navy bases off to the left. In the water were several military ships. There were a few submarines with submariners walking on top of them. The officers appeared to be inspecting something. Behind them were the destroyer battleships, and in the greater distance was the lone USS George Washington aircraft carrier. It looked more like a skyscraper than a ship. Although aircraft carriers had been based in Yokosuka for several decades, this was the first nuclear-powered one. Many Japanese citizens had protested its arrival out of fear of nuclear contamination.
Cain continued into the heart of Yokosuka, passing the multilevel Daiei shopping mall. The heavily fortified entrance to the American Navy base was on his left. Outside the gates, standing alone on the sidewalk, was a lone uniformed Japanese police officer. He stood watch, holding his keijo alongside him. Umiko had previously told Cain that the keijo—a police stick—was used to fend off potential attackers. She said that the police often trained in kendo.
Cain parked Umiko’s scooter at the foot of a three-story building on the opposite side of the military base. A nearby elementary school was dismissing students for the day. A flock of joyful kids, wearing stiff leather backpacks over their black-and-white school uniforms, flooded the congested area. Cain recalled a conversation he’d had with Umiko about children’s backpacks.
“Back in Louisiana,” Cain had explained, “they’re called book bags. For obvious reasons, you store your textbooks in ’em.”
“Here they are called randoseru,” Umiko had replied. “They are very expensive. They can cost as much as sixty thousand yen!”
Cain did the math in his head. “That’s a little more than seven hundred bucks!”
“Hai. That’s why many times grandparents will buy them. But the child will keep the same one from first to sixth grade. It used to be that boys would get black and girls would get red, but Japan is changing a little bit. You’ll see some girls get pink now, and some boys will choose brown or blue.”
Thinking of Umiko warmed Cain’s heart. I need to call her soon, he reminded himself.
Cain didn’t know the name of the street, only that Chief Alvarez had said all the Americans referred to it as Blue Street since all the signs were in blue. When Cain crossed the side street where the Nawlins restaurant was, fond memories of his date with Umiko flashed in his memory. He felt lucky that she had come into his life when she did.
He approached the bar that Chief Alvarez had suggested. The front entrance and wall were completely made of glass, and a dim red light from within illuminated the small place. Through the glass Cain could see a large wooden bar that formed an L shape and a familiar face sitting in the corner of the empty room.
Cain opened the door and joined Chief Alvarez at a back table. Alvarez handed him a heavy backpack. Cain unzipped it and carefully explored its contents without taking any of the items out.
The bartender, who wore a black vest over a white long-sleeve dress shirt, took their order.
“Two old-fashioneds,” Chief Alvarez said before turning to Cain. “You gotta try these. You’ll love ’em.”
“That’s fine,” Cain replied.
After the bartender brought them the drinks, Cain leaned in and asked, “What do you know about the yakuza?”
“We had one sailor—naive kid from Kansas or Kentucky. Maybe even Iowa. I can’t remember exactly where. But we called him Big Country. He got into a fight with one of them yakuza jokers at a bar in Tokyo. It was one of those places that was not friendly to the round eye, if you know what I mean. But Big Country thought nobody was going to tell him where he could and could not buy a drink.”
“Well?” Cain asked, eager to hear the rest of the story.
“The yakuza slashed him up real bad. It was horrible. NCIS got involved and tried to work with the Tokyo police, but they could never make any headway without the assistance of the Japanese police.”
“That seems to be a recurring theme,” Cain said. “The American embassy told me practically the same thing. I just don’t understand it. How can the yakuza operate with such impunity?”
“How in the hell would I know? I’m just a chief. That yakuza realm is a whole separate world, and I’m not part of it.”
“What happened to Big Country?”
“He wanted to cooperate with the investigation, but he was too afraid. They had stolen his ID and said they knew who he was, and that