Man with No Name: A Nanashi Novella (2 page)

"It's between Heron and Dragon. Nobody in Tokyo needs to know nothing."

*   *   *

Koma swung by Nanashi's place the next morning in the long cobalt Cadillac his father shipped from Detroit as a coming of age present. Koma wore a lemon suit and a fancy wide-brimmed lemon hat that scraped the roof of the cab. Amida and Haru were in the backseat looking bored. As Koma drove, he mentioned a couple of brothers would meet them at the gym in a second car. Nanashi asked who Koma had called in. Koma said he hadn't called anybody, it was Uncle Nobukazu's order. Mizo and Jiki would be waiting at the gym in the second car was all Koma knew.

Mizo and Jiki? Nanashi shook his head in disgust. The Terrible Two were crazy. They were liable to do anything and answered to no one except Uncle Yutaka or Uncle Nobukazu, the latter of whom had rescued the men from an institution for the criminally deranged. Nanashi didn't trust Uncle Nobukazu's judgment. It was commonly known he’d acquired syphilis from some party girl and it was busily eating his brain.

Some speculated that Mizo and Jiki were twins, although Amida laconically pointed out that, “everybody with Down Syndrome looked alike” and no one could argue the point.

Nanashi lighted a cigarette and tried not to worry. He started to roll down the window, but the cab was already cloudy with blue smoke, so he didn't bother. He stared at the passing shop fronts as they declined and aged and gave way to impoverished warehouses and garages and self storage buildings.

Jiki and Mizo waited across the street from the gym in a parking lot. Both of them were fairly large and vaguely retarded. They eschewed the handsome suits of their more conservative yakuza brethren, or even the audacious pimp-suit stylings of new wave gangsters like Koma and his ilk, preferring pastel cargo pants and baggy, sleeveless tee shirts from Hong Kong outlet malls. Loose, formless clothing was just the thing for impromptu gang fights and scaling fences when fleeing the law. Nobody bothered to give them shit for violating the dress code.

Koma cruised alongside the duo, who were methodically thrashing a pair of high school kids. Everyone climbed out of the Cadillac and stood around to watch the action.

 “Good morning, brothers,” Mizo said as he cheerfully pressed his foot on the neck of a struggling youth. Jiki had thrown another boy facedown across the hood of the Honda. This kid wasn't moving, although he groaned occasionally. Jiki paused his search of the kid's pockets to wave at Koma. Nanashi guessed the kids were local dealers. Several foil packets and baggies were lined up on the hood, evidently confiscated by Jiki and Mizo.

“Yo,” Mizo said to Nanashi and grinned. His mouth was crammed with silver braces. He worshipped at the altars of American hip-hop and gangster rap. “Hey, Nanashi, how's that sweet sister of yours, huh?”

Nanashi looked at him. He'd broken Mizo's foot when the hoodlum first joined the clan. Nanashi still drank at that point in his career and Mizo unwisely shot off his mouth. So Nanashi stomped his instep and then threw him over the balcony of the club they were partying at. It was a lazy attempt at a killing and Nanashi was much better when he so wished. Lucky for Mizo, the balcony was only a few feet above some hedges. He screeched and wailed all the way to the hospital. Everybody made fun of him for months until he got out of the cast and stopped limping.

“What the hell are you doing with these punks?” Koma said to Mizo. “Quit screwing the dog. We've got serious business.”

“Very serious business,” Jiki said. His laughter emerged as maniacal wheezing.  As stupid as Jiki was, it could be difficult to tell if he was mocking Koma or agreeing with him. He slapped his victim on the buttocks and told him to get going. The kid was off like a shot.

Mizo sighed theatrically and took his foot off the neck of the other kid and let him run away. “Look at what those assholes tried to do! Look at this shit! They were trying to shortchange us. You don't mess with the yakuza. We
had
to beat them up.” He swept the drug paraphernalia into his upended baseball cap and tossed the works into the Honda. “Okay. Ready to go.”

“Is he here?” Nanashi said to Koma.

“Who? Muzaki?”

“Yeah.”

“He's here. We got a guy inside. He called me on the way to your place. We're good, no need to worry.”

The Fighting Dog was a house made of concrete blocks and sheet metal decorated by slashes of red and purple spray paint. The gym lay partially sunken beneath street level and despite its mean exterior and lousy accommodations, it remained one of the preeminent training facilities in the whole of Japan. Like the analogue four star hotels which hosted statesmen, movie stars, and emperors, in its forty years of history the Fighting Dog had served as training ground for scores of champion wrestlers, boxers, and martial artists. Nanashi thought it was definitely the kind of place where one might get one's ass kicked without much ceremony.

Muzaki was simply Muzaki, like Madonna and Sting. His legal name was Wesley Hallecker, born in Chicago in 1947. His father was an American businessman, his mother the youngest daughter of a doctor who’d maintained a practice in Kobe. Muzaki lived between the US and Japan until he graduated from Penn State. He eventually settled in Yokohama and became one of Japan's great wrestlers. Ever the crowd favorite for his phenomenal prowess and superhuman might, he’d also shrewdly concocted a personal mythology, a backstory that was the precursor to modern professional storylines in professional wrestling that included comic book personas with elaborately cartoonish biographies. Muzaki’s own heroic tale claimed that he’d survived a shipwreck in the South Seas as a toddler and was subsequently raised by a lost tribe that ruled a chain of small, uncharted islands. This tribe allegedly practiced black magic and shrunk the heads of its enemies after drinking their blood and devouring their hearts. Muzaki was trained as a slayer of beasts and his exploits in the south were much celebrated until he was captured by men on a passing whaler and returned to civilization whereupon the government spent much time and effort rehabilitating him.

The fans loved it.

Father to numerous children, he’d married several times, most recently to a much younger American woman, an actress named Susan Stucky who hadn’t acted in half a decade. An odd couple to be sure. The tabloids claimed they’d met when he rescued her from drowning at a casting party in Beverly Hills. She was floating face down near the bottom of a swimming pool and he’d dragged her out and revived her.

Everybody knew Muzaki the way everybody knew Ali or Pele. He was an institution and unlike a lot of other superstar athletes, he'd managed his money wisely and retired a wealthy man. He'd opened a chain of mixed martial arts gymnasiums, sporting goods stores, and invested in numerous nightclubs and warehouse properties. Muzaki's greatest and worst kept secret to financial success was his affiliation with the Dragon syndicate, number one rival of the Heron Clan. Muzaki, despite his waning celebrity, remained a sentimental investment of Miyami Tanaka, the Dragons' inestimable socho.

“Wait here,” Nanashi said at the door, nodding at the crazy brothers. “Both of you.”

“Huh?” Mizo thrust his chin forward. “Uncle Nobukazu said--”

“Wait here and watch the door.”

“Why?” said Jiki.

“Because somebody has to do it.”

“You watch the door, then.”

“Shut up and watch the door,” Koma said.

“What for?”

“Keep a lookout in case Tanaka's boys show up or something,” Koma said. Of course, a bunch of Tanaka's boys could already be inside since the gym was a favorite hangout of Dragon foot soldiers, many of whom worshipped Muzaki like a god.

Jiki didn’t say anything, just folded his arms in sullen resignation. Mizo rubbed his mouth. His cheeks became red. “Me and Jiki didn't come here to stand around while you guys --”

“Shut up,” Koma said. He brushed past and went inside.

Muzaki stood to greet Koma. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries and Muzaki introduced the other men at the table -- a fight promoter, a lawyer, and a couple of trainers; nobody of importance. Nanashi hung back and watched them. He recognized Muzaki from the pictures and the old fight clips. The old man had gone to seed, but remained an impressive figure nonetheless. Squat as a fireplug, yet inordinately broad, his knuckles brushed his knees. There was a whole lot of muscle under all that flab. Koma, who'd grown rather stout himself, resembled a child by comparison.

Haru and Amida sidled next to Nanashi.

Haru said with the corner of his mouth, “You ever see his wife? The American? Oh boy. Oh man.”

“The actress?” Amida said. “She’s dead.”

“No, she’s alive. Susan something. Susan Stucky.”

“Well, she doesn’t act anymore. What was she in?”

“Lots of things.”

“Yeah, but there was that one flick. Damn it, what was it called?”

“The gangster movie? The one where the Mafia blew her up on the yacht? There’s a tragedy. What a waste. That two piece white bikini she ran around in almost gave me a heart attack.”

“She was an ice bitch.”

“Oh yeah. Oh boy.”

“That big ugly bastard is hitting that? I am in the wrong business.”

Muzaki swiveled his lumpy head their direction as if he’d caught their whispers.

“Man, he's big,” Amida said. “My father swore he was in Osaka the night Muzaki broke Ostreshinger's back. I wonder if I can get his autograph.”

“Sure you can,” Haru said. “Didn't he kill the German? I thought he did. It was in the papers.”

“No, no. Muzaki just hurt him. Ostreshinger was in a wheelchair for a few years. He died in a home. Respiratory failure.”

“Exactly. Which was courtesy of Muzaki fucking him up, right? So, Muzaki killed him.”

“If you look at it that way, yeah. Muzaki killed the shit out of that German. Kind of sad. If he hadn't killed the guy, he probably wouldn't have retired so soon after.”

“You think Muzaki retired because he felt guilty over what happened?” Haru shook his head. “No way. Who cares what happens to one of those bastards? It was business. Muzaki got out because he was becoming a slob. Look at him over there.”

“I'm looking, believe me. How are we gonna get him in the car?”

“It's not like we're gonna stuff him in the trunk.”

“We're not? Oh, good.”

“Anyway, we got an axe.”

In the end Muzaki smiled hugely and came along, docile as could be. Nanashi, whose job description included fretting over such details, didn’t like it at all.

*   *   *

Koma drove inland. The day was bright and warm. Nanashi sat on the front passenger side, angled so he could see the rearview mirror. Haru and Muzaki sat in back. Mizo, Jiki, and Amida paced them in the second car.

“Is it far?” Muzaki said as the city eventually dropped from sight behind them and they crossed mile after mile of rice and bean fields. “If it's far, you should know I've got a kidney problem.” He shifted his bulk uncomfortably.

“It's far,” Koma said. He drove fast, pedal to the floorboard when traffic allowed. Koma was a formula car nut. He seemed to think he'd watched enough grand prix' s to drive like Hakkinen or Schumacher.

“Ah. About my kidneys --”

“You can go in this,” Koma said, swishing the remnants of a liter bottle of cola.

“Don't worry, Muzaki-san,” Haru said. “We'll stop along the way. Koma has his own kidney problems and there's only one bottle, right?”

“I should've made you ride with the mongoloid twins,” Koma said. “Let's have some music.” He turned on the radio and began fiddling with the dial.

A black cloud swooped in directly overhead and blocked out the sun. Rain pinged from the windows and obliterated the highway markings.

“Haru says you are a fighter,” Muzaki said.

“Eh? Me?” Nanashi startled, realizing the big man was speaking to him. “Not really. I'm too old.”

“Too old?”

“I'm thirty-three.”

“That isn't so bad. Not if you're tough.”

“When I was a boy I trained in a dojo, that's all.”

They regarded each other in the mirror. Muzaki's features were brutish and scarred. His skull was shaped like an anvil. His ears had contracted to small, fleshy knobs. His nose was a deflated bump of impacted cartilage. He reached forward and grasped Nanashi's shoulder and squeezed. The power in his hand was enough to make Nanashi queasy.

Muzaki said, “But you still train. You're built like a good, sturdy light-heavyweight. You've never been in the ring?”

“No. I trained for…habit, I guess.”  Nanashi lit another cigarette to cover his unease. He'd seen enough clips of Muzaki strangling his hapless foes. Muzaki was famous for hip throws and sleeper holds. "The Savage" had been one of his many ring names. He'd dressed in bear skins, on occasion. Real skins.

“Habit?” Muzaki settled and the entire rear seat creaked beneath his weight. “May I have a cigarette?”

“Say, Muzaki-san, have one of my mine.” Haru reached inside his coat.

“No, thank you. Nanashi?”

Nanashi turned awkwardly in his seat and handed Muzaki a cigarette. Haru quickly lighted it for Muzaki.

“Thank you.” Muzaki coughed a bit. “Ack. It's been years since I smoked one of these.

“Why start up again?” Nanashi said.

“Isn't it tradition for the condemned to get a last cigarette?”

“Don't be so melancholy,” Koma said. “We're just going for a ride. Jesus.”

“Yes. Where is this place, again?”

“Inland,” Koma gestured vaguely.

“Inland…” Muzaki nodded to himself.

“In the mountains. We'll stay at the lodge tonight.”

“Oh?”

“You'll enjoy it,” Haru said. “It's nice. I take Koma's girlfriend there all the time.”

“Hey! Watch your mouth!” Koma said over his shoulder and almost swerved into the ditch. Haru chuckled and slipped a set of headphones over his ears.

A chill crept into the car despite their mingled breath and cigarette smoke. Cold air rushed through the vent and over Nanashi's knees. They glided among hills. Every piece of landscape lay abstracted by water rushing over the windshield. Koma engaged the headlights and it was as if they were driving into an endless tunnel. Nanashi remembered killing ants as a boy with his brother's Swiss Army knife -- first with the magnifying glass, then the blade. He'd poured water into their nests, watched black torrents of workers and soldiers tumbling in the rivulets. He envisioned God's thumb poised over the Cadillac.