A Lonely Resurrection

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 bicep, 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 and watched him. His face was colored 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 landmines.
    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. “That’s enough,” 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.’”
    “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.”
    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!
    “I’m Arai,” I said, with a slight bow.
    “Washio,” he said, returning the bow. “And by the way, did you know 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. Though I have a feeling that, from now on, I’ll be spending more time here.”
    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. His 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 more days 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, I supposed. 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