  "Is a murder in the public space of an art
gallery specializing in Asian objects related to all that martial arts
stuff you do."

"Victim appears to have been done in without an apparent weapon," Art
added.

"Then again, the perp could have used a pipe and taken it with him."
Micky nodded as he mulled over his own statement, looking at Art
expectantly.

His partner nodded in agreement.  "We'll check with the M.E."s report.
Pipe.  Club.  Cosh.  It got done.  We'll see if they pick up anything
from the autopsy that IDs a weapon."

"You mean like splinters or stuff?"  I asked.

"Yeah."  But he waved it away.  "Now the graffiti.  Here's a new
wrinkle.  What's that all about?"

"People who sign their work, they want to be known," Micky pointed out.
"Even with an alias."

"Yeu don't think this was just a robbery gone bad?"  I said.

"Connor," my brother explained slowly, as if to a simpleton.  "Someone
breaks into an art gallery.  They take ..."  he raised his eyebrows,
waiting for the answer.

"Well, art, I guess," I replied.

guess right.  "Vbu don't thread an electronic alarm system in midtown,
go through all that planning, knock someone off, and take ... what?" He
looked at Art for confirmation.

"Nothing of any real value.  Nada.  Zip."  He consulted his notes and
quoted, "A personal inventory by Mr.  Akkadian confirms nothing missing
except an old wooden sword that formed a minor part of the display."

Micky nodded.  "No thief is gonna act like that.  Akkadian had tons of
valuable stuff in there."  Micky seemed outraged by the ineptness.

I sat, digesting this, and Art followed up.  I think they were both
secretly enjoying lecturing to me.  "And, if something goes wrong and
you have to knock some heads, you tend to boogie outta there quick,
your basic thief doesn't whip out the old magic marker and do Chinese
graffiti all over the place instead of stuffing valuables into a
sack."

"So what do you mean?  What happened?"  I asked.

Micky answered me.  "This wasn't a smash and grab sort of thing."

"Maybe just a smash," Art said.  I guessed he had seen the body before
they came to fetch me.

"This is some weird, hokey murder," my brother said.  "And that 'roniri
shit is the clue."

"Guy like this," Art said, "is gonna leave a trail.  And a trail..."

"Is just what two ace bloodhounds like us need," Micky said.

That seemed to do it for them.  They drained their cups and headed out.
Art paid the cashier, and Micky provided a running commentary as we
headed out to the car, double-parked out front.

"We'll run a check.  Connor, we'll need a statement.  Compare your
prints with any latents the lab people picked up.  They won't match and
you'll be cleared.  Then, we see if there are reports with similar MOs.
Shouldn't be hard to spot.  The newspaper clippings alone should stick
out a mile."

"Martial mayhem."  Art offered.

"Samurai slaying."

"Psycho Samurai Slaying."

And off we went.  This time, I had to sit in the back.

sIX

An Open and Shut Case

Progress has pretty much ruined everything.  When Micky and Art invited
me back to the squad room, I had all those B-movie images of where cops
work lodged in my brain: dark and dingy rooms crammed with untidy
desks, choked with cigarette smoke, and smelling of old coffee and
stale sweat.

In reality, Micky and Art shared the wall of contiguous cubicles in a
brightly lit, cavernous area made mazelike by the portable half-walls
that divided up the space.  Phones didn't ring; they chirped.  There
were even faxes in plain view, along with prominently displayed "No
Smoking" symbols.  Despite my disappointment, there were some
comforting links with the past.  The room was littered with coffee
cups: anonymous Styrofoam ones, others with the very popular blue Greek
motif, upscale types made of paper sporting various brand names, and
even some ceramic mugs of the kind people get at conventions or as
gifts from other people with no real clue about what to buy as
presents.

The surface illusion of order and neatness was somewhat damaged when I
got escorted to Micky's cubicle.  Cartons awash in folders and
dos-eared documents were shoved beneath the

desk.  Little slips of paper were tucked under blotters, half-empty
coffee cups, and anything else remotely heavy.  Art was on the phone,
standing up and peering over the wall that divided him from us,
murmuring "uh huh, uh huh" into the receiver and taking notes.  His pen
ran out of ink.  He grimaced and snapped his fingers at Micky while
throwing his dead pen in the trash.  Micky opened a drawer that was
crammed with paper and rummaged through a pile of ballpoints with
mismatched caps, tossing one to Art.

"Excuse me," I said as I approached, "is this 22 IB Baker Street?"

Art sat down, rolled his chair out, and swiveled in it to eye me
briefly.  Micky pulled some paperwork off a chair and gestured for me
to sit.  Art hung up the phone.

I eyed him expectantly.

"Nah," he shook his head, "nothing.  Other case."

He thumbed through some pages of notes in his little book.  Art had
thick, freckled hands and his fingers made the book look tiny.  "OK,"
he said, "Connor's landlady confirms his statement that he was home the
night of the murder.  She heard him come in and various noises in the
apartment for most of the evening.  Seems to corroborate his
statement."

Micky raised his eyebrows.  "Noises?  Way to go, bro."

"Don't get too excited, Mick, it's a two-family house.  I live upstairs
and the floors creak."

"Yeah, well.  One less thing to worry about."

"Which is nice," Art said, " 'cause there's a shitload of other stuff
to wade through here."

"What," I said, "you've got something?"

They swung their chairs to face me at almost exactly the same time.  I
felt left out because my chair had no wheels.  Then they looked at each
other.

"To the Batcave," they said together.

I followed them out of the cubicle and into a conference room, thinking
that they really were seeing too much of each other.

It had only been a few days since Reilly's murder, but in that short
time the investigation's paperwork had ballooned.  Art and Micky both
hauled various boxes, manila envelopes, files, and VCR tapes to the
Batcave.  It was pretty state of the art for cops, a carpeted
conference room with a computer hooked up to a projector, a TV VCR
unit, and a large oval table.  They dumped the stuff at one end and
began sorting it, rooting around and grunting at each other like apes
contentedly working a grub nest.

I sat and watched the process, waiting until they were ready.  Finally,
Micky popped a tape in the TV The sound kicked in and it was some cop I
didn't know narrating the examination of the crime scene.  Date and
time were automatically displayed, but he went through the motions
anyway, identifying the location, the hour and day, and the fact that
Art and Micky were the investigating officers.

The camera panned carefully around the room, noting entrances, windows
(there were none), lighting and alarm controls, orienting the viewer.
Then it carefully focused on the floor where Reilly lay.

The camera panned over the body.  Reilly's form was like something
discarded.  It had the shape and dimension of a human being, but it was
just flopped there on the floor, a heap, without any of the sense of
connection you get from looking at a person at rest.  The left shoulder
looked droopy and it was obvious from the face that Reilly had taken a
major blow to the head.  What looked like an oak sword was pinned under
the body.

Micky shoved some still photos across the table: Reilly from various
angles.  "OK," he began.  "So much for cinema.  Mitchell Reilly, aged
forty-two.  Casual employee of Samurai House.  Ran a martial arts
school in Queens.  Some minor stuff as a juvenile, nothing on the
record for the last twenty years or so."

"Saved for clean living by the martial arts?"  I asked.

Art snorted.  "Saved for the coroner's office."

"Doesn't matter," Micky said.  "No apparent problems in his life that
would suggest he was anything but a guy who got in the way here."

"We put an end to that grudge match thing, by the way," Art said. "Once
we squeezed Akkadian, we got to the bottom of it.  Anyway," he
continued, "we told Bobby Kay that you were clean."

"What was his reaction?"  I asked.

"He seemed like his mind was on other things," Micky commented.  "He
did say that he never really thought it was you; you seemed OK."

"Yeah," I said, "I seemed so OK he couldn't wait to finger me for
murder."

Art waved it away.  "It happens."  Then he picked up the thread, "Time
of death is estimated somewhere between two-thirty and six-thirty

A.M."

"Is that significant?"

Micky made a face.  "There's a four-hour margin of error in this stuff.
He was found at around seven-thirty in the morning, so it doesn't tell
us much that we didn't already know."

"Deceased suffered a number of fractures, including a cranial blow that
might have killed him," Art continued.

"Do you know what did it?"  I was trying to remain as clinical as they
were, but my eyes kept drifting to the frozen video and the stills on
the table.

"Cellulose fragments from his shirt and scalp suggest the weapon was
wood of some type; we haven't got it fixed yet."

"Let me ask," I said.  "Reilly suffered a number of fractures.
Collarbone?"

They nodded.

"The head wound is obvious.  Any sign of damage to the right wrist or
forearm?"

Micky consulted the M.E."s report.  "No breaks that are noted.  Did
seem to have taken some bangs there, though."

It figured.  I got up and shut the TV off so I could concentrate
better.

"OK," I continued, "so Mitch Reilly is in the Samurai House guarding
Bobby Kaye's exhibit.  He got let in when?"

"Building shuts down about eleven.  Lobby security logged the cleaners
out and Reilly in at ten P.M. Reilly activated the Samurai House alarm
and buttoned up for the night.  There's no lobby security presence
until five-thirty A.M."

"Custodial shift comes in at seven," Art said.  "Secretary at
seven-thirty.  She takes a quick look in the gallery and all hell
breaks loose."

"She screamed so loud, the guards spilled their coffee," Micky said.
"They were very upset."

"So how'd the murderer get in?"  I asked.

Micky snorted.  "That's the easy part."

"Yeah," Art said.  "Reilly let him in."

Reilly lay sprawled there in the photo with the bug-eyed look of head
wounds and offered no clue to me as to why he let his killer in.

"What we need to know is whether you've got any insights into what
happened," Micky prompted.

I nodded.  "This thing wedged under the body, do you have it?"  "Sure."
Art pulled another photo out of an envelope.

My first impression was right.  It was a bokken.

"Murder weapon?"  I asked.

"Nah.  We're pretty certain it was Reilly's weapon," Micky said.

"What makes you so sure?"

"He carved his initials in the butt end."

"Then again," Art countered, "letters could stand for "Master
Robin.""

"Murder Rampage," Micky suggested.

"Mister Roberts," Art offered.

I cut them off in mid-flow, "One of his students can probably identify
it as Reilly's."

They seemed somewhat put out, and just stared at me.

Art shook his head and went on.  "We're looking at fragments in his
wounds.  We can't type the wood yet."

"Wood of the murder weapon could be a lot of things," I said.  "That
thing looks like oak.  You can also have the forensic guys check
hickory.  It's commonly used for bokken.  If they really want to get
exotic, they can try loquat."

Art looked at Micky and silently mouthed the question "Loquat?"  Micky
shrugged.

"The wounds seem fairly consistent with the kind of damage you might
get if two people went at each other with wood swords," I said

"How'd you figure the collarbone break?"  Art asked me.

"Ydu can see a little extra slump in the shoulder," I pointed out,
spreading the different still shots out and pointing it out in each.
"It's also a pretty easy bone to snap if you hit it right.  In kenjutsu
swordsmanship there's a pretty common strike that would do that.
Kesagiri.  Means 'scarf cut."  "

"Wouldn't that mean a cut to the throat?"  Art was paging through the
M.E."s report as I spoke, looking for details that would support or
challenge my interpretation.

I shook my head.  "Buddhist monks wore a large scarf draped from the
left shoulder diagonally across their body.  The cut was supposed to
follow that line."

"Charming."

"Yeah, well.  It's a basic technique, and if you do it with a blade,
you can cut someone almost in half.  With a wood sword, you would most
probably break the clavicle.

"Now, if Reilly also had sustained some damage to his right wrist," I
looked inquiringly to Art, who nodded, "he would have a hard time using
the sword, you need two hands to use it well.  With his clavicle
busted, Reilly would have been in big trouble.  You could use a real
blade one-handed, but a bokken would not be very effective."

"So what are you saying?"  Micky asked.

"I think this guy had a duel with someone using a wooden weapon.  The
murderer could have been using a sword or a staff or a bunch of other
weapons, but it seems like this was someone with some training."

"A duel?"  Art was incredulous.

The light went on in Micky's head.  He pointed at Art, snapping his
fingers.  "Sure, sure.  Bobby Kay wasn't too far off the mark.  Reilly
sets it up ahead of time, lets the guy in for the big showdown.
Otherwise, why carry around a stick?"

Art nodded.  "Maybe."  He looked at me.  "This Reilly know what he was
doing?"  I nodded.  "OK.  So he's no virgin."  He thought a bit and
said, almost to himself, "Been around the block a few times.  Knows the
cardinal rule of weapons."

"What's that?"  I was curious.

"Contrary to all that Asian less-is-more crap you've been listening
to," Micky said, "with weapons, more is more."

"Or," Art said, "to phrase it with some more elegance, "Never bring a
knife to a gun fight.""

"So, if Reilly's carrying a stick ..."  Art began.  "It's a bokken" I
corrected.  "Yeah, whatever," Micky said.

"... then it must have been on purpose.  Redly knew someone was co mine
and he knew he would need the sword."

"But, he got in over his head," Micky said.  "A pop here, a pop there,
the rest is history."

"What's the motive?"  Art asked.

"Man, I'd be a lot happier if we had a theft here," Micky suggested.

"Yeah," Art nodded, "but if it was just a smash and grab with a little
witness cleanup attached, the whole sword thing seems a bit elaborate,
ya know?"

"I thought we agreed robbery wasn't the motive," I suggested.  Micky
and Art turned to look at me.

"What you tend to find, Connor," Art explained, "is that motives tend
to be a mishmash of things."

I shrugged and went on.  "Maybe here the duel itself was the murderer's
real interest.  This wasn't a robbery scheme that didn't come off.
Maybe the killer got what he came for."

They chewed on that quietly for a minute.  Then Art looked at Micky.
"Burke, your people are weird."

"Look," I said, "whoever did this was trained.  From what I hear,
Reilly was pretty good."

Micky rolled his eyes toward the photos.  "Not as good as he thought he
was."

"No one's as good as they think they are," Art commented.

Art had never met Yamashita, but I let it go.

"Besides, if someone used Reilly to get into the Samurai House to rob
it and then planned on killing him, don't you think they would have
brought something fairly lethal along?"  I asked.

"Looks like they did," Art said.  He had a point.  One way or the
other, the man was dead.

I got back to my idea about the killing.  "I mean that they would have
brought a real weapon, Art, not a wooden replica of some
sixteenth-century sword from halfway around the world.  With these
things, you're essentially bludgeoning someone to death.  Look at him
lying there."

They both eyed the photos.

"Reilly was an expert.  If you had your choice, would you go three
rounds with him?"

Micky shook his head.  "Not even on a good day.  In my prime."

Art laughed.  "Like you ever had a prime."

"Seriously, guys."

"Nah, you're right."  Art's eyes were narrowed as he sat and thought.
"Typical MO would be to gain access in the middle of the night, get the
stuff, and then point off to a corner and say, "Hey Reilly, check it
out."  He turns to look, and pow!  A nine-millimeter in the back of the
head.  Simple."

"A little hard on the carpet, though," Micky said.

The two men exchanged glances, suddenly aware of new possibilities.

"In each life," Art commented in rounded tones with a raised finger, "a
little brain must fall."

"If theft were the primary motive, the methodology would be ... what?"
I had seen the glint in my brother's eyes and was trying to head off
their usual routine.

"Get in and get out," Micky said.

Art jumped in.  "But here, the perp chooses a time when someone's
around.  And there's this duel."  He looked at me.  "The M.E."s report
says this guy took some beating.  How long you think it took?"

"It's hard to say," I commented.  "Theoretically it could have been
over quickly.  It depends on the skill levels involved."

"Was Reilly highly skilled?"  he prompted.

"He was pretty good," I admitted.

"Lots of lividity on the arms and torso.  Looks like the victim put up
quite a fight," Art said.  "So this did not go down quickly."  He
paused and looked down at some of the still photos.  Then he fished out
a sheet of paper.  "Here's the report from the shrink liaison."  He
glanced at me and answered the look on my face.  "We got a revolving
group of forensic psychiatrists on call, you get a murder like this, we
use 'em for profiling."

"Any good?"  I asked them.

Art squinted and looked at the wall like he was focusing on something
in the distance.  "Depends on the case," he said noncommittally

Micky snorted.  "They're all a fucking pain in my ass."

Art just read the pieces of the report out loud.

" "What we have here," the good doctor concludes, 'is an elaborate
killing.  It took some time.  It was carefully thought out and
carefully executed.""

"Nice pun," Micky said.

Art didn't rise to the bait.  He just droned on: " "The elaborate
methodology, the apparent absence of other motives, the almost...
ritual... staging.  While the identity of the killer cannot be
determined

"There's a news flash," Micky commented.

Art didn't bat an eye.  " "The profile is a male, between the ages of
twenty-one and forty."" He looked up at me.  "This is the profile of
most murderers, Connor.  So far, these guys are not impressing me."  He
scanned the next sheet.  "Ooh, wait, there's more.  "The killer is
intelligent, probably highly so ...""

"Unlike the writer of this report," my brother snickered.

"Doesn't stand out in a crowd.  Quiet, polite ... even affable."  " I
looked from one to the other to get their reaction.  They looked like
they had heard it all before.

"Aha!"  Art called.  "Here it is... "Somewhere in this man's past... in
his childhood ... behaviors of this type generated as a response to a
life event... systematic abuse of some sort... often sexual.""

"Thank God they got that in.  I was beginning to worry," Micky said.

"There's more, Mick.  Lemme see... "Deep-seated feeling of
insecurity... spawns a pathological need to exert control.  The more
intense the need, the greater the response."" He looked up again.
"These jokers wet their pants over serial killers," Art explained.

"I sort of get that impression," I said.

"Which is all well and good," Micky interrupted.  "But every time I
visit the morgue, I got shrinks spinning these theories about
bed-wetting psychos.  Know what?  Most of the time, the person who put
the stiff in the cooler is a friend or a family member, drunk or strung
out.  You know most murderers, Connor, they're not Hannibal Lechter.
They're people who made bad choices, or got their buttons pushed one
too many times, or just took it a little too far."

"You gotta admit the duel thing is a little hinky, Mick," Art said

"Maybe so.  But when it was all over, we're still zippin' someone into
a rubber bag."

That seemed to sum up the situation nicely.

The door opened and another detective stuck his head in.  "Oh.  There
you are.  Art, a call for you from the coast..."

"Ooh, my big break."

Jo

"... homicide guy named Schedel.  Know him?"  Art shook his head no.
"Well, he says you'll want to talk to him."

"Can you transfer it in here?"

The cop looked offended.  "Like I don't have anything to do but hunt
you two morons down," he grumped as the door closed.  "Thanks, Kramer,"
Art called.

Eventually, the state-of-the-art phone purred, a light blinked, and
Art's call got put through.

Which was how we heard about the Ikagi murder.

Detective Schedel, LAPD, gave a recital that was disengaged and
clinical in that way cops have.  Micky had him on speakerphone and the
voice sounded like that of a bored guard coming from somewhere way in
the back of a warehouse.

"Pederson?  I got the message you posted," he began.

Micky looked like he was going to ask something; Art shook his head
silently.

""Vbu asked for anything we might have in the files ..."

"Martial arts related," Art finished.

"Buddy," the voice from the cave said, "this is LA.  I got freaks in
ninja suits falling out of trees."

"The West Coast is like another world," Art agreed.

"Maybe not," Schedel replied.  "You also mentioned a crime scene with
some sort of calligraphy left as a message."

Micky sat up a little straighter in his hi-tech chair.

"What've you got?"  Art prompted.

"Eight days ago, some Jap karate instructor gets the shit ripped out of
him with a jagged stick.  Also something written on the f CO

wall.  In blood."

know what it said?"  Art asked.

"Oh, yeah.  One of the meat wagon guys is up on this kind of stuff.  It
was ..."  You could hear the papers shuffling around on the other
coast, even with the echo.  "OK, I got it.  "Ronin."  Is that what
you're looking for?"

"Bingo," Art answered.  "Where'd you go with the case?"

"The usual," Schedel replied.  "Rousted the Asian gangs.  Talked with
the deceased's family, friends, business associates ..."

"And?"

"And nada.  Nothing.  Zip.  The guy was a straight arrow.  No problems
we could find, and we turned over all the rocks.  Dead end so far."

"Tough," Art said without much conviction.  They were both
professionals and they had a pretty realistic feel for what was
solvable and what wasn't.  Cops knew you cracked a homicide within
forty-eight hours.  After that, the odds got slim.

"Yeah," Schedel continued.  "Look, if you're interested in my notes and
some crime scene shots, I can get 'em to you.  Probably quicker if I
sent it over the Net.  I've got it on disk."  Then his voice grew
confidential.  "Look.  Pedersen?"

"Yeah."

"You turn up anything, let me know.  This was my squeal, but it's on
the way to the cold case file, ya know?"

Schedel hung up.

"What gives Art?"  Micky said.

"I've been fooling around with the Internet at home.  I got on this
secure list serve for homicide departments, and I sent out a
description of what we had to see whether anyone had seen anything like
it."

"So now," I said, "this detective Schedel tells us that we've got a
similar type of murder taking place a few days ago on the other side of
the country."

They both nodded.

Micky was standing and looking at the crime scene photos.  "This
thing," he said, "is getting interesting in a hurry."  "Just one thing,
Connor."  Art said.  "What?"  The two of them looked at each other and
gave me their patented cop look.

"It's still an open case in California.  Don't let Bobby Kay talk to
the LAPD."

sEVEN

Things Not Said

Yamashita couldn't stand it anymore.  "Cut him down," he called
fiercely, as he churned across the floor toward us.  "Cut him DOWN!"

The early morning training session is not heavily attended.  Only the
hard core tend to make it.  As a result, Yamashita is usually a bit
more approachable.

But this morning his mood had altered.  It wasn't a lack of focus,
exactly, but he seemed even more preoccupied.  Yamashita's perception
was normally ratcheted up way above that of normal people.  On days
like today, he would stare off into the distance and seem frozen with
effort, straining to identify the hint of something that was beyond the
threshold of his students to sense.

The nonverbal elements of communication and perception are highly
valued by the Japanese; they prize their ability to grasp the essence
of people and things using methods we can only guess at.  They call
this ability hamgei.  Yamashita has it.  He can cross swords with a
complete stranger and know the skill level of his opponent before
they've begun.  You can argue that it has to do with subtle physical
clues people give off: a look in the eye, posture, breathing rates. The
longer I train, the more I tend to agree.  But there's also more to it
than that.

On days when he's really cooking, it seems as if Yamashita can actually
read your mind.  What's scary is not that he knows what you're going to
do before you do, but that he does it by getting inside you somehow.

I've experienced hints of it.  The feeling is a weird, emotive
certainty that washes up from the base of the neck and creeps over your
scalp.  It is often totally unexpected.  And distracting.

I knew my teacher too well to think that his mood that day was fueled
by anything but this sensation.  I had seen it before.  It was
something he did not speak about.  But, of course, it was possible to
call him back to the reality of heiho.

I had been working with one of the more promising junior students.  We
had been going at it pretty hard and, although the late May morning
wasn't actually hot yet, we were both sweating and constantly adjusting
the grip on our weapons.  He had a hokken.  I was using a short staff
known as a jo, which, at about fifty inches in length, gives you a bit
of a reach over a sword.  Sam was big and fast and good.  He'd come to
us from one of the better kendo schools in the area.  As a result, he
had amazing reflexes, so I needed all the help I could get.  Which was
why I was using the jo.

Far off, just on the edge of my attention, you could hear the sounds of
another Brooklyn Saturday starting.  The day was shaping up to be a
busy one for me, and contemplating the details made my attention
wander, which can be bad.  Like trying to figure out the meaning of the
distant whoop of a car alarm, it's not going to prevent you from
getting cracked across the skull with an oak sword.  I caught myself
drifting and refocused on the task at hand.  I worked with Sam and
evaded a number of strikes that came a bit too close.  It takes a
certain amount of patience to wait for an opening in a situation like
this and I had to force myself to do it.  It finally came, though, and
when the opening appeared I

simply reached out and tapped his wrist lightly and backed away.  Which
was when Yamashita blew in like a small tornado.

"Burke," the sensei demanded, "what are you doing?"

"I had him, Sensei."

"You HAD him?"  he asked incredulously.

"Yes.  "It was over."

Yamashita took a glance at Sam, who was wisely not getting anywhere
near this conversation.

"Burke," my teacher said tightly, "look at Sam.  Does he look like he
has been, as you put it, had?"  Sam looked like a large piece of
granite in a martial arts uniform.  When Yamashita turned to face me,
Sam gave me a mocking grin behind the teacher's back.

"No, Sensei," I answered.

"You must take the opportunity when it comes.  More focus, Burke.  More
spirit.  Project.  Like this."

Yamashita suddenly jerked his whole body toward Sam.  He didn't really
do anything he wasn't carrying a weapon and didn't even raise his hands
but the force of Yamashita's presence made Sam step back in alarm.

"Hmm?  So."  He looked from me to Sam and back again, motioning us to
continue.

We began again while Yamashita glided across the floor, his callused
feet rasping along the wood.  As he headed toward some other trainees
he called out to the ceiling, not even looking at me, "And CUT HIM

DOWN!"

It made the rest of that morning pretty interesting for both Sam and
me.

Afterward, Yamashita brought me up to the living quarters he had in the
loft portion of the dojo.  He wanted to talk.

This is not a common thing with my teacher.  The Japanese are
suspicious of people who talk too much.  But I had mentioned the fact
that I was helping out Micky with the investigation of the Reilly
murder.  The martial arts community was buzzing about it.  I imagined
that the senior sensei would be deeply concerned, but Yamashita's
reaction to my involvement was odd.  It involved a hard narrowing of
the eyes and a set of the mouth that told me I had displeased him in
some way I couldn't fathom.

But when I followed him upstairs, he didn't say much right away.  I sat
down and waited while that little bullet of a man fussed in the kitchen
making coffee.  Oddly enough, Yamashita is a coffee fanatic.  A while
ago, someone signed him up for one of those gourmet mail services for
what they insist on calling "kaffe" and it was all over for Sensei.
Every time he tries to cancel, they offer him some free item to
continue, and he does.  His kitchen is cluttered with mugs with the
company logo, a coffee maker with the brand name on it, and, his latest
addition, a little white ceramic canister to hold his gourmet
grounds.

Then, surrounded by the rich aroma of coffee harvested in one of those
African countries whose name has changed about eight times since 1960,
we sat and I filled him in on the Ronin case.  He listened attentively,
with the very intense focus he brings to things in general.  But once
again, I picked up a sense of agitation and displeasure from him.  It
was subtle and fleeting from a Western point of view, yet there
nonetheless.

He nodded when I was done talking, blinked, and said, "Now, Burke. This
morning showed something you need to pay attention to.  The need for
initiative and follow-through."

"Sensei," I protested, "Sam knew that I got him."

He sipped appreciatively at his mug, then grinned tightly.  "No.  YOU
knew that you got him.  Sam did not."

I started to reply and he held up an open hand in admonition.  "Burke.
I understand that you are at a point when you can anticipate what would
happen and do not feel the need to follow through.  Like a chess
player, yes?"

I nodded.

"You must remember," he went on, "that, in fighting, TWO people are
involved.  Both are very sure that they are the best.  Each thinks he
will win.

"It is a delusion, of course," he went on merrily, "but a necessary one
for a warrior."

His eyes locked on me, even as he sipped from his mug.

"But in a real contest, you must shatter the others confidence.  You
must project your spirit in such a way as to let the other one know he
is defeated.  You cannot wait for him to act.  You must take the
initiative."

"I know that, Sensei, but in training ..."

"You think you are being benevolent.  Permitting the other person to
develop skills.  I understand.  But you are really holding back,
letting the other person exist in a type of delusion.

"Look."  He walked to the table where his katana was nestled in a
polished wooden holder.  The long sword was elegantly simple, an arc of
steel with minimal decoration that said something about the refinement
and seriousness of purpose of its owner.  "I know you have seen this."
The sword came off the rack.

Yamashita pointed to the tsuba, or hand guard.  On some swords, this is
a highly ornamented spot.  For a real swordsman, however, the tsuba is
reduced to its functional essence.  The only ornament on Yamashita's
weapon was a character, etched in the surface of the hand guard that
faced the owner when the sword was held in the ready posture.  The
character was jin, which means "benevolence."

"This is to remind me of my duty," Yamashita said, indicating the
character.  "The warrior's way includes an awareness of when to be
merciful.  But, Burke...," he turned the sword around, "... look and
see that my opponent cannot see the character when I hold the sword.
Only the blade.  That is as it should be."

"I understand, Sensei."

"Do you?"  he paused as if considering just how far he wanted to push
this.  Candor and something almost like urgency won out.  "You must
commit to things, Burke.  Otherwise you run the risk of not only
deluding others, but deluding yourself too."

Yamashita believes that tact is an impediment to serious training.

I am sure he could have dwelt on my shortcomings indefinitely, but the
mid-morning weekend class was beginning to arrive, and I had places to
go.

Micky and Art were grinding away at the less glamorous side of
detecting, but there was nothing yet.  To make things worse I got a Fed
Ex letter saying that President and Mrs.  Domanova wanted the honor of
my company for a cocktail reception to celebrate the end of the
semester.  Saturday at two at the presidential manse.  I was happy to
see that the money the university saved by exploiting adjuncts like me
was wisely invested in really necessary things like the ornate
copperplate invitation.  I caught myself involuntarily admiring the
fine bond of the card I held in my hand and felt flattered,
manipulated, and gullible, all at the same time.

The president's receptions are the talk of the campus.  They are lavish
beyond the experience of the rank and file.  The trajectory of a career
at the institution can be measured at these events.  People covertly
watch one another, mentally ticking off a list of who is willing to be
seen with whom.  And who isn't.  Domanova uses these things as public
displays of his feelings about you.  You can get invited so he can fawn
all over you in that bogus Mediterranean way he has.  Or you can get
all dolled up only to arrive and learn that you've been summoned so he
can pointedly snub you.  In that case, the only consolation is that the
hors d'oeuvres are great and the booze is free.

I took the car to the party.  There is, of course, no real direct way
to get from Brooklyn to Bloomington by car.  The city planners designed
it this way to keep the riffraff out.  What they were thinking when
they allowed a university to be established there is anyone's guess. In
any event, the reception was already in full swing when I got there.

Domanova's residence borders the university but is shielded from the
gaze of mere mortals by thick hedges.  Inside the yard, a striped tent
shielded the bar and food tables.  The day was warm and sunny, with a
light breeze rustling the higher leaves of the big oaks that bordered
the property.  Various clusters of people were spread around the
grounds chatting merrily while a quartet of shanghaied music majors
sawed away dutifully at their instruments.

I took a quick look around, getting the lay of the land.  The Big Man
was nowhere in evidence, which was a relief.  I spotted Dean Ceppaglia
in mid-scheme with a cluster of administrators.  A few faculty members
stared at me briefly, then turned back to the business at hand.

I went to the bar, swigged some beer, and looked out at the

' DO

other guests.  I rolled the liquid around my mouth.  Just passing time
communing with Sam Adams, brewer and patriot.  I looked with
appreciation at the picture on the label.  They were giants in those
days.

Out strode the president, projecting himself as if there were something
tremendously fearless in his decision to brave the force of the sun. He
was impeccably outfitted in a double-breasted blue blazer and gray
slacks.  He'd made the bold fashion statement of wearing a little
paisley ascot instead of a tie.  Domanova began working the crowd,
stopping to have brief, authoritative conversations with small knots of
administrators.  He churned through them with the look of someone
diligently pursuing an unpleasant duty.

Bobby Kay was in tow.  He was dressed in much the same sporty style a
tan summer suit, blue shirt, and maroon patterned ascot but seemed
somehow out of his element.  As he and Domanova made their way across
the patio, the entrepreneur had the look of a small dinghy being sucked
along the surface of a dangerous sea by the screw turbulence of an
ocean liner.

Then Domanova's eyes met mine.

"Oh, no," I said.  It was involuntary.  The president changed course
and headed right at me.  Probably wanted to know why I hadn't worn a
cravat.  Then he turned the full force of that Mediterranean juggernaut
on me.

Domanova doesn't really smile as most people know it.  The best he can
manage is a sort of long foxy grin a baring of teeth that is more
frightening than reassuring and he gave me one of his best "I will eat
your young" grimaces.

He took my hand.  "Dr.  Burke, Mr.  Akkadian has been telling me what a
marvelous job you did for him."

Bobby had been lurking in the background with that "sorry I had to
finger you for murder, my mistake" look.  On cue, he stepped forward to
chime in.

"Fantastic, Burke.  Thanks."

"Well," I said, stunned into courtesy, "my pleasure.  Hello, Bobby."  I
eyed him for a moment to see whether he would squirm.  Not a twitch. He
and the president seemed in on a little secret that made them both
happy.

But joy is fleeting at the top.  The president's head jerked around.
"Ah, there is my provost.  I must have a word.  Gentlemen, you will
excuse me."  We nodded and made room as the ship of state got under
way.

As a parting shot, he added, "I was telling Mr.  Akkadian how glad we
were to be of service to him.  We look forward to a long friendship.  I
am sure you will agree, Professor."  He didn't even wait for a reply,
but strode across the yard calling for the provost.

Bobby steered me to the end of the bar.  He reached into his breast
pocket and pulled out two envelopes.  He looked at the identifying
marks on them, put one back, and handed me what turned out to be the
long-awaited check.  It was for the amount we had agreed on.  Was it
rude to peek?  My landlord wouldn't think so.

"Well," I said, "things are looking up."  I was sure that the o or
other envelope was for the president.  It explained his manic good
spirits.

"You bet."  Bobby took a long, grateful pull from his glass.  It told
me he was finding a private session with Domanova to be somewhat
stressful.  He gestured to the bartender for another and seemed to
brighten at the prospect.

"You would not believe the interest this thing is generating, Burke."

"So the brochure worked out for you?  That was quick."

"Hmm?  Oh, well, actually I went a step farther.  I'm still creating
the glossy piece for the opening.  But to get things moving I put it on
the Samurai House Web page."

"How digital."

bet."  The ice cubes clinked against his teeth as he drained the glass.
"You've got to stay on top of this emerging technology, Burke. Otherwise
the competition will eat you alive."

"And what is the competition doing these days, Bobby?"

He gave me that Bobby Kay smile, the one that told me he was feeling a
bit more himself away from the president.  "The competition is eating
their hearts out, Burke.  You know, I was worried.  What with the
killing, I was afraid that the whole show would fall apart.  With the
setup costs, it could have been a disaster."

Then his predatory optimism just ate right through that rare moment of
doubt.

"But let me tell you, buddy," he broke into a grin as his vodka was
reloaded, "the news coverage has just revved up interest even more.
Phone ringing off the hook.  The Web page is getting, oh, I don't know,
like ten thousand hits a day!  All in all, things couldn't have worked
out better."

"Except for Reilly," I mentioned.  "What with the death thing and
all."

He looked momentarily chastened again, but it was an emotion that
struggled futilely with the selective conscience of the businessman. It
took a lot to keep Bobby down for long.

"Want to see your stuff?  C'mon, we'll use Peters computer."  He
drained his third drink and we headed toward the house.

The transition from the sunny yard to the dim quiet of the Big Man's
study was a bit hard on the eyes, and for a moment I stood there
waiting for them to adjust.  Domanova's home office was something of a
disappointment.  I knew some people who thought he slept there in a
coffin, but it was really just a tastefully appointed study.  Real wood
paneling.  Abstract artwork.  The noise of our footsteps was swallowed
up by a deep Persian rug.

Bobby booted up the computer.  I noticed the machine had a university
property tag stuck to the side of it.  I wondered whether the art did,
too.  Bobby tapped merrily on the keys for a minute and wiggled the
mouse.

The Web site loaded and we were off on a guided tour of his little
cyber-kingdom.

"OK, here's the home page."  It was a pretty nice graphic image of a
waterfall, much like the one in the gallery.  Vaguely Asian lettering
identified various points of interest.  He clicked on "Legacies of the
Samurai" to show me the text and pictures of what would eventually be
the exhibit catalogue.  Sure enough, there was my stuff.

Something on the screen caught my eye: "Modern Masters."

"Hit that," I asked him, touching the screen.

A graphic appeared.  It was a shoji one of those sliding paper doors
the Japanese use in traditional homes.  Akkadian clicked on it and it
slid to one side, revealing a shot of the dojo at the Samurai House.
Superimposed over the picture were the characters for meijin, or
master.  He clicked again.  A video clip of Mitch Reilly in action
appeared.

The picture quality was not the greatest, but there was no mistaking
the dense power of the man.  It took about two seconds for the ghost to
charge the screen with a slashing sword attack, then the image froze
and a laudatory summary of Reilly's achievements and expertise
appeared.

It didn't mention the fact that he was dead.

"What's this?"  I asked.

Bobby tried to act surprised.  "Oh.  I guess we need to update that."
He reached over for the mouse.  Is it possible to click guiltily?  We
popped back to the home screen.  A little message at the bottom
informed us we were the 75,486th person to visit the site.

"See what I mean?"  he asked, "you can't beat this thing for publicity.
And cheap?  Oh, man."  He almost kissed the monitor.  "I love these
things."

"I don't suppose it hurts to have Reilly dancing around there so every
reader of the Daily News can get a chance to see him, huh Bobby?"  I
never really knew Reilly, but flogging his image to drive sales was a
bit much.

The grin faded on him.  "Hey, that was on for weeks before the ...
incident.  Besides, I have it rigged so there's a new master every
month or so, and there are links to their dojo and more free publicity
than they ever imagined.  Don't get all cranky on me, Burke.  Everyone
makes out."

He gave me a hard look.  "Including you."  Bobby was usually all smooth
and glad-handy, but I had heard he would cut a competitor's throat in a
minute.  Seeing that look, I could believe it.

He was right, of course the check I had in my pocket was Samurai House
money.  But it didn't make me feel better.  Bobby picked up on the
sudden coolness in the room.  He looked at his watch.

"Ah, God!  I better get back out to Peter.  Got a little donation
ceremony to do."  He patted his breast meaningfully.  "See you, Burke."
The tone told me that it would be quite some time.

EIGHT

Links

The Burke clan springs from a very shallow gene pool: we all look
pretty much the same.  When I pulled up in front of Micky's house on
the South Shore, a row of almost indistinguishable kid heads popped up
from behind the palisade fence.  "Hi Uncle Connor!"  they shrieked and
collapsed back down out of sight, giggling.

O DO O

"Hello, you monkeys," I called.  Thomas, one of Micky's kids and the
birthday boy of the moment, came charging out and grabbed me by the
leg.

"Where's my toy?  Where's my toy?"  He demanded.

"Toy?  What toy?"  I said.  Then, feigning surprise, "Who are you,
little boy?"  He stopped tugging at me long enough to look confused for
a second.

"Uncle Connor!"  He insisted, "You know who I am!"  Thomas was almost
sure of it, but kids are well aware that adults are strange and
unpredictable.  Almost anything was possible.

Micky's wife, Deirdre, had spotted the open gate and came scooting out
to drive him back into the corral.  "Thomas!"  she said in that tone
mothers everywhere use.  "Behave."

I laughed.  "OK, Mr.  T. The loot's in the car."  He seemed briefly
relieved that I hadn't lost my mind, then went scampering off to get
his gift.  "Hi, Dee," I said.

Dee has a broad, open face.  She smiled, which made her eyes narrow
into slits.  "The riot is being held in the back," she said.  As an
in-law, Dee has a somewhat more objective view of the family than I do.
She has also benefited from a decade of experience with us.  Dee was
nice but usually got right to the point.  Life with Micky was not an
adventure in subtlety.

Thomas lumbered by with a wrapped box almost as big as he was.  Dee and
I followed and closed the gate.

It was early in the season, but Micky had taken the bold step of
opening the pool for the kids.  Long Island is like the Mekong Delta in
the summer: hot and humid but with more concrete.  A succession of
aboveground backyard pools had punctuated the vacation months of our
childhood, and Micky had replicated that experience for his kids.

There were at least twelve bodies flailing around in the water.  I knew
there were redheads, brunettes, and even blondish Burke units in there,
but soaking wet, they all looked alike.  Occasionally, a skinny one
would emerge for a toweling down, lips blue, trembling with cold, and
then leap back in for a screaming, splashing dance with hypothermia.
The fatter Burke kids only came out to eat.

Most of the guys were by the barbecue.  My two other brothers, Tom and
Jimmy, were there.  So was Art.  I spotted his wife, Marie, over by the
sliding glass door that led to the kitchen and gave her a wave.  My
sister Peggy was doing lifeguard duty by the pool.  My other sister,
Irene, was probably in the kitchen, deep in recipes concocted with huge
globs of mayonnaise.

My brothers-in-law were two pleasant guys who, as time went on, began
to get looks on their faces that said life with my sisters was more
than they had bargained for.  Between the two of them,

they had nine kids under the age of ten.  They enjoyed the barbecues:
they got to talk to adults, tell off-color jokes they had been hoarding
for weeks, and furtively drink more beer than permitted.  Both men were
starting to lose their hair.

There were music and stories, various minor accidents with the kids,
and the normal type of socializing that goes on with a group of people
who know each other very well, and generally get along well despite the
fact.  In short, the rest of the afternoon passed in the subdued not
that passes for get-tog ethers with my family.

After cake and presents, as evening came on, I sat on a molded plastic
lawn chair, a little apart from the crush of the family.  You could
still smell the charcoal in the air.  One of the neighbors had a
baseball game on the TV and the faint roar of the stadium crowd washed
in the background like the sound of the sea.  A few of the smaller kids
were rolling around in discarded wrapping paper from the presents.

This was pretty much the way it was for us growing up.  When I think
about it, I mostly remember crowds kids and adults Christmas,
birthdays, and barbecues.  I jerked my legs out of the way as one of
Irene's kids shot by, trying to catch a lightning bug.  I had memories
of similar hunts, running with small tribes of children on broad
expanses of freshly cut lawns.  The breathless pursuit in the moist
blue of a summer night.

My mother was in Maryland visiting her sister.  Otherwise, we'd
probably be at her house destroying her lawn.  My dad, the king of
barbecues, died five years ago of cancer.  He gave it a good fight. But
at the end, there wasn't much left.  Just some fierce eyes.  You'd
think thoughts like that would get to you, but I smiled and looked
around the backyard.  At times like this, I recall him the way he was.
I can almost hear him in the crowd.  It's one of the reasons I keep
coming to family parties, I suppose.

Micky had been shooting me looks all day, squinting significantly
through the smoke of barbecue and birthday cake candles.  With everyone
fed and presents unwrapped, it was time to rendezvous in the family
room.  Art slipped in after me, pulling the sliding glass doors to the
yard closed.

The family room looked like the place old overstuffed furniture went to
die.

"What's up, Mick?"

"Art's been following up with that guy Schedel from LA.  Getting
details to see whether there's some sort of connection between the two
murders."

I turned to Art.  "And?"

"You, my man, are looking at the Dick Tracy of cyberspace," he
commented with a big smile.

"Well, at the very least, we are looking at a dick," Micky commented
under his breath.

Art shot him a look and went on.  "It turns out that there have been at
least two other homicides of this type in the last week."

"Come on!"  I protested.  "The papers would have a field day."

"Yeah," Art answered, "but they didn't take place in the same area.
Homicide is local crime, and these things happened in different states.
Unless you're looking, you wouldn't find em."

"Method is slightly different each time," Micky commented.

Art shrugged, "Basic underlying pattern is the same."

"What's that?"  I could guess, but I wanted the details.

"The other two victims also were prominent martial arts instructors."
Art ticked the points off on his fingers one by one as he talked. "They
checked out OK.  No problems with gangs or drugs.  No disgruntled
students."

"No disgruntled lovers," Micky added.

"Both were killed in somewhat exotic ways."  I lifted my eyebrows and
Art answered the unspoken question.  "The first vie tim, the guy in LA,
was stabbed to death with a broken stick.  Coupla days later, a
Japanese national in Phoenix named Kubata goes down."

"Sanjiro Kubata?"  I interrupted.

""You know him?"

I nodded appreciatively.  Kubata was the real thing.  A champion in
kendo who had capped a successful tournament career in Japan by
relocating to the U.S. to promote kendo here.  I'd never met him, but
he was said to be charming and talented.  He was, from all reports, a
master technician, a skilled teacher, and had a real flair for
self-promotion.  The Japanese had loved him.  They called him the
"Jewel of the Budokan," and when he left that famous training hall in
Kyoto, his fans wailed.

I couldn't believe that Yamashita hadn't mentioned it.  I couldn't
believe he was dead.

"Believe it," Art said.  "He sustained a number of serious injuries
from some sort of weapon, but the actual cause of death there was
strangulation."

"No rope," Micky said.  "Bruises are consistent with a fairly
sophisticated choke technique."

"OK, pretty gruesome," I admitted, still trying to adjust to the
surprise.  "But how is it unusual?"  I asked.

Micky fielded the question.  Behind him on the wall, an old Republic
Pictures poster for Sands of the Iwojima was beginning to curl away
from the scotch tape that held it to the paneling.

"Most homicides are fairly routine in turns of MO.  You got guns,
knives, and blunt instruments."

"With beatings," Art said, "you usually get a victim who has been
worked over.  All over.  Death is usually from internal bleeding and it
takes a while."

"Now for stranglings," Micky jumped in, "you got your ropes, wires, and
what have you.  Ligature strangulation and manual.

Crime of passion, lots of thumb marks on the front.  They like their
victims to see them."  He and Art were really warming to their topic.

"But what we see here is different."

"How so?"  I asked Art.

"Whoever did this was a pro," he said.  "The victims in both LA and
Phoenix were not subject to wild, unfocused beatings, which is what you
usually get.  Rage killings.  In these cases, someone pounded the shit
out of them, but boy oh boy, he knew where to pound.  The choke job was
the same type of thing.  Focused."

"You know, it's hard work beating someone to death."  Micky said
reflectively, like he had considered the option.  "Most times, it takes
a while.  Usually, some restraints are involved.  But not here.  These
killings were almost surgical.  The bruises tell us that a pro did
it."

"Let me ask you a question," I said.  "You're always talking about
bruises on the victims.  It seems to me that it takes a while for a
bruise to form.  I know you get some discoloration on a body after
death..."

"Postmortem lividity," Art said.

"Right.  But that has to do with blood settling.  How do you get
bruises like the ones you're talking about?  If the victim is killed
relatively quickly after the injury?"

Micky's eyebrows shot up.  "Pretty smart, Connor," he said.

Art looked at him, "Are you sure you two are related?"

Micky grinned.  He gestured for us to wait.  The glass door slid back
and let some of the party noise wash into the room.  He came back in
with some beers from the big orange cooler on the patio and shook the
ice chips off as he handed them to us.  Then he walled the family off
again and continued.

"When you first look at the corpse, you don't see the bruises,"

my brother told me.  "Then you have the M.E. stick him in the cooler
overnight."  He popped the tab on the can and took a drink.  Micky had
stopped being squeamish a long time ago.

"Then you see the bruises," Art commented.  "Sort of like developing a
picture."

"OK, I got it," I said.

"To get back to the issue here," Micky continued, "both the other
victims appear to have been killed somewhere in the early part of the
morning.  And ..."

"And," Art chimed in.

"Someone signed "Ronin' at each scene."

I sat back in my chair.  "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes," Art answered.  "The messages are slightly different..."

"How so?"

"The LA murder just had the signature "Ronin,"" Micky replied.  "In
Phoenix, the killer added something: "I am coming."  Then the same
signature," Art said.

"So what does that tell you?"  I asked.

"Details of the Ronin thing were not released to the press in the Ikagi
murder.  So a copycat is out."  Micky trotted out the other details.
"Killings are geographically dispersed, but they follow a pattern."

"We got a request in for a DNA sample from the LA killing," Art told
me.  "We'll compare it with samples from the Kubata and Reilly murders.
It'll take a few days, but we'll see if they match up."

"Itbu know they'll match up, Art," Micky said.

"OK," I asked, "and if they match up, what does that mean?"

"It means," Micky said, "that we have a nut job on the loose who eets
off starring in his own Tackle Chan snuff film."

"Well, does it narrow things down for you in terms of suspects?"  I
persisted.  "You know, give you a handle on what the killer might look
like?"

"We know he's probably a male," Micky said.  "But that's not a big
help.  Statistically, most killers are.  He's about five feet nine or
ten inches and probably right handed."

"Gee, Sherlock, did you figure all that out by yourself?"  Art asked.
Then he looked at me and smirked.  "Don't be too impressed, Connor." He
gazed at his partner.  "I read the site analysis from the crime lab
too, Mick."

My brother looked sheepish.

"They do an analysis of this kind of thing," Art explained.  "You'd be
amazed.  From splatter marks, position of the body..."

"Star signs, phases of the moon, mood rings ..."  Micky added.

"... they can come up with a profile of the killer.  Probable sex, age,
size.  It's weird."

"Yeah," Micky agreed, "but I have to admit, it works.  I know
old-timers who claim the walls of a murder scene can talk to them."  He
looked at me.  "But it's bullshit."  Art nodded in agreement as Micky
went on.  "These forensic guys, on the other hand, seem pretty good."

"Yeah, but other than that, we don't have much.  The DNA comparison is
only gonna help us when we get a suspect in custody," Art pointed
out.

Micky squinted off into the distant yard, thinking.  "Right now,
Connor, our assumption is that this guy is Asian.  Japanese.  Whoever
it is has been pretty well trained.  It's the same in both cases.  He's
into this martial arts shit as his method.  You look at the victims;
they're connected by the arts.  And killed by them."

It didn't sound like much when you said it out loud.  He continued
anyway.  "You don't learn this stuff at the neighborhood Y."

"So?"  I asked.

"It narrows things down some more.  Theoretically, at least."

"Does this help things?"  I asked.

"Maybe," Art explained.  He held up his empty beer can and looked at it
as if he suspected evaporation as the culprit.  Micky sot us another
round.

"On the one hand, we probably don't have any records like prints on
this guy.  Have to go through Interpol.  Then again, if he's a Japanese
national visiting the area, we should have INS records."

"Summer in the city," Micky commented.  "I'll bet there are thousands
of Japanese tourists in town."

"How're you gonna run him down?"  I said.

Micky smiled evilly.  "That, bro, is what newly minted detectives are
for."

"Most Japanese tourists will be traveling in groups," I suggested.
"This guy probably won't."

"Ya see?  It gets better and better.  We've got it narrowed down a bit
more."  He paused for a minute and looked significantly at Art.  They
didn't say anything, but I got the sense of messages flying back and
forth through the air.  Messages I was not meant to hear.

Art sat forward in his chair and began to speak very slowly and clearly
to me.  "So think about this, Connor.  The link is through Japan.  And
the martial arts."

I said nothing, just sipped some beer and watched him work.

"So there are three prominent martial artists," he continued.  "And
this guy is ... I dunno, tracking them down."

"You sure?"  I asked him.  He shrugged.

"Oh yeah," Art said.  "The sequence is too tight."  He ticked the
points off one by one.  "LA ... Phoenix ... now here.  All within days
of one another.  The killer is traveling.  Messages seem to pretty much
bear that interpretation out: all that "I am coming, I am here'
shit."

"High drama," my brother agreed.

But something was bothering me.  "Ya know, I don't see Reilly as being
in the same class as Ikagi and Kubata.  Not at all."

Art nodded.  "There's a link between victims we don't see yet."

"Ya follow a trail, it's because it leads to something," Micky said
quietly.  "The trail leads here.  The calligraphy confirms it.  In LA,
it was just the signature, a kind of general announcement.  Then
Phoenix and a type of warning.  But here, the message is that he's
arrived."

"Question is," Art commented, "who's supposed to be getting the
message?"

"There's something we don't know about that's happening right under our
noses," Micky groused.  "Someone local is reading that message and
knowing what it means."

"What!"  I couldn't believe it.

The expression on their faces told me they were disappointed.  So my
brother filled me in.

"There's something your pal the sensei is not tellin us."

"Come on," I said.  "This is all speculation.  We don't really know
anything for sure."

"It feels right to me," my brother said flatly.  He looked
questioningly at Art.

"My gut says 'yeah."  too," his partner replied.  And they waited with
that quiet cop intensity for me to say something.

"Maybe whoever is doing this is just a lunatic," I protested.  "The
victims might not be linked."

"Then why kill them?"  my brother asked.

"I know something about Ikagi," I said.  "He was a pretty prominent
karate instructor.  Real old school.  Very well respected.  Kubata was
too.  I can dig around and see what I can find out.  But they're both
celebrities of a type."

"Celebrities?"  Micky sounded incredulous.

"Well," I shrugged, "in the martial arts world."

"Connor," Art said, "are you saying that Ikagi and Kubata got whacked
because Ronin thought they were famous?"  He was dubious.  "I dunno.
We'll keep it in mind.... But what about Reilly?"

I shrugged.

"I still think there's a connection," Micky finished.

I shrugged again.

BOo

"But think of the fun we could have," Art said with glee.  "A
celebrity."

"Killed by a stalker."  Micky had that look in his eye.

Art continued.  "A celebrity stalker."

"Don't do this," I pleaded.  But it was too late.

Micky went on.  "A samurai celebrity stalker."

Art pointed triumphantly to the ceiling.  "A psycho samurai celebrity
stalker."

Which seemed to sum it all up nicely.

We sat for a while longer and swirled more beer around in fresh cans,
like witches stirring a potion.  As I went outside, Micky was punching
numbers into the phone.  Working the angles.

"Connor," he called, and I turned back into the room.

"Yeah, Mick?"

"Something like this ... we know what we're doin'.  Trust me.  Talk to
Yamashita for us."

I nodded that I would, but I didn't feel too good about it.

NINE

Local Talent

At the heart of both sound and movement there is vibration.  Yamashita
wants us to be sensitive to sound; he says it has a message.  Different
types of activity, different places, have distinct aural signatures, he
insists.  They lay bare the essence of an activity, its spirit.
Remaining open to the message that sound sends can help the warrior. Or
so my sensei maintains.

The end of the semester at the university has the repressed, tense
sound of papers shuffling, like the chitinous noise of frantic insects.
I had sensed it all week, even as I grew increasingly distracted by the
murder.  When I closed my eyes to rest them from the strain of grading
papers, I saw the stark finality of Reilly, collapsed and cold at the
crime scene.  And on the wall, the message that he was here. Ronin.
The name spoke of a man adrift.  Or free.  But from what?

My brother was much more grounded.  He was waiting for a DNA report,
but it didn't slow him down.  While I was still thinking about killers
and exotic martial arts techniques, he got right down to the nitty
gritty of police work.  "It's not like the movies," he preached to me.
"Whoever this guy is, he needs to eat.  A place to sleep."  Micky
believed grunt work would eventually lead us to the killer.  But there
was vibration here as well: the sense of the ticking of a clock, of
time slipping away.  Because Ronin was out there.

I had taken a quick look at things from my end, trying to get some
information on the two victims.  Anything that might give us a clue to
Romn's identity.  And how he chose his victims.

The martial arts world is like that of a lot of other fringe interest
groups.  You'd think it would be a small place, but once you started
looking, you found all sorts of organizations, causes, and
publications.  The mainstream popular martial arts world is pretty well
covered by periodicals like Black Belt and Karate/ Rung Fu Illustrated,
but there are a host of others that spring up overnight and fade away
almost as quickly.  I found a library that kept back copies of the most
well established and used them as a starting point.

Of course, the library collection was not complete the martial arts
reading public is poor but enthusiastic and tends to steal back issues
with shocking regularity.  I was able to plug some of the holes by
consulting the back lists that get included with every month's issue. I
used a contact at Dorian's library to request copies of missing back
articles I felt might be useful.  Like my brother, I would have to wait
on some things, but I plowed ahead.

It was a fairly tedious process.  I sat at a series of battered wooden
tables, leafing through back issues that were limp and slightly
aromatic with age.  I clacked through innumerable computer search
engines and Web sites, using up all my spare change printing relevant
articles.  It was a familiar sort of grind not much different from
academic research, really.  By the end of the day, most of the
information was coming together.

Ikagi was a fairly prominent karate sensei.  The name was vaguely
familiar to me even at the onset.  There was coverage of him on and off
over the years in the magazines I looked at.  He had made a big splash
when he first came to this country in the

'80s.  He had a tremendous pedigree: a gifted fighter and teacher who
at one time had been honored by being asked to help train the emperor's
guards.  In short order he became a well-established instructor in LA.
He was a big proponent of introducing weapons training known as kobudo
into the more mainstream Japanese karate styles.  We already knew that
a jagged piece of a training staff had been used to kill him.  In the
weeks before the killing, Ikagi was in the news for helping out with
choreography and technical advice for a new movie.  It was the third or
fourth installment of a shoot-'em-up where the wisecracking star is
eventually stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt and takes a volume
of punishment that would disable a platoon of Navy Seals.  When it hit
theaters, you would be able to glimpse Ikagi's ghost as an extra in one
of the group fight scenes.

But there was more to him than this.  For all his success, Ikagi was a
sensei who never lost sight of the real purpose of training.  He was
quoted in one article as insisting that the true pursuit of karate was
not in perfecting fighting technique but in the spiritual development
Ikagi referred to as "mirror polishing."  The phrase had strong links
to Shinto and Zen Buddhism, and Ikagi had even adopted the name "mirror
polisher" when he did calligraphy.  From the various things I read, I
got the sense that Ikagi was both tremendously skilled and unusually
balanced in his approach to the martial arts.

Kubata, the Phoenix victim, was already known to me by reputation.  He
had been in this country for only a few months before he was killed.
Welcome to the Valley of the Sun.  He was part of a concerted effort to
popularize kendo here and had launched a series of ambitious seminars
that attracted a nationwide audience.  Part of it was the result of the
impressive charisma the man obviously possessed they didn't call him
the Jewel of the Budokan for nothing.  But I also suspected, after a
generation of training, that there were thousands of judo and karate
students whose joints hurt too much to continue with their arts and
were looking for something else.  Not a week before his death, he had
been prominently featured on the cover of one of the national martial
arts rags with the caption: "Master Kubata Introduces the Art of the
Sword."  I knew of any number of teachers who had been laboring at this
very goal for years, but modesty had not been one of Kubata's
failings.

The two men were prominent and skilled martial artists.  They were both
Japanese.  But other than that, I got no sense of how they were
connected.  And Reilly's connection was still unknown.

Which brought me to a dead end.  So I considered Ronin.  Micky looked
at the basics.  I followed that line of thinking from my own
perspective.  I thought that someone like Ronin needed not only a place
to live, but also a place to tram, you don't acquire those types of
skills like you buy a suit of clothes.  It's a high-maintenance
commodity, which is why so many people begin studying the arts and so
few persevere long enough to learn anything.  In a consumer society,
where everything is fast and easy, learning the martial arts is not. To
make matters worse, martial skill requires practice.  Constant practice
and constant conditioning.  And then more practice.

I explained to Micky and Art that training would probably eat up a big
part of Ronin's day and be expensive.  It narrowed things down
somewhat: we had a much better chance of trying to find him by locating
likely places where he could train.

At this skill level, some of your training takes place alone: you run,
stretch, lift weights, whatever.  But if you're serious about dealing
with people, then you eventually have to confront a live adversary. You
need bodies to work with, muscle and bone to leverage around.

For Ronin, however, the kind of place he would need would be special.
It would need to be tough.  And mean.  This type of place the City had
in abundance.  But he seemed to gravitate to the Japanese arts.  I'd
look for him in a dojo but not some storefront school that was part day
care and part yuppie commando fantasy center.  The people in it would
also have to be very skilled, which cut down the potential number of
likely places considerably.  I also thought, given the type of things
that he would be training in, that there would have to be a high
tolerance for injury.  When this man practiced, there would be a good
likelihood of collateral damage.  It narrowed the list down even
more.

I had some ideas, but this was a bit out of my league.  It forced me to
do the one thing that I wanted to avoid.  I needed to talk with
Yamashita.

I used the excuse that I needed to know about likely places to look for
Ronin.  The Japanese sensei like to pretend they ignore everyone except
their equals.  Believing they have no equals gives them license to
appear totally disinterested in the great wash of humanity's inferior
attempts at the fighting arts.  Don't be fooled.  The sensei watch
everything from WWW wrestling to street fights.  Their eyes don't blink
as they bore into their subjects.  They see and remember.  And
endure.

Yamashita didn't give me much.  I spoke to him during a pause in a
training session, so maybe he was focused on something else, but his
whole manner seemed odd.  I sidled in through the door and bowed,
removing my shoes.  I waited for the lesson to close and approached
him.

Generally speaking, my teacher strides the practice floor in isolation.
Even when not teaching, people watch him covertly.  The way he moves,
even the way he breathes can show you something.  It was unusual that
he should be approached and even more unusual that I did so in street
clothes.  But I bowed again, apologized for the intrusion, explained
myself quietly to him and hoped he would have a suggestion that could
help.

He didn't look at me when he answered the question.  And he seemed
pretty vague for the most part.  Not particularly helpful.  I've given
up trying to anticipate his moods and chalked it up to some sort of Zen
state, figuring that in his brain he was seated in an empty space,
staring through nothing.  But I was mildly surprised by the fact that,
after I pushed him for a little more information, he began to appear
almost visibly agitated by the whole thing.  This was unusual in a man
devoted to the idea that emotions be kept hidden from the world.  It
wasn't that Yamashita didn't have emotions.  It was just that
permitting others to see them gave potential opponents an advantage. As
a result, his usual flat affect wasn't repression; it was heiho.

I mentioned Ikagi's name and saw no reaction in those dark eyes.  He
had heard something about the man's death, he admitted.  It was only
natural.  But he was unaware of any connection between that incident
and Kubata's murder.  When I explained the theory Micky was working on,
he dismissed it with a short chop of the hand.

"This country is a violent place, Professor.  All those cowboy movies,
no?  Kubata Sensei's murder ... I hope your brother does not waste his
time chasing illusions.  There is no mystery here.  Only tragedy."

But I insisted that Redly s death proved that Ronin was now in New
York.  And that he was a martial artist.  If so, I wanted to help find
him.  And that's why Yamashita's insight would be helpful.  In the end,
I got little concrete information from him, despite my wheedling.  Only
a warning.

"This man you seek, Burke..."  he stared off blankly at the wall for a
moment, then finally turned those hard eyes on me and started again.
"Human beings are conduits of power.  Training focuses that power.
Directs it.  People like the one you seek... they are like..."  again
the pause, "they are like electrical cable.  Yes?  Cable with cracked
insula ton  They leak anger.  It is powerful.  And dangerous.  But it
is the result of a flaw, not of real strength."

He held up his hand in the tegatana, arm extended in a loose arc
designed to maximize the flow of energy, of ki.  "They leak power,
Burke, because of flaws in themselves.  In their training.  It appears
impressive.  Some people are seduced by it.  But it is wrong.  It is
not the true Way."

And then he said, in the contradictory manner I have come to almost
expect from him, "Such training is deeply flawed.  But these people are
very dangerous.  I wish you would avoid them."

"I'm not looking for a fight, sensei.  We're just trying to track this
killer down."

Yamashita shifted slightly on his feet and appeared to get more rooted
to the ground.  As if that were possible.  "It does not matter what you
wish.  You place yourself in danger."

I was curious.  "Are you saying, Sensei, that I would not be able to
fight someone like this?"

His eyes narrowed.  "Don't be an idiot, Burke.  It is a child's
question, who would win, who would lose!  This man whoever he is is a
killer."  When he gets mad, my teacher grows quieter, more focused,
more eloquent.  "Evil has its own energy, Burke.  Getting too close to
it allows it to pull at your spirit.  It is most unwise."

And he wouldn't say anything more than that.

Micky and Art planned to visit places where the types of body men they
were familiar with would train.  I could imagine it.  They would slog
through a number of dingy gyms, a universe filled with mats stained
with skin grease and sweat and decades-old heavy bags patched with duct
tape like victims of bad triage, you went downstairs or into an alley
through a door and into a space where the bricks had been painted with
diluted whitewash sometime during the Eisenhower administration.  The
clank of free weights hitting the ground would compete with the
staccato rhythm of speed bags and the deeper thuds of bodies hitting
the mat in a roped in area farther back in the cavernous space.

The men training there would be mostly young and thickly built in the
functional way you get when you leverage people's bodies around for a
living.  There was no Spandex worn here.  There was lots of tape on
hands and feet.  Some of the denizens would take one look at Micky and
Art and duck away, feigning a renewed interest in training.  My brother
would probably shoot his partner a look as well.  Everyone recognized
everyone else.

In those places the aural signature communicated effort and
frustration, the quest for dominance.  And anger.  The air would be
thick with the psychic radiation, spiky with sudden thuds and clanks,
the visual field rendered gritty by bad light and human effort.

Micky and Art would ask whether anyone new had been training.  They
would be greeted with blank looks or faked attempts at thinking.  They
would go through the motions, leaving their cards and asking if anyone
remembered anything or saw anything to give them a call.

They left the more exotic locations to me, figuring I'd have better
luck.  I knew some guys in some of the tougher dojo in New York.  They
weren't exactly friends, but you got to know people over the years, if
only because when you bang on someone and they bang back, you tend to
remember them.

I'd first come across Billy Watson when I was in college.  He was a
former wrestler who'd taken a shine to judo and was working out on the
mats that got shared with the other martial arts clubs.  He'd ended up
hooked on judo and eventually began studying Ysshinkan aikido as well.
It's an art form that adds joint locks to the throws and balance shifts
of judo.  Aikido in general is a beautiful and, in highly trained
hands, somewhat effective art.  "foshinkan is a bit on the hard side,
however.  It uses more power than some other styles.

It suited Billy.  There's a ritual pledge they use in Shotokan karate
at the end of class.  Among other things, trainees swear to "refrain
from violent behavior."  A more accurate translation of the Japanese is
"to guard against impetuous courage."  The Japanese sensei like to keep
their students on a tight leash: they don't mind fighting; they just
want to be able to control when and where it happens.  Billy had enough
impetuous courage to keep a room full of teachers worried.  From what I
knew of him and the type of people who gravitated to his Ifbshinkan
dojo, I thought he might be able to point me in a couple of good
directions.

Like many other New York City dojo, Billy's had to offer classes
practically around the clock to survive.  There was an early morning
workout for stressed Wall Street types (who got to the office still
shaking out their wrists and trying to get the nerve endings to stop
buzzing).  There were typical evening classes and even an early
lunchtime session on Sunday, which was where I found Billy putting his
pupils through their paces.

He was an average-size guy, but hard.  Anyone who ever tangled with
Billy learned that he was packed with muscle.  He had a big, square
head with bristly short, dark hair.  It let you see the ropes of
muscles that bound his head to the rest of him.  There were nicks in
his skull, white scars from old fights where the hair

would never grow back.  Billy took his training seriously.  His eyes
were a cool blue and he had that focused stare you see with really
intense competitors.  It was designed to frighten you.  I knew.  We had
met more than a few times on the mats in my early days.  His face was
lean, and you could see that the straight ridge of his nose had been
ruined when it was broken.  I don't know whether he was still mad at me
for doing it.  I figured we were even: I can't sleep on my right side
because of something he did to my shoulder.

The dojo was a pretty good size, carved out of an old downtown
warehouse.  The walls and pipes had been painted over and over again in
that white color they use in the City to make you believe that things
are new and clean.  It mostly looks dingy and tired.

But the mats in Billy's dojo were in good shape.  They were worn but
repaired precisely.  He had about twenty men, all at black belt level,
working on some takedown techniques.  In'Vbshinkan dojo, they tend to
just wear judo gi and not the fancier pleated ha kama  It sends a
certain message about the tough, no frills approach this style takes to
fighting.

Billy was working with the class on what looked to me like
ten-shi-nage.  It's a standard throw in the art: you deflect a lunging
thrust and throw the attacker to his front corner by unbalancing him
and moving in.  Billy caught my entrance out of the corner of his eye.
His eyes swept my way, but he made no sign of recognition.

Tenshi-nage in most styles is pretty elegant.  Some schools make it
almost too stylized: trainees virtually launch themselves into the fall
for their practice partners.  Not here.  Billy was obviously working on
some variations that seemed predicated on the idea that your attacker
would not go down.  It was a good exercise: what happens when you give
it your best shot and the guy will still not fold?  It happens
eventually to all of us.

There are a number of solutions to the problem.  Billy demonstrated a
few pretty convincingly: his opponents got propelled not only down but
into the mat.  Then the class got to try.  He watched as they paired
off and tried out his variations on each other.

I watched with him.  And listened.

The aural signature here was a serious one, punctuated by the rhythmic
slam of bodies hitting the mat.  You could hear the deeper thud of body
collision, the hiss of breath, the occasional grunt.  I also picked up
the higher pitched sound of slapping.

Billy sidled up to me.  "Burke.  You come for a workout?"  It wasn't a
friendly comment.  Billy and guys like him work hard at things, which
is fine.  But they also tend to believe that their way is the only way.
I shook his hand if we had been dogs, the hair on our necks would have
been standing up.

"No.  Just looking for some help with something."  The slapping sound
continued and drew my attention.  Billy saw my glance and gestured with
his chin.

"Check this guy out.  The real deal."

The man wore a spotless white gi that looked soft with repeated
washings.  He was intent on working his partner relentlessly, moving in
repeatedly to practice the move that Billy had shown them.  The
slapping noise was coming as he brought his cupped hand sharply into
the jaw of his partner as a prelude to the throw.  Smack!  And in the
brief moment of pain, the man would swirl into position and hinge down
for the throw.  His victim would be driven to the mat and then rise,
red faced from the blow, to take more.

Billy's face didn't look a bit troubled as he watched.  He didn't say
anything.  It was a tough place.

I told him about my problem.  He looked at his class for a minute as if
inspecting a lineup of suspects.  "My people are rough, Burke, but I
don't see any of them as a killer."

"Sure, Billy.  But if anyone new comes by, anyone out of the ordinary,
you let me know."

He gave me that hard look.  "Hey, you know?  I run a business here.
People come in to train.  I got transients coming by all the time.
What's it gonna do for me if I start getting them involved with the
cops?  It'll kill me."

"Funny you should say that.  The guy I'm looking for kills people."

He shook his head.  It swiveled very precisely back and forth, yanked
by muscle.  "I teach people to fight.  I don't get involved with their
lives off the mat."

I could see he was annoyed.  Billy always had a short fuse.  I changed
the subject and nodded in his student's direction.  "He's going at it a
bit hard, isn't he?  Is he always this intense?"  Part of me was
thinking like a cop.  Could this guy fit the profile of the man we were
looking for?

Billy crossed his arms across his chest and watched the class.  "Pretty
much."  Then he looked at me.  "Don't get any ideas.  He's been with me
for a few years."  I felt let down.  I guess I wasn't going to crack
the case.  Billy watched as the man's partner took a particularly hard
fall.  I winced, but Billy was stoic.  "Ya gotta keep him away from the
beginners.  They tend to break.  He gives my advanced people a run for
their money, though.  Hang on a sec."

He glided over to the mat edge and called the group to order.  It's
always amazing to watch someone move like that: hard and crude though
he was, he practically floated.  He told everyone to take a short break
and brought the man over to be introduced.

The Real Deal was cautiously polite in a way that's typical of a great
many martial artists.  They save most of their intensity for training.
Some people feel we're repressed and only express our selves in the
dojo.  They don't understand.  We're just resting between fights.
"Sensei Watson tells us stories about your dojo" he said.  "And your
teacher.  It would be something to meet him."

"Yeah," Billy said, "get in line.  But don't get your hopes up.  I've
been trying to get in there for years."  The topic seemed to revive his
bad mood.  "What he sees in you is anyone's guess, Burke."

I just shrugged.  I sometimes wondered the same thing.  But I knew that
Billy wouldn't be getting to see my teacher soon.  Yamashita had spoken
to me about Billy in the past.  Sensei wanted him to get a bit more
experience.  The impetuous courage thing.

Billy smirked at me.  "OK, since you're here, how about a quick lesson
for the class?  Show us some of those exotic techniques you get to work
on."  Both men looked at me expectantly.  If they weren't going to get
to see Yamashita anytime soon, maybe some pointers from one of his
students would do.  But that wasn't the only reason.  Way back in the
eyes of the two men, I could see the predatory gleam of competitors.
They wanted to see me work.

Billy ushered the class back into order and introduced me.  I slipped
my shoes off and bowed onto the mat.

I gestured for a partner.  A student stepped forward.  One-half of his
face was still red from the slapping he had gotten.  You had to give
the guy credit for guts.

I looked around the group.  "All technique should be guided by
efficiency," I began.  "Any of you who've studied judo know the
principle of maximum efficiency for a minimum of effort."  Some heads
nodded around the circle that had formed around me.  "In a situation
like the one your sensei has given you you try a technique and it
doesn't quite work the temptation is very strong to compensate by
overpowering the opponent."  I said to my partner, gesturing at him,
"So.  Half-speed, please."

He came at me with a lunge punch.  It was a good, serious

' !........ strike.  "Someone centered," I continued as I moved,
"someone strong and trained, like this guy here," I grinned, "is hard
to fight off."  I let him barrel into me.  I let his force push me back
and down.  I rolled backward and up onto my feet.  "Too little force,
or too slow a reaction time, will ruin your technique."

I nodded at him and we set up for him to repeat it.  "I can do my tens
hi-nage well.  Like so."  He came at me again, a little faster, a bit
harder.  "And now evade the strike, but he's still not going down." I
slowly flowed into the technique and let him resist it.

"This is where the temptation to use too much power comes in.  It's a
natural reaction: crank up the volume."  I pushed harder.  He didn't
budge.  I could see the conviction growing in his eyes that I was a
talker, not a doer.  He wasn't alone.  There were half-hidden smirks
growing around the room.

"I could do this all day and a strong opponent wouldn't go down," I
continued.  "So now we get more focused, more efficient.  Full speed,
please."

I saw the light go on in my partner's eyes.  This is what these guys
lived for: full speed.  We set up again and he came at me in a flash. I
flowed into the technique and the sticking point where he refused to go
over.

My left hand had parried his strike and now gripped his wrist,
directing his momentum forward.  Theoretically, my right hand should
have pushed him, making him wheel a bit and lose his balance.  But he
wasn't going to cooperate.  Which was the point.

Instead, I took my right hand and made an upright fist with my thumb
sticking straight up.  I slowly pressed the thumb into the soft area
under the jaw, pressuring the base of the tongue.  It's an
uncomfortable feeling and the natural impulse is to draw the head back,
which he did.

So I threw him.

need to make your opponent's head move if you want to break his
balance," I said to the class.  My partner looked surprised, but he
stood up again.  This time when he came at me, I pressed my forefinger
into the point where the jaw hinges under the ear.  It's a nice little
pressure point.  Again, his head moved and down he went.  He made a
nice slapping noise as he hit the mat.

"The point," I concluded, "is to work smarter, not harder.  Never use
more force than is necessary."  I bowed to my partner, who had taken
enough abuse for one day, then to Billy, and to the class.

As I left, I felt the energy of someone staring at me.  I turned to
find Billy's hard-case student standing near the end of the mat.  You
could see the wheels turn in his head as he evaluated my performance.
He probably thought he could take me.  I bowed in his direction.

"Nice to meet you, buddy," I said.  Then I got out of there before he
got a chance to test his theory.

TEN

Court Warriors

It may be that all this training is paying off.  I went home that night
uneasy: I felt some sort of psychic barometric shift taking place.  It
was not a good thing.  The Japanese describe seme as the type of
pressure and intimidation a master swordsman can force on a lesser
opponent, without seeming to do anything.  It's unseen but nonetheless
real.  I had that sense of something pushing against me, probing my
weaknesses.

If I had to explain it to someone, I don't know whether I could.  There
was a nagging thought just out of reach of conscious recognition, and I
felt that if only I could drag it out things would be clearer.  But I
couldn't.  It was like trying to gain a sighting of the moon through
scudding clouds.  All I was left with was a feeling.  A storm was
building.

And I wasn't alone.  Yamashita was up to something.

He had an explanation, of course, but even as I listened respectfully I
got the sense that there was something else going on as well.

Akkadian had gone on with his plans for a gala opening of the exhibit
at Samurai House.  Even if decency had made him reconsider it and no
one who really knew him entertained that thought for a second the post
murder notoriety would have made the allure of publicity far too strong
for Bobby's underdeveloped ethical muscles to withstand.

He had wanted to kick the night off with a demonstration of some of the
best martial arts the New "fork area had to offer.  In keeping with
developments, he had gotten more than he bargained for.  The old-time
sensei wanted in.

The masters tended to keep people like Bobby at arm's length, but now
honor was involved.  Because with a little digging I

found out that the wooden sword that was taken the night of Reilly's
murder was not a minor showpiece.  It was a bit more obscure than
Musashi's weapon I could still remember the gleam in Akkadian's eye
when he showed me that picture but, in many ways, the stolen article
was much more significant.  It was a training weapon used by a man
named Ittosai.  The style he had founded, the Itto Ryu, had endured for
four centuries and decisively shaped the technique and philosophy of
Japanese swordsmanship.  If the local sensei were relatively unmoved by
Reilly's murder, they felt the theft of Ittosai's weapon to be a direct
affront, my teacher above all.  Ittosai had founded the school of
swordsmanship that Yamashita had devoted his life to.

Yamashita had been to the meeting they held with Bobby.  The senior
sensei all vowed to help find the thief.  In addition, the memories of
both Ikagi and Kubata would be honored at the gala.  The sensei felt
that Bobby's stable of ersatz warriors, commando retreads, and closet
ninja were not up to the task, but with the silent condescension of
their culture they didn't tell him that.  They insisted, instead, on
their inclusion in the events surrounding the display.

Which is why I was there a day before the big event.  Yamashita had
sent me to make sure that the arrangements for the demonstration space
were adequate.  Bobby's staff had given assurances, but Yamashita
refused to believe it.  It wasn't just his contempt for

Bobby Kay.  It was that, in a matter of importance like a public
display, you left nothing to chance.  For the Japanese, the pressure of
public performance is perhaps more intense than for anyone else.  The
possibility of technical flaws or accident is always present in a
martial arts demonstration.  For these men, the types of flaws they
might reveal were so subtle that most people would not even notice
them.  People would, however, notice poor planning or inadequate
facilities.  Yamashita wanted these possibilities eliminated.  It was
exasperatingly painstaking, but it was the way you get at his level of
competence.

So I went back to Samurai House and I spoke with the display curator.
The wooden floor of the exhibition gallery was glossy with polish.  You
would never know that they had shoveled Reilly into a rubber bag in
this very space just a week ago.  The curator was a narrow-faced woman
who sniffed constantly, as if catching a sudden whiff of something
unpleasant.  Maybe it was me.  She seemed only too happy to let me
wander off by myself.

The temporary dividers for the display had been removed, revealing a
cavernous space.  Behind a vacant performance area, you could glimpse
the glass cases and muted lighting of the exhibit itself.  Yamashita
had given me pretty precise specifications to check.  Even though part
of me was consumed with a memory of this place as a crime scene, I
complied with my teacher's wishes.  I checked for obtruding pillars.  I
walked the floor surface checking for irregularities and splinters.  I
made sure the ceiling was high enough.  The wall where Romn had
commemorated the murder with his message and signature had been
repainted.  You would have a hard time identifying the area as the
place where Reilly had looked, open-eyed with surprise, into eternity.
I was alone in the space where Ronin had left his mark.

I paced the perimeter of the space like a monk in cloisters, focused on
an interior reality, a search for something elusive.  I tried to
re-create Reilly's last fight.  I could imagine the grunts, the hisses
of air, the contained lunges.  Were they barefoot?  On this type of
floor, I would have been.  Did they speak?  What do you say to someone
when you realize they're trying to kill you?  I would have saved my
breath.

For something important like running away.

But I guess Reilly didn't use that option.  When he finally looked into
the eyes of his killer, what did he see?  What does anyone see at that
moment except the sudden realization that the idea of the ego's
importance is a grand fraud?

In the martial arts, we train to diminish the ego.  I've been chipping
away at it for years, but I hope that someday the eventual blowing out
of the candle of self occurs at my own pace and is not thrust on me
like some violent, feral storm.

The next night, I stood uncomfortably at the reception with the
Japanese sensei, outfitted like them in the layered robes of court
warriors dead for three centuries, while a luminous crowd of
well-dressed and underfed art afficionados waited for something to
happen.

The sensei, of course, were seething.  Standing there, elegant and
self-contained, it seemed odd to think it, but it was true, you can't
tell by their expression, but there is an intense flatness the masters
get in their eyes when they are truly angry.  Looking around that room,
I knew they were steamed.  It added to the general sensory jumble of
the event.

The emotional atmosphere in that room was cluttered.  Yamashita wanted
me to be more open to these unconscious signals, so I was trying hard
to sense things.  The vibes I was picking up were not very comforting.
People tried to look smooth, but they bounced around like excited
electrons.  Only the Japanese masters were still.  They regarded the
crowds, dispassionate and removed, silent judges from another world.
They stood there, mute and hard amid the smoothness of tuxedos and
flash of jewelry, stark peaks in the sand sea of a rock garden.
Waiting.

And I waited with them.  Bobby had invited an eclectic mix to the
opening.  There were the inevitable media types lured in to ensure
proper coverage.  Given the exhibition, I assumed there were also art
collectors here, although it's not a social circcle I'm well acquainted
with.  Domanova was present, of course.  He looked pleased at the
prospect of being near so many potential donors, but also petulant that
they weren't fawning all over him.

The lobby and exhibition room had been carefully prepped with discrete
lighting and hors d'oeuvre tables.  In the whirl, I caught a glimpse of
Bobby glad-handing some celebrities.  He looked flushed with pleasure
at the way the evening seemed to be going, his long face nimbly
registering sincerity, amusement, or respect as the character of his
various audiences required.  Music could be heard faintly at times, but
it was drowned out by the ebb and flow of excited chatter coming from
the well-heeled crowd.  Waiters circulated with champagne in fluted
glasses.

Amid the flat sameness of diamond sparkle, white teeth, and formal
wear, the martial artists stood around, waiting.

"Bobby Kay looks pleased with himself," one of Yamashita's other
students observed to me as she sipped her drink.  She was one of the
newer trainees, and had volunteered to help out.  Actually, there
wasn't much to do, so she was making the most of the situation.

"Bobby," I commented, "doesn't have the good sense to be worried.  He
smells money.  It tends to cloud other issues."

"Like what?"  she asked and sipped some more of Bobby's good champagne.
She crinkled her nose fetchingly at the bubbles.

I had been watching things for a while and had a whole mental list of
things I was worried about.  I just smiled and shrugged, but deep down
the thought intruded: money cloaks other things.  Like the smell of
blood.

Even before I arrived, I knew that the only thing the cops had to go on
was the martial arts link between both victims.  Micky and Art were
still waiting for information about whether Ikagi and Kubata had
connections back in Japan.  But if I was right about Ronin's attention
being somehow attracted to victims who were prestigious sensei, then I
thought the presence of some of the area's most prominent martial
artists would be irresistible.  Micky's response was much more
succinct: "Oh boy," he had said, "fresh meat."

It brought me back to the state of heightened anxiety I was
experiencing.  I thought about why the sensei were here: they thought
that Ronin was going to strike again.  And soon.  They weren't alone.
What little I had been able to find out from my brother suggested that
the NYPD thought so too.  We all knew that Ronin's last message meant
that he wasn't done yet.

This was the source of another complication.  There was a fair amount
of public pressure to solve the case.  The potential for media hype was
irresistible, and Micky's lieutenant had made it clear in no uncertain
terms that things were not moving fast enough to satisfy the mayor, the
commissioner, and The Daily News.  As a result, a whole team of
detectives had been put on the job.  Micky looked on it as less than a
ringing endorsement of his investigative skill.

To make things worse, the newspapers told me that the Japanese
community had posted a $25,000 reward for the return of the sword.
Micky and Art thought the reward would draw every lunatic in the five
boroughs and make their job that much harder.  My brother was almost
speechless with rage.

You couldn't get a good sense of Micky's lack of contentment from
looking at him.  The Japanese are not the only people to have perfected
the poker face.  He and Art were here tonight, circulating discreetly
around the fringes of the reception.  Their suits were appropriately
dark, but the wider jacket cut you needed for a shoulder holster tended
to make that elegant cocktail-reception look somewhat hard to achieve.
Micky's blue eyes swept over the crowd, a searchlight groping for a
subject.  Art looked tense.  Neither was really sure that Ronin would
show.  Yet both men suspected, in a visceral cop way, that the mix of
Bobby's odd guest list and the pattern of Ronin's crimes made it a good
bet that something was going to go down.  Besides, Micky had reminded
me tightly, there was all that reward money.

But for my brother, like the sensei, it wasn't about money.  It was
about pride.  Something had been taken.  It needed to be returned.

As one of the players in tonight's demonstration, I wasn't really free
to roam the party.  I caught Art's eye and jerked my head to one side
to signal them to come over.

"Technically," Art informed me, "we're not even supposed to be here.
Violation of Lieutenant Colletti's orders.  He wants us to rework the
paper trail."

"Oooh, Art," Micky spat, "a violation.  Well get in trouble.  Maybe a
note home to our fucking mothers."  His partner looked around.  No one
had noticed or overheard: the wash of noise from the crowd had drowned
Micky out.  But Art had seen Micky like this before and wanted to head
off the explosion.

"Hey, Mr.  Furious.  Relax."

"Relax yourself," Micky shot back.  "Pussy."

"Asshole."

"C'mon, guys.  Let's keep it down."

You could see the muscles in Micky's neck and jaw work a little with
the effort involved in rage suppression.  He finally let out a thin
stream of air, like a pressure valve gradually bleeding the needle down
off the red zone.  "OK.  OK."

"Look, I'm here, all right?"  Art offered to him.  You could tell he
didn't want to be, but the alchemy between cops, particularly partners,
is strong.

"So what's the deal?"  I asked them, hoping that conversation would
further calm Micky down.

"Three things," Art answered.  The thick, freckled forefinger came up.
"One, if Ronin is stalking martial arts celebrities, he'll be here.
Tonight's an opportunity for him to scope them out in the flesh.
Probably too good to pass up.  And if he's here, we want to see whether
we can spot him."

"Probably a long shot," Micky grumbled.  "I gotta believe there's
something else we don't see here.  But what's the harm?"

"Other than to our careers," Art reminded him.

Micky started to respond and the "F" sound had already escaped him
before he realized it.  "Forget about it," he said flatly.  "Just two
private citizens out for a night on the town, watching my brother
prance around like an extra in Shogun!"  He eyed my outfit.  For a
formal demonstration of this type, the normal practice uniform is
replaced by much more formal wear.  I had on a gray ha kama and black
silk top that bore the small mon, or crests, of Yamashita's family on
both sides of the chest and the back.  My feet were covered in white
tabi, split-toed socks, and I wore zori, the straw sandals of old
Japan.  My brother concluded his assessment.  "Nice dress, Connor."

"Thanks, Mick.  Always so supportive."  I turned to his partner to pick
up the thread of their analysis.  "And what's the second reason you're
here, Art?"

He looked at me with a deadpan expression.  "Two is that if there's
some connection between the victims some of your martial arts masters
know the reason, and they're just not telling us.  We wanna scope them
out."

"Come on," I protested.  ""Vfou really think these guys are holding out
on you?"

Art sighed.  "First rule of being a cop: everyone lies."

My brother nodded.  "And the third reason," Micky jumped in, "is that
nobody throws me my gun and tells me to run.  Nobody."  He grinned as
he said it, but it wasn't a pleasant look.

I looked at Art with raised eyebrows.  He was grinning too.  It was
nicer to look at.

"James Coburn," Art answered.  "The Magnificent Seven."

I paused to digest the return to cinema.  These guys could shift gears
so quickly that it was hard to keep up with them.  But I tried.  "It
didn't end well for his character as I remember," I reminded them.

"Shut up, Connor," my brother ordered.

The crowd ebbed and flowed around tables of food and waiters bearing
trays.  I stood near the performance area, trying not to let the party
atmosphere distract me.  It was almost show time.

Bobby's demonstration had been effectively hijacked by the sensei.
Masters of their arts and of the etiquette that cloaked them, they had
put together an impressive plan for the display.  Armed and unarmed
systems would be featured.  Reflecting etiquette, the senior ranking
master in the senior art form kendo, the way of the sword headed the
list.

Asa Hiroaki Sensei was compact and dignified, possessed of a gravity
created by the accretion of experience.  Iron-gray hair was swept back
from a wide brow.  His eyes glittered black, peering at you over high
cheekbones like a rifleman taking aim over a para pet.  His lips were
thin, as if pressed flat by the effort of forty years of training.

Even Yamashita respected him.  Kendo is an art form inspired by the
fencing techniques of the samurai.  It includes free sparring using
split bamboo foils known as shin ai and trainees wear elaborate armor
for protection.  Kendo is fast, elegant, and furious, but it's a highly
stylized fury.  Asa was a master of the art and combined dignity and
elegance with lightening reflexes.

Kendo students are supposed to study sword kata, but most people have
been seduced by the more sportive element of competition in free
fighting.  It's not unusual to see middle-level black belts,
impressively ferocious in their sparring skills, fumble through a kata
sequence.  Yamashita thinks simulated fighting with armor is
delusional; Asa thinks kendo kata are neglected.  The two men practice
very different arts but found common ground in the study of sword
kata.

Asa and Yamashita were originally scheduled to open up the demo with
the kendo kata.  Kendo's free fighting is fast and subtle; the kata axe
elegant and more appropriate for a formal gathering.  But to everyone's
surprise, Yamashita begged off and put me in his place.  He'd damaged
the ulnar nerve in his left arm he explained and wouldn't be able to
wield the sword correctly.  It was a valid excuse, I suppose.  Even
though the katana is normally wielded with two hands, only the right
guides.  The left does most of the real work.  In a demonstration of
this magnitude, it would be a serious handicap.

The only problem with the excuse was that I had never seen Yamashita
with an injury as debilitating as that.  And just this morning he had
been going at it with some novices, all of whom would have sworn there
was nothing wrong and with good reason.

The sensei were annoyed.  They never come out and say it to your face,
but deep down the Japanese feel that no Round Eye can really know the
martial arts.  Each sensei knew exceptions to the rule, but as a
category non-Japanese are thought of as decidedly second string.
Yamashita might have vouched for me, but for a public display of this
importance, my role was a cause for concern for the other masters.

So here was another thing that worried me.  Asa, all dressed up, was
now being forced to work with what he considered an inferior product
me.  Only his respect for Yamashita and his need to maintain a
dignified public appearance kept him from storming out of the room.

To make things more complicated, we were going to be using real swords.
Most times, you use wooden weapons for these kata.  At formal
occasions, steel swords are used, but usually they are unsharpened
replica swords known as iaito.  They have the balance and look of a
katana but they can't cut.  Tonight's performance, however, would be
with shin ken real swords.

So.  A big crowd.  The possible presence of a killer.  My brother about
to explode.  A deeply annoyed performance partner.  And live swords.
The Burke luck was holding true to form.

Yamashita fussed around me, making sure the line of my garments was
right.  The paired swords, long and short, that we each would use
rested in finely wrought wooden holders in a place of honor.  Yamashita
checked the sword fittings.  The blades are held in by only a small
bamboo pin, called a mekugi, that is inserted through the handle.  If
it breaks, the blades have an alarming habit of flying out when you do
a cut.  The rumor mill says a hapless spectator was impaled some years
ago in Tokyo when a pin snapped and a blade went rocketing across the
room.  There were probably people who would pay to see Bobby Kay
skewered that way, but Yamashita wanted this thing to go off tonight
without a hitch.

Some people saw my teacher pick up the swords for inspection.  When
Yamashita knelt to remove them from the laquered wooden racks they
rested on, a buzz started as people thought the demonstration was about
to begin.  Yamashita ignored it and went on with his work.  Satisfied,
he rose and crossed over to the other side of the area to speak briefly
with Asa.  I tried to stay calm and watched the crowd, looking for
anything unusual.  What does a killer look like, anyway?  It was pretty
much a swirl of party heads.  You caught a sense of personalities in
motion, brief glimpses.  But any insight was lost in the crowd's
motion, like a view into another room blocked by a closing door.

My sensei returned to me.  "We begin in ten minutes Burke."

I noticed that a small envelope had been left by Asa's sword stand
while I was distracted.  Asa Sensei moved smoothly to the sword rack
and picked up the note.  He glanced at it and placed it inside his top.
Then he picked up his swords.  With a final tug on my ha kama I
followed suit.

The demonstration finally began.  I was relieved, because I couldn't
deal with any more psychic clutter.  There was a fanfare and some words
of welcome.  The mayor, who was up for reelection, had gotten wind of
the press coverage, and he was there.  It meant that there was some
extra verbiage tossed around while Asa Sensei and I edged over to the
side of the performance area and worked on our breathing.  The crowd
clustered around and I scanned the faces.  I saw Art, who winked at me.
Akkadian, looking pleased.  There were lots of strangers.  Some looked
distracted.  Some looked bored.  Some looked rich and quite a few
looked drunk.  But no one looked like a murderer.

The words bubbled away eventually.  There was applause and then
silence.  We were on.

The kata series Asa and I were to perform is highly choreographed and
dense with significance.  Each of the ten sets is a paired exercise in
attack and response; each is an illustration of a vital lesson in the
Way of the Sword.  Entrance, initiative, attack, and even response are
all known ahead of time.  But the tension generated throughout the
performance is considerable, You expend a great deal of energy looking
confident in kata.  There can be no hesitation in your actions, no flaw
in your technique.  Add to this the vagaries of dealing with a partner,
and the kata performance becomes a nice test in how you balance the
tension created by almost infinite minute variations in human activity
with the need to maintain fidelity to the form and spirit of the
kata.

When you are done with an exercise like this, perspiration trickles
down the small of your back, under the stiff koshita that forms the
back of the ha kama you wear.  Your hands are slick with sweat from
handling the sword.  Mine were wet even before we started.

Just for kicks, Yamashita had arranged for a tameshigiri exercise to
precede the kata.  This is a test cutting that you perform to show the
audience that the swords are real.  Asa and I faced each other about
twenty feet apart.  Behind each of us and slightly to one side, three
bamboo shoots, each as thick as a man's wrist, stood upright.

At Yamashita's command, we strode forward, closing the gap between us
and crossing to the opposite side.  I drew my sword and cut at the
bamboo.  You have to hit it just right with the sword.  Although
lethally sharp, you need to draw the blade in so you cut at the target
a bit.  If you don't, the katana will actually bounce off.

I got it right and sliced though the green stalks, one after the other.
As I spun to face Asa, the bamboo stumps quivered and swayed slightly
with the force of the attack.  Then the kata began.

It only takes about six and a half minutes to perform the entire kendo
kata set.  But when you do it, time feels different.  We slid toward
each other, the balls of our feet rasping across the floor, the tips of
our swords pointed high over our heads in the position known as jodan.
Our hips drove us forward.

Asa exploded into an attack.  In the first kata, the attacker tries to
cleave you in two by cutting through the top of your head.  I dodged
the blow by stepping back just far enough for the cut to miss.  When
you're using wooden swords in this kata, it's a bit dicey because you
can get clonked pretty good if you misjudge the distance.  With live
blades, it's infinitely more interesting.

Asa's intent was to cleave me in half down to the waist, and he
followed through with his blow.  It presented the critical opening
needed.  I dodged back, then slid forward and countered with a decisive
cut to the head, my shout of attack coming a split second after his and
punctuating the decisive moment in the exercise.

We concluded this kata.  We met and our swords crossed.  They say a
good swordsman can make your sword "stick" to his at this juncture.
Asa's blade and mine felt held together by a magnetic force.  We broke
and backed up to our initial starting points, eyeing each other warily,
feet dragging along the ground as if we were wading through thick
mud.

Each of the next nine exercises contained different techniques, but the
same tension.  After number seven, I switched to using the short sword,
which reduced the margin for error even more.  When I put the long
sword down in the pause between the seventh and eighth series, the
cloth wrapping on the handle was dark with perspiration.

When it was finally over and we bowed out, I had no real idea how the
audience thought we had done.  In many ways, the reality of the crowd
had faded for me during the performance and it seemed as if the
universe were filled only by the blades, their points and edges, and
the threatening darkness of Asa's eyes.  I had some vague memory of
crowd noise washing over the sibilant whisper of my partner's blade as
it whipped by my head a few times, but that was it.  Asa, it seemed to
me, had not been as precise as I would have expected, but it was only
an impression of a microsecond's hesitation.  Not something a casual
viewer would have noticed.

The crowd applauded.  We stepped out of the performance area, sat in
the formal posture, and, bowing, thanked each other.  I'm sure his
error bothered him, but even when they're annoyed, the Japanese are
usually polite.  Asa got up and went to Yamashita.  He bowed to my
sensei and they spoke for a moment.  Then Asa left.  It was a surprise,
but maybe he felt the need to get out of the area after what I'm sure
he thought of as an embarrassing performance.

I turned to watch the next demonstration.  I spotted Art and Micky, but
they were looking at the faces focused on the performance area.

A noted karate master strode to the center of the crowd's attention.
Thick and confident, he bowed to the makeshift dojo shrine and to the
assembled masters.  He stood silently for a moment, the breath coming
and going with a tidal rhythm.  His hands rose up in front of him
higher than his head.  The thumbs and forefingers of the open hands
touched, making a triangle shape through which he looked for a moment.
It was Kanku Dai, one of my favorite black belt routines.  The name was
suggested by the hand posture: Gazing at the Sky.

I felt a presence behind me.  "Burke," Yamashita hissed in my ear,
"something is amiss.  Get your brother."

We gathered behind the audience, off in a corner.  There were small
clusters of people more interested in the free champagne than what was
going on in the stage area.  Back here, you could hear people talking
and the occasional discreet laugh.

Micky and Art listened quietly, still watching the crowd, as the sensei
explained.

"Something is wrong.  Asa Sensei."  He looked at me.  '"You noticed?"

"He wasn't as focused as I thought he would be."

Yamashita nodded.  "So.  He took two tries at one of his cuts.  There
were moments where his awareness seemed clouded."

"He looked pretty scary to me," Art said.

Yamashita smiled tightly.  "Yes.  You would not know."

"Is that all," Micky asked with some exasperation.  "The guy was off
his game?"

"No, detective.  That is not all."  Yamashita's tone was not something
they were used to hearing from people, and Micky and Art turned on him
with the full power of their cop stare.  My sensei didn't flinch.  "As
he left, Asa Sensei apologized to me for his faltering performance." He
turned to face me.  "He asked me to offer congratulations to you on the
level of your skill, Professor."

"Yeah," Micky said, "I give it a nine and it's got a good dance beat.
Can we get to the point?"  My brother was still a bit cranky.

Yamashita was not used to being addressed like that, either.  I saw it
in his eyes, but he went on.  "Asa Sensei apologized and told me that
he had received a note.  And that he hoped to be able to redeem our
honor tonight."

The only reason we were able to catch up with Asa at all was that he
took a while to fold his formal uniform.  Even with all that was on his
mind, Asa Sensei was a methodical man.  His ha kama would be neatly
folded, his other items carefully packed.  He had spent a lifetime
learning not to cut corners and that night was no exception.

We spotted him as left the dressing room.  He was less conspicuous in
his street clothes, as if they were designed to shield the world from
seeing his true nature.  He threaded through the crowd and headed out
the door.  I ducked into the dressing room, grabbed my clothes bag, and
headed out with all the speed that I could.  Running in sandals is
tough work.  Besides, I had watched men like Asa move for years and
knew how deceptive he would be when he got going.

ELEVEN

Gazing at the Sky

The car, with its NYPD card on the dash, was pulled up in a No Parking
zone close to the Samurai House entrance.  Micky and I piled in and we
shot down the street.

"He just entered the parking garage."  Art reported as he ran back from
the corner and then thudded into the seat beside my brother.  Micky had
the car in gear before Art's door was even closed.

"Where's the exit?"

"Around the block."  Art picked up the radio handset and asked for a
record check for auto registration.

"Right or left?"

"Left."

"Thank God."  The streets here were one way, and Micky was afraid we'd
lose Asa if we had to circle around the block.

Micky raced the car across the traffic.  His high-speed turn made tires
squeal; some of them were ours.  The maneuver drew a few cranky horn
blasts from a cruising cab and threw me up against the car door.  Art
worked the radio like nothing was happening.  He seemed to be glued to
the seat.  "How do you spell his name?"  he asked me.

"What's he drive?"  Micky demanded.

"A Toyota."

My brother grunted.  "Figures."

The radio came to life.  "Camry four-door," Art told Micky.  He gave
him the tag number and they scanned the road ahead.  The garage was one
of those multilevel affairs buried in the wall of buildings that lined
the street.  Cars sprung out of the gated exit directly into traffic,
like rabbits from a hole.  The night road ahead was flecked with red
taillights.  From the backseat, I couldn't see their expression, but
you could almost feel the eye strain as the two men peered into the
distance to try to spot Asa.  The tension evaporated and they both
settled back into the seat with relief as the Toyota exited the
garage.

"OK," Micky breathed, "here we go."

We trailed Asa through Manhattan's night traffic.

Micky was cursing softly under his breath, trying to stay close but not
too close to Asa's car and avoid the vehicles that passed by.  Art
quietly narrated their progress across town.  I noticed that they
didn't bicker at all.

We were headed down the East Side.

"He live down here?"  Art asked me.  I shook my head no.  "OK," he said
quietly.  "Is he heading for the bridge or the tunnel?"

"Please God," Micky said, swerving around and then ahead of a bus that
lumbered into our path like a whale breaching, "let it be the
bridge."

Roebling's bridge is an architectural wonder, even after all these
years.  It was built in an age when aesthetics and technology hadn't
been split apart.  At night, the Brooklyn Bridge is lit up, a
brick-and-cable causeway spun across the oily churning of the East
River.  It could be seen as the initiate's path to the mysteries of
Manhattan or as an escape hatch from the menace of the urban beast.
It's hard to tell.  Traffic goes both ways.

"So what's in Brooklyn?"  Micky mused.  "Asa have a school there?"

"No," I replied.

"And he doesn't live there?"  Art reconfirmed.  All I could do was
shake my head no.  "OK.  No problem; I got the address," he said.

My brother shot me a quick look of pure fury.  "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he
breathed.  "I told ya these guys were holdin' out on us, Art."

"Maybe he's headed for Little Tokyo," I suggested lamely.  There was a
growing Japanese and Korean community in Queens.

"Seems a roundabout way of getting there," Micky commented with acid in
his voice.

He edged a little closer to the Camry, muscling his way through the
close-packed lanes.  The exit ramp from the bridge was a bit dicey and
he didn't want to lose Asa.  The traffic squeezed in as we reached the
Brooklyn side, the drivers getting ready to head north to the Long
Island Expressway or south to the Gowanus.

The blacktop was uneven, with seams and holes that made the car
grumble.  Micky was jockeying around in the middle lane, swinging his
head quickly over his right shoulder to check the blind spot in case we
had to go in that direction.  The exit ramp from the bridge was coming
up.  "So whattaya think, Art?"  my brother asked quietly.

"I think if he was heading to Queens he would have taken the
Fifty-ninth Street Bridge.  I don't think he's going home.  I think
he's got a meet set up."

"Me too," my brother said.

"Why?"  I asked.  I swallowed when I said it and the word came out with
an odd, strangled sound to it.

Micky let out a breath.  Then his shoulders shrugged.  "Think about it.
If you were gonna try to catch this guy, where would you look,
Connor?"

"I guess I'd stake out a dojo"

"Correct," Art jumped in.  "And why is that?"

"Well, because... I guess because the other murders took place in dojo.
Or places like them."

"Right."  Micky jerked the car over and followed Asa through the exit
toward the Gowanus Expressway.  We passed the silent group of
warehouses and refurbished office buildings that cluster around the
foot of the bridge, and drove along the waterfront for a time.  A navy
destroyer hulked, a gray form in the grayer expanse of urban night.
Then we drove up past the plaza where cars clustered before entering
the Brooklyn Tunnel to Manhattan and we moved onto the expressway
proper, which led through the Red Hook section toward Bay Ridge.  "And
the one thing that trips most murderers up, Art?"  Micky continued, as
if the intervening silence had not existed.

"Pattern.  Predictability," his partner responded.

"So, buddy boy," Micky continued, "We got your teacher's pal shootin
out of the reception like his tail's on fire.  A mysterious message
that obviously got to him.  And now he's headin' somewhere.  Not home.
My guess is something's goin down."

"Maybe," I said grugingly.  I was still trying to digest the swirl of
action that hadn't seemed to let up since Asa and I crossed swords for
the kata demonstration.  It felt like it happened a month ago.

The expressway was a bland, brightly lit stretch of elevated concrete,
Yeu got occasional glimpses of the upper stories of brick row houses
that piled up in clusters right in the shadow of the roadway.  Church
spires stuck up out of the sea of tar roofs Brooklyn is the borough of
churches.  Billboards advertised for car dealerships.  Up ahead, the
sky looked dark, but the stars were washed out from the ambient light.
Soon the road would arc left to lead to the bridge to Staten Island.
The traffic had eased up here and everyone was more or less in their
own lanes.  It reduced the tension and the two men were more willing to
talk.

"Ronin has got to know someone's looking for him," Art commented.

"And our basic assumption is that there's something he's after we don't
know about.  So he may be crazy," Micky said.

"But he's not dumb," Art finished.

"So, after all the publicity in the papers, he's got to find another
spot to get at his victim.  Now that ya think about it, maybe the whole
Samurai House reception looked to him like a great way to get us
lookin' in the wrong place."

"Sure," Art nodded sagely.  "And while we're all tied up there, he sets
up another location."

"But he's got to have a way to lure someone to the meet.  I wonder what
he's got?"  My brother had been giving this some thought.

"Gotta be some powerful mojo," Art commented.  "He's already used it on
two others."

I grunted in affirmation.  Part of me was wondering whether my brother
hadn't been right all along: the sensei knew something they weren't
telling.  I had the sickening feeling that maybe my sensei knew
something.  But at that moment, I was trying to figure out some way of
getting out of the ceremonial outfit I was still wearing.  I had
anticipated changing into a suit after the performance.  But not in a
car.

The ha kama and other clothes are not easily disposed of.  I finally
gave up and just pulled on the shoes I had in the bottom of the bag.
The zori would be useless if we had to go anywhere on foot.

As I looked up, the Camry exited onto Fourth Avenue and we kept pace.

"Mr.  Man, Mr.  Man," Micky murmured under his breath, "where are you
heading?"

He was heading south.  But we couldn't figure out where.  Down Fourth
Avenue, Asa took a left.  It led along a strip of park that served as a
buffer between the neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Bay Ridge.  It was
lined with trees whose bark was mottled like camouflage.  The
chain-link fencing around the playground was ten feet high and iron
swing sets and monkey bars made odd shapes in the darkness.  A squat
brick Parks Department building hulked in the middle of the grass
strip.  Passing headlights picked out the fluid wash of graffiti.

A left again, and we were heading north onto Sixth Avenue.  We passed
under the expressway, and the Camry's brake lights flashed as Asa
turned right onto Sixty-second Street.

At this spot in Brooklyn, the subway comes up for air.  The R and N
lines run out here from Manhattan.  The R continues south to the tip of
Brooklyn, which is capped by Fort Hamilton.  At Fifty-ninth Street, the
N line turns east and emerges from its tunnel into a trench that rises
slowly until the subway becomes elevated and you get to Coney Island. A
growing Chinese population was moving into the area around the point
where the trains come out of the tunnels.  New immigrants got simple
directions to the first stop the N makes after it bursts from darkness:
get off at Blue Sky.  For the local Chinese, the Eighth Avenue stop on
the N is known as the Blue Sky station.

Asa slowly rolled down Sixty-second Street, which goes one way, east,
and parallels the N train's trench.  Small factories and warehouses
dotted the street, shuttered tight and washed in the odd light of
sodium lamps.  There were narrow garages here as well, former stables
from the 1920s that had been converted for cars.  The block ended
ahead, where it met Seventh Avenue.

The subway lines themselves were dug out here early in the last
century.  The token booths and entrances get an occasional facelift,
but if you walk far enough down any subway platform in New York, you
come face to face with the thick riveted girders and arched struts that
generations of New Workers have stood near, glancing impatiently down
the track for the light of an oncoming tram.  On the block where we
were trailing Asa, the old stables were a reminder that, a short sixty
or seventy years ago, horses were still lugging ice through Brooklyn's
streets.

"What's the deal here, Connor?"  We weren't too far from where I lived
and Micky was relying on me for some information.

"Seventh Avenue's coming up," I said.  "The street dead-ends.  Not much
there.  A few shops around the corner.  More people closer to Eighth
Avenue."

Asa pulled over and we nosed into the curb, farther back on the block.
Micky dowsed the headlights and we watched.

The Camry's lights went out.  Asa got out of the car.  He took a quick
glance around, sweeping the shadows.  His eyes were dark slashes in the
sodium wash of the streetlight.  I felt myself shrink back into the
seat almost involuntarily.  With anyone else, it would have been
foolish.  But I knew this man and what he was capable of.  I felt as if
he had sensed our presence.  But it didn't seem to bother him.  He
popped the trunk and removed something long and narrow from the car,
and began walking toward the corner.

Micky gestured.  "What?"  he asked me quietly.

I let out a tense breath.  "It's a sword bag."

"OK," Micky's voice was sharp with excitement.  "It's happening. What's
there?"  he pointed as Asa turned right at the corner.

"Nothing," I said.  "The overpass is blocked off for construction.

"C'mon, ladies," Art urged, "time's wastin'.  Something's there."

"Nothing," I insisted.  Then it came to me.  "Wait."  I sat forward to
peer through the windshield into the murk.  There's an old entrance to
the Eighth Avenue subway stop."

"In use?"  Micky had already started to roll the car forward.

"No.  It's closed down."

They looked quickly at each other.  "Perfect," Art said.  He reached
under his coat and checked his pistol.  Micky handed him a two-way
radio and Art squelched it for a test.  "There's an exit further ahead
on Eighth?"  he confirmed.

"Next block."  Things were beginning to speed up and the conversation,
the movements, everything had the feeling of getting tight.

"OK."  Art was doing three things at once.  Checking his gun.  Handling
the radio.  Undoing the seat belt.  His brain had to be racing.  "I go
in here.  You block the other exit?"  He looked at Micky for
confirmation.

Micky nodded in agreement and we rolled ahead to the corner where Asa
had turned right.  Art launched himself out the door.  Asa was nowhere
to be seen.  On the east side of Seventh Avenue, the closed subway
entrance was dark.  An old sign, dirty with time and neglect, hinted
faintly at the old platform's presence.  One of those old metal
turnstiles marked the entrance.  It was essentially a cylindrical cage
that was about seven feet high.  Part of it rotated to permit access.
In the dark it looked like a torture machine from a medieval castle. At
one point, it had been chained shut.  Art shined a flashlight on the
entry.  He held it like a club, with the shorter, light end projecting
from the bottom of his fist.  The chain hung, swaying slightly.  The
light picked up the fresh cut where the links had been severed.  Art
gave us a last look,

nodded, and followed Asa into the shadows that led down to the
trench.

"Shit, Art," Micky said to the night where his partner had been, "shoot
first, will ya?"

Micky started to wheel the car into a left turn to get to Sixty-first
Street and head to the other end of the station, but never made it. The
sequence that followed is jumbled in my mind, even now.

Art's voice crackled over the two-way radio.  "Mick," he hissed
cautiously.  Then louder, more urgently, "MICK!"

My brother jerked the car to a stop and sprung out, the door hanging
open.  My window was closed but the sound of the gunshot was clear as
it punched its way up from down on the old platform.  It cut through
everything and snapped my head in its direction.

My brother sprinted around the front of the car and headed for the
subway turnstile at a run.  His gun was out and he was calling into his
radio: "Art?  Art?"  As if contact would put things right again.  But
he was wrong.

I sat for a moment, watching things unfold with a bewildering rapidity.
I popped open the car door, unsure of what to do next.  The engine was
still running and the keys glinted in the darkness, dancing with
vibration.  The radio mounted on the dash chattered.  I got out of the
car and headed toward my brother.  Micky hit the entranceway and, from
down in the trench, a muffled string of concussions thudded into the
night.

Things were bad.  They were about to get worse.

The turnstile entrance was dark and the metal moaned as I moved through
it.  The brief corridor smelled of damp concrete and urine, and I
hurried onto the stairs leading down to the old

station.

A hundred yards to my left toward Eighth Avenue the platform was
brightly lit.  But here, it was dim.  I took the stairs as fast as I
could, but it was awkward in the Japanese clothes.  The steps were
slick with dead leaves and old newspapers and the thick wet stuff that
subway floors secrete like mucus.

I don't know what I expected.  Movement, I suppose.  Some kind of
action.  But it was still down there, and it scared me.  There was just
enough light to ruin whatever night vision I had, but I could sense
faint forms huddled at the bottom of the landing.

I could also smell the residual scent of gunfire in the air.  And the
damp.  And something else that I couldn't identify yet.  You could hear
the faint hum of the traffic in the distance, the pulse that never
really stops in Brooklyn.  The high whine of tires on the expressway
floated above.  Then I picked up the odd zzzing noise carrying through
the metal rails on the subway tracks that told you a train was
approaching.  But there was something else as well, another noise I
couldn't immediately identify.

As I got closer, cutting through the background noise, small, liquid
gasps floated up into the night air from below me on the landing.

A Manhattan-bound train pulled in at the Eighth Avenue stop, three
hundred feet to the east.  Its light washed the scene.  Asa crouched in
a corner, gripping the handle of his sword like a talisman.  His face
was an angry mask, rigid with the intensity of emotion.  He tried to
say something as I slid down the stairs, but the noise of the
approaching train swallowed it.

The light intensified as the subway train got closer.  The roar of its
approach grew in volume as I reached the last step.  The train shot by,
a fierce explosion of light and speed and noise.  Then I knew what I
smelled.

In the strobelike flutter of the light from the train cars, Micky knelt
in a black pool of blood that washed across the platform.  In his arms,
Art lay stretched out.  It was dark, but I could see the stump of a
wrist where blood pulsed out onto the concrete.  His shirt was dark and
slick from the gash across his torso.  He was sliding deep down into
shock and gazing up frantically as if trying to pierce the night sky
for a last glimpse of the world.  His face was straining in the effort,
a response to some inner prompting we could only guess at.  Art gulped
spasmodically at the air, his lips working in frantic haste.

The noise of the train passed and I could hear Micky screaming at me
"Put some pressure on it, Godammit!"  and jerking his chin at the
gushing arm.  Then into his radio: "Officer down!  Officer down!"  In
the rapid pattern of dark and light thrown by the train, he looked
wild, caught up in a mix of rage and frustration and despair.

Ronin was nowhere to be seen.  In the distance, a siren whooped, its
frantic call a faint offer of hope.

I knelt across from my brother and pressed down hard on Art's arm as if
sheer diligence could set things right.  "Hang on, buddy," Micky was
telling him.  "Hang on."  Micky was rocking back and forth, cradling
Art's head in one hand, working the radio with the other.  The force in
his utterance was like something palpable: a rope to bind Art to us, a
light in the dim, wet valley we huddled in.  A prayer against the
night.

The sirens got closer.  I could hear shouts.  People were moving
cautiously down toward us from the lighted platform.

Art seemed to seize up; his back arched and he made a glottal, choking
sound.  Micky dropped the radio and held him tight.

Art's face calmed a bit as if reassured.  It was hard to tell at that
point if he was even aware of us.  I felt like something essential had
just been wrenched from me, deep down in my guts.  I looked about in
that dark place, searching for help.  It seemed to take a long time to
come.  I turned back to face my brother.

Even in the washed out light of that place, the tears in Micky's eyes
glittered like the last sparks of a dying star.

TWELVE

Night Noise

When Art married Marie, he converted to Catholicism, so amid the tubes
and beeping machines of the I.C.U, there were the whispered
implications of the Last Rites.  The priest was youngish, with that
well-fed and sincere look priests get before the hard life they choose
drives them to furtive sins and quiet resignation.  For now, he sat
uncomfortably with us in the waiting room, pink-faced and round, ready
to speak, eager to comfort.  But he took a look at Micky and the other
cops who had come to be with the family.  They were hard-faced men.
The priest wisely squashed his impulse to tell us all the Good News.
No one was in the mood for it.

Marie sniffed once or twice but held it together.  Dee sat with her.
Art's daughter, red-eyed and washed out, stared at a world that had
been blown apart and revealed as the uncertain place it really was.  It
was a hard thing to learn.  At any age.

They couldn't say whether Art would make it.  We waited around the
hospital, not saying much.  It was a busy place, and each group keeping
vigil thought they were somehow special, but we were all the same.  For
every red-eyed cluster, the universe had contracted into a tight knot
of people hesitant to come to grips with the grim possibilities before
them.  It had been a long night, but it seemed like there were better
things to do than just wait.

The cops arranged shifts: some stayed; some went back out on the
streets.  After a while, I emerged into the bright sunlight, blinking
with the suddenness of the glare and the harsh, relentless way of the
world.

The ride home was a leaden progression through different mental
landscapes.  The growing summer heat beat in through the windshield,
fighting with the air conditioner for dominance.  It added to the
general feeling of impending disaster.  For distraction, I watched the
scenery rush by, but it didn't work.  My eyes were open, but I was
really just seeing the aftermath of that night.

There is nothing so frantic as the scene where a policeman has been
taken down.  A transit cop at the Eighth Avenue station had heard the
shots and called for backup the radios Micky and Art were using were
encrypted stakeout sets that couldn't reach the police communication
network.  A cruiser from the local precinct was the first on the scene,
both cops nervously waving guns and lights around until they were sure
who all the players were.  By that time, Asa had joined us by Art's
side, which was a good thing; if he'd still been crouched in the corner
with a sword, the cops would have drilled him for sure.

The ambulance got there at about the same time.  Two beefy guys in
tightly tailored uniform shirts snapped on latex gloves and got to
work.  They surveyed the scene and knelt down across from Micky.

"Shit," one breathed.  He was looking at the mess of Art's chest and
his stump, trying to figure out what to do first.  You could see the
judgment register in his eyes like a shutter flickering, but his hands
never stopped moving.  "Shock suit," he told his partner.

Micky's voice was flat and far away.  "He's already bled out."

The EMT nodded in acknowledgment.  "Maybe.  Maybe not.  We gotta try,
man," he said gently.  "Hey," he shouted to one of the cops, "put that
piece away and find the hand.  Then bag it in ice."  The cops holstered
their guns sheepishly and did what he said.  "Make yoself useful fo' a
change," the EMT mumbled under his breath.

Then he began with the arsenal at his disposal.  Tubes.  Shock suit.
Blood expanders.  They trundled Art out of that trench and away with
grim, firm moves, a ritual of succor performed in equal parts for
victim and witnesses.  The ambulance whooped away into the night.

Then Asa and I got hustled off the platform and back up to street
level.  The area was thick with cars.  Red bubble lights were strobing
around the site.  Radios crackled and sputtered and cops rushed back
and forth, frantic to impose some sense and order on the jumble of
witnesses and blood and darkness.

We went to the Sixty-Eighth Precinct.  No one there was happy to see
us.  A cop walked us into the main foyer, they buzzed us through a
door, and the patrolman silently put Asa's sword on a desk.  It was
wrapped in brown paper and tagged.  Then Asa and I were split up and
the desk sergeant told someone to put us in interrogation rooms.  They
let me change into regular clothes.  There were dark smudges on the ha
kama  I'd been kneeling in blood and was glad to get the smell of it
away from me.  I'd seen enough of the stuff.

Micky arrived in a separate car.  He was covered in dried blood too,
and the desk staff fussed about him, repeating all the blood-borne
pathogen stuff that the age of AIDS has made a daily reality for cops.
I heard his voice in the hall asking where Asa was.  The door to my
room opened and he stuck his head in.  His face was closed and hard.
His only comment to me was "What a cluster fuck."  Then he was gone. He
must have ID'd us to the people at the precinct; things got a little
less tense.  But a cop was down, and the fluorescent lights did little
to dispel the dinginess of the station or the somber tone of the
interrogation.

Asa was still gray faced and silent when they led him away.  After I
had my statement taken, a series of different detectives came in and
asked me the same series of questions all over again.  They had a real
knack for making you feel like you were lying, even when you were
telling the truth.  You know why they do it, of course, but it doesn't
make things any easier.

It was after two A.M. before I saw Asa again.  He looked old and
remote.  His face was a wall; only the eyes moved behind it.  The
sensei sat in a chair with his hands cupped in his lap, palms up.  It's
the tnuira hand gesture used for meditation in swordsmanship.  But his
mind was still on the platform, not in the dojo.

I sat next to him and watched the ebb and flow of a station house at
night.  I didn't look at Asa among the Japanese, you don't look
directly at higher ranks in tense situations although when he spoke his
voice was so low that I had to resist the urge to look at him so I
could read his lips.

"He was waiting there," the sensei murmured, as if picking up the
thread of a conversation already underway.  "In the dark.  The note I
received said he would be."  He took a long breath in.  "I was not sure
it would be so."

"It was a narrow space."  His right hand stirred faintly in his lap, as
if coming alive with the retelling.  "Dark.  Dirty.  I said it was not
a place ... of honor."

What did he say, I wanted to ask.  But I was afraid the sound of my
voice would shatter the spell.  Asa's eyes weren't focused on the room,
but looked back into the trench.

"He told me it was regrettable but could not be avoided."  A pause
while the wheel of memory turned for Asa.

"I told him I was there to accept his challenge.  He seemed surprised.
But he understood courtesy, that one.  We bowed.  It was a narrow place
..."  he said again, as if stuck on that detail.

"I circled away from the stairs toward the wall.  It was dark, but I
could feel him watching me.  By the wall, I could look out and the
light around him made him a better target."  He smiled tightly. "Heiho.
We drew our swords.  His nukitsuke was strong, Professor."  It was the
only indication I had that Asa was even aware of my presence. For him
to classify Ronin's sword drawing as strong told me volumes.

"Then the policeman came.  The big one.  I do not believe he even saw
me in the shadows.  He came down the stairs so fast, he had little
time.  Just some words in the radio."  He took a breath to continue,
then paused as if editing his thoughts, "The stairs were slippery.  The
platform too.  I called out a warning to the policeman..."

"The ... man ... he turned on the policeman.  The gun went off."  Asa
paused as if the memory of the shot punctuated his narrative.  "I saw
the rage in his eyes by the light from the guns flash.  It was like the
heat of a furnace, his anger."  He paused.  "The old warriors must have
known this feeling: 'relentless as fire."" It was a reference to an
ancient samurai battle slogan.

Asa sat forward with the tension, then subsided.  "He struck kote" the
old man said simply.  The wrist cut is one of the most common used in
kendo.  "He cut at the right hand.  In the dark, it looked as if the
policeman had a gun in it."  But Art was left handed.

Asa continued.  "The first shot came as the blade sliced down."  I
could imagine the flash of gunfire and the glitter of the blade's arc.
"It froze the ronin for a moment."  And that fractional pause was
probably why Art was clinging to life.

"But he recovered.  He was quick, that one."  He stopped again, caught
in the vividness of his memory.  "I began to move, but he had already
crossed to the other side.  I could not get a clear strike... It was
irimi" he said flatly.  An entering technique that brings you to your
attackers side for a counter.  "He moved in," Asa spat.

"I am not sure what technique he used then," he said apologetically, as
if identifying the simple mechanics could change the ultimate outcome
of that night.

"But he took the pistol away from the big one.  Close in."  Asa seemed
to bring himself back into the room with an effort.  "The rest you
know."

We sat in the white noise of the station, in the time before dawn when
the unconscious mind works hardest, and listened again to the memory
sound of the shots, a string of muffled blasts that Ronin squeezed off,
the pistol muzzle searching for Art's side like an open mouth.

I nodded.  The rest I knew.

Later that day, after the vigil at the I.C.U, I drove out to Micky's.
I had spoken to my brother in private only briefly since the night Art
was wounded.  He was monosyllabic and distant, on administrative leave
until Internal Affairs had investigated the incident.

Even as night approached, the sun hammered down on the Island, not
letting up.  Micky's kids were in the pool, paddling around and playing
with face masks and little plastic boats.  They were subdued, but the
cooling effect of the water had begun to revive them a bit.  Dee was
out there, a faint sheen of perspiration on her flushed face, trying to
keep them quiet.

I came through the fence and around the house to the pool side.

"Hey, Dee," I said.  She smiled wanly at me and the kids waved.  We
watched them splash around for a bit.  "Mick around?"

She looked at me.  Dee looked beat too, but sunburn made her high
cheekbones stand out with a type of false vitality.  "Sort of," she
said.  "He's in the family room."  She picked up a glass and sucked at
a straw and watched me walk up to the sliding doors.

The room was dark.  I put my face up to the screen and peered in.  I
glimpsed a suggestion of motion and heard the faint clink of ice cubes.
The thunk of a glass being set down on a wooden table.

"What."  His voice was raspy.

I slid the screen over and stepped inside.  Micky was holed up in the
gloom like an animal in a cave.  I pulled a chair over and sat down
without saying anything.  He got up and fumbled in the dark, set a
glass down on the table in front of me, palmed some ice cubes in, and
poured me a drink.  In the dark it was hard to tell, but as I lifted
the glass up I could smell the Irish whiskey.

He settled back in the chair like an old man and tipped his glass at me
in a toast.

I swirled the glass around, making the cubes clink.  I took a sip and
watched him.  "You been in here long?"  I asked.

"A while."  I listened to him carefully, you can only drink so much of
this stuff before it hits you.  But Micky was doing a good job getting
his tongue around the words.  He was stone-cold sober.

"Got a plan?"  I asked.

He reached over and turned on a light.  My brother's eyes are a bluish
gray and they seem to lighten or darken depending on the mood and his
surroundings.  At that moment, they were dark, like pieces of rock.

"Course I do," Micky said.  "I'm gonna squeeze your man Yamashita until
he pops."

"What!"

Micky took a hit of his drink.  You could hear him inhale as he brought
the glass to his lips.  He squinted at me as the whiskey went down.  "I
told you there was something goin' on with those Japs."

He says things like that just to get a rise out of me.

"You got anything that proves it?"  I demanded.  "I mean, other than
some hunch?"

"My hunches pay off, buddy boy."

"Hey, Mick.  Just because you're comin' up empty doesn't mean that
Yamsahita or any of the other sensei are involved."

"Oh no?"

"No," I said.

"Well you tell me how this fits together."  He sloshed some more
whiskey into the glass.  The lamp glowed through the green of the
Jamesons bottle, like luminescence from the bed of the ocean, "You got
a major homicide here.  One in LA and another in Phoenix.  Same martial
arts MO.  Cryptic messages on the walls at the crime scenes.  In
Japanese.  Also martial arts related.  Then, last night, who gets a
meet set up with the guy?  Your teacher."  He glared at me.

"Whattaya mean?  It was Asa who got the note."

Micky gave me a hostile smirk.  "You dope.  Your teacher was scheduled
to do the demo.  The note was for him.  Asa picked it up by mistake."

I thought for a minute.  "OK, when you string things together like
that, it sounds plausible," I admitted.  "But, look, we know that
whoever's doing this has some sort of martial arts fixation.  I mean,
the whole "Ronin' thing... the theft of the bokken.  Don't you think
it's possible that Yamashita got singled out just because he's a
prominent martial arts sensed"

"You still working that celebrity stalker angle, Connor?  It's thin."

"No thinner than you trying to pin Yamashita for something he's not
involved in."

Micky looked hard at me.  "Ydu sure of that, Connor?"

I thought of Yamashita.  His silences and the sense you had of trying
to pierce through a shield any time you looked at him.  His
unpredictable nature.  The ways in which he made you feel both awe and
fear, often simultaneously.  I nodded.

"I'd know Mick.  He wouldn't hide something like this from me.  It's
too important."

"Everyone lies, Connor.  Even your teacher."

"You don't know him."

"Buddy boy," my brother said, taking another drink, "don't be fooled,
you think he's so special..."  The contempt in his voice was
palpable.

"Fuck you, Mick."

"Fuck you, Connor."  The height of brotherly debate.

I waited.  All I got was sullen silence.  The cubes rattled as he
drank.  "Ahh, I don't see how this is gonna help with anything," I
finally prompted.  "You got anything else?"

"Not yet."

"Any new leads?"

"Hey!  I'm working on it," he snapped.

"YDu're not working on anything but a hangover."

Micky made no response.

'"&u gonna let this guy walk?  After what he did to Art?"  I
demanded.

"No one's getting away," my brother said.  He sounded like doom.

"Then what?"  I persisted.

He waved his glass vaguely.  "I got some things to work on."  Then
Micky seemed to deflate a bit in the chair and he mumbled something at
me.

"What!"  I demanded.

Micky leaned forward and said something, but it was low and to
himself.

"No," I insisted.  "What'd you say?"

"Nothing," my brother protested.

I don't know what I was madder at, the whole situation, Micky's
accusation of Yamashita, the fact I had to defend him, or the nagging
doubt I felt.  Something gave inside me.  I stood up, reached down, and
grabbed him by his lapels.

"Tell me what you said, you dumb fuck!"

I must have touched something raw and hurtful way down inside him.  He
jerked to his feet.  I heard the bottle go over.  I wasn't expecting
the sudden move and fell backward, tripping over a piece of furniture
in the dim room.  I sat sprawled on the floor as he stood swaying over
me, furious.

"Don't push it, Connor!  You and all that martial arts bullshit.  I
shoulda had myself more together, but I was too busy payin' attention
to you."

"Whadaya mean?"

"You asshole!  I never shoulda let you come along last night."

"Wha..."

"Don't you get it?"  he yelled.  "We had vests in the trunk!  We had
vests in the trunk and I forget to make Art put his on!"

I thought for a minute that he was going to attack me.  Then he
retreated back into himself, collapsing into the chair.  I looked at
him in the silence and slowly got to my feet.

Micky had the hard-edged fatalism of a cop.  He knew, more often than
not, that the worst thing that can happen usually does.  You hear about
the guilt of survivors.  Old soldiers and anyone who works on the sharp
end of things know about it.  The feeling that you could have, should
have done more, or something else, to stave off the disaster.  It
doesn't matter whether someone is just wounded or blown away.  Whatever
the event, you still get the intimate revelation of your own mortality,
the electric brush with death's close passage.  The secret joy that it
wasn't you whose number was up.  All those feelings get mixed into an
acid stew that can eat away at you, drop by drop, over days, or years,
or a lifetime.

In a sense, it's not rational.  In another sense, it's totally
understandable.  At least that's what I told myself.  People crave
certainty.  And control.  We spend our lives erecting coping
mechanisms, little games we play to preserve the illusion of safety.
The plain fact of the matter is that bad things happen.  And when they
do, all our efforts at staving them off are revealed as inadequate,
delusional.  The innocent finger-crossing of a child in the face of the
killer's bludgeon.

I took a deep breath and tried again.  "That's crap and you know it.
It's not my fault.  And it's not your fault either, Mick."  He didn't
respond.  "We didn't do anything wrong.  Ronin did."

My brother just grunted.

I tried another tack.  "You know Art doesn't blame you."

Micky just sat there and I went on.  "Do you think if your positions
were reversed that Art would do what you're doing?  Blaming yourself?
Feeling sorry for yourself?  A guy like that?"

Micky leaned toward me, his face ghosting into the shadow thrown by the
lamp.  "Don't you tell me what kind of guy he is.  I know."

"Yeah.  Even last night..."  In my mind's eye I saw Art gasping in the
dark as the EMTs worked on him.  "He was trying to tell us
something."

My brother took a deep breath and looked at me like he was both
surprised and disappointed.  "Connor, Art just had some fuckin' nut job
try to empty the whole clip of a 9-mm into him.  think he was together
enough to send a message home?"

Micky gave a harsh snort.  "He was making noises, but they were just
sound.  Art's brain was already shutting down, Connor.  His body just
hadn't caught on."

I didn't believe it, mostly because I couldn't face it.  I still held
out hope.  So did the surgeons; every day Art hung on was a good sign.
Micky and I sat for a while longer, looking out into the yard where the
night grew stronger with each passing minute.  The kids' voices drifted
in, muted sounds from another world.  It was probably what Lazarus
heard.  My brother sat there like a stone, deaf to the call.

I finished the whiskey and set the glass down next to him.  As I got to
the screen, I turned.

"It doesn't matter, Mick," I said.  I got nothing from him in response.
"It doesn't," I prodded.  Through the screen, I could see Dee toweling
the kids off as they came out of the pool.  The image was softened by
the filtering of the screen door and the arrival of full darkness.  The
sheer normalcy of the scene pulled at me, but I looked back into the
room one last time.

"We're going to have to get him, Mick.  It's personal now."  I said it
softly hoping for a reply.  Ice cubes tinkled softly.  I went outside,
closed the sliding screen door, and walked away.

I went home and sat alone in my apartment.

It was hot.  The windows at both ends of the railroad-flat-style houses
that lined the block were wide open, worshipers praying for a breeze,
waiting for a blessing.  I sat down on the floor in the position known
as seiza, which is used for meditation in the iojo.  I waited as
well.

The masters advocate letting all conscious thoughts bubble off in
trying to attain what they call "no-mind" as a way to deal with the
challenge of life.  My thoughts churned, but they didn't bubble off.  I
waited for calm.  For insight.  For a plan.

What I got were mental images of the platform.  Of Art.  Of o or

Asa.  Of my brother drinking in the dark.

The apartment is the place where I sleep and write.  I looked about it
in a harsh, introspective state of mind.  I had a corner where I do
work on the computer.  It was lined with books and papers.  They were
like bricks in a wall.  It seemed to me that I used them for a variety
of reasons.

I studied history.  Did I do it because the past was safe?  A place you
could observe without responsibility?  "You could argue about its
interpretation, sure.  But you never had to really act to shape the
outcome.

And what about Yamashita and his art?  It was archaic, a step removed
from things.  I trained day after day in the choreography of a lost
age, the urgent moves of battles lost or won a long time ago.  I was a
fighter who never fought, the disciple of a teacher who hid as much as
he revealed.

And now I was confronted, it seemed simultaneously, with all the things
I had worked so hard to elude.  Questions of trust.  Of responsibility.
Of life and death.

And I could sit there, pretending to meditate.  But deep down I knew
one thing with a subtle, yet sickening, certainty: I was afraid.

From off the sea, a breeze stirred and moved the curtains.  Out in the
Narrows a ship's horn sounded like the distant moan of a lost soul.

I went to bed.  The only insight I was left with was the one I had
given Micky earlier: it was personal now.

THIRTEEN

Oracle Bones

Shamans chant in the dark to summon the dead.  People have peered into
the depths of caves for thousands of years, hoping the voice that
sounded from the blackness could tell the future.  It usually ends
badly: what we want to hear most is almost always something we will
regret learning.

It had rained in the night.  When I went for my jog by the Narrows that
ran between Staten Island and Brooklyn, the morning sun made the
blacktop of the pathway steam.  The air was warm and thick with a rich
mixture of dust and exhaust, saltwater, grass.  The day was heating up
and the moist air was thickening with particulate matter.  It made the
distant hulk of Staten Island look dreamy and indistinct.  I pounded my
way along, trying to think of nothing.  Instead I thought of
everything.  I was none the wiser for the experience.

There was a knock on the door.  Dee stood there with her husband.

"Is he sober, Dee?"  I asked.  She laughed and gestured at him.

My brother looked miserable.  He squinted at me.  "What kind of fucking
question is that?"  Micky said.

"A good one.  Are you?"

"Well," he admitted, "I'm a little under the weather."

"Under the weather?  That's one way of putting it.  Dad always used to
say he had 'the malaria."  "

"I may have that too," my brother admitted.

"Ignore him," Dee said.  "He's just being a baby."

After considerable back and forth, they trundled a box up the stairs
into the apartment.  It contained Micky's copies of the Ronin case
files.  Technically, he wasn't supposed to have them.  It was against
departmental regulations.  But like most cops Micky figured that the
ends justified the means.

Finally, Micky sat huffing in a chair.  Dee put a six-pack of Coke
directly in front of him.  Micky pulled a can off and held the cold
aluminum to his forehead for a minute.  Then he popped the tab.  "We
need to look at all this stuff, Connor.  Think about some things."  He
said it like there was some significance there for me, but I didn't get
it.

Dee helped me uncrate the files.  Micky sat in a chair, sipping the
Coke.  He was green.

"OK," he began, taking a deep, exploratory breath, "here's what we've
got.  Asa's statement confirms that this guy is middle-aged and
Asian."

"D'you talk with him again?"

"Not yet.  I'm on leave, remember?"  He seemed like he wanted to say
more about it, but went off on a different tangent.  "We don't know
what would have happened the other night, but the MO seems the same.  I
gotta assume this guy is our killer."

"OK."  I nodded.

"DNA samples from the other crimes match up."

never got any fingerprints that you could check from Samurai House, did
you?"  I asked.

He sat back again with his eyes closed.  "No."  It seemed like the word
took a lot of effort.

"What about..."  I hesitated, "... the gun."  I meant Art's gun, but I
couldn't bring myself to say it.

Micky opened his eyes and looked at me.  "We got partials.  They're
still running 'em down.  Right now, we got zip.  And if we gotta go
through Interpol, I wouldn't hold my breath."

Remembering Art made me think of his advice: when you hit a wall, you
go in a different direction.

I sat down across from my brother.  "What was it Art said trips most
killers up, Mick?  Pattern?"

He nodded.  "Yeah.  And predictability."

"So what do we have here?"  I said it gently, because he was wincing at
the sound of my voice.  "What's the pattern?"

He made a concerted effort to pull himself together.  The copies of the
file were spread out on the coffee table like the scattered bones of a
carcass.  Micky started to gingerly push the papers around.  Dee
silently offered him a fresh Coke.  Out of his vision, she put a hand
to her lips and warned me into silence.

My brother moved slowly at first.  He began pulling things out and
making groupings, pausing to sip at his drink frequently.  Gradually,
the tempo built up.  Papers got arranged, spun around, compared.  His
watery, bloodshot eyes moved from spot to spot.  He sat back and
covered his face with his hands, moving it around like the skin was
made of rubber.

Micky gestured at the reports.  "It's always the same.  He's into this
martial arts shit.  You look at the list, and all the victims are
connected by the arts.  And killed by them."

"The pattern holds with Asa," I commented.  "The other victims were
somehow ambushed or lured into some sort of duel.  And," I said
significantly, "as far as we can tell, the victims had no connection to
the killer."

"That we know," my brother objected.

"And neither does Yamashita," I finished pointedly.

My brother made a face.  "Bullshit.  You gotta start thinking clearly
about this, buddy ..."

"OK, OK," Dee said to calm us.  "At least we agree that the link is
Japan."  We both looked at her.  "I mean, it's obvious.  Most of the
guys he killed or tried to kill were Japanese."

"Reilly's the exception," I said.

"Reilly's also unusual in that there was a theft associated with that
homicide," Micky added grudgingly.  I could tell that he wasn't letting
go of the whole topic of Yamashita.

"Well, they're all into the Japanese martial arts," Dee continued. "And
this guy is ... I dunno, tracking them down.  Looking for something."

"And the trail leads here," Micky said quietly.  "The messages at the
crime scenes tell us that.  There's gotta be a connection between the
victims.  And Ronin's lookin for his next one here.  So there's
something we don't see.  Something right under our noses."

"Come on," I said, knowing where he was headed, "not that angle
again."

"The shoe fits, wear it," he said with rising conviction.  "You may not
want to hear it, but there's something your pals the sensei are not
tellin us."

I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.  I remembered last night's
debate: we hadn't gotten very far.  "OK, lay it out for me again,
Mick."

He shrugged.  "Seems obvious.  Ronin's after somebody in New

&O J

York.  Someone linked to the victims in LA and Phoenix.  So let's think
about it."  His voice was getting stronger and harder as the words
began to match the quickening cadence of his thoughts.

"All the victims are martial artists," Dee offered.  She was looking at
a National Geographic.

"Good chance whomever he's hunting now will be one too."  My brother
eyed me.

"OK," I nodded.  "What other links do we have?"

"Both Ikagi and Kubata were at the top of their game," he answered.
"They were so good they were involved with the emperor."

"They were pretty well known.  In the public eye," I commented.  '"Yfou
could see how they'd be chosen."

"True," he admitted ruefully.  "But look at it from a slightly
different angle.  Let's assume we got a Japanese national, traveling
alone, looking for somebody.  He's stopping off at various cities. With
the first two victims, we don't see much time wasted in terms of the
homicides.  Ronin kills Ikagi in LA and within a few days he shows up
in Phoenix and snuffs Kubata.  Then he breaks into the Samurai House,
grabs some junky sword, and whacks Reilly.  But he hangs around.
Why?"

I thought it through.  "Because Reilly was not who he was after."

"Maybe Reilly was part of the message," Dee said quietly.  "Or maybe he
just got in the way.  I mean, why steal the sword?"

"It pissed off the local sensei pretty well," Micky said.  "Maybe that
was the whole point."  He sat back again and sipped at his Coke, his
eyes far away.  "Think about it like a hunter, you know, like in India
when they hunt tigers.  They're not sure where the tiger is, so they
send those guys out into the bush to make a racket..."  he looked at me
for help.

"Beaters," I said.

"Right.  They do something to flush the tiger outta the grass."

"Are you telling me that the whole thing with Reilly was done just to
get a reaction out of somebody?  Come on," I said.

"Yeah, I do," he said with grim conviction.  "The theft wouldn't have
made any kind of splash some junky old wooden sword.  But you link it
with a killing and the papers are all over it."  The expression on
Micky's face was dead certain.

"I don't think Reilly's murder was an accident," he continued.  "It was
designed for effect.  Just like with the first two.  These killings
weren't accidents.  And the next time, the attempt in the subway, that
was no fluke either ..."  he looked up at me, "except his message got
crossed and he ended up with the wrong sensei!"

"There are alternative explanations," I offered.  "There have to be."

"Bullshit," Micky growled.

"I can't believe Yamashita has anything to do with this," I
protested.

"Bull.  Shit."  I could see my brother starting to fume.  Only his
hangover was delaying the explosion.

Dee snorted in amusement at the two of us.  "Look, how long will you
two go around and around like this?"  We shrugged.

"Connor, I know you don't like to hear it, but think it through," Dee
said.  I opened my mouth to speak, but she smiled and went right on.
"No, no, no.  It's my turn.  Let's go with your idea that your teacher
isn't involved."

I nodded in eager agreement.

"OK," she said, "but we agree that the murderer is looking for someone,
right?  At the first murder scene in LA, were there signs of a search?
Same in Phoenix?"

Micky looked through the reports.  "Yeah," he grumbled.

"OK," Dee nodded.  "The killer's looking for someone.  He doesn't know
where he is.  The first two victims weren't random.

They somehow gave Ronin clues.  They lead him to New

But he doesn't know where, exactly.  And so maybe he comes here to find
out.  And tries to do it through this guy ..."

"Reilly," I answered.

"Sure," she said.  "He was a pretty big martial arts name?"  I nodded,
"You'd expect him to know things?  Know people?"  I nodded again.  "So
there you are: this guy that the killer is looking for is like the
other victims.  A martial artist.  He's really good but really hard to
find.  The killer wanted Reilly to tell him."

I started to get an uncomfortable feeling, a vague tingling.  Dee
seemed unaware of the effect of her words on me.  She flashed the
National Geographic at me.  "There's an article here about the Imperial
Palace in Tokyo.  There's some link between the two Japanese men who
were killed and the Japanese emperor, right?"  I nodded.

Dee was still looking at the magazine.  "Did you see this picture?"

It was a shot of the Imperial Guards training in kendo.  They're pretty
distinctive because they train in uniforms that are snow white.  I said
so.

"So," she concluded.  "Work this angle.  I mean, come on," she looked
at me, eyes and mouth wide open in mock stupidity, "who do you know
among the Japanese martial artists in New York who's good.  And hard to
find."  She waved the picture at me.  "And dresses like these guys?"

I stayed quiet because I didn't want to have to supply the name.

My brother rubbed his temples with his fingers and watched me.  He
poked at the paper on the table in front of him.  Schedel's notes were
there.  "First, the Mirror Man in LA," he murmured.

"Huh?"  Dee asked.

"The first victim, Ikagi.  His pen name for calligraphy was "Mirror
Polisher," " I said wearily.

"Then the Jewel Guy in Phoenix," Micky added, with a bit more energy.

"His nickname was the Jewel of the Budokan," I told Dee without
prompting.

"So who's next," Micky asked.  "Mirror, Jewel,..."  He let the question
hang in the air.

And, after a time, the answer struck me.  Hard.  "Sword," I said.

He looked up at me with a hard light growing in his bleary eyes.  "That
mean something, Connor?"

"It's the imperial connection," I admitted slowly, with growing dismay.
I was still righting it hard.  "The imperial regalia were three items
given to the first emperor by the gods: a mirror, a jewel, and a
sword."

"There's the pattern," Micky breathed.  "Both victims outside New Ysrk
were connected to the Japanese emperor.  So ... first the mirror, then
the jewel, then the sword."

"Reilly's got no connection like that," I pointed out.

"Forget Reilly," Micky said.  "He's window dressing."

Dee made a face.  She pointed at me.  "No.  Think about him.  Why's he
important?  What's he guarding?  What gets stolen?  What gets all the
local Japanese all hot and bothered?"

"The sword," I sighed.  But I brightened a bit.  "Asa's a pretty
well-known kendo master."  I looked at Dee.  "It's the way of the
sword.  Maybe Ronin was after him"

"Let it go, buddy boy."  Micky shook his head slowly from side to side.
"We know that Ronin was not expecting Asa to show up down in the
subway.  He was looking for someone else."

"Who was he expecting?  Who fits?"  Dee asked simply.

"The intended victim should have some connection with the pattern," I
said.  I was on my feet and walking restlessly around.  Dee and Micky
remained quiet and simply watched me as I

added up the pieces of the puzzle.  I tried not to, but there was no
avoiding it.

"Yamashita," I breathed finally, as I slumped into a chair.  "He signs
his calligraphy kenjin.  Sword Man."

I felt like I had been struck.  But part of me still struggled against
the realization.  I looked from Micky to Dee and back again.  "There's
got to be some other explanation," I began.

Micky began to intone the word "bullshit," but Dee shushed him.

"He wouldn't keep something like this from me___He knew I

was working with the police...."  I started out gamely but quickly ran
out of things to say.

"Maybe, Connor."  My brother sounded sad, as if he were giving someone
bad news.  Which, in a way, he was.  "But maybe not."

Micky looked down and shuffled some papers around in a rare moment of
delicacy.  A photocopy of a handwritten note in Japanese caught my eye.
An English translation was penciled in between the lines.

"What's that?"  I said quickly.

"The note that Ronin left for Yamashita at Samurai House.  It says,
"Please meet me' and gives directions."  My brother handed it to me.

I took a deep breath and asked, "Where'd the translation come from,
Mick?"  I didn't want to hear the answer.

"Yamashita.  Why?"  Micky asked very gently.  His manner had the soft
quietness of a hunter.

"The translation is... wrong," I sputtered.  "It says, "I look forward
to meeting you again."  And it's signed with a name.  Tomita."

Micky silently mouthed the name and wrote it down.  I stood there with
the paper clutched in my hand and felt the heat rise in my face.  "I
can't believe it," I finally said.  "He knew... all along..."

My brother and his wife sat and said nothing.  After that, I didn't
either.  We all knew where this was heading.

Yamashita's dojo was quiet, its entrance as flat and unwelcoming as a
hostile face.  Micky was right next to me.  He still wasn't firing on
all cylinders, but you could almost feel the anticipation boiling up in
him.  I pushed the buzzer but got no answer.  There had been no
activities planned at the school since the attack on Art.  But as a
senior student I have a key, so I let us in.  It's not unusual.
Yamashita encourages us to train relentlessly.  Class doesn't need to
be in session.

Anger clouds perception.  I wasn't focusing on the dim, empty space of
the training floor as I entered.  I never even sensed the presence
behind the door until the snout of a pistol was shoved in my face.  The
guy holding it took a good look at us and relaxed.  I wish I could say
the same.

My brother had gone very still.  Micky's eyes were narrowed down into
slits and he looked at the man with the gun like he was imprinting him
on his memory for later.  Because I could tell that there would be a
later.

The man was a street thug, a gang member of some sort.  He had the look
written all over him.  A young, Asian face, with flat brown eyes.  His
hair was cut short on the side and spiked on top, with blond
highlights.  His gun was nicely chromed, completing the with-it,
happening look.

He had relaxed slightly, but he never took his eyes off us.  And the
gun didn't waiver.

"Visitor!"  he called upstairs.

Two men appeared at the landing above the training space.

"Please, Mori-san," I heard Yamashita say, then his voice dropped to a
whisper and I lost it.

Another voice called out an order.  The gun came down.  We went up.

I had generated a real head of steam on my way down to the dojo.  But
the experience of having a gun shoved in my face knocked me off balance
mentally.  At any other time, I knew if I mentioned this to my teacher,
he would nod and reply that emotion does this sort of thing.  But I
wasn't in the mood for any of his mystical advice.  I wanted answers to
something much more pressing.

Even someone not as skilled as my teacher would have sensed the tension
roiling off the Burke brothers.  But part of me was surprised at Mickys
emotional control.  At least one of us was calm.

Yamashita could see it all in my face: the anger, the hurt.  I had
labored long with him to perfect the stolid projection of heiho, but I
felt all that skill slipping away, melted down by emotion.  He saw that
reality in my face, but Yamashita said nothing.  His face was flat and
closed in on itself.

"My apologies, Mr.  Burke," the Japanese man called Mori said, "my
assistant meant no disrespect."

He was an older man, probably in his early sixties, but he had the
thick, solid look of someone who was still formidable.  He was
impeccably dressed: dark blue suit, white shirt, and gleaming black
shoes.  His crimson tie was a slash of deep red.  It reminded me of the
color of blood.

Micky pulled out his shield.  "I don't know who you are, but you just
made a big mistake."  Then he bent down and pulled a small revolver out
of an ankle holster.  He gestured at Mori.  "You call down and have him
drop the piece.  Then we'll talk."

Mori grimaced.  "Please officer, I think there has been a
misunderstanding."

My brother was watching everyone carefully, turned partially so the gun
was shielded from sight from the man downstairs.  "Oh, I think there's
been a misunderstanding, all right..."  Micky continued.

"Burke, please!"  Yamashita hissed.

I ignored him for a second.  Then I said, "That guy is a street thug,"
pointing downstairs.  "He doesn't belong here."

"Indeed," my teacher said, in a tone that told me to take it no
further.  Mori had presented Micky with credentials that managed to
pacify him.  But barely.  Yamashita watched my brother put his gun
away.  He saw me prepare to speak, and continued, "Please come in,
Professor.  Since you are both here ..."  He gestured back into the
sitting area and glided in without a backward glance.

Old habits die hard.  I obeyed and followed him in, pulled into the
wake of sheer power that radiated from him.  It has a subduing effect.
But I fought it.  Micky's presence helped.  Once in the sitting room,
Yamashita began the process of formally introducing me to his guest.
Micky drifted to a wall and leaned against it, keeping an eye on
everyone.  And the stairwell.

I gave a half-bow to the man with the tie like blood, but I had no time
for introductions.  "Excuse me," I said to Mori, "I have business with
Yamashita Sensei."  Then I faced my teacher and could feel my lips
tightening, curving down with emotion as I prepared to speak.  He stood
there, unblinking.

"Who is Tomita?"  I demanded.

"The matter does not concern you," Yamashita said, his eyes narrowed.

I heard Micky snort.  "The D.A. will have a different idea."

"Doesn't concern me!"  I blurted out.  I took a step toward him.  Out
of the corner of my eye, I saw Mori's body shift as if he were
preparing to move.  I got the sense of a matching shift from my

brother.  "Art was almost killed.  My brother was down there too."  I
felt my stomach muscles clench with tension.

My teacher was unmoved.  Mori spoke: "Mr.  Burke, please ..."

I ignored him and glared at Yamashita.  Mori hissed in Japanese to
Yamashita.  It was half statement, half warning: "This is not
forgaijin!"

Mori probably didn't think I understood Japanese.  The look I gave him
told him otherwise.

Gaijin.  The translation is innocuous enough: "foreigner."  But it has
ugly connotations in Japanese.  Foreigners are barbarians.  Inferior.
Incapable of the subtlety of a true nihonjin, a Japanese.  In that
brief statement, Mori had crystallized the situation.  However long I
had labored with my teacher, I was still not accepted as a true
disciple.  Whatever the secret he harbored, I was still unworthy of
learning it.  Gaijin literally refers to an outsider, someone beyond
the bounds of friends, family, and nation.  I felt the bitter
realization that all I had attempted to achieve with Yamashita was an
illusion.  The community I had believed I was forging in his dojo was
an exercise in wishful thinking.

That night I performed at Samurai House, I had felt the undercurrent of
these sentiments from the other masters there.  But I had believed my
sensei to be above that kind of narrow thinking.  As the true situation
hit me, I had a sensation of vertigo: a jet of alarm deep within the
body's core, a swirl of disorientation.

Yamashita stood there, rooted to the ground.  And said nothing.  He was
like a piece of granite on a rocky headland: waves pounded against him
but with no visible effect.  His students admired this in him.  A day
ago, I had, too.  Now, I wanted to wring his neck.  But even after all
this, I couldn't.

I brought my face close to his.  "You knew," I hissed.  "You knew and
you said nothing ..."  It was as close as I could come to an actual
physical attack.  The closeness, the emotion made my words like nothing
I had ever done to him.  It's odd, in a place devoted to combat, that
there is normally so little emotional contact.  Everything is
sacrificed in the pursuit of heiho,

"Yamashita," Micky said quietly.  He had stopped leaning against the
wall.  "I think you've got information related to these murders."  His
words came out clipped with anger.  "You held out on us, and my
partner's in a world of hurt.  I'm gonna get a warrant.  And I'm gonna
bring you in.  And when I do, you're gonna be in a world of hurt
too."

"Sensei, please!"  I said.  "Whatever you know, you've got to tell us.
I was down there.  I saw what the killer did."  But the novelty of the
exchange didn't move him.  Yamashita didn't even flinch.  "My brother
was down there!"  I protested again."  My teacher said nothing.

"You owe it to me," I finally said, and loaded the words with all the
bitterness I felt.  Even now, I still hoped for something, some
reaction.  An acknowledgment of his complicity.  But my teacher stayed
mute and I turned away.  "My brother was down there," I repeated
quietly, as much to myself as to my sensei.

I stormed down the stairs and through the dojo, heading toward the
street.  Micky slipped in behind me, but he gave the two men in the
upper room a look that said he would be back.  The thug looked up as we
came down the stairs and our eyes met.  His were like the oily surface
of a murky well, briefly lit with the effort of target acquisition.  My
eyes were hot and scratchy and I felt a lump in my throat.  But emotion
had no place here.  Yamashita had taught me that much.  When the anger
burned through, all that was left was a type of pride.

I set my eyes like flint and we left that place.

FOURTEEN

Connections

There's a spot on the Belt Parkway heading east toward Bay Eighth
Street where the road curves and you get an expanse of grass right
along the Verrazano Narrows.  On any given weekend, hordes of kite
flyers are there.  The kites, ranging from simple to elaborate, are
brightly colored, and they whip and twist in the ocean breeze like
living things.  Even on a weekday morning, there were a few retired
guys, in baseball hats and clothes slowly growing baggy on them,
clutching lines and watching the kites intensely.  They looked as if
they expected a revelation of some sort to buzz down the wire.

There were young mothers with strollers who paused, pointing out the
spectacle to their children.  The colors and motion, the bright blue of
the day spoke of good times, leisure, and joy uncomplicated by anything
but the vagary of the breeze.

In Tibet, kites were used as instruments of war.  The thought came
unbidden to me as I watched the scene.  The realization made me
suddenly aware of just what a mess everything was.  It was a sudden jet
of resentment.  In the beginning of all this, I started to think that
working with cops changes the way you see things.  Now I wondered
whether anything was ever as it appeared to be.

I had run flat out that morning, as hard as possible.  As far as I
could.  It didn't help.  In some ways, it showed just how confused I
was: I ran in pursuit of the Way that Yamashita had opened to me.  Now,
even though I was turning my back on it, the discipline would not
release its hold.  The tether had been forged over years and years.  No
matter how I lunged and tried to break free, these connections still
had mastery over me.

I stood, sweaty in the breeze, and watched the kites swoop in vain
attempts at liberation, buffeted by winds not of their choosing.

The day was bright.  I turned away from watching and sat on a park
bench.  I closed my eyes against the deep, warm push of sunlight. After
running, even on a bad day, there is a type of calm.  I know it's just
endorphins at work, but it was welcome anyway.

It is, of course, at times when we are most relaxed that the more
subtle powers come into play.  The Japanese think that ki is the
invisible energy that fills the world.  The ability to connect with ki
is latent in all of us.  And it flowers when the accretion of our
mental tensions dissipates, "You can learn how to do it consciously ki
is what martial artists are supposed to harness.  But sometimes, the
ability springs to life in disturbing and unexpected ways.  Like the
insights we are left with on waking after a bad dream.

The breeze played against me on the bench.  I could hear the distant
rush of cars as they shot by on the parkway and odd fragments of voices
from the kite flyers.  I drowsed on the bench with my eyes closed and
gradually felt a type of awareness wash over me.

I felt him there.

I know it sounds far-fetched, but I did.

It wasn't a mental thing.  It had a far more visceral feel, almost like
a low-level electric current was passing through the body.  And, as it
came, I acknowledged a certainty so deep that it failed to surprise me.
My master was near.

I remained perfectly still in the sunshine, eyes closed, and explored
the experience.  When I was ready, I opened my eyes.

He stood with his back to the water, against the metal railing that
lined the pathway.  The wind pushed at his clothes, but the fabric
danced around his body like smoke against an immovable pillar.  We
looked at each other in silence.  When he started to move toward me, I
stood up.

"The awareness has come for you," Yamashita said.  He had felt it, too.
At any other time, I would have been pleased at the comment.  But I was
still too hurt.

"Not bad for a Round Eye," I said.

His face tightened with displeasure, but he gestured to the bench.
"Please."

I eased myself back down.  Yamashita sat stiffly, facing the choppy
blue water of the Narrows as if bracing himself against an unseen
force.

"I'm surprised they let you go," I told him.

He looked off at the water.  "I made a statement.  Mori-san enjoys ...
certain privileges ... The district attorney seemed content.  You must
understand, Professor," he began.  But I jumped in.

"Oh, I understand, all right.  Micky was right.  You've been holding
out on us."

"It is not as simple as that."

"Oh, no," I agreed.  "Probably complicated by having to deal with all
these gaijin!"

"Stop!"  he grunted and made a short chopping motion with his hand.
"You are guessing at things you know nothing about."

I stared right at him, sitting there and gazing off into the distance.
He felt the look and his head swiveled slowly around to face me.

"I don't know about things because you haven't trusted me enough to
tell me," I hissed.  "Me!  After all this time."

He blinked once and seemed on the verge of saying something, but
movement came easier to him.  Yamashita rose slowly and walked across
the path to the railing by the water's edge.  I followed, like a
fighter pressing an advantage, exploiting a weakness.  There was some
sort of subtle projection going on here.  Maybe it was ki.  Maybe I was
just fed up.  But we both felt it, like a barometer shift.

Yamashita leaned his forearms on the railing and grasped his hands. "It
is not your place to question my motives, Burke.  Have I ever held back
in teaching you?"  He knew the answer and continued.  "No.  I have not.
 I have worked with you for years ..."

"And I deserve your trust," I insisted.  I wasn't going to let him
wiggle out of this.

Yamashita straightened up and regarded me with those deep eyes.  "I
have trusted you with the most precious thing I have.  The Way."

"Don't give me that," I said, waving my hand in dismissal.  I watched
his eyes briefly track the movement.  "When I needed you the most, you
held back.  And I want to know why."

Yamashita got an odd expression on his face, as if he were seeing me
for the first time.  "This has changed you, Professor, neh?"

I shrugged.  This was a favorite tactic of his, changing angles of
attack.  I wasn't going to be suckered in.

"There are some things we regret learning," he cautioned.

"I need to know," I said simply.

Yamashita began to walk slowly along the path, speaking softly.  I had
to come along to hear what he had to say.

"I remember when you first came to the dojo" he said.  "You were so
hungry for knowledge..."  His mouth tightened in a small, wry smile.

We walked along, an old man and a younger one.  Sharing memories in the
sun.

I could think back to the years I had spent searching with him:
searching for release from the pressures of graduate school, for solace
when my dad died.  For a sense of place.  And belonging.

"Sometimes, our desire for something can work against us ..."  he said.
I took a breath to answer and Yamashita held up a hand.  "I am thinking
of your early days, Professor.  There is an occupational hazard of
people who work with their minds too much.  It creates an imbalance.
It is revealed in motion, of course."

I remembered that he used to yell at me to stop moving my head, but I
refused to say so.

"Yes," Yamashita replied as if reading my mind.  "When everything you
do involves your brain, you tend to involve your head in everything
that you do.  You would telegraph your movements through odd little
jerks of the head...."

"I stopped," I said, leery of a warm walk down memory lane.  My tone
conveyed the sentiment.

"Yes.  You have approached a place where thought and emotion are more
equally at balance.  It is revealed in your technique."

I said nothing.

"Part of what you sought with me was that balance," the old man said.
"It was what drew you to the art of the sword."

"I thought I was pursuing an honorable Way," I said.  The words felt
bitter in my mouth.

Yamashita stopped and peered at me.  "And now you will reject the Way?
And all your hard work?  For what reason?"

I stood there with my fists balled on my hips.  I leaned close to him.
"You know the reason."

"I know what you think the reason is, Burke," he said calmly.

"Don't play with me!"

Now he really smiled and it made me even angrier.  "Burke, it is
interesting that a man so involved with the life of the mind should now
let his emotions run so strongly."  He cocked his head to look at me as
he began to walk again.  "But that, too, is part of what you sought,
neh?"

It's a hard thing to explain to an outsider.  Studying an art with a
teacher like Yamashita was many things: a physical challenge, an act of
will.  And it was a process of creating links between yourself and
others, of making connections between human beings that were so strong
because they were forged in heat and discipline and hope and
vulnerability.

As I stood there in the sunlight, I squinted to see Yamashita.  The
glare was intense, and he was hard to see with the sun at his back.  I
could still feel him with haragei, however.  And the sense of
connection I felt was only partially eclipsed by anger.  And fear that
we were being driven apart.

I swallowed.  "I need to know why you held back."

Yamashita reached out and touched my arm.  It was an unusual gesture.
"The reasons are ... not simple."

I snorted.  "Things never are, with you."

"So..."  he mused.  "That does not mean that they are not true."  He
seemed to straighten a bit, as if shrugging off a weight with a sudden
decision.  "You are right, Burke.  I will explain.  But not here.  You
should come to the dojo" he concluded.

"Why?"

Yamashita began to walk away.  "Because you are my student," he said.

My resentment was strong, but ultimately the connection between us
proved stronger.  I followed him back.

The training hall was once again empty of activity.  The man with the
gun was there.  And so was his boss, Mori Masataka.

Our first meeting had been a brief and awkward one, so we went through
the niceties the Japanese cling to in moments of discomfort.  Mori
bowed and proffered a meishi, a business card, to me.  I bowed back to
Mori and gave the card a quick glance.  It was simple and elegant.  The
card stock was a fine cream and the lettering was gold.  It contained
his name and contact numbers, one side in English, the other in
Japanese.  And that was it.

Except for the chrysanthemum pattern of the Japanese Imperial House.

You show something like this to an old-time Japanese sensei, he would
probably pass out from excitement.  The Japanese have the oldest ruling
dynasty in the world.  MacArthur made the old emperor admit he wasn't a
god after World War II.  Hirohito said it and the people listened
respectfully.  But they didn't buy it.  The Japanese are a polite
people and routinely say things they don't really mean.  Especially
when dealing with foreigners.

The two men watched me carefully for my reaction.  But I had learned
well.  I said nothing and waited.

"Mori-san is a member of the Kunaicho," Yamashita prompted.

I must have been a disappointment to them both, since I didn't swoon. I
had more pressing issues on my mind.  I wished they would get to the
point.  But the Japanese are elliptical and you have to accept the idea
that explanations emerge at a somewhat slower pace than you might
want.

" "What do you know about Kunaicho, Mr.  Burke?"  Mori asked.  His
voice had a forceful, precise tone.

"You're a branch of the prime minister's office," I replied as we sat
down.  The arcane structuring of the modern Japanese bureaucracy is not
my area of specialization.

"Yes.  The Imperial Household Agency has been placed within that branch
of government," he said.  "Do you have any idea what our responsibility
entails?"  he continued.  It was a rhetorical question, and he went
right on without waiting for my response.  "The Yamato House is an
ancient lineage that extends back to the very beginning of the Japanese
nation.  The imperial family is the symbol, the living embodiment of my
country."

"Kokutai," I commented.

Mori looked quickly at me.  The phrase kokutai, national essence, has
some unsavory connotations for many people since it was widely used
during the war years by the Japanese government.  You don't hear it
bandied about much anymore.  But the old sensei still refer to it, and
I had heard it used with reverence before this.

"The status of the royal family has been diminished in some ways since
1945," he said woodenly, as if referring to an unpleasant event best
left unexplored.  "And, in a political sense, that is, perhaps,
appropriate.  But the reverence for the emperor continues to be an
important part of Japanese culture.  And, as such, his person and his
family members must be protected."

"Which is where you come in?"

"Hai.  The Kunaicho is the agency responsible for seeing to the needs
of the emperor.  This includes the maintenance and supervision of the
imperial Palace in Tokyo, secretarial duties related to the imperial
schedule, travel arrangements for public relations activities, and so
on."

"Mori-san," I said quietly, and he turned his head slightly to look
right at me.  "I don't believe you're a travel agent or a social
secretary.  People like that don't travel with gunmen."

"Ah," he said.  "So.  You refer, of course, to the young man below us."
Something like an ironic smile appeared on his face.

"He is not Kunaicho.  Oh, no... I am here," a pause while he licked his
thin lips, "unofficially.  In light of events, I thought his presence
expedient."

"A hired gun?"  I prompted.  "What was there to be afraid of?"

"In addition to more ... mundane needs," he eventually said as he
studiously ignored my comment, "the Kunaicho has more specialized
duties.  We must remain alert to threats to the royal person.  In the
contemporary world, Mr.  Burke, being in the public eye brings with it
certain potential hazards."

I let him duck my question for the moment.  "Fame," I noted sagely,
"has its price."

Mori seemed unimpressed with my insight.

"I am sure that, to Western eyes, the emperor seems an obscure, remote
figure.  A vestige of another time.  But the fact that the institution
has endured for over three thousand years makes him a target for
disgruntled elements in society."

It was a very bland statement, but the reality was probably sobering
enough.  Japan has extremely low crime rates, but the human propensity
for odd behavior is a global phenomenon.  Japan is a refined nation
where elaborate paper folding and perfume smelling are arts.  It's also
the world's largest producer of pornographic comics.  Cradle of the Red
Army faction.  And a religious cult that released Sarin nerve gas into
the Tokyo subway.

"So in addition to supporting the emperor's public and ceremonial
activities, we are charged with security.  This includes things like
providing bodyguards as well as more sophisticated activities."

He stopped talking and looked off into the distance.  All he could see
was a wall.  Somewhere, beyond the brick of the buildings, was the sea.
Mori came from an island nation.  He probably smelled the salt in the
air and thought of home.

"I don't think you realize just how complex a mission it is, to protect
the emperor, Mr.  Burke.  The unit I head in the Kunaicho is known as
the Konoe-tai."  The pace of his words was hesitant, as if he were
mentally reviewing what could be divulged before speaking.  Now the
tempo picked up, as if he had made a decision.  "We use special tactics
in containment and neutralization of threats to imperial security."  He
sounded like he had that part memorized.  Probably came from the
mission statement, or whatever they called it in Japan.

"Konoe-tai trainees receive extremely intensive training in unarmed
fighting systems.  An individual must hold a dan ranking of at least
the fifth degree.  And that is just the beginning.  We are able to call
on the most skilled of our martial arts masters to assist us.  And the
training never really ends."

Questions flickered through my mind in a steady stream.  We were
somehow treading on very sensitive ground here.  You could sense it
from the body language of the two men.  I didn't want to spook them
with my gaijin directness, but little bells were going off in my head.
Highly trained martial artists.  Links to the Imperial House.  And a
trail of bodies that stretched across the country.  I looked at those
two closed faces in front of me and knew I had to ask.

"Sensei," I began tentatively, like a man edging out onto thin ice, or
probing a wound that had only recently started to heal, "Is there a
connection between this Tomita and the Kunaicho?"

I looked from one face to the other.  In the quiet of the room, you
could hear traffic from far away.  A car door slammed.  Down below us,
a man with a gun waited with the mute intensity of a raptor.

Mori regarded me silently.  The air quivered with tension like a
vibrating crystal.  The two men exchanged looks.  Mori seemed angry at
having to disclose things.  Yamashita seemed resigned.

"What does this have to do with the murders?"  I demanded.  "Why is he
here?"

"The answer is simple," Yamashita finally said.  "Tomita is seeking
me."

Which is all he said for a time.

The story Yamashita eventually told unfolded with a hypnotic cadence
that brought the images he evoked vividly to mind.  The tale spun out
in starts and stops, a line of events anchored in his past and pulled
painfully into his present.

When we think of Tokyo's Imperial Palace, it's a place of calm and
control.  It is set off from the bustle of modern Tokyo by moats and
walls, the precise lines of traditional Japanese architecture at the
gates set as if they were mystical boundaries leading to another realm.
Like the minutely tended gardens that dot its acreage, however, this
placid environment is the result of an almost savage discipline.

So it is with the men of the Konoe-tai who serve the emperor.  The
tradition of an Imperial Guard stretches back to the very beginnings of
the Yamato House.  And, despite their youth, the modern members of the
Konoe-tai hearken back to another time in Japan.  They take the issue
of duty and obligation seriously.  More seriously than even most
Japanese, which is saying a great deal.  And in their pursuit of
sincere efficacy, they forge themselves in the crucible of martial arts
training.

Yamashita came from a family with a long-standing relationship to the
Kunaicho.  A prodigy of martial skill, he was recruited very early in
his life to train the specialized corps of bodyguards within the
Konoe-tai that Mori directed.  Which is where, eventually, they met
Tomita.

They spoke of him elliptically, as if he were a family member who had
shamed himself and, by extension, them.  It was as if neither Yamashita
nor Mori could bring himself to actually name the man.  But it was
clear they had thought a great deal about him and about what had
happened.

Yamashita described this in a very matter-of-fact way.  He merely
related the details of Tomita's life in the same way you would read off
points on a map: significant only as reference points that lead
somewhere.

My teacher recruited Tomita himself.  He frequented the major college,
regional, and national contests, searching for likely recruits for
Mori.  Yamashita was a noted swordsman in his own right and had both a
personal and professional interest in the young champions he watched in
tournaments.  His dark eyes watched countless young people slam each
other into judo mats and clash together in kendo armor with all the
ferocity of pit bulls.  At the level of play he observed, they were all
impressive.  But he was searching for something else, something more
elusive and harder to identify.

Yamashita saw that the young Tomita had within him the potential for
greatness.  It was unusual that someone so high up in the ranks like
Yamashita would personally extend an invitation of this type.  But he
did.  Among the Japanese, superiors get involved only in the late
stages of any negotiations to avoid the possibility of an affront. But,
although not really coming out and saying so, Yamashita gave the
impression that he got carried away.

Even as he described the events of twenty years ago, he was at a loss
to coherently explain what he was looking for among the bugeisha, the
martial artists, he watched.

"The training process for Konoe-tai is a unique one, Burke," he
related.

I could imagine.  Most special groups of this type consciously create
training ordeals.  Some make it; some don't.  It's like military elites
anywhere: you take your best and brightest and essentially grind them
up in the interest of serving the cause.  The Japanese put a nicer spin
on it, but they do the same thing.

"In ancient times, you heated bones until they cracked under the heat.
The patterns created by weaknesses can foretell the future.  We do the
same with men.  Following a true martial discipline is a process
of...," Yamashita paused to do the mental translation, "... spiritual
forging."

The Japanese phrase seishin tamen was something I had heard for years.
For Yamashita, it wasn't a theory or a philosophical abstraction; it
was his training blueprint.  "I have attempted to expose you to this as
well," he said.  I nodded in acknowledgement.

Mori commented, "The Konoe-tai must be impeccable, Mr.  Burke.  Smooth
and flowing as water.  Hard as rock.  The challenge and the
responsibility are such that only the very finest can be selected."

"AndTomita had what you were looking for?"  I asked incredulously.

They looked at each other for a moment as if sharing a guilty thought.
"I take responsibility for the selection," Yamashita sipped at the air
as he spoke, as if the admission hurt him, even now.  He looked down,
half bowing in my direction.

I thought about the toll this statement imposed on such a proud man.
Even after all that had happened, it made me uncomfortable to see my
teacher like this.  I looked searchingly at Mori.

"Yamashita Sensei has nothing to apologize for, Mr.  Burke," the other
man said.  "His assessment of Tomita's potential was quite accurate."

"He was flawless," my sensei continued.  "The waza, his techniques,
were ..."  He seemed at a loss to express himself, even now, "...
beautiful."

"He was a fine candidate," Mori commented, as if comforting him.

I imagine that for a young, gifted martial artist in Japan, the
opportunity to be exposed to the level of training the Konoe-tai could
provide, as well as the prestige involved in being a member of the
Imperial Household Agency, must have been irresistible.  And, of
course, it was meant to be.

But for Tomita, I believed that there were other, more subtle
attractions as well.  Yamashita didn't speculate on them, but Tomita
must have basked in the attention of a senior man like Yamashita.  As I
sat there and listened, I could imagine how Tomita must have felt.

He felt like he was coming home.

The two men seemed lost in memory for a moment.  So I asked the
question.  It emerged into the still air of the room and hovered
there.

"What happened?"

It was Mori's turn to look vaguely guilty.

"The training proceeded well," he said.

But I got the sense that there was more.

"So he got into the Konoe-tai?  At the palace?"

Yamashita smiled and nodded.  "No.  Potential members are trained in a
separate location ..."

"The Emperor might find the activities disruptive to the harmony of the
palace."  Mori said.  How he kept a straight face is anyone's guess. He
was a very serious man.

"The training period is a long one," Yamashita continued.  "It is done
at a different location in the North."  He looked at me
significantly.

To the Japanese, the North is the equivalent of our Wild West.  It's
where you go for the wide-open spaces.  And the rough life.

"A little more rustic," I commented.

Mori nodded.  "The training facility is quite isolated.  It permits
more focus on the part of the students.  There are fewer
distractions."

"Much of the training is done outdoors, Burke," Yamashita said.  "In
the field."

"So what happened?"  I was through being patient.

The furtive looks passed between the two men again.  Mori cleared his
throat.  "In our enthusiasm and haste overTomita, certain things were
overlooked."  I said nothing and he continued.

"There are a variety of requirements for membership in the Konoe-tai,"
Mori explained.  "The young man was more than qualified in terms of
training and ability.  Education.  It was almost a year before ...
irregularities were discovered."

Yamashita spoke up, as if helping Mori shoulder an unpleasant load.
"The person of the emperor has both political and religious
significance, Professor.  He must be guarded from threats of many types
..."

"I don't get it," I said.

"The emperor, as a descendent of the sun goddess, must be protected
from ritual threats as well as real ones.  You know something of this,
I am sure," Yamashita said.  I nodded.  Shinto religious beliefs stress
ritual cleanliness to the point of horror of spiritual contamination.

"The Emperor must be protected from any source of possible pollution,"
Yamashita concluded.

Mori picked up the thread.  "You must understand, Mr.  Burke,

that we Japanese place great significance on our uniqueness as a
people.  On our purity.  We try to ensure that the emperors guards
reflect that concern."

"This recruit was an excellent candidate ... I still believe so to this
day," Yamashita said.  "But when it was learned that he was the product
of a mixed marriage ..."

"His father was of Hawaiian and Japanese blood.  An American who had
married a Japanese national," Mori said.

He looked at me as if presenting a type of trump card.  I tried to keep
a blank expression on my face.  I knew the Japanese were tremendous
chauvinists who believed in the "purity" of their people.  To an
American of my generation, it sounded absurd.  But these men were
deadly in earnest.  Each of us in that room knew from personal
experience about the Japanese feeling for outsiders.  Gaijin are
dangerous in many ways.

Yamashita continued.  "Many of the other sensei felt it was
inappropriate.  Someone who was not a pure Japanese should not be
Konoe-tai."  He paused and looked at Mori for a minute, then at me.  "I
did not agree with the decision, but I was bound to support it."  I
nodded in reluctant understanding.  The Japanese need for consensus,
the devotion to group solidarity, was a powerful thing.  Even Yamashita
couldn't fight it.

My sensei swallowed and it was one of the few times I ever saw any sign
of an interior emotional state, however subtle.  "I was chosen to
deliver the group's decision to Tomita."  Yamashita set his face in a
hard mask as he said it.  I imagined it was the same expression he used
when he came, against his will, to tell Tomita he was cast out from the
group.

"It was during one of the outdoor exercises.  The trainees spend so
much time in the field, they say they hardly feel human.  They call
themselves yak en  Are you familiar with the word?"  I

shook my head no.  He smiled briefly at a thought.  "It means 'wild
dog."  But no matter.  He was a true warrior, that one.  He bowed at
the decision and left the field.  He turned once to look at me.  The
expression of hatred in his eyes has remained with me for all these
years."

I looked at Mori expectantly.  He fidgeted under my scrutiny.

"The decision was made by all the sensei, Mr.  Burke," he said.  "Many
were as deeply moved as Yamashita-san, but the will of the group ..."

"What happened to Tomita after that?"  I asked.

"We are not able to track all his movements over time," Mori said. "But
we know that he continued his training with various masters."

I looked at Yamashita and he shook his head sadly.  "Not I. Others.
They were not the sort of teachers he needed," was all he said.

"And," Mori said grimly, "we know that, recently, he began searching
for Yamashita sensei.  And the others.  We do not know why.  But some
have already been found."  The look on his face answered my silent
questions about Ikagi and Kubata.  But he seemed more comfortable with
the story now that we were back to points that could be plotted out
with clarity.

"And it's taken him this long to locate you, Sensei?"  I asked
Yamashita.

"I did not want to be found," Yamashita said simply.

"What has happned is regrettable, Mr.  Burke," Mori interjected.  "When
your teacher left Japan, he maintained contact with only a select few.
It is only recently that we have been in contact."  Mori paused for a
moment to let that sink in before he continued.  "I had known for years
that Tomita's humiliation was great.  When I learned of the killings, I
feared for Yamashita-san."

I thought of the sense of frustration Tomita must have harbored.  The
emotional impact of such a rejection.  From hurt to hate is a small
step.

"Now," Mori continued, "I believe thatTomita's search is over."

I looked at my sensei.  "How can you be sure?"

Yamashita smiled a tight, grim smile.  "Tomita hoped to deal with me
the night your brother's friend was wounded.  He stole Ittosai's sword
to provoke me.  He has tracked me through Ikagi-san ... Kubata
Sensei... He is here.  Somewhere.  He will come for me again."

They seemed so placid.  "I don't believe this!"  I protested.

"Please," Mori said.  "There can be no doubt."

I looked at Yamashita: he merely closed his eyes in affirmation.

Mori continued.  "Everything else has been prelude.  The wild dog now
hunts your master, Mr.  Burke."

FIFTEEN

Cutting the Air

In the squad room, phones chirped and papers rustled.  Detectives
called to one another over their cubicle separators.  There was a
low-level hum of activity, the air filled with the sound of people just
barely keeping the influx of information under a semblance of control.
Back on the job, Micky functioned with the easy efficiency of a man in
his element.

He had taken in the substance of Yamashita s statement without comment.
He was silent when the D.A. let my teacher go.  Now Micky was cold,
dispassionate, and efficient.  His words were tight and fast, as if
shaped by the effort of self-control.  But he didn't say a thing that
revealed his anger.  He was too focused on the information and its
impact on the hunt for Art's attacker.

They had a name.  A description.  Something to narrow the odds.
Motivation was less important now.  Micky knew that Tomita was in the
City and why he had come.  He had been a cop long enough to know that
you could torture yourself endlessly with trying to figure out why
people did things.  It was enough to know that they did them.  At the
very least, it kept cops employed.

There had been a conference in the Bat Cave, where the detective squad
mapped out a strategy for finding Tomita.  I had not been invited, but
my brother filled me in on the nuts and bolts of a manhunt.  Endless
checks of hotels and their environs.  A review of airline manifests.
Questioning of cab drivers.  The citywide distribution of a description
to all precincts.

"Sounds like you've got it under control, Mick.  What do you need me
for?"

He squinted at me.  "I've got questions."  He settled back in his desk
chair and rummaged around for his cigarettes.  The pack crinkled.  He
looked at it longingly, then at the No Smoking sign Art had posted on
the wall between their desks.  A handwritten addition scrawled across
the bottom read: "This means you!!!"  Micky sighed and sat forward.

"Asa says Tomita used a sword that night in the subway."

"A katana" I specified.

He nodded.  "OK, whatever.  No weapon of this type was used in the
other two homicides."  I agreed.

"It tells me that Tomita probably got the weapon after Kubata was
killed," he said.  "I gotta assume that you don't get these things at
the local cutlery store."

"There are places you can get them in New York," I answered.  "If this
thing is a real katana.  And I have to believe it is, based on Asa's
description and the wounds ..."  I tapered off, and thought of Art.

My brother gave me a come-on gesture.  "Yeah, I know, I know.  How many
places like that are there around here?"

"Well, you can get cheesy imitation versions of a samurai sword all
over town.  But I don't think Tomita would use something like that. Not
for something so important.  There are probably two or three people who
could sell you something like this ..."

He tossed me a pad.  "Names.  Addresses.  I'll pay 'em a visit."

"It's not that easy, Mick.  Most swords like this are custom made. They
have to be ordered way in advance.  From Japan.  You can check, but I
doubt Tomita was able to get something like this on short notice."

I noticed the display catalogue from Samurai House on a pile of papers.
I never did get a chance to see the show.  It seemed like something so
distant as to be unreal.  I picked the thing up.  It was a glossy
brochure that incorporated some of the stuff I had developed for Bobby
Kay.  "you're talking about weapons like these, Mick," I said, and
waved the catalogue at him.

"OK, so where'd he get it?"  Micky persisted.

I shrugged, and to stall while I thought, I leafed through the pages of
Bobbys show.  I was turning a page when something caught my eye.  For a
minute I couldn't quite figure out what was bothering me.  Then it
became clear.

My brother had been fidgeting in impatience but grew still as he read
my body language.  "What?"  he asked.

"This is weird," I answered.  "I had a chance to look at photos of some
of the display items when I was writing that piece for Bobby.  I
remember this sword here," and I pointed at it.  "But the photo of the
sword in the catalogue is different."

Micky slewed the picture around, looking at it with interest.  "How
so?"

I pointed the features out.  "This katana had a tens ho-zukuri hilt in
the originals.  In the catalogue, it's got a higo-zukuri hilt."

Micky took a calming breath.  "Connor, would you please tell me
something in English?"

"The handles are different shapes, Mick," I explained.  "This sword is
supposed to be four-hundred years old.  Back then, they really used
them for things.  A tens ho-zukuri hilt is fluted toward the butt end.
It helps you keep your grip on the sword.  Modern swords tend to have a
relatively straight hilt, the higo-zukuri'."  I looked up at my
brother.  "Somebody must have gotten the pictures mixed up.  Because
this sword is not the one I had written about."

"A sword like this is valuable?"  Micky asked.  I nodded and he smiled.
"And you could still use it?"  oure.

"Well, buddy boy, I think maybe we've found where Tomita got his
weapon."

"Huh?"

"Sure.  We know he was in the gallery the night he killed Reilly. After
you saw the picture of the sword.  But before the catalogue was
printed.  He had opportunity.  And a motive."

"But no katana was reported missing.  Just the bokken" I protested,
"You'd think Bobby Kay would want to make an insurance claim."

Micky got a crafty look on his face.  '"&u know, all this Japanese
stuff has really made this whole case hard to figure.  Everything is
way too exotic for my taste.  But this ... this kinda thing I get.
Maybe Bobby didn't want any more adverse publicity.  Maybe he didn't
want to scare away backers___Maybe, just maybe his insurance coverage
is shady ..

"But he had to get all kinds of insurance for this show.  He told me.
Said it was costing a fortune."

Micky sat back and made some quick notes.  "Precisely.  And if you had
to come up with a name of someone who might be likely to cut corners,
who would you suggest?"

I got the point.  "Bobby Kay."

My brother jumped up.  "OK, I'm outta here.  Got enough to work on for
now."

"What about me?"

He was shrugging his coat on.  """ifou've helped enough.  Take off.  Go
... I don't know.  Go do what you do."

So I did.

The tiny waterfall in Yamashita s garden flows over gray rocks.  It
makes a musical sound that fills the small, green space behind the
dojo.  Yamashita tends the yard with a remorseless intensity.  It is
(nonetheless) green and soothing in the summer and, like the man
himself, the product of discipline and a fierce attention to details.
We sat on the little covered porch overlooking rocks and shrubs,
watching small birds bounce and flutter in the yard's stillness.
Yamashita talked quietly and evenly, his voice an expression of the
gardens mood.  An outsider would never guess he was talking with me
about the finer points of killing a man.

When I arrived, the training hall was silent.  There was still tension
between us, and my teacher and I had drifted down into the empty space,
instinctively seeking comfort in the familiar.  The afternoon sun
slanted in and cast bright stripes on the deep indigo arms of
Yamashita's uniform.  He stood alone in the center of the room, holding
a wooden sword in gedan no kamae, the low defensive posture.  His eyes
seemed focused on something far away, but as I joined him, the sword
swung up to track me.  The motion brought his focus back to the here
and now.  I had told him what the police were doing.  He did not seem
particularly surprised at the turn of events.  But the awareness of
Tomitas intentions seemed to be still sinking in.

"So ..."  he hissed and looked past me into space.  "I suppose this is
inevitable.  The past cannot be avoided ..."

"That would be too simple," I offered.

"Too simple?"  Yamashita replied, "No.  I think, rather, it is too
complicated."

I looked quizzically at him.

He sighed as he gathered his thoughts.  "Burke, to create a warrior of
this skill level is a work of years.  It requires great care.

Attention must be paid, not only to technique but to the trainees.
Their spirit becomes intertwined with their skills.  If you take one
away, the other suffers.  Now we see the results."

I thought this was an interesting way to avoid dealing with his part in
Tomita's past, but I said nothing.

"I sometimes doubted that the Konoe-tai had the patience to train
correctly," my teacher continued.  He looked up and stared at nothing.
"They seek to serve the Imperial House, which is a thing of great
honor.  Their zeal, however, was always greater than their wisdom."

"But you were part of it," I said, and regretted it immediately.

Yamashita glided smoothly across the floor.  His feet rasped along the
polished wood.  He placed the bokken in a rack on the wall and turned
to face me.

"You will learn Burke, that the true path is not always one we can
clearly see.  There are times when we lose the Way."  He sounded sad
for a minute, and old.

"But," his voice grew stronger, "this is why we train.  Because we seek
the Way.  And because we can never be sure that we have found it."

"Is that why you left Japan?"

Yamashita closed his eyes in affirmation.  "There was difficulty there,
Burke.  Budo, the Martial Way, uses the arts of a warrior to foster
peace.  After a time, I was not sure that the Konoe-tai was preserving
this ... awareness ... in what they did.  After a time, I came here to
see whether a different way was possible for me."

"And did you know about Tomita even then?  Is that why you dropped out
of sight?"  I had always wondered why such a prominent master shunned
the limelight so fiercely.

He looked severe for a moment.  "I did not run away, Burke.  I left.
With Tomita ... I was saddened by the group's decision.  It was a waste
of an excellent trainee.  But no, I was informed of things by Mori only
in the last few days.  And now," he sighed, "I must decide on a course
of action."

"Why now?"  I asked.

"Tomita will not cease until he gets what he desires," Yamashita said.
"He will continue to ... hurt... those connected with me.  I see that
now."  He looked directly at me, his night-dark eyes still and hard. "I
will not have him destroy what I have built here."

"The do joY

His head swiveled on his thick neck.  "No.  He will strike at what I
value most, Burke.  Those around me.  My students."  Again the hard
look.  "You."

I felt an electric surge of panic.  My face flushed.  But I controlled
my breathing, and gradually my heartbeat began to slow again.  I
thought of the destruction Tomita had left, as deep and shocking as a
blade s cut.  And now Yamashita was certain there would be more.  I
needed to think of a way to stop it.

It finally came to me.  Why not, I suggested after a time, lay a trap?
We knew Tomita's patterns.  And what he was after.  How he would go
about it.  Why not provide him with the victim, in the way a tiger
hunter stakes out a goat on a tether?

Yamashita would be the bait.  He was the end point on the trail of
bodies Tomita had strung across the continent.  Yamashita had cast
Tomita out of the Konoe-tai.  He had been both father figure and sensei
to Tomita.  And the one who had rejected him.  Tomita had been
searching for him ever since he got to this country.  Now we could
dangle Yamashita in front of Tomita as bait.  We knew the killer was
close, biding his time.  He was a predator, slowly circling in the
murk, just out of sight.

Tomita needed to be attracted, I urged Yamashita, not just tracked.  We
would entice him to come to us.  The hunt would become a seduction,
made alluring by the scent of blood.

Yamashita heard out my proposition as if I were talking about a trip to
the country.

"There is a logic in this, Burke," Yamashita said, nodding his head.
"There is also no real trick to being the goat."  He mused about this
for a moment.  Then those night-dark eyes bored into me.  "The trick,
of course, is being the goat that survives."

Which, in retrospect, is when my training really began.

My teacher had agreed to be the bait almost eagerly.  There was, after
all, honor involved.  But he was skeptical about my assurances of
safety, despite the fact that I thought that Micky would back us up.
All bait, Yamashita said, can be eaten if the trap fails.  So can the
hunters.  As a result, he treated our role in the plan as if either of
us might really have to fight Tomita.  "It is what he wants, after all,
Burke."  And so he had exacted a price from me.  Yamashita thought that
he would make me practice with him as he prepared for what he thought
of as the inevitable confrontation with Tomita.  "It will add some
variety to your training," he commented wryly.

It had only been a few hours since that statement, and, as we sat there
on the porch, I was sore in all the ways familiar to me from decades of
martial arts training.  The only difference was that now I hurt
everywhere all at once.  The tiny muscles in my feet ached.  My stomach
muscles spasmed involuntarily in certain positions.  And I was tired.

"He hunts at night, this one," the master intoned.  "He uses the body's
rhythm as a weapon.  The murders occur in the dark, when our ki, our
vital energy, is ebbing."

I thought about the killings.  All nocturnal.  Most well after
midnight.  The quiet time, the small hours when infants awake for
comfort, when sleep cycles shift.  The time when the old and the ill
and the weak let life slip away and are folded into oblivion.

"We will need to work on rhythms, Burke, You will need to be here all
through the training."  It was a statement, not a question.  The link
between sensei and student was too strong for doubt.  In some ways, it
was a return to the balance of our former relationship.  Yamashita sat
comfortably, a dark blue training uniform stretched over his thick
torso, squinting out into the garden as he spoke.

I moved gingerly, and he looked at me.  His eyes were flat.  "Are you
tired?  You will be more so.  We will work more on your meditation.  It
will help with the fatigue."

Yamashita had a hard time getting out of the role of instructor.  Even
though this training was really for him, he insisted on talking like it
was something he was doing for me.  I had ceased to notice it and just
nodded wearily in resignation.

"Physically, there is little room for improvement.  But your skills
..."  he paused as if internally rating the catalogue of my ability. He
smiled tightly, as if to himself.  Small sparrows sputtered in the
waterfall's pond, scattering droplets in a fine spray.  "You are a good
student, Professor.  Among my best.  At each step, you have struggled,
but you persevere.  I like that."

I wasn't sure what he liked more about me: the fact that I had to
struggle or the fact that I eventually learned much of what he taught
me.  It was typical of him.

With Yamashita, grading, like everything else, is a bit different from
that of other arts.  Martial artists talk about rank and belts and
promotion.  Yamashita Sensei uses a far older system.  We don't wear
colored belts.  Some of the newer students come with their black belts
wrapped around them under the ha kama like a security blanket.
Eventually, we all stop wearing them.  It is not just that the belts
don't make you feel secure in his dojo.  It's that they are revealed as
totally irrelevant.

In Yamashita's dojo there are seven different stages, ranging from
kirigami, or initiate, to the level where the student has mastered the
complete syllabus of the art, known as menkyo kaiden.  Each level is
not really a promotion, however.  It's just an acknowledgment that you
can do some things and are ready to try some more.  It doesn't signal
an end to training; there is no such thing.  Only the invitation to
learn more.

So when Yamashita paused and smiled, I was sure he was mentally listing
my faults and reliving my past struggles, all as a preparation for
judging whether I could follow him further.

"This, I think, will be hard for you."  He emerged from his interior
reflection and focused on me.  The sounds of the world outside were
muted and far away.  As he spoke, they faded further, or his words
swelled despite their quiet tone, so that all I could focus on was his
teaching.

"It requires a total focus on the struggle.  An absence of compassion.
I have watched you for years.  You are a good man.  This type of
concentration and ruthlessness are hard for you.  But it would be hard
for any of us.  And yet, very necessary.

"The evil to be faced ..."  He inhaled suddenly as if being confronted
with it directly for the first time "... is powerful."

As he talked, he joined his hands and whispered a word.  I saw the
fingers knit.  "Rin," he intoned.

I sat up a bit straighter.

"It will be as relentless as fire, Burke."

Again the pause and a new configuration of the hands.  The mantra was
barely audible: "Pyo."

His breath was cadenced.  His body grew still, dense with presence,
like a rock in his garden.

A new movement and the hissed word: "Toh."

"All techniques are needed to defeat this demon.  All that the body can
bear."  The chant and the hand gestures continued.

Sho.

"But there is more to learn."

Kai.

"The spirit must be focused."

Jin.

"There cannot be the least gap in concentration."

Retsu.

"The luxury of mercy does not exist."

Zai.

"Or fear."

Zen.

"Or doubt."

I had seen this before.  The hypnotic chant and the fluid knotting of
the fingers.  The breath control.  Kuji~no~in is an ancient summoning
of power.  The mudra hand gestures spring from Tantric Buddhism, a
ritual in which the "seals" of the gestures have been repeated over
centuries to forge a link between body and spirit.  The chanted mantra
have echoed along dark corridors of the warrior past.  They are still
used in some schools of the old style as a meditation device.  But with
Yamashita it was something more.

He quietly began again, and I felt my fingers begin the flow in
imitation of my master.  This time, it was the full ritual.  For each
mudra, the chanted word is exhaled for eighty-one breaths.  Each mantra
has a name: the Single Point, the Inner Binding, the Wisdom Fist.  Each
is linked to a lesson: the channeling of ki, control, concentration.

The mind's rhythm rises and falls with the breath.  The hands weave
their spell.  The words are murmured in the still air, small sounds
that fill the space around you.

With the ritual of the ninth gesture, known as join, completed,
Yamashita lit a candle and drew paper and brush to his side.  He
beckoned me to approach him.

His voice seemed to come from deep inside him, from a place impossibly
remote.

"Thus we intone the kuji-in.  For strength.  Compassion.  Courage. This
you have been taught."

I bowed formally to him.  My muscles protested, but it was a curious,
muffled sensation, more like a faint message from another place.

"There is yet the ju-in, a tenth seal, Burke.  Not many know of it. Not
many have the need.  I will show you the character."

He brushed the dark, balanced strokes of an accomplished calligrapher
on the small piece of paper.  "Look at it," he ordered me, pointing at
what he had written.  "Do you recognize it?"

"Yes, Sensei," I whispered.  He raised a hand.

"Do not say it."  Then he reached out for my hand.  "Trace its lines.
Learn it."

I did as I was bid, tracing the lines.  Yamashita ensured that my
finger moved in the correct directions in the correct sequence.  Our
hands moved together, over and over again until I was sure.

"Now," he said, "the kuji kiri!"  The cutting with kuji.  He raised his
hands and, for each of the nine gestures, made a slash in the air in
front of him, as if cutting up space.  "Four vertical lines," he
instructed.  "Five horizontal.  In the center, to-in"

He showed me how to make the hand shape of the tenth seal and, with my
hands in that configuration, how to cut at the air, tracing the
character in the center of the lines that, invisible, quivered with
power and reality nonetheless.

It was the warrior's grid.  A power symbol.  And in the middle, ju-in,
the tenth seal, called to~in.  The Sword Seal.

Only then did Yamashita utter the mantra that accompanied it.  He
voiced it forcefully, as if pushing against the fabric of the
atmosphere.  I heard it and repeated.

It was an ancient word, a complex word, jumbled in the passage from
Sanskrit to Chinese to Japanese, but whose meaning was clear and sharp:
the destruction of evil.

"How's Art?"  I asked Micky wearily.  I could hear the surge of my
blood in the phone receiver.

"The same," he said.  "Hanging on."

"That's something, at least."  I got a grunt.  "Any new leads?"  It
wasn't a particularly animated conversation.

"We're workin' on it.  I shook your pal Bobby Kay's tree a bit."

"Anything there?"

I could see the shrus, even over the phone line.  "Something or o
stinks there, but I don't have anything solid."  Then he switched
gears.  "What are you up to?  I've been trying to reach you."

"I know," I apologized.  "Sorry.  I got involved with something with
Yamashita Sensei."  I tried to sound sincere, but it was an effort
holding a conversation.  Yamashita had worked me ruthlessly for the
rest of the day.  I was sitting in one of the chairs in his living room
upstairs.  It was a comfortable seat.  And it was good to talk.  But
some of the small muscles in my left hand were spasming.  You could see
them jump in the lamplight.  My brain felt pulled in two directions.

I hadn't really told Micky about my scheme yet.  I wanted to ease him
into it.  So I let him know that Yamashita wanted me to do some special
intensive training with him.  But that was all.

"It'll be a few days," I said evasively.

"Sometimes, Connor, I don't get you at all," he grumped.  "OK," he
sighed, "I may need to reach you there.  Give me the number."

The muscles down in my right calf near the Achilles tendon were
starting to tighten up.  I felt like I had tightly strung cables in my
legs and was trying to ignore it and listen hard to the inflections in
his voice.  He knew something was up.

I gave him the number, said good-bye, and sat there with my eyes
closed.  Idiot, I thought.  You should have told him.  He's had enough
of people holding out on him.

Your conversation was upsetting."  My eyes snapped open.  YamasKita had
slipped into the room and sat across from me.  His face was impassive,
but his eyes were alive.

I exhaled slowly and nodded.  Your brother does not understand what is
going on?"

"No."  I shook my head guiltily, reliving the phone call.

' Burke," he said, sitting forward, "listen to me.  You are wise not to
involve him.  A ring of danger surrounds us here.  When you bring
people close to you, they will be imperiled."

Not many people use the word imperiled any more.  When Yamasjhita said
it, it didn't sound quaint.

You Americans," he continued with that tight smile of his.  "You want
all things that are good to also be easy.

Now I will tell you something, Professor.  It is obvious you care for
your brother.  And you are wise not to inform him of your jplans.  If
you can shield him, you must do so.  Even if it means that he will be
upset."

"I laiow, Sensei, but..."

He- held up a hand, palm out.  It was a small hand, but the palm Was
broad and the fingers were thick.  Yamashita's hands looked, in fact,
much like the rest of him: they were hard and capable parts of a
fierce, focused human being.  Even his words of comfcort had a brutal
tinge to them.  "But nothing, Burke," he said.  "Which is better, that
your brother feel hurt for a time because he does not fully understand
your motives, or that you gush out your secrets and he runs to your
side, with all the danger it could bring?  He has already suffered
enough."

I nodded as he scolded me.

"If you pull him close at this moment, you will place him within the
dark circle.  He is, I am sure, a good policeman.  But he has no place
here."

Yamashita looked up and gazed out the window.  Lights fought the
darkness, cutting at it, beating it back in spots, but ultimately, on
the edges of light, the brightness bled away, surrendering to the
infinite strength of night.  Yamashita's eyes were unfocused, as if he
were intent on something beyond mere sight.  For a moment, in the
lamplight, I could see the toll of years on him.  Maybe, in his own
way, he was trying to explain why he had kept things from me for so
long.

"Make no mistake, Burke," the old man said.  "Tomita is coming.  I can
feel it."

In the night, I slept fitfully.  Outside Yamashita's dojo, cars rumbled
by, radios pounding.  Distant horns sounded.  Sirens shrieked and died
away.  I drifted into a drowsy half-sleep.  My body jerked
involuntarily as muscle tension began to dissipate.  I didn't think I
slept, but the sensei startled me when he woke me.

"Get up, Burke.  It is two-thirty."  I stood and focused on his stolid
silhouette beside me in the dark.

"Time to train," my teacher said.

sIXTEEN

Forlorn Hopes

The heavy fire door boomed open, echoing in the empty dojo.  Yamashita
and I had rested at dawn, and Mori and his hired help had arrived
shortly afterward.  The two senior men conferred quietly, while the
thug waited in the shadows for something to happen.  The first floor
practice room was empty of students, but Mori's watchdog scanned the
empty air with an idiot vigilance.

Mori had a flat, reserved face that gave you the illusion of total
control.  But he was not as cool as he pretended to be: he looked up
sharply at the sound when the door banged.

I went to see who it was.  It was one of those automatic things you do
for your sensei.  Before I could even get to the foot of the stairs,
however, the thug had jumped in front of me.  His pistol appeared in
one fluid motion, almost like that of a magician pulling a bouquet out
of the air with a simple flourish.

He glided across the floor ahead of me, the gun's muzzle a black snout
cutting through the space.  Yamashita followed me down but said
nothing, watching the action with professional dispassion.

The intruder stood with hands on his hips and regarded the watchdog. He
looked at me, then back at the man with the gun, and clearly felt the
need to defuse the situation.

"Take it easy, you dick wad he said.  "I'm a cop, remember?"  My
brother had come visiting.

Looking at him, you could almost forget he was a policeman.  Off duty,
he looked like any other tired guy in rumpled clothing.  He had the cop
eyes, of course, but from a distance he looked just like the person I
had grown up with.  He had been through a hard few days, though, and as
I got closer it showed in his face.  But I was glad he had come.  When
Micky pushed open that dojo door, he let in street sounds, heat, and
the almost palpable tug of memory.  All the drills and lectures and
mantra had begun to make me feel like a man in suspended animation.  We
may have been setting a trap, but I was the one who felt imprisoned,
set off from the real world.  Micky restored my sense of connection.  I
could guess that Yamashita thought my brother's presence was bad for
the training he was trying to accomplish.  I, however, grinned like an
idiot.

My brother stood there dressed in sneakers patched with duct tape, a
pair of old khaki pants, and a dark blue NYPD T-shirt with a little
yellow badge on the breast.  He looked at Mori's hired gun with that
placid expression he used to calm dangerous people.  Or lull the
unwary.  He gingerly held his empty hands out at his sides to show he
had no weapon.

"Hey, c'mon," I said.  "We've been through this before."  Eventually,
the thug relaxed, although he looked annoyed that he hadn't been able
to shoot anyone.  Micky glared at him silently, came upstairs, and said
hello to Yamashita.  It wasn't a warm greeting.  I held my breath.  My
brother had a long memory and a short temper.  From his perspective,
Yamashita was partly to blame for this mess.  And Micky felt there were
still things he wasn't being told.  He was right, of course, but now I
was the one holding out on him.

Mori didn't say much when Micky showed up.  The two men eyed each other
warily, but Micky didn't even acknowledge him.  Instead, he looked at
Yamashita and said, "I came to take him off your hands for a while,
Yamashita."

Yamashita looked at me like he was judging a prospective meal.  He
turned to my brother and nodded.  "He has been behaving.  Enjoy the
afternoon."  My teacher gestured toward the street like he was inviting
us to explore Xanadu.

What we got to see instead was the brick and blacktop of Brooklyn
baking in the sharp summer glare.  We drove up to Fifth Avenue and
headed through Sunset Park.  Both sets of grandparents had lived around
here, and we had spent an awful lot of childhood Sundays visiting the
area, watching relatives decay and the neighborhoods change.  Fifth
Avenue was different now from the street of our childhood, but it
certainly was lively.

People were wandering in and out of local bode gas  Racks of summer
dresses and T-shirts were on display on the sidewalks.  Even though we
had the car windows closed and the AC on, I could hear the Latin music
that the merchants piped out onto the street.

"How you doing, Mick?"  I asked.  His face had that tired, drawn look
crash survivors have.  But his eyes were clear.

He nodded.  "I'm OK.  You, on the other hand, look like hell."

I hadn't paid attention to a mirror in a while, but I imagined that all
the training with Yamashita showed.  I said nothing and let him drive.
There was a point to the visit, and Micky would get to it when he was
ready.

"Hey, look," Micky said.  "OLPH."

The parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was marked by a large church
complex looming over one whole block.  Down Fifty-ninth Street, the
school building was tucked away in the back.  Micky parked in the
driveway entrance to the school parking lot.

Perverse creatures, schools hibernate in the summer.  The entrance gate
to the lot was chained shut Property of the Diocese of Brooklyn,
Violators Will Be Towed and the building was dark and silent.  Micky
tossed his NYPD card on the dashboard and walked away without a second
thought.  It was one of the great things about being a cop: ordinary
parking rules did not apply.  Then again, my brother was in a line of
work where Kevlar vests were considered appropriate Christmas gifts
from your loved ones, so the trade-off was probably even.

The church itself was a huge, sandstone-colored building with a red
tile roof.  Its large arched entrance doors faced the avenue, an
imposing multi story presence built of stone and old wood and leaded
stained-glass windows of deep-sea blue and red as rich as blood.  The
old locals called it "the Basilica."  The cavernous hall of the main
church, up one flight of stone steps from the street, was dark and
locked, but the smaller lower-level church was open.  My family had
baptized, married, and buried three generations in this church, and it
was familiar ground for both of us.  As kids, we had spent what felt
like an eternity at a host of rituals there.  They didn't do much for
our piety, but they did create our immense capacity for tolerating
boredom.  We also developed the ability to sit very quietly for long
periods of time.  They also taught us endurance.

Micky went in, and I followed.  Working with Yamashita had put me in a
heightened state of suspicion and sensitivity.  I didn't think it was
likely Tomita would be anywhere near at this time of day, and he
certainly wouldn't be interested in me.  But, as my sen-sei kept
drilling into my head, awareness was the key to survival.  I took a
hard look around.

The ceiling in the lower church was not very high, nothing like the
soaring vaults one story up, and the view of the altar was blocked by
the pillars that supported the floor of the church above.  It broke up
your line of sight, and the feeling was that almost anyone could be
lurking there.  Maybe even God.  I scanned the room.  An old man was
slowly shuffling down the center aisle toward the doors.  To our right,
a woman knelt, obscured in a kerchief and dark blue raincoat.  Her eyes
were red-rimmed and moist.  Her lips were dry and worked in a constant,
mumbled litany.  Beads made faint clicking noises.  It was the sad cast
of characters you find in any church in the daytime.

The room smelled of wax and the memory of incense.  The pews were old
and dark, polished by the friction caused by generations of human
emotion and ritual choreography.  Gaudy statues of saints lined the
walls, and banks of candles flickered in front of them like whispered
entreaties.

My brother walked slowly into the church, like someone just awakened
who was trying to remember the details of a particularly vivid dream. I
followed him to one of the side altars where a statue, dark with age,
was located.

Most of the statues in the church were the smooth, pious, type.  Bland,
sightless eyes were set in creamy complexions, and tidy robes with
flowing lines helped obscure the awareness that any of these figures
had been corporeal at one time.  They were neat but not particularly
powerful figures.

Micky made his way to a dark corner where a different type of statue
stood, obscured in shadow.  It was unpainted, a monochrome presence
that glowered there, all angles and force.  Someone knew what he was
doing when he made it.  Most of the statues in that room looked faintly
ridiculous and anemic, like porcelain tar ted up to distract you from
their lifeless essence.  But the form Micky stood before was fierce.

It was a dark cast-copper figure.  The dull luster made you want to
reach out and feel the hard surface.  One booted foot, closest to the
rank of candles, had been rubbed shiny by decades of supplicants unable
to resist the impulse.  The winged form was armed with a sword and a
lance.  The shaft pierced a writhing form, half snake, half dragon,
while the stern face of the saint gazed upon the world as if trying to
judge whether it was worth all this effort.  He was supposed to be a
holy man, but he looked more like a warrior.

Michael.  The Archangel.  God's champion.

My brother's namesake.

Micky stood staring at the form for a while.  Then he turned and went
outside without saying a word.  I touched Michael's foot before I
followed.  The weepy lady in the back looked right through us.

We walked slowly around the perimeter of the church.  The sidewalk was
wide, and there were young trees planted in large squares of earth at
regular intervals.  They didn't do much to cut the sun's glare.  Small,
bronze plaques were set into the pavement near the trees.  The metal
was a dark blue-green with age.

As we walked, my brother looked down at the plaques.

"Yju remember Dad telling us about these trees?"  he asked.  "Well, not
these trees, exactly.  These are replacements.  But the originals?"

"No.  Not really," I said.

He went right on, the older brother determined to pass me this piece of
family lore.  We walked down the long block toward Sixth Avenue, past
the rectory entrance as he spoke, still with that far-away look in his
eyes.  "There was some retired army guy who started a marching band in
the parish.  I forget his name.  A big deal for the neighborhood.  A
working-class boy makes good.  Becomes an officer.

"Well, he retires and comes back to the parish.  Gets this marching
band going.  Uniforms and music, fifty, maybe a hundred boys.  The
pride of the parish.  Then the First World War breaks out.  The guy
pulls some strings, gets back on active duty, and organizes a volunteer
brigade.  All those boys who grew up marching to his orders and
trusting him..."

It was hot and the light color of the sidewalk threw up glare.  It was
hard to see Mickys expression very well.  His voice was flat.

"So off they go to the Big War.  They get a huge send-off here. Flowers
and speeches.  The pride of the area, all those kids, all dressed up
and eager to go ..."

We rounded Sixth Avenue at the rear of the complex.  Micky had been
looking at each plaque as we passed.  Now he looked up and stared into
the distance, down the long avenue that led south to the sea.

"Most never came back, Connor.  They were used to marching band stuff:
moving in step, colorful uniforms, patriotic speeches.  They got over
there and what they got was interlocking fields of

JO I O O

fire, machine guns, and artillery barrages.  They were churned into
mud."

Coming up Fifty-ninth Street, he continued.  "It destroyed the parish.
They never forgave the commanding officer for taking their kids off to
that butcher's yard.  There's a tree planted here for each boy lost."

"That's some story, Mick," I said quietly.  We were at the car again
and stood facing each other across the hood.

"Yeah, but do you get the point?"  He asked.  We got into the car and
sat there in the stuffy quiet.  Micky stared out the windshield for a
minute, then let out a thin stream of air from pursed lips and turned
to me.

"Look, Connor.  You're different, all right?  Even as a kid. Interested
in weird things.  Mom and Dad knew it.  And you were stubborn..."

"Still am," I smiled.  It didn't make a dent in Micky's seriousness.

'"foil always have to do things your way.  On your terms.  Look at
graduate school.  Yamashita.  The way you make a living."

I said nothing, waiting to see where he was going with all this.

"But the point is," and here he turned to look right at me, "this is
different.  Let me be the cop here.  We're searching for Tomita right
now.  It's just a matter of time."  I stayed silent.  "I know what
you're up to," he prompted, "You think you're gonna trap him."

He said it with such finality that I knew there was no dodging the
accusation.  "We've got a good chance," I protested, but he cut me
off.

"No.  You listen to me.  For once in your life, listen," He was angry,
but it wasn't the usual loud anger.  This was quiet and white hot, with
a voice focused and sharp.

"You can't deal with this on your terms.  This is not some fucking game
or contest.  The guy is a killing machine.  He kills because he can.
Because he has to."

" "Only where love and need are one," " I quoted.

"What?"  He hissed.

"A line from a Robert Frost poem," I said.

He exploded.  "Will you cut that shit out!"

The air in the car was stifling.  We were both sweating, but it was
more than the heat.

Micky paused a minute as if trying to contain himself.  "Look at the
trees out there," he began again.  "Every one of those kids thought he
was going out to fight on his terms.  Some romantic battle.  Good and
evil.  Most never even came back in boxes.  They're bits of bone that
get plowed up by farmers in Belgium.

"You think all this martial arts stuff is gonna help you stop this guy?
It's not."

I started to protest, to tell him that the idea was to entice

Tomita into a trap where we could deal with him.  Besides, I explained,
even if all else failed, there was Yamashita... Micky started the car
and the air conditioning began to wash some cool air over us.  It
seemed to leech some of the tension from the atmosphere as well.

"Connor, this martial arts stuff," he said.  "It's a hobby.  You're
good at it, but it's a hobby.  A sport."

"It's more than that, Mick," I said quietly.

He waved that point away and swung the car out onto the road.  We
stopped at the light and watched the summer pedestrians.

"How many people have you killed, Connor?"

I said nothing.

"Tomita s killed two we know of.  He tried to kill my partner."  The
light changed and we rolled on.  Micky stared straight ahead.  "I don't
want him killing you."

We were quiet for a time.  The familiar rhythm of driving acted like a
tranquilizer: the whoosh of the air conditioner, the faint bumping of
the tires as they hit road seams, the syncopated click of the turning
signal.  We watched the other cars and other people as if their
presence were a guarantee of normality.

Finally, Micky asked, "OK, what's the plan?  How do we do this?"

"We?"  I said.

"We.  You think I'm showing up at Mom's with the bad news that some
lunatic killed you?"  He smiled a little at the thought of it.

So I gave him the briefing.  Most of it, he knew.  The pattern of
Tomita's attacks was at night or early morning in secluded places where
the ritual duel could take place.  I didn't dwell too much on

Yamashita's past and Tomita's connection to people associated with the
Kunaicho.  At this stage of things, it was just so much background
noise.

"With Yamashita as bait," I concluded, "we should be able to catch
him."

"So you're not gonna kill him?"

"I'd like to," I admitted.  Then, I said, "Nah.  We just need to stop
him.  Get him off the streets."  I wasn't sure deep down about how
truthful I was being here.  But I wanted to allay Micky's concerns.
"You said it yourself," I added.  "Killing people is not my strong
suit."

He pulled the car over and turned once more to look at me directly.
"OK," he acknowledged.  "But there's another thing, Connor.  Why do you
think Mori is involved here?"

"Well, because he wanted to warn Yamashita.  And to catch the
Kunaicho's wild dog, Tomita.  I think we have a good chance of doing
it."

"Fair enough, as far as it goes," my brother said.  "But now lemme
remind you about guys like this.  He's a company man.  All that stuff
about warning his friend is fine.  But there's gotta be more to it."

"OK," I said, not really seeing the point.

"OK," he mimicked me.  "So tell me, Mr.  Smart Guy.  How does this
situation benefit Mori?"

"He gets to catch Tomita," I answered.

"You mean arrest him?"

"Sure," I replied, at a loss to figure out what was generating the
skepticism in his voice.

"And this guy is from some Jap bodyguard outfit?  And he's gonna bust
this guy, this killer?  In New York?  The papers would be all over
it."

"What do you mean, Mick?"

"I mean the last thing Mori wants is to bust this guy.  It would
attract too much attention."

"So what's he after?"

"You figure it out.  "You got the doctorate.  But first, you ought to
know something else.  Since Art got hurt," his voice got husky for a
moment like it hurt him to say it, "we've been trying to work the Japan
angle ..."

"It's a foregone conclusion.  We know that now."

"... yeah, but we should be getting more cooperation on this.  But
we're not.  It's like they're stalling."

"Why?"

"Someone's doing a favor for the Japs.  And they sent Mori here.  But
to do things quietly."  He paused to let it sink in.  "Mori isn't here
just to catch Tomita, Connor.  He's here to make sure no one finds out
about him."

"And so ..."

"And so, he wants to kill him.  That's why he brought that moron with
the dye job.  He's a shooter, plain and simple.  He's got the look.
They're gonna stake Yamashita out, and when their man gets into the
kill zone, they're gonna open up with everything they've got."

He pulled back out into traffic and let me digest that for a while.

"So whattaya think?"  he continued.

"Makes sense.  There's only one problem," I said.

"What's that?"

"Yamashita's got his own plan.  And he's better than they think," I
said.  I turned to look at my brother, who was one of the most
competent people I knew.  "He's even better than you think, Micky.  And
so am I."

He looked into my eyes.  What he saw there, I don't know.  Finally, he
spoke.  "Let's hope so."

He said it like he didn't have much hope.  We rode in silence for a few
blocks and he continued.  "Of course, Mori and his goon also have
another big problem."

"What?"  I was preoccupied thinking about the new angles Micky had
presented.

"Now I'm on their case."

We pulled up in front of the dojo.  Micky slotted the car into a No
Parking zone.

"That's true, Mick.  "You are the biggest pain in the ass I know."

He smiled ruefully.  "All part of the service, buddy boy."

But the things he said bothered me for the rest of the day.  When
Yamashita had finished with some late-day training, I asked him what
would happen if things fell through.  I didn't ask Yamashita whether he
could deal with it.  It would be insulting.  But, as Micky had laid
things out that afternoon, a sudden, troubling thought hit me: What was
the worst-case scenario?  The thing I feared most?  What if the trap
didn't work?  If Micky missed?  If Yamashita failed?  What if I had to
face Tomita?

I screwed up what little courage I had and asked my teacher what would
happen then.  He sat there and looked at me with those hard, dark
eyes.

"You," he said, "are capable.  Like most people, you are capable of
more than you suspect.  Whether you are ready, however, is another
question.  I cannot tell.  Let us hope that it is something that is not
asked of you."

Which was not exactly the response I was hoping for.

SEVENTEEN

Mantra

As the light began to fade, Mori's shooter started getting more
focused.  The untrained would have started to fidget with tension.  The
kid with the gun just seemed to grow more still, absolutely immobile
with the effort of waiting.  Yamashita looked at him and nodded with
reluctant appreciation.  Tomita's pattern was to strike late at night,
when the energy and focus of his victims were at their lowest ebb.  But
Tomita was also unpredictable.  He had succeeded in be sting the highly
skilled before; no one wanted to take chances.  We sat quietly.  Moved
slowly and carefully.  Only our eyes shifted quickly.

If the shooter was like a predator hunkered down in the tall grass, his
leader seemed more like a tightly wound spring.  Whatever his
relationship to my sensei in the past, I think that it paled in
comparison to his driving need to neutralize Tomita.  Deep down, I
imagine he looked at Yamashita and myself as a secondary concern.  We
were, in the final analysis, just bait.  An expedient.  Nothing more.

When my brother came back with me and parked himself in a chair, Mori
started to protest.  Micky flashed his shield and gave him a wicked
smile.

My teacher looked at me.  "Is this what you wish, Burke?"  I nodded.

He sighed and started to say something, but after a moment, he merely
swiveled his head toward Mori and said, "This man is a guest."  It
seemed to settle the issue.  But Micky's presence clearly didn't sit
well with Mori.  It was one more element he didn't have complete
control over.

My sensei spent the evening hours talking with me about the way a
challenger went about confronting someone in a training hall.  I had
seen the aftermath of Mitch Reilly's attempt, but it wasn't very
informative.  Considering how he ended up, Reilly wasn't a particularly
good role model.

"When I was younger, Professor," my teacher began, "challenge matches
between students in different schools taryujiai were not uncommon. They
were prohibited in Japan a generation ago, but one occasionally hears
of them even today."

"What were they like, Sensei?"  I asked.  We were seated in the garden
again.  Somewhere in the building, Mori and his gun-slinger were
staking out fields of fire and having hushed conversations.  As it got
darker, their conversations achieved a tone of whispered frenzy.  In my
master's garden, the faint hoot of car horns sounded like exotic
animals far back in the undergrowth.

Yamashita cocked his head to one side.  His eyes were wide open but
focused inward on the gloom of things past.  After a few seconds'
consideration, he replied, "They were ... informative."  His hands
stirred slightly in his lap with nerve memory.  "One could learn a
great deal from the experience."

I'll bet, I thought.

"Of course," he looked right at me, "many people were quite seriously
injured in the process.  That... and the deaths ... were why the
government eventually outlawed them.

"In the old times, Professor, a young warrior would learn all a local
sensei could teach and then seek out 'instruction' at another dojo.  A
truly skilled fighter could go from school to school, challenging the
best students and even the masters."  A sip of air as he paused.  "It
was known as dojo arashi."

Dojo storming.  I could imagine what it must have been like: hard young
men clomping down the packed dirt roads of Japan with battered armor
and well-kept weapons slung over their backs.  They churned up the
miles like hungry predators, hunting down new masters to defeat and new
towns to prove themselves in.  The good ones earned reputations.  The
less skilled, in the best of situations, learned to limp away quietly.
Sometimes, only their ghosts moaned in phantom processional down
midnight crossroads.

"The challenge needs to be delivered according to a certain form,"
Yamashita continued.  "The challenger recites his pedigree and must
request a lesson.  Depending on the situation, the sensei may select a
student to fight for him."  He looked directly at me.  "I do not think
this will suit Tomita's purpose in this case, Burke."

Thank God, I silently thought.  But I tried not to let the relief show
on my face.  I had thought a great deal about the prospect of fighting.
I knew someone had to do it.  And I wanted Tomita stopped.  And
punished.  Destroyed for what he had done to Art.  But after all the
years I have spent with Yamashita I have become detached in some ways
and capable of brutal honesty.  I knew, when push came to shove, that
there was a chance I was not good enough to face Tomita and prevail. It
hurt me to admit it, but it was true.  The slightest flaw in my
performance would be fatal and meant that Tomita could escape.  This, I
rationalized, could not be allowed to happen.

But late at night, in the brief period of rest before my master would
summon me for training in the darkness, the hot spark of my anger and
resolve was smothered by something dense and ominous.  It was the thing
all warriors struggle against every time a fight beckons.  No matter
who stands before you, it lurks there too.  We try not to name it, for
words make the intangible more potent.  But the thing that lurks there,
cold and dense and lifeless as mud, is fear.

My master was looking at me.  I had never spoken to him of this thing,
and now he said nothing.  But he knew.

Then his narrative continued.  "The meetings were often arranged
beforehand by seconds."

"Seconds?"  I asked, refocusing my attention on the lesson before me.

He smiled and nodded.  "It is, after all, a duel, Professor.  Usually
there are witnesses at the fight itself."

"I doubt it in this case," I commented.

Yamashita nodded in agreement.  "Yes.  So."  He closed his eyes in
thought.  "But one of the points in engaging in a duel is having the
results known.  Your prowess celebrated."

"You mean winning is not enough?"

My sensei opened his eyes and smiled at me.  "Winning in a situation
like this is everything.  It means you survive.  But no, it is not
enough."

I looked at him quizzically.

"Tomita needs others to know of his deeds.  It is why he leaves the
signature at the scene.  It is why he takes the risks he does."

I nodded.  "I talked with my brother about this.  He says that the
killer wants to be caught."

Yamashita's eyes narrowed.  "He does not wish to be caught, Burke.  He
wishes to win.  To humiliate me and to take revenge.  In doing so, he
seeks to be acknowledged.  Everything else is secondary."

Off in the house, the phone rang.  Micky was inside and he picked it
up.  I could hear the murmur of conversation as a distant background to
Yamashita s lecture.

"We need to remember this about Tomita, Burke.  He has a..."  the
sensei searched for the word, "... need... to vanquish the opponent.
But the duel also feeds his spirit, his ego.  He will attempt to catch
his opponent off guard for the duel it is, after all, heiho but he will
also need to follow the ritual forms and force the victim to
acknowledge his dominance."

I noticed how Yamashita always spoke of this event like it was
something that would happen to someone else, and not to him.  It was an
interesting way to maintain a certain objectivity.

"This need is a dangerous thing," my teacher continued.  "It makes
Tomita very focused.  Driven.  His opponent needs to be focused on the
surroundings and ready for him at any moment.  But," he held up a thick
forefinger to mark the point, "his need for the ritual may also permit
the opponent to avert disaster."  My teacher's eyes were very clear as
he looked at me.  "The one who fights this man must use the pause
before the clash to find the center."

The Japanese spoke of the center, the ham, as the source of focus and
balance and energy, of life.  It was an early martial arts lesson that
we all learned, and one that was repeated in one form or another during
every day of training for the rest of your life.

I thought that his comment on centering was my teacher's final
utterance, but Yamashita continued.  "Remember, this man needs to
defeat his opponent utterly, to humiliate as well as to vanquish.  The
desire will create a tsuki a gap in his concentration.  It is here that
the wise man may find an opportunity for victory.  And survival."

I was digesting that little piece of gloom when my brother came out. He
seemed eager but not particularly happy.

"I got a call.  We got a lead on a lone Japanese national who entered
New York a day before the killing.  Traveling alone.  No record of him
leaving the area.  He was using a different name, but the description
fits..,. We're canvassing the hotels now."  He made a face.  "I gotta
go."

I walked to the door with him.  Mori's man watched us without saying a
word, tracking us across the length of the dim dojo like a cyborg
waiting to acquire a target.

"Listen," Micky said quietly at the door, "let's give this some time to
play out.  Stay put.  There are two plainclothes guys in a car out
front, so you should be fine.  I'll be back.  Don't go anywhere without
me."  He knelt down and fiddled with his pants cuff.  When he stood up,
there was a gun in his hand.

"Take this," he said.

"What!"  I protested.

"Take it.  It's my backup piece.  This guy surprises you, you get real
close, and don't stop pulling the trigger until it's out of bullets."

"Come on, Mick," I protested.  The snub little gun was heavy in my
hand.  "What am I gonna do with this?"

"With luck, nothing," he said.  "Stay put.  Stay down and I'll be back
soon."

He was out the door and I was left there, peering up and down the
street ever alert for ninja assassins and feeling the heft of the
pistol tug at my tired shoulder muscles.

Yamashita slid up behind me in that fluid, silent way he has.  He
looked at the gun with distaste, "your brother means well but he
doesn't really understand what we do."

"No, Sensei," I had to admit, "he doesn't."  We turned back inside and
shut the door.  The lights of the living area one floor up threw a soft
glow down the stairs.  The sensei and I followed the light, climbing up
the steps like moths, moving soundlessly toward the brightness.

"I am not sure what you will do with the pistol, Burke.  Generally, in
times of great stress, it is wise to use weapons you are familiar
with."  Yamashita walked over to a side table, where a black lacquered
stand held the two swords, long and short, of the samurai.  He opened a
drawer beneath them and removed a smaller weapon, cased in highly
polished wood.  It was a tanto, a small knife.  The hilt less handle
fit seamlessly with the matching scabbard to create a smooth oblong
shape, hiding a blade of razor sharpness.

"Take this.  "You are better with blades."

I felt a stab of panic.  "What do I need any of this for?"  I
protested.

I thought I caught a flash of impatience surge across Yamashita's face,
like the fleeting shadow of a bird moving across a rock face.  "Burke.
This man does the unexpected.  What if he comes now and Mori and his
man are not enough?  What if he comes later and your brother fails
you?"  He paused significantly.  "What if you are surprised by Tomita
and he gets close?  You will be in great danger, even if I am near.  So
... you must cut."  And here he began pointing out the various points
where major arteries would be accessible.

"Here ..."  The smooth scabbard touched my neck.  "Here ..."  He moved
down my leg to mime severing the femoral artery.

"If Tomita comes in to cut down like so," and he assumed jodan, the
high stance, which often precedes a vertical cut to the head, "do not
be tempted to block the descending arms or to cut at them.  The
momentum of the blow will carry it through to your head."

It was a familiar lesson, but I let him continue.  The rehearsal, the
projection of the need to act on another person, seemed to calm my
sensei.  Who was I to upset him?

"Do not cut the arms," he repeated.  "Instead, slice here," the tanto
moved horizontally across my abdomen, "and the attacker will
collapse."

He looked at me, and I nodded.  "Also," he finished, "think about the
eyes."  As he said this, the phone rang again and I moved toward it.

"You mean watch the eyes to see where an attack will go?"  I asked.
It's an old adage in the martial arts.  I was half-turned to pick up
the phone, but I saw his look of disgusted disappointment.

"No," Yamashita sighed.  "I mean think about stabbing him in the
eyes."

Which was why, I suppose, I wasn't too focused when I answered the
call.  The mental image of ramming the tanto into an eye socket and
burying the blade deep into a brain was a bit intense, even after the
last few days.

It was Bobby Kay.  A lot had happened since we first met, and even
though Bobby's name had resurfaced with Micky, I hadn't really thought
much about him lately.  He was all charm on the phone, however, as if
we were old pals.

"Hello, Professor!  How are ya?"  Ever the glad-hander, Bobby's mouth
was often in gear way before his brain caught up.  If he had paused to
think even for a minute, he would have known the answer.  I was up to
my ears in a hunt for a murderer.  As it turned out, his question was
entirely rhetorical.

"Hey, I was wondering whether you could come by, Burke.  You and
Yamashita."  Here a note of tension crept into his voice.  Bobby
continued the conversation, oblivious to the silence on my end.
"Something's turned up.  I think you should see it."

"Oh yeah?"  I finally grunted.

"Yeah.  Absolutely."

"Can't you tell me over the phone, Bobby?"

"Oh.  Uh ... It's a little complicated, ya know?  Better to come here
and see what I've got."  He paused, then asked, as if the thought had
just sprung up, "Hey, is your brother still working on the case?"

I could hear a voice inside me, one that sounded a lot like Micky's,
ask what is going on?  And why tell this guy anything?  But I didn't
listen to it.  And in retrospect, I should have.  "Yeah," I replied
simply, "he's out chasing some lead right now."

"Well, let's hope it works out."  Akkadian didn't sound very sincere,
but what else was new?  "So, whattaya think?  Can you two come down?"

I thought that I didn't really want to see Bobby Kay just now.  I had
bigger concerns.  Part of me was feeling guilty about having kept Micky
in the dark for so long.  I wondered whether the visit might help him.
I ran through the pro's and con's of Bobby's request in my mind.

Bobby said he had some clues that could help me.  Pro.

Bobby was also a shameless creep and it could just turn out to be a
wild goose chase or some dopey scheme for him to make money.  Con.

Tomita would come at a later hour.  It was his way.  I could be pretty
sure it would be OK to head to Manhattan tonight.  Yamashita's dojo was
the locus of action and there would be plenty of time to get back.  We
probably wouldn't miss anything if we went.  Pro.

Micky had told me to stay put.  Con.

But this might help him out.  Pro.

I stopped at that point, happy with the persuasiveness of the last
idea.  Looking back, I know it was as stupid as a kid rigging a game of
"eeme-meenie-mmee-mo " to get the desired outcome.  But, as someone
once said, the heart has a mind of its own.

Sometimes, I also wonder whether I was secretly glad to be escaping the
danger that hung around the dojo like a heavy, oily cloud of vapor,
invisible but real for all that.  To this day, I'm not sure.

I quietly told Yamashita about the call.  He nodded silently in
agreement.  Then he stared meaningfully at the pistol still in my hand.
I gave it to him, and it was replaced with the smooth feel of the
tanto.

"Where is your car?"  Softly, to keep Mori unaware.

It was around the block.  Yamashita digested this, then said quietly,
"You go first.  I will meet you at the car."

As I moved toward the front door, Mori's shooter tried to stop me and I
told him I was just heading out to pick something up at the corner
store.  The fact that I wasn't carrying Micky's gun seemed to reassure
him.  From his perspective, only a lunatic would give up a weapon like
that.  And, with a shrug, he let me go.  Eternal vigilance is a real
conversation killer.

I was glad to get out.  Being away from the tense atmosphere, from
Yamashita's relentless training and the barely controlled tension of
Mori and his shooter, made the whole situation seem so unreal.  Moving
down the street toward my car that night, things almost felt like
normal.  I saw the plainclothes unit sitting there, but nobody stopped
me.  They were there to watch people coming in, not going out.

Yamashita appeared out of the shadows and joined me.

"How'd you get out?"  I asked.

"I used an old ninja trick: I slipped out the back door while no one
was looking."

The night was hot, traffic was light, and, as we approached it from a
distance, Manhattan had that orange glow it gets in the summer, a
pulsing aura generated by the play of pollution,

trapped heat, and escaping light.  The water of the East River looked
hard and black as we drove over the bridge.  High-rise buildings were
brownish-gray in the murk, dappled in random patterns by lit windows.

Midtown at night is never really at rest.  It's lit with sodium lamps
along the streets and avenues, a higher-visibility twilight spiked by
the brighter wash of light leaking from small stores and restaurants.
But when I slowed to get a look at the building where we were heading,
the Samurai House looked dark.  It made me worry, and rekindled the
runaway paranoia that I had developed recently, You can drown out the
shouting of inner voices only for so long.

I parked up the block and Yamashita and I walked slowly down the
sidewalk toward the entrance, scanning the street for anything out of
the ordinary.  This was Manhattan, however, and even on a good day it
was hard to do that.  There was the usual road traffic.  Sports cars
with tinted windows rocked over the uneven street surface, the pulsing
bass of souped-up stereos clearly audible even at a distance.
Pedestrians hustled by, anxious to get through the relatively deserted
commercial block and into some air conditioning.  There were buses.
Taxis.  The occasional piece of litter a paper receipt or a coffee cup
was crumpled in the gutter, inert in the breathless night air.

When I looked through the glass entrance, the lobby lights of Samurai
House were turned way down.  No security guard was in sight.  But when
I tugged at them, the doors to the lobby opened.

"Hello?"  I called.  Yamashita ghosted in beside me and stood stock
still.  I checked the doors to the office complex to my right.  They
were locked, which was odd: I expected to find Bobby there.  A brief
spurt of annoyance washed through me: was Bobby Kay playing some weird
game?  I stood for a moment, thinking.  But Yamashita had trained me
well over the years.  My body did the things it was supposed to do,
even when the mind was not functioning well.

Even as a jumble of thoughts and emotions flashed through me in a
swirl, there was a part of me that was working more systematically.  It
was listening.  Sensing.  Feeling.

You usually hear all sorts of noise in places like this.  The wash of
the ventilation system, street sounds bleeding in from the outside, the
muffled clump of people in other parts of the building.  But in the
lobby of Samurai House, the waterfall's whisper tended to mask most
other sounds.  I could feel the faint press of cool air on my skin, the
slight give of the lobby carpet under my feet.  My eyes adjusted to the
dimness from the low lighting.  I stood there passive, one more shadow
in a universe of shades.  Waiting.

And then I knew.  It was that sudden certainty again.  A jolting rush
of that animal intuition, arriving with such clarity that I found it
simultaneously startling and impossible to doubt.  They talk a great
deal about the state called mushin in the martial arts.  It's the point
where the body and the mind develop such an intimate and immediate
connection that you know, you react without conscious thought. Standing
there, a washed-out shadow lost among all the others cast by faint
light, I felt the hair on my forearms stand up, and the electric cold
spread up and across my shoulders.

I sensed him.

I can't explain how I came to this awareness, but I did.  I knew it
with a visceral certainty.  Was it a sound?  A smell?  A phantom pulse
in air pressure?  Even now, I don't know.  Yamashita would say it
doesn't matter.  It was enough that I knew.

A glance at my teacher confirmed my intuition.  He was immobile, but
you got the feeling of an almost unbearable intensity building in him.
He sensed danger as well.

I slowed my breathing down and strained in the silence for a clue.  I
could feel my eyes widen and the muscles in my face tense up.  Without
thinking, I had crouched down slightly, knees bent, body ready to move.
Find the center.  The hara.

On the other side of the lobby, a faint glow from the gallery and dojo
area registered in my peripheral vision.  Lights were on in there
somewhere.  We headed toward the dojo slowly, gliding across the lobby
space in front of the waterfall.  I could sense the minute increase of
humidity the falling water created there, and I was hoping that it
would mask the sound of my approach while I was simultaneously fearful
that it was doing the same for him.

Because Tomita was here.  Somewhere.  Waiting.

A small, panicked version of the animal in me bleated in protest.  It
wasn't supposed to be like this.  There was no backup from Micky.  No
trap for Yamashita to spring on Tomita.  Despite my teacher's presence,
I felt alone, and the realization came with sickening clarity that
Micky had been right all along.  Evil arrives on its own terms, not on
yours.

I was imitating Yamashita, creeping at a glacial pace, edging through
the lobby, trying to move carefully, but that's only a partial
explanation.  I felt like a dreamer being pulled by an irresistible
force toward something horrible.  It was like being caught in the grip
of a magnetic field.  Or an undertow.  And I fought against it, even
though I knew I had to go in there.  Because there was a dissonant
chorus sounding off inside my head, each voice clamoring for attention.
There was fear.  And anger.  Panic.  A brief urge to run.

But I didn't, because over it all, a sudden voice, quiet but
implacable, silenced everything.  You are meant to meet him.  It was
what Yamashita had feared.  What he trained you for.  Tomita is in
there.  He's waiting for you, the voice said.  And I was afraid.

It was the last despairing peep of that animal, frantic to be
acknowledged.  So I did.  I am afraid, I admitted.  But I kept moving.
Not toward Tomita.  Toward the one lesson my teacher could not guide me
through.

I know I should have been using the techniques that Yamashita had
taught me.  Maybe kuji-in would have helped me focus.  But, at that
moment, it was all I could do to maintain breathing discipline and not
let the sweat that was popping out on my forehead unnerve me.  I
blinked and moved forward, wading through an invisible force that
pushed me forward and pulled me back at the same time.

And the image that flickered across my mind right then was not the
warrior's grid of power, the figure that Yamashita had cut into the air
on a quiet afternoon, laboring to etch it into my brain.

It was, instead, a hard face, cast in bronze, staring out at the world
from the shadows of an old and familiar place.  And that image came
with its own mantra, one Yamashita had never taught

Michael the Archangel defend us in battle, that we may not perish in
the fiery judgment.

I went m.

EIGHTEEN

Dojo Storming

The setup in the cavernous room hadn't really changed since the night I
had last been there.  As things had turned out, I never got to walk
through the display, but the exhibits were still there, dimly shrouded
in the weak security lighting, like treasures abandoned in a cave.  One
of the major elements in the display, a facade of wood beams and
shingles simulating the entrance to a Zen temple, jutted into the
display space along one wall.  It was essentially a latticework of
beams capped with the distinctive curved roof you find in shrines.  A
wooden gate stood symbolically across the opening.  A workman's
scaffolding was pushed up against the faux temple, in preparation for
the dismantling of the exhibit.  The performance space was still there.
A few lights, recessed into the ceiling, cast sporadic circles of
brightness on the floor.  The rest was dense shadow.

I edged into the room with Yamashita, hoping my vision would adjust in
time.  But there was no rushing attack as we entered, no figure
exploding from the black wedges of shadow.  Instead, in the corner to
our right, was a figure.  It was perfectly still for a moment, as if
frozen into place by something I could not see.

We moved toward Bobby Kay and the motion seemed to galvanize him.  He
approached us and broke into that horsey grin of his.

"Hey, Burke.  I'm glad you could come."  He looked at Yamashita and
ducked his head deferentially.  "Both of you."

Yamashita seemed not to hear him.  He was gazing off into the room's
dark corners, his thick head slowly moving to maximize his sensitivity
to sight and sound.

"What's the deal, Bobby?"  I was certain there was danger here.  I
couldn't believe this idiot couldn't feel it.

He gestured toward the temple facade.  "Something's turned up.  I think
you should see it."

"What?"

He made a come-along motion, "You've got to see it.  I can't believe
it.  I mean, that it should turn up ..."  He started to head toward the
temple.

I grabbed his arm.  The contact made his head jerk and his eyes narrow
slightly, like an animal's.

"No.  Right here is good enough," I told him.

He pulled his arm out of my grip with a sullen shrug of the shoulder.
Then his face broke into a sly grin and he looked first at me, then at
my teacher.  "It's the bokken, Burke.  Ittosai's sword.  It's been
returned."

"Where?"  It was the first thing Yamashita had said to him.

Again the gesture toward the temple.  "I'll show ya.  There's some sort
of note with it, but it's in Japanese.  Maybe one of you can figure it
out."

Yamashita began to move along with him.

"Sensei," I hissed in warning.

He held out a hand to tell me to stay put.  "I will go, Burke.  Ki o
tsukete"

It was the traditional swordsman's call to awareness.  My teacher felt
what I did.  He was sending me an instruction.  And a

warning.

There was a faint light within the temple display.  The gate was
slightly ajar.  A long, cloth-wrapped shape rested inside the temple
facade, only thirty feet away.  Akkadian was babbling away about the
sword's mysterious reappearance, but Yamashita paid him no heed.  He
was focused on the object, with examining it, and returning to me.

In his haste, he got ahead of Bobby.  My sensei pushed aside the heavy
gate and entered the small space.  He knelt to examine the object.
Bobby lagged behind, resting a hand on the gate.  Then, too late, I saw
he wasn't resting.  He was pushing.

The gate jarred closed and the vibration shook the scaffolding.
Akkadian made a motion and I heard the metallic click as a lock snapped
into place.  Yamashita launched himself against the gate, but for once
his timing was off.  He thudded against the barrier, and the
scaffolding began to shift.  I shouted a warning.  My teacher turned
and had time to raise one arm to protect himself from the collapsing
pipes and boards.  Then he was borne down.

The noise the crash and splintering of wood, the ringing of metal pipes
as they hit the floor was still reverberating when I got over to him.
Bobby had scuttled out of the way across the room toward a dark corner.
The gate was locked and I peered in to see my teacher.  But when I
reached Yamashita, he was looking across the room.

My teacher was cut on the head and banged up, but the most critical
injury was the arm he had used to try to ward off the collapse.  He
held it with that ginger pose that tells you all you need to know.

I knelt and looked at him as well as I could through the lattice of
heavy wood.  "It is broken," he grimaced.  I started to spin around to
find Bobby Kay, but my teacher's voice restrained me.

"Burke," he hissed, "it is a trap.  Beware."

"Come on," I said working the lock, "let's get you out of this."

Yamashita closed his eyes in weary resignation.  "It is too late for
that."  He looked off into the darkness and swallowed.  '"You must go
there."  I shook the gate in token protest, but we both knew what he
meant.  I stood slowly and turned around, away from my teacher.

Bobby Kay stood on the other side of the room and spoke.  "I told you
they would come," he said.

He was talking into the darkness at the far corner.  I came up to him
and he backed away.

A low hissing shot from the shadows.  "Fool!  He was to be restrained,
not injured!"

Bobby blanched at the venom in the voice from the darkness.  "I told
you," he said again.  His voice shook a bit.  "Now give me the
sword."

I was half-listening to the conversation, but much of my attention was
on the visual field and the silent, invisible currents of ha rage  I
was alive to the threat that hung in the air, dancing in the darkness
just out of reach.  I had learned my lesson.  Even as I looked at
Bobby, I angled myself a bit so I could catch any movement out of the
corner of my eye.

"You set this up Akkadian," I said, my voice choked with the last
vestige of fear and the rise of anger.  Something stirred in the murk.
I turned all the way around toward the far corner of the room.  Bobby
had started to move in that direction.  I watched him as he got nearer
to the shadows.

For a moment, I wanted to ask why.  I wanted to scream at him.  At the
situation.  At whatever lurked across the room.  But there wasn't time.
Things began falling away, all the useless distractions of emotion and
random thought.  I felt it, like the sensation of a series of weights
falling, one by one, from my back.

There was a smooth movement in the dark and a figure began to emerge
into the light.  Events were accelerating and yet, simultaneously, I
had the sensation of acute perception and a slow, elastic lengthening
of time.  Things appeared sharper, clearer.  They moved with a slow,
fluid inevitability.

Bobby thought he was slick, but he was way out of his league.  Whatever
deal he thought he had cut, Tomita would never let him walk away. After
the fight was over, if Tomita survived, he would finish off his
witness.  It would take about three seconds.

I couldn't let that happen.  Because once Tomita was done with Bobby,
he would go after Yamashita.

I swallowed with the realization that another human being in this room
wanted to kill me.

After that point, events, though drawn out, also seem a bit blurred in
my memory: not a sequence of actions, but a long, fluid thread that
spools out in my mind.

There was a host of visual and aural images being processed.  And I was
experiencing a series of sensations that made some of what was taking
place seem remote.  Increasingly, only the force emanating from Tomita
seemed sharp and real.

Bobby asked for the sword again.  This time, the voice that answered
was clear.  The accent was Japanese, but that was no surprise.  The
sound was remarkable, however, for the sense of power it projected.
"No," it said.  "You get it when I am finished.  When both men are
dead."

Bobby was closer to him and must have caught a glimpse of the
expression on Tomita's face, because you could see the effect: Akkadian
stopped dead in his tracks and backed up.  All the way to the door.  I
moved into the center of the room.  I faced the figure, trying to
remain aware of everything around me.  But the background sensations
were getting fainter and fainter in the face of the energy Tomita threw
off.

I stood there, eyes narrowed as if they could peer through the shadow,
breath rising and falling in an easy, soundless rhythm.  Waiting.  A
rock.

He came forward.  He was clad in dark street clothes but was barefoot.
"I am Tomita," he said and bowed.

When you know something of an individual's past, you believe you can
read it on his or her face.  Tomita's was unremarkable in its Asian
features: a small nose, high cheekbones, the dark eyes.  He was not
particularly tall, but his compact form gave the impression of a
tremendous energy harnessed and compacted by years of relentless
training.

There was a half-smile, grimly amused, that played across his face. But
behind that, there was rage.  It made him seem to swell, grow fuller
and more menacing.  I tingled with an awareness of how dangerous this
man was.  I remembered Yamashita's assessment of his skill, even at the
beginning of his training with the Kunaicho, all those years ago.  What
would he be like now?  I thought of the crime scenes I had studied.  I
got a fleeting image of Reilly, crumpled on this very floor.  The crime
scene reports for Ikagi and Kubata.  And I thought of Art.

But now the time for thinking was at an end.  Tomita had bowed to me,
and I needed to return the courtesy.  Do not let your eyes drop from
him, Yamashita had said.  I didn't.

I looked at him again as if truly seeing him for the first time.  What
I saw was no longer just the typical visual impression you get of a
person; it was one element that would help me form a strategy.  On the
street, you merely look at people.  Here, I needed to see.

Tomita smiled and gestured to the floor.  It was a very tight smile, a
social nicety and not a barometer of an internal state.

His white teeth glittered briefly: a flash of bone, not of emotion.  I
slipped off my shoes; my feet were bare.  We both sat down warily,
simultaneously obeying the dictates of etiquette and watching, alert
for the slightest offensive movement.  We were like springs being wound
into a casing, tightly coiled for action.  I used tatehiza, a sitting
posture preferred by old-time warriors on the battlefield.  Beginners
don't like it much, but it's easier to spring up from it than from some
of the more formal postures.

He saw my strategy, of course, and nodded affably in my direction.
"Yes," he said thoughtfully.  "You would know that..."

Tomita raised his voice but never took his eyes off me.  "You have
taught him well, Sensei!"

I could hear the faint rustle of movement as Yamashita, in evident
pain, stood and addressed his old pupil.

"There is no need for this," Yamashita said.

"Ie, Yamashita-san," Tomita said with venom.  "There is every reason. I
have dreamed of this.  For years, I burned with shame at what you
did... at what the others did.  You could see the rage building within
him, leaking out as he spoke.

"Tomita!"  Yamashita protested.

It took a visible effort for Tomita to calm himself.  "When that
happened, I felt as if things had come adrift.  Only training served as
a tether."

Tomita rose slowly and walked toward my sensei, gazing at him as you
would at a caged animal.  There was contempt there.  But Tomita only
moved a few steps in my teacher's direction.  I sensed fear as well.

"I knew someday that I would face you, Sensei," the younger man told
Yamashita.  "I worked for years to perfect myself.  To be able to show
you..."  he swallowed, "... just how wrong you were."

"You know the decision was not mine alone," Yamashita rasped out.  "I
could do no different."

Tomita snorted in disgust.  "It is a weak answer.  To think, all these
years, I hesitated to confront you."  Tomita laughed, a hard, short
noise with no joy in it.  "I should have seen earlier how weak you
really were."

"Let me out," Yamashita coaxed.  "We will see."

Tomita's eyes glinted as he smiled.  "In time.  If that idiot Akkadian
had not damaged you, it would have been glorious.  As it is now, it
will merely be the end of the ritual..."  Tomita glided back toward the
center of the room, where I stood.  He continued speaking but with his
back to my teacher.

"Life's surprises are endless.  And I have always struggled to see the
purpose in it."  He sighed.  "You have helped me see, Sensei.  You have
brought me humiliation ... and now disappointment.  But after all this
time, I have come to truly see.  There is a curious liberation to it
all, nehl The sense of being untethered.  Free of restraint and able to
act as you wish.  It took me years to forge my will to this end."

His eyes didn't really seem like they were registering my presence;
they were focused on some inner reality.  But now they bore into me.
"You would not understand, Burke.  You gaijin never grasp the essence
of the arts."

"I think I've grasped the fact that you are nuts."  My voice started
out raspy but gained in strength.

Tomita smiled ruefully and shook his head.  "Of course.  You cannot see
it."  Again his voice was raised for his old teachers benefit.  "You
have made many mistakes, Sensei.  You should never have turned me
away...."

"It was not in my power to prevent," Yamashita said.

"How convenient," Tomita replied contemptuously.  Then he returned to
his thoughts.  "You should never have come to this country.  You have
squandered your heritage.  The gift that the gods gave us ..."

Then Tomita spoke to me.  "You think I am a madman, Burke?  Because of
the murders?"  He nodded.  "You cannot see.  These acts are like ...
ceremonies for the gods.  They are fiercely pure.  They lay bare
kokoro, the heart of things.  When the fight is done, you cannot
imagine the feeling ... the sense of,..  fusion to the world of kami,
of spirits."  He smiled again.  "And it is done on my terms."

"Tomita," Yamashita breathed, "this must end."

It was a strain to just wait there, listening to them and waiting for
the ritual to unfold.  Down deep, I could feel the currents swirling
about the room.  Despite the flow of words and the smiles, there was
tension here.  You could feel it building slowly, ratcheting up. Behind
those dark eyes, there was rage.

I said nothing.

"So," Tomita said calmly as he kneeled again, "to the task at hand." He
sat up a bit straighter and said, "I am Tomita..."

"Formerly of the Kunaicho," I interrupted, just to rattle him a bit.

Some of the true danger in him shot out briefly from his eyes, escaping
from behind the barrier he had placed there.

"I am a student of the Morita-ha Tengu-shin ryu.  I am menkyo kaiden
there and a yudansha in Yanagi-ryu jujutsu and kendo.  I have killed
four men in duels.  I request a lesson."

It told me nothing, other than that there were more victims than we
were aware of.  I had never heard of the Tengu-shin ryu.  Tengu are the
winged mountain goblins of Japanese legend.  Master swordsmen, in the
old stories they sometimes teach mortals their art.  Depending on how
"shin" was written, it could refer to some sort of divine revelation,
the heart, or a deity of some sort.  All I really could tell was that
the man before me had had a variety of training.  And he killed
people.

He bowed toward me at the conclusion of his recital.  It was my turn.

"I am Burke," I began.  The Japanese tend not to use the given name in
situations like this.  "I am a student of Yamashita-ha Itto ryu.  I am
yudansha in Shotokan karate do and Kodokan judo.  I have killed no man
in a duel."

Tomita grinned fe rally at me.

"Until tonight," I concluded.  His grin just got harder looking.

He stood up suddenly, and so did I. It wasn't really a conscious
reaction on my part.  It was as if we were connected by a string.

He was watching, and he nodded again in mock approval.  He was always
watching, that one.  Everything, every gesture, every facial tic, told
him something about his opponent.  He gestured languidly to the side of
the dojo.

"Here are weapons for you to choose from."

"Why me?"  I asked.  I was surprised to hear the words spoken out loud.
It was the last squeak of the scared animal in all of us.

He paused and looked at me.  "Ah?  Why you?"

I just nodded.  I didn't trust my voice any more.

"You are his des hi Mr.  Burke.  His disciple, yes?"  I didn't answer
and he didn't seem to care.  Part of me was glad to have him talk; it
gave me time to prepare.

"Your teacher destroyed my life.  I have trained for years, and now I
will destroy him.  But before that, I will take away what he values
most."

He paused and eyed me speculatively.  "Have you been a teacher, Burke?
Do you know what matters most to a sensed It is not life that is
precious bus hi are trained not to fear death."  He paused and glared
at me.  And in that look you could feel the fury that must have lanced
through him every day of his life.  "Before I kill him, I want him to
know that I have destroyed everything he has worked to create."  I
tried not react in any way.  "I will take away his most prized student,
Burke.  I will kill you."

He gestured again.  A mat had been placed on the floor.  Matched pairs
of bokken and jo lay there.  I moved cautiously toward them, stepping
sideways to keep him to my front.  The choice of weapon was critical,
but only if I knew what he would be using.

"And you?"  I questioned, gesturing at the weapons.

He faded back into the shadows and emerged, holding a familiar weapon.
It was the katana I had seen in Bobby Kay's photos so long ago.

"You took it," I breathed.

He drew the weapon from its scabbard.  The steel hissed faintly against
the case.  Tomita regarded the blade admiringly as the light winked
along its length.  "The opportunity was ... unexpected.  But the good
bus hi must act decisively."

Then Tomita gestured with it.  "As I told Mr.  Akkadian, I still have
some use for this weapon."

He came toward me and opened his arms wide, the sword in his right
hand.  I put down the tanto my teacher had given me and picked up a
jo.

He smiled grimly, then paused.  "The jo, Burke?  I had hoped for more
of a challenge."  He sighed and slowly sheathed the blade.  "Very well.
Let us play a little."  He set down the sword and stooped to grasp a
bokken.

The story goes that the samurai who codified techniques for the jo once
challenged Miyamoto Musashi to a duel using another weapon and was
defeated.  Only after he had perfected the use of the short staff was
he able to beat the master swordsman,

Musashi.  The story was pretty well known, and part of me hoped it
would act subliminally to erode Tomita's confidence.

Part of me just liked the weapon.

We stood facing each other in the ready position.  The jo is longer
than the wooden sword, but the bokken is heavier.  Tomita watched me
briefly, his eyes flat and his body relaxed.  Then the attack came.

They say the thing that marks a true master is not the force behind an
attack, but the speed it's launched with.  When Tomita moved, it was a
blur.  I whipped the jo up to meet the strike, parrying and looking for
the opportunity to counter.

Looking is not the right word.  It implies some sort of visual
isolation and mental identification.  But Tomita was so quick, that was
impossible.  Things were happening so rapidly that the moves seemed to
merge into a fluid sequence, a continuum of extreme danger.  At such a
high level of play, the weapons tended to "stick" we maintained contact
with each other for as long as possible.  The jo met the bokken and
directed it away from the target.  Tomita slid the sword forward and in
along the length of the jo.  I pulled it back into a reverse posture,
but he pressed forward.  I slid to my right, hoping to bring the staff
up, around, and down, but he leapt out of range.

There was a tremendous amount of movement going on.  We spun and surged
through the alternating areas of darkness and light in the room.  The
effect was strobelike: the struggle pulsed and jerked in the
alternating light levels.  A great deal of fighting is keyed to sight
cues that are extremely subtle.  I could feel my eyes straining as I
tried to follow and then anticipate Tomita.

At one point, there was a minute hesitation in his back step.  It
happens sometimes, for no specific reason that can be anticipated an
irregularity in floor surface, a muscle group flexing or contracting a
split second before it should but I leapt at the opening it
presented.

The jo came whistling down from high on my right to smash his
collarbone.  He just managed to pull back from the strike and let the
tip of the weapon carry on down toward the floor.  I allowed the
momentum to carry me in and past him, then reversed the jo's direction
in a tight arc, cutting upward with a gyaku-uchi, a reverse strike.

Tomita sensed the threat and tried to roll out to his left side.
Instead of smashing squarely into him, the tip of the jo only nicked
his ear.  But it was traveling so fast it actually ripped away part of
the earlobe.  I saw the bright start of blood begin there.  Any wound
on the head bleeds.

Yamashita had drilled me over and over again to pursue the opponents
weakness without mercy.  I let go of the jo with my left hand, and
followed my momentum in toward Tomita.  I slammed the open palm of my
hand into the bloody side of his head, hoping to pop the eardrum.  He
flinched away in an automatic response.  I closed with the jo and
struck down on his right hand.  The staff landed with a crack at the
base of his thumb.  He hissed.

There were schools of swordsmanship in the old days that specialized in
cutting off the thumbs of their opponents.  Without the thumb, you
can't hold the sword.  It was supposed to be a humane way to defeat
someone without having to kill them.

I wasn't thinking humanely.  Right then, I was just trying to land a
decisive blow.

Tomita moved away, and I could tell that he couldn't wield the bokken
well anymore.  It's a weapon that needs two hands, and his right thumb
was probably broken.

I pressed him, advancing with the tip of the jo pointed at his throat.
Tomita exploded in a lateral dive.  Landing among the weapons on the
floor, he unsheathed the katana before I could get to him.

The long sword can be wielded with only one hand.

Lights caught on the highly polished surface of the blade.  He rose
from the floor in a fluid motion.  I backed up, adjusting to the new
threat.

The katana's cutting edge is like a finely honed razor.  Mere
incidental cuts can slice through a human form with ease.  In a fight
like this, even a minimal injury was a death sentence.  But the
katana's sharp edge is also its weak point: it is so brittle, you can
shatter a blade with a wooden weapon.  If you have the nerve to get
close enough.  And Yamashita had warned me against that.

Tomita moved toward me.  Almost subliminally, I registered the slight
droop of the sword tip that comes before a strike.  It was a common
error, and I should have been suspicious.  But momentum has a power all
its own, and I was drawn to the apparent flaw.  The end of my jo
touched the side of his blade.  I tried to follow the katana up as
Tomita pulled it over his head for the strike.  But suddenly, he lunged
forward with his foot raised, and brought it down with a stomping kick
directed at my left thigh.

It was a bone-breaking move.  The idea is to distract the enemy by
making him focus on the sword, then deliver a lower-level attack with
another weapon.  And I almost fell for it.  As it was, I had to
collapse the leg and fall with the direction of the kick in order to
save myself.

His foot still smashed into me with an almost paralyzing force.  I
rolled out and away, desperate to avoid the sword blade.  I stood,
trying to test the leg, which felt numb and wobbly, without letting him
see what damage he had caused.  I attacked.

Looking back, it was a big mistake.  He was fighting left-handed, and
most practice in Japanese swordsmanship is based on right-hand
dominance.  My leg made things even more awkward.  The attack faltered.
Tomita shuffled back slightly.  I was over committed and felt myself
toppling in toward him, losing my balance.

He shuffled back again, trying to pull me in more.  I scrambled
desperately to regain my footing, but the muscle damage in my left leg
made it sluggish and clumsy.  I felt myself going, losing the balance
that is critical in a fight.  Tomita loomed before me, katana raised.

Instinctively, I turned away, flinching from the blow about to come.  I
heard the temple gate crash open and a shout from Yamashita.  Then I
made a last, desperate attempt to lurch out of range.  My teacher shot
across my line of vision and rammed into Tomita.  But the younger man
deflected him and continued to move in on me.  Yamashita fell hard and
collapsed in a heap.  I heard the whistle of the sword as it arced
down.  It bit into me, and I could feel the tip bump across the ribs in
my back.

I was down.  I knew I should keep moving, but the impact of the cut was
like a paralyzing jolt from a high tension line.  For a brief second, I
was shocked into stillness.  Then Tomita was on me.

He must have dropped the sword.  Maybe he lost his grip.  Maybe it
would have been too easy for him to finish me that way.  I was slumped
there, half-sitting, holding myself up with my left arm.  The dying
Gaul.  He came up behind me and his arm circled my neck, snaking around
from the left like a thick, steel cable.  The other hand pushed against
the right side of my head, forcing my neck against the arm.

It's a version of had aka jitne, a choke hold in judo.  Very simple.
Very deadly.  When an opponent gets it in right, you have about three
seconds before the pressure on your neck cuts off the flow of blood to
your brain.  After that, the world turns into blackness.

The only thing I had going for me was the fact that one of Tomita's
hands was less than fully functional.  I tried to squirm into a better
position, but he was up against me from behind, and the cut in my back
seemed to be limiting my ability to move.

I struggled against the pressure he was exerting.  The vertebrae in my
neck made little popping sounds as I tried to resist the force of the
choke.  I was desperate to work my chin and jawbone down below the
choking arm to protect the neck.  I couldn't get there.  Then Tomita
spoke in my ear.

"That night after the performance, I had hoped to finish this with your
master, but you interfered.  He escaped, and I will take his life soon.
But you, Burke," he hissed, "he values you.  I see this.  And now I
will take you from him.  It will destroy him.  You are beaten, Burke.
Say it."  He squeezed a little tighter.  "Say it."  His tone almost
sounded like a giggle, except the voice was too raspy, too deadly
serious.  "Say it and I might let him live."  He paused.  "Then again,
maybe I won't..."

Part of me was listening, but part of me was somewhere else as well.
Yamashita had told me this gap would appear.  Tomita's need for
recognition.  For dominance.  He was playing with me, but it was
important to him that I respond.  I could feel the arm tighten slowly
around my neck as he talked, building to a final, mighty squeeze, timed
to end as his little speech did.  He was expecting me to explode.  It
would be the reaction he needed.  The acknowledgment he sought.

I didn't need to move my jaw too far.  I opened my mouth as wide as I
could and bit into Tomita's arm, straining against the fabric and skin,
flesh and blood.  I wanted my teeth to meet.  I felt his muscles
jumping against my tongue as I worked at him.  The hand that pressed my
head actually forced my mouth deeper for a split second, then the
pressure was gone.

My ears were ringing from the approach of a blackout, but his howl was
clear even so.  He scrambled off me, reaching once again for the
sword.

I jumped on him in a faltering, desperate lurch.  I hoped his right
thumb was broken and I was sure I had chewed my way through some of his
left arm.  It made Tomita a split second too slow, his movements too
clumsy.

He was on his knees, reaching for the blade when I hit him from behind.
He slammed forward, and with the force of my impact, his head actually
whiplashed, smacking into my face.  I heard the bone in my nose go.

I climbed to one side and locked up his arm.  He lay there for a
second, face down, squirming, but the lock is designed to keep you away
from danger and your opponent immobilized.  If he struggles, you can
dislocate the shoulder, the elbow, and even break the arm.  But you
rarely have to, because fighting the joint lock is too painful.

But then Tomita stopped squirming and started, very deliberately, to
fight the lock.

It was incredible.  I had him tight and there was no way he could get
away, short of dislocating the shoulder.  I could feel the grating
strain the lock was putting on all the joints in his right arm.  He
grunted and turned his head toward me.  The side of his head was
bloody.  I could see his right eye roll back into the corner to stare
at me.  It was like a glimpse of some primeval world.  The glare was
steady and dark and malevolent.

Then he began, very slowly and systematically, to force the shoulder
dislocation that would let him escape the immobilization hold.  And all
the while, he stared at me, a patient, savage force waiting to be
unleashed again.

It was unnerving.  There was only one thing to do.  I barred his upper
arm with my right forearm and forced the lower limb up and through the
elbow joint.  It made an ugly sound, andTomita yelped once before I
slammed my elbow into the point where the neck meets the head.  I
grunted from the effort and the tearing sensation the move made in my
back.  I did it again.  And again.  The tension in his body eased.

NINETEEN

Blood

I slumped back on the floor and realized that the taste in my mouth was
Tomita s blood.  I spit dryly for a moment, my breath raspy in a throat
that felt like it had been scoured with sand.  I felt sick.

I dragged myself away from the still form of Tomita.  The wooden floor
was a slick, bloody mess.  I stood up, but hunched over again with a
wave of nausea.  Burke, the puking warrior.  There was blood on the
floor, wet and shiny.  I slumped with my good side against a wall.

Yamashita approached.  He was carrying the cloth bundle that held
Ittosai's sword.  He looked me over and said.  "We must go.  Quickly."
But before we left, he drifted over to the body.  He stared at his old
pupil for a moment, then stooped and picked something up.  The
katana.

We shuffled our way out into the lobby.  It felt like a long trip.

Bobby was waiting there.

"Burke ..."  he was looking at me, taking in the damage.  Then he
spotted the swords in my teachers hand.

"Hey, great," he said brightly.  "Thanks, I'll take those."

Yamashita stared stonily.

"No," I told him.

"Whaddaya mean, no?"  When he was serious, Bobby's face got flat, and
the long, horsey shape seemed to settle back into his shoulders.

"They will be returned to their rightful owners," Yamashita said.

Bobby seemed not to hear.

"It was the insurance, wasn't it?"  I asked.  I had to lick my lips
clear, because my nose was still bleeding.

"I need it back.  It's supposed to be covered for a hundred fifty g's,"
he replied.  "Give it to me."  It was the hard, calculating tone of the
real Bobby Kay, businessman.

"I think we'll hold on to it," I said.

"It's mine," Bobby protested.  He moved like he was going to keep us
from getting out the lobby doors.  I saw he had my tanto in his hands.
We probably didn't look like we were much of a threat.  I knew I was
having a hard time standing.  Yamashita looked old and used up.

I took a deep breath, and you could hear it because I had to breathe
through my mouth.  It made a ragged sound.  "Akkadian, you get the fuck
out of my way.  Or I will take that knife away and gut you."

At that point, I'm not really sure that I would have been physically
capable of doing much more than standing there.  But Yamashita says
spirit is everything.  I put everything I had into the way I looked at
him.  For a giddy moment, I had the sensation of looking out at the
world through my teacher's eyes.

Bobby's spirit was like the man himself: weak.  Besides, I think my
appearance scared him.  I must have looked like hell.

He backed down.  The knife clattered to the floor, and we inched our
way out.  I heard a series of faint beeps made indistinct by the
rushing of the waterfall.  I turned to look at Bobby.  He was holding a
cell phone in his hand.

Better move.

But they were already there.  Bobby must have had these two goons
standing by at the ready outside the building.  They popped out of a
parked sedan and stood there on the sidewalk.  They were both big, with
thick upper torsos and waists that looked tiny in comparison.  My eyes
were still a bit blurry, but one of them had a slicked back head of
silver hair.  He seemed to be in charge.  The lapels of his dark,
open-collared shirt were neatly spread out over his summer-weight
sports coat.  A gold chain glittered at his throat.  As my vision
cleared, I saw that he was tan and had little wrinkles at the corners
of his eyes.  He regarded us calmly.

His younger partner seemed jumpy.  His head was shaved and he had a
closely trimmed goatee.  He wore a sports coat as well, but the shirt
underneath it was a black collarless number.  A pair of shades dangled
from his jacket pocket.  He turned his head from one direction to the
other, checking out the surroundings.  Or looking for witnesses.  A
small earring twinkled in the streetlight.  They looked like an ad for
Rent-a-Thug.

"C'mon, man, let's go," the Earring urged.

His partner didn't respond and peered a bit closer at me.  "Holy shit,
pal, what happened to you guys?"

"Bad night," I answered.

"No shit."  His eyes shifted to a spot behind me.  It was probably
Akkadian coming out to join the party.  "Well, no need for more
trouble.  Why don't you give me Mr.  Akkadian's swords, and we can all
call it a night?"  He sounded very reasonable.

"No," I said, and he looked at me with a practiced look of professional
disappointment combined with anticipation.

The young one started to move toward us.  As he did, he reached into
his jacket and pulled out a gun.  It looked a lot like the one Mori's
shooter used.

"Aww, this is bullshit," he protested.  "Let's do this guy and the old
man, grab the stuff, and get the fuck outta here."

As he was moving toward us I could see over his shoulder.  The
headlights of a car were getting bigger fast.  Someone was in a o o 3

DO

hurry, the car swerving a little as it sped up the street.  The sound
of the revving car engine made Earring turn around.

The vehicle bounced up the curb, clipping a fire hydrant, and jerked to
a stop on the sidewalk.  The driver's door flew open before the car
stopped, rocking on its springs.

"Freeze!"  It was hard to see in the dark, but you could make out the
shape of a gun pointing through the space between the open door and the
windshield.  Earring hesitated for a moment.  "I said FREEZE!"  the
voice shouted.

The noise seemed to jolt the younger man into movement.  The gun came
up.

"No, Richie," the older one called out.  But it was too late.

I dove down and away.  Yamashita was right behind me.  I heard him
grunt as he hit the pavement.  The stud in the young man's ear glinted
again in the night, his pistol came up into position, and he fired.
From my position behind him, the muzzle flash highlighted his
silhouette for a millisecond.  Then three tightly spaced shots rang out
from the car on the sidewalk, and you could see them punch into the
young man's body, driving him back and crumpling him onto the
sidewalk.

His partner stood with his hands in the air, not moving a muscle.

Micky came out from behind the car.  "Connor?"

I felt dizzy and sat down on the pavement by the curb.  I hoped it was
cooler there.  I hoped there would be more air.  I held my head in my
hands and closed my eyes.  My blood roared intermittently in my ears as
I gulped for air.  I listened to the sounds washing around me.

Mickys voice got closer.  I heard Richie's gun skitter across the
cement as Micky kicked it away.  Then the click of the handcuffs.  They
always cuff the suspect, no matter what.

"Thank God you're here."  Bobby's voice was all oily relief.

"Shut the fuck up, Akkadian," my brother told him.  Sirens howled in
the distance.

I opened my eyes as a new set of lights washed the scene.  They were
from Mori's black Lexus.  The illumination glittered across the dark
pool slowly spreading from Richie and oozing into the street.  I
sniffed and a drop of blood spattered, fat and round, down between my
feet.

Then a cop car pulled up, lights cycling around, and two uniforms
jumped out.  There was another faint rushing in my head, but I could
hear more sirens on the way, the static chatter of the cop's radio, and
voices of various types.

"Who's the dead guy?"  one of the cops asked Micky.

My brother ignored him.  "Connor, you OK?"  he shouted at me.  I didn't
answer.

"Yamashita!"  Micky turned to my teacher.  "Is he OK?"

I felt Yamashita's hands on me, keeping me upright.  He must have
answered Micky.  I nodded my head in affirmation as well.  It hurt to
do it.  Then Micky went over to the silver-haired man.  "Well, if it
isn't Charlie G. What brings you here?"  jj "Just passing by, Burke. No
interest."

"Who's the stiff?"

Charlie G. shrugged.  It was the first time he had moved since his
accomplice had been shot.  "Beats me."  He looked at Bobbie Kay, who
nodded sagely in return.

"Sure," my brother said.

He gestured to one of the uniformed cops, who cuffed Charlie.

Mori slid smoothly out of his car, spotted me swooning at the curb with
Yamashita beside me, and strode over.  "Yamashita-san,

where is he?"  His shooter was with him, vigilant and confused at the
same time.

"Hey, I'm bleeding," I said in amazement to no one in particular.

"No shit, Sherlock," Micky said as he came up to the other side of me.
With Yamashita's help, he eased me down.

"I need to know where he is!"  Mori insisted.  He sounded like he was
going to explode.

Micky ignored him and knelt down beside me.  "How you doin', buddy
boy?"

"How'd you know?  Where I was?"  My voice sounded thick.

"Yamashita called before he left."

I tried to smile, but it hurt my nose.  I swiveled my head around to
look at Yamashita.  He smiled.  Then I squinted at Mori and jerked my
head.  Gently.  "In there," I told him.  He and the shooter disappeared
into the building.

By this time the EMTs were on the scene.  They laid me down on my side
while they cut things away and prepped me.  "You a good guy or bad
guy?"  one asked.  It didn't slow his actions down any and he didn't
seem really interested: just making small talk.

"Huh?"  I said.

The EMT looked at my brother.  Micky pointed to the thug with the
earring.  "Bad guy."  Then me.  "Good guy."  He looked at my teacher
for a minute, then pointed very deliberately again.  "Good guy."
Yamashita bowed slightly.

The EMT nodded.  "Way to go."

They loaded me up into the ambulance while another team checked out
Yamashita.  Before the ambulance doors closed, I saw Mori and his goon
emerge from the building.  They got into their car and drove off
smoothly, sedately.  No need to attract attention.

Micky was at the doors to the ambulance.  "These guys will take care of
you," he told me.  "Yamashita's in another unit.  I'll follow."

I gave him a little grin and tried to wink.  "Hold onto those swords,"
I said.

The doors closed and they strapped me in.  Then they put the oxygen
mask on me and I tried to relax as they hit every pothole in Manhattan
on the way to the hospital.

Epilogue

After jumbled darkness, a long season of light.

The summer months were almost at an end, but their heat lingered: I
could still feel it through my blue blazer.  The warmth felt good.  The
back wound had healed, but my muscles were still tight where the sword
had sliced through them, and I found myself drowsing, lulled by the
sensation, as the speech I was listening to went on and on.

On a day like this, with the dignitaries assembled on the steps of the
university library, Dorian almost lived up to the collective delusion
of its public relations image.  Stately brick facades and
well-manicured pathways gave the campus the impression of confident,
measured purpose.  In a week, students would return and the
dysfunctional nature of modern college life would be suddenly revealed.
For now, we held our breath and pretended.  University functionaries in
attendance looked bright and professional: dark suits for the men, prim
business outfits for the women.  The proceedings were lent a fake
erudition by the sonorous buzz of Domanova's welcoming speech.  Ever
the pedant, he pronounced each and every syllable, rolling the words
around in his mouth.

The donors were in place, the press was present, and the cameras were
rolling.  Micky and I sat in the second row of seated dignitaries lined
up behind the podium.  We were on the end, far enough away to be able
to make fun of things.

My brother screwed his mouth around to the side, ""four boss is, of
course, a lunatic."

I smiled at the small crowd assembled for the ceremony and nodded in
agreement.  "True.  But this is academia.  No one really notices."

Akkadian was there, strategically placed as far away from the Burke
brothers as possible.  A Japanese executive sat stolidly, gripping a
small leather folder.  And in the audience, next to the immobile
countenance of Yamashita, there was Art.  Thinner, moving with the
convalescent's stiff caution that I sometimes saw in the mirror.  But
moving.

July and August had been a time for pulling things together: muscles,
bones, and memory.

Tomita was dead.  I learned that from the cops who came to get my
statement at the hospital.  Through the buzz of weariness and
painkillers, I gave them my version of things.  Micky later told me
that Tomita had been found face up, a tanto planted with almost
surgical precision deep into his heart.  Micky thought it was a nice
gesture but confided to me that I had already broken Tomita's neck.

We both knew that I hadn't used the knife.  In the press of the EMTs
arrival, no one really paid much attention when Mori and his shooter
slipped into Samurai House.  I thought back to the glimpse I caught of
them emerging a few minutes later, hustling away into the night without
a backward glance.  We were all pretty sure Mori had used the knife.
The police later discouraged any close inquiries about that. Diplomatic
courtesy, I suppose.  When Micky pressed things, his lieutenant told
him to drop it.  Or else.

Part of me still didn't get why Tomita targeted me before Yamashita.
But my teacher later told me that he always knew that would come.  He
waited until I was out of the hospital for that little discussion.

"You knew all that time that he would come for me?  For me?  And you
didn't say anything?"  I was incredulous.  When you've been injured
people cut you a great deal of slack.  He had been hurt too, but I had
him beat because I had needed surgery.  It gave me a slight advantage
and I figured I could get away with that tone of voice for a while
longer.

The old Yamashita gazed at me, remote, calm, totally certain.  "Of
course not.  Think of what it would have done to your training.  It was
a distraction you did not need."

"But he might have killed me, Sensei!"  I said in exasperation.

"What did you think when you began the Way of the Sword, Professor?
That it was a game?"

Later, after watching me brood, my teacher took up this issue again.
"Burke, I have watched you train for years.  And, with time, I began to
see that there was potential here ..."  He took a sip of air and
changed tack.  "The selection of a primary disciple is not an easy
thing.  It is often marked by blood."

He looked at me significantly.  The founder of his style, Itto-sai,
dealt with this issue centuries ago and had left his successors through
the generations a ruthless model.  The master, blessed with two
remarkable students of apparently equal skill, had brought them
together.  He had placed the scrolls of the style and the document of
succession on the ground, along with a ceremonial sword.  Then he had
calmly informed the two disciples that the individual who left the room
alive would be his successor.

Yamashita, like many of us, pushes into the future while dragging along
old baggage from the past.  Now I stood there with him, helping drag
the load.

I was angry for a time.  And confused.  But it was familiar territory.
As a master, Yamashita pushes you to do things you never would have
dared do yourself.  And at the end, you're not exactly grateful, just
changed.

I heard that a reporter was writing a book about the murders that was
filled with all the dark overtones and twisted logic of mental
pathology: theories of abuse and the need for recognition.  The urge to
break free and yet to belong, to seek out authority figures, to become
like them.  To destroy them.  Oedipus and sibling rivalry.  The need to
get close to what we can't have but crave desperately.  I could follow
the argument on an intellectual level, I suppose.  But I had little
interest left in it.  I wanted to face away from the dark.

My brother would never make a good writer.  He could sum it up in one
sentence.  And did, when the reporter interviewed him: "It was revenge,
you dope."

A polite rippling of applause made me sit up a bit straighter and open
my eyes.  A press conference like this is well scripted, and Dean
Ceppaglia had briefed me carefully on my role.  The notoriety of the
case complete with a string of murders, the almost fatal attack on Art
and his long, slow climb back to health as well as the violent showdown
at Samurai House was too good to pass up.  Like a shark smelling blood
in the water from a great way off, Domanova and his cronies had
carefully crafted the event we were currently attending.  It served as
a way to link the university, the fruits of capitalism, and the triumph
of good over evil in one neat photo opportunity.

If Domanova had his way, I would have been nowhere in sight.  But the
showbiz potential of the "battling professor" getting his reward was
too good for anyone to ignore.  I had spent my convalescence fending
off moronic reporters asking questions like "Is the pen really mightier
than the sword?"  Now this.

But I rose on cue and Mr.  Takano, a prominent lawyer representing the
Japanese sensei, presented me with a ceremonial katana.  The dark
scabbard glowed with a somber light.  Takano was a thoroughly modern
Japanese executive, but he held the sword with respect anyway and
turned it over to me in the prescribed manner the Japanese have for
sword handling.  I received it with equal gravity and wrapped it in a
brocade bag.

Domanova watched impatiently, petulant at being off center stage and
eager to move on to the central act in the play.  He sprang up from his
seat when we had concluded.  With a flourish, the president announced
the creation of an institute for Asian Studies at the university.  His
relentless trolling for wealthy patrons in the turgid waters of the
Samurai House reception had paid off.  Through a convoluted and, I
hoped humiliating, courtship, the Mad Leader had seduced Randall C. T.
Ong, a local software magnate, into endowing the institute.

The deal had been brewing for weeks.  Joseph Ceppaglia, whose new hobby
was serving as my guardian angel, had gotten wind of it.  The dean knew
that the sudden gush of money would present opportunities.  The
president would briefly spew goodwill, scattering minor favors like
feudal indulgences.  So Ceppaglia pulled strings and whispered in ears,
finessing the obscure process of memo, elliptical conversation, and
counter memo that is academic decision making.  The dean is not a bad
guy.  At the end of it, he had come away with exactly what he set out
for while convincing everyone else that they had gotten what they
wanted instead.  I had to acknowledge that Yamashita was not the only
master present that day.

Ceppaglia was sitting on the other side of me.  He smiled placidly as
Ong was introduced and the gift acknowledged.  I shifted slightly in my
seat the hairline fracture in my thigh and the muscle damage was about
healed, but I still got stiff now and then.  As I moved, the letter in
my breast pocket crinkled faintly.  The dean had handed it to me
earlier in the day with a big smile.  In the round, pretentious prose
that was his hallmark, Domanova had written to appoint me academic
coordinator for the institute.  What relation the title had to anything
I would actually do was anyone's guess.

"What it means," Ceppaglia had said quietly, "is that you now have a
job.  A real job.  Don't screw it up."

As Ong spoke, I looked around at my new colleagues.  Ceppaglia chewed
gum furiously and threw significant looks my way, convinced that
through superior scheming he was responsible for everything going on.
Domanova was scanning the crowd, mentally noting who was present and
who was not, amending his black list accordingly.  Members of the
faculty sat there, stone-faced and outraged at Domanova's good fortune,
seething ineffectually and dreaming of assassination.

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

The long ritual of institutional congratulation and shameless
self-promotion eventually petered out in a champagne reception.  We
walked, squinting in the afternoon sun, and reached the awninged shade
of the presidential manse.  Yamashita stood to one side with the
lawyer.  The two men stared into the crowd and talked quietly in
Japanese.  They looked like zoo visitors watching gorillas, alternately
fascinated by the species's similarities and secretly revolted by the
thought that they were closely related.

We stood by the bar for a while.  Art leaned on it.  They can do
amazing things with microsurgery, but I still couldn't believe that
they reattached his hand.  Even in the afternoon sun, I got a chill.
For a moment, I could smell the damp and blood on the subway platform.
I could see the stump of Art's wrist pulsing fluid.

I gestured at it.  "How's the therapy going?"

He gingerly rotated his hand and wrist, watching it critically.  Then
he grinned up at me.  "Slow.  But it's better than looking like Captain
Hook."

"Almost worth it to see Mick in a pair of green tights," I said.

Art sipped appreciatively at his champagne.  "True.  He never did grow
up."

Micky didn't have a comeback for once.  He just looked at us with a
disgusted expression on his face.

I was identifying the key players at the reception to my brother and
Art when Yamashita introduced the lawyer, Takano, to us.  The man had
absolutely no accent: his English was fluid and precise.  He still
bowed slightly when we were introduced, however.  Some things are hard
to change.

"Mr.  Burke," he said as he unzipped his little folder, "I am pleased
to be able to present you with the reward for the return of Ittosai's
sword."  He wasn't really pleased, of course.  No one likes to give
away $25,000.  But he hid it nicely behind gracious formality.

I nodded, equally gracious, and fished a piece of paper out of my
pocket.  "Takano-san," I replied.  "It was nothing.  I am honored, but
I would be grateful if you would have separate checks made out in three
names."  This attracted at least one person's attention: Bobby Kay
floated in the background, drawn by the scent of money.

Takano took the paper I gave him and frowned.  Yamashita murmured
something and Takano s look cleared.  Then he placed his folder down on
one of the cocktail tables and carefully filled out blank checks with
the names.  Bobby edged in closer for a peek.  Takano finished writing,
made some notes on a form, and asked me to sign to acknowledge receipt
of the reward.  I did.  He zipped up his little folder, bowed to us,
and then left.

Cops can't accept reward money.  But a private citizen like myself can
share it with anyone he wants.

Bobby Kay staggered away.  As he lurched toward the bar, he bumped into
Ceppaglia.  Smooth veteran of decades of cocktail parties, the dean
swerved around Bobby, never spilling a drop from his champagne glass.
"That man looks absolutely appalled," he commented to us as he
approached.

"Well," Micky said, "that's good.  Because he's appalling."

'"Vbu know," I said to Micky, "I thought Bobby would make a bigger
stink about claiming the reward for himself."

My brother smirked as he drank some champagne.  He closed one eye the
way my dad used to do when he was thinking.  "Well," he said
judiciously, "I explained to him that a murder is a complicated thing,
you don't want to muddy the waters unnecessarily.  It makes people
wonder things."

"Such as?"  Ceppaglia asked.

"It makes people wonder things like maybe Reilly's murder was some
half-assed publicity stunt gone wrong.  Or that maybe it wasn't and
Bobby got into contact with Tomita later and promised to set you up in
exchange for the return of the sword because he cut some corners and
hadn't insured it properly.  And that maybe he hired those two goons as
his backup if things went wrong.  Which they did.

"So I got him to agree that it wouldn't be good to pursue his claim to
the reward money, especially since it might make me ask how come his
fingerprints were on the knife."

"Were they?"  Ceppaglia asked.

My brother waved the question away.  "Who knows."

Ceppaglia looked from one of us to the other.  "But I thought you said
Connor broke Tomita's neck!"  he protested.

"Gee," Micky said, "I think I forgot to tell Bobby that."

I looked for a minute at the checks Takano had given me.  As a Burke,
you don't see that many zero's associated with money that often, even
after the three-way split.  Then, with a grin, I handed one to Mick and
one to Art.  "You'll notice," I said, "that they're made out in your
wives' names.  Make sure they get 'em, OK?"  I said.

The two men looked at me.  For once, my brother seemed at a loss for
words.  He nodded and said, "Thanks, Connor."

"Yeah, well..."

Yamashita smiled at me.  It is a rare event.  "You are a good student,
Burke."

From him, it was saying a lot.  I bowed in his direction.  "I'm a slow
learner, Sensei."  Sometimes I still dreamed about the fight with
Tomita, and in the torpid un spooling of memory, the scars on my back
still burned.

Yamashita's eyes squinted in that bullet head of his.  "No," he said to
me.  "Any fool can wield a weapon."  He took a final sip of champagne.
"You, on the other hand, have learned honor quite well."  My sensei set
his glass down, bowed to us all, and turned to go.  He flowed through
the crowd and out of sight.

After a while, both the champagne and the conversation began to bubble
off.  I quietly wandered around the back garden, gingerly edged along
the hedges, and made it out of the yard without being spotted by the
president.  I felt like a kid playing hooky.

It was quieter out here, and across the playing fields the campus
glowed faintly in the hushed, humid air.  From a distance, it seemed
like an OK place to be.

My brother came up to me.  "What now?"

I shrugged.  "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Whaddaya think," he prompted, "time for one more drink?"

We looked at the crowd that filled Domanova's backyard, eyed each
other, and smiled, then spoke simultaneously: "Nah."

"I gotta go," Micky said.  "Barbecue tomorrow?"

"Count on it."

My brother looked intently at me and patted my shoulder.  He started to
say something, but stopped.

We nodded at each other, a recognition of things shared that are beyond
words.  Micky went back for Art.  I stood for a while, enjoying the
sensation of just being alive.  Then I wandered off, over the grass and
into the warmth of a season still flush with possibility.

JOHN DONOHUE holds black belts in both karate do and kendo and has
studied various Asian martial arts disciplines, such as karate, kendo,
judo, aikido, iaido, and taiji, over the past twenty-five years.  A
nationally recognized authority on the topic, he is also an associate
editor of the Journal of Asian Martial Arts and has written four
nonfiction books on the martial arts.  In addition, he has been a
featured speaker at national and international conventions, as well as
on television and radio.  Visit his Web site at www.johndonohue.net.

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