Last Stop Tokyo

by James Buckler

  A dog padded out from the shadows behind the tall apartment block and watched warily as it circled him. It looked hungry, the honey-coloured fur along its spine bristling as it came closer. Alex reached out a hand, palm up to show he was friendly, and the dog sniffed it curiously and tilted its head. The world’s a mystery to you, isn’t it? he thought. You and me both. The dog edged closer but something caught its eye over Alex’s shoulder and it took fright, running off into the safety of a side alley.

  Without warning, a voice called out behind him in a high, angry tone. For a moment, Alex froze. He realized how exposed and alone he was. How vulnerable. He turned to look back with a fearful expectation of who he might find.

  ‘I knew you would run away again, gaijin!’ the voice shouted.

  Alex breathed out audibly. It was Hiro, his face and clothes soaked by rain but still looking as if he was burning with a righteous anger.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Alex asked. ‘You scared the shit out of me.’

  Hiro came close enough so he could lower his voice to a whisper. ‘Naoko told me everything, Alex. How could you be so reckless after all I’ve done to protect her?’

  There was an authority behind his words that made them seem more damning. Alex tried to guess exactly how truthful Naoko had been.

  ‘I … I don’t know what to say, Hiro. Everything got out of hand. I did all I could to make sure she was safe. It was a bad situation but it’s over.’

  ‘So now you’re leaving Tokyo and taking Naoko with you. Why? Just so you can ruin her life as well as yours?’

  ‘She’s an adult, Hiro. She can make her own decisions. She doesn’t need you making them for her.’

  ‘This is your second new beginning in a year. How many more will you need before you finally destroy her?’

  ‘I only want what’s best for Naoko. You know that.’

  Hiro reached into the pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a brown envelope. It was stuffed to bursting. He held it out for Alex, who took it and pulled open the seal. Inside was a thick stack of new ten-thousand-yen notes.

  ‘What’s this?’ Alex asked.

  ‘The money you asked to borrow from me. I’ve had it ready for you for weeks.’

  ‘Five million yen?’

  ‘It’s the amount you need to pay back Tanaka.’

  Alex bristled when he heard Hiro use that name. ‘So Naoko told you who lent me the jidan money?’

  ‘This man is dangerous, Alex. I’ve come across him before. He’s yakuza. I can’t believe you got her involved in this.’

  Alex was startled. ‘What do you mean, you’ve come across him? Where?’

  Hiro gave a solemn shake of his head. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said.

  ‘I need to know. You might be in danger if Tanaka can connect you to me.’

  Hiro took a moment to consider his options. ‘He’s an investor in one of our portfolios at the bank. A major investor.’

  ‘You mean you take care of the financial interests of a gangster? Surely that’s illegal?’

  ‘This isn’t London. We have our own ways of doing business here. Tanaka’s custom is very profitable. He doesn’t interfere with our work and we don’t ask where his money comes from. It’s the Tokyo way.’

  Alex looked at his friend in disbelief. ‘You used to be so different, Hiro. You used to be honest. All your success has ruined you as a person.’

  ‘What about you, Alex? You’re a danger to everyone who knows you here. Why don’t you just take the money and leave? You know it makes sense.’

  ‘I don’t need you to lend me money any more, Hiro.’

  ‘I don’t want to lend it to you, gaijin. I want you to take it and keep it. In return, I want you to leave Naoko alone.’

  Alex let his friend’s words sink in. ‘You’re not serious? You really think you can bribe me?’

  ‘You were willing to stop seeing her the last time I offered it to you.’

  ‘I was never going to go through with it. You left me no choice but to agree with you. It wasn’t as if you were prepared to debate the subject. I was wrong to ever let you think I would do it. But you were wrong to ask me in the first place. You can’t buy everything you want.’

  Hiro took a step closer. ‘So you lied to me?’ he said.

  Alex stood his ground. ‘Look around, Hiro. Everything in this city is money and lies. That’s all Tokyo is.’

  ‘You’ll never be good enough for her, gaijin.’

  ‘You know what I think,’ Alex said. ‘I think you’re jealous.’

  Hiro sneered at the suggestion. ‘She’s like a sister to me.’

  ‘That’s what hurts you. She’s all you’ve got. You can chase all the women you want to but, really, there’s nothing good in your life. You love it when others fail because it makes you feel like a success. Deep down, you’re lonely, Hiro. Whatever else happens, I’ve no intention of ending up like you.’

  He tossed the envelope back and Hiro caught it reluctantly. Alex began to look for a taxi in the passing traffic on the highway. The rain was falling more heavily now. The passing headlights seemed blinding in the spray. In the distance, the towering office buildings of downtown Tokyo were enveloped in cloud. A taxi drove past and Alex waved a hand to hail it. The driver pulled up at the kerb and opened the rear door. He turned to watch his friend stand motionless in the rain.

  Hiro looked defeated. ‘So that’s it? You’re leaving?’ he said.

  ‘I’m meeting Naoko at Tokyo station. We’re taking the evening bullet-train service.’

  ‘To where?’

  He was about to answer but Alex stopped himself. ‘I’ll call you when we get there,’ he said.

  Hiro held out the envelope again. ‘I’m giving you a chance, Alex,’ he said sternly. ‘Take the money.’

  Alex shook his head in pity. ‘Look after yourself, Hiro,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of Naoko for you.’

  He climbed into the taxi and told the driver to go and the cab pulled out into the evening traffic. Through the rear window, he watched his friend recede into the distance, alone, standing forlornly in the downpour.

  The driver followed the signs for Tokyo station, moving sluggishly with the congested evening traffic on the Shuto expressway. The windscreen wipers beat against the flood, leaving oily smears on the glass. Alex tried to keep calm throughout the journey but his chest was still tight with adrenaline. Hiro had gone too far. They had been friends for a long time but Hiro still had no right to treat anyone like that. To assume that his commands took precedence over the wishes of others. No matter how much he cared for Naoko, he was wrong to try to control her life. But Alex knew that the best course of action was to prove him wrong – to go with Naoko and start a new life and make a success of it. After everything they had been through, it was time for them to have some luck.

  The traffic was snarled on the ramp leading down to the Kanda tunnel and Alex began to check his watch anxiously. This was a train departure he didn’t want to miss. Finally, the driver reached the exit and dropped him outside the entrance to Tokyo station. Alex paid the fare and fought through the evening crowds to buy a ticket and make his way to the shinkansen platform, following the signs along the subterranean passageway leading from the main hall. He moved with the flow of bodies along the walkway and on to the rising escalator. A southbound train had arrived and the passengers were funnelling on to the opposite side. Alex watched the stream of people descending, idly looking at the passing faces, some heavy with the fatigue of travel, struggling to manoeuvre their luggage on the narrow gangway. A flash of recognition sharpened his focus suddenly. A moment of instinct awakening senses honed by weeks of danger. The hair on the back of Alex’s neck stood on end.

  His eye was snared by the gaze of another, a face hidden in the crowd, watching him. His brain instantly registered the details. A Japanese man, mid-thirties, athletic, with a sharp, lean face. Staring. Alex looked away instinctively but then looked back. The face had gone now an
d no eyes met his as he searched, but something about that gaze had given him an unmistakable sense of peril.

  He twisted cautiously and glanced back over his shoulder. Below, in the crush of travellers following behind, another pair of dark eyes was watching. At least he hadn’t been paranoid, Alex thought. He moved to his left and started to walk up the rising escalator, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, mounting the steps briskly, squeezing past luggage and outstretched limbs. From below, he heard heavy footsteps following on the metal stairs.

  The pitch of the escalator levelled and Alex stepped on to the concourse leading to the ticket gates. The passengers leaving the eastbound service were crowded together, cutting across his path as they streamed towards the exit. He gripped the holdall close and narrowed his shoulders and tried to force a way through.

  On the far side of the barrier, standing on the platform beside the slick white hull of the Shin–Osaka bullet train, Naoko was waiting. She had changed her hair but he still recognized her. She saw him and gave a broad smile full of possibilities and raised her hand as if to wave but changed her mind when she registered the concern on his face. He was conscious of moving normally, unhurried among the herd of passengers. He gave a half-turn to look back over his shoulder and there was the same man, moving towards him, striding up the escalator two steps at a time. As he began to quicken his stride towards Naoko, Alex realized there were more faces glowering at him as he approached, blocking his way through the barrier. For a moment, he saw himself as if from above, a head taller than the people around him, blond-haired and blue-eyed, strange enough to be mistaken for a mannequin. Distinct enough to stand out like a beacon.

  The two strangers began to move in his direction, heading him off from the gate. He knew Naoko was safer without him. It was easy for her to blend in. She had passed them by unseen and was now among the crowd beyond the ticket gate, waiting at the open doors of the train, its sharp nose and silvered windows gleaming under the station lights. To his right, Alex saw there was a foot tunnel connecting the concourse to another platform.

  He kept his eyes away from hers as he moved but Naoko was smart enough to sense danger. She glanced to her left and saw the two Japanese men with their focus trained on Alex, moving quickly towards him as a pair.

  He looked towards the waiting shinkansen, willing her to get on board. Naoko understood his meaning instantly.

  Alex watched as she picked up her small suitcase and gracefully mounted the steps. She waited in the doorway for a moment, her chin held high in her usual defiant manner. The determination on her face reminded him of the night in the Thai boxing arena in Bangkok. The measure of the born fighter. The killer look. Who would ever bet against her? Alex thought. He had the impression they were looking at each other through glass.

  Then she was gone, disappearing into the safety of the carriage, and he turned towards the tunnel and began to run.

  He heard the clatter of footsteps and the howl of angry voices behind him, echoing down the empty tunnel.

  He kept his body low, his head and shoulders leaning forward to create momentum, his legs pumping beneath him, the soles of his shoes pounding hard on the cement slab underfoot. Advertising posters blurred by. The passageway curved steadily until it reached another escalator and Alex bounded on to the moving stairway and sprinted upwards. Gasping for air, his mouth dry, he forced himself to keep moving, eyes forward, no time to slow himself and take a look backwards. The other passengers moved to the side to allow him to pass, their faces full of alarm. There were voices crying out behind him, calling out in Japanese, the shouts devoid of meaning in the squall of motion.

  At the head of the escalator was another tunnel and Alex spun on his toes and sprinted down it to a short stairway leading to a junction. He took the stairs in a single lurching step. At the foot, he could see the right-hand passage leading off to a platform with a guarded ticket barrier, passengers lining up in orderly fashion to pass through and board the waiting trains. The left-hand tunnel led off into the unknown. He was unsure if his shinkansen ticket would allow him through the barrier to other platforms. A millisecond of hesitation and the decision made itself. He gathered his remaining energy and went left.

  Running, veins bursting with raw adrenaline, the tunnel curved on and on, almost doubling back on itself. Alex moved at full speed, his lungs beginning to burn from the exertion. Long banks of bright white lights lined the spiralling ceiling, the vanishing point always receding before him. Then he came to a full, crashing halt, his shoes slipping slightly with the momentum.

  The tunnel finished in a dead end.

  There were two doors at either side of the sealed passageway: a blue door marked with the symbol for a female bathroom; a red door marked male. There was no way to go back and retrace his footsteps. He could never make it back to the stairway without running into his pursuers. Alex knew that. He was cornered. He had to make a split-second choice.

  He chose the blue door and pushed his way inside, gambling that this might buy him a few precious seconds. A row of white basins hung beneath a long mirror and four toilet stalls stood opposite, their doors ajar and unoccupied. Alex chose the toilet stall furthest from the entrance and closed the door behind him.

  The lock was broken so he pushed the door back into the frame and sat up on the cistern, his feet resting on the toilet seat and his holdall clutched to his chest. He cursed himself silently, trying to ignore the sense of disbelief that this was actually happening. He listened for any sound and heard the dripping of a tap, pipes creaking, the sounds of moving trains far away working through the structure of the station. There were no human noises except for Alex’s breathing.

  He needed to call Naoko to make sure she was unharmed but he couldn’t risk any noise. He quietly took out his phone and set it to silent and tapped out a message as quickly as possible.

  I’m fine, he wrote. Take the train. I will follow you to Osaka somehow. Don’t worry about me and don’t turn around.

  He pressed send and slipped the phone back inside his jacket pocket. He began to wonder if the coast was clear.

  The door from the corridor swung open and he could hear urgent voices, followed by a single pair of footsteps as someone entered the bathroom and walked along the line of stalls. He tried to suspend all functions that could betray him. No breathing, no blinking, no thoughts.

  The hinges of the first door squealed as it was pushed open. Then the next. There was no one in either stall and the footsteps grew louder as they neared. Alex looked around him in a futile attempt to see if there was a final, unseen escape route but it was hopeless. He willed himself invisible. When the third stall had been searched, Alex knew he was next. He braced his body and crouched forward, ready to protect himself when necessary.

  He looked down. Two black Nike running shoes topped by a pair of blue denim jeans stood in the gap beneath the stall. The grey, graffiti-covered door began to open, swinging slowly on its hinges. Alex tasted raw, metallic fear in the back of his throat.

  The door banged against the wall of the toilet stall as it was opened.

  Alex fought the instinct to leap forward, his breath caught in his lungs. A female face locked eyes with his, her expression blank. He recognized her immediately. It was Officer Tomada, Saito’s deputy from Ushigome. She stepped inside, as if the cubicle were empty, as if she hadn’t seen Alex waiting inside, and shut the door. Outside in the corridor, the voices receded as they ran off to continue the search.

  Tomada smiled at Alex with familiar calm, one corner of her mouth curling upwards; she seemed almost amused at his obvious relief.

  ‘Come with me, Malloy-san,’ she whispered. ‘We need to move fast.’

  38

  TOMADA UNLOCKED THE car and motioned for Alex to climb inside as she hurried around to the driver’s door. She checked no one had followed them before she started the engine and pulled away quickly. The interior was protected by clear plastic, as if it had come straight from the facto
ry. She drove out of the station car park and merged with the flow of traffic on the highway, making no conspicuous manoeuvres that could draw attention.

  Alex was still breathless. ‘I have no idea what the fuck is going on,’ he said. ‘Who were they? Why were they waiting for me?’

  Tomada’s tone was quick and efficient. ‘Tanaka sent them. He knows the delivery at Yokohama was compromised and knows you can identify him from your meeting at the bath house. I don’t know how he found out about you coming to the station today. You were lucky I was there. Saito asked me to follow you to make sure you were safe.’

  ‘I was sure I was finished back there. I couldn’t hide anywhere, despite the crowd. This city is full of people who want me dead.’

  Tomada reached out a comforting hand. ‘Relax. No one knows where you are now. Only me. Just do as I say and you’ll be fine. There is an old saying in Japan: the nail that stands out gets hammered down.’

  ‘That’s why I had to leave Naoko. I stand out everywhere in Tokyo but she’s able to blend in.’

  Tomada turned to him in surprise. ‘Naoko was with you? I didn’t see her there.’

  ‘She was ahead of me. We were going to meet on the bullet-train platform.’

  ‘Is she still waiting for you?’

  ‘No. She could see what was happening and boarded without me. Then I ran. It was the only way to draw their attention away from her.’

  Tomada looked flustered for a moment. ‘You needed to tell me this sooner, Malloy-san. Now I have no idea if she is safe. We have to go back.’

  Alex looked at the clock on the dashboard. ‘It’s too late. The train will have left by now. I don’t think they want her, anyway. I’m the only one who can identify Tanaka. It’s only me that’s dealt with him directly. Naoko has no connection to anything that could incriminate him.’