Hard Rain Read Free Page A

crowded sidewalk, ignoring the cacophony of
    traffic and sound trucks and touts, using the chrome and glass around
    me to gauge whether there was anyone to my rear trying to keep up. I
    turned right just before the Roi Roppongi Building, then right again
    onto the club's street, where I paused behind a thicket of parked
    bicycles, my back to the incongruous pink exterior of a Starbucks
    coffee shop, waiting to see who might be trailing in my wake. A few
    groups of young partygoers drifted by, caught up in the urgent business
    of entertaining themselves and failing to notice the man standing
    quietly in the shadows. No one set off my radar. After a few minutes,
    I made my way to the club.
    The facility occupied the ground floor of a gray commercial building
    hemmed in by rusting fire escapes and choked with high-tension wires
    that clung to the structure's facade like rotting vegetation. Across
    from it was a parking lot crowded by Mercedeses with darkened windows
    and high-performance tires, the status symbols of the country's elite
    and of its criminals, each aping the other, comfortably sharing the
    pleasures of the night in Roppongi's tawdry demimonde. The street
    itself was illuminated only by the indifferent glow of a single arched
    lamplight, its base festooned with flyers advertising the area's
    innumerable sexual services, in the shadows of its own luminescence
    looking like the elongated neck of some antediluvian bird shedding
    diseased and curling feathers.
    The shades were drawn behind the club's plate-glass windows, but I
    spotted the jakuza's anodized aluminum Harley-Davidson V-Rod parked in
    front, surrounded by commuter bicycles like a shark amidst pilot fish.
    Just past the windows was the entrance to the building. I tried the
    door, but it was locked.
    I backed up a few steps to the club windows and tapped on the glass. A
    moment later the lights went off inside. Nice, I thought. He had cut
    the lights so he could peek through the shades without being seen from
    outside. I waited, knowing he was watching me and checking the
    street.
    The lights went back on, and a moment later the jakuza appeared in the
    entranceway to the building. He was wearing gray sweatpants and a
    black cut-away A-shirt, along with the obligatory weightlifting gloves.
    Obviously in the middle of a workout.
    He opened the door, his eyes searching the street for danger, failing
    to spot it right there in front of him.
    "Shimatterun day o," he told me. Club's closed.
    "I know," I said in Japanese, my hands up, palms forward in a placating
    gesture. "I was hoping someone might be here. I was going to come by
    earlier but got held up. You think I could squeeze in a quick one?
    Just while you're here, no longer than that."
    He hesitated, then shrugged and turned to go back inside. I followed
    him in.
    "How much longer have you got to go?" I asked, dropping my gear bag
    and changing out of my unobtrusive khakis, blue oxford-cloth shirt, and
    navy blazer. I had already slipped on the gloves, as I always did
    before coming to the club, but the jakuza hadn't noticed this detail.
    "So I can time my workout."
    He walked over to the squat station. "Forty-five minutes,
    maybe an hour," he said, getting into position under the weight.
    Squats. What he usually did when he was finished bench-pressing.
    Shit.
    I slipped into shorts and a sweatshirt, then warmed up with some
    push-ups and other calisthenics while he did his sets of squats. The
    warm-up might actually be useful, I reali2ed, depending on the extent
    of his struggles. A small advantage, but I don't give anything away
    for free.
    When he was through, I asked, "Already done benching?"
    "Aa." Yeah.
    "How much you put up tonight?"
    He shrugged, but I detected a slight puffing of his chest that told me
    his vanity had been kindled.
    "Not so much. Hundred and forty kilos. Could have done more, but with
    that much weight, it's better to have someone spot you."
    Perfect. "Hey, I'll spot you."
    "Nah,