Aces Abroad

"To take up your metaphor, even a live battery won't start when the ignition key is turned off. And the key," Tachyon said, pointing at his forehead, "is inside." He walked away and Fortunato slammed the elevator button with the flat of his hand.

He called Hiram from the lobby.

"Get over here," Hiram said. "I'll meet you out front."

"What's wrong?"

"Just get over here."

Fortunato took a cab and found Hiram pacing back and forth in front of the plain gray facade of the Akasaka Shanpia. "What happened?"

"Come in and see," Hiram said.

The room had looked bad before, but now it was a disaster. The walls were spattered with shaving cream, the dresser drawers had been thrown into the corner, the mirrors were shattered and the mattress ripped to shreds.

"I didn't even see it happen. I was here the whole time and I didn't see it."

"What are you talking about? How could you not see it?" Hiram's eyes were frantic. "I went to the bathroom about nine this morning and got a glass of water. I know everything was okay then. I came back in here and put the TV on and watched for maybe half an hour. Then I heard something that sounded like the door slamming. I looked up and the room was like you see it. And this note was in my lap."

The note was in English: "Zero hour comes tomorrow. You can die this easy. Zero man."

"Then it is an ace."

"It won't happen again," Hiram said. He obviously didn't even believe himself. "I'll know what to look for. He couldn't fool me twice."

"We can't risk it. Leave everything. You can buy some new clothes this afternoon. I want you to hit the street and keep moving. Around ten o'clock go into the first hotel you see and get a room. Call Peregrine and tell her where you are."

"Does she… does she know what happened?"

"No. She knows it's money trouble. That's all."

"Okay. Fortunato, I…"

"Forget it," Fortunato said. "Just keep moving."

The shade of the banyan tree had saved a little coolness from the morning. Overhead the milk-colored sky was thick with smog. Sumoggu, they called it. It was easy to see what the Japanese thought of the West by the words they borrowed: rashawa, rush hour; sarariman, salary man, executive; toire, toilet.

It helped to be here in the Imperial Gardens, an oasis of calm in the heart of Tokyo. The air was fresher, though the cherry blossoms wouldn't be blooming for another month. When they did, the entire city would turn out with cameras. Unlike New Yorkers, the Japanese could appreciate the beauty that was right in front of them.

Fortunato finished the last piece of boiled shrimp from his bento, the box lunch he'd bought just outside the park, and tossed the box away. He couldn't seem to settle down. What he wanted was to talk to the roshi, Dogen. But Dogen was a day and a half away, and he would have to travel by airplane; train, bus, and foot to get there. Peregrine was grounded by her pregnancy, and he doubted Mistral was strong enough for a twelve-hundred-mile round trip. There was no way he could get to Hokkaido and back in time to help Hiram.

A few yards away an old man raked the gravel in a rock garden with a battered bamboo rake. Fortunato thought of Dogen's harsh physical discipline: the 38,000-kilometer walk, equivalent to a trip all the way around the earth, lasting a thousand days, around and around Mt. Tanaka; the constant sitting, perfectly still, on the hard wooden floors of the temple; the endless raking of the master's stone garden.

Fortunato walked up to the old man. "Sumi-masen," he said. He pointed to the rake. "May I?"

The old man handed Fortunato the rake. He looked like he couldn't decide if he was afraid or amused. There were advantages, Fortunato thought, to being an outsider among the most polite people on earth. He began to rake the gravel, trying to raise the least amount of dust possible, trying to form the gravel into harmonious lines through the strength of his will alone, cha

As he worked, Fortunato pictured Dogen in his mind. He looked young, but then most Japanese looked young to Fortunato.` His head was shaved until it glistened, the skull formed from planes and angles, the cheeks dimpling when he spoke. His hands formed mudras apparently of their own volition, the index fingers reaching to touch the ends of the thumbs when they had nothing else to do.

Why have you called me? said Dogen's voice inside Fortunato's head.

Master! Fortunato thought.

Not your master yet, said Dogen's voice. You still live in the world.

I didn't know you had the power to do this, Fortunato thought.

It is not my power. It is yours. Your mind came to me. I have no power, Fortunato thought.

You are filled with power. It feels like Chinese peppers inside my head.

Why can't I feel it?

You have hidden yourself from it, the way a fat man tries to hide himself from the yakitori all around him. This is how it is in the world. The world demands that you have power, and yet the use of it makes you ashamed. This is the way Japan is now. We have become very powerful in the world, and to do it we gave up our spiritual feelings. You have to make the decision. If you want to live in the world you must admit your power. If you want to feed your spirit, you must leave the world. Right now you are pulling yourself into pieces.

Fortunato knelt in the gravel and bowed low. Domo arigatb, o sensei. Arigato meant "thank you," but literally it meant "it hurts." Fortunato felt the truth inside the words. If he hadn't believed Dogen, it wouldn't have hurt so much. He looked up and saw the old gardener staring at him in abject fear, but at the same time making a series of short, nervous bows from the waist so as not to seem rude. Fortunato smiled at him and bowed low again. "Don't worry," he said in Japanese. He stood up and gave the old man back his rake. "Just another crazy gaijin."

His stomach hurt again. It wasn't the bento, he knew. It was the stress inside his own mind, eating his body up from within.

He was back on Harumi-Dori, heading toward the Ginza corner. He'd been wandering for hours, while the sun had set and the night had flowered around him. The city seemed like an electronic forest. The long vertical signs crowded each other down the entire length of the street, flashing ideograms and English characters in blazing neon. The streets were crowded with Japanese in jogging outfits or jeans and sport shirts. Packed in with the regular citizens were the sararimen in plain gray suits.

Fortunato stopped to lean against one of the graceful f-shaped streetlights. Here it is, he thought, in all its glory. There was no more worldly a place on the planet, no place more obsessed with money, gadgets, drinking, and sex. And a few hours away were wooden temples in pine forests where men sat on their heels and tried to turn their minds into rivers or dust or starlight.

Make up your mind, he told himself. You have to make up your mind.

"Gaijin-san! You like girl? Pretty girl?"

Fortunato turned around. It was a tout for a Pinku Saron, a unique Japanese institution where the customer paid by the hour for a bottomless saki cup and a topless jo-san. She would sit passively in his lap while he fondled her breasts and drank himself into a state where he was prepared to go home to his w*. It was, Fortunato decided, an omen.

He paid three thousand yen for half an hour and walked into a darkened hallway. A soft hand took his and led him downstairs into a completely dark room filled with tables and other couples. Fortunato heard business being discussed all around him. His hostess led him to one end of the room and sat him with his legs pi