Legacies

5.

Yoshio Takita could not locate Sam Baker, so he chose Thomas Clayton as his surveillance subject for the day. He consumed a bag of Krispy Kreme donuts as he sat outside Clayton's apartment building on Eighth Avenue. They were all delightfully heavy, but the blueberry glazed were the best.

He was about to give up and call it a day when he spotted Clayton stepping from his building. He walked east. He seemed to be in no hurry.

Yoshio followed him to the West Twenties where he saw him enter a club called Prancers—"All Live! All Nude! All Day!"

Yoshio sighed. He knew this routine.

He spotted the sign for a dojo spread across a set of second-floor windows down the block. To kill some time, he climbed the steps and peeked in. After only a few minutes of watching the lazy, overweight instructor, Yoshio left in a fury. If this was a representative example of the way the martial arts were being taught in America, then… then…

Then they needed someone who really knew what he was doing. Someone like…

Me. Yoshio grinned at the thought. My students would be the best in the country. My dojo would kick the rice out of every other dojo.

And I would have all this delicious food at my fingertips, every day, for the rest of my life.

It was a thought worth pondering…