Dead Man Calling

by Gavin Black

  She went into the outer office, but came back with a light summer coat over her arm and carrying a biggish handbag.

  “The best of luck,” she said. “With the police.”

  A moment later the outer door clicked. I waited for perhaps half a minute and then looked out into the passage. A solemn-faced Japanese businessman was going into an office a few doors down but there was no sign of Marla Haines.

  The Benten Building is something of a relic, and so are its lifts, little memorials to that idea of transportation furnished in brown mahogany. It wasn’t very difficult to be just on the last stair as Marla Haines crossed the lobby.

  If she was obeying her boss’s last instruction she was going now straight to the offices of Shompei Shoten. And if she was doing that I meant to see what was in her handbag before she reached them.

  From behind glass doors I waited to see her hail a taxi which would be the sensible thing to do if you were carrying diesel plans for which people were willing to pay three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but she didn’t hesitate to look about for transport. Instead she went straight up the street, walking fast, towards the huge plaza in front of Tokyo Central Station.

  It is like something designed for one of those Moscow urban panoramas, that plaza, a bit odd in a city where there is a premium on space. Most of it was paved, but a few wind-blown pines held up on poles broke the monotony. Buses and traffic offered plenty of cover for me at first, but Marla wasn’t looking back, just hurrying, and when it came to crossing the open I did so behind a party of students who were hurrying, too, four of them, shorter than me, wearing peaked university caps and forming a solid little clump. If she looked round I could duck, but she didn’t.

  So much for Shompei Shoten and Mikos’s painful last words. I’d had the feeling all along that this girl wasn’t the dutiful type, and if she was now carrying those plans she certainly seemed to know where she was going with them. I was sure I was being given a straight lead.

  Then I heard police sirens. The Japanese use the American type and love them. I didn’t have to look back as the wails died away to know that the car was stopping at the Benten Building. But I did duck my head in case Marla turned.

  The service is good at the Myoko, they locate their corpses quickly. Marla and I had dallied maybe a shade too long.

  When I looked at her again she was starting to run, into the station. Those sirens had their little message for her, too.

  When I was in Japan as a boy the Japanese stations echoed to the clatter of a thousand clogs. In these days when the geta is no longer worn much about town the noise of shoes still fills them, maybe because of a kind of shuffling walk the natives use which comes from the old national habit of curling your toes to keep on your footwear.

  The din in the station was terrific. In the background a nasal female voice was announcing train departures over a loudspeaker system. People seemed to be queuing at every one of the ticket windows and I lost sight of Marla. Coming in out of the sun to the gloom put me at a disadvantage for a moment and I was scared she’d spot me then. I went back against a wall by a news kiosk, my eyes jumping about, but not spotting her.

  She came out of a telephone booth, still in a hurry, going fast over to left luggage. I watched her pull a case over the counter. There didn’t seem any doubt this was a planned getaway and I wondered how long that case had been sitting there waiting.

  From Tokyo Central you can go almost anywhere. A tunnel leads to a vast assortment of platforms where ticket collectors wait, and the bellowing voice from the loudspeaker wasn’t much help. This seemed to be a peak hour for trains leaving. Marla was already in the tunnel when I nipped up to the only vacant window I could see and bought a ticket to Yokohama. In a moment I was one of a mob again, all moving fast, with Marla’s blonde, unhatted head just out there in front. I hadn’t realised how tall she was, sticking up over a Japanese crowd.

  I’m tall myself, and was conscious of this now, but she didn’t seem worried any longer about pursuit, as though she was moving into a plan that had been in her mind for a considerable time. There might be panic in this flight away from the capital, but it was a controlled panic, with nothing improvised about it at all.

  Marla walked past the mouth to the Yokohama platform and when she did turn up steps it was where the English and Japanese labels said Kamakura and Yokosuka. The man on duty was clipping tickets fast, but he took time to look at mine.

  “No! You are mistake. Yokohama there. Back.”

  I smiled.

  “I know. But I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Not allowed! Back, back!”

  “Look, I’ll pay the difference later.”

  Marla was at the top of the steps. She didn’t look down, and I could see her starting to hurry, as though she saw a train waiting that wasn’t going to loiter. She disappeared.

  I went past the collector, bounding up those steps, and at once there was an outbreak of wailing behind me, in Japanese and some English, pointing out that I was breaking the law. Once I looked back to see an assortment of outraged Japanese faces, respectably suited men, women with children and the ticket collector waving his arms. It was an intolerable violation of the peace which somehow astonished them in their regulation-controlled lives.

  The bellowing from below produced another threat up on the platform, a man in uniform coming towards me. The Japanese, though small, can move purposefully on duty, as though suddenly switching on the judo training most have behind them.

  There was an electric train at the platform on the left, its automatic doors already closing. I made a dive for it as the man in uniform lunged at me. I did a football feint which isn’t in the judo rules, and got through a door, though it hissed at me as it clipped shut. Out of the corner of an eye I saw the uniformed man shaking his fists as the train jerked away. I had outraged officialdom and that doesn’t pay. It’s the kind of thing they hug in their memories, along with a mental snapshot of you.

  The coach was fairly crowded, all the seats taken, a good few standing in the areas near the door provided for that. When I tried to move away from the door I couldn’t. The back of my jacket was held firmly by hydraulic pressure. The only thing I could do was lean back, still panting, against the door, and pretend nothing was wrong.

  Everyone in the coach, at least in my radius, was staring. Marla wasn’t in this carriage, for which I could be thankful, and with any luck she had been too busy getting into the train herself to notice that stramash on the platform. Anyway, I was in no position to start a search. It wouldn’t have done me much good anyway, for the carriages didn’t connect. I had to stand, a captive, until the next station released me. I wondered how long that would be.

  We were clipping out of Tokyo now, well up above it, the view of buildings that went up to seven stories or thereabouts and lots of little wooden houses in between, with crowded streets, millions of milling Japanese all ready to notice the foreigner.

  The ones opposite me were noticing hard. One of them, quite near, was a student. It was a roundish face under the inevitable stiff-brimmed cap, the effect of circles carried on by a pair of perfectly round glasses. His mouth, too, was round, and his face seemed to be working as he stared. It took me a little time to realise that he was forming words, English words almost certainly.

  When I didn’t move away the student took courage. He stepped forward.

  “You are very dangerous man, I think.”

  That startled me. But I was relieved by what came next.

  “To leap on moving train is very dangerous.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Train official very angry.”

  This didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere, but I smiled.

  “I am student of Josei University,” he said.

  “Oh, yes. You enjoy your work?”

  He smiled for the first time. It was a disarming smile, like a small boy’s, a lot of very good teeth flashed at you, his whole face radiating a cheerful rotund inn
ocence.

  “I am very ardent,” he said.

  “Good, good.” He had my time until the next station, there was nothing I could do about that. “What are you studying?”

  “English Literature.”

  “Are you going to teach?”

  “I think so. But commerce makes more money.”

  “It certainly does, yes.”

  “You are English?”

  “Well, in a kind of a way, yes.”

  “You know Graham Greene?”

  “No, we’ve never met.”

  “You know Angus Wilson?”

  “No, we’ve never met, either.”

  There was silence. He swayed with the movement of the train, I was held rock steady. The face opposite me went on working, forming words that weren’t quite ready to come out.

  “My name Ohashi. It mean honourable chopsticks. Very funny!”

  He laughed, but I didn’t. You never know when you’re supposed to laugh with a Japanese.

  “How do you do, Mr. Ohashi.”

  “You name?”

  “Jones,” I said, with no originality.

  “Ah, yes. I know. Good family I think.”

  “The Joneses are a good family, yes. Roomy, but good.”

  Ohashi liked me, I could see it in his eyes. Perhaps a lot of other foreigners tried to get out of his way about this point, but here I was staying put. It encouraged him. He came a little closer.

  “Mr. Ohashi, what’s the next station, and when do we get to it?”

  “Omori. In about fifteen minutes, I think.”

  For fifteen minutes he told me all about English literature. It included such figures as Sir Walter Scott and his immortal poem Lady of the Lake of which there is a Japanese translation. Rudyard Kipling was there, too, but in a decline, and Thomas Hardy. Mr. Ohashi was also very fond of Mr. James Hadley Chase, but he wasn’t sure that Mr. Chase was English Literature.

  Then the train came in to Omori station. To my horror the platform was on the other side and the wrong doors opened. The descending passengers were scarcely out before an official in uniform came in. They are an efficient people all right, this man knew the coach and even the door. He wasted no time, as though my description over the phone fitted me at once.

  “Please, you jump on train?”

  Ohashi, startled, took a step back. Before officialdom, even train officials, the civilian makes himself unnoticeable.

  “I did, yes. Here’s my ticket. I want to go to Yokosuka now. I’ll pay the difference. Here’s the money.”

  “Not allowed. Come to office, please.”

  “I can’t.” I turned, showing him my coat. Ohashi, seeing for the first time what had held me captive, looked almost sad. The train official was startled. He made a hissing noise through his teeth.

  “Dangerous to open door not on platform. People leaning.”

  The picture of innocent travellers all along the length of the train suddenly exploding from doors they hadn’t expected to open was certainly alarming.

  “I’m afraid that’s your problem,” I said.

  A whistle blew out on the platform. The other doors started to hiss. After a moment of dramatic indecision over the unforeseen the official made a dive and got through to the safety of his permanent appointment. This time he didn’t shake his fist at me. It was encouraging, as though my luck had turned. We were moving again.

  Ohashi still looked sad and made no attempt to come back into my orbit again. He had been a warming human contact, via English literature, in a wilderness where there were few toothy smiles likely to be waiting for me. He hung back now because I was clearly a type in which officials were too interested, but I could see a deep driving desire to practise his English still pushing at him. When I smiled he looked almost sheepish.

  The Japanese sometimes undress in long-distance trains, changing out of their good clothes into seconds to save wear and tear, but the sight of a foreigner getting out of his jacket startled them. It was as though there were certain standards expected from us that I was violating. Everyone watched as I wriggled, and one or two climbed on seats to see better when, in my shirt sleeves, I got busy with a penknife. When an old woman realised that I was actually cutting my jacket free from the clutching doors she let out an agonised cry at the waste of good cloth.

  “Ara!”

  This was too much for Ohashi, too. He closed in.

  “This is most foolish thing, Mr. Jones.”

  “It didn’t seem to me I had any choice, Mr. Ohashi. If I tugged the coat it would probably go at the seams. It was made by a Chinese tailor. But this way I’ll be able to save the pockets. Surely that’s what’s important?”

  “You cannot wear with hole in back.”

  “Oh … easily. I’m trying to make it not a very big hole. There … look!”

  I held the jacket up for the carriage to see. There is no use denying the world its little moment of comedy, however you may be feeling yourself. The hole was, in fact, rather neat, to the starboard of the vent, oval in shape with jagged edges. It might only have been a slight sartorial eccentricity. I put the jacket on and turned around.

  From that moment I had my public. There was immediately established that kind of emotional bond which could even be converted into a cause, the kind they have quite frequently been willing to die for. The fact that it would be a silly cause wouldn’t worry them. When the laughter died down I could have organised a posse to put out any further official who tried to get into the carriage.

  “Smart isn’t it?” I said in Japanese.

  The old woman was weeping, tears of joy running down creased cheeks. It was as good as a free show at the fox god temple. She began to stuff something in her mouth to prevent hysteria. A baby screamed. The din was terrific. I began to appreciate what it is that turns so many Europeans into Japanophiles. It’s their simplicity, abused by the Prussian elements, but always available for other ends as well. The train rocked us all on south.

  “Mr. Ohashi, what is the next stop?”

  “Yokohama, Mr. Jones.”

  “But I thought this train didn’t go to Yokohama?”

  “That’s right. It doesn’t go. Just Yokohama station. The station for Yokohama is Sakuragicho.”

  I had forgotten this little whimsy, but it has been established for years. No one for Yokohama gets off at Yokohama. Which meant that if Marla had been going there she wouldn’t have been on this train. She could, of course, have alighted at Omori when I had been immobile but this seemed too short a journey for someone with a suitcase. I was pretty certain that she was still aboard, and in the coaches up front, which had been nearest to the steps.

  Too late I began to regret my play for a warm-hearted public. Four businessmen pressed their cards on me, a gesture which Mr. Jones unfortunately couldn’t return, and one of them suggested lunch in a Tokyo restaurant the following week. My face, my hands, the general picture of my personality was as clearly imprinted in the minds of this bunch as if I had been Gregory Peck, again running at Tokyo Geikijo. The only card I had to play was their loyalty. It’s a good card in Japan. Feudal types spent their lives practising nothing but loyalty, and became national legends. My Japanese was sufficient for what followed, just, and they were clearly impressed by the Tokyo accent, which is nearly as sound an asset as the BBC one.

  “You all saw that I was willing to pay the difference in my ticket. I had the money in my hand. But the official wouldn’t take it. That seems to me silly. I wasn’t trying to cheat, I made a mistake. Now, because of that, I’m not paying. When we come to Yokohama I’m getting out of this carriage by that door down there. The official will come in this one. Will you say that you haven’t seen a hairy devil?”

  There was a dead silence. They were all clearly shocked by a deliberate flouting of the law. On the other hand they had accepted me a moment before. The yeast of loyalty was already fermenting.

  “Okay, Mr. Jones,” said one of the businessmen.

  The othe
rs, where they weren’t silent, nodded here and there, given a leader. I moved down the coach, towards the door at the end of it, smiling, and any who hadn’t seen my jacket did then.

  At Yokohama the train stopped as though it wasn’t taking this station seriously at all. Only a few people got out, with me doing that just as a uniformed man stepped in up the coach. I then walked rapidly down the train and as the doors hissed again reached the second door in the final coach. I didn’t see Ohashi making the first one until he sat down beside me.

  “You are playing game, I think. So humorous.”

  “Hallo,” I said. “Is the next stop Kamakura?”

  “So.”

  That was something. Since Ohashi was sticking he might as well be useful.

  “Tell me, is Yokosuka the sort of place foreigners go to?”

  “Oh, no. Not. Military place only. Before when we are military people it is forbidden area. Now not so much so.”

  “You mean only a little so? I see.”

  It seemed quite certain Marla was making for Kamakura, where I knew perfectly well westerners did go, a great deal. I only hoped that Ohashi was going farther down the line. I didn’t fancy a tracking job with him snuffing beside me.

  “You know Kamakura well?”

  “It my home.”

  My heart sank somewhat.

  After Yokohama the scenery perks up and honourable chopsticks began to comment on it. He was clearly very patriotic.

  “Japan beautiful country, I think. So beautiful as England, yes?”

  “Yes.” Then I added. “Now look, Mr. Ohashi. There may be a bit of trouble over what I’ve done, joke or no joke. One has to pay for one’s fun. But I don’t want you involved. So I suggest that at Kamakura you don’t know me, and go on ahead.”

  His eyes were positively sad then, as though I had rejected him. He was remembering his earlier defection with shame.

  “I adhere,” he said, with moving simplicity.

  CHAPTER III