Yakuza, seems to think I’m involved. A couple of men who are probably kobun have been following me around since I found Tamura’s body. I tried talking to them a couple of times; they wouldn’t talk back.”

Kanaya nodded thoughtfully.

“The car they’re using is registered to Ken Yamasaki,” I said. “You know him?”

“Not personally. An employee of Tamura’s Baths.”

“Also Yakuza. And a former boyfriend of Haruko Gage.”

“You don’t believe Haruko is Yakuza…?”

“No. Did she tell you I’m working for her?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And why?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there might be some connection between that and Tamura’s death. If it wasn’t a Yakuza killing, that is.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t,” Kanaya said.

“Why do you say that?”

He smiled faintly. “Newspapermen have eyes and ears-and friends. The Yakuza, I am told, does not know who murdered Mr. Tamura. Or why.”

So much for McFate’s informant, I thought, and for McFate’s theory. I said at length, “I take it Yamasaki isn’t highly placed in the local chapter?”

“No. He is much too young.”

“Only elders hold positions of power?”

“Except in rare cases, yes.” Kanaya sipped his tea. “How much do you know of the Yakuza?”

“Not much, really. General facts, but sketchy. Very little of its background and almost nothing of how it operates.”

“Few outside the Yakuza know how it operates,” he said. “It is a secret and very disciplined organization, unlike any in the Western world. It pretends to believe in a code of honor and loyalty established by the sixteenth- century samurai. As proof of their loyalty, some Yakuza have cut off the first joint of the little finger and ceremoniously offered it to their oyabun — gang boss-in atonement for an error in judgment.”

“I didn’t know they could be that fanatical.”

“Yes. More so than the Mafia.”

“What else, Mr. Kanaya?”

“In Japan,” he said, “the Yakuza controls all the major criminal activities-drugs, extortion, prostitution, gun- running, loan-sharking, pornography. But that isn’t all. It also controls more than twenty-five thousand legitimate businesses, and is an important force in politics and among the corporate elite. It operates openly — far more so than any Western criminal organization. Many Yakuza offices display the gang emblem on their doors; members wear syndicate lapel pins as if they were brothers in a college fraternity.” He allowed himself a small wry smile. “Believe it or not, the Yakuza even publishes its own magazine- Yamaguchi-gumi Jiho. Legal advice side by side with poetry and biographical features.”

“Good God.”

“And yet,” Kanaya went on, “members of the Yakuza are self-admitted outcasts in Japanese society. Many come from the poor, undereducated classes; from Korean or Chinese minorities; even from the burakumin — an ancestral group ostracized for complicated reasons that involve the handling of dead animals and animal products. The word Yakuza itself… do you know what it means?”

“Not.”

“It translates as the numbers eight, nine, and three. Those numbers make up the lowest possible hand in the gambling game called hanafuda. A loser’s hand, you see?”

I nodded. But the truth was, I saw very little. The Yakuza was a complex entity, all right; and if the Japanese themselves couldn’t figure it out, or its methods, how was somebody like me supposed to? How was I supposed to get the Yakuza off my back now that it was clamped on like a damned suckerfish?

The waitress arrived with two plates and a couple of little dishes and a covered bowl of rice, set everything down in front of us, and went away again. The sushi looked pretty appetizing, at that. Lots of little bite-size pieces of raw fish wrapped around seasoned rice, some decorated with green stuff that was probably seaweed or yellow stuff that looked to be egg. All very attractive. My stomach started growling as I looked. The hell with attractive, it was saying, throw some of that raw fish down here and be quick about it.

I picked up my chopsticks-I’d gotten so I could use them without making a fool of myself-and poked at a piece of something on my plate. “What’s this?” I asked Kanaya.

“Hamachi, he said. “Yellowtail.”

“And this?”

“Toro. Tuna belly.”

“Tuna… belly?”

“The best part of the tuna,” he said. “You’ll see. But first, the sauce. It’s the same as for sashimi. ”

The dipping sauce was what the little dishes were for. You poured in a little soy sauce and added a blob of greenish horseradish, and the result was a moderately hot concoction that tasted pretty good. It did with sashimi — raw tuna-anyway. I got mine made and tried some of the yellowtail. Yeah. Not bad at all.

Kanaya started to spoon out some rice for me, but I shook my head and said, “No, I’ll pass on the extra rice. I’m on a diet.”

“Ah,” he said.

I tasted the tuna belly. He was right: it was even better than whatever part they used for sashimi. When I was done chewing I said, “Tell me about the local Yakuza, Mr. Kanaya. How powerful is it, for starters?”

“In the Japanese community, quite powerful,” he said. “Outside the community, not so powerful as it would like to be.”

“How large is the local contingent?”

“That is difficult to estimate There are chapters in Los Angeles and Honolulu, closely linked with the one here; members shift back and forth from one area to another. There are possibly two hundred active Yakuza on the West Coast at present, with perhaps a third in San Francisco.”

“I understand Tamura was one of the local higher-ups,” I said. “But he wasn’t the godfather, right?”

“No. The San Francisco oyabun is Hisayuki Okubo.”

“Does he live in the city, this Okubo?”

“Yes. On the Kara Maru.”

“The restaurant ship?”

“The same.”

“You mean the Yakuza runs that operation?”

“Oh, yes. A very respectable front for them.”

The Kara Maru was an old Japanese freighter anchored at China Basin that had been turned into an expensive waterfront restaurant some years back. I had never been there, but it was supposed to be musty and dimly lighted and atmospheric as hell. For that reason, and because of the Bay view and because the food was said to be terrific, the tourists loved it; and so did the same “with it” crowd that frequented quaint little sushi bars like this one.

I said, “How accessible is Okubo?”

“Accessible?”

“Does he surround himself with bodyguards and security precautions? Or can a guy like me get in to see him without too much trouble.”

“He has a bodyguards,” Kanaya said. “One doesn’t enter his private quarters unless invited. And he seldom leaves the Kara Maru.”

“Uh-huh. I was afraid of that.”

“Were you thinking of going to see him?”

“I was. I’m still considering it.”

Kanaya seemed to want to say something else. Instead he picked up his bowl of rice and began to eat. I tried a piece of something that tasted like clam. Which was what it was, I found out from Kanaya. Mirugai. Giant

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