“Exaggerations.”
“I’m sure. But I have always considered you an honourable man, sir. I wish that somehow you might have been spared all this.”
“Believe me, I wish that too,” Parry said, with feeling. “I’ve got to look at it objectively, I suppose. Eight wedges in New Venice, and Triple-X picked a hotel in mine for its first atrocity. It was just the luck of the draw.”
“Yes,” said Hosokawa, uncertainly. “You also had the misfortune that I was on hand at the Amadeus. If I hadn’t mentioned shinju to you, perhaps you might have cleared the whole matter up by now.”
“Forget it, Yoshi,” Parry said, although a certain small part of him snatched greedily at the idea that the blame for his woes lay, at least to some extent, with Hosokawa. “You saw what you thought you saw. I believed what I wanted to believe. We were both misled, but the difference is, I’m the one who misled himself. By the way” – he was keen to move on to another subject – “anything happen at HQ today that I should know about?”
“The commissioner called an Ensemble.”
“Probably not before time. What did she say?”
“She told us to be on the alert, ask around, speak to people we know, generally keep an ear open for leads to the Triple-X cell, but be subtle about it. She said that you and Captain van Wyk were jointly in charge of the investigation and that if we got wind of any suspicious behaviour or heard a rumour, we were to report it to either of you, however trivial it might seem. Oh yes, and if another shinju happens, no matter whose wedge it happens in, it’s to be considered under your and van Wyk’s jurisdiction. What else? She told us to stay calm.”
“Do people at HQ look to you like they aren’t calm?”
“I think there’s a lot that’s not being said. You know, everyone putting on a brave face, while underneath...”
Parry nodded. In a way he was glad he had missed the Ensemble. It was an occasion – all the officers in the division congregated in the main hall at HQ, with him, the other seven captains and the commissioner seated before them on a dais – which made him uncomfortable at the best of times, and he could just imagine the looks that would have been fixed on him today had he been there. Disappointed. Pitying. Accusing. A sea of heads in front of him, officers from every district, and he had let them down. All of them.
Dear Commissioner Quesnel... He would get back to his resignation letter as soon as Hosokawa had gone.
“What about you, Yoshi?” he asked. “How do you feel about all this?”
“I feel... I feel that something can still be done to pull us back from the brink.”
“Really? I admire that. A couple of days ago I might even have agreed with you. Now, frankly, I think we should be prepared for the worst.”
“But if it were possible to catch whoever is doing this and somehow demonstrate to the Foreigners that the problem had been cleared up?”
“Didn’t work at Koh Farang, did it? The FPP paraded those cultists around the city, showing them to the few Foreigners that remained and trying to get them to manufold APOLOGY. They just refused. I’m sure it would be the same with the Triple-Xers.”
“But it might be worth a try.”
“Well, maybe. If we can nab the bastards.”
“‘Nab’?”
“Apprehend. Arrest. Catch. Yoshi?”
“Sir?”
“I’m going to read between the lines here, and I may be wrong, but might you have some idea where the Triple-Xers are? Because if you do, why beat around the bush like this? Why not just tell me?”
“It’s not that, sir.” Again, a pained spasm fleetingly contorted Hosokawa’s face. “It’s... I was just wondering. Triple-X. What if it isn’t Triple-X doing this?”
“Who else would it be? The writing on the wall at the Hannon was something of a giveaway, after all.”
“But could the writing not have been a – what’s the phrase? A red herring.”
A deep-vermilion herring, Parry thought. “It might have, I suppose,” he said, “although I think it a little unlikely.”
“Of course, sir. All the same, you acknowledge that it’s a possibility.”
“Triple-X fit the frame, Yoshi. They have the incentive.”
“But Triple-Xers aren’t the only ones with a grudge against Foreigners.”
“Aren’t they? I can’t think of anyone else who’d be prepared to cause Foreign losses simply to make a point.”
“There are some people,” Hosokawa said, hesitantly, “who are of the opinion that Foreigners have changed certain aspects of our culture for the worse.”
“There are,” Parry replied. “There are indeed. But I’m sure even those people realise that a small compromise here or there is nothing when set against the benefits that the Foreigners have brought. If they didn’t realise that, they’d have to be mad.”
“True, sir. You can never discount the possibility that there’s a madman in our midst.”
“Several madmen. Called Triple-Xers.” Parry could not keep a note of impatience from entering his voice. He was tiring of the conversation. Hosokawa, though he could not be faulted for trying to help, was not actually achieving much with this attempt to reassess the case. There was no point in reshuffling the pieces of the jigsaw when the puzzle was already almost completed. “Listen, Yoshi, I appreciate your coming round and everything,” he said, “but if you wouldn’t mind, I’m still not feeling brilliant.”
Hosokawa took the hint.
At the door he said, “I apologise for taking up your time, sir.”
“No problem.”
“You told me the other day that I shouldn’t be afraid to suggest an idea. You’ll give some thought to what I’ve said?”
For what it’s worth, Parry thought, but said breezily, “I will.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Parry closed the door on the young officer and stood for a moment shaking his head. He was touched by Hosokawa’s visit, but felt a little patronised by it, too. The kid had meant well, but he appeared to have forgotten that his captain was an old pro, a man with fifteen years of police experience under his belt and almost as many years again of experience in administering Foreign Policy.
The latter period, of course, about to come to an end.
With a weary grimace, Parry settled back down in front of his home board and lodged his spectacles back on his nose. The screensaver had kicked in – a pair of golden hands drifting lazily around, shifting between manufolds and every so often pausing and standing still for a spot of thumb-twiddling. He hit a key, and up came Dear Commissioner Quesnel.
First line. In the light of recent developments... No. In view of recent developments.
There are some people, Hosokawa had said, who are of the opinion that Foreigners have changed certain aspects of our culture for the worse.
Off the top of his head Parry could think of no one he knew who felt like that.
In view of recent developments, he typed, I have come to the conclusion that I have no alternative but to
Not “alternative”.
no choice but to
Certain aspects of our culture.
Such as?
In the States there hasn’t been a song with lyrics in the Top Ten for the past year.
Guthrie Reich in the library at Anna’s.
The image leapt into Parry’s mind as though it had been crouched like a greyhound in the trap, trigger-tight, waiting to be sprung. Reich’s plectrum earring twirling as he moved his head. Reich losing, for a moment, that easygoing manner of his as he voiced a long-held and deep-felt grievance.
You hear that garbage that’s clogging up the hit parade and people dance to right now.
And then it all came tumbling forth in a great connective rush, and Parry could almost hear doors flying open, bang bang bang, one after another in quick succession, as the logic-surge sluiced through.
We gave away our music, man!
Oh Jesus, was that it? Was that your Triple-X cell r
ight there?
He examined the idea that he had just formulated, inspired by Hosokawa’s remark. He examined the idea as though it were an actual object in space which he could walk around, look under, over, inspect from every angle. He felt its size, its shape, its awkwardnesses, its possibilities.
Then he went to the bedroom to find his uniform jacket.
Then he made a phone call.
Then, tucking his FPP badge into his pocket, he headed out.
36. Concert
AS A TAXI-GONDOLA (costly but expedient) carried him across town towards the OZ Club, the certainty Parry had felt when leaving his apartment began to fade. With every side-slipping judder of the boat in the water, every wave-slapping lurch of its bows as it rode the swell of another vessel’s wake, conviction ebbed and was replaced by doubt. What had seemed, when first thought of, incredibly plausible, now seemed, upon further consideration, not so plausible, just incredible.
Consequently, as the taxi-gondolier guided his craft down the narrow backwater where the OZ Club was located, Parry was tempted to ask the man to turn about and take him back home. But he knew he could not do that. He could see Johansen up ahead, plain-clothed like himself, waiting outside the entrance to the club. That, he realised, was why he had instructed the lieutenant to meet him here rather than at his apartment. Knowing subconsciously that he might have second thoughts on the way over, he had arranged things so that it would be hard for him to back out.
Hard, but by no means out of the question. He could simply tell Johansen the truth. He had changed his mind. Sorry. Just some crazy brainstorm he had had. Best forget about it. Johansen would understand.
The taxi-gondolier throttled down and hove to, easing the boat in alongside the club entrance with practised precision, stilling the last of its forward momentum with a foot braced against the canalside walkway. Parry paid and tipped him, then accepted Johansen’s proffered hand and was pulled – virtually hoisted – ashore.
The club entrance was an open doorway in the side of a hotel. Above the lintel, picked out in a glowing wriggle of neon tubing, was the club’s name, derived from the initials of the surnames of its American co-owners, Messrs Osterburg and Zimmerman. Amplified music could be heard emanating from within, as though from the bottom of a deep-sunk mine-shaft, a dense seismic throb of sound. What instruments were being employed, what tune was being played, it was impossible to make out.
“God aften, boss,” Johansen said. “Headache better?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I have to admit, you’ve got me stumped. What are we doing here?”
On the phone Parry had told Johansen nothing more than to go to the club; he would explain things there. Now, he hesitated. This was his last chance to hit the eject button. Should he take it? Or carry on?
Part of him felt as though he were a shipwrecked mariner, desperate enough to grasp at anything, the least flinder of flotsam, in the hope of staying afloat. Another part of him...
Oh, what the hell. He had come this far.
He told Johansen about Hosokawa’s visit to his apartment, and about the young officer’s seemingly offhand remark. It was possible that Hosokawa had merely been airing a view, with no thought as to its deeper ramifications. Equally, it was possible that the entire purpose of his visit had been to drop the remark into the conversation and see what effect it had on his captain. Hosokawa might have developed a fresh theory about the shinjus which, unsure of its worth, he had wanted Parry to ponder on and, if he saw fit, act upon. Either way, deliberately or inadvertently, Hosokawa had jogged Parry’s brain, setting loose an idea – and that was why he and Johansen were here at the OZ.
“So wait a moment,” Johansen said, working it through in his head. “Musicians? The perpetrators of the shinjus are musicians with a grudge against Foreigners? And they’re trying to pass their crimes off as Triple-X actions?” A slight narrowing of one eye said it all: he was sceptical.
“Not exactly, although that’s what I thought of at first. After all, the Foreigners have made most non-Foreign styles of music, if not obsolete, then at least less relevant. That could be a source of resentment to someone who enjoys and performs traditional human music, especially the kind of music that needs charity funding to survive. But then it occurred to me: what if it’s the other way round? What if it’s Triple-Xers trying to pass themselves off as musicians? And then I realised that the shinjus started shortly after this lot arrived in town.”
And he produced from his back pocket the flyer which Anna had given him at the Da Capo and which had since then been lodged in the inner pocket of his uniform jacket.
Johansen took the flyer, unfolded it, smoothed out the crease, slid out the “single”, perused the label on one side of it, perused the label on the other, returned it to its sleeve, and passed the flyer back to Parry.
“Well,” he said, shrugging, “what’s that phrase your mother always used to use? The one about ‘shy bears’?”
“Shy bairns,” said Parry, mimicking his mother’s soft Yorkshire cadences. “Shy bairns get nowt.”
“That’s the one.” Johansen made an ushering gesture towards the doorway. “So let’s not be shy, then.”
Directed by a painted arrow on the wall that was helpfully inscribed “THIS WAY”, Parry and Johansen followed a dimly-lit corridor that burrowed through the side of the building and terminated at a descending flight of stairs, the edges of which were picked out with embedded strips of tiny lightbulbs. At the foot of the stairs, another corridor angled off to the right, shorter than the upstairs corridor and lower-ceilinged. A second arrow encouraged them to continue. With every step they took, the music grew louder and gained definition, as though it were the solution of a cryptic puzzle, revealing itself in increments, becoming clearer the closer you drew to it. First, drums – a four-on-the-floor backbeat. Then a voice, rasping, intense. Then what lay between, the bulk of the music: crunchy phased guitar and plump, thudding bass.
They arrived at a pair of swing doors, next to which stood a no-necked bouncer in evening wear. Looking bored, the bouncer pointed the two of them towards a booth, where a young woman sat, also looking bored. She took money from them, gave them tickets and pointed them back towards the doors.
“Busy night?” Parry asked the bouncer, raising his voice to be heard above the music.
The bouncer, whose kind were rarely required to exercise their talent for queue-control and troublemaker-pacification in New Venice, gave a rueful roll of the eyes and pushed one of the doors open.
Out came sound.
Echoing, volcanic.
Sound loud enough to be a physical force.
Sound loud enough to distend the corneas and vibrate loose clothing.
Sound you almost had to walk against, like a high wind.
Heads lowered, Parry and Johansen entered the main part of the club.
The OZ was, usually, a well-frequented nightspot where the latest Siren hits were played over relentless, chattering drum-machine patterns, with a disc jockey mixing different kinds of songs together, cross-fading among anything up to a dozen tracks at once, and so creating, in the manner of the Da Capo wind-garden, a shifting musical collage that was sometimes infernally discordant and sometimes celestially melodious. A skilled Siren DJ was intuitively able to draw together the right voices singing the right phrases in complementary keys so as to generate moments of choral harmony. He or she could also, if desired, deliberately generate moments of choral cacophony in order to provide a necessary relief from the sweetness, since sweetness soon becomes cloying unless leavened by a modicum of sour. In this respect the true virtuosos of the craft of Siren DJ-ing were artists in their own right, masters of randomness, and their deftness with a mixing desk was rewarded by the adulation of large crowds of club-goers, who would throng the dancefloor, surrendering to the rhythm and the unfamiliar cadences and concatenations the DJ served up, responding to the changing moods of the music, letting themselves be stirred and jarr
ed, startled and moved, surprised and entranced, while their sweat flew and their bodies gyrated and their hands fluttered and manufolded. It had been known for Foreigners to attend such sessions, passing among the dancers and being accorded a respectful distance, a no-contact zone roughly a metre in radius. They did not, though, visit nightclubs often and, when they did, seldom stayed long. Xenological wisdom had it that the music, for all its attractiveness to the golden giants, was too loud for their tastes, or else engendered in them a sensory overload, evoking too many emotions too rapidly. That certainly might account for the fact that most of them, as they retreated, manufolded APOLOGY and EXCESS.
Because venues like the OZ Club prospered by playing Siren music throughout most of the week, it meant that on slow nights – and nights did not come much slower than a Monday night – they could afford to showcase forms of Euterpean entertainment with a more eclectic appeal. Hence tonight the OZ was playing host to the Trad Music Revue and, from the looks of things, the evening’s takings were going to be well below par. All told, there could not have been more than a dozen paying punters on the premises, not counting Parry and Johansen. They were grouped at the bar, predominantly elderly, predominantly male, leaning with drinks in their hands and gazing across a gulf of empty, unilluminated dancefloor to the stage where, normally, the Siren DJ’s held court and where, now, a four-piece hard-rock band – like its audience, elderly and male – was conjuring up a sonic hurricane.
The stage was not large, so the band were cheek-by-jowl, the bassist nearly sitting on the drummer’s low tom, the guitarist having to angle himself away from the vocalist so as to avoid jabbing him in the ribs with his instrument’s head. Yet within the restricted space they managed to perform dynamically, or at least as dynamically as men of pensionable age are able. The guitarist thrashed and windmilled, the drummer flailed, the vocalist postured and shook his fist as he sang, and only the bassist kept stock-still, observing that unwritten law of bass-playing which forbids any greater expenditure of physical resources than that required for the plucking of plectrum on string. If you watched them carefully, you might notice that the guitarist winced whenever he bent to wring out a power-chord, and you might infer from this that he was being given trouble by a touch of lumbago; you might see the drummer look pained as he tried to twirl his sticks between beats, his fingers not as dextrous as once they were; you might see the redness of the singer’s cheeks and be concerned that he was dangerously overtaxing himself. And you would not have to look closely at all to discern that the four of them, with their outfits – assorted combinations of spandex, leather, silk and stretch denim – and their lank, scanty hair looked, quite frankly, ridiculous, like characters from some ghastly pantomime, the sort of haggard, prancing, tatterdemalion figures that could incur bad dreams in a small child. None the less, in spite of their many physical impediments, you could not deny that they were giving it their all. The song that was exploding out from the speaker stacks behind them – a raucous enumeration of a female sexual partner’s most alluring attributes – was a triumph of effort over circumstances, not to mention imagination over reality. They were putting as much into their music as if there was a stadium filled with ten thousand screaming fans in front of them and not just a near-empty nightclub and a handful of nodding cognoscenti.
The Foreigners Page 36