Hard Rain

doorway across the street until I saw Tatsu pull up in an
    unmarked car. He parked at the curb and got out. I watched him turn
    the corner into the bathhouse's side entrance, then followed him in.
    He saw me as I came up behind him. He had already taken off his shoes,
    and was about to place them in one of the small lockers just inside the
    entrance.
    "Tell me what you have," he said.
    I retracted a bit as though hurt. He looked at me for a long moment,
    then sighed and asked, "How are you?"
    I bent and took off my shoes. "Fine, thanks for asking. You?"
    "Very well."
    "Your wife? Your daughters?"
    He couldn't help smiling at the mention of his family. He nodded and
    said, "Everyone is fine. Thank you."
    I grinned. "I'll tell you more inside."
    We put our shoes away. I had already purchased the necessary
    accouterments at the convenience store across the street shampoo, soap,
    scrubbing cloth, and towels -and handed Tatsu what he needed as we went
    in. We paid the proprietor the government-mandated and -subsidized
    four hundred yen apiece, walked up the wide wooden stairs to the
    changing area, undressed in the unadorned locker room, then went
    through the sliding glass door to the bath beyond. The bathing area
    was empty peak time would be in the evening and, like the locker room,
    almost Spartan in its un pretentiousness nothing more than a large
    square space, a high ceiling, white tile walls dripping with
    condensation, bright fluorescent lighting, and an exhaust fan on one
    wall that seemed forlorn from its long and losing battle with the steam
    within. The only concession to an aesthetic not strictly utilitarian
    was a large, brightly colored mosaic of Ginza 4-chome on the wall above
    the bath itself. We sat down to scrub.
    The trick is to use hot water at the spigots where you sit, filling the
    sen to-supplied low plastic pail with increasingly painful bucketfuls
    and pouring them over your head and body. If you bathe using only
    tepid water, the soaking tub will be unbearable when you first try to
    enter it.
    Tatsu completed his cleaning cycle with characteristic brusqueness and
    got in the bath ahead of me. I took a bit longer. When I was ready, I
    eased in beside him. Immediately I felt my muscles trying to shrink
    back from the heat, and knew that in a moment they would give up their
    fruitless struggle and surrender to delirious relaxation.
    "Yappari, kore ga saiko dana I said to him, feeling myself begin to
    unwind. This is great, isn't it?
    He nodded. "An unusual place for a meeting. But a good one."
    I settled deeper into the water. "You've been drinking all that tea,
    so I figured you'd appreciate a place that's good for your health."
    "Ah, you were being considerate. I thought that perhaps this was your
    way of showing me you had nothing to hide."
    I laughed. I briefed him on the dojo and the underground fights, and
    on Murakami's connection with both. I gave him my assessment of
    Murakami's strengths and weaknesses: deadly, on the one hand; unable to
    blend, on the other.
    "You say the promoters of these fights are losing money," he said when
    I was done.
    I watched the mural, my eyes half-closed. "Based on what Murakami told
    me, yes. At three fights in a night with two-million-yen payouts to
    the winners, plus expenses, they've got to be in the red. Even on
    those nights where they have two or even one, they can't be doing more
    than breaking even."
    "What does that tell you?"
    I closed my eyes. "That they're not doing it for the money."
    "Yes. The question, then, is why are they doing it? What is the
    benefit they derive?"
    I pictured the bridged, predatory smile. "Some of these people, like
    Murakami, are pretty sick. I think they enjoy it."
    "I'm sure they do. But I doubt that entertainment alone would be
    sufficient motive to create and sustain this kind of enterprise."
    "What do you think, then?"
    "When you were with Special Forces," he asked, his tone musing and
    thoughtful, 'how did you treat personnel who performed a vital function
    for the unit?"
    I opened my eyes and glanced at him. "Redundancy. A backup. Like an
    extra kidney."
    "Yes. Now put yourself in Yamaoto's shoes. With you, he could quietly
    eliminate anyone who proved uninterested in his rewards, or
    invulnerable to his blackmail, or who otherwise presented a threat to
    the machine he has established. You served a vital function. Following
    your loss, Yamaoto would have learned not to allow such reliance on a
    single person. He