by Kotaro Isaka
‘It was before he died. His dad was arrested for touching one of the girls in our school. When the story got out he was fired.’
‘Well, if he was involved with a teenage girl then he got what he deserved.’ Kimura’s nostrils flared as he spoke, but then he noticed the kids looking uncertain, searching for what to say next. ‘Wait a minute.’ He felt a doubt worming around. ‘Did you guys have something to do with it? Are you telling me you set up Takuya’s dad?’
They didn’t deny it, which made Kimura think it was true.
‘Was his dad innocent?’
Again, they said nothing.
‘How would you even do something like that? How does that work?’
‘We just did what the Prince told us to,’ muttered the round-faced one. ‘Same with the girl. It was because Takuya’s dad was trying to find stuff out about the Prince.’
‘So the Prince had you guys cook up a sexual misconduct case? He would do that? Smart kid. Ruthless.’ Kimura was half joking, but the four schoolboys nodded vigorously. They were all too familiar with the Prince’s ruthlessness.
‘He’s got rid of three teachers too,’ said one of them darkly.
‘One got depressed and quit, one was caught groping a student, one had an accident.’
‘Don’t tell me you guys did those too.’
No answer.
‘You know, you shouldn’t be so afraid of him. Just gang up on him and kick the shit out of him. I bet you’d have no problem if you worked together. Right?’ The Prince didn’t look particularly strong. And even if he happened to be a martial arts prodigy or something they could still overwhelm him with numbers.
Their reaction was peculiar. Their eyes all popped open, like this man had suggested something unthinkable. Like they couldn’t even process what he was saying.
The thought’s never even occurred to them. It was clear that they had never once considered trying to topple the Prince.
Kimura thought back to a job he once did. He was assigned to guard a man who had been kidnapped and was being kept half naked in a dingy old apartment. The man said nothing, just lolled about in a daze. Kimura sat in the next room watching TV, drinking, passing the time. But there was something about it that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. The man wasn’t tied up and the door wasn’t locked. The man could have left if he wanted to. So why didn’t he?
Kimura got an answer from the next guard who came to take over for him. ‘Ever heard about learned helplessness?’ asked the guy.
‘Learned …?’
‘They did an experiment where they shocked a dog, right? And it had this set-up where if the dog jumped it wouldn’t get a shock. So you’d think the dog would jump, right? But before that they put the dog in a situation where it got a shock no matter what it did. So then it didn’t even try to jump to escape the shock.’
‘It gave up, huh?’
‘Basically they taught it that it was helpless. So it stopped trying, even when it could have avoided pain by just trying a little. It’s the same with humans. Same with like domestic violence. The wife just keeps taking the beating. Because that sense of helplessness takes root, you know?’
‘So that’s why,’ Kimura had said, looking at the man being kept in the room.
‘Yup. He won’t run away. He thinks he can’t. Human beings don’t operate on logic. Deep down we’re built just like animals.’
This situation with the schoolkids was the same. They had long since decided that there was no way they could beat the Prince. Or had they been taught that? They had seen all the suffering that both their classmates and adults had met at the hands of the Prince, time and again. It must have built up to the point where they were convinced that they were powerless. The electric shocks were probably part of it. Kimura didn’t know how the shocks were delivered, or what kind of orders the Prince gave exactly, but he could see that the shocks were getting to these kids on a deep level.
He took another good look at them. They really were young. They might have spent time on their hairstyles, they might have tried to look cool and tough, but they were like frightened puppies. Carving out their status in their little world was, to them, a matter of life and death.
It probably isn’t that hard to control these kids, Kimura thought. And then he reflected that he shouldn’t get involved. When a stray dog slinks towards you with sad, moist eyes, it’s best to ignore it. ‘Figure it out for yourselves.’
‘Sir, please,’ said Round-face, ‘you gotta help us!’
Wataru squeezed his hand anxiously, pulling him away from the alley, back towards home.
‘Not my problem.’ Kimura realised with a start that at some point he had drained his flask. ‘I’m sure you’ll grow up into fine, upstanding adults.’ Then he walked away.
‘Hey, Mr Kimura.’
Kimura opens his eyes at the voice. It takes him a few moments to register that he’s on the Shinkansen. He hadn’t been fully asleep, but neither was he fully awake, and the sudden appearance of the Prince’s face right next to him seems like a phantom swirling up out of memory.
‘Mr Kimura, now’s not the time for your beauty sleep. Aren’t you at least a little worried about what’s going to happen to you?’
‘Even if I were worried I couldn’t do anything about it all tied up like this. So, you know.’
‘Still, you should have some kind of sense that you’re in danger. I was waiting for you to meet me on the train, but it sure wasn’t so that we could take a fun trip together.’
‘Oh no? But why not? Let’s do it. We can go for cold noodles in Morioka. My treat.’
The Prince doesn’t crack a smile. ‘There’s something I want to ask you to do.’
‘No thanks.’
‘Don’t say that. I’d be so sad if anything happened to your little son in the hospital.’
Kimura feels a leaden weight in his stomach and a boiling rage in his blood. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I’ll tell you when we get closer to Morioka.’
‘For now you just want me to stew?’
‘I’m guessing if I asked you to kill someone you wouldn’t want to hear about it.’
Kimura bites his lip. Such casual talk about killing seems at the same time childish and adult. ‘Who? Who do you want me to do?’
‘I’ll just let you savour the anticipation.’ As the Prince says this he bends down and starts to loosen the ties on Kimura’s legs.
‘You’re letting me go?’
‘If you try anything funny your son’s going to be in trouble, okay? Just because I’m taking these off doesn’t mean you’re free. Don’t you forget it. If my guy can’t get in touch with me it’ll be bye-bye baby boy.’
Kimura’s body quakes with fury. ‘Hey, are you even checking your phone?’
‘Sorry?’
His face twists up. ‘You said it’ll go badly for me if you don’t answer your phone.’
‘Oh, that’s right. If it rings ten times and I don’t pick up then yes, it’ll go very badly for you indeed.’
‘I don’t wanna hear that you just missed a call because you weren’t paying attention. Then it’ll fucking go badly for you.’
‘Don’t worry about that, mister.’ The Prince seems utterly unconcerned. ‘In the meantime there’s something else I want your help with.’
‘What, you want a back rub?’
He points towards the rear of the train. ‘I want you to go with me to get a suitcase.’
Morning Glory
THE LIGHT IS GREEN AT the main intersection in Fujisawa Kongocho. Cars flow by one after the other. People crowd by the kerb, waiting for the pedestrian crossing signal.
Morning Glory stands thirty metres away in front of a chain bookstore. He watches the light. He watches the people. Male, tall, thin, thirties, no. Male, heavyset, twenties, no. Female, no. Male, short, twenties, no. Female, no. Male, school uniform, no. He waits for his target.
The light changes. The mass of people move into
the crossing. They go in all directions, straight, to the side, diagonal. Before long the walk signal starts to flash, then turns red. The traffic light turns green again. He memorises the timing. The key is when the light turns yellow, and when it’s about to turn red. Cars go faster on a yellow than they do on a green. They abandon caution, they come charging in.
I think the Pusher is like one of those weasel spirits from the stories, you know, the kamaitachi. A woman had said that to him once. She was looking to hire for a job. Morning Glory met with her, saying he was the Pusher’s representative.
Someone suddenly gets a cut on their arm or their leg, said the woman, and they scream, a kamaitachi got me! But really it was just a sharp wind. I think the Pusher must be the same sort of thing. Someone gets hit by a car or jumps in front of a train and people say it was the Pusher that did it. Couldn’t it just be a made-up story?
People often make that mistake about the kamaitachi. But the cuts don’t come from any wind. Blaming it on the wind, that’s the made-up story. Morning Glory told the woman that, and she didn’t like it.
She could have gone home then, but she pressed even harder, asking all sorts of questions about the Pusher, digging for scraps. Morning Glory decided he disliked her, turned down the job, and walked off. But she stubbornly came after him, so he pushed her into the road, just as the light was about to turn red in the night. A pickup truck barrelling through the intersection smashed into her. The only regret Morning Glory felt was that he had done it for no fee.
Male, short, forties, no. Female, no. Male, heavyset, twenties, no. Female, no. Female, no. Male, heavyset, forties. His eyes lock on to the passing man. Pinstriped grey suit. Short hair, broad shoulders. Morning Glory starts to follow. The man heads for the intersection. He steps into the crowd of people waiting for the walk sign. Morning Glory follows. He’s fully aware and in the moment, but it doesn’t quite feel like he’s guiding his own movements.
The traffic light turns from green to yellow. The man stops on the edge of the crossing.
Cars come from the right. Black minivan, female driver, short hair, child seat in the back. The timing’s off. The next car is coincidentally the same type of minivan. The light changes. The car surges forward. Morning Glory casually moves his hand, touches the man’s back.
There is the sound of impact, then the screech of the tyres clawing at the road. No one screams yet. The people’s shock is like a silent, transparent explosion.
Morning Glory is already gone. He walks fluidly back the way he came, like floating on a current. Behind him he hears cries of Ambulance! but his heart is calm, like the surface of a lake where no pebble has been cast. His only thought is the vague recollection that he had once done a job at this same intersection, a long time ago.
Fruit
‘HEY, TANGERINE. TRY TO NAME some characters from Thomas and Friends.’ Lemon came back from searching for the suitcase empty-handed, but instead of offering an explanation he just sat down casually in the aisle seat. And now he asks this.
Tangerine looks over at Little Minegishi’s body in the window seat. Lemon is acting so relaxed that it seems he doesn’t want to acknowledge the gravity of their situation. They still have a corpse on their hands, and they haven’t got any closer to figuring anything out. But Lemon insists on starting a nonsense conversation.
‘Did you find the bag?’
‘Which of the Thomas characters do you know? Name me the most obscure character you can think of.’
‘How does that have anything to do with the bag?’
‘It doesn’t.’ Lemon juts out his chin, looking slightly peeved. ‘Why are we even worrying about the damn bag?’
Guess he didn’t find it. It’s been five years since Tangerine teamed up with Lemon. He was an ideal partner for their sort of rough trade from the standpoint of physical ability and the fact that no matter what kind of trouble they got into he never panicked, always kept his cool – you could almost say he was emotionless – but on the other hand he was terrible with details, was irresponsible and sloppy. And even worse, when he made a mistake he was quick to spout excuses, he never wanted to own up to his own failures. Like now, when they’re facing a situation that’s getting steadily more serious, his attitude is Hey, why worry about it. He ignores the facts, actually tries to forget them. Tangerine knows all too well that it’ll always be his job to clean up Lemon’s mess. Trying to change that would be like pissing in the wind.
‘Gordon,’ says Tangerine with a sigh. ‘He’s a character, right? Gordon? One of Thomas’s train friends?’
‘Oh come on. Gordon’s one of the most well-known characters. Like basically a main character. The challenge is to try to name an obscure character.’
‘What do you mean, the challenge?’ Tangerine looks up at the ceiling. Dealing with Lemon is harder than doing a job. ‘Fine, whatever. You tell me. Give me a sample answer.’
Lemon’s nostrils twitch as he struggles to control his pride. ‘Well, I suppose I’m looking for an answer like Sir Handel, formerly known as Falcon.’
‘Is that one of the characters?’
‘Ned would work too.’
‘There sure are a lot of trains.’ Tangerine has no choice but to play along.
‘He’s not a train, he’s a construction vehicle.’
‘Who’s not a train? You’re losing me.’
Tangerine looks past the body out the window at the scenery. A mammoth apartment building flies by.
‘Hey,’ he says firmly to his partner, who is now humming a little tune as he flips through a magazine. ‘You don’t want to own up to your mistake. I get it. But now’s not the time to relax. You hear me? Minegishi’s son is no longer breathing. His body’s getting cold. And the suitcase has disappeared. We, we’re like good-for-nothing kids someone sent to the grocery store, but we didn’t get the vegetables and we lost the wallet.’
‘The grocery store? I can never follow your explanations.’
‘Basically, we are fucked.’
‘Yeah, I know, three words that describe our current situation.’
‘It doesn’t look like you know. That’s why I’m reminding you. We should be more worried, all right? Or no, I’m plenty worried, it’s you who should be more worried. I’ll ask you again. You didn’t find the bag, did you?’
‘Nope.’ For some reason Lemon seems pleased with himself. Tangerine is about to berate him again when Lemon adds, ‘That little punk lied to me and sent me on a wild goose chase.’
‘A little punk lied to you? What are you talking about?’
‘The man with the bag you’re looking for went that way, he said, and he seemed like a good kid, so I believed him, I walked all the way to the end of the Hayate looking for this guy.’
‘Maybe the kid didn’t lie to you. Someone’s definitely got the bag, and maybe the kid really did see the guy. Could be that you just didn’t find him.’
‘It’s weird though, I don’t know how a bag that size could just disappear.’
‘Did you check in all the bathrooms?’
‘Basically.’
‘Basically? What do you mean, basically?’ Tangerine can’t help raising his voice. When he realises Lemon isn’t kidding it only makes him madder. ‘It doesn’t count unless you check all of them! Whoever has the bag could be hiding in one!’
‘If the toilet’s occupied I can’t check inside, now can I?’
Tangerine can’t even bring himself to heave a sigh. ‘There’s no point in checking if you don’t check them all. I’ll go myself.’
He looks at his watch. Five minutes until the train pulls into Omiya Station. ‘Shit.’
‘What’s wrong? Why shit?’
‘We’re almost at Omiya. Minegishi’s man will be waiting for us.’
Minegishi was suspicious of everyone, didn’t trust anyone, probably because he had been running an underworld organisation for so long. He firmly believed that when someone has a chance to betray you, they will, guaranteed. That�
�s why even when he hires someone to do a job he makes sure he can keep tabs on them so they don’t stab him in the back.
With this job, he was concerned that Tangerine and Lemon would turn on him, that they’d take the money and run. Or that they might re-kidnap his son and take him somewhere to re-ransom him.
‘I’ll be keeping a close eye on you two,’ he said at their last meeting, telling them to their faces that he didn’t trust them. He’ll have one of his underlings waiting for them at station stops along the way, to make sure that Tangerine and Lemon are actually on the train to Morioka with his son, that it doesn’t look like they’re up to anything funny.
Of course when he told Tangerine and Lemon this, they had zero intention of betraying him, they planned to simply get the job done as ordered, so they had no problem with it. ‘By all means keep an eye on us,’ they said genially.
‘I never thought things would go like this.’
‘Accidents happen. There’s even a song about it in Thomas and Friends. It goes, “Accidents happen, just don’t take it all to heart.”’
‘You should take it to heart at least a bit.’
But Lemon seems not to have heard Tangerine, because he starts singing the song happily, adding snippets of commentary, It’s so true, Thomas and Friends is really pretty deep. ‘Hey, wait a minute.’ He finally looks up at Tangerine. ‘Minegishi’s guy is waiting for us on the platform. Think he’s gonna get on the train?’
‘I wonder.’ They didn’t get any details. ‘Could be he’s just going to stay on the platform and check on us through the window.’
‘If that’s how it is,’ Lemon says, leaning forward and pointing to the corpse by the window, ‘we just make it look like this one’s asleep, we wave and smile, and the guy never knows the difference.’
Tangerine is instinctively reluctant about Lemon’s optimistic proposal, but he can see how it might work. It actually could work, as long as Minegishi’s man doesn’t get on the train.
‘I mean, if the kid’s sitting right here they’d have no reason to guess he was dead, right?’