The police had broken up several, always in different locations. That the police were breaking up the fights at all meant they weren’t being paid not to. Meaning in turn that the organizers were willing to purchase overall secrecy at the price of a few random interruptions. Which showed good judgment, and perhaps some greed.

Too bad, from my perspective. If there had been payoffs, there would have been leaks, leaks that Tatsu would have uncovered.

Stay with the fights, I thought, trying to get a visual. The fights. Not work for this guy. He’s a killer. For him, it’s fun.

What would the purses be? How much do you have to pay two men to step into the ring when each knows that only one might walk away afterward?

How many spectators? How much would they pay to see two men fight to the death? How much would they bet? How much would the house collect?

They’d have to keep the crowds small. Otherwise word gets out and the police intrude.

Enthusiasts. Devotees. Maybe fifty men. Charge them a hundred, two hundred thousand yen each for admission. Betting is free. A lot of money would change hands.

I leaned back in the Aeron chair, my fingers laced behind my head, my eyes closed. Pay the winner the yen equivalent of twenty thousand dollars. The loser gets a couple thousand for his efforts, if he lives. The couple thousand goes to the crew that disposes of the body if he doesn’t. Minimal overhead. The house pockets close to eighty grand. Not bad for an evening.

Murakami liked to fight. Hell, Pride wasn’t enough for him. He needed more. And it wasn’t the money. Pride, with promotions and pay-per-view, would pay a lot more, to the winners and losers.

No. It wasn’t the money for this guy. It was the excitement. The proximity to death. The high you can only get from killing a man who’s simultaneously doing everything in his power to kill you.

I know the sensation. It both fascinates and repulses me. And, in a very few men, most of whom can live out their lives and be true to their natures only as the hardest of hard-core mercenaries, it becomes an addiction.

These men live to kill. Killing is the only thing for them that’s real.

I had known one of them. My blood brother, Crazy Jake.

I remembered how Jake would cut loose after returning from a mission. He’d be flushed, not just his mood but his whole metabolism jacked up and humming. You could see heat shimmers coming off his body. Those were the only times he would be talkative. He’d relate how the mission had gone, his eyes bloodshot, his mouth working a maniac grin.

He would show trophies. Scalps and ears. The trophies said: They’re dead! I’m alive!

In Saigon, he’d buy everyone’s beer. He’d buy whores. He threw parties. He needed a group to celebrate with him. I’m alive! They’re dead and I’m fucking alive!

I sat forward in the seat and pressed my palms on the surface of the desk. I opened my eyes.

The bar tabs.

You’ve just killed and survived. You want to celebrate. They paid you in cash. Celebrate you can.

It felt right. The first glimmers of knowing this guy from afar, of beginning to grasp the threads of what I’d need to get close to him.

He loved the fights. He was addicted to the high. But a serious man. A professional.

Work backward. He would train. And not at some monthly dues neighborhood dojo alongside the weekend warriors. Not even at one of the more serious places, like the Kodokan, where the police judoka kept their skills sharp. He’d need something, he’d find something, more intense.

Find that place, and you find him.

I took a walk along the Okawa River. Hulking garbage scows slumbered senseless and stagnant on the green water. Bats dive-bombed me, chasing insects. A couple of kids dangled fishing poles from a concrete retaining wall, hoping to pull God knows what from the murky liquid below.

I came to a pay phone and used the number Tatsu had given me.

He picked up on the first ring. “Okay to talk?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

“Our man trains for his fights. Not a regular dojo.”

“I expect that is correct.”

“Do you have information about where?”

“Nothing beyond what is in the envelope.”

“Okay. Here’s what we’re looking for. A small place. Three hundred square meters, something like that. Not in an upscale neighborhood, but not too far downscale, either. Discreet. No advertising. Tough clientele. Organized crime, biker types, enforcers. People with police records. Histories of violence. You ever hear of a place like that?”

“I haven’t. But I know where to check.”

“How long?”

“A day. Maybe less.”

“Put whatever you find on the bulletin board. Page me when it’s done.”

“I will.”

I hung up.

The page came the next morning. I went to an Internet café in Umeda to check the bulletin board. Tatsu’s message consisted of three pieces of information. The first was an address: Asakusa 2-chome, number 14. The second was that a man matching Murakami’s memorable description had been spotted there. The third was that the weightlifter had been one of the backers of whatever dojo was being run there. The first piece of information told me where to go. The second told me it would be worthwhile to do so. The third gave me an idea of how I could get inside.

I composed a message to Harry, asking whether he could check to see if my former weightlifting partner had ever made or received calls on his cell phone that were handled by the tower closest to the Asakusa address. Based on Tatsu’s information, I expected that the answer would be yes. If so, it would confirm that the weightlifter had spent time at the dojo and would be known there, in which case I would use his name as an introduction. I also asked if Harry had heard from any U.S. government employees of late. I uploaded the message to our bulletin board, then paged him to let him know it was there.

An hour later he paged me back. I checked the bulletin board and got his message. No visits from the IRS, with a little smiley face next to the news. And a record of calls the weightlifter had made that were handled by the Asakusa 2-chrome tower. We were in business.

I uploaded a message to Tatsu telling him that I was going to check the place out and would let him know what I found. I told him I needed him to backstop Arai Katsuhiko, the identity I’d been using at the weightlifter’s club. Arai-san would have to be from the provinces, thus explaining his lack of local contacts. Some prison time in said provinces for, say, assault, would be a plus. Employment records with a local company-something menial, but not directly under mob control-would be ideal. Anyone who decided to check me out, and I was confident that, if things went as I hoped, someone would, would find the simple story of a man looking to leave behind a failed past, someone who had come to the big city to escape painful memories, perhaps to try for a fresh start.

I caught a late bullet train and arrived at Tokyo station near midnight. This time I stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Hibiya, another centrally located place that lacks the amenities and flair of, say, the Seiyu Ginza or the Chinzanso or Marunouchi Four Seasons, but that compensates with size, anonymity, and multiple entrances and exits. The Imperial was also the last place I had been with Midori, but I chose it for security, not for sentiment.

The next morning I checked the bulletin board. Tatsu had given me the identity I wanted, along with the location of a bank of coin lockers in Tokyo station, from under one of which I could retrieve the relevant ID. I read the electronic message until it was memorized, then deleted it.

I did an SDR that encompassed Tokyo station, where I retrieved the papers I might need, and that ended at Toranomon station on the Ginza line, the oldest subway line in the city. From there I caught a train to Asakusa. Asakusa, in the northeast of the city, is part of what’s left of shitamachi, the downtown, the low city of old Tokyo.