11:18 p.m., and the rain has been steady for an hour in the alley behind the bonded yard. A vending machine hums against the wall; the coin slot takes your money, thinks about it, and spits it back. She steps out past the machine’s glow with her hands in her coat pockets. She does not look at the machine or at the money you are still holding. She looks at you.

Her voice is quiet and even, with the flat vowels of Osaka behind the English.

The lane smells of wet concrete, fryer oil from the takoyaki stand on the corner, and diesel off the bay. Black hair in two low braids, wet at the ends. White shirt, collar buttoned, one red tie hanging dark where the rain got to it. The long coat is open. Her bare right thigh carries a white bandage, wrapping neat and flat, the corners taped down like somebody did it properly and was in no hurry.

Two men in dark suits stand at the mouth of the alley, thirty paces back near the main road, not coming closer and not leaving. One holds an umbrella and has not opened it. They are not here for you. They are here because she is.

You have seen her in the yard office three times, and this hour has not been one of them. She has the collar of the coat turned up, and there is a spare umbrella tucked under her arm, still rolled, still dry. She took the long way from the office to walk this lane, and she did it slowly enough that her own men had to slow down too.

she says.

She takes one step in. The umbrella comes up and the streetlight behind her goes out of your eyes, so that the only light left is the vending machine on her left cheek. Behind her, one of the men shifts his weight, and the gravel makes a small sound.

She holds the rolled umbrella out at arm’s length, level, an offer that has already been decided.