Excerpt from December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I'm virtually respectable."

Willie returned to the picture in the newspaper. "Can Ishigami find you?"

"You did," Harry said. He didn't want to look at the picture, as if the image might sense his attention and look up from the page.

"If we'd thought a bit, of the end of it..." Michiko whispered with the song. Sometimes she seemed to know every nuance of the lyrics, Harry thought, sometimes she might have been repeating nonsense. He couldn't tell anymore.

"So, really and truly, Harry, is it going up?" DeGeorge asked.

"What?"

"The big balloon. War. Everyone's reading about last-minute negotiations in Washington. What do I tell the readers of The Christian Science Monitor and Reader's Digest and The Saturday Evening Post while they drink their warm Postum and listen to Amos 'n Andy and Fibber McGee, what do I tell Mr. and Mrs. America about the glorious Japanese Empire?"

"Tell them that the Japanese have only the purest of intentions. As exemplified by their actions in China, right, Willie?"

Willie kept his mouth shut.

"Weren't you in China?" DeGeorge asked Harry.

"Not for long."

"What are you going to do?" Willie asked Harry.

"I don't know. No good deed goes unpunished, right?"

"You must leave Japan."

"How? Americans can't even leave town. Maybe Ishigami just wants to say hello." Harry tried to hoist a smile for Willie's sake. "Maybe this whole war scare will just blow over."

"You think so?" asked Willie.

Not a chance, Harry thought. He had performed one decent act in his life, and something so out of character was bound to catch up. Michiko followed Artie Shaw with Benny Goodman, clarinets for the ages. Goodman was the complete musician: he could cover registers high and low. In comparison, Shaw was all flash, living at the higher register, poised for a crash. Harry figured he was more like Shaw. When he looked at the picture of Ishigami, he was back in Nanking all over again. Ten Chinese prisoners knelt in the light of torches, hands tied behind their backs. A corporal ladled water from a bucket over Ishigami's sword. Ishigami took a practice swing and left a shining fan of water in the air.

Kimi shook Harry's shoulder to get his attention. "There's a soldier at the door."

The blood left Harry's face as he rose from his chair, expecting the worst, but it was only a sergeant with a gun, shouting, "Come out, Lord Kira, wherever you are!"

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