I arrived in Minami Azabu on Thanatos at seven, and found a small storefront with a plain, unpretentious sign advertising TAIHŌ CHUUKA RYŌRI, a few pink, vinyl-covered stools and a wraparound counter just visible below the noren curtains hung across the frontage. I ducked under the curtains, and was struck by the tangy smell of fried rice and pork and spices. A man in a black tee shirt and jeans and white apron, who I understood immediately by his demeanor was the maastaa, or master, stood behind the counter, studiously attending to the stove before him, the sounds of frying meat loud even amid the conversation of the small restaurant’s dozen or so patrons. A woman alongside him who I sensed was his wife looked up and greeted me with a smiling “Irasshaimase.”
I returned her greeting with a nod and glanced to my right — the one blind spot from where I was standing — and was unsurprised to see McGraw. Once again, he was the only white face in evidence; once again, he had a beer in front of him that I sensed wasn’t his first. He was watching me as though wondering how long it would be before I finally noticed him.
I stepped over to his table and sat. He glanced at the bag I was carrying, but didn’t comment, instead saying only, “You hungry?”
I hadn’t been, but the delicious smell of the cooking had already changed that. “I could eat.”
He called out to the woman behind the counter in passable Japanese that we would have two orders of gyoza, two of fried rice, and two Asahi beers. He seemed entirely at home. I wondered how he found these places, and whether he favored them more operationally or more for the food. Maybe both.
A pretty girl appeared from the back carrying a tray laden with beer. She looked like the woman behind the counter — the daughter, then, a family operation. She placed two bottles and a glass for me on the table, collected McGraw’s empty, and went on to service other customers. McGraw picked up the fresh bottle and tended to his own glass. In Japan, failing to at least offer to fill your companion’s glass is markedly rude. Maybe he didn’t know, but I doubted that. Nor did he offer to toast, instead immediately taking a long swallow. Whatever. I followed suit, resisting the urge to say anything, reminding myself of my theory that McGraw used silence to draw people out.
He glanced down at my glass, from which I had taken only a small sip. “You might want to finish that,” he said, his voice loud enough for me to hear but not loud enough to carry over the hubbub of conversation around us. “And maybe another, before I brief you.”
Was that supposed to rattle me? It did, but I wasn’t going to show it. “Up to you,” I said.
“All right. Don’t say I didn’t offer.” He took another swallow. “I have bad news. And worse news.”
“Aren’t you supposed to ask me which I want first?” I was proud of my apparent sangfroid. In fact, I was getting increasingly worried.
“You think this is funny?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t told me what it is yet.”
He looked at me for a long moment, so much disgust in his expression I sensed he was actually relishing what he was about to tell me. “That kid you tuned up in Ueno,” he said. “You killed him.”
“Is that the bad news, or the worse news?”
“That’s the bad news. The worse news is, he was the nephew of Hideki Fukumoto. Name ring a bell?”
“Should it?”
“If you know anything about the yakuza, it should. Fukumoto is the head of the Gokumatsu-gumi. The biggest yakuza syndicate in Tokyo, and therefore the biggest in Japan. You get it now? You fucked up. You killed a yakuza prince. A punk, sure, but a prince. And the two who got away? One was a nobody, relatively speaking. He’s in the hospital, where they’re not sure if he’ll recover his vision. What did you do, stick your thumbs in his eyes?”
“Something like that.”
“Something like that. Jesus. Well, the other was the dead nephew’s cousin. You know what that makes him?”
“Fukumoto’s son, I’m guessing.”
“Well, listen to Albert Einstein here. I guess you’re not as dumb as you act. And the best part is, the two cousins were close. Close as brothers. You want to know Fukumoto Junior’s nickname?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
“Mad Dog. So you, genius, just killed the cousin of a yakuza named Mad Dog. Proud of yourself?”
I didn’t say anything. I was suddenly scared, and I felt like McGraw could see right through my bravado.
The waitress returned with our food. But I had no appetite. I picked up a gyoza with my chopsticks, dipped it in sauce, and chewed it, barely noticing the taste. “What does this mean?”
“Mean? It means you need to get your candy ass out of Japan. And not come back, ever.”
I shook my head. “I can’t just…”
I stopped. I didn’t even know what I was trying to say. What was it I couldn’t do? Go back to the States, which felt like an alien planet when I’d briefly returned after the war? Admit I wasn’t reliable even to carry a bribery bag for a bunch of corrupt politicians and businessmen? Accept that I’d lost my temper, and fucked up, and blown everything?
McGraw must have seen my distress. Uncharacteristically, his face softened. “I’m sorry, son. You’re no good to me now. You’re too hot. Word is, they already have a contract out on you.”
“Yeah, I got that feeling. They already made a run at me at the Kodokan.”
“What?”
I wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. What did he think a yakuza contract entailed? I told him what had happened.
“Well, it’s good you didn’t kill the guy,” he said, when I was done. “Bad enough you have the yakuza on your ass, you don’t need the police, too. Now look, I’ll make sure you get a ticket home. But that’s all I can do.”
I don’t have a home, I thought. No, not thought. Realized. What the hell was I going to do?
He inhaled several gyoza, then tucked into the fried rice. I forced down a few more bites, thinking hard, looking for a way out.
After a few minutes, I said, “What if I don’t want to go?”
He took an enormous swallow of beer and belched. “You stick around, the Agency will put out a burn notice on you. They don’t want the attention, you understand? Or worse, they’ll drop a dime. Not to the police. To Fukumoto, or to Mad Dog, or to whoever. A lot of people would be happy to have guys like that in their debt.”
“Why don’t you?”
He looked at me, his skin puffy, gin blossoms under his eyes and across his nose. But somehow, for an instant, I could see the formidable young man he must have once been.
“Because I’m not gutless. Because I believe in karma. Because if you get your shit together and learn to control your temper, you have your whole life ahead of you, and I don’t want to be the one who cuts it short.”
We sat in silence again, eating, McGraw with gusto, I with considerably less enthusiasm. My mind was racing, rebelling. Things had been okay. After some of the places I’d been, okay was worth a lot. And now this. It was a mistake. It didn’t have to happen. I didn’t want to go.
Something came to me. A long shot, but I didn’t see a lot of options. “Who’s my problem here?” I asked.