Shindo sat in a roofed passage that was open to the elements, between two buildings. The wood floor had been buffed to such a sheen that she could almost see her own reflection. Red hair tied back with a rubber band, dressed in an ill-fitting white shirt and black pants. Face wrapped with bandages and gauze, concealing all but her eyes, nose, and mouth, like a poorly executed mummy. Not first aid so much as an attempt to cover up her cuts and bruises.
          While she was changing into the clothes borrowed from the men in the white shirts, Shindo had received a mini lecture from Yanagi on her situation. This was the residence of Genzo Naiki, boss of the Naiki family, a part of the Okitsu-gumi, the largest gang in eastern Japan. Yanagi was his right-hand man, in charge of the white shirts—or what he called the “junior staff.”
          All household matters, from cleaning the floors to preparing meals, were undertaken by these young guys handpicked from the urban offices, though a small number of tasks necessitated, in Yanagi’s words, “a woman’s touch.” From what Shindo had gathered, this was why they had snatched her up.
          Yanagi had told her to sit tight. In half an hour, he said, he would come back and show her just what sort of tasks they had in mind. So she sat there. On her heels, in seiza. In the dim light of the roofed hall. Nobody else around. It was only twenty meters to the stone wall. If she made a run for it, she could have gotten out of there, but instead Shindo did what she was told.
          The shrill voice of the Doberman, so lonesome in the face of death, rang in her ears.
          Dogs can’t be blamed. No matter how monstrous their owners are. It’s never the dog’s fault. Those eyes . . . so lonely, yet no sign of fighting back against the men that held its life in their hands. And that miserable whimper. Just like any other dog. Ready to pledge allegiance to the worst people imaginable.
          Shindo sighed. Her ribs were sore. Didn’t seem broken, maybe bruised.
          It had been a busy day.
          One of Shindo’s two jobs was food delivery, which meant biking all around Shinjuku. Finishing up on this particular afternoon, she swung by her apartment in Shin-Okubo, washed off her sweaty body, changed into new clothes, and headed back toward Shinjuku on foot. She could have eaten dinner in her neighborhood, but she was in the mood to catch a movie at the cineplex. On her way, she passed through Kabukicho, where she ran into some bad dudes, who were obviously shitfaced and pretended to bump into her. One of them slapped her ass. Shindo spun around, grabbed his lapels, and kicked his feet from under him. The man fell face first on the asphalt. It was strange how his companion kept on walking, like he hadn’t noticed, although once he caught wind of what happened, he took a swing at her. Shindo would have walked away, except a crowd was watching them. It would save her trouble later if the guys punched her first, so she took a hit, right in the face. The guy was either drunk or had no clue how to fight. It barely grazed her. She caught his wrist and twisted his arm toward his chest. Bones shifted in her palm with a disturbing pop. On her first try, she had dislocated the guy’s wrist. Ouch! Panicking, the man tried desperately to punch her in the stomach with his free hand. Shindo let him go and kicked him onto his back. The audience was growing by the second. The first man down wriggled in agony, getting dirt all over his magnificently bloody nose. She had a few more punches ready for them, but why bother? If someone called the cops, there would be trouble, so she split. Or tried to. Three more bad guys stepped out of the crowd and blocked her path. More? One kicked her in the face. He fought much better than the others, though he was on the shorter side. Kicked her a second time, a third, calling her a bitch, a fucking pig, etc. Shindo dodged him. On the fourth kick, she grabbed his leg and stepped onto his pivot foot, so that he couldn’t move, then swung his kicking leg over her shoulder, whereupon she dropped into a squat, forcing his hip joint into a full 180-degree split. That left him wailing like a newborn baby. When she was on her feet again, something nailed her in the back. Felt like another jump kick. Turning around, she gave the guy who’d kicked her a swift kick in the throat. Bam. But then she felt a dull blow to her side. Her ribs killed. When she turned, she saw a man was chopping at her with an empty bottle of wine. That probably explained the feeling in her ribs. It was risky bringing weapons into a crowded public space. Someone could get hurt. She searched for a way out. Just as the man with the bottle wound up again, taking aim, she punched him square in the jaw. More goons appeared between the faces in the crowd. Coming to get her, fists clenched, winding up. Shindo couldn’t help but smile. If only she’d had more room to move, no risk of hurting anyone, she could have taken all those guys on at once. She cursed the cramped and crowded city. Which was when she felt a clean thud on her head. This time it was a beer bottle, one of the big ones, if she could trust Yanagi’s version of the story. Thicker glass. Another thud, and she blacked out.
          A night wind, cool for May, passed through the yard and traveled down the roofed hall. The floor was cold and hard. Vigilant, she took another breath and stroked her throbbing head and ribs.
          Just then, a wooden door slid open at the far end of the hall. One of the white shirts, looking a little sore, waved for her to come. Shindo stood. She did as she was told.
          In the next room, the heady smell of temple incense pricked her nose. The room was huge, its floor spanning at least twenty tatami mats. At a low desk made from precious wood, the man who had appeared on the deck earlier—Genzo Naiki—sat crosslegged on the floor. Behind him were taxidermied specimens of a hawk and a male pheasant, along with a display case packed with painted clay Hakata dolls, a miniature golden pagoda, and other tacky decorations, giving the room the pretentious air of new money.
          Yanagi sat off to the side. Four white shirts with especially good builds stood at attention in each corner of the room.
          “Come in, sit down.”
          Faced with this oddly friendly welcome, Shindo complied and sat in seiza on the floor. All eyes on her. Naiki sucked down a mouthful of the canned coffee sitting on the desk and smiled at her.
          “So. Yoriko, huh. For a woman, you’re one hell of a fighter. Did a number on some of my best young men.”
          His hoarse voice had a sadistic twang that his inviting gestures failed to hide. Not offering a response, Shindo flexed her butt muscles, ready to jump up at any time.
          “If word got out that my best men had seven shades of shit beat out of them by a woman, we’d be the laughingstock of Tokyo. Be grateful you’re not paying off the damages with that physique of yours . . . or with your life.”
          Putting extra emphasis on the word physique, Naiki dragged his salivary eyes up and down her body.
          “Matter of fact, we’ve been looking for a woman just like you, one that’s strong and loves to fight. I haven’t heard what sort of scuffle you got into. But how’s about we make a fresh start. What do you say, country girl? Take the job?”
          Shindo stared back at Naiki. When it comes to staring, people are like animals. The first to look away is the loser.
          “I don’t need another job.”
          This made Naiki roar with laughter.
          “Be careful, thunder thighs, or you’ll get a piece of cold steel up that stinky twat.”
          Naiki had a big grin on his face. Yanagi, off to the side, shot him a glare.
          “Let’s have the two of you meet. Come on out, Shoko.”
          The fusuma door behind the men slid open.
          There was a woman sitting there, beyond the threshold.
          She looked almost like a mannequin, but then the woman, Shoko, stood up without a word, as if all of this was normal, and stepped into the room. She was real.
          She looked young enough she could have easily been taken for a girl. Dressed in a plain white long-sleeved blouse and a lengthy dark blue skirt. Homely nude stockings shielded the eyes from what little might have been seen of her skinny ankles. Her long black hair was plaited in a single braid down her back. Her figure was slight; her skin was so pale it shone blue. She had thin lips and the black marbly eyes of a baby deer. Like a poster portrait of a beauty from another era, fifty or a hundred years ago. She was a classic beauty, somehow young and old-fashioned at once.
          Without so much as a glance in Shindo’s direction, this young lady, Shoko, walked over to Naiki and sat in seiza on the floor. All the more doll-like beside the hulking boss.
          “Meet Shoko, my one and only daughter. This spring, she’s taking classes up at Shirahama Women’s Junior College in Suginami. Only the best for my little girl. Her classmates are the daughters of the most elite families around. These days, though, you can never be too careful. Shoko needs someone to drive her there and pick her up. A bodyguard. That’s where you come in. If I had my way, I’d watch over her myself, day and night, but believe me, I’ve already got my hands full.”
          Naiki petted her shoulder. A doting signal that made Shoko look less like his daughter than a house dog. Shoko didn’t open her mouth or register a reaction, just stared down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. Her fingernails were cleanly shaped. Pink seashells tumbled smooth by the waves.
          Shoko looked awfully out of place in this den of yakuza. Like a crane perched in a landfill. A troubling heat, or violent desire, wafted off of Naiki and Yanagi and the white shirts. Shindo, too. To put it nicely, their bodies emanated life. Raw and vital. From the young lady, however, there was not a whiff of animal vitality to be detected.
          Shindo cast glances at the white shirts posted up around the room. She had felt them tensing up the instant Shoko came in through the door. She was so beautiful she didn’t seem like she was real. None of the men would look at her. Bullets of sweat dripped off the temples of the youngest of the white shirts, whose gaze fixed on an empty space in the exact opposite direction of his boss’s daughter.
          “Who says I’m qualified to be a bodyguard?” asked Shindo.
          “Shit, it’s simple,” Naiki said. “Any shady character comes near her, break his neck.”
          “That’s a hard sell.”
          “Why’s that?”
          “Because it makes no sense. Why would a yakuza boss trust his daughter with a total stranger? There’s no shortage of bodyguards around here.”
          Naiki sneered.
          “Go grab Exhibit A.”
          A white shirt slid open the sliding door and came back carrying a lacquer box, square and black, the size of a large bento. As he placed it on the low desk, a nauseating odor wriggled through the incense smoke.
          “To your point, we tried having one of the guys here do the job. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep his grubby hands off Shoko. As a woman yourself, I’m sure you find that unacceptable. Some piece of shit defiling her pure body before marriage? No thanks. My baby girl is all grown up. I can’t have horny boys holding the door for her. What can I say, I’m a protective father.”
          Naiki removed the lacquer lid.
          “I’m sure that you would never make the same mistake as him. Stop me if I’m wrong.”
          Inside the lacquer box was a man’s right hand. Severed through the wrist, where you might wear a wristwatch. The blackened flesh had turned, exposing bone. Viscous liquid, dark and slimy, oozed out of the skin, pooling in the bright red inside of the box.
          The foul odor multiplied in force. One of the white shirts bent over and puked. Shoko, however, seated right before the rotten hand, looked at it with a blank expression. It was this barren face that interested Shindo, not the hand.
          “I’m not seeing any green around the gills. That takes guts. Yanagi’s intuition hasn’t failed him yet. Okay, it’s settled. Welcome to the team. Yanagi will explain the rest.”
          Naiki waved at her like he was shooing off a dog. Yanagi stood up and directed Shindo with his gaze. She had no choice but to follow him.