and three—a total of twenty, which was a losing number in Japanese gaming. The losers: that was what the Japanese underworld, with ironic humility, had chosen to call itself. In earlier centuries the Yakuza were carnival operators, gamblers, fast-moving purveyors of questionable wares. They also took it upon themselves to be a kind of private militia, protecting a defenseless citi¬zenry from the predations of aristocratic warlords. They were, in their own minds at least, Robin Hoods who cham¬pioned the common man, while also, not incidentally, ca¬tering to his penchant for entertainment, excitement, and sin.
These days the Yakuza considered themselves the last heirs of the samurai, but they still supplied escapism, be it in the form of nightclubs, gambling, or amphetamines. And in so doing they had grown fabulously rich. Jiro Sato's job in London was to reinvest and clean a portion of that wealth.
Nippon Shipbuilding was headquartered in an eight- story building in the new Docklands redevelopment, yet another expensive architectural nonentity in that multi-billion-dollar new city on the banks of the Thames downriver from the financial district. It was, in many ways, the per¬fect location for a Yakuza beachhead. Unlike the older parts of London, Docklands was ready-made for the par¬venu, since everything there was new and anonymous, yet it stood only minutes away from the City—the best of both worlds. The London operation was going well, and with the recent construction of their new Docklands financial complex, at a cost of fifty million pounds sterling, matters were on a solid footing.
Jiro Sato's relations with Kenji Nogami had, until today, been