‘Four beers’, he says, holding up one finger. The waitress looks bemused, and asks him if he wanted one beer. ‘No, stupid woman’, he says, ‘four beers. Are you blind? Count them. One. Two. Three. Four’. Winking at me, he counts off each non-existent finger of his left hand. Only then does the truth penetrate: he only has one full finger on his left hand, the others have been severed at the last joint. Blanching noticeably the waitress murmurs her apologies and rushes to the refrigerator where she gets the beers. Bringing them back, she says that they are ‘on the house’. All four of us wait silently until she has left, then Chikara bursts into raucous laughter. ‘It works every time’, he informs us.

Chikara and I are sitting in a dimly lit bar in Tagawa City where we have come to discuss the political direction of a small Kawasaki municipality. Chikara, the headman of the village, is concerned that the new government policy to restrict welfare payments is having a detrimental effect on the old people in the village.

A member of the yakuza for more than 25 years, Chikara gives the impression of a coiled spring about to release. Everything he says and does is committed and powerful. His energy seems boundless, although it is probably related to the copious quantities of amphetamines he pumped straight into his system over 15 years. As a junior member, or chimpira, of the yakuza, he often disobeyed orders and, following the rules of the organisation, he was required to sever a joint of a finger for each infraction. On both hands altogether he has five full fingers left, including the thumbs.