RainStorm

If someone from your organization, or
    through your organization, hurts her or even just tries to follow her
    to get to me, and I learn about it, I will make you pay."
    "I understand."
    "Good," I said again.
    There was another pause. "I hope you'll let me know when
    you're ready for the next job," he said. "There's a lot of work to do."
    "There always is," I said, and hung up.
    before I left Hong Kong, Dox told me he couldn't take the
    money I'd wired him. Told me a deal's a deal, and we had said 50/
    50. I told him I couldn't give him less than a hundred percent after
    what he'd done for me, after what he'd walked away from to do it.
    I couldn't convince him.
    "We'll have another opportunity," he told me, patting me on
    the shoulder, suddenly avuncular. "Just you wait and see."
    "I thought you said it only knocks once."
    "It does. This one wasn't our time, that's all."
    I nodded. "All right. You win. Send it back to me."
    "I will. Just give me the account number."
    I scratched my head. "Damn, I can't remember it."
    "C'mon now, that's not fair."
    "If it comes to me, I'll write you."
    "Damn, you are a stubborn one, I'll say that for you."
    I smiled. "Thanks, Dox. You're a good man."
    He smiled back. "You're just saying that 'cause it's true."
    I held out my hand. He took it, then pulled me in for a hug.
    Jesus Christ, I thought. But damn if I didn't hug him back.
    I WENT BACK tO Rio.
    The city was warm. It was summer there, south of the equator,
    and it felt good to be back, to walk the beaches and wade in the
    ocean and listen to chore and drink caipirinhas and live, for a while,
    as Yamada again.
    I knew there were people now who might think to look for me
    in Rio. But I'm not that easy to get to, even if you know the right
    city. And, strangely enough, when I thought about the people who
    knew, I didn't feel threatened.
    Of course, a secret isn't a secret once other people know about
    it. I thought I could trust Kanezaki to doctor the file as I had instructed,
    but you never really know. And, even if he did what I had
    asked, there might be other copies. I'd made a few new enemies
    with my latest escapades. If they looked hard enough, who knows what they might find.
    But I felt all right for the moment. I'd just keep my nose to the
    wind, see what I could learn from Tatsu, from Kanezaki. Think
    about what I wanted to do next.
    My wrist and leg took their time healing. My ribs took longer.
    The protein shakes and other supplements didn't seem to be helping
    the way they should. I wanted to get back to my workouts, to
    jujitsu in Barra. But for a long time all I could reasonably manage
    was slow walks in the tropical evening air.
    The long healing process was probably good for me, though. It
    reinforced something I needed to come to grips with: I was getting
    older. Time was, I would have ripped through a guy like Belghazi
    before he could have damaged me in return. But now, although my
    skills, my tactics, were better than those of my younger self, my
    quickness, and my resiliency, were declining. If I had been working
    alone that night at Kwai Chung, as I ordinarily do, I would have
    died there.
    I tried to tell myself that it would have been all right, that it
    wouldn't have been a bad death and you have to die of something.
    But that was bullshit. Almost dying had been a powerful reminder
    that I wanted to still be alive. I couldn't articulate why, exactly. But
    it wasn't just the sight of sunsets or sound of jazz or taste of whiskey.
    What had Delilah said, both dismissively and sympathetically,
    when I had ticked off those items? All things.
    And: If you live only for yourself dying is an especially scary proposition.
    The walks got longer. I began to supplement them with bike rides.
    My wounds lessened, but their presence continued to serve as a paradoxical
    reminder both of certain mortality and of continued life.
    My city by the sea was still beautiful. But over time, I noticed
    that Rio no longer relaxed me the way it once had. In fact, in the
    oddest way, I found myself longing for Tokyo, for something I
    once had there, although at the time I hadn't properly appreciated
    it for what it was.
    Tokyo's suddenly renewed presence in my thoughts was strange,
    because I had never thought of the city as home while I lived there.
    Strange, too, because, despite a childhood spent partly in the city
    and twenty-five subsequent years there as an adult, the associations
    that had welled up when I had returned were all