Bullet Train

by Kotaro Isaka

  That’s when Nanao makes his move. He grasps the backpack with his left hand and darts his right hand inside.

  The Prince has a thrill of ecstasy at his luck, that the little boy would distract the couple so Nanao could grab for the gun. He’ll grab it and aim it and pull the trigger and then they’ll be done for. The Prince shoots up out of his seat.

  But there’s no explosion.

  Halfway into the aisle, he turns round. Nanao didn’t pull out the gun.

  Not only that, but he’s just sitting there staring at the hand he withdrew from the bag, not moving a muscle, like his power was cut.

  Only when the Prince looks at Nanao’s arm does he grasp what’s happened, and the sight startles him so much that he skips backwards.

  The old man is frozen too, still holding his gun, eyes wide as plates. The woman’s mouth hangs open.

  Nanao’s arm is bizarrely swollen, like the veins have inflated.

  That’s what it looked like at first. But that’s not it.

  There’s a snake wrapped around his arm.

  ‘What’s a snake,’ sputters the man with the gun, then he guffaws, ‘what’s a snake doing here?’

  ‘My goodness,’ the woman says, astonished.

  Nanao shrieks, but his body is still paralysed.

  ‘What is going on here?’ The old man can’t stop laughing.

  ‘It’s got you all wrapped up, young man. You really are unlucky!’ The woman makes a courteous effort to suppress her laughter, but it’s too much for her to contain and she begins clucking heartily.

  ‘When did that thing get in there?’ Nanao’s voice and arm tremble in concert. ‘It wasn’t in there before! I knew it would show up again, but why right now?’

  The Prince just stares. He can barely believe this is happening.

  Nanao starts shaking his arm and squealing, ‘It won’t come off,’ like a frantic little boy. ‘Try splashing it with some water,’ suggests the woman, and Nanao leaps past the Prince like a man on a mission, through the door and off into the gangway.

  The woman is still laughing, and next to her the man grins. ‘Outstanding,’ he repeats several times. ‘What is a snake doing on the Shinkansen? I don’t believe it. You were right, that is one unlucky fellow.’

  Confusion assails the Prince. What is happening? Why would there be a snake here, now? It was completely unforeseen. He feels a churn of rage, but also dread, fear that his good luck has been seized between the jaws of some shadowy beast of misfortune, that it’s being ripped to pieces.

  Then he hears a buoyant laughing, coming from the old man.

  Thinking the man must be cracking up again about the whole snake episode, the Prince looks at him. He’s peering upward, near the ceiling, teeth bared in a broad smile. Staring at a point over the Prince’s head. ‘There he is.’

  The woman looks up in the same direction and adds her smile to his. ‘Oh, yes, it’s him!’

  What are they talking about? The Prince follows their gaze, craning his neck up and round. He anticipates seeing someone entering the car, the exam-prep instructor, or Nanao, but there’s no one. It’s not clear where he should be looking. His eyes dart left and right. He turns back to them, but they’re still staring in the same direction. The Prince turns round again.

  That’s when he notices the digital ticker on the wall over the door.

  Text slides by: Shigeru to Shigeru. Wataru is safe. Intruder is dead.

  Morning Glory

  THE INSECT CLIMBS THE LONG dandelion stalk like a spiral staircase, front to back, back around to front, winding its way upward. It toils faithfully, like it has an important delivery to make, a payload of good fortune.

  Hey, Morning Glory, are you listening to me? The voice of the go-between sounds from the phone. Where are you?

  Beside a dandelion and a ladybird, answers Morning Glory. He’s thinking about some children he encountered on one of his jobs, who loved to collect insect trading cards. They must all be teenagers by now. Time goes by so fast. He alone stays still, removed from the rushing flow, possibly because he’s clinging on to a boulder in the current, but for whatever reason, he can’t move forward. He’s all alone.

  A dandelion and a ladybird? Is that a code or something?

  No code. I really am standing beside a dandelion and a ladybird. In front of the hospital you told me to come to. I can see the main entrance. Where are you? he asks.

  Morning Glory has an unconscious urge, his hand reaches down to the dandelion and plucks off the yellow head with a satisfying pop.

  I’m near the patient rooms. My friend asked me to go to one specific room, which I did, and I was just in time, because a man in a white coat came along.

  You were supposed to be waiting for a man in a white coat?

  No, the go-between answers. He just asked me to go to his grandson’s hospital room and check up on the boy. Just as I was getting there, I spotted a man in a white coat coming. I hid under the bed. It wasn’t easy, there were all those cords and plugs and wires tangled up down there, and you know, my body being the size it is, but I managed to hide in time. Then the man in the white coat came in and started pushing buttons on the life-support machine.

  There’s nothing out of the ordinary about a man in a white coat operating a medical device. What makes you suspect him?

  I could see his shoes from under the bed. They were dirty. Stained with mud. Something didn’t seem right about a medical professional wearing shoes like that.

  You should quit your job as a go-between and do the Holmes thing.

  So I jumped out and asked what he was doing.

  You, jumped out from under the bed? With that body?

  It’s an expression. Okay, no, I wriggled and crawled and somehow made it out from under the bed.

  He must have been surprised.

  He was so surprised he ran away. Ran down the hall and jumped into the lift.

  That is suspicious. And where are you now?

  Morning Glory gets the feeling he’s been asking that for some time.

  I’m still waiting for the lift. They take forever in this hospital.

  I see. Morning Glory looks back down at the ladybird. It’s reached the top of the stalk.

  Naturally it has no idea that until a minute ago there was a small yellow flower there. It waits for the right moment to take off into the air.

  Tentomushi in Japanese, but in English it’s called a ladybird, or a ladybug, and sometimes, rarely, ladybeetle. Somebody once told him that the lady in the name was the Virgin Mary. He can’t remember who he heard it from. There’s the memory of someone whispering it in his ear, and there’s the memory of reading it in a picture book. There’s also a memory of his teacher writing it on the board when he was young, and there’s the memory of hearing it from one of his clients. All these recollections are equally vivid, which is to say, they’re all equally hazy, and he has no way of knowing which is real. All of Morning Glory’s memories are that way.

  Bearing the seven sorrows of Mother Mary into the sky. That’s why it’s called the ladybird.

  Morning Glory doesn’t know what the seven sorrows are. But when he thinks about that tiny creature carefully loading the sadness of the world onto its spots, black surrounded by vivid red, then climbing to the very tip of a flower before taking off, he gets a warm feeling. The ladybeetle goes up as high as it can go, then it stops, as if preparing itself. After the space of a breath its red shell flicks open wide, its wings flutter, it flies. He wants to imagine that anyone who witnesses it feels their sadness lightened, even if only by a tiny amount, the size of those seven spots.

  The exact opposite of my work, reflects Morning Glory. Every time I push someone, more shadows darken the world.

  Hey, Morning Glory. The go-between continues talking. The man in the white coat should be leaving the building any minute. I need you to take care of him. I’m on my way down, but I don’t think I’ll make it in time.

  You were asked to protect the
boy in the hospital room. I don’t think it matters if the attacker gets away.

  No, says the go-between, my instructions were that if anybody tried to hurt the boy, I’m to show no mercy.

  That seems pretty rough.

  That’s how those old-time professionals are. I mean, when they were in school there was still corporal punishment. But this friend of mine is the roughest of the rough.

  So is this a formal job offer? Morning Glory wants to confirm. You want me to take out a man wearing a white coat? If so, that’s not enough information. If you can’t give me more details I can’t do the job.

  Watch for the man in the white coat.

  That’s too vague. Although I suppose it would be easy enough if a suspicious-looking man in a white coat comes running out of the hospital.

  As soon as he says it Morning Glory laughs, a quiet soughing sound. Before his eyes a man appears, dashing from the hospital grounds. Bunched in his left arm is something white that looks very much like a hastily balled-up coat. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

  He describes the man into the phone.

  That’s him, no doubt about it, the go-between pronounces.

  I accept the job. Morning Glory hangs up.

  The man with the white bundle looks left and right, flailing for direction. Then he scuttles across the street towards the traffic island. He brushes by Morning Glory, who notices the mud on the shoes as he passes.

  Turning round, there’s the man waiting for the light to change, pulling out a phone.

  Morning Glory makes no noise as he slides up behind the man. He gauges his target’s breathing. He watches the light. His hand opens, fingers wide, then closes once, opens again. His own breath slows, stops. Looks left at the oncoming traffic. Not heavy, but each vehicle running fast. Gauges the timing. Exhales, focuses on his fingertips, touches the back.

  As he does, at the very same moment, the ladybeetle springs up into the air. The sorrows of that place lighten, even if only the barest bit, seven little black spots’ worth.

  The car’s brakes reverberate with a screech. The phone falls from the man’s hand to the ground.

  Kimura

  IN THE BACK OF CAR eight, over the door, the message flows from right to left on the digital ticker, where there are normally news headlines and train announcements.

  ‘What –’ The schoolkid is twisted round looking at the screen. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Surprised?’ Shigeru Kimura laughs.

  Wataru is safe. The same sentence slides by five times, just to make the point.

  ‘You surprised?’ he asks again mockingly, as the relief spreads through his own breast.

  ‘What happened?’ The schoolkid is letting his emotions show clearly for the first time. He turns back to face Kimura, nostrils flaring and face turning red.

  ‘Looks like Wataru is safe.’

  ‘Was that on the news?’ The kid can’t grasp what’s going on.

  ‘You know, professionals used to really struggle with getting in contact. Back then there were no mobile phones.’

  Akiko nods. ‘Our friend Shigeru always loved the back and forth of communication.’

  ‘Shigeru’s a funny guy. He would choose jobs based on which new method of contact he wanted to try out. But it came in handy today.’

  Before they left the house for Mizusawa-Esashi to catch the Shinkansen, he had called Shigeru. ‘I want you to check in on my grandson,’ he had said. ‘Protect him. And if anyone looks suspicious, no mercy.’ He was vague on the details, but there was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. ‘If anything happens, call me at the payphone on the Shinkansen.’ A rough plan to get in touch since he didn’t have a mobile.

  Shigeru immediately replied, ‘I don’t think the payphones on the Shinkansen take incoming calls any more. I’ll get in touch with you another way,’ he offered proudly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Keep your eye on the digital tickers in the train carriages. If anything happens, I’ll use those to get in touch.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘I grew up a bit after you retired, Mr Kimura. As a go-between, I know a lot of people. And I happen to be on good terms with someone at the Shinkansen information broadcasting office.’ Shigeru had sounded excited.

  When the message vanishes for the last time, Kimura says, ‘Give me your phone,’ and seeing that the kid is in a daze he takes the opportunity to snatch the phone from his hand.

  ‘What are you doing?’ protests the boy, but Kimura cuts him off.

  ‘Wait. If I make this call we’ll find out what that news item means.’ Of course, Kimura already knows what it means. Now he’s just playing with the boy.

  Kimura produces a scrap of paper from his jacket pocket and dials the number scrawled on it. Shigeru’s number, which he copied down at home.

  ‘Hello,’ he hears his friend answer.

  ‘It’s me. Kimura.’

  ‘Huh? Mr Kimura, did you get a mobile phone?’

  ‘I’m on the Shinkansen. A suspicious little brat lent me his phone.’ Kimura raises the gun to shoulder level, pointed at the schoolkid as always.

  ‘Perfect timing. I just had a message sent to the digital screen on your train.’

  ‘We saw it. Had a message sent by whom?’

  ‘I told you, the man who runs the Shinkansen broadcast system.’

  Kimura doesn’t feel like he needs to spend time asking about the details.

  ‘Um, Mr Kimura, I have some good news for you and some bad news,’ says Shigeru.

  Kimura frowns fondly. Thirty years back, whenever the pre-go-between Shigeru would go with the Kimuras on a job, he always talked about good news and bad news. ‘Which one would you like first?’

  ‘Start with the good news.’

  ‘The man who targeted your grandson is down on the street, run over by a car, taken care of,’ he says all in one breath.

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘No, not me. A professional did it. Someone with real skill, not like me.’

  ‘You’re right about that.’ Kimura starts to let himself feel that Wataru is safe from harm.

  The boulder he was carrying in his stomach is finally gone. ‘What’s the bad news?’ he asks. The Shinkansen begins to drop speed and the sound of the tracks changes tone, the shaking starts to subside, like the train is slowly loosening its grip on the tracks that it has/had been holding so tightly. They’ll be at Morioka Station soon.

  The kid is watching Kimura with eyes wide open. He can’t hear the whole conversation, so it would make sense for him to be feeling worried, but he’s unexpectedly focused, straining to hear whatever he can from the voice on the other end of the phone. Can’t let my guard down around this one, Kimura concedes.

  ‘The bad news,’ says Shigeru, speaking more carefully now. ‘Mr Kimura, don’t get mad at me, okay?’

  ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘When I was in your grandson’s room, I had to hide under the bed. And then when I jumped out –’

  ‘You jumped out from under the bed? Since when are you that frisky?’

  ‘It’s just an expression!’ Shigeru says haplessly. ‘But when I came out from under the bed I stumbled.’

  ‘Did something happen to Wataru?’ Kimura’s voice instantly hardens.

  ‘Yes, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What?’ Kimura keeps himself from shouting. He guesses his friend might have knocked into one of the machines, maybe broken it.

  ‘I stumbled, or maybe I should say flailed. Anyway, I woke him up, and he was sleeping so peacefully. But he opened his eyes and mumbled something and smacked his lips a couple of times. I know how much you’re against waking people up when they’re sleeping, Mr Kimura, I know you just hate it to death. But I didn’t mean any harm by it.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Sure, I’m serious. Why would I mean him any harm? I know how much you hate being woken up, and I’ve got the scars to prove it, so do you really think I’d go
out of my way to wake up your grandson?’

  ‘No, I mean are you serious that Wataru woke up?’

  When Akiko hears her husband say that her whole face lights up. Opposite her, the schoolkid’s face freezes over.

  As the train approaches the final stop, a handful of passengers start making their way down the aisle, getting ready to disembark. Kimura worries for a moment that one of them might notice his gun, but they all walk right past and disappear into the gangway. There are barely enough to form a line for the door.

  ‘It’s true, your grandson really woke up. I apologise,’ says Shigeru.

  ‘No, I’m so very glad I asked for your help,’ Kimura replies. When he called Shigeru, just about his only friend in Tokyo, he couldn’t even say for certain if Wataru was actually in danger. But Shigeru truly saved the day. ‘Sorry for springing that on you.’

  ‘You’ve helped me many a time, Mr Kimura.’

  ‘Yeah, but not for a long time. It’s been quite a while since I retired.’

  ‘It’s true. Though your boy Yuichi also got into this line of work. I was surprised, when I first heard.’

  ‘You knew about that?’ Like father like son, Kimura muses ruefully, but at the same time he knows that it has to stop with Wataru. Hopefully not like grandson too.

  ‘Actually, I saved Yuichi’s skin a few times,’ Shigeru says, sounding somewhat sheepish, not from any suggestion that Kimura is indebted to him, he’s just reluctant to tell a parent about their child’s bungles. ‘Hey, there’s something I was just discussing with a friend.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That the strongest live the longest. You know what I mean. Whether it’s the Rolling Stones or you, Mr Kimura. You’re a survivor, which makes you the winner.’

  ‘So you’re saying the winner is the old man!’ Kimura bellows good-naturedly, then ends the call.

  The Shinkansen describes a gentle curve, showing its grace and power one last time before coming to the end of the line. There’s an announcement about transfers.

  Kimura hands the phone back to the schoolkid. ‘Looks like the message on the ticker was right. Our grandson Wataru is safe.’ Akiko leans towards him, asking if it’s really true, jubilant.