A Lonely Resurrection

depressing odds of emerging unhurt against a knife looked downright desolate.
    I glanced over at the bag. It was about ten meters away, and my chances of getting to it and accessing the gun before Murakami put that blade in me were not good.
    He smiled, the bridge a predatory rictus. “Throw away yours, and I’ll throw away mine,” he said.
    He really was deranged. I had no interest in fighting him, only in killing him now or running away to wait for a more opportune moment. But maybe I could play this out.
    “You going to tell me what this is about?” I asked.
    “Throw away yours, and I’ll throw away mine,” he said again.
    So much for that. I knew there was a set of weights in back. I might be able to reach them before he got to me. If there were loose plates, I could use them like missiles, wear him down, create an opening that would give me time to deploy the gun. Not a happy prospect against a guy with the reflexes to fight dogs, but I was running out of ideas.
    “You first,” I said.
    “All right, armed,” he said, and started coming toward me. But slowly, taking his time.
    I tensed to go for the weights.
    A commanding series of knocks rang out from the front door, and I heard the words
“Keisatsu da!”
Police! bellowed through a bullhorn.
    Murakami’s head swiveled in that direction, but his eyes didn’t leave me. The combination evinced surprise, but also discipline.
    It came again, a fist banging on metal. Then
“Keisatsu da! Akero!”
Police! Open up!
    We looked at each other for a long second, but I already knew what he was going to do. He might have been crazy, but he was a survivor. A survivor reassesses odds continually and doesn’t disrespect them.
    He gestured at me with the knife. “Another time,” he said. Then he bolted for the back.
    I dashed to the gym bag. But by the time I’d reached it, he’d already made it inside the locker room and had slammed the door behind him. Following him in alone would be dangerous. Better to have Tatsu as backup.
    I sprinted to the entranceway. The door was secured with horizontal, spring-loaded bars, and it took me a few seconds to figure out how to work the mechanism. There was a gear in the center that wouldn’t give.
There, that latch—press that first.
I pressed and turned, and the bars pulled in.
    I pulled the door open. Tatsu and another man were on the other side of it, both with their guns drawn. “Inside,” I said, gesturing with my head. “There’s a back door he might use. He’s got a knife.”
    “I’ve already sent a man around back,” Tatsu said. He nodded to his partner and the two of them moved inside. I followed them in.
    They noted the two men on the floor, but could see they weren’t going to pose a problem. We made our way to the back of the
dojo.
Tatsu’s man moved toward the bathroom. “Not there,” I said. “There. The locker room. There’s a back door inside, but he might still be in there.”
    They took up positions on either side of the door, crouching to reduce their profile. Each held his gun close in and at the high-ready, which demonstrated some tactical acumen. Tatsu nodded, and his man, who was on the knob side of the door, reached out and pushed the door inward while Tatsu sighted down the funnel. As the door swung in, Tatsu tracked it with his eyes and his weapon.
    Another nod and they went in, Tatsu in the lead. The room was empty. The exterior door was closed, but its bolt was pulled back and the lock I had seen previously was gone.
    “There,” I said. “He went through there.” I thought of Tatsu’s other man, the one who had gone around back. He and Murakami would have been on a collision course.
    They took up their positions again and went through. I followed. Behind the building was a tiny courtyard, choked with refuse containers, empty boxes, and abandoned construction materials. A rusting HVAC unit lay disconnected and inert to one side. Opposite, the carcass of a refrigerator leaned sideways against a corrugated wall, its door gone, two of its interior shelves hanging out like innards from a gutted animal.
    The courtyard fed into an alley. In the alley we found Tatsu’s man.
    He was on his back, his eyes open, one hand still clutching the gun that had been useless to him. Murakami had opened him up and left him. The ground around him was soaked in blood.
    “Chikusho,”
Tatsu breathed. Fuck. He knelt to confirm the man was dead, then pulled out his mobile phone and spoke into it