Gumi means “group” or “gang.” In the yakuza context, the word refers to organized crime families, the Japanese equivalent of the Gambinos or the fictional Corleones.

“I don’t see how his absence is going to make a difference,” I said. “Won’t someone just take his place?”

“In the long run, yes. Where there is enough demand, eventually someone will offer a supply. But in the meantime, the supply is disrupted. The weightlifter was critical to the smooth maintenance of his organization. He groomed no successors, fearing, as strongmen do, that the presence of a successor would make a succession more likely. There will be a struggle in his organization now that he is gone. Deceit and betrayal will be part of that struggle. Assets and connections that are now hidden will be exposed. Criminal influence on legitimate enterprises will be lessened.”

“For a time,” I said.

“For a time.”

I thought of what Kanezaki had told me about Crepuscular.

“I had a run-in with someone from the CIA recently,” I said. “He mentioned something you might want to know about.”

“Yes?”

“His name is Tomohisa Kanezaki. He’s American, ethnic Japanese. He mentioned a CIA program for ‘furthering reform and removing impediments to reform.’ Something called Crepuscular. Sounds like your bailiwick.”

He nodded slowly for a moment, then said, “Tell me about this program.”

I started to tell him the little I’d heard. Then I realized. “You know this guy,” I said.

He shrugged. “He was one of the people who came to the Metropolitan Police Force requesting assistance in locating you.”

Marvelous. “Who was the other?”

“Holtzer’s successor as the CIA’s chief of Tokyo Station. James Biddle.”

“Haven’t heard of him.”

“He’s young for the position. About forty. Perhaps part of a new generation at the CIA.”

I told him how I had met up with Kanezaki and his escort, fudging the details to conceal Harry’s involvement.

“How did they manage to find you?” he asked. “It took me an entire year, even with local resources and access to Juki Net and the cameras.”

“A flaw in my security,” I told him. “It’s been corrected.”

“And Crepuscular?” he asked.

“Just what I told you. I didn’t get details.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “It doesn’t matter. I doubt that Kanezaki-san could have told you more than I already know.”

I looked at him, as always impressed with the breadth of his information. “What do you know?”

“The U.S. government is funneling money to various Japanese reformers. This is the same kind of program the CIA ran after the war, when it was supporting the Liberal Democratic Party as a bulwark against communism. Only the recipients have changed.”

“What about the ‘removing impediments’ part?”

He shrugged. “I imagine that, as Kanezaki-san suggested, they might want you to help with that.”

I laughed. “Sometimes these guys are so presumptuous that a certain grandeur creeps into it.”

He nodded. “Or they could be under the misapprehension that you had something to do with William Holtzer’s demise. Either way, you should stay away from them. I think we know that they are not to be trusted.”

I smiled at his use, probably deliberate, of “we” and “they,” as though Tatsu and I were partners.

“All right,” I said. “Tell me about the favor you want.”

He paused, then said, “Another key Yamaoto asset. And also a man whose primitive appearance masks a more sophisticated set of skills.”

“Who is he?”

He looked at me. “Someone you should understand quite well. A killer.”

“Really,” I said, affecting nonchalance.

The waitress brought his tea and set it down before him. He extended the cup in my direction in a silent toast, then took a sip.

“He is a strange man,” he said, watching me. “From his background, you might conclude that he is only a brute. There was a history of child abuse. Fights in school, and early evidence of sadistic tendencies. He dropped out of high school to train in sumo, but couldn’t develop the necessary bulk. Then he took up Thai boxing, where he had a short but unspectacular professional career. About five years ago he became involved in a so-called no-holds-barred sport, something called ‘Pride.’ Do you know of it?”

“Sure,” I said. The Pride Fighting Championship is a mixed martial arts sport, based in Japan, with televised bouts held every two months or so. The idea behind so-called mixed martial arts, or MMA, is to pit against each other a combination of traditional martial disciplines: boxing, jujitsu, judo, karate, kempo, kung fu, Muay Thai, sambo, wrestling. Audiences for Pride competitions have been growing steadily since the sport was founded, along with interest in related events, like King of the Cage in the U.K. and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the States. The sport has had some difficulty with regulators, who seem more comfortable with a boxer being beaten unconscious than with an MMA guy tapping out to a submission hold.

“What is your impression?” he asked.

I shrugged. “The competitors are strong. Good skills, good conditioning. A lot of heart, too. Some of what I’ve seen is as close to a real fight as you can get while still calling it a sport. But the ‘no-holds-barred’ stuff is just marketing. Until they decide to allow biting, eye-gouging, and ball shots, and until they start leaving weapons of convenience lying around the ring for the contestants to pick up, it’ll have its shortcomings.”

“It’s interesting that you say that. Because the individual in question seemed to have the same concerns. He left the sport for the world of bare-knuckled underground fighting, where there really are no holds barred. Where as often as not the fight truly is to the finish.”

I had heard about these fights. Had once even met someone who participated in them, an American named Tom, who was practicing judo, for a time, at the Kodokan. He was a tough-looking but surprisingly articulate guy who shared some interesting and valuable unarmed combat philosophy with me. I had defeated him in judo, but wasn’t sure how things would have turned out in a less formal setting.

“Apparently this individual was highly successful in these underground contests,” Tatsu said. “Not just against other men. Also in bouts against animals. Dogs.”

“Dogs?” I asked, surprised.

He nodded, his expression grim. “These events are run by the yakuza. It was inevitable that our man’s skills, and his cruel proclivities, would come to the attention of the organizers, that they would then recognize that he had a higher calling than killing for prize money in the ring.”

I nodded. “He could kill in the wider world.”

“Indeed. And, for the last year, that is precisely what he has been doing.”

“You said he had a more sophisticated set of skills.”

“Yes. I believe he has developed capabilities that I once thought were your provenance only.”

I said nothing.

“In the last six months,” he went on, “there have been two deaths, apparently by suicide. The victims were both high-level banking executives in soon-to-be merged institutions. Each seems to have leaped to his death from the roof of a building.”

I shrugged. “From what I’ve been reading about the condition of the banks’ balance sheets, I’m surprised that only two have jumped. I would have expected more like fifty.”

“Perhaps twenty years ago, or even ten, that would have been the case. But atonement by suicide now exists in Japan more as an ideal than as a practice.” He took a sip of his tea. “An American-style apology is now preferred.”

“ ‘I regret that mistakes were made,” ’ I said, smiling.

“Sometimes not even ‘I regret.’ Rather, ‘It is regrettable.” ’

“At least they’re not claiming that taking bribes is a disease, that they just need treatment to be cured.”