doubt even I can protect you from them. I will leave this car at your disposal. The tank is full. And I guarantee you’ll appreciate the handling.’ Tokin gestured to the backseat. ‘You’ve got a passenger.’
Taro tried vainly to see into the tinted glass.
‘It’s the young woman you brought to us from Osaka,’ said Tokin.
‘Rie?’
‘It didn’t work out for her at the Takarazuka Music School and I’m afraid to say it hasn’t worked out for her here, either.’
Taro bowed in apology. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Never mind. These things happen. Really your choice of girl was quite understandable. She has a lovely smile. It is just unfortunate that the pressure of being away from home proved too much. She has been given a mild sedative to relax her on the journey back to Osaka.’ Tokin glanced at his watch. The diamond encrusted gold band shimmered with the street lights. ‘I would like her to wake up and find that she is home. That will be my present to her.’
‘May I stop off at my apartment?’ asked Taro. ‘I would like to change clothes.’
Tokin replied with a barely discernible shake of the head. ‘Your apartment might not be safe. There might even be booby traps. I’ll have to send my boys to check it out. It will be ready for you when you get back.’
‘I understand.’
‘I am happy with your work, Taro. I have made money on failures and lost money on success. It is a quirk of life. Go now. It is getting late but after an evening like this I doubt you will fall asleep at the wheel any time soon. Am I correct?’ He chuckled.
Taro noticed the deadly cold faces of the two bodyguards. Would Taro one day work his way up to such a level and such a constitution?
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ he said and bowed again.
‘The keys are in the ignition and your destination has been inputted into the navigation unit. We’ll contact you when you get back. Have a safe journey.’
Taro got into the car. The luxurious interior had a plastic smell to it. He looked over his shoulder at Rie. She was slumped in the backseat, her head tilted awkwardly back against the window, in a similar manner to Akutagawa’s head just as it was losing its contents to the wall. She was pale and her eyes were shut in a tight squint. Her fake eyelashes were jutting out sharply. She was unseasonably dressed in a heavy green suede jacket with a black scarf around her neck. Her Louis Vuitton bag was beside her. It looked like it had gotten some use. In fact it was quite dirty.
Taro turned back to the front, taking hold of the steering wheel and looking over the sleek dashboard and all its controls. He suddenly realised the engine was running: it had been idling so quietly he hadn’t even noticed. Beyond the front windscreen, Tokin and his bodyguards were in a huddle. Taro could only wonder at what they might have been talking about. He put the car into reverse and an alarm reminded him to fasten his seatbelt.
39
The enraged truck horn drew Taro’s attention back to the road. He battled frantically to realign the car with the lane it had been drifting from.
‘Wake up!’ he screamed at himself.
It was 3am and the port city of Nagoya was being pointed to by the expressway road signs; it was a halfway point on the way to Osaka. The Mercedes Benz responded superbly to Taro’s touch, gripping the road and effortlessly accelerating away from the truck it had been tangling with.
Taro himself was not regaining control with the same vigour. The numb shock he had been feeling had dissipated into a deep fatigue. He still liked the idea of meeting the new day several hundred kilometres from the place where he had just murdered a man, but it would require the most potent of energy drinks he could buy. The next roadhouse would take care of that.
He checked on Rie through the rear-view mirror. Although her head had shifted position from the window to a headrest, she was still sleeping soundly. Taro, however, thought he noticed something new. He wasn’t quite sure what but he was stuck by an icy sensation. It was just a hunch. He turned on the interior light. Then he realised what was wrong and the car was drifting across the lane again. Bruises covered her neck in flaming shades of purple and scarlet. The scarf that had been covering them had fallen away. Taro turned off the light again. He put a cigarette into his mouth without any particular urge to light it. His senses became attuned to everything and he took in nothing.
He took the next exit ramp and came out at a two lane local road: he turned from that onto another road and then another. He started to notice the night sky. He had forgotten how dark it could be and how many stars there were to pierce the darkness. He had reached a road without streetlights. It was narrow and the edges were muddy and crumbling. Taro pulled into the side, up against a large rice field. He turned off the engine and the cicadas roared in after it, filling the night with their melancholy rhythm.
Taro got out of the car. He spat out the cigarette as though it was already spent and replaced it with a fresh one: this time he lit it, and he smoked it slowly and deliberately. There was one light visible, coming from a distant farmhouse. There was a rustle of trees as a breeze rose off the fields. Even with the cigarette in his mouth, Taro could tell this air was much fresher than the Tokyo variety.
As he neared the end of the cigarette, he scratched the stubble on his chin and opened the Mercedes Benz’s back door. Rie was still motionless inside. Taro spat out the cigarette and climbed in beside her. He used his lighter to take a closer look at her. He pulled down on her blouse: the bruises ran all the way around her neck. He looked over the rest of her and noticed that her fingernails were cracked and bloody and there were abrasions on the knuckles. He lowered the lighter below her waist. She was wearing a black miniskirt and the skin of her thighs was soft and silky smooth and exquisitely beautiful. Taro found himself staring despite himself; it was the same feeling of forbidden excitement he had got at Harajuku Station when he had been not so stealthily taking shots of teenage undergarments at the behest of his deranged lover, Waneta.
The cigarette lighter’s flame was flickering out. Taro relit it and leaned further over. From his new angle he could see that what he first thought were shadows were in fact bruises about the inner thighs. He felt a sickly repulsion and realised there was no beauty here.
From behind a hand grabbed him by the belt and yanked him powerfully backwards. His teeth smacked together as he hit his head on the roof and he was flung out the car and onto the ground of stone, grass and dirt. A blinding flashlight shone into his face and a boot heel clamped down on his chest.
‘In the years to come teenagers will dare themselves to stay out at night here,’ said the icy male voice from behind the flashlight. ‘The scene of a notorious murder-suicide. The cop killing homicidal gangster and the beautiful Takarazuka Review hopeful, kidnapped, raped and shot.’ The man chuckled coarsely. ‘The teenagers will hear your death screams in every gust of wind.’ The man turned off the flashlight. No need to waste batteries as well as a bullet.’
Through the dense cloud of afterglow clogging Taro’s vision, all he could make out was a fragment of a silhouette - tall and thin, and the gun was a clearly discernible extension of a very long hand. The assuredness in the voice was unmistakable: it was Koki Nishikawa.
‘You want to know why I called you a cop killer?’ said Koki.
‘Yes.’ Taro was repulsed by how feeble his own voice sounded in reply.
‘Too bad. I’m not going to waste a conversation on that. You’re going to shoot yourself and I get to decide how clumsy you go about doing it. Maybe you blow off a nose and an ear before you get down to the serious business of blowing out your brains.’ There was a pause. ‘Or maybe you put a bullet in your throat and drown in your own blood. The police will not worry about the details or bother with the forensics. They will not let a bloody crime scene get in the way of clean paperwork. Sweet Rie of course will get hers mercifully quick. She deserves nothing less. A psychopath like you, on the other hand, would be in the eyes of the law a likely candid
ate for self-mutilation. I think I am going to take advantage of that.’
Taro tried to get upright, but the foot compressing down on his ribs did not waiver. Koki drew the gun closer to dissuade him from any further wriggling.
‘Alright, I’ll give you a chance of a quick end too,’ said Koki. ‘I’m having a baby girl with your beautiful girlfriend. It wasn’t planned but what in life is? Tell me what you think is a good name for a girl. If I like it, I’ll kill you quick and then suggest it to her. That’s the deal.’
Taro looked away to the stars in a parting gesture - not being able to see them clearly was disappointing, for it was going to be the last time. He closed his eyes.
‘Hiromi,’ he said.
‘Yes, that’s a very good name,’ replied Koki coldly. ‘Too bad it’s already taken. Never mind -’
What started as a final taunt descended into a gargle. A warm, sickly sweet liquid sprayed onto Taro. He cringed away, fearing it was spit or vomit or perhaps he was being urinated on again. But then the gargling became hideously more pronounced, a desperate battle for life. Finally it began to ebb and Koki collapsed across Taro’s legs, his hands continuing to grasp desperately at his throat. Taro could feel the life draining out of him. He reached up to one of the hands at the cut throat and knocked it away. The