A Lonely Resurrection

meters away, I saw him purse his lips in confusion. At two meters his jaw started to drop open as he realized something was definitely wrong. At one meter all his questions were answered with a mouthful of pepper spray.
    His hands flew to his face and he staggered backward. I spat out the cigarette, dropped the canister into a jacket pocket, and withdrew the baton. I snapped it open, stepped behind him, and whipped it across his windpipe the way I had done to his buddy, this time with a stronger cross grip that crushed the carotids along with the larynx. His fingers clawed at the metal and his feet scrabbled for purchase for a few seconds as I dragged him back into the alley, but by the time we had reached the shadows he was dead. I patted him down and found another knife and another mobile phone. I left the knife. The mobile phone I took.
    I collapsed the baton, pocketed it, and made my way to the end of the street, where I found a payphone. I didn’t know if Naomi had caller ID, and didn’t want to take a chance on trying her from one of the mobile phones I had just acquired.
    I called her. She picked up on the third ring, her voice a little uncertain. “Hello?”
    “Hey, it’s me.”
    A pause. “Where are you?”
    “I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. I’m sorry.”
    Another pause. “That’s okay. It’s fine.” She sounded relieved.
    “I just wanted to let you know. I’ll be in touch soon, okay?”
    “Okay.”
    I hung up and returned to the back of her building. I eased into the shadows next to the body I had left there.
    One of the mobile phones I was carrying started to vibrate. I pulled it out and opened it.
    “Hai,”
I said.
    “He’s not coming tonight,” Murakami said in his signature growl. “I’ll be down in a minute. Call Yagi-san and be ready to move.”
    I guessed Yagi was one of the guys I’d taken out.
“Hai,”
I said.
    He clicked off.
    I dropped the mobile back in the coat pocket. I took out the baton and kept it retracted in my right hand. I held the pepper spray in my left. My heart was thudding steadily in my chest. I took in a deep breath through my nose, held it, and let it out.
    The back entrance was the less obvious, less trafficked choice. Also, it lacked a security camera. I knew he’d come out there, just like I had.
    I stayed at the edge of the diffused light from a nearby streetlamp, where Murakami would see me but where my appearance would be obscured by shadows. I needed him to come as close as possible, to maximize the element of surprise. Surprise might be the only advantage I would have over him.
    Two minutes later, he emerged from the rear door. I hung back just inside the shadows, the shades on, the hat pulled low.
    There was a dog with him, straining on a leash. It took me a second to recognize it without the muzzle. The white pit bull, the one that had been in the car after my fight with Adonis.
    Oh, fuck.
    I almost turned and ran for it. But a dog’s most atavistic instincts are triggered by flight, and there was too great a chance the thing would have caught me and brought me down from behind. I’d have to play this out.
    At least Murakami’s attention was partly engaged by the animal. He saw me and lifted his head in curt acknowledgment, then looked down at the dog, which had begun to growl.
    Nice doggy,
I thought.
Nice fucking doggy.
    They came closer. Murakami looked up at me again, then back to the dog. The damn thing was really growling now, staccato killing sounds that rumbled up from deep in its chest.
    Murakami didn’t seem unduly concerned. I guessed a dog that took gunpowder and steroids with its Alpo, and jalapeño pepper suppositories for dessert, might growl at the fucking wind, and that Murakami would be used to the behavior, might even welcome it.
    They came closer. The dog was starting to get out of control, snarling and straining at the leash. Murakami looked down at it.
“Doushitanda?”
he said. What the hell is with you?
    Then his head started to come up. He wasn’t as close as I wanted, but I knew his next glance was going to put things together. I wasn’t going to get a better opportunity.
    I leaped out at them and closed the distance in two long strides. Murakami reacted instantly, releasing the leash and getting his hands up to protect his upper body and head.
    It was a well-trained reaction and I’d been expecting it. Ignoring the dog, which I ranked as the lesser threat, I dropped to a crouch, cocked my right