Number9Dream

by Unknown

‘What area, please?’

  ‘Shibuya.’

  ‘And the name, please?’

  Miss Manilla Sunrise pouts over two beachballs. No, surely—

  ‘Name, please?’

  —they can’t actually be her actual—

  ‘Name, please!’

  ‘Uh, sorry. I’m trying to track down a bar. Queen of Spades.’

  ‘Queen of Spades . . . one moment, please.’ Keyboard taps.

  Miss Whippy Cream licks the froth off her stilettos.

  Keyboard taps. ‘Queens of England . . . Queer Sauna . . . sorry. Nothing.’

  ‘Are you sure? It was there last night. Could it be a new number?’

  Mrs Mop rides a broom, speech ballooning: ‘In! Out! Shake it all about!’

  ‘New numbers are added to the computer as they are registered.’

  ‘So if Queen of Spades isn’t on your computer . . .’

  ‘Then it must be ex-directory.’

  Weird. ‘What kind of bar wants to hide its telephone number?’

  ‘A very exclusive one, I imagine. Sorry, but I can’t help you.’

  ‘Oh well. Thanks for trying.’

  I hang up. One big card is handwritten in childish letters. It has no telephone number. ‘If you want sex with me, I’m standing outside.’ I look around. She looks right at me through the glass. Sixteen? Fifteen? Fourteen? Her eyes have a damaged look. She presses her lips softly against the glass. I scuttle away, faster than Cockroach.

  The police box door is stiff. I have to grind it open. Ancient Aum Shinrikyo wanted posters, Dial 110 posters, Join-the-Police-and-Serve-Japan posters. I’ll pass, thanks. Filing cabinets. The same black-and-white clock with the gliding second hand you get in all government buildings. A Citi Bank calendar, rustling in the breeze from the paddling fan. The cop is tilted back with his hands behind his head, deep in meditation. One eyelid rises. ‘Son?’

  ‘Excuse me. I’m looking for a bar.’

  ‘You’re looking for a bar?’ His words leak from the side of his mouth.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will any bar do? Or does it have to be one bar in particular?’

  ‘I’m looking for one bar in particular.’

  ‘You’re looking for one bar in particular.’

  ‘Yes.’

  A sigh as long as the end of the world. The other eyelid rises. Two bloodshot eyeballs. A long silence. He leans forward, his chair screeches, and he slowly unfolds a map on the desk. Upside down. ‘Name?’

  ‘Eiji Miyake.’

  A long stare. ‘Not your name, genius. The name of the bar.’

  ‘Uh, sorry. Queen of Spades.’

  The cop focuses and darkens. ‘You are a member of this bar?’

  I swallow. ‘Not exactly. I went there last night.’

  He frowns as if I am being evasive. ‘Somebody took you?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah.’

  He peers at me from another angle. ‘And you want to go back? Why?’

  ‘I need to speak to a sort of . . . friend who works there.’

  ‘You need to speak to a sort of friend who works there. How old exactly did you say you are?’

  ‘I, uh, didn’t.’

  ‘I know you didn’t, genius. That is why I asked. How old are you?’

  What is this about? ‘I’m twenty.’

  ‘ID.’

  Nervously, I open my wallet and hand over my driving licence. The cop scrutinizes it. ‘Eiji Miyake, resident of Kagoshima prefecture. In Tokyo to work?’ I nod. He reads. ‘Date of birth, 9th September. You were twenty yesterday, correct?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So upon visiting said bar you were under the minimum drinking age. Correct?’

  ‘I went to Queen of Spades yesterday. On my birthday.’

  ‘You went to said bar yesterday. On your birthday.’

  ‘All I want is the address of this place, Officer.’

  He searches my face for clues for a long time. Eventually he hands back my licence. ‘Then all I can suggest is you obtain said address by calling said sort of friend. Queen of Spades is not listed on any map of mine.’ The end. I bow and leave, struggling to slide the door shut as he memorizes my face.

  I admit defeat. My legs are about to unscrew and fall off. I explored every street and alley in Shibuya, twice at least, but Queen of Spades is no longer here. I buy a can of Calpis and a packet of Seven Stars and sit down on a step. Could I find Daimon back at the pool hall? No. He willavoid theplace for a long time, toavoid me. Ifonly Miriam had said she knew my father last night. How did she know my name? Because Daimon mentioned it several times. ‘Miyake’ is pretty common, though. Daimon signed me in, and she must have seen the weird kanji for ‘Eiji’. My father must have talked about me. I swig from my can and light a Seven Star. My father moves in these exclusive club circles – about the only thing I know about him is his wealth. I imagine smoke swirling in my lungs, dust in sunny mine shafts. Bumping into Miriam at Shinobazu pond – not so outlandish, really. She feeds ducks – how many places are there where you can feed ducks in Tokyo? I balance my cigarette on the lip of the can and flick through Miriam’s dropped library book. Wow. Being kicked in the balls by the same woman who hostesses my father. No. Something is too wrong. All these coincidences are too weird. Even so. Finding where they join into an explanation is a sort of Plan D. I wonder if my father is a womanizer, like Daimon’s father seems to be. I always imagined him as a sort of faithful adulterer. Still, I am here to meet him, not judge him. The cigarette rolls off the can, which, all on its own, has begun to vibrate, wobble, and . . .

  . . . fall over, the ground groans, windows sing, buildings shake, shit, I shake, adrenalin seeps, a million sentences drop dead, elevators die, millions more Tokyoites dive under tables and into doorways – I curl into a sort of ball, already flinching under the mass of the falling masonry – and the whole city and I hurl up shining prayers to anyone – anyone – God, gods, kami, ancestors – who might be listening: stop this stop this stop this now, please, please, please, don’t let this be the big one, not the big one, not today, not now, not another Kobe, not another 1923, not today, not here. Calpis runs in a delta over the thirsty sidewalk. Buntaro told me you get vertically oscillating earthquakes and horizontally oscillating ones. Horizontal ones are okay. Vertical ones floor cities. But how do you tell one from the other? Who cares – just stop!

  The earthquake stops.

  I uncrouch, newborn and dumb, not believing it quite yet. Silence. Breathe. Relief rains down from heaven. People switch on their radios to find out if it was just a local snore or if Yokohama or Nagoya has been rubbled off the map of Japan. I right my can and light another cigarette. Then I see something else I can’t trust myself to believe quite yet. Across the road from my step is the entrance to a passageway. The passageway runs into the building and ends at an elevator. Next to the elevator is a signboard. On the signboard, next to #9, two trapezoid eyes stare straight back at me. I know those eyes. The eyes of the queen of spades.

  The elevator doors open with a bronze gong. A bucket of soapy water stands beside the projector. A woman in dungarees is cleaning tiny holes in the planetarium with a cocktail stick. She glances at me from her stepladder. ‘We open at nine, I’m afraid, sir.’ Then she sees how scuzzy my clothes are. ‘Not another mobile phone sales geek, please.’ So I skip the pleasantries too. ‘I was hoping I could have a quick word with Miriam.’

  I am scanned. ‘Who are you exactly?’

  ‘My name is Miyake. I was here last night with Yuzu Daimon.

  Miriam was our hostess. I just need to ask her one question. Then I’ll go.’

  The woman shakes her head. ‘I think you’ll go right now, actually.’

  ‘Please. I’m not a psycho or anything. Please.’

  ‘Miriam isn’t working tonight, anyway.’

  ‘Could I just have her telephone number?’

  She cocktail-sticks a hole. ‘What is this question of yours?’

  ‘
A personal one.’

  I have never been so looked at until today. She jerks her thumb towards the curtain door. ‘You’d better ask Shiyori.’

  I thank her and make my way through to the smoking chamber. The tapestries are rolled up and sunlight leans against the windows in solid bars. Women in T-shirts and jeans sit around slurping somen. A mechanical parrot is being operated upon by a fragile lady. When I enter, all conversation stops. ‘Yeah?’ asks one of the girls.

  ‘The girl in the entrance told me to ask for Shiyori.’

  ‘That’s me.’ She pours herself some oolong tea. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I need to speak with Miriam.’

  ‘She isn’t working today.’

  Another girl rearranges her chopsticks. ‘You were here last night. One of Yuzu Daimon’s guests.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The vibes go from indifference to hostility. Shiyori washes out her mouth with tea. ‘So he sent you over to see how his little prank went down, did he?’ ‘I don’t understand,’ says another, ‘how he gets a kick out of the way he treats her.’ Another girl chews a chopstick blunt. ‘The way I see it, if you think Miriam is going to want to be in the same room as you, you are demented.’

  ‘I had no idea there was anything between them.’

  ‘Then you are blind as well as demented.’

  ‘Fine. I am blind as well as demented. But please, I have to speak to Miriam about something.’

  ‘What is so urgent exactly?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it. Something she said.’

  The women fall quiet as the parrot woman puts down a tiny screwdriver. ‘If you wish to speak with Miriam, you need to become a member of this club.’ I realize she is the mama-san from last night. ‘Prospective members must collect nine nominations from existing members, excluding Yuzu Daimon, who is now barred. The application fee is three million yen – non-returnable. If the selection committee approves your application, the first annual payment is nine million yen. Upon receipt of this, you are free to ask Miriam anything you wish. In the meantime, tell Yuzu Daimon he would be wise to leave the city for a long time. Mr Morino is most displeased.’

  ‘Could I just leave a note for—’

  ‘No. You can just leave.’

  I open my mouth—

  ‘I said, you can just leave.’

  Now what?

  ‘Masanobu Suga?’ The receptionist at Imperial University looks blank. ‘A student? But it’s four in the afternoon on Sunday! He’ll probably be having breakfast.’

  ‘He’s a postgraduate. Computers.’

  ‘In that case he won’t have got out of bed yet.’

  ‘I think he has a room on the ninth floor.’

  I see her colleague lean over and mouth, ‘Flaky.’

  ‘Oh! Him. Yeah. Go on up. Nine-eighteen.’

  Another elevator. The doors open at the third floor, and some students get in. I feel as though I am an enemy intruder. They carry on their conversation. I imagined students only ever talked about philosophy, engineering and whether love is something sacred or merely sexual programming: they are discussing the best way of getting past the hydra on Zax Omega and Red Plague Moon. So this is where the top stream in my high school were bound. I summon the courage to tell the students to attack the hydra with the flamethrower, but the doors open for the ninth floor. I always thought universities were wide and flat. In Tokyo they are tall and thin. The corridor is deserted. I walk up and down a few times, trying to work out how the room numbers work. Perhaps this is a part of the entrance examination. Finally I see ‘Masanobu Suga. Abandon hope, all Microsofters who enter here.’ I knock. ‘Enter!’ I push the door open. The air pongs of armpit, and the Doraemon bedspread over the window keeps the room as dank and dark as one. Bongo drums, manuals, magazines, computer equipment, the boxes they came in, a Zizzi Hikaru poster, a pot containing a stump, a complete set of manga entitled ‘Vulvavaders from Cloud Nine’, a pile of dead cup ramen packs, and a mountain range of paper files. At Ueno lost property Suga was forever harping on about paperless offices. The man himself is in the corner, hunched over his keyboard. Tappety-tap-tap-tap-tappety-beepetybeep-beep-beep. ‘Shit!’ He swivels around and peers at his visitor. Then he tries to access my face and name, even though only nine days have passed since Suga quit Ueno. ‘Miyake!’

  ‘You said I could come and see you some time.’

  Suga frowns. ‘But I never thought you actually would . . . How is the lost property business? Mrs Sasaki still freezing the ground beneath her feet? And did you see Aoyama’s final dive on TV? It was all over the news until that high-school kid busjacked the holiday coach. See that? Cut the passengers’ throats. Goes to show, if you’re going to perform a dramatic suicide like Aoyama, schedule it clear of any major news stories.’

  ‘Suga, I came to—’

  ‘You’re lucky I’m in. Pull up a chair. You might find one under . . . never mind, sit on that box. I got back from my week at IBM yesterday. You should see their labs! They put me on the helpdesk to wipe the arses of the great unwashed. Deep grief. I wanted to be in R&D to check out the new stuff, right. It took me a few minutes to hatch my escape plan. My first call comes in, this bumpkin from Akita with an accent even thicker than yours, no offence. “Oim having some bovver with my ’puter. Screen went blank.” “Oh dear, sir. Can you see the cursor?” “You wot?” “The little arrow, sir, that tells you where you are.” “Don’t see no arrow. Don’t see nuffin. Screen went blank, I tell yer.” “I see, sir. Is there a power indicator on your monitor?” “On me wot?” “On your monitor, sir. The TV. Does it have a little ‘On’ light?” “No light, no nuffin.” “Sir, is the TV plugged into the wall?” “No idea, can’t see nuffin, I tell yer.” “Not even if you crane your head around, sir?” “How could I? It be as black as night in here, oim tellin yer.” “Maybe it would help if you turned the lights on, sir?” “Oi tried, but they won’t come on – the electric company are testing the wotsits, and there won’t be no power until three o’clock.” “I see, sir. Well, I have good news.” “You do?” “Yes, sir. Do you still have the boxes the computer came in?” “Oi never throw nuffin away.” “Splendid, sir. I want you to pack your computer up and take it back to the shop you bought it from.” “Is the problem that serious, then?” “I’m afraid it is, sir.” “Wot do I tell ’em at the shop, then?” “Are you listening carefully, sir?” “Oi am.” “Tell them you’re too much of a shit-for-brains to own a computer!” And then I hang up.’

  ‘That was your escape plan?’

  ‘I know my calls are monitored by the drongo in charge of me, right. Plus, I know they know I’m too valuable to chop. So the supervisor agreed my talents might be more profitably employed in another department. I suggested R&D, and off I went. Miyake, what is that thing you’re carrying?’

  ‘A pineapple.’

  ‘I thought so. Why are you carrying a pineapple?’

  ‘This is a present.’

  ‘I thought they came in cans. Who are you giving a live pineapple to?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me?’ Suga is mystified. ‘What do you do with them?’

  ‘People slice them into chunks with a knife, and, uh . . . eat them.’

  Suga suddenly beams. ‘Hey, thanks. I forgot lunch. Guess where I am?’ He nods at his computer, and pulls a beer free from its six-pack – I shake my head. ‘French Nuclear Energy. Their anti-hacking tech is Iron Age.’

  ‘I thought your Holy Grail was in the Pentagon.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’ Suga hiss-pisses beer everywhere. ‘It is. The French are zombies.’

  ‘Zombies? I know their Pacific nuclear tests suck, but—’

  Suga shakes his head. ‘Zombies. No hacker worth his silicon ever hacks directly. We hack into a zombie computer, and go fishing from there. Often, we zombify another zombie via the first. The hotter the target, the longer the zombie conga.’

  Time to get to the point. ‘I have a favour to ask. A delicate one.’

/>   ‘What do you want me to hack into?’

  He looks at me as he swigs his beer. I realize there is a whole lot more to Suga than I judged. I judge people too fast. I get out the library book that Miriam dropped in the park. ‘This might be a tall order, Suga, but could you get into a Tokyo library computer and look up the address of the person who is borrowing this book?’

  Suga wipes away the beer froth. ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Can I piss straight when I waz?’

  Miriam’s Korean name is Kang Hyo Yeoun. She is twenty-five, and has three books on loan from the library service. I take an overland train to her apartment in Funabashi. It is a run-down neighbourhood, but sort of friendly. Everything needs a new coat of paint. I ask a woman who works in a cake shop next to the station where I can find Miriam’s address, and she draws me a map and says goodbye with a crafty wink. I walk past a long row of bicycle stalls, turn a corner and there is the sea, for the first time in a month. Tokyo bay sea air has a petrol tang. Cargo ships lie berthed, loaded and unloaded by cranes with four legs and llama necks. Fiery weeds sprout from wrinkled tarmac. A yakiniku restaurant smokes the evening with meat and charcoal. A garage band rehearse a song called ‘Sonic Genocide’. A taxi driver stands in a corner of the quay, rehearsing his golf swing, watching imaginary holes-in-one land in the calm evening. A window-grilled pawnshop, a bright curry shop, a laundromat, a liquor store, a gateball ground, and Miriam’s apartment building. It is an old three-storey affair. I smoke a Seven Star in a record few drags. The first floor has already been abandoned. The metal stairs jangle as I climb up. One decent typhoon and the whole structure would be blown clean across Hokkaido. Here it is: 303.

  Her face appears in the gloom above the door chain.

  She slams the door.

  I hammer, embarrassed. I crouch down to speak through the letterbox. ‘I brought your library book. You dropped it in the park. This is nothing to do with Daimon. Miriam, I don’t even know him! Please.’ No reply. A dog with its head in a lampshade walks past. Its overweight owner is several paces behind, panting. He scowls, daring me to laugh. ‘Bob had his bollocks lopped off. The restraint is to stop him licking where he shouldn’t.’ He unlocks the apartment next to Miriam’s and disappears. Miriam’s door opens. She is smoking. I am still crouched down. The door chain is still on. ‘Here is your book.’