"That I did." Schmuck that I am.

"Turned out I was glad you did. Because the thing's kinda been growing on me. I decided to keep it."

"Interesting. Where is it now?"

Gerrish motioned Tom down the short hallway to the main room where he made a flourish toward the coffee table.

"Ta-daaa!"

Tom stopped and stared. The room could have been made of solid gold and lined with the proverbial seventy-two naked virgins. Who cared? Tom had eyes for only one thing.

At first glance, with its Swiss-cheesed blade, it indeed looked like a piece of junk. As he bent and ran a finger along the random pattern of pocks and holes, every square millimeter of his skin began to tingle. He lifted it and rested it on his palms. These weren't rusted out or eaten out-these had been melted out.

He raised it and peeked through one of the holes. He experienced an instant of vertigo as he seemed to be standing on a low bridge looking out at a bustling city filled with rough-clad Asian men and kimonoed women. Then it all disappeared in a blinding flash as bright as the sun.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the blade away from his face and stood blinking at the purple afterimage.

"What's the matter?" Gerrish said.

Tom took another quick peek. This time all he saw was Gerrish.

"Nothing."

He lowered the blade again for a closer look. The jihada jihada-the steel of the cutting edge-was unmarred. The swordsmith must have concentrated the best steel there. The hamon hamon-the temper line-undulated like a series of gentle waves on a placid lake.

Tom moved down to the naked tang. This was where the swordsmith traditionally carved his mei mei-his signature. No signature here, only a Kanji symbol:

This was it-the Gaijin Masamune. He was holding the f.u.c.king Gaijin Masamune.

He noticed his hands starting to shake so he put it down. Not an easy thing to do. Maybe the hardest thing he'd ever done.

"I-" He swallowed around a dry tongue. "I was right the first time out: It's a piece of junk, good only for sentimental value."

"But it's so sharp," Gerrish said. "Watch this."

He stepped into the kitchen and returned with an apple. He lifted the sword by the tang and dropped the apple onto the upturned edge. A whole apple hit the blade. Two halves bounced onto the table.

"Yeah. Sharp."

Tom wanted to say, What else would you expect from a Masamune blade, especially one tempered in ground-zero atomic fire? But he held his tongue. This a.s.shole had no idea what he had. Cutting an apple-like using a CO2 laser to make a paper doll. Christ. laser to make a paper doll. Christ.

He saw the smear of apple juice on the blade and wanted to scream at Gerrish to wipe it off.

No way was he walking out of here without that blade. Like leaving a small child alone with a pedophile. Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

He pulled a Ziploc bag from his pocket.

"Brought you a present. Since you're gonna keep this piece of junk, it might as well have a handle-what the j.a.ps call a tsuka tsuka."

He sat on the couch, pushed the apple halves aside, and dumped the contents on to the table next to the sword. Two pieces of halved bamboo, a bamboo peg, a piece of cloth, and strips of tightly wound silk.

"You don't really-"

"Sure I do. My way of saying thanks for letting me see it, even if it is junk." He held up the two pieces of bamboo. "These make up the ho ho."

He fitted them around the tang, noting how they obscured the gaijin gaijin symbol. He shook his head in wonder, thinking, You could own this thing all your d.a.m.n life and never know you had the f.u.c.king Gaijin Masamune. symbol. He shook his head in wonder, thinking, You could own this thing all your d.a.m.n life and never know you had the f.u.c.king Gaijin Masamune.

He picked up the bamboo peg.

"This is the mekugi mekugi and it fits through the holes in the and it fits through the holes in the ho ho and the tang to hold everything together." and the tang to hold everything together."

That done, he wrapped the red cloth around the ho ho and began winding the silk cord around the cloth in a crude approximation of the traditional diamond pattern and began winding the silk cord around the cloth in a crude approximation of the traditional diamond pattern tsuka-ito tsuka-ito. Once the sword was his, he'd fashion a suitably magnificent tsuka tsuka. But for now, this was all he had time for. He'd even skipped installing a hilt-the round, ornate tsuba tsuba. He wouldn't need one for what he had planned.

Finally he was done. To his collector's eye the job looked like c.r.a.p. But to Gerrish...

"Hey, you're really something." He reached for it. "Thanks a lot."

Tom shook his head. Holding the katana handle with two hands now, he rose and faced Gerrish, pointing the blade at his chest.

"I'm taking this."

Gerrish's expression hardened. "No way. That's mine, O'Day."

"We both know it's not, or you wouldn't have come to me to fence it."

Gerrish stepped forward, reaching, but backed off when Tom gave the blade a couple of back-and-forth swings.

"Uh-uh. Look, I'm not out to steal it. I'll give you a good price for it. A d.a.m.n good price."

Gerrish's eyes narrowed. "So it's not as worthless as you said."

"It's junk, but it's unique junk. I want it for my collection."

"No-"

"Hughie, babes, listen to me." He briefly freed a hand from the grip to fish a wad of hundreds from his pocket. He tossed it on the table. "A thousand bucks. Yours."

"It's not for sale."

What was wrong with this jerk? He was a small-time burglar in a crummy apartment. A cool thousand in cash sitting before him for the taking and he was turning it down?

What gives?

"Look, one way or another I'm walking out the door with this katana. You try to stop me"-he swung the blade in a quick horizontal arc-"off with your head."

He smiled as he said it. A joke. But something happened during that swing. His already long arms seemed to stretch even farther of their own accord just as Gerrish took a step forward.

At first he thought nothing had happened. A bowel-wrenching near miss. Gerrish stopped cold, a puzzled look on his face. Then Tom noticed a thin red line appear across the front of his throat. Gerrish's hands fluttered like uncertain b.u.t.terflies toward his neck just as the wound burst open and spewed blood in all directions.

Gerrish stood there with a dumbfounded expression, a human fire hydrant with a sprinkler cap, his mouth working but only bubbling gurgles issuing from the slash. He pressed his hands over the wound, trying to close it, trying to stanch the flow.

Tom backed away, his stomach threatening to toss up the Big Mac he'd gobbled on his way over. He glanced down at the blade. Not a drop of blood along the tip. The slice had been so clean he hadn't felt the slightest tug of resistance.

"Hey, man, I didn't mean..." The words clogged in his throat. What could he say?

He looked back at Gerrish and saw blood still spurting from between his fingers. He began to sway as his arms dropped and hung limp at his sides. Then he keeled over, tilting to his right in slow motion like a falling tree. He landed on his side, then flopped onto his back.

Tom dropped the katana and hurried over to him. Gerrish's eyes were fixed on the ceiling with a glazed, dead stare. Blood continued to pump weakly from his throat. Finally that stopped too.

Tom's knees weakened and he would have collapsed onto the body had his hand not found the arm of the sofa.

Oh man, oh s.h.i.t, oh f.u.c.k, he'd killed him. Hadn't meant to. Almost seemed the blade had done it by itself. But here was Gerrish, horribly dead. And who was gonna believe it was an accident? Tom had already been through the system on possession of stolen property. He had a record. They'd say he was trying to steal the sword and Gerrish caught him. He was cooked, he was fried, he was- Wait. Whoever found the body wouldn't know about the sword, and neither would the cops-not if the sword wasn't here when they arrived. No murder weapon-that would mess up the investigation. No one had seen him go into the apartment. If no one saw him go out...

But he couldn't simply stroll out of here carrying a katana. He stepped back to the front hall. Hadn't he seen-?

Yes. A short runner. Perfect. Now, if he could just remember everything he touched and wipe it down...

He just might be able to walk away from this.

12.

Hideo watched the street while Kenji worked on the front door lock to Gerrish's apartment building. Goro and Ryo crowded around him, shielding his actions from pa.s.sing eyes.

They had blindfolded Cooter-san and dropped him near a hospital, then gone back to the Kaze house to await darkness. He used the time to write up a report on Goro, detailing his disobedience. Goro would lose another joint on his little finger as a result.

When he'd finished he read it over and realized that the incident was as much a failure of command as a failure of discipline. He deleted it.

Hearing a grunt of satisfaction from Kenji, Hideo turned and saw the door swing open.

"Excellent work," he said as Kenji used a toothpick to jam the latch. "You three wait nearby. I will call you if I need you."

The three nodded and moved off as Hideo entered the vestibule.

He had decided to do this on his own. Not simply because he could not trust the yakuza to restrain themselves, but the mere sight of them would certainly frighten Gerrish. If the man would not open his door, how could Hideo persuade him to sell his katana?

And he would sell it. Whatever his asking price, Hideo would meet it. He had one hundred thousand in cash in his briefcase. He would bring more if need be. He didn't care. It wasn't his money. And Sasaki-san would pay anything. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand-a mere pittance to the chairman. Not even an hour's interest on his holdings.

The elevator deposited him on the fourth floor. To his left, across the hall, he saw a door marked 4D.

The moment had arrived. Soon-perhaps tomorrow, if all went smoothly-he would be on his way back home with Sasaki-san's precious katana safely stowed in his luggage.

13.

Jack came in through the fire escape. He'd donned a goth look for the night: sneakers, ripped jeans, a hoodie, and leather gloves-all black. He'd used a b.u.mp key on a back door of the adjoining building, come across the roof, and down the fire escape to what he figured to be 4D. Behind him, across a fairly broad alley, loomed the blank wall of the Tabernacle of Prayer.

The window opened into a darkened bedroom. It was locked but old and he easily popped the latch with the screwdriver he'd brought along for just such a purpose.

He eased up the sash and listened. Quiet as a coffin. No sign of life. Gerrish was probably out. This might prove easier than he'd expected.

He slipped into the bedroom and headed for the hall. Best-case scenario: He'd toss the place, find the katana, say sayonara, and be gone before Gerrish came back.

If he didn't find it, that could mean either that Gerrish had hidden it really well or, worse, sold it. In that case he'd have to settle in and wait for the man's return.

Jack stopped in the hallway, his senses tingling with alarm. Why? The place was dead. And then he recognized the smell.

Blood.

He pulled out a penlight and flashed it around until the beam found the corpse. Blood everywhere, especially the corpse-its entire front was saturated with it.

He stepped closer and recognized Gerrish. His throat had been slashed. Looked like the work of a straight razor.

Or a katana.

Jack knew right then he wouldn't find the sword here. Could be a lot of reasons for Gerrish's offing, but Jack's gut told him it was the sword. Someone else had wanted it badly enough to kill for it-maybe even used it to do the deed.

Time to go.

He turned back to the bedroom and saw red-and-blue flashes through the window. He stuck his head out and saw a pair of NYPD cruisers in the alley, and four cops talking to a couple of kids.

s.h.i.t.

Three choices: Climb back to the roof now and risk being spotted, wait them out, or leave by the front door. The third offered more chances to be seen by one of the neighbors, but he needed out of this crime scene. Now. Now.

If he put on a pair of shades and pulled up his hood, he figured he'd be all right. He was doing just that on his way to the front door, carefully avoiding the blood splatters, when he heard a knock. He looked up and saw the door starting to swing open.