This went on; the combative katas increased, and Bob got them, he saw them, he understood the principle, saw the opening, but he just never quite got there in time.

“Fuck!” he said.

“Moon in the cold stream like a mirror,” the man said.

Bob tried to crank up the concentration, but that didn’t work. He was being beaten severely at every exchange, and the blows of the wooden sword were raising knots on his bones and joints. His sweat poured off him. His fingers felt numb. How much longer would this go on?

And suddenly it stopped.

Doshu drew back from him and looked at him. Then he delivered a verdict.

“First day, eight cuts. Not bad. Second day, cutting tameshigiri, not bad. Yesterday, fighting, good. Today, fighting, not so good. Nothing.”

“I don’t have it today,” said Bob.

“Is no ‘Don’t have today.’ No yakuza say, ‘You got today? Okay, now we fight.’ Is only now.”

“I’m trying,” Bob heard himself say, and waited for Yoda to answer, “Is no try. Is only do.”

But it was Doshu who answered: “You not know enough. Anyone beat you.”

Bob wanted to say, But you said speed is sick. Wanting to win is sick. Then he stopped. Why fight him? he thought. He knows this shit, I don’t. It’s not up to me to point out his contradictions. Just go with it.

He bowed, showing humility to his tormentor, and saw immediately that this pleased the man. Bob composed his face into an expression of nothingness. Is nothing. Nothing is. Only void. Enter void. Do not exist. Use thought to approach no-thought.

“You sleep now.”

“No, I’m fine. I can go on.”

“No, sleep. Tired, sore, disappointed, confused. Not concentration. You sleep now. You come when you wake. But then, you fight.”

“Fight?”

“Sure. A match. But you must win.”

“I will win.”

“You must win. No win, I kick you out. I cannot help you nothing. You go away. Swagger die soon anyway, no worth helping.”

“I will win,” pledged Bob, believing he would. He liked this little development; it was a return to cause-effect. It was an ending, a climax. He would fight, he would win, he would go on. The finality was pleasing.

Doshu bowed; Bob returned the bow and went off. He went to the kitchen, where a surprisingly nourishing meal had been prepared; he ate it hungrily. Then the old lady-Doshu’s mother, his maid, his sister, no introductions had been made-took him to a room where he discovered a modern shower. She left, he stripped, and luxuriated in the warmth of the stinging water, feeling it soothe his bruised muscles and achy, swollen joints. Then, wrapping himself in a towel, he found his pallet behind the kitchen. Someone had covered it with a futon and a clean linen sheet and he settled into surprising comfort.

He woke sensing light.

I am ready, he thought. I will win.

He found a fresh jockstrap, pulled on gi trousers, covered them with hakama trousers, which he now knew how to tie, all the little bows and straps, all nice and neat. Attired, he stretched for twenty minutes, warming his muscles. Finally, all loosey-goosey, he put on his gi jacket, belting it tight, and walked to the dojo.

Doshu awaited, as did his opponent.

“You must win,” said Doshu. “No mercy, no hesitation, no doubt. Give all. Become void.”

“I-,” said Bob, then stopped when he saw the enemy.

It wasn’t merely that the enemy was about four feet tall and about ten. It was much worse. She was a girl.

Nick worked the clubs. Uptown, downtown, all around the town. He did the fancy glass-and-chrome joints in the Ginza, the most sophisticated of Tokyo’s nighttime districts. It cost him a fortune, because the Ginza is possibly the most expensive strip of real estate in the world, but he’d just moved two pounds of pure Moroccan White Girl to a minor yak offshoot and so he had a big wad of cash in his drawers and he didn’t mind spreading it around in search of a scoop that would put his rag on the map big-time.

And it would be a scoop too: Kondo Isami, the legendary yak killer, man of mystery and blood, working for a new big boss on a new big plan. That would make him in this burg. God, he loved this filthy town.

But he had no luck on the Ginza strip. He worked the gay part of the city, Shinjuku-2-Chome, on the principle that a few of the yaks were fairy or went to both coasts; they might sneak off here to relax, to get off, to forget the slicing that was so much a part of their lives, and might relax enough so that with a gallon or two of sake, they might spill something to a rent boy, he might spill something in turn. He worked Ace and Kinswomyn and Kinsmen and Advocate.

But no. The fags weren’t talking, or if they were, they weren’t talking to him, a straight guy with blondish hair and too much money to burn.

He had no luck either in Akasaka, another bright grid of streets loaded with bars, clubs, joints, particularly soaplands, those slippery palaces of hygiene and blow jobs, but not quite as sophisticated as Ginza. A lot of loose lips, in more ways than one, in the soaplands. Again, nothing. Nobody was talking.

He tried bouncers, barkeeps, hostesses, jazz musicians, rockers, cops, dealers, a few low-ranking yaks, people he knew or who knew of him. He spread a fortune around doing all the places: Cavern Club, Crocodile, Fukuriki Ichiza, Gaspanic Bar, Geronimo Shot Bar, Ichimon, Hobgoblin Tokyo, Shinjuku Pit Inn, Ruby Room, Nanbantei, Milk, Maniac Love, Warrior Celt, Xanadu, and Yellow. He got names and places from guys and moved on to other guys, other places, but generally he got the same warning, high town or low.

“Baby, you don’t want to ask about that guy. That guy’s serious. If he finds out, he’ll come to call in the night and you’ll end up cut to noodles.”

“I hear you. It’s just I heard a little something, I’d like to lay it out.”

“It’ll lay you out, Yamamoto-san. You’ll die for the glory of the Tokyo Flash. Is that what you want?”

“Thanks, bud.”

“Good luck, man.”

He tried Nishi Azabu, Roppongi, Harajuku, and Shibuya Center Gai, even Ebisu, popular with the expatriate set, though it was almost unthinkable that a gaijin would know something before a Nipponese would.

No, no, no, nothing. Instead, he came upon a yak scoop, having nothing to do with anything at all. Still, it was all the buzz, and he heard it in a dozen places. The yak talk was porn talk, almost the same thing. The boys at Imperial had made some big American connection and were cooking up a deal; it looked like they’d be getting western stars, blond girls, into their product line, and that looked promising if they could only get import licenses. Anyone who got American product into Japan stood to make a fortune, as the Japanese hunger for white women was well known. And if you could get white women to do the Japanese things-bukkake, subway groping, pig snout rings, bondage, urination fantasy, rape, teacher, airline hostess, office lady-the profits would be huge. But until now no one had been able to break the ban on foreign product; nobody had the juice to get it through customs. One man stood against it.

Miwa, called “the Shogun” because he was the genius at Shogunate AV, was known for his ferocious interest in keeping Japanese porn Japanese; the Shogun worked hard to keep the laws really tight so that any American outfit trying to set up business in Japan would find itself ensnared in legal troubles and police harassment. It was almost certain he was a nationalist crackpot, as were many yaks with business connections and many businessmen with yak connections.

The Shogun was head of AJVS, the All Japan Video Society, the professional group that represented Big Porn’s interests and worked with the Administrative Commission of Motion Picture Codes and Ethics, which theoretically regulated the porn industry, though it was more frequently thought to be a subsidiary of AJVS by virtue of collateral interest or out-and-out bribery. The key to the Shogun’s power was his presidency of AJVS, which in turn made him the most influential figure of the Administrative Commission; it made him the boss, really, of porn. If he lost that, he lost everything. And his term at AJVS was up. Word had it that for the first time in years, bribe money was being spread around to the other porn studio execs-there were hundreds of studios-to deny the Shogun reelection; if Imperial took over AJVS, they took over the Administrative Commission as well; they’d open up trade with the Americans. As rich and powerful as Miwa was, how could he stand against a huge tsunami of American capital, ravenous for the incredibly flexible gymnastics of the classic Japanese pussy? He hated the Americans. It was more than anything rational, it was cultural: their product was uninteresting, it had no ideas, it reflected a society of decadence and softness. “Keep Japanese pornography Japanese!” the Shogun said.