Ransom Read Online Free Page A

dirty.” The gaijin up front hooted and clapped, while the Japanese looked on politely. Kano counted out the beat—“Ichi, ni, san, shi”—and they started into “Got My Mojo Workin’.”
    Kano had once asked Ransom how he would define
Mojo
, leaving Ransom very much at a loss. When Kano had tried to enlist the guidance of the only black patron of Buffalo Rome, an aikido student from Oakland, he had been told that the blues were strictly Uncle Tom and very uncool. He was shaken, but he kept the faith.
    Ransom observed the crowd and half listened to the set. Miles and Marilyn fondled each other’s limbs. Ransom couldn’t help but feel sorry for Miles’s wife, Akiko. On the only occasion when Miles had felt obliged to explain his womanizing, he invoked the when-in-Rome theory, claiming that Japanese women expected no more fidelity than Japanese men delivered. Ransom thought this extremely swinish. He was also suspicious of this Marilyn. He had no reason to doubt she was a Vietnamese refugee, nor that she was a singer in a downtown bar. But he wondered if she didn’t do a little after-hours work as well.
    When the set was over, Ryder seemed wistful. “If only I could find a Japanese band that played Hank Williams.”
    â€œYou’ve got everything he ever recorded on the jukebox,” Ransom said.
    â€œI know. But I’d love to hear that high, lonesome twang in Japanese.”
    Miles was taking another call in the office, and Marilyn was in the Ladies’, when Frank DeVito returned with an empty glass.
    â€œRansom, you scumbag. I thought it was you. Old handsome Ransom.”
    Ransom glanced briefly at his fellow American, tonsured in the fashion of a sixteenth-century samurai, the front and sides of his scalp shaved, a long lock of hair doubled over and tied along the ridge of his skull. “Hello, Frank.”
    DeVito pulled a long face. “
Hello, Frank
. What kind of greeting is that?”
    â€œSufficient, I’d call it.”
    â€œI’d call it unfriendly. What’s with the chill here? Fellow karate-ka ought to get along. Are you still hanging out at that wimpy dojo?”
    Ransom looked into DeVito’s dark eyes but he didn’t say anything.
    â€œWhat do you call that brand of dancing they teach you there? Go-go?”
    â€œGoju.”
    â€œTofu?”
    â€œIt’s called Goju,” Ransom said. “Hard-soft.”
    â€œHard-soft? What’s that? Soft guys with hard-ons, or what?”
    â€œThe principle works many ways. Like, you apply a hard weapon—say, fist—to a soft area—say, belly.”
    â€œThink you’re pretty good, don’t you?”
    â€œI’m just a student,” Ransom said.
    â€œDon’t hand me that humility shit. Show me your stuff.”
    â€œI’ve got nothing to show,” Ransom said.
    DeVito called for a beer. Miles came up behind the bar, watching DeVito intently, and set a bottle on the counter. DeVito lifted his beer and drank off half of it.
    Marilyn returned, nodded at the seat beside Ransom and looked at DeVito. “Do you mind?”
    â€œYeah,” DeVito said, still facing Ransom. “You can just wait a minute. There aren’t five men in Japan fast enough to knock the neck off of a standing beer bottle.”
    â€œThere aren’t two,” Ransom said, “who could care less.”
    â€œYou think you can do it?” DeVito asked.
    Ransom raised his hands and flopped them down on the bar. DeVito was the sort who made a personal contest out of a coin toss, invested a game of checkers with the aspect of an epic struggle for survival. A few weeks back he had taken bets and broken one of the spool tables in half. Miles threatened to call the cops, but DeVito had contemptuously turned over his winnings to pay for the table. Because he would stake everything on nothing, DeVito would have been dangerous even if he was