Bullet Train

by Kotaro Isaka

  Suddenly enthusiastic despite being threatened only a moment earlier, the man asks, ‘How long should I stay there for? Who exactly is coming?’

  ‘A man, tall, handsome.’ Nanao gives the man a light shove to get him moving.

  ‘Okay, okay, I got it.’ Looking rather absurd in the wig, the man turns and heads towards car one. But halfway there he stops and looks back. ‘Hey, this isn’t dangerous, right?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Nanao says decisively. ‘Completely safe.’

  Completely untrue, Nanao chastises himself, feeling a pang of guilt.

  The man looks uncertain as he shuffles into car one, leaving Nanao feeling the same. He turns to the cross-dresser. ‘Come with me.’

  Fortunately the cross-dresser shows no signs of resisting Nanao. She even seems excited. She follows Nanao along the gangway to the toilet door. ‘You know, honey, you’re pretty cute. I’ll do whatever you want.’ The glint in her eyes makes Nanao shrink a little but he doesn’t waste any time worrying.

  ‘The man who’s coming is even cuter. Listen to me. He’ll be coming from that direction, any second now. You stand here until he does.’

  ‘Ooh, a male model’s on the way?’

  ‘When he gets here, you go into the bathroom. Make sure the male model sees you going into the bathroom.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it,’ Nanao says urgently.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in the bathroom.’

  ‘What do you mean, in the bathroom?’

  Nanao already has the toilet door open and one foot inside. ‘I’ll be waiting in here. Then once you seen the man, you come in. And don’t let him know I’m in here.’

  The cross-dresser doesn’t look like she has a firm grasp on the situation, but it’s too risky to spend any more time trying to explain it. ‘Just do what I said. And if for some reason he doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes, then just come in anyway.’ Then Nanao steps fully inside and pulls the door shut behind him. He stands beside the toilet and presses himself up against the wall. There’s no telling if this will work or not, so he wants to have a good angle to get the drop on Tangerine if he comes in.

  After a short while the door opens. Nanao’s whole body tenses up. ‘Excuse me before I wet my panties,’ says the cross-dresser as she enters, then she closes the door and locks it.

  ‘Was it him?’

  ‘Yeah, he was cute all right. He really could be a model, with long legs like that.’ Tangerine. Even though Nanao was expecting his pursuer, his stomach does a flip. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me now, and in such a tight space,’ she says, wriggling her hips and stepping closer.

  ‘Back off, and shut up,’ Nanao says sharply, trying to be as fierce as he can. He’s never been good at intimidation, and he can’t even tell if she’s joking or actually making a pass, but either way he needs to keep her quiet. There’s no telling what someone outside can hear.

  He tries to picture what Tangerine is doing now. Probably investigating the gangway, and then moving on to car number one. Nanao needs him to get all the way to the far end of the car or the plan won’t work. He knows Tangerine will want to check both toilets, but he’s betting that having seen the cross-dresser enter this one, he’ll check it off the list. From what Lemon said, Tangerine knows what Nanao looks like. Which means that the cross-dresser would register as being not Nanao. And it doesn’t seem likely he’d guess right away that there were two people in one bathroom.

  Should be in car one by now. Nanao envisions the scene: Tangerine, stopping to investigate the umbrella. Then coming to the tripwire. Will he notice it? … Yeah. He will. Then he’ll conclude that Nanao set it up, which will tell him that Nanao came that way. Which will mean he’ll keep going further into the car.

  So then it comes down to whether the bearded man follows instructions. He’ll need to hide out in the last row, and call when Tangerine approaches. Come on, beardie, don’t let me down. The moment Nanao utters this silent plea the cross-dresser’s bag starts to vibrate with what must be an incoming call. It stops almost as soon as it starts. Perfect.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Nanao says. No time for thinking. Just instinct. ‘Leave the toilet and head into car one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get out of the toilet and head straight into car one.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘The man who you just saw will probably try to talk to you. Just tell him you don’t know anything. Say I threatened you and you just did what I asked.’

  ‘And what are you gonna do?’

  ‘Better you don’t know. That way if he asks you, you can say you don’t know and you won’t be lying.’ Nanao knows he’ll only get one chance. He’ll have to exit the toilet when she does and head in the opposite direction, towards the front of the train. Then even if Tangerine looks towards the gangway, the cross-dresser should be in the way and give Nanao some cover. At least I hope so.

  ‘Oh, wait,’ he says, pulling a phone out of his pocket and pressing it into her hand.

  It’s the phone he took off the Wolf. ‘Give this to him.’

  ‘Hey, what about my money?’

  Nanao had forgotten, but he whips out two 10,000-yen notes from his wallet and hands them over. ‘Now let’s go.’ He unlocks the door.

  She turns left towards car one and he breaks right, moving steadily, not looking back.

  Kimura

  THE PRINCE WALKS OUT THE back exit of the car, wheeling the suitcase behind him.

  Kimura leans towards the window and gazes outside. The sight reminds him just how fast the train is moving. Each building or patch of land he focuses on shoots by and disappears behind the train in an instant. With his hands and ankles bound he can’t quite find a comfortable position. The Shinkansen enters a tunnel. A roaring reverberation envelops the train and rattles the windows. A question floats into his head: Any light at the end of the tunnel? It occurs to him that for Wataru, lying there in a hospital, everything is as black as this tunnel. All dark, all uncertain. Thinking about it makes his heart hurt.

  He wonders where the Prince went to drop off the bag. I hope he bumps into the owner. He smiles at the thought. Some rough customers cornering the kid, What are you doing with our bag, you little shit? Kimura hopes they work him over. But almost immediately he remembers that if anything happens to the Prince, Wataru will be in danger too.

  Is that really true? Is there really someone waiting by the hospital for the green light? He starts to question. Couldn’t it just be a bluff? Maybe the Prince is just making it up to keep him docile. Maybe the Prince is laughing at him at this very moment.

  It’s possible. But no way to know for sure. As long as there’s some tiny chance it’s true, he knows he has to keep the Prince alive. Just thinking that makes him seethe with rage, makes him want to swing his tied-up hands around and bash everything in sight. It takes a supreme effort to calm his ragged breathing.

  I should never’ve left Wataru alone. Regret washes over him.

  Kimura had barely left the hospital in the month and a half since Wataru went into a coma. The boy was unresponsive, so there was no conversation, no way for Kimura to encourage him, but he did everything else he possibly could. Changed his clothes, moved him around on the bed, everything. And it was tough to get a good night’s sleep in the hospital, so Kimura’s fatigue kept building. There were other patients in the room, as many as six at a time, all little boys and girls, and their parents stayed there too, just like he was doing. None of the other parents made any small talk with the gruff and brooding Kimura, but neither did they make any overt signs of trying to keep their distance. Seeing him sitting next to Wataru, muttering to himself and to the unconscious boy, they could easily guess what he was going through, since they were going through something similar themselves, and they looked at him with sympathetic eyes. In a way, they were all fighting the same battle. As for Kimura, everyone in his life was either an enemy or someone who gave
him a wide berth, so at first he didn’t know what to make of these other parents, but eventually he came to regard them as being on the same team, all sitting on the same bench.

  ‘Tomorrow I have to be somewhere all day for work, so if anything happens with Wataru, would you please give me a call?’

  Yesterday, after letting the nurses know he’d be gone, Kimura had asked this of the other parents with kids in Wataru’s room. It felt unnatural for him to make a request so politely.

  He had no intention of telling his own parents. They would undoubtedly read him the riot act, How can you leave Wataru, what are you thinking, where are you even going? What was he supposed to tell them – that he was going to get revenge for Wataru by killing a schoolkid? It would boggle their elderly minds.

  ‘Of course, no problem at all,’ the other parents had said affably. They had never seen Kimura leave the hospital, so they didn’t know how he could be making a living, or if he had taken an extended leave from work, or maybe he was some fabulously wealthy financier but if that were true why wouldn’t his son have a private room? They had made all sorts of speculations, so it relieved them to hear him say he had to go somewhere for work. It was an indication that he was a normal, working person. Meanwhile, he knew that the hospital would take care of most of Wataru’s needs, but he wanted to be sure that his boy was fully covered, so he had to ask. The other parents were all too happy to help.

  ‘This past month and a half he’s just been, you know, sleeping, so I don’t imagine there will be any change tomorrow.’

  ‘You never know, the one day you leave could be the day he wakes up,’ one mother said brightly. Kimura could tell she wasn’t being sarcastic. There was real hope in her voice.

  ‘Sure. Could be.’

  ‘Yes it could,’ she said. ‘And if your work keeps you out for more than a day, just call. We’ll do whatever needs doing.’

  ‘I’ll be gone one day,’ he responded immediately. What he had to do was simple. Get on the Shinkansen, point his gun at that vicious little bastard’s head, pull the trigger. Then back to the hospital. That’s all.

  Or so he thought. He would never have guessed things would turn out this way. He looks down at his bound hands and feet. He tries to remember how his father’s friend Shigeru escaped being tied up, but there’s no recalling something that you didn’t know in the first place.

  Doesn’t matter what happens on this train, Wataru’s back there, asleep, waiting for me. He suddenly can’t bear just sitting there. Before he realises what he’s doing, he’s up on his feet. He has no plan, but he knows he has to do something, and he wriggles into the aisle.

  Gotta get back to the hospital.

  He thinks he should make a phone call and reaches for his pocket, but with his hands bound he loses balance and falls, his hip crashing into the armrest of the aisle seat. Pain shoots down his side and he clicks his tongue in frustration, hunching over.

  Someone approaches from behind. A young woman, looking both annoyed that Kimura is blocking the aisle and also unnerved at the thought of interacting with him. ‘Um,’ she says searchingly.

  ‘Oh, hey, sorry.’ Kimura hauls himself up into the aisle seat, then has an idea. ‘Listen, do you think I could use your phone?’

  She blinks, taken aback. It’s clear she thinks there’s something weird about him. He awkwardly hunches over and puts his hands between his legs to hide the fact that they’re tied together.

  ‘I gotta make a call. It’s urgent. My phone ran out of juice.’

  ‘Where do you need to call?’

  He hesitates. He doesn’t know his parents’ new number since they changed their service plan. For that matter he doesn’t know any number he might want to call. They’re all saved on his phone. ‘Uh, the hospital,’ he says, naming the place where Wataru is staying. ‘My boy’s laid up there.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘My son is in danger, okay? I need to call the hospital.’

  ‘Oh, okay, um, what’s the hospital’s number?’ Feeling pressured by the urgency in Kimura’s voice, she takes out her phone and steps closer to him. Then she looks at him as if he’s injured. ‘Are you all right?’

  He grimaces. ‘I don’t know the damn hospital’s number.’

  ‘Oh. Well, then I guess I’ll … Um. Sorry.’ And she beats a hasty retreat.

  Kimura’s anger flares, but he decides against going after her. He almost shouts at her to call the police and tell them to protect Wataru, but that won’t work either. He doesn’t have any information about the person taking orders from the Prince, whether it’s a school student or someone medical, or even if it’s someone connected to the police, improbable as that seems. But if the Prince finds out that Kimura tried to contact the authorities, it’s easy to imagine him exacting retribution.

  ‘What are you up to, Mr Kimura? Going to the toilet?’ The Prince reappears, looking down at Kimura in the aisle seat. ‘Or are you up to something naughty?’

  ‘Toilet.’

  ‘With your feet tied together? I’m sure you can hold it a little longer. Come on, go back to your seat.’ The Prince pushes Kimura out of the aisle seat and eases himself down.

  ‘What’d you do with the bag?’

  ‘I put it back. On the luggage rack where it was originally.’

  ‘Took a long time.’

  ‘I got a phone call.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘I told you. My friend is waiting near the hospital where your son is. And he calls me to check in. He already called when we left Omiya, as planned, so I was wondering what was up when he called again. When do I get to do it, he asked, how much longer do I have to wait? Let me do it now, let me kill the kid. Seems he’s really eager to get the job done. Don’t worry, I told him not to. But if I tell him it’s time, or if I don’t answer when he calls …’

  ‘Then he hurts Wataru.’

  ‘He won’t just be hurting him,’ the Prince says with a laugh. ‘Little Wataru, who’s doing nothing but breathing right now, would no longer be breathing. If you think about the fact that all he’s doing is exhaling CO2 into the atmosphere, then you could say we’re being ecologically progressive. Killing Little Wataru Kimura isn’t a sin, no, it’s environmentalism.’ He cackles ostentatiously.

  He’s trying to get a rise out of me, Kimura tells himself, keeping his anger in check.

  Choosing his words to piss me off. He’s started to notice that sometimes the Prince says your son, and sometimes he says little Wataru, and there’s a method to it, intended to push buttons. Don’t let him get to you, Kimura warns himself.

  ‘Who do you have over there, anyway, this guy who’s so eager? What’s his deal?’

  ‘I bet you’d like to know. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know much about him either. I just know he agreed to do the job for money. He could be wearing a white coat and inside the hospital already, for all I know. If he’s dressed like a medical worker and walking around like he belongs there I doubt anyone would question him. All he has to do is act natural and no one will suspect a thing. But really, don’t worry. It’s fine for now. I told him not to do anything to your son just yet. I said, sit, stay. Don’t kill the kiddy just yet.’

  ‘Yeah, well, do me a favour and don’t let your phone run out of juice.’ Kimura says it lightly, but in his heart he’s deadly serious. He can’t even let himself think about what will happen if the Prince’s lackey tries to call and doesn’t get through.

  He takes a long look at the Prince, like he’s staring at something revolting. ‘What’s your goal in life, anyway?’

  ‘What kind of a question is that? I don’t know how to answer it.’

  ‘It’s hard for me to imagine you don’t have some kind of goal.’

  The Prince smiles, so carefree and innocent that for a split second Kimura’s disgust is replaced by an urge to care for him, protect him. ‘You’re giving me too much credit. I’m not that sophisticated. I just want to try as many things as I can.’
/>   ‘Life experiences, is that it?’

  ‘I’ll only get to live once.’ It doesn’t sound like a put-on. He’s being totally earnest.

  ‘Keep pushing it like you do and your precious one life might end quicker than you’d like.’

  ‘You might be right.’ There again, that look of unfiltered innocence. ‘But I’ve got a good feeling you’re wrong.’

  What makes you so sure? Kimura wants to ask, but he stops himself. He knows that the answer won’t be some childish prattle. It’s all too clear that the Prince was born with a natural sense of authority over other people, a belief in his own power to grant life and death, and that he doesn’t have a shred of doubt about his superiority. A royal prince has better luck than anyone else, because he gets to make the rules.

  ‘Hey, Mr Kimura, you know how at the symphony when the performance is done everyone applauds?’

  ‘You been to the symphony?’

  ‘Sure. The applause doesn’t come from everyone at once – a few people start it, and then everyone else joins in. The applause gets louder, and then quieter, because fewer and fewer people are clapping.’

  ‘Do I look like I’ve ever gone to hear classical music?’

  ‘If you were to graph the sound of the applause, it would make a bell curve, right? At the beginning only a few people are clapping, then more, and after it passes the peak it starts to fall off again.’

  ‘Do I look like I care about graphs?’

  ‘And if you were to make a graph of something else entirely, like maybe the diffusion of a particular model of mobile phone, it would look just like the graph of applause at the symphony.’

  ‘What am I supposed to say to this? You want me to tell you your findings are great and you should present your research?’

  ‘My point is that people act based on the influence of those around them. Human beings aren’t primarily motivated by reason but by instinct. So even when it looks like someone is acting of their own individual will, they’re always taking input from other people. They might think they have an independent, original existence, but once you put them on a graph they’re just another data point. See? For example, if you tell someone they’re free to do whatever they like, what do you suppose they do first?’