Well, how about that! He’d been expecting absolutely anyone – spies, assassins, wily ninja – but instead this little runt had shown up.
‘Right, now answer me.’ He took hold of the kid’s skinny little shoulders and shook him. ‘Kataru! Dareh da? Dareh okutta?’ [viii]
The little rat gazed unblinkingly at the huge red-faced American. The little upward-turned face – narrow, with a pointed nose – was impassive, inscrutable. A ferret, a genuine ferret, the sergeant thought.
‘So, going to keep mum, are you?’ he asked menacingly. ‘I’ll loosen your tongue for you. Mita ka?’ [ix]
He unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of his trousers.
The little lad (he was only about eight, he couldn’t possibly have been any older) carried on looking at Lockston with the same indifferent, even weary air, like a little old man.
‘Well?’ the sergeant roared at him in a terrible voice.
But the strange child wasn’t frightened, in fact he seemed to brighten up a bit. In any case, his lips crept out to the sides, as if he was unable to restrain a smile. A little black tube stuck out of his mouth. There was a whistling sound, and the sergeant thought he had been stung on the chest by a wasp.
He looked down in surprise. There was something that glittered sticking out of his shirt, where his heart was. Was that really a needle? But where had it come from?
He wanted to pull it out, but somehow he couldn’t raise his hands.
Then suddenly his ears were filled with a low droning and rumbling, and Walter discovered that he was lying on the floor. And now the little boy he had just been looking down on was towering over him – a huge figure, blocking out the entire ceiling.
A massive hand of unbelievable size reached downwards, getting closer and closer. Then everything went dark and all the sounds disappeared. Light fingers ferreted about on his chest, and it felt ticklish.
Vision is the first.
The last sense of all to die
Is the sense of touch.
OFF WITH HIS HEAD
In the twilight at the end of a long day Asagawa paid a visit to Pier 37, a special police mooring for arrested boats. The Kappa-maru, a large fishing schooner arrested on suspicion of smuggling, had been standing there for more than two weeks already – in recent times, junks from Hong Kong and Aomin had taken to roaming the bay. They cruised in neutral waters, waiting for a moonless night, when fast boats could put out from the shore to collect crates of wine, sacks of coffee, bundles of tobacco and woven baskets of opium. The Sakai brothers, who owned the schooner, had been caught and were now in jail, but the inspector had thought of a good use for their little ship.
He examined the hold. Dry and roomy. It was immediately obvious that no fish had been carried in it for a long time. A bit cramped as living space, of course, but never mind, it wasn’t for royalty. Ah, but in fact it was – it was for a prince, thought Asagawa, and couldn’t help smiling.
The idea he had come up with was this. Take the important witness from the vice-consul, put him in the hold of the Kappa-maru, move the boat a long way offshore and drop anchor. Take the rubber and the sail away with him and lock the capstan – so that the prince wouldn’t take it into his head to weigh anchor in a morphine haze. Let him bob about on the waves for a day or two: he wouldn’t escape, and no one could touch him. But the inspector would have to post a sentry at the mooring – to keep an eye on all the confiscated craft, of course.
It was not late yet, and there were still people about near the mooring, but just before dawn there would be no one here. Everything should go quite smoothly. Once he had made sure that the fishing schooner was in good condition, the inspector went home.
The previous night and the day that followed it had been very eventful. In every man’s life there is one moment that is the highest point of his existence. Very often we do not realise this and only understand it retrospectively, when we look back: There, that’s it, the reason why I was born. But it’s already too late, we can’t go back to it and we can’t put anything right.
Asagawa, however, was aware that he was living through the supreme moment of his life right now, and he was firmly determined not to disappoint his karma. Who could ever have thought that the son and grandson of ordinary yoriki would find himself at the centre of high political drama? Surely it now depended on him which way Japan would turn, which force would rule the country?
It was not in the inspector’s character to brag, but today really was a special day, the kind of day that a man could be proud of. And so he allowed himself to feel just a little pride, although he didn’t say anything out loud, of course.
The head of the seaboard precinct of the Yokohama police lived on Nogeh Hill, where he rented a room in the Momoya Hotel, a modest establishment, but very neat and clean. The rent was an insignificant sum and the food was beyond all praise (there was an excellent noodle soup shop on the ground floor), and there was also one other circumstance of some importance for a bachelor.
This circumstance (which was female and went by the name of Emiko) was the owner of the Momoya, who immediately brought his supper to his room in person.
Asagawa, having swapped his tight European clothes for a thin yukata, sat on a cushion, watching blissfully as Emiko fussed over the meal, sprinkling dried seaweed powder on the hot noodles and pouring the warmed sake from the little jug. The calico-bound file holding the documents had been concealed under the mattress laid out on the floor.
She did not leave even after the inspector had thanked her and started noisily sucking in the scalding hot soba, occasionally picking pieces of his favourite pickled radish out of a separate little bowl with his chopsticks. It was clear from the bloom on Emiko’s cheeks and her lowered eyes that she was yearning for his amorous attentions. And even though Asagawa was deadly tired and ought to get at least a little sleep before dawn, to offend a woman was impolite. So, having rounded off his meal with a cup of excellent barley tea, he spoke the words that had a special meaning for the two of them:
‘How beautiful you are today.’
Emiko blushed and put her broad hands over her face. She murmured:
‘Ah, why do you say such things…’
But even as she spoke, she was unfastening the cord with which the belt of her kimono was tied.
‘Come here,’ said the inspector, reaching out his arms.
‘I shouldn’t. There are customers waiting,’ she babbled in a voice hoarse with passion, and pulled the pins out of her hair one after another.
In her impatience, she didn’t even unwind her belt completely. She freed one shoulder and pulled the kimono abruptly over her head in a most ungraceful fashion. He liked her best of all like this. It was a shame that today he was in no state to relax and enjoy love.
‘I waited all last night…’ she whispered, crawling on to the bed on hands and knees.
Asagawa glanced to make sure that the file was not sticking out from under the rather thin futon, and lay down first.
When Emiko lowered herself on to him with a moan, the sharp corner dug into his back quite uncomfortably, but there was nothing to be done, he had to bear it.
After his debt of politeness had been paid and Emiko had flitted on her way, Asagawa grunted as he rubbed the bruise on his back and blew out the lamp. Following a habit unchanged since his childhood, he lay on his side, put his hand under his cheek and fell asleep immediately.