it a chance to come back. And if I go in the monastery, it could be permanent. Sometimes the block wears off and he has to renew it. Sometimes it doesn't wear off at all."
"And you don't know if you want to go that far."
"I want to. But I still feel ... responsible. Like the power isn't entirely mine, you know?"
"Kind ou I never wanted to give mine up. Not like you or Jayewardene."
"Is he serious about it?"
"He sure seems to be."
"Maybe when this is over," Fortunato said, "him and me can go see Dogen together." Traffic was picking up around him; the daytime buses and delivery vans had given way to expensive sedans and taxis. "I have to go," he said.
"Promise me," Peregrine said. "Promise me you'll be careful."
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I promise."
The Roppongi district was about three kilometers southwest of the Ginza. It was the one part of Tokyo where the clubs stayed open past midnight. Lately it was overrun with gayin trade, discos and pubs and bars with Western hostesses. It had taken Fortunato a long time to get used to things closing early. The last trains left the center of the city at midnight, and he'd walked down to Roppongi more than once during his first weeks in Tokyo, still looking for some elusive satisfaction, unwilling to settle for sex or alcohol, not ready to risk the savage Japanese punishment for being caught with drugs. Finally he'd given it up. The sight of so many tourists, the loud, unceasing noise of their languages, the predictable throb of their music, were not worth the few pleasures the clubs had to offer.
He tried three places and no one remembered Hiram or recognized the sign of the duck. Then he went into the north Berni Inn, one of two in the district. It was an English pub, complete with Guinness and kidney pie and red velvet everything. About half the tables were full, either of foreign tourists in twos and threes, or large tables of Japanese businessmen.
Fortunato slowed to watch the dynamics at one of the Japanese tables. Expense accounts kept the water trade alive. Staying out all night with the boys from the office was just part of the job. The youngest and least confident of them talked the loudest and laughed the hardest. Here, with the excuse of alcohol, was the one time the pressure was off, their only chance to fuck up and get away with it. The senior men smiled indulgently. Fortunato knew that even if he could read their thoughts there wouldn't be much there to see. The perfect Japanese businessman could hide his thoughts even from himself, could efface himself so completely that no one would even know he was there.
The bartender was Japanese and probably new on the job. He looked at Fortunato with a mixture of horror and awe. Japanese were raised to think of gaijin as a race of giants. Fortunato, over six feet tall, thin, his shoulders hunched forward like a vulture's, was a walking childhood nightmare. "Genki desu-ne?" Fortunato asked politely, with a little bow of the head. "I'm looking for a nightclub," he went on in Japanese. "It has a sign like this." He drew a duck on one of the red bar napkins and showed it to the bartender. The bartender nodded, backing away, a rigid smile of fear on his face.
Finally one of the foreign waitresses ducked behind the bar and smiled at Fortunato. " I have a feeling Tosun is not going to do well here," she said. Her accent was Northern England. Her hair was dark brown and pinned up with chopsticks, and her eyes were green. "Can I help?"
"I'm looking for a nightclub somewhere around here. It's got a duck on the sign, like this one. Small place, doesn't do a lot of gaijin trade."
The woman looked at the napkin. For a second she had the same look as the bartender. Then she worked her face around into a perfect Japanese smile. It looked horrible on her European features. Fortunato knew she wasn't afraid of him. It had to be the club. "No," she said. "Sorry"
"Look. I know the yakuza are mixed up in this. I'm not a cop, and I'm not looking for any trouble. I'm just trying to pay a debt for somebody. For a friend of mine. Believe me, they want to see me."
"Sorry"
"What's your name?"
"Megan." The way she thought before saying it told Fortunato she was lying.