by Jeremy Bates
“Shigeharu? I—I can’t believe this.”
“Old guy who dresses like a porn star? Looks like a lizard? Wears a trashy gold medallion?”
“Oh my God! That’s him! A yakuza boss? I had no idea, Gaston! He never told me what he did.”
“Apparently he thinks you two are still dating.”
A long silence. “He said that?”
“He said you were his girlfriend.”
“That’s absurd!” she exploded. “I broke up with him! Just like I told you.”
“By text.”
“Yes, by text.”
“Maybe he never got it?”
“How do you not get a text message? It’s right there on your phone. No, he got it. I am sure.”
“When did you send it?”
“Last week.”
I blinked. “Last week? Merde! I thought you broke up with him…I do not know when…but not last week!”
“It was the day before I flew to Manila. I was broken up with him when I met you on the return flight. I swear, Gaston.”
I realized she was under the impression I might be jealous of Shigeharu. I almost told her the crazy bastard made me cut off my own finger and threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave the country by tomorrow morning, that I wasn’t jealous but in fear of my life. However, I decided this would only cause her unnecessary worry. Shigeharu wasn’t her problem; he was mine.
“I believe you broke up with him when you said you did,” I told her.
“I did! I sent him that message!”
“I believe you, chérie. Do you think it is possible he did not reply to your message because he wanted to see you in person? He seems like a guy who likes to take care of his business face-to-face.”
“Knowing Shigeharu, yes, I think that’s definitely possible.” An epiphany lit her voice. “That’s why his men came to my house today. They wanted to kidnap me, but when they saw you—”
“They have been watching us for the last two days.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“They had photographs of us during our night out in Shibuya.”
“So they’ve been spending the last two days trying to figure out who you are…”
“Or whether you and I are in a relationship…”
“Oh, God, Gaston,” she said. “This is all my fault. Where are you? Where did they take you?”
“Kawaguchiko.”
“Kawaguchiko?”
“In Yamanachi Prefecture.”
“Yamanachi Prefecture? What are you doing there?”
“It is where Shigeharu’s headquarters is.”
“They drove you all the way there? But they let you go right? They’re leaving you alone now?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
I heard a sigh. “How are you going to get back to Tokyo?”
“I will take a bus in the morning.”
“What time does it arrive? I’ll meet you at Shinjuku station.”
“I cannot see you anymore, Okubo,” I said, the statement breaking my heart. Yet distancing myself from her was my only path forward. As a fugitive without a passport, I couldn’t leave Japan in the morning as instructed, which meant I would have to go into hiding. Which meant I most definitely couldn’t see Okubo again, for she would almost certainly be under watch by Shigeharu’s thugs.
“You can’t see me anymore…?” Okubo said slowly. “What are you talking about, Gaston?”
“Shigeharu told me I could not see you again.”
“Shigeharu? He has no right! He can’t decide who I can or cannot see! You can’t let him intimidate you.”
“He is a yakuza boss, Okubo! He runs a gang of violent criminals!”
“Did he threaten you?” she demanded.
“He made it clear I could not see you.”
“We’ll tell the police—”
“We cannot tell the police anything. As soon as I say who I am—”
“I doubt they have pictures of you taped up around the city—”
“Maybe not. But I will be in the computers. They will want to know who I am. They will ask for identification. When I cannot provide any…” I shook my head. “I am sorry, mon amour. I have far too many problems right now to add a vengeful mafia boss to the mix.”
“We will think of something then, Gaston. I have a car. I will come and pick you up—”
“No!” I said firmly. “They will know—”
“How will they know?”
“They just will. They probably know I am talking to you right now.” This thought unleashed a current of paranoia through me. “I have to go,” I added. “When I get everything sorted out I will call you…”
“Gaston—”
“I have to go, mon coeur. I am sorry. I am so sorry.”
I hung up on her.
Chapter 45
I stopped in a 7-Eleven across from the train station and bought two more beers for the walk to the ryokan. The streets were dark and largely deserted. While this might be a recipe for crime in most large towns or cities, it wasn’t in law-abiding Japan. Yet I was very much on edge, my paranoia steadfast in its insistence the yakuza were keeping tabs on me even now. During the twenty-minute walk, I must have glanced over my shoulder a dozen times while scrutinizing every vehicle that drove past.
Once inside the relative safety of my room, I locked the door but could not relax. I definitely could not go to sleep. I thought about heading out again and getting something harder than beer, something I could drink until I blacked out. But it was already ten o’clock in the evening, and I couldn’t risk sleeping in due to a drunken stupor. According to the schedule I’d picked up at Kawaguchiko station’s information center, the first bus out of here was at eight o’clock in the morning, and I fully intended to be on it.
I punched on the TV and flipped between BBC World News and an American baseball game, the latter’s broadcast no doubt due to the Japanese star pitcher on one of the teams.
Two innings later with my restlessness escalating, I decided to visit the hot springs. I stripped out of my clothes, dressed in the yukata hanging in the closet, and shoehorned my feet into a pair of too-small slippers. Towel in hand, I clopped to the outdoor hot spring I had been shown earlier. Affixed to the cedar wall at the gender-segregated entrances was a large sign that read NO! TATTOO. The small print explained that anyone found breaking this rule would be ejected from the premises without repayment or compensation.
Take that, yakuza, I thought happily as I pushed through the blue curtain for the men’s bath.
I followed a string of white marble pavers set among smooth black river stones until I reached the geothermal spring, which was set amongst boulders in a grove of bamboo. I shed the yukata and my boxer briefs, showered, and waded into the rocky pool. Submerging myself to the neck with the exception of my injured left hand (which I rested on a warm boulder), I closed my eyes and sighed as the piping hot volcanic water leached the stress and tension and weariness from both my body and mind.
In this blissful state, I thought of Damien and Smiley and Okubo and even my father, I thought of multiple universes and parallel dimensions and mortality and immortality, I thought of my mother and brothers and the Taured I had not returned to in years and might never again see, I thought of all the intimidating challenges still lying in wait for me…and then I did my best not to think of anything at all.
Chapter 46
A noise awoke me.
I sat up on the futon, blind in the darkness, listening.
Another knock, stealthy.
I leapt to my feet, grateful the futon could not creak or groan like a Western bed. My eyes quickly adjusted so I could make out the general dimensions of the room. I pulled on my jeans and tee-shirt, which I’d left folded beside the mattress. Rounding the low table and legless pair of chairs in the center of the floor, I crept to the door, my footfalls silent on the soft woven straw of the tatami mats.
Another stealthy knock, as if the person on the oth
er side of the door wanted to know if anybody was inside or not. My mouth went dry. My heart thundered. Had Shigeharu learned of my phone call to Okubo? Had he reneged on his word to allow me until morning to leave Japan? Had he now sent one of his henchmen to murder me during the night?
I needed a weapon, I decided. But what? A slipper? A teacup? A coat hanger? Those were the most lethal items available to me.
Run, I thought. Get out of there.
But how? There was only one door.
The window?
It was large enough to climb through, but I’d never slid back the shoji screen covering it, so I didn’t know if it was a fixed window, or if it could be opened—
“Gaston?” someone said in a small, urgent hiss.
The voice sounded female.
I stepped cautiously toward the door.
“Gaston?”
“Okubo?” I said in bewildered relief. I flicked the lights on, unlocked and opened the door.
Okubo stood in the hallway with a wide grin on her face, dressed loudly in black-and-white striped pants, a zipper-infested leather biker jacket over a graphic yellow tee-shirt, and heels the same bold red as her lipstick.
“Hey!” she whispered.
I seized her by the elbow and pulled her into the room, closing and locking the door behind her.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice no louder than hers.
“I came to see you,” she said cheerfully.
“Could you dress any more conspicuously?”
She frowned. “You don’t like my outfit?”
“Yes, I do, you look beautiful, but—”
“Why are we whispering?”
“What time is it?” I asked, raising my voice only slightly. I folded my left hand into a fist to hide my bandaged pinky stump.
She glanced at her wristwatch. “Little past one.”
“How did you find me?”
“Called about twenty hotels…”
I stiffened. “You have to go, ma choupette.”
“Go? Sure, no problem. Grab your stuff.”
I shook my head. “I cannot go with you.”
She stomped a foot. “Stop this, Gaston! Stop—”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why? Who’s listening? You think Shigeharu’s listening? Is he God? Does he have magical powers?”
“You do not understand.”
“Then explain what’s going on to me!”
“Shigeharu…” I hesitated before thinking, Just spill it. “He told me I have to leave the country by tomorrow morning.”
“That’s ridiculous! You don’t even have a passport.”
“He told me if I did not, he would kill me.”
Okubo flinched as if slapped. “Kill you…?”
“You can see why I am a little paranoid. And if he learns that you are here with me right now, I am sure he is not going to be happy about it.”
“Kill you?” she repeated dumbly. “He can’t kill you.”
“He is a yakuza boss, chérie. I am confident he is very capable of doing just that. And if he is bluffing, that is not a risk I am willing to take.”
I revealed my mutilated finger for the first time.
She stared at it, brow furrowed, mouth contorted.
“Oh, Gaston,” she said. “What did they do to you…?”
“He will have his goons watching your place to make sure I am not still around,” I said. “I have no doubt of this. Which is why I cannot see you. Which is why I have to disappear.”
“But—but for how long?”
“I do not know,” I told her, though the subtext was clear.
It would be a very long time.
Okubo finally understood, looking like a gambler at a roulette table watching the croupier rake away her life savings.
She turned her back to me. I wondered whether she might be crying. I took a single step toward her, but that was all. I wanted to touch her, comfort her, pull her into an embrace. Yet I couldn’t. She had to leave. I had to disappear. There was no other way around this.
“Where will you go?” she asked quietly.
“I do not know,” I said. “Somewhere in Tokyo. It is a big place. I will find an anonymous corner.”
She turned to face me, her eyes watery. “Will I ever see you again, Gaston?”
“Yes.”
“Do you promise me?”
“Yes.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. “This isn’t fair…”
“No, it is not—”
Okubo’s gaze snapped past me.
I heard the noise too.
Someone was turning the door handle.
Chapter 47
I raised a finger to my lips.
The door handle turned again.
It wasn’t hard to deduce who it was. They must have been outside, perhaps parked across the street, keeping watch on the inn—
The distinctive sound of a key sliding into the keyway of a lock.
The barely audible click! of the bolt disengaging the strike plate.
Startled, I leapt forward and locked the deadbolt again. I felt immediate torque on the twist knob as the person on the other side of the door tried turning the key a second time.
They have a key! How’d they get a key?
Most likely just flashed their tattoos at the reception and asked, came the immediately response.
Still gripping the knob, I whispered to Okubo, “Get the table.”
She stared at me, uncomprehending.
More torque on the twist knob.
“The table!” I pointed with my free hand.
Okubo hurried to the middle of the room, picked up the low table, and brought it to me. Bracing the door shut with my foot, I released the knob.
The bolt promptly disengaged. The door bulged inward, though my foot resisted the force. I took the table from Okubo and jammed one end under the doorknob and wedged the other end against the floor as close to the door as possible.
I removed my foot. The door bumped and shuddered. The table held.
For the moment.
∆∆∆
At the window, I slid open the shoji screen. As I’d feared, the window was fixed in place. Waving Okubo back, I picked up one of the legless chairs and launched it at the window.
Glass shattered as the chair punched a hole straight through it.
Rapid chatter on the other side of the door—there were at least two of them out there—followed by loud thumping as they drove their weight into the door.
Grabbing the second legless chair, I swept the seat around the window frame, clearing the remaining jagged glass.
I stepped on the sill and leapt the five feet or so to the grassy ground. I held out my arms for Okubo. She hopped up onto the sill. I seized her beneath the armpits, wincing as pain flared in my left hand, and lowered her to the ground.
“Where is your car?” I whispered.
∆∆∆
She’d parked her car—a red Honda CRV—at the end of the block.
Just as we reached it, exclamations rose behind us.
Glancing back the way we’d come, I saw Tighty-Whitey and one of the twins skid to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the ryokan. Deciding we were too far to give chase on foot, they dashed across the street to a black SUV.
Okubo was already sliding behind the Honda’s steering wheel. I ducked into the passenger seat, my door slamming shut seconds after hers.
She turned the key in the ignition, the engine roared to life, and we peeled away from the curb into the night.
∆∆∆
“Are they following us?” Okubo asked in an impressively calm voice.
I swiveled in my seat to peer through the rear window. “I cannot see—”
Before I could finish the sentence, a pair of bright headlights swerved around a corner fifty meters behind us and washed the back of the Honda in light.
“Yes—they are following us!” I said. “You need to lose them!”
“How?”
“Go faster.”
“We’re in the middle of a town! I might hit someone.”
“The streets are deserted. They are gaining!”
“I’m going as fast as I can, Gaston. I’m not a drag racer.”
I faced forward. “Find a police station.”
“You said you can’t go to the police!”
“Better than what these guys have planned for me!”
“I don’t know where one is.”
“Keep your eyes open,” I said. “We will be fine until we reach one. What are they going to do? Run us off the road?” I looked in the side mirror. “Merde, they are right behind us.”
We came to a four-way intersection as the lights turned red. Okubo blew through it.
As did the yakuza behind us.
I looked in the side mirror again. The SUV was nearly kissing our rear bumper. “What are they doing?”
“Trying to scare me.”
Okubo tapped the brakes. I whiplashed forward, the seatbelt pre-tensioners preventing me from slamming my face against the dash. The driver of the SUV blasted its horn.
“Get off my ass then!” Okubo yelled.
We came to another intersection and Okubo winged right, the Honda’s tires screeching in protest. The SUV remained glued to our tail.
“I can’t lose them,” Okubo stated.
“There must be a police station nearby—”
“There’s a highway!” she said.
Before I could opine whether a high-speed chase would be prudent or not, Okubo juked right onto it. We passed beneath a pedestrian bridge and accelerated to over 100 kilometers an hour.
“They are still behind us,” I said.
Now that Okubo was free of any hapless pedestrians, she continued to accelerate. We zipped passed a mini Kei trucks, then a white sedan.
The speedometer needle passed 130.
Nevertheless, the SUV—a late-model Lexus with a bigger engine than the Honda—had already caught up with us once more. It swung into the left lane and pulled abreast of us. The heavily tinted passenger window lowered to reveal Tighty-Whitey grinning sadistically at me, his styled hair whipped around by the wind. He raised his hand and pointed a finger gun at me.