“Describe it to me.”

“Twelve storeys. He has a private elevator. The public elevator only goes to the tenth floor.”

“How do you get to his floors?”

“You get out at the tenth floor and the guards check to see whether you are allowed to go up. If you are, they show you to the stairs. Takashi has bedrooms on the eleventh floor and his living space on the twelfth.”

“What are the other floors used for?”

“Accommodation. Unpleasant apartments for people who can’t afford anything better.”

“How many guards?”

“Enough.”

“Armed?”

“Of course.”

Milton filed that away. It was useful intelligence, but no substitute for going to reconnoitre the property himself.

“You said you wanted to help,” Hachirō said. “What do you have in mind?”

“You know that Miyasato stole from your brother?” Milton said.

“Sakura told me everything,” Hachirō said. “The tantō.”

“Miyasato stole it for someone else.”

“Yes. Satoshi Furokawa.”

“What do you know about him?”

“I know the group he represents is not to be underestimated. The Dragons are more powerful than the yakuza now. A young man who starts out in Shibuya or Roppongi is not going to be as impressed by tattooed old men like me and Takashi as they would have been twenty years ago. I suppose that’s progress, at least of a sort. It’s young guys, often with normal, legitimate jobs, but they supplement their income with violence and other criminal activity. I don’t know Furokawa, but I hear he used to work in the film industry. He moved into adult films and then, when that became less lucrative, he recruited girls to speak to men on the internet.”

“Chat rooms,” Sakura said.

“If you say so—lots of money, either way. Furokawa used it to buy muscle and used that to take control of the organisation. It’s not regimented like the yakuza. There’s no tradition.” He held up his hand and showed Milton that he had lost half of his pinkie. “They’d think that atoning for mistakes with a finger was barbaric stupidity—that’s one point upon which we might agree, come to think of it.”

“Could you find out where I could find him?”

“They’re based in Ikebukuro. I could ask around.” He stopped, then laughed. “Is that your plan? Get the sword back, give it to Takashi and he gives you Yamato. Is that right?”

“I think it might be worth considering.”

Hachirō shook his head. “It would be a waste of time. Furokawa won’t sell it.”

Milton held the older man’s eye. “I wasn’t planning on buying it.”

“So how are you going to get it?”

“Let me worry about that,” Milton said. “Just find out where he is.”

* * *