Perhaps a fool, but the sort that a careful man feared. Who was Kaneda, really? he wondered. A former Yakuza, probably. He didn't show any of the grotesque tattoos that people in that subculture affected, deliberately making themselves different in a culture that demanded conformity—but at the same time demonstrating conformity in a society of outcasts. On the other hand, he just sat there wearing a business suit whose only concession to comfort was the unbuttoned jacket. Even the ronin's posture was rigid as he sat there erect, Koga saw, himself sitting back down with a book but looking over it at his captor. He knew he couldn't fight the man and win—Koga had never troubled himself to learn any of the martial arts that his country had helped develop, and the man was physically formidable. And he was not alone.

He was a watchdog. Seemingly impassive, seemingly at rest, he was in fact more like a coiled spring, ready to leap and strike, and civilized only so long as those around him acted in such a way as not to arouse him, and so obvious about it that you just knew that it was madness to offend him. It shamed the politician that he was so easily cowed, but cowed he was, because he was a bright and thoughtful man, unwilling to squander his one chance, if he had that much, in a foolish gesture.