He bowed slightly. It went with the package, the same groomed, old school manners and look. He wore no facial skin decoration because at the levels he’d attained, he would be a frequent visitor in First Family enclaves that would frown on it. But you could still see the honour scars where they had been removed without benefit of modern surgical technique. His grey streaked black hair was bound back tightly in a short ponytail, the better to reveal the scarring across the forehead and accentuate the long bones of the face. The eyes beneath the brow were brown and hard like polished stones. The careful smile he gave me was the same one he would bestow upon death if and when it came for him.

“Kovacs-san.”

“So what’s your end of this, sam?” The muscle bristled collectively at my disrespect. I ignored it, glanced back at Murakami instead. “I take it you know he wants me Really Dead, as slowly and unpleasantly as possible.”

Murakami locked gazes with the yakuza senior.

“That can be resolved,” he murmured. “Is this not so, Tanaseda-san?”

Tanaseda bowed again. “It has come to my notice that though you were involved in the death of Hirayasu Yukio, you were not wholly to blame.”

“So?” I shrugged to displace the rising anger, because the only way he could have heard that little snippet was through virtual interrogation of Orr or Kiyoka or Lazlo, after my younger self helped him kill them.

“Doesn’t usually cut much ice with you people, who’s really to blame or not.”

The woman in his entourage made a tiny growling sound deep in her throat. Tanaseda cut it with a tiny motion of his hand at his side, but the gaze he bent on me belied the calm in his tone.

“It has also become clear to me that you are in possession of Hirayasu Yukio’s cortical storage device.”

“Ah.”

“Is this so?”

“Well, if you think I’m going to let you search me for it, you can—”

“Tak.” Murakami’s voice came out lazy, but it wasn’t. “Behave. Do you have Hirayasu’s stack or not?”

I paused on the hinge of the moment, more than half of me hoping they might try to strongarm it. The man on Tanaseda’s left twitched and I smiled at him. But they were too well-trained.

“Not on me,” I said.

“But you could deliver it to Tanaseda-san, could you not?”

“If I had any incentive to, I suppose I could, yes.”

The soft-throated snarl again, back and forth among all three of the yakuza muscle this time.

“Ronin,” one of them spat.

I met his eye. “That’s right, sam. Masterless. So watch your step. There’s no one to call me to heel if I take a dislike to you.”