Kita replied that he was going to buy an ice cream and head back to where he was staying, and out he went. The doctor picked up his heavy Boston bag and set off, taking care not to be noticed as he kept his eyes on Kita’s back.
A light rain had begun to fall, dulling the evening street lights to grey, blurring the buildings, neon signs and passersby, dimming the sight of everything. Kita strode quickly through the shopping arcade, then dropped in to a convenience store and bought two ice creams and a mountain of cup noodles. He must be on his way to the hiding place where Shinobu was waiting. He hailed a taxi. So did the doctor.
Kita was headed towards a Russian ship. He showed no signs of noticing what was behind him. Then, when he belatedly noticed the doctor emerging from the taxi, he executed a ninety-degree turn and began to walk away from the ship in the direction of the ferry terminal. The doctor strolled casually along in the same direction. Kita made to go into the terminal building, but then realized it was dark and locked. The doctor silently approached. He came to a halt when he was close enough for them to see each other’s faces.
“What do you want?” Kita’s voice trembled, and his Adam’s apple jumped in his throat from the tension. The doctor kept his eyes on it like a shark.
“Nothing,” he muttered.
“You followed me here, didn’t you? What else would you be doing in a place like this?”
The doctor lowered his Boston bag to the concrete terrace, and drew a deep breath through his nose. Kita braced himself and raised both arms to protect himself from the anticipated blow, but the doctor simply stood there blankly in front of him. After a long silence, he spoke.
“Your ice creams will melt.”
“I got them to pack them in dry ice, so they’ll survive for a bit. Well, since there’s nothing you want, I guess I’ll be going. “
“You’d be wise not to go back to the ship.”
The tone was full of certainty. Kita gulped, unable to move. So the guy knew that he and Shinobu were holed up on the Russian ship?
“Yashiro sent you after me, didn’t he. What did he tell you to do with me?”
“He said to save you.”
“So what are you going to do, Mr Okochi?”
“My name isn’t Okochi.”
“Well, then who are you? Why are you here?”
The doctor made no reply, and Kita found himself drawn into the silence, unable to figure it out. He had the feeling something unfortunate would happen if he ignored the doctor and tried to go back to the ship. And he was worried about what was in that Boston bag. The doctor was attuned to Kita’s eyes as they flickered over the bag.
“Want to see inside?” He picked the bag up, and slowly unzipped it.
One look at the bag’s contents and it would become clear who this fellow was, thought Kita. Maybe it contained some horribly cruel instruments of torture. He felt a sudden thrill of terror.
“You bought that ice cream for Shinobu Yoimachi?” the doctor whispered.
A shocking thought occurred to Kita. “Have you killed Shinobu?”
The doctor took from the bag a long, thin metal rod, put one end to his mouth, and blew into it. The next moment, Kita felt a sudden pain in his calf, as though a needle had pierced it.
“Did you think I had Shinobu’s head in this bag?”
A needle with a capsule attached had pierced Kita’s leg. The doctor packed the blowgun back into his bag. “Just the right size for a head,” he murmured. Then he hoisted the bag again, and set off towards the Russian ship.
Astonished, Kita now at last understood that this man was a killer. He pulled the needle out and held it. “What have you done?” he yelled.
“I think you know,” the killer responded. “You’ll be able to die the day after tomorrow. If you don’t like the idea, though, come with me. I’ll give you an injection to reverse the poison. I’ll be waiting right here, so you go on back to the ship now, give Shinobu the ice cream, and say your goodbyes. This is the end of the abduction story. I’ll inform the police. You’ll oblige me by disappearing.”
“Why is this happening?”
“Because you trusted that fellow Yashiro. Whatever happens, you get to die. The only difference is, whose rules do you die by?”
Purulent Streptococcus
Kita would have liked nothing better than to be able to turn the clock back to last Friday again. He didn’t recall having opened Pandora’s box. His idea had simply been to have some modest fun with his desires, then die quietly and anonymously. Pandora’s box had sprung open quite unasked, unleashing merchants of death into a feeding frenzy on some poor fellow who only wanted to die by choice. All they wanted was to make money out of some fool prepared to sell his life over to them. The day of his death was almost upon him. Kita longed to have just one day of complete freedom before he died.
Did he have no choice but to submit to the doctor’s coercions? Or should he play out the abduction act to the end? The doctor was right. Whichever choice he made, he’d end up dead. The fact was, the only freedom of choice available to him now was his method of dying.
At any rate, he’d deliver the ice cream. He set off toward the waiting ship, and summoned the crew with a cry of “Hey, Bolshoi Ballet!” The gangplank was up, so he couldn’t get back on board unaided. A few moments later, a torch shone down onto his face. Dark figures moved about, and the gangplank was lowered. When Kita arrived on deck, Siberian Electrics was there to greet him, grinning from ear to ear. He immediately began to press Kita to buy a Makarov. Kita shook his head.
“I saw on TV. You need Makarov, of course. Fifty thousand!” said Siberian Electric, and out came a hand like a baseball mitt. Well, thought Kita, it might be wise to have a pistol, just to stop the doctor having his way. There was nothing to prevent him shooting himself, after all. OK, he thought, I’ll buy it, and he tapped Siberian Electric on the shoulder.
Siberian Electric beamed with pleasure, and gripped his hand to shake on the deal. “Yes, yes. The Captain say he want a word with you. Your lover’s in his room. I bring Makarov later.” So saying, he took Kita by the arm and led him to the captain’s cabin.
Shinobu was playing poker with Valkewpin and Lipsikov. She looked up and saw Kita and the ice creams. “Welcome back,” she said, then added with innocent pride, “I’ve won ten thousand! Isn’t that great?”
“Sounds like these guys have discovered about the abduction,” said Kita. “I don’t like the look of things. Look at Valkewpin’s face there. He’s grinning away even though he’s lost. I’d say he plans to make money out of us.”
Sure enough, Valkewpin began to negotiate a deal. They’d had no idea they were sheltering a kidnapper. They were in a quandary. They had to maintain good relations with the police, for the sake of Russia’s trade with Japan. But they understood his position too, of course. Both parties should be able to profit from the situation. The question was, should they report him, or protect him? They couldn’t make up their minds. What was his opinion?
“I didn’t think you Russians would watch Japanese television,” Kita sighed, while beside him Shinobu spat out, “They’re despicable! Let’s get off this ship right now.” She tugged at Kita’s sleeve. But they were faced with a gang of people who didn’t seem likely to let them get away so generously.
“What’s your proposal for protecting us?” Kita asked.
Well, replied Valkewpin, the ship was due to leave tomorrow, so they couldn’t shelter them much longer. Why not just pretend they’d never met? Of course, they would need some hush money… Kita waited for him to continue. They’d had to pay these guys thirty thousand to come on board. How much would it cost to get off again? The answer was a shocking one hundred fifty thousand yen!
“No way,” Kita shot back. “This is pointless. Look, just go ahead and tell the police.”
The price immediately came down to a hundred thousand.
In the end they agreed on one hundred fifty to cover the hush money as well as the cost
of their board, plus a Makarov and three hundred grams of caviar. A loaf of black bread and three bottles of vodka were thrown in free of charge. They divided the goods between Kita’s backpack and a carrier bag, and climbed off the ship together, licking their ice creams.
The doctor was waiting in the darkness of the wharf, hands clasped behind his back. “You said those goodbyes?” he asked.
Shinobu cowered behind Kita. “Who’s this?” she asked, warily sizing him up.
“This is where we have to part, Shinobu. This man’s a killer, and he’s injected me with poison. If I don’t do as he says, he’ll kill me any way he likes. So this is the end of our kidnap act. Go back to Tokyo now and leave me here.”
Shinobu glared up at him. “I’m coming with you,” she declared. Kita wavered. It would be next to impossible to escape, and whatever they did from now on the killer would be with them. If they didn’t part now, they were doomed to a much more difficult parting later. But he wouldn’t be around by then, he decided, so there was nothing to lose by giving in to the impulse of the moment and going with his instincts. Besides, he’d just got himself a very handy little instrument.
“Right. We’ll go it together.” Kita put his arm around her shoulders, and they set off walking towards the streetlights in the distance. Behind them trudged the killer, lugging his heavy bag.
“Kita, that guy still seems to want us,” Shinobu said worriedly.
Kita quickened his pace. “Ignore him. He’ll disappear before long.”
The killer seemed upset at being spurned like this. He addressed Kita’s back. “You’ll die if I don’t inject you with an antidote to that poison, you know.”
“Fine by me. I’m sick of worrying about it all. Just leave me alone.”
The killer drew a deep breath through his nose, squatted down, and began to remove something from his bag. A round box emerged. Kita drew out the pistol from the bag that had contained the
ice creams, and pointed it at the doctor, who froze for a moment still half-squatting, then went on rummaging in his bag, his eyes on Kita.
“Give the bag here,” said Kita.
“You wouldn’t know which of these is the antidote,” the doctor muttered.
“Just give me the bag.”
“I’m afraid I must refuse. I have an obligation to save your life.”
“Make up your mind. Are you a murderer, or a doctor?”
“Both. I may have been a murderer just now, but right now I’m a doctor. You two can’t get away, you realize. As soon as you get out into the light, everyone’ll be after you. You’re on stage wherever you go now.”
Kita wavered again. Everything the doctor said was true, and it was getting on his nerves.
“Go on Kita, kill him. This guy’s shot you full of poison, after all. Why not get your own back by shooting him full of lead?”
There was no way for either of them to know if the pistol Kita was holding was real. He couldn’t trust Siberian Electrics and Valkewpin, Kita told himself. It could well be a toy, for all he knew. Meanwhile, the doctor looked perfectly happy to have a bullet put through him.
“I didn’t have a chance to test this thing,” said Kita, shifting his aim to the Boston bag and putting his finger on the trigger.
The doctor put his hands in the air. “It doesn’t have a silencer,” he argued lamely. “There’ll be a big bang that’ll bring the police running. Don’t do it.”
OK, thought Kita, I’ll use that dense loaf of black Russian bread for silencing it. He pulled out the bread and held it to the end of the gun.
“You’re really going to kill him, Kita? Wow! You’re going to kill a killer! Don’t do it. OK, I tried to stop you. I give up.”
“Fine. Killers need to get a taste of what it’s like to be on the receiving end.”
The doctor was kneeling on the ground, his mouth half open, gazing at Kita.
“How does it feel, eh?”
The doctor didn’t answer, but simply gazed out to sea. He may have been betting on Kita not pulling the trigger, and simply waiting to see which way things went. Or he may have been recalling a previous experience like this.
“Got any final words?”
The doctor seemed to have grown tired of kneeling, for he sank to the ground and crossed his legs. Then he drew a breath in through his nose, closed his eyes, and began to chuckle.
“Come on, then, shoot. I’ve already killed you, so now it’s your turn.” He sounded utterly calm – his voice didn’t so much as quiver.
“I’m not dead yet.”
“I may be the first to die, but you were the first to get killed. Do you know a guy called George Markov? He was a Bulgarian exile who was assassinated with the tip of an umbrella used as a bacterial syringe. He died twenty-four hours after his thigh was injected by the umbrella tip at a railway station. Well, you’ve got a germ called purulent streptococcus in your bloodstream. You’re going to die of septicaemia like Markov did. You’re as good as dead, see. But there’s a way to save you. There’s still time.”
“I don’t believe this talk about germs. I bet that was just Vitamin C you injected me with. If you want to save yourself you’d better come clean.”
“You’re the one who needs to save yourself. Mind you, I can understand why you’re not inclined to trust doctors. We could be friends, you and me. We’re in the same boat.”
“What? You’re saying you want to die too?”
“I just have a vague yearning to die. Just like all the others out there, except you.”
“I have the same yearning, you know.”
“But you’re being impelled by something you can’t control, aren’t you? There’s nothing like that in my case. That’s why I go on living like this. But I’m beginning to change my mind because of you. I’d like you to hang around. Just in case you happen to decide not to die, if nothing else.”
Shinobu tugged at Kita’s sleeve. “What’s this freak going on about?” she said, glaring at the doctor with undisguised disgust.
“Oh well, I’ll just have to kidnap him too,” Kita announced. Shinobu shrieked in horror. She had still been planning on continuing her one-on-one date with Kita. The doctor seemed to concur with Kita’s plan, however, for he held out his heavy Boston bag. Kita put his pistol into it, handed Shinobu the carrier bag containing the caviar, vodka and bread, and together they set off to hail a taxi. The doctor followed a few paces behind, avoiding treading on their shadows.
“Let’s take the taxi straight to my hotel and pick up my rented car,” he said. “After that you can go wherever the fancy takes you.”
They took the doctor’s suggestion, and all three piled into the rented car. The first thing Kita did was accept an injection of the antidote, which brought to a halt the proliferation of the streptococcus in his system.
Kita couldn’t detect any recent physical change. If anything, he felt better than usual. Perhaps that “streptococcus” really had been vitamin C, he thought. They decided to head back to Tokyo. The doctor drove, while Shinobu and Kita sat in the back seat, taking it in turns to doze. They enjoyed a round of Russian-style vodka toasts celebrating the success of the abduction, with the caviar and black bread as side dish. Still, it was a little difficult to decide who was the abductor and who the victim at this point. The TV news had claimed that the kidnapper’s identity was still unknown, and there was much talk of desperate fears for the safety of the victim. What liars the media were!
“What it comes down to, Kita, is that you’ve kidnapped me and a killer.” Shinobu was toying with the pistol, shifting it from hand to hand to feel its weight, in a way that made both the killer and Kita nervous. In this situation, whoever held the pistol got to be the kidnapper. As for the assassin, he could only be seen as having blown it big-time – far from kidnapping the kidnapper, he’d actually saved the life of the man he should have murdered.
“Don’t let that thing off in here,” he said. “The bullet will ricochet and could hit anyone.” He
was a cautious man. She only had to start feeling a bit high from the vodka and she could get very trigger-happy, he thought. Even Shinobu, who had no desire to die, could just idly pull the trigger the way she might flip the ‘on’ switch on the karaoke mike. If the bullet hit the driver in the back of the head, the car would crash and in seconds the three of them would be caviar-smeared corpses. She was the last person who should be holding the gun.
Kita felt the same way, and the stress of it kept him awake and alert till dawn. He could feel a pleasant tingling sensation in his thighs. He wouldn’t mind if he dropped dead the next minute right there on the highway, he thought, and with this the tingle grew. The car could burst apart, his guts could be ripped open and his bones pulverized, but it seemed to him he wouldn’t register any pain. The only sensation that would remain would be this tingle in his thighs.
“Go faster!” he ordered, though the speedometer was already registering eighty miles an hour.
“You suddenly remembered an urgent appointment, or something?”
“Do people feel a tingling when they’re about to die?”
“I’ve no idea.” The doctor was concentrating on driving, now ten miles an hour faster. Actually, Kita thought, your whole body feels kind of tingly when you’re driving at high speeds like this. It was the same when you jumped from someplace high. Speed and falling… both were natural associates of death.
Kita had a sudden urge to experiment. He asked Shinobu to press the mouth of the pistol against his temple. The tingle in his thighs responded slightly to the touch of the barrel, warm from Shinobu’s hands.
“Put your finger on the trigger.”
“This is dangerous.”
“Go on, just do it.”
Shinobu’s pale finger slipped through the ring that circled the trigger. The tingling sensation spread from his thighs up his back, then spread slowly to between his legs. This must be the pleasant feeling that accompanies death, he thought. Eureka!
“Dr Killer, you ought to write a paper on this. Do some research on the link between death and tingling.”
Death By Choice Page 19
