Wow. What an intriguing work! It is all very mysterious, which I assume is the tone you're going for. Parts of it, however, are a bit too mysterious (if that makes sense). In particular, the last page. While reading, I got confused between who was speaking and to whom. One thing that I think will help is if you broke this down into paragraphs. It makes it much easier to read through.

You have some really great images throughout this first chapter. Here are some of my favorites:

"obnoxiously dressed in a kimono as though trying to fit in."

and

"Quakes of noise threaten to vibrate my very bones."

I also really liked the line:

"Fuck that; a rock star can't do what I do"

But I would consider a bit of revision for it. I really like the contrast between a rock star and your main character. I think it really aids in building the mystery around him. I think it could be much more powerful if you cut out the "Fuck that" and added something a bit more subtle like, "I smile to myself, knowing a rock star could never do what I do." It keeps the character's personality in check and makes him seem more subdued which adds to his subtlety and mystery (in my opinion).

I also really liked the bit where he explains his job with the simple line,

"I just tell the truth. Professionally."

I thought that was great! I would suggest maybe making it one sentence by taking out the period and making it a comma or an ellipses. In fact there are many places in your story were you have incomplete sentences that I think need attention. There are several examples at the very beginning the the story such as:

"Some bar in Tokyo, mid-afternoon. Styled to look like their conception of an English Pub."

These are both incomplete sentences which is a rocky way to start out a story. I think incomplete sentences can be used (sparingly) for stylistic purposes, but this pieces is a bit inundated with them. On a similar note, watch out for short phrases tacked onto the beginning or end of sentences. For example:

"...and know it's her, right away, intuitive guess. Inward groan; younger than me by a margin"

In this example both "intuitive guess" and "inward groan" don't serve the sentences they are in. I really like these phrases and I think they deserve to be kept in your story, but perhaps just a little re-arranging needs to be done to get them into complete sentences so it doesn't take anything away from your story.

All in all, I think this is a great story so far. I particularly liked the joke about him not remembering the bartenders' name at the beginning, and also the cultural reversal in the interaction between the main character and Hokiro. Keep up the great work!

 As the other critic wrote, wow. This is one fine piece, if I may say. I can see this being a movie, a Quentin Terrantino (however his name is spelled). It's definitely a comic-like story in my eyes. I normally hate this type of sentence structure, but this time it fits with the overall atmosphere of the plot.

The drug scene. I've never done the drug; but I have seen "Garden State," where Zach Braff takes X and, for a few moments is completely still while everyone around him moves in fast-forward. Then everyone moves in slow motion and so on and so forth.

To top off the explicit descriptions of the way the drug affected the character, your sentence structure was precisely parallel, especially during the club scene.

You have two plots going in the first chapter, which I like and can't seem to figure out for myself, perhaps because of my lack of creativity for too much booze. (But Poe was an alcoholic, right? Who am I kidding? I'll never measure up to that guy, not in a billion years)

I am anxious to read the next chapter. Post quickly, por favor.

Jackie Dean,

A few notes that I hope will help you.

This feels like the setup for a futuristic Dashiell Hammett noir, or a Blade Runner. Although I sense that you've got a very vivid scene, setting and character in mind-- which in my opinion is half the battle-- I don't get a very clear sense of story. Part of my inability to see the story could be the lack of paragraph breaks. The prose itself is written in 1st POV in present tense, which is a stylistic choice but I suspect lends to my inability to see the forward progress of the action. In short, while I can hear him telling me what he's seeing and doing, I can't see or feel the character experiencing it.

Some bar in Tokyo, mid-afternoon. Styled to look like their conception of an English Pub.

Confused in the doorway, blinking at the mid-level darkness of the interior, finding me by cultural instinct and sitting down without preamble. More annoying. Despite this intrusive presumption, she waits for me to break the silence.

This is stage direction, as you'd find in a screenplay. Feels strange for the fiction I'm used to reading.

She reads it carefully, scrutinizing details. "Do you have a name?" "Don't be a fucking idiot," I say. "I mean... what should I call you?" My reputation has clearly preceded me because no amount of sadistic animosity is fazing her, so I decide to drop it and conduct business on a business level. "You don't have to call me anything."

Although I can estimate the secretive nature of his job, I felt this line was too brusque. He's so remote for the first part of the story, we don't really know who he is... and we meet him at the same time as Amara... and when we hear this, it's almost like he's saying it to us, the reader. Well, I'm more likely to put down a book and stop reading if I feel like the character is so defensive as to call me a f-ing idiot when I first meet him.

Just a guess, but I think you'd rather the reader feel like Amara is the idiot for asking. If that's the case, the reader must identify with the specialist, like the way a movie viewer identified with Don Corleone in the opening scene of The Godfather rather than with the sniveling Bonasera who's asking him to take vengeance on his daughter's assailants.

"Well, are you going to help me?" My nerves tested. "That depends if you're going to pay me."

I'd find him more professional and believable if he were less defensive. Right now he sounds like a seventeen year old kid who just started dealing drugs but has no confidence and is jumpy with every client.

We will become," my teeth expose their sharkness, "friends. It may take a few days. At most. Maybe that one night will be enough. Do you understand?" Her nod as thunder, reflexive and unconcious. "Yes. All right."

Since I don't know what he does, nor do I really like him very much thus far, I'm starting to lose interest in his mission. I also can't picture him in my mind. How old is he? What is he wearing? Does he have facial hair? What images can you lend to help us understand what type of guy he is?

Along with the words, I use the universal homemade sign-language. She looks a little shocked, not much. Chews her lip and looks down, back up. A fast nod and smile. "Hai. Three hours. We dance?" "Sure. Dance." I point to myself. "Kurt." Not my real name, of course. The best one I could think of. Her smile this time without the bartender, her own smile, tricky and playful. "Mimi. And my English not as bad as you think, gaijin." We share a moment. "OK then. Three hours." She leans over the bar, to whisper. "Get some Ecstasy, OK?" "Sure." "But wait to do. Wait for me." All I do is wait. For her, I won't even mind. "Hai." And turning, walking out, slightly abruptly, always keep everyone guessing, always keep them distant.

For me, this interaction felt awkwardly staged. I couldn't picture a strong, controlled man having this interaction with this floozie. I felt like this was an awkward young man pretending to be confident.

This whole time, Teenage Girl has been standing there, apparently not understanding our English, in her tight dark-blue tanktop, silver skirt not only impossibly short but also slit up the side, visible thong strings, fishnets, and, bizarrely enough, faded red Converse.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm desiring for this to move in the direction of cyper-punk land. I've been to Tokyo and if the story is trying to use the setting of contemporary Tokyo, despite all of its technology, glitz, and neon, the story hasn't quite sold me that it's a seedy underworld-type setting. Contemporary Tokyo is more like Lost in Translation. But I don't imagine this work to be Lost in Translation. Yet unless this capture the realism of a foreigner in Tokyo, I automatically begin picturing it at least ten or twenty years into the future... and if you want it to be in the future, I feel it needs to have more specific futuristic traits.

"You're so fucking idealistic. You think the world would be able to work if people walked around actually saying what they really thought about each other, what they really feared, hoped for, dreamed of?" Staring at the belt of Orion, which I liked to think of as the wand of a magician, like on a Tarot card. "Yes. I do think that."

At this point, I still didn't know what was going on. I didn't like the character any more, and I didn't understand what his job entailed. There was a moment where someone asked him "Who are you, really?" He says, "The Specialist." "What do you do?" the other person asks. He doesn't respond. Now, if this were a person in real life and he didn't respond, I would be over it. If it were a movie, however, I'd have no choice but to keep watching... especially if the film was able to capture me with the mood and ambiance, the technology of its sets, costumes, etc. But as a book-- I'm tempted to just put it down.

I hope I don't sound discouraging. I just want your readers to be willing to turn the page to Chapter 2 and discover what this "Specialist" is all about. But since it's written from his perspective, and he has the attitude that it's nobody's business but his own, and to just trust him, we feel like the clients and the other characters who don't understand this person. While this can be a device to cultivate a sense of mystery, we're just getting told "f-off" so many times that we're like, okay, fine, I won't ask. At that point, you risk losing your reader.

Hope this helps. Again, not trying to change your style or narrative voice. Just some ideas of what may keep readers from engaging the story.

Good luck!