We stood around him silently. The initial sense of elation was gone, replaced with a weirdly intimate tenderness, and a horrified sadness so sudden and heavy that it actually made me groan.

Same as me, I thought again. He didn’t look like a bad guy. I knew that in some other universe we wouldn’t have been trying to kill each other. Maybe we would have been friends. He wouldn’t be lying dead on a jungle floor saturated with his own blood.

One of the men I was with started to cry. The other began moaning Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, over and over again. Both of them vomited.

I did not.

We took the ledger. It turned out to contain some fairly useful information about VC payments to local village heads and other attempts to buy influence. Although of course, in the end, none of that had mattered.

Someone on the Huey that picked us up afterward laughed and told me I’d popped my cherry. No one talked about how it really felt, or what had happened while we stood in a silent circle and watched the man die.

When the army was assessing my suitability for the joint Special Forces-CIA program known as SOG, the psychiatrist had displayed a keen interest in that initial killing experience. He seemed to think it was noteworthy that I hadn’t vomited. And that what he described as my “associated negative emotions” had dissipated. No bad dreams afterward, that was also considered a plus.

Later, I learned that I was categorized as belonging to a magical two percent of military men who are capable of killing repeatedly, without hesitation, without special conditioning, without regret. I don’t know if I really belonged there. It wasn’t as easy for me as it was for Crazy Jake. But that’s where they put me.

The average person is surprised at the extent to which a soldier has to deal with hesitation before the fact and regret afterward. Of course, the average person has never been required to kill a stranger at close range.

Men who have survived close-quarters killing know that humans are possessed of a deep-seated, innate reluctance to kill their own species. I believe there are evolutionary explanations for the existence of this reluctance, but that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the fundamental purpose of basic training for most soldiers is to employ classical and operant conditioning techniques to suppress the reluctance. I know that modern training accomplishes this objective with ruthless effectiveness. I also know that the training deals better with the reluctance than it does with the regret.

I sat for a long time, picking through memories. Eventually I started to get cold. I went back to the hotel, watching my back as always along the way. I took an excruciatingly hot bath, then slipped into one of the cotton yukata the hotel had thoughtfully provided. I pulled a chair in front of the window and sat in the dark, watching the traffic moving along Hibiya-dori, twenty floors below. I thought of Midori. I wondered what she might be doing at that very instant on the other side of the world.

When the traffic began to thin, I got in bed. Sleep came slowly. I dreamed of Rio. It felt far away.

THE NEXT NIGHT I ran an SDR as usual on my way to the fight. When I was confident I was clean, I caught a cab to the Tennozu monorail station. From there I walked.

It was cooler here by the water. A sidewalk was being repaired, and a cluster of temporary signs advising anzen daiichi!-Safety First!-swayed stiffly in the wind, squealing like lunatic chimes. I moved across the rust-colored bulk of the Higashi Shinagawa Bridge. Around me was a network of massive train and automobile overpasses, their concrete darkened by the accumulated years of diesel fumes, their bulk so densely woven against the dark sky that the earth beneath felt vaguely subterranean. A solitary vending machine sat slumped on a street corner, its fluorescent light guttering like a dying SOS.

I spotted the Lady Crystal Yacht Club, probably an advertising euphemism for a restaurant that happened to be located on the water, and turned left. To my right was another overpass with warehouses beneath; opposite, a small parking lot, mostly empty. Beyond that, another Stygian canal.

I found the warehouse door Murakami had described. It was flanked by a pair of concrete flowerpots choked with weeds. A metal sign to the left warned of fire danger. Rust ran down the wall from behind it like dried blood from a peeling bandage.

I looked around. Across the water were brightly lit high-rise office buildings, apartments, and hotels, the names of their owners proudly glowing in red and blue neon: JAL, JTB, the Dai-ichi Seafort. It was as though the ground around me was poisoned and incapable of supporting the growth of such structures here.

To my left was an indentation in the long line of warehouses. I stepped inside and spotted a door on the right, hidden from the street outside. There was a small peephole at eye level. I knocked and waited.

I heard a bolt being moved back, then the door opened. It was Washio. “You’re early,” he said.

I shrugged. I rarely make appointments. You don’t want to give someone the opportunity to fix you in time and place. On those infrequent occasions where I have no choice, I like to show up early to scout around. If someone’s going to throw me a party, I’ll get there before the musicians set up.

I glanced inside. I was looking at a cavernous room dotted with concrete pillars. Incandescent lights dangled from a ceiling eight meters up, their bulbs encased in wire. Cardboard boxes were stacked five meters high on all sides. Two forklifts rested against a wall, looking like toys in relation to the space around them. A couple of chinpira in black T-shirts were moving chairs to the edges of the room. Other than that we were alone.

I looked at Washio. “Is it a problem?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. People will be here soon enough.”

I stepped inside. “You work the door?”

He nodded. “I don’t know your face, you don’t get in.”

“Who’s fighting?”

“Don’t know. I just run the fights, I don’t promote them.”

I smiled at him. “You ever participate?”

He laughed. “No. I’m a little old for this shit. Maybe I would have when I was younger. But these fights have only been going on for a year, year and a half, which is long after my prime.”

I thought of the way I’d seen him talking to Murakami, as though he’d been delivering a briefing. “The people at the club,” I said, “you’re training them for these fights?”

“Some of them.”

“What about Murakami?” I asked.

“What about him?”

“What does he do?”

He shrugged. “A lot of things. Some of the guys he trains. Sometimes he fights. We get a good turnout when he’s fighting.”

“Why?”

“Murakami always finishes his fights. People like that.”

“ ‘Finishes’ them?”

“You know what I mean. When Murakami fights, for sure one of the fighters is going to die. And Murakami has never lost.”

I had no trouble believing that. “What makes him so good?” I asked.

He looked at me. “Let’s hope you never have to find out.”

“Is it true he fights dogs?”

He paused. “Where did you hear that?”

I shrugged. “Just talk.”

Another pause. Then: “I don’t know whether it’s true. I know he goes to underground dogfights. He’s a breeder. Tosas and American pit bulls. His dogs are dead game, too. He feeds them gunpowder, pumps them full of steroids. They get irritated at the world and aggressive as hell. One dog, Murakami shoved a jalapeño pepper up its ass. Fought like a demon after that.”

There was a knock at the door. Washio stood. I offered him a slight bow to acknowledge that we were done.

He reached out and took my arm. “Wait. I’ll need your cell phone first.”