Bullet Train

by Kotaro Isaka

  The Prince tilts the phone towards himself.

  ‘You’re drinking again, aren’t you?’ he hears the old man say.

  ‘No. No! I’m telling you, I’m being held.’

  ‘By the police?’

  It’s a sensible guess; when someone says they’re being held most people would automatically think it was by the police.

  ‘No, not the cops.’

  ‘Then who? What are you trying to pull?’ Kimura’s father sounds disgusted.

  ‘Trying to pull? What does that even mean? Don’t you wanna help me?’

  ‘You’re asking for an old man’s help, a stockroom manager collecting his pension? And your mother, with her knees she can barely get in and out of the bath. How are we supposed to help you when you’re on the Shinkansen? What Shinkansen are you even on?’

  ‘The Tohoku Shinkansen. In twenty minutes it’ll get to Sendai. And when I say don’t you wanna help me, I’m not asking you to come all the way out here. It would just be nice to know you were on my side.’

  ‘Listen, I don’t know what you’re up to. But what were you thinking, leaving Wataru behind and hopping on a Shinkansen? I’m your father, but don’t understand you at all.’

  ‘I’m telling you, I’m being held!’

  ‘Who would want to hold you? What kind of a game is this?’ Very sharp, grandpa, thinks the Prince. This is all just a game. Kimura’s face screws up. ‘Like I said –’

  ‘Let’s say you are being held. I have no idea why you would be held on a train. If any of this is even true. And if it is, I’d say you likely brought it on yourself. If you’re being held, why would your captor let you answer the phone like this?’

  The Prince sees that Kimura doesn’t know what else to say. With a triumphant smile he holds the phone up to his own ear. ‘Hello, I’m sitting in the seat next to Mr Kimura.’ His elocution is refined but his voice still sounds young.

  ‘Who is this?’ Kimura’s father sounds confused at the new voice.

  ‘I’m just a kid. I’m fourteen. We happened to be sitting next to each other. I think Mr Kimura was just messing around. When your call came in he said Let’s pretend I’m in trouble and upset the old folks.’

  The elderly man’s disappointed sigh comes across the line, hanging in the air. ‘I see. Even though he’s my son I can’t ever seem to understand why he does the things he does. Sorry if he’s troubling you. He likes to play tricks.’

  ‘I think he’s a very nice man.’

  ‘The nice man isn’t drinking, is he? If he looks like he’s going to start drinking, do me a favour and try to stop him.’

  ‘All right. I’ll do my best,’ the Prince says politely, in a tone guaranteed to please adults. After hanging up the phone he grips Kimura by the wrist. ‘Too bad, Mr Kimura. You lost. Your father doesn’t believe a word you say. Although I don’t blame him, with the way you were talking.’ As he says this he takes a small bag out of his backpack with his free hand and pulls out a sewing needle.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘You lost the game. Now you have to take the penalty.’

  ‘The game wasn’t exactly fair.’

  The Prince adjusts his hold on the needle and leans over. People are controlled through pain and suffering. He couldn’t risk another electric shock on the train, but a needle would be fine. Much easier to hide, or explain away. By setting the rules and forcing someone to go along with them, he establishes their difference in status. While Kimura sits there looking confused, the Prince inserts the needle under the man’s fingernail.

  Kimura screams.

  The Prince shushes him, like he’s scolding a child. ‘Keep quiet, Mr Kimura. The more noise you make the more you’ll get stabbed.’

  ‘Get the fuck off me!’

  ‘If you scream again, I’ll stick the needle somewhere that hurts even more. Take it silently and it’ll end much more quickly.’ As he says this, the Prince pulls the needle out and starts to slide it under the next fingernail. Kimura’s nostrils flare and his eyes bug. He’s clearly on the verge of shrieking in protest. The Prince sighs. ‘Next time you scream, Little Wataru gets it,’ he breathes into Kimura’s ear. ‘I’ll make the call. I’m serious.’

  Kimura’s face turns beetroot red with rage. But then he remembers that the Prince isn’t one to bluff and he immediately goes pale and clenches his jaw shut. He’s doing everything he can to keep his fury in check and brace against the coming pain.

  He’s completely under my control, exults the Prince. The man has been following his orders for some time now. Once someone obeys a command, it’s as if they’ve gone down a rung on the ladder, and the more they obey the further down they go, until they do whatever they’re told. And climbing back up is no easy thing.

  ‘Okay, here we go.’ He pushes the needle slowly inward, digging between the nail and the flesh. It gives him the same satisfying feeling as peeling a scab.

  Kimura whimpers quietly. To the Prince he looks like a toddler trying to hold back tears, and the sight is hilarious. Why? he wonders. Why are people willing to suffer for someone else? Even if it’s their child? Taking on someone else’s pain is so much harder than pushing your pain onto someone else.

  A sudden impact rocks the Prince, momentarily blinding him. The needle falls from his hand to the floor.

  He sits back up.

  Unable to bear the pain, Kimura had smashed his knee and elbow into the Prince’s head. The man’s face is a mix of triumph and horror over what he’s done.

  The Prince’s head starts to throb, but he doesn’t lose his temper. Instead he smiles sympathetically. ‘Oh, did it hurt too much?’ His voice is mocking. ‘You’re lucky it’s me and not someone else. My teacher always praises me for being the most patient and cool-headed student in the class. Someone a little hastier would be on the phone right now, sending a killer after your boy.’

  Kimura exhales sharply through his nose. He doesn’t appear to know what to do next.

  The door behind them opens once more. The Prince turns to look as two men walk past his seat, both thin and long-limbed. They’re scanning the car exhaustively as they move through it. When the one with the nastier look in his eye notices the Prince he stops. ‘Hey, it’s Percy again.’ His hair looks like a lion’s mane with bedhead. The Prince remembers meeting him before.

  ‘Are you still looking for something? What was it again?’

  ‘A bag. Yeah, we’re still looking for it.’ He thrusts his face towards the Prince, who gets worried that this man might see Kimura’s hands and feet are tied. He stands up quickly to distract them.

  ‘I just saw a man go by with a bag,’ he says, trying to sound as naive as he can. ‘He had glasses on.’

  ‘You sure you’re not lying to me again?’

  ‘I didn’t lie before.’

  The other man turns towards his partner with the bedhead. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

  ‘Wonder what’s going on up front,’ says Bedhead. ‘A showdown, probably.’

  A showdown? What showdown? The Prince’s sense of curiosity sits up and takes notice. ‘Murdoch v. the Hornet. Oh, I can call the Hornet James.’

  ‘Does everyone have to have a name from Thomas the Tank Engine?

  ‘James is famous for getting stung on the nose by a hornet.’

  ‘Can’t be that famous, because I’ve never heard about it.’

  With that they walk on. The Prince didn’t follow a word of what they were saying. Which makes him even more interested.

  He turns to Kimura. ‘Let’s go further up the train, shall we?’ Kimura glares silently.

  ‘Looks like everyone’s getting together.’

  ‘So what if they are?’

  ‘Let’s go and have a look.’

  ‘Me too?’

  ‘You don’t want anything to happen to me, do you? You have to protect me. Protect me like you’re protecting your own son, Mr Kimura. In a way, I’m the only thing keeping Little Wataru alive. Think about me as his sa
viour.’

  Fruit

  SLIGHT REWIND. BEFORE PASSING BY the Prince in car seven.

  As they step out of car five, Lemon glances at his watch. ‘Only thirty minutes till Sendai.’ They come to a stop in the gangway.

  ‘Ah,’ Tangerine drawls, ‘but Glasses Guy said there were more than thirty minutes.’

  The little placard next to the lock of the women’s toilet says it’s in use. All the other toilets are open; no one inside.

  ‘What are the chances he’s hiding in the girls’ room?’ Lemon looks bored to tears.

  ‘Why would I know the chances? But sure, he could be in there. Our bespectacled friend is desperate, I doubt he’d be particular about hiding in the ladies’ room over the men’s room.’ Tangerine pauses a beat. ‘If he’s in any toilet, we’ll find him soon enough.’

  After Nanao’s call before, Lemon had said, ‘There are only so many places he can go on a train. Even our very talented friend can’t hide forever.’

  ‘What do we do when we find him?’

  ‘He took my damn gun, so you’ll have to shoot him.’

  ‘Firing a gun on the train is going to attract attention.’

  ‘Then should we get him into a toilet and try to kill him quietly in there?’

  ‘Wish I’d brought a silencer.’ Tangerine glumly pictured a tight little suppressor on the barrel of the gun to keep things nice and quiet. He hadn’t thought he would need one on this job.

  ‘Maybe we can find one somewhere.’

  ‘Oh yes, maybe they sell them with the refreshments. Or you could ask Santa for one.’

  Lemon clasped his hands together. ‘Please, Santa Claus, this Christmas I want a silencer for my gun.’

  ‘Enough. We need to figure out what we’re doing. First, we want to give Minegishi his son’s killer.’

  ‘Which was Glasses Guy.’

  ‘But if we kill him, we’ll have to deal with moving the body and not getting caught. Bringing him to Minegishi will be much easier if he’s alive. Killing him now will just make it more complicated.’

  ‘Yeah, but if we get him in front of Minegishi, he’ll just say I didn’t do it, I was framed!’

  ‘Anyone would say they were framed in a situation like that. Nothing to worry about.’

  So they decided to search every last inch of the train. If they checked every seat, all the luggage racks, all the toilets and sink areas, they’d find him for certain. If a toilet was in use, they’d wait to see if someone came out.

  Now, beside the in-use toilet Lemon says, ‘I got this one. You keep going.’ He points towards the front of the train, but then, ‘I have a better idea – we do the opposite!’

  ‘And what’s your opposite idea?’ Tangerine knows it won’t be anything very good, but he asks anyway.

  ‘I can go around locking all the bathrooms. That way even if I don’t find him, he’ll have fewer places to hide!’

  Just a few minutes ago they had hidden Little Minegishi’s body in the bathroom between cars three and four. They didn’t think it was a good idea to leave him in the seat while both of them were gone. They propped him up on the toilet, then Lemon used a twist of copper wire to lock the door from the outside. By winding the wire around the knob for the lock on the inside of the door, he could pull the door shut and locked. There’s a trick to the angles, and you have to yank down the moment the door closes, but Lemon did it deftly. ‘There you go, one locked murder room,’ he said proudly. Then he got excited. ‘Hey, wasn’t there an old movie where they used a giant magnet to open a locked door from the outside?’

  ‘Yeah, Un Flic.’ Tangerine remembered enjoying the scene, with the oversized U-magnet moving the chain on the lock.

  ‘That the one with Steven Seagal?’

  ‘Alain Delon.’

  ‘Really? You sure it wasn’t in Under Siege 2?’

  ‘It wasn’t Under Siege 2.’

  After a minute the ladies’ room door opens and a thin woman emerges. Her white blouse has a youthful cut, but the heavy make-up and lines on her face give her away. She reminds Tangerine of a wilting plant. He watches her walk off. ‘Definitely not Ladybird. At least that one was straightforward.’

  They enter car six and scan the passengers one by one, confirm that no one is Nanao, and move on. They check under seats and on luggage racks, even though they doubt they’d find him, or the missing suitcase, in either one of those places. Luckily they can tell at a glance that none of the passengers might be Nanao in disguise – they’re all either the wrong sex or the wrong age.

  ‘When I was on the phone with Momo earlier, she told me that Minegishi’s trying to put together a squad at Sendai Station.’

  ‘So we’re gonna pull in and find the platform packed with bad dudes. Gross.’

  ‘At such short notice, I don’t imagine he’d get that many people,’ Tangerine muses as they exit car six. ‘Everyone who’s any good already has a full schedule.’

  ‘Yeah, but whoever he does get is gonna come on and start shooting. They’re not gonna listen to reason.’

  ‘That could happen, true, but I doubt it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re the only ones who might have any idea about what happened to Minegishi’s kid. You and I. They can’t just kill us immediately.’

  ‘Huh. I guess you’re right. We’re useful trains.’ Lemon nods his agreement. ‘No, wait.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If it were me, I’d kill me, or you.’

  ‘I have no idea who’s doing what to whom in that sentence. Like bad prose in a novel.’

  ‘I’m trying to say, Minegishi’s guys only need to bring one of us in alive if he wants to find out what happened to his kid. Right? And trying to bring in both of us together would also be more dangerous. Better to take one of us out. This train only needs one car.’

  A call comes in. Tangerine reaches for his own phone, but it’s on the phone he got from the cross-dresser. Not a number he recognises. He answers and hears Nanao’s voice.

  ‘Mr Tangerine? or Mr Lemon?’

  ‘Tangerine,’ he says. Lemon makes a questioning face at him, so he traces circles in front of his eyes: glasses. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On the Shinkansen.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you know it, we are too. Why are you calling? We’re not going to make a deal with you.’

  ‘I’m not looking to make a deal. I give up.’ He can hear the tension in Nanao’s voice.

  The shaking and noise are much more intense in the gangway than in the train cars. The roar sounds like they’re hurtling along in open air.

  ‘You give up?’ Tangerine isn’t sure if he heard right. He says it again, louder. ‘You’re giving up?’ Lemon’s eyes narrow.

  ‘And I found the bag.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the luggage rack in the gangway. It just showed up, out of nowhere. Wasn’t there before.’

  Sounds fishy to Tangerine. ‘Why would it just reappear? It has to be some kind of trap.’

  Nanao is quiet for a moment. ‘I can’t say that is not a trap. All I can say is that the bag was there.’

  ‘And the contents?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. I don’t know the combination for the lock and I didn’t know what was in it to begin with. But I wanted to turn it over to you two.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I don’t think I can keep dodging you here on the train, so rather than worrying about you trying to kill me I thought it would just be easier on my nerves to call it quits. I gave the bag to one of the conductors. Soon there should be an announcement about it on the PA. That’s your bag. Will you go and get it and then just go to the back of the train? I’ll get off at Sendai and you’ll be done with me. And I’ll be done with this job.’

  ‘If you don’t finish the job, you’ll make Maria angry. And I’m guessing your client Minegishi will be even angrier.’

  ‘I’d rather that than be targeted by the two of you.’
r />   Tangerine lowers the phone and turns to Lemon. ‘Glasses Guy is giving up.’

  ‘Smart move,’ says Lemon with great satisfaction. ‘He knows how tough we are.’

  ‘Still doesn’t solve our problem with Little Minegishi.’ Tangerine brings the phone back up to his ear. ‘In our scenario, you’re the killer.’

  ‘It’ll be more believable if you bring in the real killer.’

  ‘Who do you mean, the real killer?’

  ‘You’re familiar with the Hornet?’

  Lemon cranes towards the phone. ‘What’s Glasses Guy saying?’

  ‘Asks if we’re familiar with the hornet.’

  ‘Of course we are,’ Lemon says, grabbing the phone out of Tangerine’s hand. ‘When I was little and went out collecting beetles, I got chased by hornets all the time. Hornets are bad news!’ Flecks of saliva fly from his mouth. Then his brow knits at Nanao’s response. ‘What do you mean, I’m talking about real hornets? Are you talking about a fake hornet? Do people make counterfeit hornets?’

  Tangerine has put it together. He gestures for Lemon to give him back the phone. ‘You mean the professional who poisons people. That Hornet.’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Nanao affirms.

  ‘So what do I get for getting the right answer?’

  ‘You get the killer.’

  At first it’s not clear what Nanao’s suggesting and Tangerine is about to snarl at him for wasting their time, but then it hits him. ‘Are you saying the Hornet is on this train?’

  ‘Whoa, where, I hate hornets!’ Lemon immediately starts shielding his face and looking around nervously.

  ‘I think the Hornet may have poisoned Minegishi’s son,’ continues Nanao. ‘That would explain why he doesn’t have any visible wounds.’

  Tangerine doesn’t know exactly how the professional called the Hornet works, but the rumour is that he uses needles to trigger anaphylaxis. The first prick won’t kill, just lights up the immune system, but the second needle sets off a massive allergic reaction that causes the victim to die of shock. That’s the Hornet’s method, they say. Tangerine tells Nanao about it.

  ‘So the second prick is the deadly one?’