by Unknown
‘Doi!’ Sachiko comes into the cage with her clipboard.
Doi jumps and puts down what he is holding guiltily.
‘I hate to inconvenience you with this annoying “work” business, but . . .’
‘Still on my break, chieftainess! Three more minutes! I’m showing Miyake my peace potion . . .’ He picks up the blender jug, still in its black hood, and liquidizes the contents for thirty seconds. Sachiko, defeated, sits down. Doi removes the hood, the lid, and drinks the soupy liquid straight back. ‘Deeelicious.’
‘Wow . . .’ Sachiko stands up, putting blender B – I knew it – on the ledge, minus velvet hood. ‘Did you make this imitation budgie? It’s so realistic. What’s it made of?’ She is genuinely impressed.
‘Ladyboss! You gave my trick away!’
‘Then don’t leave your props lying around the kitchen!’
‘Don’t call my Tutu a prop! Budgies have feelings too, diggit?’
‘Tutu doesn’t look very animated for a live budgie.’ Sachiko extracts the bird from the red gunge. Its head comes off in a shower of white powder.
‘Doi,’ I say, ‘please tell me this is a part of the trick.’
‘Doi’s eyes bulge in pure panic. ‘Oh, man . . .’
After the ambulance takes Doi to hospital for a stomach pump and rabies injections, I offer to do the scooter deliveries. Sachiko says she should because she knows the area better. Tomomi mans the phones alone. I prepare and box up three El Gringo – thick base, gorgonzola, spicy salami, tomato and basil crust – by the time Onizuka gets back. Tomomi tells him what happened to Doi – for a moment I think Onizuka may abandon his principles and smile, but the danger passes and he reverts to his miserable self. Business slackens a little. By 07.30 I have already memorized the breakfast news round-up. Trade talks, summits, visiting dignitaries. This is how to control entire populations – don’t suppress news, but make it so dumb and dull that nobody has any interest in it. The weather on Friday, 6th October will start cloudy, with a 60 per cent chance of rain by mid-afternoon, and a 90 per cent chance of rain by evening. I scour down the counters, hoping that no more orders come in during the next thirty minutes. I need to work out the cheapest way to get to Miyazaki. I peer into the inferno – six pizzas inching onwards, glowing karma-like. The radio plays a song called ‘I Feel the Earth Move under My Feet’. Radios and cats both go about their business whether anyone is there or not. Unlike guitars, which sort of stop being guitars when you close their cases. Sachiko lays an envelope on the counter of my rat-run. ‘I fiddled petty cash, but this is what Nero owes you.’
‘Sorry to leave you in the lurch.’
‘Well, the Nippon index will plummet once the news breaks, but somehow we’ll pull through. I may even don the chef’s apron myself, if head office can’t send anyone. It has been known. Call me, when you come back to Tokyo – I can’t promise to keep your job open in this branch, but I can get you in anywhere there’s a vacancy.’
‘I appreciate it.’
‘Any idea how long you’ll be away?’
‘Depends on . . . lots of things. If I can help my mother get well.’ I fold the envelope into my starved wallet.
‘Phone Ai. I don’t want to be the one to tell her that you’ve skipped town.’
‘I, uh, don’t think I’m friend of the month at the moment.’
‘Ai has no friends of the month, you idiot. Phone her.’
Tomomi slouches in the hatch. ‘If you can spare the energy to prepare one final pizza before your happy families reunion, the Osugi Bosugi man has ordered his weekly kamikaze.’ She slaps the order slip on the ledge and disappears. I frown at Sachiko, feeling as if my feet are sliding away. ‘Osugi and Bosugi? PanOpticon?’
‘A regular order since time began. “Kamikaze” is a pizza not on the wallchart – we should get around to putting it up, only nobody else in Tokyo could stomach it. Mozzarella crust, banana, quail eggs, scallops, octopus ink.’
‘Unchopped chillis.’
‘One of the other chefs mentioned it?’
This is a mystery to me. ‘I guess . . .’
‘It is an unforgettable creation. Speaking of which, I have to go and write Doi’s accident report.’ So she doesn’t see my face when I look at the order slip. Tomomi’s handwriting is an clear as malice. Tsukiyama, Osugi & Bosugi, PanOpticon.
First I laugh in disbelief.
Then I think: another trap.
Then I think: no trap. Apart from the fact that nobody knows I know my father’s name, since Tsuru died nobody wants to trap me. Mama-san let me go once already. This is no trap, but a card trick that Tokyo has performed. How is it done? Look at it stage by stage. I know ‘Kamikaze’ because . . . here it is. I remember. Weeks ago, that night when Cat came back from the dead, a man misdialled, called my capsule thinking I was a pizza restaurant, and ordered this same pizza. Only he never misdialled. That man was my father.
The rest is simple. My father is not Akiko Kato’s client – he is her colleague.
Akiko Kato is why I watched PanOpticon from Jupiter Café.
Jupiter Café is why I met Ai Imajo.
Ai is why I met Sachiko Sera.
Sachiko Sera is why I am standing in Nero’s, preparing a pizza for my father.
No more misdirections, jumped conclusions, lies. To my father, I was a sixty-second amusement. Then I was a zero. Now I am an embarrassment. I feel so, so . . . stupid. I dress his pizza. It looks as disgusting as it sounds. I feed it into the inferno, watch the black gunge glow orange. Why ‘stupid’? How about ‘angry’? Since I wrote to Akiko Kato my father has known how to contact me. Morino, Tsuru, everything . . . if only he had just told me to go away two months ago. I would have been disappointed, sure, but I would have obeyed. This time, I decide what happens. I don’t know what I will do when I confront him, but now that Tokyo has unearthed the man, I am going to see him. I open the hatch. No sign of Tomomi. Sachiko gnaws a Biro. ‘If I say that a wild budgie flew into the blender of its own accord, d’you think head office will believe me?’
‘Only if they want to.’
‘Lot of use you are.’
‘But I could deliver this Kamikaze for you.’
Sachiko checks her watch. ‘Your shift ends in two minutes.’
‘PanOpticon is on my way to Shinjuku.’
‘You are a biped blessing sent from heaven, Miyake.’
The door to PanOpticon revolves in perpetual motion. Palm trees sit in bronze urns. Gaudy, people-eating orchids watch me pass. Nine identical leather armchairs wait for occupiers. A one-legged man crutches across the polished floor. Rubber squeaks, metal clinks. Behind the desk is the chubby security guard who threw me out when I tried to see Akiko Kato two months ago. A smear of shaving foam is under one ear. He yawns as I approach. ‘Yeah, son?’
‘I have a pizza for Mr Tsukiyama in Osugi and Bosugi.’
‘Do you?’
I hold my box up.
‘“Never fear-O, it’s a Nero.” No explosives in there now, are there? You international terrorists always smuggle weapons into buildings using pizza boxes.’ He thinks this is very amusing indeed.
‘Put it through a scanner, if you want.’
He waves a baton thing at the elevators. ‘East elevator, ninth floor.’
The Osugi and Bosugi reception appears deserted. A console, piled with files, plants dying of sun starvation, a monitor on screensaver mode – a computer face drifts from anger to surprise to jealousy to joy to grief and back to anger. A single corridor runs to a pane of morning. A photocopier intones. Where do I go? A human head rises up from a swamp of sleep. ‘Yes?’
‘Morning. Pizza for Mr Tsukiyama.’
She drags herself to a higher plane of consciousness, clips a headphone over her ear, and presses a button on her console. She lights a cigarette while waiting. ‘Mr Tsukiyama, Momoe here. Pizza boy with breakfast. Shall I send him along or are you still projecting positions with your client?’ She suctions in her cheeks
while my father replies. ‘Received and understood, Mr Tsukiyama.’ She jerks a thumb up the corridor and removes her headphone. ‘All the way, turn right at the end. Mr Tsukiyama is dead ahead. And knock first!’
The carpet is worn, the air-con is old, the walls need repainting. A door ahead opens and – bang on cue – Akiko Kato appears carrying a wire basket of shuttlecocks. Her silver sea-urchin earrings dangle. She catches me sneaking a glance at her as I catch her sneaking a glance at me. I keep walking, reminding myself that I am doing nothing illegal. I reach the end of the corridor, and nearly collide with a woman adjusting her shoe. She is my age, with sexier legs than Zizzi Hikaru. I smell perfume and wine. She regains her balance and walks the way I came. Ahead is a single door, ajar – Daisuke Tsukiyama, Partner. Inside, a man – my father, I guess – is on the telephone. I eavesdrop. ‘Darling, I know! You’re overreacting – you – just – darling – listen to me! Are you listening? Thank you. I had to spend the night here because if I give this one to the underlings they’ll fuck it up and then I’ll have to spend even more nights here sorting out the mess and my client will be fucked off too and take his account somewhere swankier, so my bonus gets slashed and then how am I supposed to pay for the fucking pony in the first fucking place? Stop – stop it, darling – yeah, I know her friends all have ponies, but all her friends’ daddies are judges with more money than fucking Switzerland . . . You think I like doing this overtime-slave shit? You think I like – what? What ? Oh, oh, oh, this is what we’re really talking about it, is it? Paranoia strikes back! Ever occurred to you, darling . . . What ? You didn’t! No. Tell me you didn’t. You did. Well, this is your morning bombshell. A private investigator. You stupid little woman. Of course, private investigators feed you bullshit! Why? Because they want repeat business! I am too outraged’ – a filing cabinet bangs – ‘to continue this conversation. I have a company to run. And if you have cash to throw away on those games, why all the hurry to sell off the shares the old man left? Yeah, you have a nice day too. Darling.’ He hangs up. ‘And throw yourself off the balcony, darling.’
I take a deep breath—
He may recognize me—
He may not recognize me, and I may tell him—
He may not recognize me, and I may not tell him—
I knock. A pause. Then a cheerful ‘Come!’ I recognize my father from the photograph I got from Morino. He lies on a vast sofa, wearing a dressing gown. ‘Pizza boy! You overhear my telephone call?’
‘I did my best not to.’
‘Let it be a lesson to you.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Remember: it costs more to keep a pony in straw than a whore in fur.’
‘I can’t imagine ever needing to remember that.’
My father grins – a grin that is used to getting what it wants – and beckons me over. There is a great view of skyscrapers in the background, but I drink in every detail. The too-black hair. The racks of shoes in his closet. The photo of Half-sister on his desk as a ballerina swan. The shape of his hands. The way he swivels upright. His body seems to be in better shape than his company – I guess he works out at a gym. ‘You’re not Onizuka, and you’re not Doi.’
No, I am your son by your first mistress. ‘No.’
‘So?’ My father waits. ‘You are?’
‘The chef.’
‘Oho! So you make my delectable Kamikazes.’
‘Only this week. I’m temporary.’
He nods at the pizza box. ‘Then I betcha never came across anything quite like my kamikaze, am I right?’
I place the box on the coffee table. ‘It’s an unusual combination.’
‘Unusual? Unique!’
I smell perfume and wine.
My father smiles and frowns at the same time. ‘Are you all right?’
I tell you now, or I go away for ever.
He grins. ‘You look like your night was almost as long and hard as mine.’
How you love yourself. ‘Goodbye.’
Mock-offended surprise. ‘You don’t want me to sign anywhere?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Here, please—’
My father scribbles on the receipt.
I want to smash your skull with your golfing trophy.
I want to shout and I think I want to cry.
I want you to know. Your consequences, your damage, your dead. I want to drag you down to the seabed between foot rock and the whalestone.
‘Hell-o-oo-ooo!’ My father waves his hand. ‘I said, is Doi back next week?’
I swallow and nod and leave this man who I will never meet again. I look back once – his eyes close as his jaws sink into black stodge.
Outside PanOpticon, I buy a pack of Hope, sit on a bollard and watch the traffic stop and start. Twenty years translated to two minutes. I smoke one, two, three. The cloud atlas turns its pages over. Crows dissect a pile of trash. Tokyo is a dirty eraser. Summer left town without leaving a forwarding address. Drones in Jupiter Café tuck into their breakfasts. I want to stop a passer-by, and tell the story of the last six weeks, from PanOpticon stake-out up until this moment. How do I feel? Oh, I cannot begin. But hey, Anju, I kept my promise. I wish Ai were working at the Jupiter Café today. I would ride in on my Harley Davidson like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, and she would climb on, and we would vanish down the narrow road to the deep north. I watch the pedestrians crossing en masse when the green man says so. I join them. I cross Kita Street – I feel disappointment that our father turned out exactly how all the evidence said he would. I wait for the man to turn green. I cross over Omekaido Avenue – I feel shame that his blood is in my veins – and I wait for the man to turn green. Then I cross back over Kita Street – I feel sad that I found what I searched for, but no longer want what I found. I wait, and cross back over Omekaido Avenue. I feel release. I complete one, two, three circuits. I can go now. I hear my name. Onizuka has pulled up on his Nero scooter. I am immune to surprise, now and maybe for ever. I don’t know what he wants, but I rule out walking away from Onizuka in case he knifes me in the kidneys. ‘C’m here.’ He hoicks and spits. ‘Been looking for you.’
‘You found me.’
‘Been watching you walking in circles.’
‘Squares. Not circles.’
He toys with his lip-stud. ‘Want to ask you something.’
I go up to him.
He thumbs towards Nero’s. ‘Tomomi the Mouth says you’re going to Miyazaki.’
‘Tomomi the Mouth is right.’
‘Your mum’s ill?’
‘She is, yeah.’
‘Short of dosh?’
Where is this going? ‘I’m not exactly the Bank of Japan, no.’
‘My stepdad runs a haulage business. Said one of his drivers’ll get you to Osaka, then sort out a rig for Fukuoka.’ Onizuka never jokes, and he hasn’t started now. He hands me a slip of paper. ‘Map, address, phone number. Be there by noon.’
I’m too surprised – too grateful – to say anything.
Onizuka drives off even before I properly thank him.
‘You want to visit your mother in Miyazaki, but you can’t be sure when you’ll be back,’ Buntaro announces as I step into Shooting Star. My landlord folds his Okinawa Property Weekly. ‘As if I could say “No!”, lad! My own mother would murder me. Yes, my wife will take care of the cat. Like old times. Your rent is covered until the end of October, and your deposit can take care of November, unless you need me to return it, in which case I’ll pay it into your bank account, box your stuff and put it into storage. Call me from Miyazaki when you know what your plans are. Shooting Star isn’t going anywhere. My wife has made you a lunch box.’ He rubs his gold tooth, and I realize that it is Buntaro’s lucky amulet. ‘Go on then,’ he says. ‘Pack!’ My capsule is exactly as I left it twenty hours ago. Socks, yoghurt cartons, scrunched pillows. Weird. Cat is out, but Cockroach waits on the window ledge. I get the death spray, creep up on it, and – Cockroach is motionless. Daydreaming? I hassle him wit
h the corner of a cookie wrapper. Cockroach is a dead husk.
Onizuka TransJapan Ltd is near Takashimadaira station out on the Toei Mita line. Through the gates is a walled yard with a loading bay and three medium-sized trucks. It is only eleven. I walk back towards the station, where the giant electronics store is opening. Inside is cold as pre-dawn February. Two identical receptionists at the helpdesk chime ‘Good morning’ in such angelic harmony that I am unsure which to speak to. ‘Uh, which floor are the computers, please?’
‘Basement, third level,’ answers Miss Left.
‘Mind if I leave my backpack with you?’
‘No problem at all,’ answers Miss Right.
I float on the down escalator. Souls of shoppers float with me. Everywhere is draped with tinselly maple leaves to announce the coming of autumn. Miniature TVs, spherical stereos, intelligent microwaves, digital cameras, mobile phones, ionizing freezers, dehumidifying heaters, hot-rugs, massage chairs, heated dish-racks, 256-colour printers. The escalator announcement warns me not to stand on the yellow lines, to assist children and old people at all times, and orders me to enjoy quality shopping. Goods sit on their shelves, watching us browse. Not a single window. In the computer section I am greeted by a tame Suga in a clip-on tie. His skin has a clingfilm gleam. I wonder if they have Vitamin B-emitting strip lights down here to compensate for the total absence of natural light. ‘You look like a man with his mind made up, sir!’
‘Yes, I’m thinking of upgrading one of my PCs.’
‘Well, I promise we can spoil you for choice. What’s your budget?’
‘Uh . . . I’ve got a research grant to burn through. My modem’s from the twenty-fifth century – now all I need is the hardware to match it.’