Bullet Train

by Kotaro Isaka

  Tangerine continues undeterred. ‘The other day I bumped into someone I know from the neighbourhood.’

  Now Lemon knows what his partner is getting at. He forces himself not to smile. ‘Ah. Yeah, I know him too.’

  ‘Do you now.’

  And the conversation ends there.

  The scenery flows by outside the window. Lemon watches a driving range and an apartment building slide past and recede into the distance. He starts thinking of Thomas.

  ‘Hey, in Thomas and Friends, the head of the Sodor Railway, Sir Topham Hatt, tells Thomas and Percy and everyone, “You are very useful trains.” That’s what he says.’

  ‘Who’s that? Sir Topham Hatt.’

  ‘I’ve told you before, the Fat Controller. How many times are you gonna make me say it? The director of the Sodor Railway, who always wears a black silk hat. He praises trains who work hard and scolds those who don’t. He is widely respected by the trains. You know, he’s like the boss of all the trains on Sodor. So that’s a pretty great thing to hear from a guy like him.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You are very useful trains. Anyone would be happy if someone told them they were useful. I’d love for someone to tell me that, hey, you’re a great train.’

  ‘Then you should make yourself more useful. I mean, you and I, today, we’re about as far from being useful trains as can be.’

  ‘That’s because we’re not trains.’

  ‘You’re the one who brought up trains in the first place!’ Tangerine exhales sharply. ‘Lemme see those stickers I gave you before.’

  ‘I already gave them back to you.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Lemon takes the folded sheet of stickers from his pocket. ‘Which one’s Percy?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care.’

  ‘How many years we been working together? A long time. Do me a favour and try to remember who’s who in Thomas and Friends. At least their names.’

  ‘What about you? Have you read any of the books I recommended? Forbidden Colours? How about Demons?’

  ‘I told you, I’m not interested. The books you recommend have no pictures.’

  ‘And everything you recommend is just a bunch of steam locomotives.’

  ‘There are diesel engines too. Anyway. More important. I got a flash of inspiration.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘A plan.’

  ‘When a sloppy guy like you says he’s got a plan, ninety per cent of the time it’s a dud. But I’m listening.’

  ‘Okay, it’s like this. You’re saying that we need to find whoever killed Little Minegishi. Or else we need to find the missing bag. Because Minegishi’s pissed off with us.’

  ‘That’s right. And we haven’t found either.’

  ‘But we’re barking up the wrong tree. Or no, not the wrong tree, we’re just doing it wrong. But that’s no reason to get upset. Everyone messes up once in a while.’

  ‘Is there actually a plan here?’

  ‘Yes indeed.’ Lemon’s lips twitch with the hint of a smile.

  Meanwhile, Tangerine’s face hardens. ‘Hey, don’t let our friend from the neighbourhood hear.’

  ‘I know,’ Lemon replies. ‘Pop quiz. Here’s a famous quote: “Don’t look for a culprit. Create one.” Know who said it?’

  ‘Uh, I’m guessing Thomas or one of his friends.’

  ‘Not everything I say has to do with Thomas. It was me. I said it! That’s my quote. Don’t look for a culprit. Create one.’

  ‘And what does that mean, exactly?’

  ‘We pick someone on the Shinkansen, anyone really, and we make them the culprit.’

  A change comes over Tangerine’s face. Lemon doesn’t fail to notice. Well, well, look who likes my plan.

  ‘Not bad,’ Tangerine mutters.

  ‘Right?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean Minegishi will buy it.’

  ‘Who knows. But it’s better than sitting around doing nothing. Me and you, I mean you and me, we messed up our job. We let the kid get killed, and we lost the bag. Of course Minegishi’ll be mad. But if we can get the killer for him that oughta mean something.’

  ‘And what about the bag?’

  ‘I guess we’d say that the killer got rid of it or something. I mean, I don’t think this’ll solve everything, but if we can make it look like someone else was the cause of all of this, it’ll, you know, what do you call it.’

  ‘Quell Minegishi’s fury?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I was gonna say.’

  ‘Who do we use?’

  Lemon is happy that Tangerine is willing to go along with his plan and wants to get started right away, but at the same time he’s annoyed at actually having to go through with it. ‘Wait, we’re really gonna do this?’

  ‘It’s your idea. You know, Lemon, if all you’re willing to do is screw around then eventually I’m gonna get mad. There’s a passage in a book I like. “I despise that man. For even as the earth splits beneath his feet and rocks tumble down on his head he shows his teeth in a smile. He checks to see his pancake make-up is undisturbed. My scorn becomes a storm, and I devastate this place, because of him.”’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Lemon waves his hand back and forth. ‘Don’t get angry.’

  Lemon knows all too well how dangerous Tangerine can be when he’s angry. Usually Tangerine is content to read his novels and keep violence to an absolute minimum, but once he loses his temper he becomes ruthless and nearly unstoppable. It’s impossible to tell from his demeanour whether he’s angry or not, which makes him even more dangerous. He erupts all at once, without any warning, terrible to behold. But Lemon knows that when Tangerine starts quoting books and movies, it’s time to be wary. It’s as if in his frenzied state the box of memories inside his head gets tipped over and the contents spill out, making him start quoting his favourite lines. It’s the surest sign he’s about to get violent.

  ‘I get it. I’ll be serious.’ Lemon lifts his hands slightly. ‘I know just the guy we can pin this on.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know. A guy who probably knows who Minegishi is.’

  ‘Our friend from the neighbourhood?’

  ‘Exactly. The guy we know from around the way.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea.’ Tangerine stands up. ‘I have to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Hey, wait. What’s up?’

  ‘I have to take a leak.’

  ‘What do I do if I see an opening before you come back? You know, an opening to talk to our friend from the neighbourhood. What if you aren’t here?’

  ‘Then it’s up to you. You’re okay on your own, right? It’ll probably be quieter if there’s just one of us anyway.’

  Lemon is a little tickled that Tangerine’s trusting him with this. ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘Don’t make a scene.’

  Tangerine exits the car and Lemon follows him with his eyes. Then he leans in to Little Minegishi’s corpse and takes hold of the back of the head, nodding it up and down like he’s operating a puppet. ‘Lemon, you are a useful train,’ he says, doing his best ventriloquist act.

  Nanao

  NO TIME TO LOSE WORRYING, Maria had said. But Nanao is worried. He heads towards car three, worrying all the way.

  He thinks about Tangerine and Lemon. Immediately his stomach starts to hurt. He’s used to dangerous work, but he also knows how scary high-level professionals can be.

  The second the door to car three slides open Nanao shores up his resolve. They’re in here. Act natural, he tells himself. Like I’m just a normal passenger on the way back from the toilet, nothing suspicious about me. He tries his best to be nonchalant. There are plenty of empty seats, perfect for him to calmly choose where he wants to sit, but less than ideal for blending in. He looks around, keeping his face composed. There they are. On the left side as he’s looking in, a three-seater halfway down the car with three men together. The man in the window seat leans against the window, sleeping like the dead, but the
other two are awake. The one in the aisle seat looks serious as he talks to the man in the middle, seeming to pepper him with questions. They’re the same height and they look alike. Long hair, lanky, their legs barely able to fold into the seats.

  Nanao can’t tell which one is Tangerine and which one is Lemon.

  He makes a split-second decision to sit near them. The row right behind them is open. So is the row behind that. Sitting further from them would help him stay safe, but keeping close will let him get a handle on the situation more quickly. Maria had thrown him off with talk of Minegishi, and he’s feeling unsteady from his streak of mishaps. For a moment he pictures a footballer who makes a risky play, the sort he would never normally try, in the hope of making up for mistakes earlier in the game. A desperate gambit to regain good standing. Nanao realises he’s never seen it work. Failure only begets failure. But a player in the hole has to try.

  He sits in the row behind them. He’s encouraged by the fact that when he entered the car he briefly locked eyes with Tangerine, or Lemon, and they didn’t seem to recognise him. Good, they don’t know me, he thought with relief. He also knows from experience that people tend not to pay much attention to the seats behind them.

  Holding his breath, doing his best not to draw any attention, he pulls a magazine out of the seat-back pocket and opens it. It’s a mail-order catalogue with a range of products. As he flips through it, he tries to listen in on the conversation between the pair in front of him.

  Nanao leans forward slightly. Though he can’t quite make out everything, he can hear well enough.

  The man in the middle seat is saying something about Thomas and trains. Maria had said she thinks Lemon is the one who likes Thomas and Friends, which would make the man sitting next to him Tangerine, who likes literature.

  His nerves buzzing as he tries to maintain a low profile, Nanao turns the page of the catalogue to see a selection of suitcases. If they were selling Minegishi’s bag I’d buy it right now.

  ‘Okay, it’s like this. You’re saying that we need to find whoever killed Little Minegishi. Or else we need to find the missing bag. Because Minegishi’s pissed off with us.’

  Nanao almost jumps up when he hears what Lemon’s saying. They don’t have the bag either. And he doesn’t miss the name Minegishi. But not Minegishi, Lemon said Little Minegishi. So who’s that? Sounds like it might be Minegishi’s son. Does Minegishi have a son? Did Maria say anything about that? He can’t remember. But he definitely heard Lemon say that Little Minegishi had been killed. Which meant that someone killed Minegishi’s son. A chill crawls down Nanao’s spine. Who did it? Who could have done something so crazy?

  He recalls one time when he was in an izakaya and the bartender said to the patrons at the bar, There are two types of people in this world. Nanao smiled wryly, as that sort of set-up always seems so tired, but he politely took the bait. ‘What are the two types?’

  ‘People who’ve never heard of Minegishi, and people who are terrified of him.’ Everyone at the bar fell silent. Seeing that, the bartender continued. ‘And then there’s Minegishi himself.’

  That’s three types, the customers all pointed out.

  Even as Nanao laughed at the other patrons making fun of the bartender, he reflected that everyone he knew seemed terrified of Minegishi, that fearing the man seemed to be the safest thing to do. There in the bar, he felt more certain than ever that he should keep his distance.

  ‘Pop quiz,’ Lemon says, raising a finger and sounding self-important. Nanao can’t quite make out the next words, but he catches the word ‘culprit’, and then, ‘create one’.

  After a bit more discussion that’s too low to hear, Tangerine suddenly stands up, startling Nanao. ‘I have to go to the toilet.’ Tangerine starts towards the front of the car, in the direction of the bathroom in the gangway between cars three and four.

  Lemon stops him. ‘Hey, wait. What’s up?’

  ‘I have to take a leak,’ answers Tangerine.

  ‘What do I do if I see an opening before you come back? You know, an opening to talk to our friend from the neighbourhood. What if you aren’t here?’

  ‘Then it’s up to you. You’re okay on your own, right? It’ll probably be quieter if there’s just one of us anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘Don’t make a scene.’ With that, Tangerine turns away and exits car three.

  The car is plunged into silence. At least that’s how it seems to Nanao. Of course the train is still swaying and the wheels are clacking on the tracks as the scenery glides by, but Nanao has the weird sensation that the moment Tangerine and Lemon’s conversation ended the train car became deathly still and time stopped.

  He flips a page in the catalogue. He runs his eyes across the words, but doesn’t comprehend them. Now or never, he thinks as his eyes slide over the page. Lemon’s alone. If I’m going to talk to him, now’s my chance.

  ‘And what will talking to him do?’ asks a voice inside his head. ‘You have to find the bag, and they obviously don’t have it, so what’s the point?’

  ‘But there’s no one else who can help me.’

  ‘You really think they’ll help you?’

  ‘If I bring up Minegishi, they might listen. What’s that saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend?’

  He doesn’t know everything that’s going on, but it’s clear that Tangerine and Lemon were transporting the suitcase for Minegishi. And Minegishi hired Nanao to steal the same suitcase. Which means that they’re both working for the same client. It isn’t hard to imagine that Minegishi has some sort of plan. Nanao’s betting that if he tells Lemon he’s also working for Minegishi, even if Lemon is wary of him and doesn’t want to believe him, they might be able to strike a deal. They both have the same goal: to find the bag. If Lemon and Tangerine are willing to overlook the fact that Nanao stole it from them in the first place, they could conceivably join forces. They could form a team, like a couple that works past a one-off infidelity and manages to make it work. At least that’s what he wants to propose.

  Nanao closes the catalogue and reaches out to put it back in the seat pocket. It doesn’t quite slide in at first but he manages to force it. He steadies himself. If he can get the drop on Lemon he’ll have a good chance of immobilising him. Then he’ll explain the situation. Here goes, he thinks, and stands up.

  To find Lemon, looking right at him. ‘Well, hello there.’

  Nanao isn’t immediately able to process what’s happening. ‘Well, hello there, how’ve you been?’ Lemon sounds like he’s talking to a long-time acquaintance. He stands in the aisle next to Nanao’s seat, blocking the way.

  Before Nanao can address the question mark in his brain his body starts moving. First he ducks, and not a moment too soon, because Lemon’s fist smashes air where his head just was. If he had hesitated at all he would have taken the hook straight on the jaw.

  Nanao stands upright and snakes his hand out to grab Lemon’s right wrist. He wrenches it around behind Lemon’s back, all the while trying to contain his movements as much as possible so as not to call attention to himself. Causing a commotion won’t do him any good. If the police or reporters get involved it would make it harder to hide his failure from Minegishi. He still needs to buy himself more time.

  Luckily, Lemon also seems to want to avoid making a scene. Keeping his movements compact, he makes his hand tremble like he’s having a spasm, causing Nanao to lose his grip.

  Nanao knows that he can’t afford to give his opponent any openings, but he’s so concerned about being noticed that he risks a glance around the train car. Most of the passengers are asleep or looking at their phones or magazines, but at the back of the car is a toddler standing on the seat, staring at them with great interest. Not good. He pops his elbow into Lemon’s chest, not to do damage but to disrupt his balance. While Lemon staggers slightly Nanao slips backwards and down into the window seat. If they stay standing, sooner or later someone will notice them.

 
Lemon sits too, in the aisle seat, and they start throwing punches over the empty middle seat. The middle seat in front of them is reclined a fair amount, making it hard to aim a clean strike, but they do the best they can. Neither one has ever had a sit-down fistfight before.

  They twist their bodies and throw punches at each other, leaning and blocking.

  Lemon fires a vicious uppercut at Nanao’s ribs, but Nanao slams the raised armrest down and Lemon’s fist crashes into it with a dull thud. He makes a frustrated noise. Nanao’s spirits rally, but only for a moment, because he notices that Lemon has a knife in his other hand. It’s a small knife, but it gleams cold as it slices through the air. Nanao grabs a magazine from the seat-back pocket and spreads it open in the blade’s path. The knife slashes through photographs of lush rice paddies. He tries to fold the magazine around the blade but Lemon yanks it back.

  I’m just glad he didn’t pull a gun. It could be that Lemon thinks a knife is better than a gun for this kind of close-in fighting, or maybe he’s not even carrying one. Nanao isn’t that concerned with the reason.

  The blade comes once more. Nanao tries to catch it in the magazine again but he mistimes it and takes a slash on the left arm. There’s a flash of pain. Nanao’s eyes drop to his arm for a moment. It’s not deep. He looks back at Lemon and makes a quick grab, getting him by the wrist of his knife hand. He jerks the hand towards himself and drops a heavy elbow strike on it with his free arm. Lemon groans and the knife clatters to the floor. Nanao presses his advantage, thrusting two fingers at Lemon’s eyes. Past the point of holding back, he fully intends to blind his opponent, but Lemon flinches at the last moment and the fingers just miss, catching him on the sides of the eyes instead of dead centre. He screws up his face in pain and Nanao is about to try again, readying his fingers for another strike, when Lemon’s hand flies towards his own chest and into his jacket. Nanao blinks, and in the split second his eyes are closed a gun appears. Lemon holds it low, but it’s aimed right at Nanao.

  ‘I didn’t wanna have to use this, but I’ve just about had enough,’ he says quietly.