A Lonely Resurrection

show trophies. Scalps and ears. The trophies said:
They’re dead! I’m alive!
    In Saigon he’d buy everyone’s beer. He’d buy whores. He threw parties. He needed a group to celebrate with him.
I’m alive!
They’re dead and I’m fucking alive!
    I sat forward in the seat and pressed my palms on the surface of the desk. I opened my eyes.
    The bar tabs.
    You’ve just killed and survived. You want to celebrate. They paid you in cash. Celebrate you can.
    It felt right. The first glimmers of knowing this guy from afar, of beginning to grasp the threads of what I’d need to get close to him.
    He loved the fights. He was addicted to the high. But a serious man. A professional.
    Work backward. He would train. And not at some monthly-dues neighborhood
dojo
alongside the weekend warriors. Not even at one of the more serious places, like the Kodokan, where the police
judoka
kept their skills sharp. He’d need something, he’d find something, more intense.
    Find that place, and you find him.
    I took a walk along the Okawa River. Hulking garbage scows slumbered senseless and stagnant on the green water. Bats dive-bombed me, chasing insects. A couple of kids dangled fishing poles from a concrete retaining wall, hoping to pull God knows what from the murky liquid below.
    I came to a payphone and used the number Tatsu had given me.
    He picked up on the first ring. “Okay to talk?” I asked him.
    “Yes.”
    “Our man trains for his fights. Not at a regular
dojo.”
    “I expect that is correct.”
    “Do you have information about where?”
    “Nothing beyond what is in the envelope.”
    “Okay. Here’s what we’re looking for. A small place. A hundred square meters, something like that. Not in an upscale neighborhood, but not too far downscale, either. Discreet. No advertising. Tough clientele. Organized crime, biker types, enforcers. People with police records. Histories of violence. You ever hear of a place like that?”
    “I haven’t. But I know where to check.”
    “How long?”
    “A day. Maybe less.”
    “Put whatever you find on the secure site. Page me when it’s done.”
    “I will.”
    I hung up.
    • • •
    The page came the next morning. I went to an Internet café in Umeda to check the secure site. Tatsu’s message consisted of three pieces of information. The first was an address: Asakusa 2-chome, number 14. The second was that a man matching Murakami’s memorable description had been spotted there. The third was that the weightlifter had been one of the backers of whatever
dojo
was being run there. The first piece of information told me where to go. The second told me it would be worthwhile to do so. The third gave me an idea of how I could get inside.
    I composed a message to Harry, asking whether he could check to see if my former weightlifting partner had ever made or received calls on his mobile phone that were handled by the tower closest to the Asakusa address. Based on Tatsu’s information, I expected the answer would be yes. If so, it would confirm that the weightlifter had spent time at the
dojo
and would be known there, in which case I would use his name as an introduction. I also asked if Harry had heard from any U.S. government employees of late. I uploaded the message to our secure site, then paged him to let him know it was there.
    An hour later he paged me back. I checked the secure site and got his message. No visits from the IRS, with a little smiley face next to the news. And a record of calls the weightlifter had made that were handled by the Asakusa 2-chome tower. We were in business.
    I uploaded a message to Tatsu telling him I was going to check the place out and would let him know what I found. I told him I needed him to backstop Arai Katsuhiko, the identity I’d been using at the weightlifter’s club. Arai-san would have to be from the provinces, thus explaining his lack of local contacts. Some prison time in said provinces for, say, assault, would be a plus. Employment records with a local company—something menial, but not directly under mob control—would be ideal. Anyone who decided to check me out, and I was confident that, if things went as I hoped, someone would, would find the simple story of a man looking to leave behind a failed past, someone who had come to the big city to escape painful memories, perhaps to try for a fresh start.
    I caught a late bullet train and arrived at Tokyo Station near midnight. This time, I stayed at the Imperial Hotel in