A Lonely Resurrection

open, and I started working it with knee and elbow combinations. Drills of one-minute attack, thirty seconds rest. I used a small clock on the wall to time myself.
    My speed and strength were still good. Endurance likewise. Recovery times weren’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 seemed 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.
    Washio was gesturing to various men who were training. The newcomer was nodding. It felt like a briefing.
    The thirty-second rest was up. I returned my attention to the bag. Left elbow. Right uppercut. Left knee. Again.
    When the one-minute sequence was done I looked over. Washio and the newcomer were walking toward me. The bodyguards remained by the door.
    “Oi,
Arai,” Washio called out when they were a couple meters away. “Hold up for a minute.”
    I picked up a towel from the floor and wiped my face. They came closer and Washio gestured to the man next to him. “I want to introduce you to someone,” he said. “One of the backers of this
dojo.”
    I already knew who he was. Per Tatsu’s briefing, the left cheek was flattened, with the opposite side exhibiting what looked like a golf ball-sized fissure pocked with jagged edges. I imagined a dog getting hold of him there and hanging on even as he shoved the animal away.
    Something told me the dog had come out the worse.
    I felt the hairs on the back of my neck pop up, a fresh surge of adrenaline dump into my veins. My fight or flight reaction is finely honed, and this guy’s presence was making it sing.
    “Arai desu,”
I said, bowing slightly.
    “Murakami da,”
he said with a nod, his voice not much more than a growl. “Washio tells me you’re good.” He looked doubtful.
    I shrugged.
    “There’s a fight tomorrow night,” he went on. “We put them on from time to time. Most people pay a hundred thousand yen to attend, but members of the
dojo
get in free. You interested?”
    A hundred thousand yen—I’d been in the right neighborhood about the economics of these things. And if this guy was comfortable issuing the invitation, someone must have checked me out. I was glad I’d asked Tatsu to backstop the Arai identity.
    I shrugged again and said, “Sure.”
    He looked at me, his eyes flat, as though focused somewhere behind and through me. “The fight starts at ten o’clock sharp. People get there a little early for betting. We’re doing this one in Higashi Shinagawa, five-chome. Just across the canal from Tennozu Island.”
    “The harbor district?” I asked. The area is part of Tokyo but wasn’t a place I ever frequented while living in the city. It’s in Tokyo’s southeast, the home of meat processing plants and sewage disposal, of steam power facilities and wholesale warehouses, all of it fed and fattened by Tokyo’s great port. I supposed the attraction was that it would be deserted at night.
    “That’s right. The address is eight-twenty-five. A warehouse with the character for ‘transport’ painted in a big circle on the door. Across from the Lady Crystal Yacht Club. On your right as you walk from the monorail. Should be easy to find.”
    “It’s important that you not tell anyone about this,” Washio added. “Only people who are invited get in anyway, and we don’t want trouble from the police.”
    Murakami nodded once, acknowledging Washio’s point as though it had been barely worth mentioning. I gathered Murakami didn’t particularly care who showed up at