Man with No Name: A Nanashi Novella
Read Man with No Name: A Nanashi Novella Online
Authors: Laird Barron
MAN WITH NO NAME
By
Laird Barron
JournalStone
San Francisco
Copyright © 2014 Man with No Name originally appeared in A Mountain Walked, Centipede Press.
Copyright © 2013 "Blood & Stardust" originally appeared in The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, Tor Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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ISBN: 978-1-942712-86-2 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-942712-87-9 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930759
Printed in the United States of America
JournalStone rev. date: March 18, 2016
Cover Art and Design: Rob Grom
Photo Credits - tattoo: Shutterstock – Man: Istock
Author Photograph courtesy of Henry Stampfel
Man with No Name
FOR JESSICA
Nanashi
dreamed he lay upon a reed mat in a strange place, dreaming of flying through darkness. Wind pushed in against the walls; it masked the cries of night birds. People had come with him, although he couldn’t remember who. Childhood friends, business associates, it was unclear. He woke within the dream to splashing, the gurgle of water through pipes, and sat upright, convulsed with fear. The others were gone. He walked from the room and along a narrow corridor lit by a yellow glow. A breeze ruffled paper streamers and caught his vaporous breath. He was naked and he carried a revolver in his left hand.
At the end of the hallway was an arch, and through the arch the air dimmed from yellow to an undersea green. The splashing grew loud. He crossed over into a chamber hewn from rock. The chamber oozed steam -- the steam wormed its way into his nose and tasted of copper and smog. Condensation dripped from the rugged ceiling into a large, deep pool. Paper lanterns bobbed on the water. This was an old and sacred place.
An attractive foreign woman, pale and blonde, stood in the way. Her kimono glowed silver and blue and white as the light shifted. Her blue and black flecked eyes were not downcast; they focused sharply upon Nanashi’s face. Her lips were painted red or black. She shook her head once in warning and stepped aside, was absorbed by the shadows of the cave.
A thick, powerful man squatted at the edge of the pool, his hairy back to Nanashi. His shoulders bunched and flexed, deformed in their pronounced development, and Nanashi thought for a moment of a washerwoman he’d seen at a riverbank, patiently wringing her laundry. Clothes had been flung everywhere, cast off with apparent abandon. He recognized the fancy jackets and designer shoes. They belonged to his brothers in arms, the members of his clan.
The man began to whistle. His position concealed his work, but there was no mistaking the fact he gripped someone’s jittering ankle, inverting it above the water while pressing down with his opposite hand. The splashing and thrashing weakened. Nanashi swung his head to the left, and saw then a sodden white mound of disjointed limbs, still quivering. He raised the pistol with impossible slowness, as though gravity had tripled.
The man looked over his shoulder. His face was the Devil’s. “You’re awake.”
Nanashi pulled the trigger again and again. Impotent sparks shot from the barrel. The revolver didn’t kick; it made no sound. Of course it had no effect.
* * *
Nanashi never made it home from closing down the disco with clan brothers Amida and Haru. He wasn’t drinking anything stronger than coffee; his chore for the evening being that of watchdog and shepherd to his comrades. A waiter hurried to their table and informed them of a call, carefully ignoring the unconscious party girls, the wasteland of overturned bottles and shot glasses. Nanashi made his way to the house phone. Older Brother Koma was on the other end. He said they were to meet at The Palace of the Sunfish in an hour. He hung up.
"Screw him," said Amida upon hearing of the summons. He spoke without opening his eyes.
"I need another drink. Nanashi, ask the guy to bring me a beer, okay?" Haru slumped on a couch, a snoring girl in a wrinkled dress flopped across his chest. Haru did not sound as if he needed another beer.
Nanashi wanted to call Yuki, but was afraid to wake her. She worked the nightshift as a cocktail waitress at another club. He imagined her fumbling around the apartment, sluggish with exhaustion, leaving a trail of shoes, hose, her skirt and panties hanging from a chair; he saw her through the frosted glass of the shower, lathering herself, then in bed, damp hair over her cheek as daylight crept through the blinds. She slept naked.
He sighed and herded his associates out of the club, ignoring their clamoring and protestations. Long ago, Nanashi learned to "do as Family say." It was that simple. He’d only argued against the wisdom of his elders once. They made Nanashi chop off his little finger at the second knuckle as a reminder.
One down, one to go
, joked Uncle Kojima. He had kept Nanashi's pinky in a jar of formaldehyde with those of other transgressors. A floating white garden.
And as for Nanashi, the boys hustled him across town to Doctor Yee's office and had him fitted for a nice, snug prosthetic. He tapped his fake pinky against the rim of his glass of tea, dropped it in the pocket of his nightshirt when he slept. Chewed it when he was bored.
Sworn Father Kojima was dead and Nanashi couldn’t bring himself to wax sentimental. Too bad new boss, Uncle Yutaka, was an even bigger prick than the old boss.
* * *
While their fellow gangsters waited around the lobby of The Palace of the Sunfish, Koma took Nanashi and Amida to meet with Uncle Yutaka in the Gold Room. It was evidently a momentous occasion for Koma. He'd been surlier than normal. Sweat poured from him and a blister swelled on his lip; a sure sign of nerves. Everyone must be on their best behavior when Father arrived! Uncle Yutaka was number three in the Heron syndicate. Only the Chairman, their esteemed Father Akima, and his major domo were more powerful and they left everything up to Yutaka these days. Nanashi once heard Koma was afraid Uncle Yutaka didn't like him. From what Nanashi knew of Uncle Yutaka, he figured Koma's fear was reasonable.
Uncle Yutaka was old and fat. He wore amber-tinted shooting glasses and an ice water-blue suit from the 1960s. Heavily influenced by the James Bond movies of that era, he'd bankrolled a series of straight to video Tokyo and Hong Kong spy flicks, had established himself as a poor man's Albert Broccoli. His teeth were made of porcelain and his shaky hands were spackled with liver spots. He'd been to the hospital for three heart operations in the past five years. Haru claimed their uncle's heart was monitored by a pacemaker, but nobody knew for certain.
Uncle Yutaka enjoyed foreign cigarettes. He especially preferred Camels and Pall Malls, Benson & Hedges, and vintage brands like Lucky Strike. Everybody brought him cigarettes when they returned from travels abroad; it had become a minor contest between the brothers of the Heron to see whose exotic smokes Uncle would favor during his weekly audiences at the Palace of the Sunfish. Uncle smoked palm out and vented the exhaust from the sides of his mouth. Yutaka's tinted glasses pointed dead ahead and fooled most of the gang, but Nanashi caught Uncle watching him from the corners of his eyes. Uncle's eyes were yellow and pink and small like the eyes of a Komodo.
Nanashi hadn't been following the conversation, he never did; instead, he'd rolled up his sleeve and stuck his arm into the fish tank, patiently attempting to snag one of the snappers creeping in its depths. The weight of Uncle Yutaka's cold, reptilian appraisal made him nervous and fidgety. He churned the water and the fish scattered.
"No, no, Uncle. He's just a bit…distractible, is all." Koma stood at Uncle Yutaka's shoulder. His head was large and it sat directly on the wide collar of his canary-yellow suit. Uncle Yutaka was seated at his customary table with his cronies Ichiban and Akio, both of whom were old and withered, too shrunken for their antique suits and fedoras. They were sipping scotch and smoking lots of cigarettes. The air around them was blue and foul and made them seem to float. "He's an orphan. Uncle Kojima got him from -- Brother Amida, where did we find Nanashi?
"Kyoto," Amida said. "Drunk behind a garbage can." He casually guarded the entrance to the Gold Room. He was tall and lean and dressed in a sharp red blazer with cool black shades hanging from the breast pocket.
Koma said, "He used to drink a lot. A lot, a lot. He's much better now."
“Nanashi? What the shit kind of name is that?”
“It’s just what everyone calls him,” Koma said.
Nanashi’s photo identification and birth certificate called him something else. However, those papers had been forged by yakuza agents in the government. Nanashi himself had purposefully buried his true name. His memories of childhood and youth prior to the blurred darkness of a years-long drunk were fragmentary and best forgotten.
Uncle Yutaka grunted. Smoke curled from his nostrils. "Kojima recruited him? Why on earth?" he said, as if it had never occurred to him before that moment.
"Who knows?" Koma said. "Uncle Kojima was inscrutable."
"Huh," Uncle Yutaka said. “Koma, I need to speak with you.” That was the hint to clear out, so everyone except for Koma immediately filed from the room.
They stood around smoking and comparing cell phones until Koma rejoined them a few minutes later. He said, "We've been ordered to pick up Muzaki. We'll do it tomorrow at the Fighting Dog."
“THE Muzaki? The wrestler?” Haru’s eyes bulged.
“Don’t get so excited. He’s a has-been.”
“Muzaki belongs to the Dragon. Why are we screwing with him?”
“Because Uncle says so, that’s why.”
“Yeah, but what for?”
“The guns we lost. The truck hijackings in the north. The plunger up that one brother’s ass at the train station last year.”
“The Dragons were behind all that? So, we take their mascot for revenge.”
“Not revenge,” Koma said. “Leverage. The Dragon repays us, or else. I think those assholes value him a great deal.”
“Well, he’s famous,” Amida said, not that it needed saying. “And his nightclubs are excellent. Muzaki is a very respectable businessman. The Americans love him.”
“
He’s
American as far as I’m concerned,” Haru said.
“Fuck them. I don’t care. I’ll pick you up in the morning.”
"Does the Chairman know about this?" Nanashi had his suspicions on that score. The Yokohama bosses weren’t supposed to do anything on this kind of scale the old men in Tokyo didn’t approve first.