The kit was all suitably shabby; shoes scuffed and well worn; darned woollens, oiled stockings, long Johns, sweatshirts, jeans, seaboots, donkey jacket, headgear. They had had his measurements for weeks and little alteration was needed, but what there was Machiko attended to. Then she packed everything in a kitbag and a rope-bound case, all to go by hand next day to Hokkaido.
Afterwards they worked on his ‘legend’. This girl seemed exceedingly responsible, acting as house-mother in charge of the servants as well as of himself. Yet Yoshi instructed him to tell her nothing of his identity. The success of an operation, he said, depended on people knowing only what they had to — but attending to that with maximum efficiency.
This aspect he demonstrated himself by returning, after taking the ship’s architect back, with the manual for the derrick. ‘He’d have forgotten about it in the morning,’ he said. ‘I stood over him while he searched. It was a long search.’
Porter looked at the manual, and saw gloomily why this was the case. It was dated 1948.
‘Is there a working model of this around anywhere?’
‘Only on these ships. It’s been out of use a long time.’
‘Can we get hold of somebody who’s used it?’
‘No,’ Yoshi said. ‘We can’t. But he’ll study it himself and explain it to you in the morning.’
‘Yoshi, if this thing is out of use,’ Porter said, ‘it’s because it’s dangerous. I need somebody who’s used it.’
‘We can’t have anybody who’s used it. We can’t have anybody else at all. In any case he doesn’t know anybody.’
I know somebody,’ Porter said.
Yoshi listened to him, aghast, as he explained what he was going to do.
‘Are you mad?’ he said. ‘You can’t do this. I’ve told you why. Don’t you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand,’ Porter said. But he knew he was going to do it anyway.
The bus was almost empty, and in the dark he couldn’t see through the rain-smeared windows. But the driver was calling out the stops, and when he called out ‘Bund’ he got off.
He could see the Bund Hotel twinkling to the left, and the Marine Tower to the right. He located himself then. This bit of Yokohama he knew. It was only half an hour’s train ride from Tokyo, practically a suburb. The bus from the station had been grinding around the harbour, and in the open air now he could smell the diesel fumes off the water.
He was in jeans and a sweatshirt, his pigtail hanging. He had changed at the Lucky Strike. He had walked into the place as Peterson and walked out of it as Sung, by the side exit.
He crossed the road and cut through to the tinny music and the traffic of Chukagai. Away from the harbour the town was quite sedate, a commuter belt for the capital. But this area was not sedate. He passed the massage parlours and the pachinko parlours, the little steel balls rattling as the gamblers fed in coins. The topless places had now become NO PANTY, he saw. The gaudy glow of Chinatown hung in the air.
In a few minutes he was in the middle of it. The streets shone in the drizzle, narrow, crowded, crawling with cars. Restaurants lined both sides, the vertical Chinese signs flashing at each other. He looked for the laughing pig and the debonair donkey. The pig he couldn’t see but the donkey was still there. He was flashing on and off in the air, legs crossed, leaning on his cane, asinine ears shooting up and down. Then he saw the pig, too. Its lights were off but the red and yellow snout still grinned its cheerful chinky grin.
The alley was a slit between the two buildings and emerged into the street behind. Shabbier bars and coffee shops. Ichiko’s lane had had a barber’s on the corner. Yes, still there. He went down the lane and found Ichiko’s.
The same lantern over the door, the same curtain in the doorway and the smell of cooking coming out. Half a dozen men were supping up their noodles on stools at the counter. His pigtail attracted no attention here. He ordered grilled eel with his noodles, the speciality of the house; Ichiko, when on leave, used to catch them himself in the harbour. He supped his bowl with the rest and kept an eye open for Ichiko. He could hear pots rattling in the kitchen; evidently Hanita at work.
‘Is Hanita around?’ he asked the bar girl.
‘Who?’
‘Hanita. The boss.’
The sleepy girl looked at him and went in the back room. A man came out with her, wiping his hands on a cloth. ‘Who did you want?’ he said.
‘Isn’t this Hanita’s place?’
‘She died, two three years ago.’
‘Oh.’ He absorbed this. ‘What happened to Ichiko?’
‘The sailor? He moved out.’
‘Do you know where?’
‘No. I let him have a room for a while. But he went. He’s around somewhere still. Ask at the koban, they’ll tell you. Just along the street at the crossroad, you’ll see it.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
The koban was the police post.
He went out, brooding. He had attracted no attention so far. Yokohama was a seaman’s place, and plenty of Korean seamen were in it. He wondered if he dare risk the police post. The koban would only be a neighbourhood box, one of thousands. The streets were mainly unnamed, as everywhere else in the country. Each koban had its patch: they knew the streets and who lived in them, who moved in, out, who got drunk, who came home late.
The drizzle had eased a little, and now he could see the koban. The box was dimly lit. A policeman was sitting under the porch smoking a cigarette. He saw the man was looking at him. He took Sung’s passport out of his jeans and held it in his hand; poised to snatch it back and run if it was inspected.
‘Excuse me, I’m looking for a mate,’ he said. ‘Ichiko Nagoya. His wife ran a noodle bar up the street.’
The policeman stared at the passport in his hand but didn’t ask to see it.
‘They said he’d moved away. They said you’d know.’
The policeman looked back through the open door behind him. Another policeman was inside, writing. ‘Ichiko Nagoya — was he the one that went cuckoo?’ he called.
The other man came out. He also stared at the passport. ‘Sure. They had him in the bin. He’s out now. Along there,’ he said, pointing, ‘maybe ten minutes — the taxi office. It’s the all-night one, lit up in red. He has a room at the back. He won’t be there now,’ he said, as the Korean thanked him and began moving away. ‘He works as a night watchman, at the Kawakami works, farther along.’
‘Kawakami — is that far?’
‘You can’t go in there.’ The man stared at him. ‘What do you want with him? He owes you something?’
‘No. Just to say I was sorry. About his wife,’ Porter said simply. ‘Maybe I’ll leave a note, at the taxi office.’ He still kept the passport in his hand. They were watching him as he turned to thank them again. The drizzle had stopped now, but he was damp with sweat and didn’t put the passport away till he was out of sight of the koban.
He saw the all-night taxi office presently, but didn’t stop. Farther along, the policeman had said; the Kawakami works. There were few people about now and the street lamps were farther apart. There was the odd bar, a tenement, sheds. From some of the sheds he heard lowing: ćows. There were few fields in the area, and milk for the town came from hundreds of sheds; Ichiko had owned a couple himself.
He walked fast for another ten minutes, and then wondered if he shouldn’t go back to the taxi office after all. There was nobody in the street and nothing like a factory. He stopped and looked about him, and in the silence heard a distant clanking and screeching. The marshalling yard behind the station. He must have walked back parallel with the railway line. Except the screeching was not that of rolling stock. He walked on again, and as the sound became louder suddenly saw the factory.