Free Enzan: The Far Mountain by John Donohue Page A

family. Was it simple foolishness? Was I rationalizing by alleging I was trying to protect Yamashita? Before she left me, my old girlfriend Sarah Klein said there was a part of me that craved violence, and, no matter how hard I protested, I unconsciously put myself in dangerous situations. To prove something. Why I felt the need to do this and to whom I was proving it were probably questions for a good shrink, Sarah felt.
    I wonder sometimes whether she was right. I’d been laboring for years at my art and it had gradually displaced almost everything else in my life. I like to think it has been worth it: it’s brought me new skills and new insights about myself. But if it has made my vision clearer, what I see has not always been what I expected. And the discipline is relentless, the training never ending. I slog along, and on good days I am sure I can glimpse something wonderful in the distance. On bad days, I wonder about myself. I remember my brother Mickey’s dismissive comment: “You’re a grown man who spends his time dancing around in pajamas for Chrissake!”
    I wondered whether I had drunk too much of the martial arts Kool-Aid. Who was I to think I could help someone like Chie Miyazaki? I’m a specialist in exotic etiquette and archaic weapons. The Miyazaki family seemed to me to have a number of needs, but I don’t think martial arts training was one of them.
    But I had said I’d help them. In the end, it was as simple as that. Motivation is a murky thing. I’ve come to prefer the clarity of action. I finished my coffee. Outside my windows, the world shrugged off darkness. I decided I would too.

    He came for me later that morning. “I am Alejandro. From Don Osorio.” Alejandro wore a grey overcoat and a silk scarf. His shoes were shined and his hair was recently cut. He was thin, and his ears stuck out, making him appear almost boyish. But he moved with an efficient self-confidence that hinted at a life of experience. You had to wonder about that, but I couldn’t dwell on it. I had asked for help and didn’t get to choose the form it would take.
    I’m not a trained investigator, but I know the basics. You start at the beginning. You check the scene. You go over the backgrounds of suspects. Some of the information had already been provided to me. But not enough. I had, for instance, asked Ito whether I could see Chie’s apartment. But he had been dismissive. It was not necessary, he explained, since members of his staff had already done so and found little that was helpful. Or unexpected. No concrete clues about her whereabouts. Just the detritus of a messy life. Perhaps, I speculated, an extensive lingerie collection.
    Maybe Ito’s refusal to let me see the apartment was part of the Miyazaki doing some damage control on public awareness of their wild child. But I didn’t get it. I had already been let in on their little secret. Life is filled with rocks, however, and I’ve learned some can be moved, while some are simply things to flow around. I was beginning to feel the Miyazaki were trying to steer me. I didn’t know why. But I’ve made wandering off in unexpected directions a life’s work. No reason to change now. Flow .
    Alejandro and I drove from the dojo in Red Hook, across the bridge into Manhattan. “This man, Lim,” he began. “He’s got a number of places he stays, which is not surprising. It’s always wise to have several places to crash or hide out.” Alejandro sounded like someone speaking from personal experience. “But he keeps one place, an apartment, just for himself. He never takes his crew there. He never even brings his girlfriend there. I think this is really interesting.” Alejandro turned his head to look at me, his brown eyes liquid. “I had the opportunity to ask some of his associates about this. Many claimed not to know the apartment existed.”
    “How did you find it, then?”
    A hint of a smile. “I am a persistent questioner, Dr. Burke. It is why Don