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enough to hold three or four small tables, each with a semicircular banquette, that the architect had designed to appear as if they were floating like magic carpets above a cuneiform dance floor, laser-etched to resemble a Persian rug.
    “Who is this?” Nicholas asked. “You obviously know me, but—”
    “I am employed by Mikio Okami. My name is therefore of no matter.” The voice waited a beat. “Do you remember your promise?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Okami-san is in need of your most immediate help.”
    “I understand.”
    “He requires you to go to Venice, Italy. A first-class ticket in your name is waiting for you at the Air France counter at Narita. Please be prompt and pick it up at least two hours before flight time, nine-forty P . M .”
    “This evening? I can’t just drop every—” Nicholas stopped, realizing he was speaking to dead air; the voice had already hung up.
    Nicholas replaced the receiver. Plaster dust hung in the air made sharp and glittery by the many workers’ tungsten clamp-lights, which were strong enough to define every edge and sweeping curve, reveal even the most minute flaw in the skin of sand-dusted stucco being applied to the major vertical surfaces.
    He thought about what little his father had told him about the mysterious Mikio Okami. There are times, Nicholas, when one exhausts every ordinary means to accomplishing one’s goal, Denis Linnear had told him when Nicholas was no more than thirteen. Still, that goal must be achieved —at any cost. You are young now, but believe it or not there are such times when the end is so vital that the means to that end must be overlooked. It may be unfortunate, but one cannot live one’s life as a saint; one must oftentimes make compromises, painful and questionable though they may be. So there are times when one is grateful one knows a man such as Mikio Okami.
    Suddenly, in the wake of the call, the Colonel’s words had taken on a very sinister cast, indeed. Nicholas had surmised even then, so long ago, that Mikio Okami had to be Yakuza. In fact, given the difficult and demanding nature of his father’s work in the muddy postwar flux of Japanese political circles, it seemed natural that he would have come into contact with this potent and rather ubiquitous element of Japanese society. Nicholas remembered hearing persistent rumors of factions of Yakuza being hired by the American Occupation Hierarchy to quell certain labor strikes in 1947–48, said to be coordinated and funded by the Communists. The fierce and intimidating Yakuza were the logical foot soldiers in such an internecine war, since they were the quintessential capitalist loyalists, ready and willing to die for the freedom of their country, virulently opposed to any leftist tilt.
    But if Mikio Okami had been a Yakuza oyabun, family boss, just after the war, and assuming—generously, Nicholas thought—that he was thirty at the time, he would be in his late seventies now—possibly over eighty. Too old to continue the never-ending orchestration required to maintain the Yakuza’s unique symbiosis with the police, government, and bureaucracies? Or old enough to be in need of reinforcements against the encroachment of the other Yakuza families on the rise in power and influence? Either way, Nicholas did not like the possibilities.
    Back in his office, he hastily dictated two memos to Seiko Ito, his assistant: the first, to tell her of his trip and to confirm his reservations; the second, regarding the eight most vital matters that required follow-ups, letters, calls, faxes. He faxed Vinnie Tinh in the Saigon office that he would be postponing his planned trip for at least a week, then made a raft of calls that he had been planning to put off until after the Saigon trip.
    That done, he thought about Justine. She would be livid, of course. Bad enough he had refused to take her back to the States; now he was leaving her alone in Japan. How was it, he thought, that she had come