Life for Sale, page 18
“And then the old guy happened to bump into you in a local park. Everything worked out fine in the end! We were able then to put a tracking device on you.”
“It’s exactly as he says.” The old man nodded politely, looking as dapper as ever. Then he gave another glance toward Hanio with an apologetic expression.
“I can see how it makes total sense to you, but I’m telling you I have no connection with the police,” Hanio remonstrated. “You have this paranoid superstition that everyone is a member of some organization. But all your talk about Hongbang is ridiculous: you really ought to get over it. In this world, people also exist who are unattached to any organization, who can live freely and die freely.”
“Go ahead: say whatever you like while you can still talk,” said the Asian. “And anyway, even Japanese police spies can say some sensible things. I’m fully aware they educate the police to quite an impressive level. But I haven’t finished yet. After you removed the transceiver we shot into your thigh, you’d outwitted us again and we didn’t know what to do. You’re a real Houdini. You might have put your life up for sale, but you know, I’ve never seen a man who cares for his life as much as you do. At least until tonight.
“Can you guess how we knew you’d come to Hannō? We run travel companies that gather information on all traditional inns throughout Japan. We look after the guests at the inns, and in turn we gather information on them. My own travel company looks after its customers well, with a good reputation for excellent service, and the inns appreciate it a lot. The payback is that if some guest stays for a suspiciously long time, we get to know about it straightaway.
“We checked each inn in every region of Japan. We looked into the circumstances of every long-term guest roughly your age who was staying alone. Bit by bit we tightened the noose, until finally we worked out you must be the guy staying in the hotel by Hannō Station. And we were right. What a stroke of luck! Now, if we can catch a spy like you and bump you off after you’ve squealed, every other organization will be sure to reward us for it. No wonder everyone here today is so keen. All these foreigners are crazy about money.
“OK, I’ve got some questions. How many other police intelligence officers are investigating the ACS? Where do they operate? What are their activities? And how do they keep in contact with each other?”
Hanio suddenly remembered the black box in his pocket. He was pinning all his hopes on the apologetic expression in the old man’s eyes.
54
“I understand. I understand.” Hanio nodded. “So you’re going to torture me to get information?”
“Exactly. And I’ll also be getting some nice sketches at my leisure. I might put them together with the ones I made of you in action with Ruriko, and put on an informal private exhibition at some point. I think it would make an artistic, sensitive show. After all, it’s only natural that people are born, love each other, and die.”
“May I ask what you will do if I decide to kill myself before the torture begins?”
“Are you going to bite your tongue off?”
“No, I’ll be taking the whole lot of you with me.”
Hanio placed his hands, still bound with rope, on his jacket pocket, felt for the black box, and pressed the top of the stopwatch. A discernible tick-tock started up.
“You can hear that, can’t you? The ticking sound…”
“What is it?”
Suddenly alert, the foreigners all rose from their chairs.
“Don’t even think about pressing the trigger of that gun,” warned Hanio. “The instant I see you move, I’ll press this push-button switch, there’ll be an explosion, and you, me, and everyone else’ll be blown to smithereens.”
“Don’t you value your own life?”
“Say that again? I’m the man who put out a ‘Life for Sale’ ad. Don’t for a moment put me in the same bag as all those other gutless spies. The bomb is now timed to go off in eight minutes. But if I press the button, it will detonate immediately. It’ll blow this room apart, no problem.”
Everyone tiptoed back, gingerly.
“Care for a look?” Hanio took out the sinister black box to show them.
This was the moment of truth. The box continued to tick away, sure and steady.
“Hey, wait! Don’t you value your own life?” repeated the Asian.
“Fuck that! I’m going to be tortured and killed in any case. What’s the difference?”
“No…Wait a moment. There is a way your life can be saved.”
“What do you mean? Quickly then—spit it out. There are only seven minutes left.”
“Become a member. We can discuss remuneration—we’ll make it worth your while. So long as you don’t disclose anything, you’ll get social status, luxuries, women—everything you could need, Hanio, my boy.”
“Don’t ‘Hanio, my boy’ me. I don’t want to join your stinking gang. As for myself, I lack any sense of morality, so I have no moral objections about what you do. It’s all the same to me whether you kill people, or smuggle money or drugs or weapons. My only concern is to smash that misguided belief you seem to have that everyone you meet belongs to some organization. Plenty of people are not like that. Can’t you see? And you’ve got to realize that there are also some who not only lack any affiliation, they also have absolutely no attachment to life. They may be few and far apart. But they certainly exist.
“I don’t consider life valuable. My life is up for sale. I have no complaint about what happens to me. But I do take offense at being killed against my will, and that’s why I’m quite prepared now to commit suicide. Even if that means taking the whole lot of you with me. Five minutes left.”
“Wait. OK, how about us buying your life?”
“What if I tell you I’m not selling?” Hanio glanced briefly at the old man’s face and raised the black box above his head.
As expected, the old man’s response was immediate. He ran to the door and pushed it open.
“Come on, you lot. We should all make a run for it. We can leave him locked up alone in here. Let’s just get out of here. If he wants to go and blow himself up, good luck to him. Come on. Let’s scram.”
“Four more minutes,” said Hanio. He made himself comfortable in the chair and placed the black box on the nearby table, taking care to leave a hand resting on it. “If you go now, I won’t detonate it immediately. I’ll just wait for it to go off at the time set. That will leave me four minutes: some time to reflect on my life. You’d better run as far as you can—or you’ll catch the blast. I wonder how far you can run in three or four minutes…”
Some hesitant slipping and sliding of feet on the floor was followed by a wholesale stampede through the door that the old man had left open.
Hanio watched them all go, then stood up quietly and shut the door. He walked to the other door, checked it was unlocked, opened it, and slipped out. Then, in an utter panic, he ran up the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him.
55
He was pretty sure no one would do anything flashy like take potshots at him from behind. He cut through the garden shrubs, got a foothold on the wall, and climbed straight over. Then he clambered down a bluff in a blind rush.
On the way down, he caught sight of lights flickering in the distance. He was surrounded by darkness, but a town lay just below. It seemed that the house was not exactly in an isolated mountain retreat.
He ran through the town, his body covered in bruises, shouting: “Help! Where’s the police station?”
He ran, staggering, with both hands still bound. People he almost bumped into took fright and moved out of his way. They ignored him totally. Finally he heard someone shout in response: “There’s a police station on the right, over there.”
In the station, Hanio slumped to the floor, breathless, unable to speak. The middle-aged duty officer turned to look at him, bemused.
“Where have you come from?” the man asked calmly. “Oh, your hands are tied together. And you’re injured.”
“Where…where am I?”
“ōme,” the officer replied. He returned to his work.
“Water…Please give me water.”
“You want water, do you? One moment.”
The officer still continued leafing through his ledger. He finally laid down his old-fashioned fountain pen, put the cap on with care, and stood up. With one more glance at Hanio, he went to fetch some water. He showed no sign that he was about to untie him.
Hanio held up the cup of water, which brimmed with light, in both hands and then drained it dry. He never imagined anything in the world could taste so delicious.
The officer stole yet another look at Hanio’s hands. He was probably apprehensive about what Hanio might try to do once he was freed. Hanio, with some reasoning power left, resisted the temptation to request that he be untied. There would be plenty of time later to complain about police negligence to a detective.
No sooner had this thought crossed Hanio’s mind than the officer made a great fuss of untying his hands. Hanio realized his fears were groundless.
“What happened to you?” the officer asked, as if he were reproaching a son who had come home later than expected.
“I almost got killed.”
The officer did not sound convinced. “What do you mean, you almost got killed?” Slowly, deliberately, he removed the cap from the fountain pen, took out a sheet of rough paper from the drawer, and began to write. He was dreadfully slow at writing.
Hanio was asked to provide a brief overview of what had happened, but he was dissatisfied to note that his words failed to elicit much of a response. He was, however, relieved when the officer finally picked up the telephone and reported the matter to the main station. Hanio seemed to have bumped his shins against something while he was clambering down the cliff: they were hurting a lot. Slipping his hand inside his trouser bottoms, he discovered that blood had already caked and turned sticky.
The response from the main station was taking its time. Meanwhile, the officer offered him tea and cigarettes, and was far more interested in discussing his own son than what had happened to Hanio.
“Our boy’s at N— University. At least he hasn’t joined some radical student union: that’s a relief. But we do worry that he never studies at night, and all he ever seems to do is invite friends around to play mahjong. We’re at our wits’ end. His mother told him that, if he’s going to be such a slacker, he may as well put on a helmet and swing a wooden bat around like one of those angry students on their demos. But then, what does he do but tell her that, since she’s OK about it, he’ll start demonstrating tomorrow. It’s blackmail, plain and simple, and his mother doesn’t know how to deal with him. Sons these days, they just rule the roost. But then again, I’m grateful that at least we’ve managed to get our kid into university. We’ve fulfilled our role as parents.”
A few minutes later, Hanio saw the front lights of a bicycle approaching. A young policeman pushing the bike hailed them.
“This is the man.” The officer introduced him with a few brief comments.
“OK, I’ll take him from here,” the policeman said bluntly.
The policeman walked his bicycle with Hanio, hardly acknowledging his presence. Hanio felt it necessary to keep an eye on his surroundings as they cut through the nighttime shopping district. The sound of music from some band blared out from a record shop. Hanio dragged his feet along as he walked, and fought against the occasional attack of dizziness.
When they reached the police station, a middle-aged detective wearing a baggy suit came out and greeted him with unexpected warmth.
“Welcome to the station. OK, shall we take your written statement? This way, please.”
He looked as if he had just finished dinner, as he repeatedly poked at his teeth with a toothpick. Hanio wondered if he should ask for a meal himself, but he was not at all hungry.
“Right then, in your own time. Let’s begin with your name and address.”
“I am of no fixed address.”
“Oh.”
The detective glanced at Hanio. He did not look pleased. His manner of speaking gradually changed.
“Now, both your hands were tied up, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“You do know it’s possible to tie up your own hands, if you do it with your teeth.”
“This isn’t a joke. I almost got killed just now.”
“That’s terrible. Now, you say you came running down to the town, but where did you start running from?”
“From a residence on a bluff.”
“If that’s the area…It must be the bluff on the north side of town.”
“I haven’t any idea whether it’s north or south.”
“The chairman of K— Industries has a fancy home around there, and it’s quite a smart residential street. You don’t happen to know which house it was?”
“I didn’t have time to read the nameplate.”
“OK, forget that. Just give me the main details.”
A long, tortuous conversation ensued. When Hanio started to race away with his story, the detective would raise his hand to motion him to speak more slowly.
“ACS? What’s that?”
“The Asia Confidential Service.”
“Asia Con-fi-den-tial Service. Is that a petroleum company, or something?”
“It’s an organization that specializes in smuggling and murder.”
“Got you.” There were traces of a smile on the detective’s lips. “What evidence do you have for saying that?”
“I witnessed it with my own eyes.”
“You actually saw murder take place?”
“No, I’m not saying I saw it.”
“How can you know if you didn’t see it?”
“I’m sure you are familiar with the case of that woman, Ruriko Kishi. Her body was found floating in the Sumida River. We knew each other.”
“Ruriko. Kishi. What character do you write Kishi with?”
“The same character that Prime Minister Kishi uses in his name.”
“The Kishi from Prime Minister Kishi. Got it…She must have been a lovely woman. Was her corpse completely naked?”
“I believe it was.”
“You’re saying you didn’t see that either?”
“I certainly saw her naked.”
“In a nutshell, you had a physical relationship with her?”
“That’s got nothing to do with it. She was killed by the ACS.”
“Listen, young man.” The detective suddenly put on an officious face and looked Hanio directly in the eye. “You keep mentioning the ACS, but do you have any proof that it actually exists? I won’t waste my time taking down your statement. You come out with this name, ACS, that no one’s ever heard of, claiming it exists. But my long years of experience tell me straight off that this is all a fabrication. The police force isn’t here for you to come and tell crazy, made-up stories, you know. You’ve probably been reading too much weird detective fiction, but if you can’t make your story stick, you’ll end up getting charged with interference with a public official in the execution of their duties.”
“You’re being absurd. What would a policeman in the sticks like you know about it? Take me to the National Police Agency. I’ll get a proper hearing from the people there.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that you’ve had to deal with a mere underling. But this underling’s intuition works a hell of a sight better than that of his superiors, I can tell you. The sticks, what nonsense! You’ve got nerve, for a man of no fixed abode.”
“So everyone without a fixed abode is suspect?”
“Yes, of course.” Perhaps afraid that he might have gone too far, the detective softened his tone a little. “Respectable people all have homes. They devote themselves to providing for their wives and children. Surely I don’t have to tell you that for someone your age to come here, single and homeless, makes you a dodgy member of society.”
“Are you saying that every person must have an address, a home, a wife and kids, and a job?”
“It’s not me that says it. It’s society.”
“So anyone slightly different is human trash?”
“You said it. It’s not unusual for lonely men to suffer from delusions, and to come rushing into the police station to make false claims about being injured. If you think you’re the only one, you’re very much mistaken.”
“Oh, really? In which case, you may as well treat me like a proper criminal. I’ve been involved in a very immoral business. I put my life up for sale.”
“You did? Really? Boy, that must have been tough. But you’re just the kind who would do that sort of thing. After all, it’s not as if you did anything illegal. It’s the one who buys another person’s life and uses it for their own nefarious purposes who’s the actual criminal. There’s nothing criminal about putting your life up for sale. It’s just that you just have to be human trash to do such a thing.”
Hanio felt a distinctly cold sensation pierce his heart. He realized he would have to change tack and throw himself on the detective’s mercy.
“I’m begging you. Please put me in a police cell, even if it’s for a few days. Protect me! Someone really is out to get rid of me. I’ll definitely get bumped off if some action is not taken. Please, I’m desperate.”
