“We’ve got four days to plan what we’re going to do when we get to Tokyo.”

“Four? You said it was a week to Tokyo.”

“We’re not going all the way to Tokyo. Change of plan. The ship stops in Manila before then, and we’ll be getting off there. We’ll take a plane the rest of the way.”

“Why?”

“It’s faster, for one. But that’s not it. Katsuro knows we’re aboard. If I were him, I’d be thinking about arranging a welcome for us in Tokyo, and I’d rather avoid that if we can.”

66

Takashi Nishimoto stood in the corner of his office, looking out as the sun set over the skyline of Tokyo. To his left, he could see the Tokyo Tower, its white and orange lattice high above Minato. Its partner, the equally vertiginous Skytree, was farther away, but both towers bullied the smaller skyrises and tower blocks below them. Takashi’s building, at twelve storeys high, was tiny in comparison to the buildings in the centre of the city, but here, in this benighted part of Tokyo, it was one of the tallest.

Takashi held his palms against the glass and looked down at the wards of Arawaka and Taitō below. Seventy years earlier, during his childhood, this had been Sanya. It had been an undesirable district full of doya, cheap lodgings for day labourers and itinerants. When Takashi had become oyabun of the Nishimoto-kai, the first building that he had purchased had been the doya in which he had been born. His mother, a prostitute who had lived on the poverty line until he and his brother had dragged her with them into prosperity, had not been able to afford anything better. Takashi and Hachirō had burned it down for the insurance and now a small park stood in its place. The two of them had planted cherry trees in tribute to their mama-san, who had always loved them so.

The area around the tower belonged to Takashi. He had been born here, he lived here, and he was sure he would die here. The authorities had tried to wipe Sanya from the map by renaming it, but, to Takashi, this would always be his home no matter what it was called.