by Kotaro Isaka
His car seemed impossibly far away, but he scurried along at a half run.
THE INCIDENT
Moving through the parking lot felt like crossing a stage under a spotlight. Ahead and to the right, he noticed a group of kids squatting next to a van— dyed hair, cigarettes, gaudy shirts, neck chains. Some with designer shades. He envied them the freedom to hang out here like this. They made him think of his own days at the cafeteria or a burger joint in the company of the Friends of Fast Food; and one time in particular when they'd been enjoying themselves innocently enough, and a man in a suit appeared out of nowhere and practically yelled at them: "Enjoy it while you can, punks. Life is hard!" As he was trying to remember if they had said anything back, one of the kids by the van looked up and pointed in his direction. The other four stood up, and before he knew it they had surrounded him.
"Look who it is," said one of them.
"The guy on TV," said another. Their hair and clothes were so similar they seemed to blur into a single kid. With them leering at him, he swiveled around, unsure what to do. They weren't particularly tough-looking, but it didn't seem likely that his judo move would work against all five at once. Nor did he want to attract attention by getting into a fight.
"Would you mind getting out of the way?" he said. He knew they wouldn't do it—what self-respecting juvenile delinquent would get out of the way just because you asked him nicely?—but still it couldn't hurt to ask.
And, in fact, it didn't hurt. T he bleach-blond kid in front stepped aside. "Sorry, guess you're in a hurry," he said. Aoyagi stared at him in shock.
"Must be a shitload of co[)S looking for you," said another. "Keep the faith. Pops."
"We just wanted to say 'Hi.'"
"Don't suppose you have time for a j)icture?"
For a moment, he wasn't sure what he was liearing. T hen the boy in front stuck out his hand, "(jood luck," he said. Aoyagi started to reach out to shake it but stopped, afraid they would grab him and pin him down. "Ciootl luck. Pops," the kid said again. "Anyway, you didn't do it, right?" Aoyagi was speechless.
"We know exactly how you feel, man. They're always trying to pin stiill on us that we didn't do."
"N(Jthing sucks like being framed for somebody else's gig."
"We're like America, man. Anytime bad shit happens, we get bknned."
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Then, like dancers in a chorus line, they made two neat rows and waved him through. He shuffled past them, heading for his car. Maybe there was something he should have said to them, but nothing came to mind.
It was probably just a coincidence, but all the other cars in this section of the parking lot had left, and the dirty yellow one stuck out like a sore thumb. As he was reaching into his backpack for the key, though, the cell phone began to vibrate. A number he didn't recognize flashed on the display.
"You okay?" he heard Miura say.
"More or less." He looked around, but the bovs had vanished.
"It took a bit of doing, but 1 found out," Miura told him.
"Found out what?"
"Where they've got your double parked."
Haruko Higuchi
Though she was back home, Haruko found it impossible to relax. Nearly every channel on the TV was running a special on the assassination.
"Mommy, are you in trouble?" Nanami asked as they watched one of them.
"No, not at all," she said. "But my friend is."
"Mr. Aoyagi? They'll never catch him!" The footage seemeci to be from a surveillance camera, and the man in the picture did look a lot like Aoyagi.
Witnesses were coming forward one after another, but their accounts contradicted each other in obvious ways. Still, the networks passed along this contradictory information without comment or, apparently, verification, perhaps comforting themselves with the thought that it was Aoyagi's fault as well for causing so much confusion. The announcer summed up the situation: "The police have obtained visual and voice data from the Security Pods around the city and are analyzing this information as we speak." The pods again, thought Haruko as she lowered herself onto the couch. She knew they were monitoring her phone and relaying the information to the police. And the knowledge made her sympathy for Aoyagi all the stronger as they stalked him with all this equipment of theirs.
THE INCIDENT
She suddenly remembered something Morita had once said. "The fat cats sit around with their legs crossed, sipping their tea, looking down on us like we're some kind of sideshow. Makes vou kind of mad, doesn't it?" The thread of her memory unraveled from the words to the scene. It must have been while they were cleaning the city pool, a job Kazu had found for the four of them. Though it would have been early in the summer, she remembered they were barefoot as they scrubbed the pool with deck brushes. Morita, who avoided hard work whenever he could, had started grumbling right away about how big the pool was, how he liked his pools a little grubby anyway. Then abruptly he had looked up at the security camera on a pole above the pool and said his line.
"1 doubt the fat cats are wasting their time watching us scrub this pool," Aoyagi had pointed out. "And 1 doubt it's tea they're sipping."
"Don't you doubt it," Morita told him. "People like us, the little people, we're just playthings to them. We act out our lousy little parts, do our jobs, make love, live our lives, put up with all sorts of shit—and they sit behind those cameras and sneer at us."
She had laughed at his ranting that day along with the rest of them, but one thing he said had stayed with her: "When the shit hits the fan, when the big boys come for you, the only thing us little people can do is run; find someplace they'll never think of and hunker down."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Aoyagi had asked.
"What would you do if you were floating around in the sea and a whale attacked you?" .Morita said.
"Do whales attack peoj)le?"
"Probably. Hverything out there hates us human beings, so a whale would probably want to beat the shit out of you if it found you floating around. But what would you do? Would you tight it? Not likely! Would you want to go a few rounds with a sperm whale? It would eat you for sui)per, like Pinocchio."
"You, too."
"Which is why the only smart thing to do is run away. Swim away. Ciet away any way you can. T here are no |)oints for style—just swim like hell."
"And it might still catch you. . . ."
liaruko glanced down at Nanami, who had tome to sit with her on the couch. 1 ler eyes closetl slowly anti then |)()pped open, t losed anil then opent'd, as though she was playing tug-of-war with slet*p. I he stcne at the pool came
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to an end in Haruko's head, but the trail of memories led to another moment in the past.
T hey had been gathered at a fast-food restaurant as usual. Kazu showed up late, with his junior-college girlfriend in tow. She turned out to be a cheerful girl who warmed to the group in no time. The conversation had been typical—a ramble through a collective brainstorm—but this time Morita had taken to punctuating it with an occasional loud "Kaboom!" Each time they had looked at him with uncomprehending stares, until he finally explained—inexplicably: "I just thought some ideas needed sound effects." As they moved on from topic to topic, he kept up the odd interjection when someone made a point. "True? False? Which is it?" They asked him again what he was up to. "It's the new fashion," he said. "Full frontal reaction!"
Aoyagi had tried to calm him down, but it had only escalated until he seemed to be having minor fits—which were completely inexplicable until Kazu's girlfriend left for the restroom. As soon as she was gone, Morita turned to Kazu. "Did that do it?" he asked.
"I'm not sure," Kazu said, his harid under the table.
"What are you doing?" Aoyagi said.
"Kazu said he wanted to check the calls on his girlfriend's phone, so we were supposed to distract her while he got his hand in her bag."
"That's so shitty!" FTaruko sputtered. Kazu looked up and blushed.
/> "Not at all," said Morita. "If she's running around on him, that would be shitty."
"Well is she?"
"That's what we're trying to find out."
"It's still shitty," Fiaruko said. "And what was all that stupid shouting about?"
"You really want to know?"
"On second thought, not really."
"Animals are hardwired to react to sudden, loud noises. They have to look, to find out whether the noise means danger."
"Not if there are so many loud noises they get used to them."
"Oh. Maybe you're right," said Morita. "But it worked. Kazu got the phone while she was distracted."
"Or because she had to go to the bathroom, more likely," said Aoyagi.
"I still say it's shitty to snoop around in somebody's phone," said Haruko.
THE INCIDENT
In the end, Kazu couldn't handle the guilt, and when she got hack, he told her he'd tried to check up on her phone. Naturally, she was furious, and Aoyagi and Haruko did what they could to cool her down. Meanwhile, Morita, suddenly on the side of the righteous, had begun to give Kazu hell. "That's the shit-tiest thing I've ever seen. Don't think you're going to wriggle out of this one."
Haruko smiled at the memory, but it made her wonder again whether it was true about Morita and the second bomb. Was he alive or dead? She wanted to call the TV station or a hospital to find out, but at the same time she was afraid of what she might be told. Her misgivings prevailed. I don't want to think about it, she thought.
.A few minutes later, she picked up her phone.
"Hi," said Akira Hirano's cheerful voice. "What's up?"
"Can you talk?" Haruko asked.
"Of course, Tm at work but it's fine," she said, then corrected herself. "I'm at work so it's fine." She made no attempt to lower her voice. "Oh, 1 made the copy," she told someone, and Haruko could hear the sound of rustling papers. It brought back her own days at the office, and Akira's brusque manner, which hadn't changed in the least. "So what's up?" she said, back with Haruko. "An emergency? Lunch?"
"Boyfriend," said Haruko, the word sounding more provocative than she'd intended.
"But you're married, dear," Akira laughed. "You want me to find you a little action on the side?"
"Not mine, yours. 1 want to meet Lord 'Taira no Masakado." She spoke quickly, intent on keeping the call under thirty seconds.
"Masakado? What do you want with him all of a sudden?"
"Hold on. I'll call you right back," Haruko told her, and hung up. She waited a moment, then hit "redial."
"What's this all about?" Akira said almost before the |)hone rang.
"(j)uld you introduce us? 1 know it's kind of out ot the blue, but 1 neetl to ask him a favor."
"No, it's tine," said Akira. "Why don't we have lunch or something this weekend? '1 hat might work better with your little girl."
"1 meant right away," Haruko said. It wasn't like lu*r to be so blunt, but
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this was no time for niceties. Keeping one eye on the clock on the sideboard, she proposed meeting at the coffee shop near Akira's office.
"Maybe I forgot to mention it," Akira laughed, "but I'm at work."
"It's about the guy on TV. The one the police are chasing."
"The cute deliveryman?"
"I used to go out with him."
"You're joking! . . . Aren't you?"
"1 need to ask Masakado something." The second hand was just coming around to thirty seconds. She heard Akira yelling, away from the phone: "I'm taking some time off!"
Masaharu Aoyagi
"You found him?" Aoyagi said, sitting in the car with the phone to his ear. He had never really believed in the existence of a double, let alone Miura's ability to locate him.
"Why would I lie about something like that?" Miura said. It occurred to Aoyagi that the question of where was just the beginning; it would now be necessary to think about what could be done with this information. "Frankly, I was stumped about how to go about it." Miura had a habit of putting a dramatic spin on his activities. "Then I remembered that your double must be the product of plastic surgery, so the easiest way to find him would be to talk to the guy who'd done the deed."
"The same one who did your surgery?"
He ignored the question. "Luckily, 1 knew the good doctor's number, and when I called, he was able to tell me what I wanted to know. Turns out that they have your unfortunate look-alike stashed away in a ward at the Sendai Hospital Center."
"But why would the doctor tell you something like that?" Just then, a car began backing into the parking space directly to his right. With so few cars in the lot, why would someone be parking next to him? He slouched further down in the seat but craned his neck up to look out the window. A young
THE INCIDENT
woman was driving the car, checking her mirrors obsessively as tliough inexperienced behind the wheel—or was she just pretending when she was actually another piece of the great plot to capture him?
"A doctor who makes his living changing people's identities doesn't set up shop in one of the big hospitals. He isn't some glamour plastic surgeon. He works in the shadows, out of sight of the police and the media—meaning, he's on our side."
"I'm not sure 1 like being on the same side you're on," said Aoyagi, noting that the car had stopped next to him. The woman got out.
"That's cold," said Miura.
"But he said he operated on my double?"
"Not exactly. This thing they've got going is huge, not the work of some small-time crook."
Aoyagi pictured himself dodging the footsteps of a giant. "No surprise there," he said. "Like the Kennedv assassination."
"And the people behind it are powerful, and arrogant. So my friend the doctor refused the project. He didn't want to get involved in some big drama. Still, it's a small field, and they asked someone he knew who did accept."
"Who asked? The police? The government?"
"1 doubt they exchanged business cards, but it had to be something like that, by a process of elimination. At any rate, my friend tells me that his friend said the double is in a room at the Hospital Center."
"Was he hurt?" He knew it was odd, but he somehow felt j:)rotective of this other self.
"He's {)robably just waiting in the wings for his cue. A hospital room is the {)erfect place since they can supervise who gets in and out; bed and board and no prying eyes. Not a bad hideout. Hey! You might try that yourself!"
"1 d(mbt the h(.)spital would agree," said Aoyagi.
"Still, there might be a way."
"1 d(jn't see Ikjw."
"What it you could substitute yourselt tor this double? That's the beauty ot it—no one could tell you apart!"
Aoyagi imagined himselt replacing the man in the dop|)elgangei ward. 1 low long could you lie there, pretending to be someone who looTi'd like you but wasn't? You'd be trapped, even it relatively sale. But the Linlasy came
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apart in his head almost immediately. "What would happen to this other guy?" he said. "I don't think he'd be willing to start running in my place."
"That could be a bit of a problem," Miura admitted, as though this was the punchline of a joke he'd been telling all along. "Still, 1 think you should meet me at the hospital. If you can get to the parking lot in back, I can get you inside."
"Won't they have a few guards around the place if they're hiding a key player in there?"
"It's good to see your brain's still working," he said.
"I don't know for how much longer, though."
"But I'm happy to report that I'm calling from the Hospital Center itself, and the security is not all that tight. I'm sure they never thought you would find out where the double was being kept—they underestimated you." Though he would never have made the discovery if he hadn't met Miura. "So just pull into the parking lot like any other prospective patient and we should be able to get you inside. Trust me on this."
"Do I have a ch
oice?"
"Do you know what man's greatest strength is?" And this time Aoyagi did know—Morita had told him, clearly if painfully: trust and habit. "Resolve," said Miura, naturally giving his own answer. "Call me when you get here. Do you know the way?"
"Do you know who you're talking to?" Aoyagi said.
"The man who assassinated the prime minister?"
"A former delivery driver," he said. After they'd hung up, he got out. His door nearly hit the blue car in the next space, and he had to turn sideways to get past as he headed back toward the mall. He looked around, wondering whether the kids could still be there—or even whether he'd imagined them in the first place, odd as the encounter had been.
"Hey, Pops. You think it's smart hanging around here? Shouldn't you get going?" There they were, all five, still squatting next to the van.
"You're right," Aoyagi said, nodding. "But could 1 ask you a favor first?"
The boys looked skeptical for a moment, but then curiosity apparently got the better of them. "Sure, what?" said one of them.
"Could I switch clothes with one of you?" He didn't think a disguise would be of much use in helping him sneak into the hospital, but he felt he should
THE INCIDENT
do what he could to improve his chances. The boys burst out laughing. He had expected them to get the wrong idea, to take offense, but they seemed to understand right away.
''You mean it?" another kid asked. "Sure, why not." Then all five began undressing.
"There's only one of me," Aoyagi said, laughing now, too.
One of them passed him an expensive-looking padded jacket. "No, take it," he said when Aoyagi tried to refuse. He put it on reluctantly, but when he felt how warm it was he was grateful for the change.
"You sure?" he asked.
"No problem," said the boy, while the others stuffed some cookies, a CD, and a watch in his backpack. "And Til wear yours," he said, pulling on Aoyagi's jacket. Someone laughed and said it could become a collector's item.