Rainfall

“If you do this letter-perfect.” I handed him his phone.

He did it, just like I told him to. His voice sounded pretty steady. I took the phone back when he was done. He was still looking up at me from his knees. “I can go now?” he said.

Then he saw my eyes. “You promised! You promised!” he panted. “Please, I was only following orders.” He actually said it.

“Orders are a bitch,” I said, looking down at him.

He was starting to hyperventilate. “Don’t kill me! I have a wife and children!”

My hips were already swiveling into position. “I’ll have someone send flowers,” I whispered, and blasted the knife edge of my hand into the back of his neck. I felt the vertebrae splinter and he spasmed, then slumped to the ground.

There was nothing I could do but leave him there. But my apartment was already blown. I was going to have to find another, anyway, so the heat the body would bring to Sengoku would be as irrelevant as it was unavoidable.

I stepped over the body and took a few steps back to the parking area I’d passed. I heard the door to my building slam shut.

The front of the parking area was roped off, and the ropes were strung across pylons that were planted in sand. I grabbed a fistful of sand from around one of the pylons and returned to my position at the corner of the wall, peeking out past the edge. I didn’t see Benny’s buddy. Shit, he’d made a right down the narrow alley connecting my street with the one parallel to it, about fifteen meters from my apartment. I had expected him to stick to the main roads.

This was a problem. He was ahead of me now, and there was nowhere I could set up for him and wait. Besides, I didn’t even know what he looked like. If he made it to the main artery by the station, I wouldn’t be able to separate him from all the other people. It had to be now.

I sprinted down my street, pulling up short at the alley. I flashed my head past the corner and saw a solitary figure walking away from me.

I scanned the ground, looking for a weapon. Nothing the right size for a club. Too bad.

I turned into the alley, about seven meters behind him. He was wearing a waist-length leather jacket and had a squat, powerful build. Even from behind, I could see that his neck was massive. He was carrying something with him — a cane, it looked like. Not good. The sand had better do the trick.

I had closed the gap to about three meters and was just getting ready to call out to him when he looked back over his shoulder. I hadn’t made a sound, and I’d been keeping my eyes off him for the most part and diverting my attention. There’s an old, animal part of you that can sense when you’re being hunted. I’d learned that in the war. But I’d also learned not to give off the vibrations that set off a person’s alarm bells. This guy had sensitive antennae.

He turned and faced me, and I could see the confusion in his expression. Benny had said I’d been spotted at the station. I was coming from the other direction. He was trying to clear the disparity with the central computer.

I saw his ears, puffed out like cauliflowers, disfigured from repeated blows. Japanese judoka and kendoka don’t believe in protective gear; practitioners sometimes wear their scarred lobes, which they develop from head butts in judo and bamboo sword blows in kendo, like badges of honor. Awareness of his possible skills registered at some level of my consciousness.

I used everything I had to project that I was just Joe Pedestrian wanting to go around him, to buy myself the extra second. I moved to the left, took two more steps. Caught the recognition hardening on his face. Saw the cane start to come up in slow motion, his left foot driving forward to add power to the blow.

I flung the sand in his face and leaped aside. His head recoiled but the cane kept coming up; a split second later it snapped down in a blur. Despite the power of the blow he brought it up short when it failed to connect with his target, and then, with the same fluid speed, he cut through the air horizontally. I moved back diagonally, off the line of attack, staying on my toes. I could see him grimacing, his eyes squeezed shut. The sand had hit him squarely. Keeping his hands from wiping his eyes showed a lot of training. But he couldn’t see.

He took a cautious step forward, the cane on guard. Tears were streaming from his wounded eyes. He could tell I was in front of him but he didn’t know where.

I had to wait until he was past me to make my move. I’d seen how fast he was with the cane.

He held his position, his nostrils flaring as though he was trying to catch my scent. Jesus, how is he keeping himself from wiping his eyes? I thought. He must be in agony.

With a loud kiyai he leapt forward, slashing horizontally at waist level. But he’d guessed wrong; I was farther back. Then, just as suddenly, he took two long steps backward, his left hand coming loose from the cane and desperately wiping at his eyes.

That’s what I’d been waiting for. I plunged in, raising my right fist for a hammer blow to his clavicle. I brought it down hard but at the last instant he shifted slightly, his trapezius muscles taking the impact. I followed with a left elbow strike, trying for the sphenoid but connecting mostly with his ear.

Before I could get in another blow, he had whipped the cane around behind me and grabbed it with his free hand. Then he yanked me into him with a bear hug, the cane slicing into my back. He arched backward and my feet left the ground. My breath was driven out of me. Pain exploded in my kidneys.

I fought the urge to force myself away, knowing that I couldn’t match his strength. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and swung my legs up behind his back. The cane felt like it was going to cut through my spine.

The move surprised him and he lost his balance. He took a step backward, releasing the cane and pinwheeling his left arm. I crossed my legs behind his back and dropped my weight suddenly, forcing him to overcorrect and pitch forward onto me. We hit the ground hard. I was underneath and took most of the impact. But now we were in my parlor.