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Saturday mornings dressed up in Los Angeles Police Department uniforms to ride their Harleys en masse. Once a year the local chapters gathered for the annual spring rally, which this year was convening in Kyoto. Even now they would be assembling in the parking lot at the Holiday Inn. The thought of all that two-cylinder racket was painful. On the other hand, the weird celebrity he enjoyed in the organization was gratifying. Also, the carburetor trouble he’d been having would quickly be diagnosed and corrected by a fellow member. Then he realized that he would have to ask Akiko to watch theshop, which, after last night, seemed too much. Miles Ryder was not entirely shameless.
    â€œI should mind the store.”
    â€œI will take care of the store,” Akiko said, and he loved her for not saying it in a bitchy way, and for her precise, uncontracted English.
    â€œI’ll be back by supper,” he said. “We can go out for dinner and then catch a movie. I’ll leave the bar to Sato.”
    â€œOn Saturday?” she said. “It will be very busy.”
    â€œWe’ll have dinner, anyway.”
    If she was skeptical, she didn’t say anything. Serving up a plate of scrambled eggs and rice, she demonstrated the calm resignation that was the heritage of her race and sex and that had sustained her once she realized her husband had no desire to return to the United States of America, as she had once hoped.
    Because the house they rented in this quiet residential block had no garage, Miles parked his bike in a shed adjoining the store, which was a short walk from the house. Akiko handed him a box lunch and said she would be down shortly to open the shop.
    When he saw the door of the shed lying flat in the small lot behind the store he thought it was strange. He tried to remember if last night was especially windy. Then, as he came closer, he saw the chrome pipes, twisted into shapes which made them difficult to recognize at first, and after that, the handlebars. His first thought was, Who threw the junk into my lot? Catching sight of the saddlebags, slashed into rawhide strips, he stopped. Then he began to run.

4
    When the water boiled, Ransom removed the kettle from the gas and filled his teapot, pouring the rest into the tin basin in the sink. Made of soapstone, the sink tended to turn green around the edges in summer. He topped the basin with cold water from the tap, then lathered up his shaving brush. With a clean bathtowel he wiped the mirror over the sink. He shaved his upper lip first and poured a cup of tea. When he was done, he rinsed out the basin and hung it on the nail over the sink, then poured out another cup of tea. He went into the other room, folded up his futon and stashed it in the closet, from which he took a broom. He opened the sliding doors onto the terrace and swept the tatami, which glowed yellow in the patch of sun. Dust teemed in the light. The sweeping didn’t take long. That was one of the advantages of small quarters.
    As he was donning his gi, Ransom heard the drone of the monks from Daitokuji, a nearby temple. He searched the pockets of his jeans and found a couple of coins. Downstairs, he opened the gate and stepped out into the narrow, unpaved and unnamed lane. Several houses up, the monks were waiting beside an open gate. Presently, Mrs. Miti came out and gave them something. Theybowed, thanked her and proceeded, picking up their chant, their broad, squashed-cone coolie hats rocking from side to side. Ransom threw the coins in the wooden bowl the lead man held against his chest. The man bowed. After they had passed, Ransom began his run.
    The packed dirt of the back streets was dark and damp where housewives had sprinkled it to keep the dust down in front of their doors. Moving between sunlight and the shadowed cool of the narrower lanes, he passed women with babies and the tofu man on his three-wheeled cart. At the Karasuma intersection he waited for the light. A