by Barry Eisler
I didn’t know about any of that, and for reasons I was still too young to fully grasp, didn’t want to think about it, either. The only thing I was sure of was that I was heading back to Ginza to buy more clothes from Employee Ito. If the guy hadn’t taught me about shoes and welting, I’d probably be dead. The least I could do was throw some more business his way.
But beyond that, I didn’t know. I supposed the good news was that, if I stuck around, I’d have steady work. Coming from Miyamoto, a guy I could actually trust.
Maybe I’d do it. Maybe Wilson had been right. How had he put it? Men like us don’t have a choice. We’re in the game. We can either be players, or pieces.
But if I was going to stay in the game, I’d make my own rules. One of which would be, no more involvement. No more attachments. No more Marias, or Sayakas, or anything else. If money was always going to win, I’d get my share and then cash the hell out.
“I think I’m going away for a while,” I said, letting him interpret that as he might.
He nodded. “Forgive me for saying so, but I think this would be a waste.”
I couldn’t help a reluctant smile, because he was just so damn indefatigable. “I know what you want, Tatsu. But I need to figure out what I want.”
“I don’t know what you want. I only know what you need.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Purpose.”
“Well, I’ll let you know when I find one.”
He looked down, then back to me. “Do you remember what you said to me the last time we met? About Victor needing to kill you because it was a zero-sum game?”
All at once, I felt uneasy. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Have you considered that perhaps that dynamic runs in both directions?”
I tried to think of a meaningful response, couldn’t, and managed instead, “I don’t see your point.”
“My point is simply that ‘zero’ is not so much to win. Especially after the kind of game you’ve been playing. Why not play for something more than that?”
All at once, I felt engulfed by a wave of munashisa—emptiness, fruitlessness, futility. I waited, hoping it would pass. It didn’t.
“I need to go,” I said. “Who’s buying the beer?”
He bowed his head. “Please. Let me. You buy next time.”
“I don’t know when that’ll be, Tatsu.”
“I can wait.”
Not as long as I can, I thought.
He put some yen on the table and we stood to go. “Jaa,” he said, meaning, in this context, See you again.
I almost replied with Sayōnara—Goodbye.
But I didn’t. Because the truth was, maybe he was right. Maybe I did want more than zero. I just didn’t know how to get it. Or if I ever would.
Notes
Chapter 3
For more on the two percent of soldiers the US government considered “aggressive psychopaths” in World War II, I recommend Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.
http://www.killology.com
Rain’s thoughts on how recognizing something is dangerous automatically makes it less so are courtesy of Marc MacYoung.
http://nnsd.com
And for a conversation between Rain and MacYoung on violence, personal security, and tradecraft, along with a few other tales about life out at the edges, I recommend Campfire Tales from Hell.
https://www.amazon.com/Campfire-Tales-Hell-Survival-Bouncing-ebook/dp/B0083XYSWM
Chapter 4
The original Hotel Okura was torn down in 2015. I’m glad I saw it before then. Here’s more on its history and on what made it special, including a wonderful photo slide show:
http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/hotel-okura-tokyo
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2015/06/06/style/refusing-check-hotel-okura/#.V_Gv1jKZN3k
Chapter 5
It seems that recently, love hotels are being increasingly promoted and used for activities not strictly amorous. Obviously, Rain has been all over the additional benefits for decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/24/no-sex-please-were-japanese-love-hotels-clean-up-their-act-amid-falling-demand
Chapter 6
The quote Rain refers to is from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, where Niebuhr writes, “Self deception . . . is the tribute which morality pays to immorality; or rather the device by which the lesser self gains the consent of the larger self to indulge in impulses and ventures which the rational self can approve only when they are disguised.”
Treasures of Azuchi Castle and Nijo Castle was a 2016 exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum. I hope I can be forgiven for moving it back in time a bit.
Chapter 8
Some of my favorite izakaya are the really old-school, under-the-tracks variety. Here’s a nice photo blog of Yūrakuchō, home to some great ones.
https://lifetoreset.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/tokyo-neighborhood-izakaya-under-the-train-tracks-at-yurakucho/
Chapter 9
One of Tokyo’s best bars (which is saying a lot), Bar Radio has been through several incarnations since its 1972 debut. I described it as it appears today—which works in a story set in 1982 because the bar is timeless. If you’re in Tokyo, visit and see for yourself.
http://www.tokyofoodlife.com/?p=708
Chapter 10
Here’s a good photo of the street in Shibuya were Rain gets ambushed—a part of town called Hyakkendana. I post my research photos on my website, but this one’s better quality and really nails the nighttime feel of the area.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbisaro/7562779568/in/photostream/
For more about the Church and Pike Committees and the assassination, domestic sabotage, and human experimentation programs they uncovered, Wikipedia offers a good primer. Fortunately, these sorts of abuses are ancient history and could never, ever happen now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
More on Project Gamma and “the Green Beret Affair”—the “termination with extreme prejudice” of a suspected South Vietnamese double agent by US Special Forces in Vietnam.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_GAMMA#Capture.2C_interrogation.2C_and_killing_of_Chu_Van_Thai_Khac
You can’t take the kind of urban-ops course “Mike” mentions to Rain as the source of his ability to blend in Tokyo. But here’s one you can take, and it’s at least as good—Violence Dynamics.
https://www.facebook.com/violencedynamics/
Chapter 11
The intelligence adage, First, tell me what you know. Then tell me what you don’t know. Now tell me what you think, is courtesy of a man called Slugg, whose untimely death early this year is an immeasurable loss for everyone who knew and learned from him.
Chapter 15
The programs Tatsu describes—Operation Paperclip, Operation Gladio, Operation Mongoose, Operation Chaos, Project FUBELT, and MKUltra—and others like them, all really happened. Google the names and see. Of course, the government would never, ever engage in such activities today.
For more on the history of soapland, I recommend Nicholas Bornoff’s wonderful book, Pink Samurai: Love, Marriage and Sex in Contemporary Japan.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9LTLAZ
And here’s a great article from longtime Tokyo resident and Japan Times reporter Mark Schreiber on Yoshiwara then and now.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/04/national/media-national/japans-magazines-get-misty-eyed-showa-era-brothels/#.WL2cWBjMzkF
Chapter 16
An interesting video on Kevlar’s effectiveness against knives.
https://vimeo.com/8502720
Chapter 18
Tokyo’s famous Imperial Hotel—repeatedly damaged, destroyed, torn down, and rebuilt—has an incredible history, including opening on the day of the Great Kanto Quake of 1923—and surviving it, th
ough not unscathed.
http://www.fdtimes.com/2016/01/13/imperial-hotel-tokyo/
More on CIA stockpiling of shellfish toxin, cobra venom, and other poisons.
http://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/17/archives/colby-describes-cia-poison-work-he-tells-senate-panel-of-secret.html
The CIA had a heart-attack dart gun, too. Because it’s the government, they called it a “nondiscernible microbionoculator.”
http://www.military.com/video/guns/pistols/cias-secret-heart-attack-gun/2555371072001
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Koichiro Fukasawa and Yukie Kito, who yet again were invaluable in answering my questions about all things Tokyo and Japan: new and old; native and foreign; cultured and gehin.
Thanks to Michael Kleindl of Tokyo Food Life, who introduced me to Bar Radio and quite a few other Tokyo standouts, as well.
http://www.tokyofoodlife.com
Any shortcomings in the judo Rain uses in the subway struggle are entirely the fault of Tom Schinaman—a great judoka, jiu-jitsuka, and teacher—who helped me choreograph the scene one memorable night in Tokyo. ☺
To the extent I get violence right in my fiction, I have many great instructors to thank, including Massad Ayoob, Tony Blauer, Wim Demeere, Dave Grossman, Tim Larkin, Marc MacYoung, Rory Miller, and Peyton Quinn. I highly recommend their superb books and courses for anyone who wants to be safer in the world, or just to create more realistic violence on the page:
http://www.massadayoobgroup.com
https://blauerspear.com
http://www.wimsblog.com
http://www.killology.com
http://www.targetfocustraining.com
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com
http://www.chirontraining.com
http://moderncombatandsurvival.com/author/peyton-quinn/
Thanks as always to the extraordinarily eclectic group of “foodies with a violence problem” who hang out at Marc “Animal” MacYoung and Dianna Gordon MacYoung’s No Nonsense Self-Defense, for good humor, good fellowship, and a ton of insights, particularly regarding the real costs of violence:
http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com
I like to listen to music while I write, and sometimes a certain band or album gets especially associated with what I’m working on. This time around, the band was Godspeed You Black Emperor! and the album F# A# ∞.
Thanks to Jacque Ben-Zekry, Blake Crouch, Gracie Doyle, Meredith Jacobson, Mike Killman, Lori Kupfer, Dan Levin, Genevieve Nine, Laura Rennert, Michael S., and Ted Schlein for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Most of all, thanks to my wife and literary agent, Laura Rennert, for doing so much to make these books better in every way. Thanks, babe, for everything.
About the Author
Photo © 2007 Naomi Brookner
Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan Judo Institute along the way. Eisler’s bestselling thrillers have won the Barry Award and the Gumshoe Award for Best Thriller, have been included in numerous “Best Of” lists, have been translated into nearly twenty languages, and include the #1 bestseller The Detachment. Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law. http://www.barryeisler.com