Nigel Findley

by Out Of Nippon

  And the party had continued to grow larger. Other patrons had come into the tiny, cramped establishment, taken their seats at the bar. And the “Hoho-hosts,” as Toshikazu had come to call them in English, had dragged them into the party too, introducing them to Toshikazu and to the “golden-haired gaijin who drinks sake.” As it turned out, to Nikki’s surprise Toshikazu had already known many of the newcomers — presumably from having met them before right here at the Kirin. He had to be a real regular here—but then she should have known that from the greeting the Hoho-hosts had given him. She shook a safe-fogged head. I’m starting to lose it.

  The meal had eventually come to an end. At Toshikazu’s insistence, she’d topped it off with a glass of sho chu — a kind of Japanese vodka that Toshikazu mixed half-and-half with warm water from a glass carafe. Her sho chu had a twist of lemon floating in it. Toshikazu’s had a small, wrinkled, red-grey … something rolling around in the bottom. “A pickled plum,” he’d explained, with the overly-precise enunciation of the slightly drunk. “An acquired taste. Really, I wouldn’t recommend you try it now.” (Normally, that would have been incentive enough to make her try it. But tonight she knew she’d eaten and drunk more than she usually did — not the best time to try some new taste experience.) They finished the sho chu, Toshikazu i nstructed that the meal be put on his account—yes, he was a regular — and they strolled, almost staggered, into the night.

  The air was cool and refreshing, clearing Nikki’s head immediately. I’m not so drunk after all, she realized. It’s just those damn tiny sake cups. Toshikazu was walking close beside her; she could feel the warmth of his shoulder through her light jacket.

  There was no conscious decision. Her hand just slipped into his, seemingly of its own volition. Toshikazu didn’t look at her; his expression didn’t change. But his hand squeezed hers. She smiled. For the first time in several days, she felt totally relaxed and happy.

  They strolled slowly through the maze of alleyways. The strange little neighborhood was deserted. The doors of all the restaurants and shops were closed, even though lights still burned in some windows. Probably proprietors cleaning up after closing time, Nikki thought. She glanced at her watch: just past one in the morning. She chuckled quietly.

  “What is it?” Toshikazu asked.

  “Another night without enough sleep,” she laughed. “I think the whole world’s conspiring against me.”

  Toshikazu smiled, squeezed her hand again. “Is loss of sleep really that bad?” he asked her softly.

  The emotional intensity had just jumped a dozen notches. Nikki could feel it like static electricity around her, like the tension in the air before a thunderstorm. It wasn’t unpleasant—not at all—but it was… new. She hadn’t felt this kind of tension for more than a year — since before she left America — and she’d never expected to experience it in Japan. Certainly not with a coworker, she thought.

  The intensity seemed to continue growing in the silence. Suddenly she felt she had to break the tension —to establish some emotional distance from Toshikazu, if only for a few moments. Before I get overwhelmed, she told herself, before things go so far we can never turn back.

  She dropped Toshikazu’s hand — casually, she hoped — to brush her hair back from her face with both hands. “Whew,” she breathed, “too much sake.” From the corner of her eye she watched Toshikazu for a reaction.

  There wasn’t one, she was glad to see. Toshikazu’s smile remained in place, maybe even grew a little broader. As though he understands, Nikki thought. That was good. She didn’t want to offend her friend. The warmth, the bond she’d felt between them, both were still there, undiminished. It was just that the sudden intensity had diminished to a more comfortable level. I don’t want things to happen too fast, she thought.

  “Does your family work for Nagara too?” Nikki asked.

  Toshikazu blinked, gave her a sidelong look. “For Nagara?” he echoed. “No, they don’t. Not for Nagara.”

  “So how do they know Suganama-san?”

  That surprised him. He blinked again, puzzled.

  “You said he was an old friend of the family,” she reminded him.

  He glanced away for a moment. Then his gaze — untroubled as usual — settled back on her. “That’s true,” he said. His voice was steady, but there was an unfamiliar undertone to his words. “Yes,” he repeated, “that’s true. But they knew him from before he joined Nagara.” He spoke the last sentence firmly, flatly, as if to put an end to the discussion.

  Nikki fell silent — confused, a little troubled. She had the feeling that something important had just happened, something significant. But she didn’t know just what had happened, or why it was important. Was Toshikazu just embarrassed over talking about his family? Or was it something else? She pulled her jacket closed across her chest. The night air had suddenly felt colder.

  Toshikazu seemed to respond to the chill as well. He closed his white poplin windbreaker. He glanced around at the deserted alleyways. “Perhaps we should head home,” he murmured.

  Nikki, too, looked around. Most of the lights were out, the alleys dark and suddenly threatening. She heard movement behind her, turned quickly — inexplicably frightened. There was nothing there, just the black shapes of the small buildings, and the amorphous piles of garbage here and there. Just a rat, she told herself. She drew closer to Toshikazu. He slipped an arm around her — a gesture of reassurance, not one of romance. She felt surprisingly comforted by his touch, by the firm strength of his arm across her shoulders. She shivered slightly. “Yes,” she said, “let’s go home.”

  At least there was no chance of getting lost here. The elevated rail line was clearly visible above the low buildings, dotted with red and green lights that had to be signals to trains. Just follow that track back to Shinjuku Station. She found herself looking forward to being back on wide, well-lit streets. Maybe I’ll take a taxi home, she thought. Much more expensive than taking the subway, which was how they’d got here. But it would be quicker, and much more convenient. At the moment she didn’t relish the idea of waiting on a subway platform with the usual contingent of drunk s ararimen.

  As if to underscore her thoughts, a train rumbled by overhead. The railcars were brightly lit, yellow light flooding from their windows and washing over the alleyways below. The light flickered and shifted as the train rushed past, painfully bright in comparison to the darkness around them.

  And that’s when she saw the figure. Just a black shape, no details visible, crouching atop a one-story building ahead of them. She stiffened in shock.

  Toshikazu didn’t seem to have noticed the figure. He felt Nikki’s reaction, though, and turned to her with an expression of concern.

  The figure moved — jumped down from the roof to land, silent as a cat, in the alley in front of them. The train had passed, its lights gone. In the sudden darkness, the figure was almost invisible — black against black.

  Toshikazu had seen the figure too, now. He stood stock still, his eyes wide — not staring with fear, Nikki thought with a shock, just opened as wide as possible to capture all the light they could. Firmly, he pushed Nikki back, behind him. He stood poised, seemingly relaxed —fust like the Nagara security guards; the thought struck Nikki suddenly.

  The black figure moved forward slowly, sinuously. There was something terrifying, dangerous, about the way the figure moved — like a fencer, maybe, or like a large jungle cat. Another train passed above, going in the opposite direction. Again the flickering light of the passing windows washed over the alley.

  For the first time Nikki could see the figure clearly. Nikki was certain it was man, although she didn’t know why. He wore unrelieved black, close-fitting clothes of lightweight material. His head and face were concealed by more black cloth. For a moment, Nikki thought he wore the same uniform as the raiders, the same velcro-pocketed jumpsuits. But no, the clothes weren’t that high-tech — just a thin shirt and pants, like skin-tight pajamas. And he wasn’t
wearing the ski-mask the raiders had worn. A length of black cloth was swathed around his head and face, like a bandanna, concealing everything but his eyes. A ninja … He couldn’t be anything else.

  “Holy mother of God …” Nikki murmured.

  She saw the ninja reach up and back, draw something that had been strapped to his back. The light of the passing train glinted on metal — a long, slightly-curved sword blade with a vicious chisel point. A katana — the traditional sword of Japanese samurai.

  The train was past. In the sudden darkness, she felt rather than saw the ninja step forward, katana at the ready.

  Without taking his eyes off the deadly figure, Toshikazu pushed her again, harder — shoved her farther back. “Go,” he snapped at her. “Run!”

  She was frozen, unable to move. Her legs were rooted to the spot, seemingly as useless to her as if they belonged to someone else. She watched in horror as Toshikazu took a step toward the ninja. He pulled the poplin windbreaker from his shoulders, wrapped it quickly around his left hand and forearm. His body looked poised, ready, like a tightly-wound spring.

  “Go!” he told her again. “Get out of here.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned.

  “Then we’re both dead,” he grated. He took another slow step forward, his cloth-wrapped left hand held out in front of him in a posture of defense. As if it’ll stop a sword, Nikki thought.

  The ninja hadn’t moved. His katana was still ready for attack or defense, but Nikki sensed he was confused. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be working out, she thought. It must be as surprising to him as it would be for a cat who leapt upon two mice, only to find one of them challenging the attacking creature, tiny teeth bared to fight. She took a lurching step back.

  The two figures — Toshikazu and the ninja — faced each other from a distance of less than ten feet, now. Both were totally motionless, like actors in a freeze-frame from a movie.

  Then suddenly, blindingly fast, Toshikazu moved. He ducked his shoulders to the left as if making a break. The ninja responded, moving his sword to follow Toshikazu’s shift. But Toshikazu wasn’t running. His right hand flashed to the small of his back, pulled something from the waistband of his pants. Then he lashed out with his right arm, as if throwing a frisbee underhand. Something caught the dim light, a disc of metal flashing through the air.

  The ninja flung himself aside — fast, but not fast enough. The metal object struck him in the left shoulder, sank into his flesh. He gasped in pain, a sharp expulsion of breath.

  And Toshikazu was moving, strong legs pistoning, driving his body directly toward the swordsman. The ninja swung his katana, a whistling cut — hideously fast — that should have severed Toshikazu’s neck.

  But Toshikazu had ducked low, underneath the flashing steel, and now he was inside the arc of the deadly weapon. His shoulder slammed into the ninja’s abdomen, hard enough to drive the breath from the man’s lungs, to send him back two staggering steps. Still inside the sword’s arc, Toshikazu brought his arms up, one clawing for the ninja’s face, the other grabbing at his wounded shoulder. Simultaneously, he thrust his knee up, with all his strength and weight behind it.

  Wounded and off-balance, the ninja was still almost inhumanly fast. He shifted, so that Toshikazu’s knee slammed into the muscle of his thigh instead of its intended target. But he couldn’t simultaneously block Toshikazu’s hands. The ninja hissed, a sound of barely-controlled agony as the smaller man pummeled his

  wounded shoulder. Again.

  “Get out of here!” Toshikazu screamed again in English.

  Still, Nikki stood frozen. She wanted to run. To put as much distance as she could between her and the black-clad killer, to lose herself in the crowds of Shinjuku Station. But how could she leave Toshikazu?

  “Go, Goddamn you!”

  The ninja counterattacked, slamming the butt of his sword into the side of Toshikazu’s head. The researcher reeled back, looked about to fall, but managed to keep his feet. He snatched something up from the alley floor. It looked to Nikki like a piece of metal pipe. Not much defense against a katana.

  The ninja advanced slowly, sword again ready, moving back and forth in short feints. Nikki was horribly certain Toshikazu wouldn’t be able to get inside that deadly arc again.

  In the dim light, she saw her friend’s face. Blood from a scalp wound sheeted the left side of his head. His eyes were slitted with concentration and with pain … but he was smiling. A wild, feral smile, so out of keeping with his personality — or with what she knew of his personality.

  “Run, Nikki!” he shouted, and there was a kind of terrible joy in his voice.

  She knew what he was going to do before he moved, and she knew she couldn’t watch it. As she turned to run, at last, she saw him hurl himself forward again, the pipe in his hand swinging at the ninja’s head.

  Metal crashed against metal — once, again. She heard a grunt of exertion behind her, a gasp of pain. She redoubled her speed, sprinting through the darkness. Then came a scream of agony, a throat-rupturing shriek.

  And that shriek was her own name.

  Chapter Four

  It was dark in Nikki’s apartment. No lights burned, and the vertical blinds covering the windows were all closed. She lay on the bed, unmoving, staring at the ceiling.

  She was in a kind of shock, she knew. She felt numb— physically, mentally and emotionally. Her limbs felt leaden, or like slabs of meat that didn’t really belong to her. She knew she could move them if she wanted to, but doing so would take too much effort. Her thoughts moved sluggishly, and her emotions felt packed in cotton wool. She’d been in her apartment all day, moving no more than was required for survival — to the bathroom, to the shower to wash off the sour sweat that kept seeping from her pores, only once to the kitchen for food. Outside the windows, the sound of Tokyo at night was a distant, almost subliminal hum.

  She hadn’t slept — hadn’t wanted to sleep. She knew that her dreams would be terrible. Even awake, her mind kept replaying the events of the previous night.

  She’d sprinted from the winding alleys, from the closed sake shops and yakitori bars. Running faster than she ever thought she could run, she’d bolted for the lights and the crowds of Shinjuku Station, imagining that any second she’d hear the soft cadence of running footsteps following her. Not Toshikazu, she’d known he was dead. That final, horrible scream had confirmed that. No, she’d imagined the ninja, his katana still wet with her friend’s blood, pursuing her, closing the gap, drawing back his weapon to split her skull in two or sever her neck.

  But there’d been no pursuit — and in a distant way, that had puzzled her. She’d burst from the maze of alleys into the late-night bustle of the station area. Sararimen — most drunk — had been everywhere, staggering alone, or walking arm-in-arm with friends and colleagues, singing Japanese drinking songs. The brilliant lights had brought tears to her eyes.

  The transition had been shocking, overpowering. From the darkness and death of the alleyway to the brightness and life of the world that she considered “real,” in an instant. Surrounded by normal people, she’d hesitated for a moment, looking back over her shoulder at the dark mouth of the alley. Expecting any instant to see the ninja burst forth to cut her down.

  He’d never appeared. There’d been no movement in the alleyway, no black-clad figure. Had he completed his task with the death of Toshikazu? Or had the presence of others — of witnesses — saved her life, prevented him from seeing his mission through? She didn’t know.

  For several heartbeats, nobody had noticed her, standing there panting, soaked with the sweat of terror. But then an elderly sarariman, a little less drunk than the friends he walked with, had seen her and weaved his way over to her. In polite, slightly-slurred Japanese, he’d asked her what the problem was.

  Even though she’d been able to understand him with no difficulty, she’d found herself unable to phrase a coherent reply. She’d stuttered in broken Japanese, mixed
with English, trying to explain what had happened. But the man hadn’t understood her fully. He’d understood enough, however, to know she was in some kind of trouble. Gently taking her arm, he’d led her to the station entrance, where three policemen were standing, watching the crowd.

  Again, she’d tried to explain, this time with more success. The police had looked doubtful when she’d mentioned the ninja, but their expressions had grown more serious and their hands had drifted to their handguns with her description of Toshikazu’s death. In simple Japanese, accompanied by hand gestures, they’d told her that they’d check it out.

  Suddenly terrified of being left alone, she’d followed them as they’d walked — slowly, carefully watching all around them — into the maze of alleys. When they’d approached the scene of the fight, one of the officers had fallen back, staying with Nikki, while the others had advanced cautiously. “There is no need for you to see this,” he’d said with concern in his voice.

  But she couldn’t just stand there, she’d found, she had to see. She’d brushed past him, following his colleagues.

  By the time she’d caught up with them, they were in the stretch of alley where it had happened. They’d stood motionless, framing something that lay in the middle of the alley. A rounded shape that could — almost — have been a pile of garbage. Another train had passed, and in the flickering light she’d seen Toshikazu’s white poplin windbreaker. And blood. Blood everywhere. With a strangled cry, she’d turned and run back into the lights of the street.

  The police had been very polite, very concerned, as they’d driven her to the station and questioned her. “We apologize for the necessity,” they’d repeated again and again, “but we must ask you.” And then they’d had her repeat, several times, exactly what had happened, dropping in new questions each time. In some ways it had been like the interrogation after the raid on Nagara — the incessant questions, the people taking notes. But this time they’d been scrupulously polite. There’d been no indication that they thought she was in any way to blame. They’d just been trying to collect all the data they could, and making sure that they hadn’t missed anything.