Barry Eisler - Hard Rain

I took a quick step back. “ Kore ga randori nanoka? Bokushingu janaika ?” I asked him. Are we doing randori , or boxing? I looked more concerned than I actually was. I’ve done some boxing. Not all of it with gloves.

“This is the way we do randori around here,” he answered, sneering.

“With no rules?” I asked, mock-concerned. “I’m not sure I like that.”

“You don’t like it, don’t train here, judoyaro ,” he said, and I heard someone laugh.

I looked around as though unsure of myself, but it was really just a routine check of my surroundings. Adrenaline causes tunnel vision. Experience and a desire to survive ameliorate it. The faces around the tatami radiated amusement, not danger.

“I’m not really used to this kind of thing,” I said.

“Then get off the fucking tatami ,” he spat.

I looked around again. It didn’t feel like a setup. If it were, they wouldn’t have been dancing with me one at a time.

“Okay,” I said, scowling to look like a soft guy trying to look like a hard guy. Playing the victim of idiot pride. “We’ll do it your way.”

We squared off again. I logged his feints. He liked to lead with his right foot. His timing was regular-a weakness for which his quickness had probably always compensated.

He liked low kicks. Right foot forward plant, left roundhouse kick, return to defensive stance. I took two such shots to my right thigh. They stung. They didn’t matter.

The right foot came forward again. When it was a few millimeters above the tatami and he was fully committed to planting it, I shot straight in, my right hand hooking his neck from behind, my left hand darting in just behind his right ankle. I used his neck to support my weight, dragging his head down and ruining his balance. I drove through him, my elbow leading the way at his chest. His ankle was blocked and his body had nowhere to go but backward to the tatami .

I kept the ankle as he fell, jerking it northward and spinning clockwise so that I landed facing the same direction he was in. I was straddling his leg and holding the ankle in front of me. In one smooth motion I caught it in my right biceps, wrapped the fingers of my left hand around his toes, and clamped down in opposing directions. His ankle broke with a snap like the sound of a mallet on hard wood. Freed of its moorings, the foot arced savagely to the right. Tendons and ligaments tore loose.

He let out a high scream and tried to use his other leg to kick me away. But the kicks were feeble. His nervous system was overloaded with pain.

I stood up and turned to face him. His face was I’m-going-to-puke green and beaded in oily sweat. He was holding the knee of his ruined leg and looking bug-eyed at the dangling foot at the end of it. He hitched a breath in, then deeper, then let out a long wail.

Ankle injuries hurt. I know. I’ve seen feet lost to land mines.

He sucked in another breath and screamed again. If we’d been alone, I would have broken his neck just to shut him up. I looked around the room, wondering if I was going to have trouble from any of his comrades.

One of them, a tall, long-legged guy with an Adonis physique and peroxide-dyed, close-cropped hair, yelled out, “ Oi !” and started to come toward me. Hey!

The salt-and-pepper guy cut in front of him. “ Ii kara, ii kara ,” he said, pushing Adonis back. That’s enough.

Adonis backed off, but continued to fix me with a hostile stare.

Salt and Pepper turned and walked over to where I was standing. He bore an expression of mild amusement that was not quite a smile.

“Next time, use a little more control when you put in a joint lock,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

The dark-complected guy writhed. Adonis and a couple of the others went to help him.

I shrugged. “I would have. But he told me ‘no rules.” ’

“That’s true. He’ll probably be the last guy who suggests that to you.”

I looked at him. “I like this place. You guys seem serious.”

“We are.”

“It’s all right for me to train here?”

“Between four and eight every evening. Most mornings, too, you can work out from eight to noon. There are dues, but we can talk about that another time.”

“You manage the place?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

“I’m Arai,” I said, with a slight bow.

Someone brought a stretcher. The dark-complected guy was gritting his teeth and whimpering. Someone admonished him, “ Urusei na! Gaman shiro !” Shut up! Take the pain!

“Washio,” he said, returning the bow. “And by the way, did you know that Ishihara-san died recently?”

I looked at him. “No, I didn’t.”

He nodded. “An accident at his gym.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Is the gym still open?”

“Some of his associates are running it now.”

“Good. Although I have a feeling that, from now on, I’ll be spending more time here, anyway.”

He grinned. “ Yoroshiku .” Looking forward to it.

“Yoroshiku.”

I stuck around for another two hours. Adonis glared at me from time to time but otherwise kept his distance. Murakami never showed.

Washio’s questions about Ishihara’s death were neither surprising nor particularly unnerving. The weightlifter’s death looked like an accident. Even if they wondered whether the truth might be otherwise, they had no more reason to suspect my involvement than they did anyone else who had worked out there.

Of course, if I received further inquiries on that subject, particularly any pointed ones, I might change my assessment.

I came the next day, and the day after that, but still no sign. That was fine with me. It felt good to be back in Tokyo and I thought I could afford a few days there if I continued to be careful. Besides, getting in a workout on the job is great. Not quite the wholesome life of an aerobics instructor, but it beats sitting in a van all night on surveillance, drinking cold coffee and pissing in a plastic jug.

On the fourth day, I dropped by in the evening. Three sequential occasions in the same place at the same time was as much as my paranoid nervous system will allow. I was surprised to see many of the same faces. Some of these characters worked out twice a day. I wondered what they did for a living. Crime, probably. Be your own boss. Flexible hours.

I exchanged greetings with Washio and some of the others whom I had gotten to know, then changed in the locker room. One of the heavy bags was open, and I started working it with knee and elbow combinations. Drills of one-minute attack, thirty-second rest. I used a small clock on the wall to time myself.

My speed and strength were still good. Endurance likewise. Recovery times aren’t what they once were, but a steady diet of liquid amino acids for the muscles, glucosamine for the joints, and Cognamine for the reflexes all seem to help.

During one of the rest periods, I felt people pause in their workouts, felt their attention shift. The atmosphere in the room changed.

I looked over and saw someone in a poorly fitting double-breasted navy suit. It had wide lapels and overly padded shoulders. The kind of suit that’s supposed to impart a swagger even when you’re standing still. He was flanked by two burly specimens, more casually dressed, with yakuza punch perms. From their size and deportment I assumed they were bodyguards.

They must have just come in. The guy in the suit was talking to Washio, who was paying close and somehow uncomfortable attention.

I watched, and noticed other people doing the same. The newcomer couldn’t have been more than five-feet-eight, but his neck was massive and I put him at about eighty-five, ninety kilos. His ears were deformed masses of protruding scar tissue that would stand out even in Japan, where such scarification is not uncommon among judoka and kendoka .