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Yamada-sensei’ssketch of the demon mask, in the notebook she’d left faceup and sprawled open the night before.
    She winced at the thought of what damage she’d done to the spine of the notebook, leaving it sit open like that for hours. It was the most trivial concern imaginable, and yet it niggled at her, so she reached down to close the book. As she did so, the next page flopped over, and on the overleaf she saw Yamada’s handwriting running like a banner at the top of the page: What is the connection between the mask and Glorious Victory Unsought?
    She sat heavily on the bed. Kamaguchi Hanzo—the man who had a contract on her life, the man whose drug den she’d raided the night before, the man whose brutality on the streets had earned him the name Bulldog—owned an ancient mask that was somehow related to her sword. A sword that was now missing. A sword that had been taken by someone standing over her bed as she slept.
    “Oh, hell,” she said.
    “What?” Han said.
    “It was the Bulldog. I think he’s sending me a message.” Mariko handed Han the notebook, opened to the page with the mask. “Remember the shelf of antiques in his office? All medieval stuff, most of it related to the samurai. My sword would fit right in.”
    “So what, last night he decided to expand his collection?” Han thought about it for a second. “I don’t like it. I mean, there’s a hit out on you, right? If he’s going to take all the trouble to break into your place, why not just shoot you?”
    “Gee, thanks. You really know how to help a girl feel safe.”
    Han winced as if he just felt the squish of dog crap under his shoe. “Sorry. But you know what I’m getting at. Why not collect a double payday? The sword plus the bounty?”
    “I don’t know. Like I said, I think he’s trying to send me a message. But I’m damned if I know how to read it.”
    Han looked back at the door, then at the windows, his boyish face scrunched up in thought. “There’s something else: that message of his is in the wrong language. I mean, the dude’s got a list of priors going back twenty, twenty-five years, almost all of them violent crimes. Now picture a guy like that breaking into your apartment. How is he going to do it?”
    Mariko thought of the Bulldog’s photo on the top sheet in his file. Broad shoulders, ferocious eyes, an underbite like a wild boar’s. Not the type to run a stealth mission. “Good point,” she said. “Kicking down the door and shoving a shotgun in your mouth is more his speed.”
    “Exactly. This ninja stuff is just weird.”
    “So is his dope deal.” Mariko ticked off each point on her fingers: “No cash on hand for the buy. A dealer who knows there’s a sting and shows up anyway. Kamaguchi-gumi enforcers who don’t mind beating the hell out of their supplier but somehow grow a conscience when it comes to killing him—”
    “I don’t know about that,” Han said. “Last time I checked, the dude was still in surgery.”
    “Yeah, but you know what I mean. They could have killed him, but instead they just roughed him up. We’ve got a drug deal with no money and no logical motives for the buyers or the sellers. And now the buyer just happens to break into my apartment on the very same night? Why wait this long? If Kamaguchi knows where I live, he could have aced me weeks ago.”
    “And if he wanted to hock your sword for drug money, he could have kicked in your door whenever he wanted.”
    “Exactly. But instead he waits until the very night I’m involved in a raid on his speed operation, and then he does all of this elaborate ninja shit.”
    Han shook his head. “I don’t get it. You?”
    “Not a clue.”
    “But you’re interested, aren’t you?”
    “Ten percent interested, ninety percent pissed off.” Mariko clenched her fists in frustration. “This guy broke into my home , Han. And from the look of it, he can do it whenever he wants. Can you understand what that means to a woman who