“Really? It’s making me drowsy.”
The port had a lethargic air. The sound of a distant steam whistle drifted in like a yawn, while the two wandered along indecisively. Shinobu peeped into the deserted kiosk, and began idly looking for chocolate nibbles to buy. Kita bought himself a sports paper and a can of barley tea, put some eye drops in his eyes, and settled down on a bench with the idea of waiting for a good idea to present itself.
“Couldn’t we escape onto some boat?” Shinobu was perched on Kita’s knee, chewing gum.
A hotel would make them too visible. Abductors often holed up in a vacant house or some derelict building, but that was in the movies. They had no time to go searching around for the perfect ruin. They could just keep on the move, but they didn’t have the money for that. Finally, they settled on hiding on a boat. What kind? wondered Kita, and the moment he did so he recalled the face of the Russian he’d tried to sell health products to a few years earlier.
If they could get refuge on a Russian ship in port, he thought, neither the police nor the gangsters would get to them before Friday. The only problem was, would the ship take them? He’d heard the Russian Embassy was surprisingly unhelpful to refugees. Luckily, though, a Russian ship was not an embassy. It would all work out if they negotiated with the ship’s captain, he decided.
He approached two Russians as they got off the bus, huge paper bags clutched in both hands, and addressed them in English. Were they going back to their ship? Da, da, they nodded. Two faces, one like a grotesque kewpie doll and the other with great blubbery lips, ogled Shinobu as they spoke. Kita smiled back. He’d like to speak to the captain, so would they mind introducing him? Captain? The one with the gleaming lips pointed at the grumpy kewpie. Ah, you’re the captain? Kita asked. Da. Ya. Captain replied the kewpie. It seemed his English wasn’t too good. The thick-lipped one translated for him, rolling his r’s, while Kita dedicated himself to the task of negotiating, mouthing his English syllables with a heavy Japanese accent.
“My name is Minami. I’m a director of a television station. This is Mizuho, a reporter. We are making a travel program about Niigata. We would like to include your ship in our footage. Therefore, could you please show us your ship?”
The two had a few exchanges in Russian together, while Kita waited, wondering if his request had got through. Then the thick-lipped one turned to him and said How much can you pay? Sure enough, it was going to need money. How much do you want? he asked. Fifty thousand, came the outrageous answer. Kita looked resigned, shook his head, and turned as if to go.
OK, said Lips, forty plus a can of caviar. Forget it, muttered Kita. Lips came down another ten thousand. If you put us up on board for tonight, we’ll make it thirty thousand, Kita offered. You want to stay? Lips winced and looked dubious.
“You see, we want to cover the everyday life of Russian sailors,” Kita laboriously explained. “We want to know how you spend time while you’re in port, what you eat, what you talk about.”
Lips nodded to each thing Kita said, but he looked as if he couldn’t fathom just why they wanted to do this. He asked if the woman would come too. Yes, said Kita, she was eager to spend time on the ship as well. At this, Kewpie grinned broadly. Khorosho, he said, and reached for Kita’s hand to shake on the deal. It seemed negotiations had reached a happy conclusion.
They were taken on board the five hundred ton freighter Pugachov. On the deck they found two second-hand Japanese cars, tied up with wire rather like Gulliver in Lilliput. There was also a pile of second-hand refrigerators, television sets, and the kind of bicycles that could have been abandoned at railway stations. It looked like a street on special trash-collection day.
They were introduced to each crew member in turn. Nicolai, Sasha, Misha, Alyosha, Kosta…it was quite an array of faces. Each was passing the time in his own chosen way. Some were playing chess, some exchanging cups of vodka, others reading, playing the guitar or sleeping. Shinobu smiled sweetly at them all in a rather bewildered fashion.
Then they were shown into the captain’s cabin, where they raised welcoming vodka glasses with Kewpie, and ate the proffered fatty salted pork on black bread.
They were given two empty bunks, one above the other. A young crewman brought them some damp sheets and mouldy-smelling blankets, and informed them that dinner was at six.
“We’ve managed to find a hidey-hole, haven’t we?” murmured Shinobu, gazing out at the sea through the round porthole in their room.
“Mind you, we’re not absolutely safe even here.”
“Let’s hope all goes well.”
“I’ll go off into the town after dinner and take a look at things,” Kita said. “I won’t stand out if I’m alone.”
Yawning irrepressibly, Kita lay down on the narrow bunk. Shinobu snuggled in beside him. She poked a finger into his nose and chin, and murmured sulkily, “You’re going to leave me on this ship all alone? What will you do if I get raped?” She rolled up his shirt and began to stroke his ribs.
“Stop it, that tickles.”
“What’ll you do, Kita? If the ship leaves while you’re away, I really will be kidnapped.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t think Captain Kewpie’s a bad fellow.”
“How do you know? He might be part of a mafia gang for all we know. All the crew look like mafia members, don’t you think?”
“Do the mafia collect junk like that?”
“They’d be carrying guns. Tokarevs or Kalashnikovs, I’d say.”
“You want one? Shall I inquire for you?”
“I don’t want to kill and I don’t want to get killed.”
“What if you had to choose?”
“I’d kill. What about you?”
“I’d die.”
“Not fair!”
“Look, I promise I’ll be back, right? All I’m going to do is just check that the abduction’s been reported in the media, and see if the money’s gone to the Red Cross yet.”
Shinobu pouted, and nodded unwillingly.
Six o’clock came, and the entire crew gathered in the ship’s dining room. Shinobu was somewhat relieved to discover that there were two Russian women among the crew. She and Kita were invited to the captain’s table as the evening’s guests, where they were re-introduced to the other members, and raised vodka glasses together.
For dinner, they were given a tomato and cucumber salad with hamburgers. There were also canapés of salmon roe on buttered black bread. As they sat there surrounded by a sea of Russian language, laughter, and hummed song, the two of them amused themselves by coming up with nicknames for each of the crew. The captain was “Valkewpin.” The translator was “Lipsikov.” A man who sang in a hoarse voice became “Tomwaitsky,” while the woman who served the meal was “Chubbinya.” The man who’d been working on one of the rescued refrigerators was “Siberian Electrics,” the glitzy six-foot woman was “Glitzerina,” a huge two hundred twenty-pound man called Misha became “Fatsikov,” and so on. Every time one of them came up with another name they’d laugh, and after a while a young crewman who spoke English asked with undisguised curiosity what they were talking about.
“We were wondering whether you have any Tokarevs or Kalashnikovs,” joked Kita, emboldened by the vodka.
“Yakuza?” somebody asked.
“We’re not yakuza. We fight the yakuza.”
“Polis?”
“No, we’re not the police either.”
“So what are you?” Fatsikov asked.
In his rudimentary English, Kita spelled it out. “I love her. She loves me.” This proved a hit. Gorika! cried Tomwaitsky, and everyone sang out the same word in response. Kiss! Lipsikov commanded. Apparently gorika meant “bitter,” and lovers had to kiss in order to make the vodka sweet. Not really following all this, the two were made to blushingly kiss.
Siberian Electrics came over to Kita and earnestly began to explain that Tokarevs were no good. “Makarovs are much better. Tokarevs are made in China so they’r
e cheap, but most of them are poorly made. Kalashnikovs also depend on whether they’re made in Russia or China. The Russian ones use fat bullets and are very destructive. If you want to buy a gun, buy a Makarov. Makarovs aim well.”
“How much does one cost?” asked Kita, and was told fifty thousand yen. But you could get one for five thousand in Vladivostok. A Tokarev cost one thousand.
A pistol suicide wasn’t a bad idea, Kita thought. It was nice and straightforward. But he didn’t have the money.
When darkness had descended, Kita left the ship to go take a look at the town. Shinobu asked him to bring her back an ice cream.
Kita took a taxi into the central shopping district, where he found a closed electric goods shop that had left the televisions running in the window. Every set, large and small, was tuned to the baseball. Two other men paused in the middle of the arcade as Kita had done, and stood with heads twisted, watching the match. A little girl just learning to walk came tottering out onto the pavement, pursued by her worried father. Kita felt he’d seen the same thing happen somewhere before. No doubt this little scene had also been played out yesterday and would be played out tomorrow, in other shopping arcades in other towns, repeated again and again without anyone ever noticing.
The little girl about a year old looked up into Kita’s face. Kita smiled back, with a sudden sense that he’d come across this particular child before. This man’s going to die the day after tomorrow, Kita told her silently. You’re going to go right on living for a long time. You live well, won’t you? Even if one day here or there doesn’t make much difference to you, with your long life to come. Then he walked off.
He stepped into a telephone booth, and called the merchant of death. “Hey man, where are you?” Yashiro said casually when he heard Kita’s voice.
“Give me back my money. I’m in a fix.”
“You want some money? I’ll send it through. You’re in Niigata, right? Where are you hiding out? Is Shinobu OK? You’ve finally stuck your neck out, haven’t you? It’s do or die. I admire you. Have you seen the TV news? You’re a fantastic promoter. You’ve made Shinobu a star overnight.”
“That doesn’t benefit me one bit.”
“Shinobu’s got the main part tonight. No one knows you’re the kidnapper yet. I’ll bet you’re holed up somewhere out of sight with her, eh? You won’t be out wandering the streets together, that’s for sure.”
“Her production manager sussed that it was me.”
“Don’t you worry. That guy’s tight-lipped. He won’t breathe a word to the media or the police. The abductor’s a mystery man. No one knows the name Yoshio Kita. As long as you’re alone, you’re just another passerby to everyone. I may call it an abduction, but to everyone else it’s just some drunk’s joke.”
“Give me back my money. And keep your nose out of my business from now on.”
“I haven’t stolen your money. There’d be trouble if you escaped abroad, see, so I’ve put a hold on your bank account, that’s all. I know a doctor who lives in Niigata, so I’ll send money to him. I’ll give you his number and you can contact him. You’ll be OK with two hundred thousand, won’t you?”
Yashiro dictated the doctor’s cell phone number. Kita wrote it on his hand, and asked his name. Yashiro gave him the name of a gangster boss he knew well.
“Give him a call in half an hour. He won’t just help with the money, he’ll be able to do other things for you too.”
Kita’s ball pen added the name Kiyoshi Okochi to his palm.
Kidnap the Kidnapper!
A little after three in the afternoon, the image of Shinobu Yoimachi had appeared via terrestrial broadcast signal in the living rooms of the nation. Even her suicide wouldn’t have brought her such quality attention – once it’s over, the only thing left is to sigh and move on, after all. But in this case there was the cliffhanger over whether she’d be rescued or killed, and the thrilled audience was on tenterhooks.
The woman who appeared on the screen at the same time every afternoon spoke to the audience with the same expression as always.
“The singer Shinobu Yoimachi has been kidnapped by an unidentified man, and her whereabouts are unknown. At a little after eleven last night, the head of Ms Yoimachi’s production studio received a telephone call at his home from a man purporting to be the kidnapper, demanding payment of thirty million yen ransom. The man demanded that the money be paid in the form of a donation to the International Red Cross, and that details of the kidnapping be broadcast on all key stations. The production manager has complied with the demand and donated the money as requested, out of fears for the safety of Ms Yoimachi. The kidnapper has also contacted SM Television and announced other demands directed at the government, including the abolition of United States military bases on Okinawa, mass resignation of Cabinet members, and abolition of the death penalty.”
At this point, the recording of Kita’s conversation with the head of the SM News Section was aired. A forensic psychologist had been invited onto the program, and he now set about attempting a plausible psychoanalysis of the kidnapper’s motives, based on the slender evidence available.
“We know that abduction has a low success rate. This is because of the considerable risk to the kidnapper at the time of handover of the ransom money. Police involved with the case consider the safety of the victim to be paramount and ask for media restraint in reporting the incident, but in this case media reports are being made on the demand of the kidnapper. He admits that his demands to the government are unlikely to be met, but has chosen to voice them regardless. I believe his demand that the ransom be donated rather than given to him is a form of ‘crime for kicks,’ with the aim of taking his revenge against society. There may well be a perverted idolization of Ms Yoimachi behind his actions as well. One thing’s certain, this is a form of abduction never seen before.”
His expression remained stern, as if to fend off any difficult questions from his audience. He was followed by a slideshow of Shinobu back in her heyday. There she was as a new star not long after her debut; then she was singing her hit song ‘Italian George’; she ran along a beach in a bikini, her breasts swinging seductively; she appeared in the movie Tetsuko’s Room; “Oh I’m just so into the Bible these days,” she announced radiantly… the star that everyone had begun to forget was reborn before their eyes from the array of images.
Being now in the red having been forced to donate thirty million yen, the production manager was desperately trying to recoup his losses by selling Shinobu as hard as he could. As luck would have it, it was a slow news day – nothing big had happened, and no one famous had died. They had the audience’s full attention.
Both the name and whereabouts of the abductor were in fact known, but they were being suppressed in an attempt to deprive him of the kicks he was assumed to be seeking. The doctor who’d been set up to kill Kita had decided he must first separate him from Shinobu before his name became known to the world – in other words, his task was to kidnap the kidnapper. As for Shinobu, no doubt someone else would take care of her. Whether she was dead or alive was immaterial.
But the assassin had just received a call from Yashiro informing him that he was about to be saved the trouble of kidnapping Kita after all. It seemed that Kita was now strapped for cash, and making his way right now towards where the killer was waiting. Could Kita possibly have some inkling of what was going on? Surely this was some kind of trap – it seemed too good to be true. Yashiro wasn’t to be trusted, no matter how much money he was paying out. The assassin found himself feeling almost sorry for Kita’s good-natured trust in others.
Five minutes before the appointed hour, Kita appeared in the hotel lobby. He cast a quick glance around from under his brows, spied the doctor, and approached him, hunched and tentative. “Are you Mr Okochi?” he asked.
The doctor was already familiar with Kita’s face from a Polaroid photograph. “Do sit down,” he said, indicating the nearby sofa. He checked the face carefully aga
in.
“I do apologize for the trouble you’ve been put to, doctor. I can’t use my cash card, you see.” Sweat dripped down Kita’s nose. It was the sort of face that would leave absolutely no impression at first glance, thought the doctor. They were a good match for each other in being utterly unmemorable. These days, you saw this kind of face everywhere. It was only natural that Americans and Europeans should think of the Japanese as clones. Anyone not used to seeing the Japanese could well mistake Kita and himself for each other.
“You’re in Niigata on business?” asked the doctor, in the tone he reserved for chatting to patients.
“Yes, I sell health products.” Kita planned to stick to lies that were unlikely to be exposed.
“You’ve seen the news?” The doctor wanted to have a bit of fun by watching Kita’s reaction. But Kita didn’t blink.
“The abduction? I’m a fan of Shinobu Yoimachi’s, you know.”
“What can the guy be thinking, to do a thing like that?”
“He’s probably not thinking at all.” Kita spoke with a careful smile in response to the doctor’s shifting strategy.
“Where d’you think they are?”
“Somewhere out of sight, I guess. Some flat in the suburbs maybe.”
“Or on a park bench.” The doctor tried to gauge Kita’s expression as he spoke, but Kita managed to maintain a straight face.
“You’re on the kidnapper’s side?” Kita asked.
“I’d like to rescue the guy.”
Kita gave two short laughs at this. Only someone who didn’t want to be rescued would laugh like that. Patients who laughed before they were taken in for surgery often died, he found. The doctor glanced at Kita’s face again, and told himself that this fellow was set on dying.
He put the two hundred thousand yen from the down payment for his assassination job into an envelope and held it out for Kita. “Thank you, you’ve saved my bacon,” Kita said, head bowed. Then he let out a deep breath.
“Where are you off to now?”
Death By Choice Page 18
