to the Imperial House, she would have been remarkable. Beautiful. Gifted. But so sad—a woman who knew well the fleeting nature of happiness.”
The mention of the Miyazaki name piqued my interest and got me wondering all sorts of things. But I held myself back and covered the emotion with a tangential comment instead. “Mono no aware,” I said. The Japanese aesthetic of frail and transient beauty that makes life so bitter and so sweet.
Ito’s face brightened in pleasant surprise. “Yes! Exactly. She was a remarkable woman.”
“Was?”
He nodded. “Chika-hime was the mother of my principal, Miyazaki Tokio.”
“And the old man?”
“Her husband, Dr. Burke.”
“He gave you this note? The old man?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no, Dr. Burke. Had he known of it, this note would never have survived. Chika-hime passed it to her son on her deathbed. In time of need, he was to seek out your master for help.”
“Why,” I demanded. “Why, after all these years?”
“It seems a pointless question, does it not, Dr. Burke? There is need. More importantly, there is a pledge. There is honor. These things do not fade with time.”
“My sensei,” I began. But Ito reached out as if he were going to touch me.
“Is not well,” he finished for me. “I understand. Time and old wounds have taken their toll. But surely he would wish his pledge to be honored.” He left the last sentence dangling. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he thought more of me than I had supposed.
I stood, feeling agitated. The trap was swinging shut. I glanced around the room. The clean architectural lines of a traditional Japanese room provided no shadows within which to hide. The space was quiet, but the air was charged with expectation. Yamashita’s favorite sumi-e painting of birds perched on a bamboo stalk was so delicately rendered that the leaves seemed to tremble as I looked at it. When I glanced away, my eyes fell on a table in the place of honor, and the black slash of lacquered scabbards where the swords of my master’s art slumbered. The blades had been polished through a life spent pursuing mastery. And honor.
The thing about training in a dojo is that there is no escape and nowhere to hide. You are there precisely because of that reason. You place yourself there to be hammered into something better. It’s not easy. It’s not pleasant. But it teaches you the importance of even small things and small details. Because, in the Way, all things are important, even a pledge given in the first blush of manhood so many years ago.
I sighed, and turned to Ito.
“OK. I’m in.”
Chapter 4
An elegant cocktail lounge, humming with activity. It was the season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and suburbanites were in Manhattan to see the tree in Rockefeller Center, to stroll down Fifth Avenue, and do a little shopping. It was cold outside and it was the holidays, so we weren’t the only people in the hotel lounge having an afternoon cocktail. Deep down, I knew we were being boozers. But we were being stylish boozers.
The waitress brought us our drinks, setting them down on napkins with great care. A glass of Jameson’s is, after all, a beautiful thing and worthy of a certain reverence. Art, however, was having a martini. He saw my questioning look and shrugged.
“I’m expanding my horizons,” he said. He was big and pleasant looking, and above the serious cop mustache his eyes crinkled easily with amusement. They were bright eyes: blue and clear. But if you looked closely, you saw these eyes never stopped moving. He had been a cop for twenty years and, even in retirement, he never lost the habit of watching.
My brother Mickey sipped his drink, taking care not to spill any on his suit. He and Art had been, and still were, partners. Mickey was thinner, darker, and, if I were to be honest, sourer than Art. He, too, had the same cop mustache and the same cop eyes. After leaving the NYPD, the two of them had started their own security firm. In post–9-11 New York, it was wildly successful in a way that left both men mildly astonished. They shouldn’t have been. They made a perfect team. Where one was all heat, the other was calm. They could play good cop/bad cop like nobody else. They were tenacious, and so deeply experienced in the ways of people that nothing surprised them anymore. Except me.
I explained about the visit from Ito, the Miyazaki and their wayward daughter, her sleazy boyfriend, and the family’s need to save her. An old pledge that had to be honored.
“Well,” Art began, “it’s not the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”
“But that’s only because you are the king of moronic adventures,” my brother cracked.
He should know. Both he and Art had been in some dark, wild places with me. Mickey, my older brother, felt that I was congenitally predisposed to getting in way over my head, and that he had an obligation to pull me out. In my defense, it wasn’t always my fault. But that didn’t change anything. Mickey was a man who walked through life deeply convinced of his own competence and wildly suspicious of the ability of almost everyone else. Especially me.
“Hey, come on,” I told them. “I’m not here to get dumped on.”
“You’re here to drink some fine liquor on our expense account,” my brother pointed out.
“You invited me,” I said. Mickey opened his mouth to say something else, and then thought better of it. He looked across the booth to Art, who was draped along the padded seat like a man on his living room sofa. Art was smiling slightly, listening to us talk, but watching the people come and go.
“What?” Mickey prodded.
Art jerked a chin. “See the woman in the black parka who just came in?”
Mickey took a peek. “Fur-lined hood, red boots?”
Art nodded. “We’ve seen her before, but I can’t place her.”
Mickey squinted in thought. They had seen a lot of people in their time. Some were crooks. Some were just familiar. “She a pro?” he asked, meaning a prostitute.
Art closed one eye and tilted his head. “I don’t get that vibe …” he said. He sighed. “Well, not my problem, I suppose.” He turned to look at me. “You, on the other hand …”
“You idiot,” my brother added.
I rested my drink on the napkin and looked down at it as I slid the glass in small circles on the wooden table. “Look, I’m not crazy about the deal, either. But it’s something I’ve gotta do for Yamashita.”
“Ooh, we’ve been to this movie before, eh Mick?” Art smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Mickey leaned forward, brushing his tie down with the flat of his hand. He had spent most of his adult life in crumpled sport jackets bought off the rack at Sears, and now success had made him curiously fastidious, as if the absolute chaos of the world he worked in could be somehow kept at bay through good grooming.
“Jesus,” he muttered, and took a sip of his drink. The two of them were deeply skeptical of the Miyazaki and their request. I had been there
