Chapter
three
The following night, I trained at the Kodokan as usual. I was in a good mood. There had been no word from McGraw that day, which I took to mean I was probably safe. Whatever had happened to the guy I’d dropped, however much the police might be looking into it, none of it was being connected with me.
The daidōjō, where free practice was held, was massive—four tournament-size mats, high ceilings, stands for spectators, room for a hundred or more randori sparring matches. There was no air-conditioning, and in the summer the great hall was thick with the smell of decades of sweat and exertion. The kangeiko—ten consecutive days of hard training in the winter—was held early in the morning, when the air in the daidōjō was cold enough to fog the breath, and the tatami were as forgiving as cement. The summer equivalent was held in the afternoon, when Tokyo’s scorching days were at their hottest. Making things harder as a way of fostering gaman—perseverance, endurance, fortitude—was a Japanese fetish, and I loved it. I rotated through a variety of partners, my gi soaked with sweat, the hall around me alive with grunts and shouts and the impact of bodies hitting the tatami.
I was taking a break on the sidelines when a tough-looking black belt—about my age and height, though at least ten kilos heavier—nodded his head at me and gestured to the mat where he was standing. He had thick lips, eyes too small for his face, and patches of dark stubble on his cheeks. There was something about him I instantly disliked. Maybe it was the curt way he’d gestured, as though he was summoning me and I was bound to obey. I wondered what he wanted. It was a rare black belt who would invite a white belt to spar with him—most likely it would be boring, and what glory was there in beating a beginner anyway? I looked back for a long moment, thinking of him as Pig Eyes and doing nothing to prevent the thought from surfacing in my expression, then walked over. He offered the faintest of bows and started circling to my right.
We came to grips, and I attacked with what at the time were my favorite combinations—kouchi-gari to ouchi-gari to osoto-gari; ouchi-gari to uchi-mata; tai-otoshi to a sneaky little standing strangle and back to tai-otoshi. I couldn’t make any of it work. He was strong, and that was part of the problem, but it was more than that. I sensed he was using his greater experience to anticipate my combinations, and was subtly adjusting his stance and his grip to shut down my throws in the instant before I launched them. Occasionally, he would chuckle derisively at my futile efforts. I started to get angry, and therefore sloppy.
We circled counterclockwise, each of us right foot forward. I shot my right arm out, looking for a high grip, but Pig Eyes intercepted me, snaking his left arm inside mine and reaching around for a sleeve grip just above my elbow. I didn’t like the grip he had taken and tried to jerk back, and as soon as I did, he punched his right hand forward, grabbed me high around the collar, and exploded into the air off his left foot. His right leg smashed down between my shoulder and neck as his head dropped back, and before I even knew what he was doing, his weight had dragged me down and I was crouching over him, my right arm and head trapped between his scissored legs, his back against the tatami as he looked up at me, bridging his hips, his ugly face twisting into a smile. I strained backward, my line of sight passing the stands as I did so, and I saw one of the guys who had jumped me in Ueno, the one who’d run off with the bag, leaning over the railing, watching us intently. He was smiling, too.
Before I could process any of it, Pig Eyes was pulling my right arm across his body and yanking me forward and down with his legs. I felt his left leg slide forward to figure-four his right ankle—sankaku-jime, a triangle strangle. My neck felt like it was caught in a vise, which effectively it was. I tried pulling his right knee down and circling counterclockwise to ease the pressure, but the strangle was too tight. I heard a dull roar in my ears like the crash of waves on the beach, and knew my brain wasn’t getting oxygen—in seconds, I would pass out. I tapped his shoulder with my free hand, the traditional judo signal of surrender.
Many judo techniques, especially joint locks, are so dangerous that judoka develop a conditioned reflex to the feel of a tap, instantly releasing a submitting opponent rather than risk breaking an arm or separating a shoulder. The reflex can be so strong that judoka interested in judo for combat applications, and not just for sport, should take measures to guard against its accidental triggering in a real-world setting.
But not only did Pig Eyes not release his strangle in response to my tap, he actually tightened it, smiling while he did so.
Fear shot through me. I couldn’t speak, but I tapped again with my free hand, harder this time. Pig Eyes looked at me, his smile intent, sadistic, and in that instant, understanding shot through me. The nature of the connection with the guy in the stands, how they’d found me, how they planned to get away after leaving me on the tatami…none of it mattered then and I gave it not one second’s consideration. What mattered was that he was there to kill me, and that suddenly I was fighting for my life.
Which meant he was now fighting for his life, too. The difference was, he didn’t know it. I did.
I stepped back with my left leg, creating precious space between our bodies, the world going gray at the edges now, the roaring in my ears the only thing I could hear. I groped with my left hand for his testicles. He understood at once and shifted right and left, but he had to trade mobility for the tightness of the strangle, and he could dodge only so much. I got hold of his package through the pants of his gi, but he bucked out of my grasp. The grayness crept in closer, the edges of my vision now speckled in black. Again I acquired my target and again he shook free. The gray was all I could see now, eclipsing everything, the roar in my ears fading, muffled, muted. With one last effort, I shot my hand forward and this time crowded my body in behind it, jacking him up onto his shoulders, raising his crotch higher. I felt the contours of a single testicle between my shaking fingertips. I put all my weight on him, pinning him in place. The world was melting and I felt myself dissolving into nothing, nothing…nothing but a small bulge that was somehow caught between my fingers, and the need, the final, desperate distress call sent by a dying brain, to crush that bulge into pulp.
And suddenly I could hear again, the echoing sounds of the great hall, and points of light crept into my vision, and I could feel something, a man under me, struggling, coughing, gagging as though on the verge of being sick. Through my confusion and vertigo, I managed to keep my weight on him, staying with him as he tried to twist away from me, taking his back, wrapping my legs around his, riding him, rolling him so that we were both facing the ceiling, buying myself time to return to my senses.
Seconds passed, and I remembered where I was and what had happened. I realized the precision squeeze I’d applied to one of his testicles had caused him more damage than I’d incurred from the moments I’d gone without oxygen. He was still flailing and retching, unable to prevent me from sliding my right hand under his chin, all the way across and around his throat, until my thumb was under his left ear, the knuckle over his carotid. I got my left arm under his left, took hold of his left lapel, and fed it into my right hand. Despite his debilitation, he recognized I was going for okuri-eri-jime—he tried to turtle his head in, and managed to get a hand to his own lapel to contest my grip. But too late. I crossed my left hand over and took hold of his right lapel, dragged it down, and ratcheted my right arm back, turning the collar of his gi into a guillotine. Soundlessly, he thrashed left, then right, but he was secure within my legs and there was nowhere for him to go. I arched back and cranked on his collar so hard I might have decapitated him. In extremis, he started frantically tapping my thigh, as though I was going to release him after what he’d tried to do to me. He clawed at my hands for a moment and then began to convulse. I realized he was vomiting, but with the strangle, the vomit couldn’t pass. He was choking on it.
I looked up into the stands. Pig Eyes’s buddy was there, gripping the railing, his face frozen in shock. I smiled at him, the smile no more than a grimace from the exertion I was putting into the strangle. He was watching his friend die in my hands and I was glad. I wanted him to see what I would be coming to do to him.
Then his paralysis broke, and he turned and ran. I saw no resolution in his expression or his posture, only panic, and I understood he wasn’t coming to the aid of his friend, only trying to save himself. I had to choose—finish Pig Eyes, or pursue the one I sensed was the principal?
And suddenly I realized it was no choice at all. I couldn’t kill this guy, not right in the great hall of the Kodokan in front of two hundred witnesses. Of course I’d be able to claim it was an accident, but a successful prosecution wasn’t even my main concern. It was the investigation itself, the inevitable attention, that I couldn’t afford. I’d seen dozens of people choked out on the tatami, two concussions, and one horrifically broken leg. Judo is a contact sport and accidents happen. But a death? That would be headline news.
Hating that I had to do it, I released the strangle and shoved Pig Eyes off me. His back heaved and a remarkable quantity of pressurized puke shot from his mouth and nose. I supposed that meant he would live. I scrambled to my feet and ran for the stairs. The great hall tilted in my vision and I threw an arm out to balance myself, still unsteady from the effects of lack of oxygen. People were watching me, maybe wondering if I was going to be sick and trying to get clear of the tatami before doing so. I blasted through the exit doors and took the stairs to the stands three at a time, one hand on the bannister because I didn’t trust my balance yet. I yanked open the doors, but the chinpira was gone. There were two sets of stairs—he must have taken the other.
Maybe there was still a chance. I turned and bolted down the stairs, bursting into the lobby at the bottom and looking wildly right and left. No one, just the wrinkled oba-san behind the concession stand. “Did someone just run out of here?” I said. “From down the steps?”
She didn’t answer, instead simply raising her eyebrows and tilting her head toward the main doors. I dashed out to the sidewalk and looked left and right. A few passersby, mostly salaryman types in suits heading home after a long day at the office, glancing in curiosity at a sweating judoka standing barefoot and wild-eyed on the sidewalk. There was no sign of the chinpira.
Damn. But maybe I could learn something from the other guy. I headed back inside and raced up the stairs. I paused outside the doors to the daidōjō, and saw a small crowd gathered around Pig Eyes. They were helping him to his feet, while giving wide berth to the area on the tatami newly decorated with his vomit. This wasn’t going to work. I had to go.
I headed down to the locker room, quickly changed into my street clothes, and packed up my gear. No time to shower. I didn’t want to answer any questions and I didn’t want to linger another minute now that these people, whoever they were, knew they could find me here. I had to go. I didn’t realize it at that moment—and couldn’t have comprehended it, even if I had—but I was about to begin a decade of life as a fugitive.