My Yakuza

suggest you walk two blocks that way,” he said pointing across and up the street, “and watch for a deli on the corner. It’s a bit expensive but you won’t find better sandwiches in New York.”
“Thanks, appreciate it,” Shiro said as he turned and walked out of the hotel looking around once more. As he walked, he thought about the meeting that would happen shortly and how best to tell Kono what was going on. Shiro hoped that Kono wouldn’t set him up for arrest by having other officers ready to pounce on him when he showed himself.
Just before reaching the deli, a car blew its horn just when it was directly abreast of Shiro, causing him to flinch and duck. When he realised that the driver was honking at the cab in front of him, he felt both foolish and relieved. He closed the distance with the entrance of the deli quickly. After ordering and sitting down at a table with his back to the wall watching the door, he felt much better. The desk clerk was right on the money and the food was the best Shrio had consumed since landing in New York. He noticed a newspaper somebody had left behind and saw Kono’s face on the first page. He picked it up.
The article said that the Grand Jury had voted to allow the trial of Shun’ichi Harada to proceed. The trial promised to be sensational, the first of its kind for New York City. The reputed Yakuza clan leader Shun’ichi Harada still denied his true identity in spite of his dental records and fingerprints being on file. It was, in fact, his own dentist Shun’ichi had murdered trying to retrieve the only record anyone had of his teeth. The trial would be watched closely by other countries plagued by the notorious Japanese equivalent of the mafia. Shiro scanned the rest of the article. He already knew that Harada had been caught at Kennedy Airport using fake identification.
He stared at the photograph of the man who’d taken his mother from him. Cold, dead fish eyes. He thought about the live, sushi fish and put the paper down. His heart pounded. He looked at his watch and saw he had just over two hours until he was supposed to meet Kono. Should he go early and check the bar out, or stay at the hotel and go at the last moment? Either way, he had to return to the hotel in order to get the gun.
Shiro left the deli and walked back to the hotel.
“You were right, good recommendation on the deli,” he said as he passed the desk.
“Good, glad you liked it. It’s hard for a New York deli to mess up a Rueben, know what I mean?”
Shiro laughed and gave the thumbs up sign to the clerk as the gate to the elevator closed once more. When he was back in his room, he checked the clip in the weapon and slipped the gun in his back waistband of his jeans. He didn’t bother with the extra clip. He looked at himself in the mirror, combed his hair and left the hotel again, this time for the Iron Hand.
Before he walked through the front doors and back out onto the streets, Shiro had decided to take a cab to the bar even though it wasn’t much further than the restaurant. He felt he should limit his exposure somewhat and taking a cab would help him do that. It took almost longer to flag down a cab then it took to get to the bar once he finally got a cab.
“Where to?”
“The Iron Hand, please.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s only a couple blocks away!”
“I’ll make it worth your while, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a swollen ankle.”
“If you’re going to that place, it’s probably from having your legs bent back over your head,” the pissed off cabbie said.
Shiro chose to ignore the insult and looked around for signs of anyone following.
Once outside the club, Shiro’s stomach tightened with tension as the possibility of immediate arrest, or worse, waiting for him once he walked through the doors. He wondered if there would be many Asian men in a gay bar in Manhattan, and if Kono would be hard to spot.
He paid a ten-dollar cover charge and got his ticket, which entitled him to one drink. The bar was only about half full, with the haze of smoke filling a side room where a pool table was the centre of attention for at least ten guys. Shiro walked over to the bar and sat down at one end, which was furthest from the door, and looked around. As far as he could tell, Kono was not at the bar and wasn’t due for another hour or more.
“What’ll you have?” the thirty-something bartender asked over the music.
“Gimme a whisky and ginger ale.”
The bartender placed the drink on a napkin in front of Shiro and took the ticket with a smile. A couple of the men in the bar were checking him out and he felt self-conscious for some reason. He was perfectly comfortable in the meat market that was often the atmosphere in gay clubs, but tonight he felt as if he was cheating on Kono were he to encourage any attention from others.
Every time the door opened, Shiro tensed up, expecting to see uniformed police officers or worse, Asian men in suits. As the next hour passed, Shiro ordered two more drinks and tipped the bartender generously so that if he needed any help he might be able to count on it from the bar.
“May I join you?” a guy in his twenties asked with a smile.
Jolted out of his concentration on the door, Shiro looked at the guy as if he had two heads. “Oh, sorry, I’m actually waiting for a blind date who’s supposed to be here any moment. Maybe some other time?” he asked trying to let the guy down easily.
“Oh, sure. Do you come