Hard Rain

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 daY Police! bellowed through a bullhorn.
    Murakami's head swiveled in that direction, but his eyes didn't leave
    me. I saw from the reflex that the knocking had startled him, that he
    wasn't expecting anyone.
    It came again, a fist banging on metal. Then "Keisatsu da! Akero!"
    Police! Open up!
    Tatsu, I thought.
    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 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 shouldered 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 that they weren't
    going anywhere. We made our way to the back of the dojo. I saw
    Tatsu's man move 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 waist level in the
    so-called third eye position, 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 them.
    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," I heard Tatsu breathe. Fuck. He knelt to confirm that the
    man was dead, then pulled out his cell phone and spoke into it while
    his remaining man scanned the alley.
    I noted the absence of defensive wounds on the corpse no slash marks on
    the hands or wrists. He hadn't even gotten his arms up to protect
    himself, let alone managed to fire his weapon. The poor bastard. The
    gun might have made him feel