Agent Matt
Chapter 4: car-nage
With Redington Bridge just ahead of him, Matt left the river and swung his bike through the lights and down towards Redington high. The bike was a falcon XC road racer, custom built for him on his 12th birthday. It was a teenager's bike with a cut down regress 646 frame, but the wheels were fully sized so he could ride at speed with hardly any rolling resistance. He spun past a Toyota and cut through the school gates. He would be sorry when he grew out of the bike. For two now it had almost been part of him.
He double locked it in the shed and went into the yard. Redington high was identical to the elementary school with its white walls, large courtyards, and wide glass doors at the main entrance. Unlike the elementary school it was more modern and ugly. Matt could have gone to any of the smart private schools around Tomoeda, but Matt's dad had decided to send him here. He had said it would be more of a challenge. The first lesson of the day was maths. When matt came into the classroom, the teacher, Mr. Dunleavy, was already chalking up a complicated equation on the board. It was halting the room, the sunlight streaming in through the floor to ceiling windows in by architects who should have known better. As Matt took his place near the back as usual, he wondered how he was going to get through the lesson. How could he possibly think about algebra when there were so many other questions churning through his mind? The gun at the funeral, the way Ooishi had looked at him, the van with HYUNDAI & SON written on the side, the empty office, the small purple box, and the biggest question of all, the one detail that refused to go away. The seat belt. Mahon Ishida hadn't been wearing a seat belt. But of course he had. Mahon Ishida had never been one to give lectures. He had always said Matt should make up his own mind about things. But he'd had this thing about seat belts. The more Matt thought about it, the less he believed it. A collision with another driver at the traffic lights. Suddenly he wished he could see the car. At least the wreckage will tell him that the accident had really happened, that Mahon Ishida really had died in that way.
"Matt?" Matt looked up and realized that everyone was staring at him. Mr. Dunleavy had just asked him something. He quickly scanned the blackboard, taking in the figures. "Yes, sir," he said, X equals -7 and Y is 15." The maths teacher sighed. "Yes, Matt. You're absolutely right. But actually I was just asking you to open the window." Somehow he managed to get through the rest of the day, but by the time the final bell rang, his mind was made up. While everyone streamed out, he made his way to the secretary's office and borrowed a copy of Japan Yellow Pages.
"What are you looking for?" The Secretary asked. Jackie bridle was a young woman in her twenties, and she always had a soft spot for Matt.
"Breakers' yards..." Matt flicked through the pages. "If a car got smashed up overseas, they'd take it somewhere nearby, wouldn't be?"
"I suppose so."
"Here..." Matt had found the yard's listed under "Car Dismantlers". But there were dozens of them fighting for attention over four pages.
"Is this for a school project?" The Secretary asked. She knew Matt had lost his father, but not how.
"Sort of..." Matt was reading the addresses, but they told him nothing.
"This one's quite near us." Mrs. Bridle pointed at the corner of the page.
"Wait!" Matt tugged the book towards him and looked at the entry underneath the one the Secretary had chosen: J.P. HYUNDAI, We take the car out of carnage... J.P. Hyundai, scrap dealers Himonton road, TOMOEDA. just below was the telephone number and then written in italics call us today. the secratry looked at the ad and said to matt.
"That's in vilando," Miss Bridle said. "Not too far from here."
"I know." But Matt had recognized the name. J. P. Hyundai. He fought back to the van he had seen outside his house on the day of the funeral. HYUNDAI & SON. Of course might just be coincidence, but it was still some way to start. He closed the book. "I'll see you, Miss Bridle." "Be careful how you go." The Secretary watched Matt leave, wondering why she had said that. Maybe it was his eyes. Once filled with light, now became dark and serious, there was something dangerous there. Then the telephone rang and she forgot him as she went back to work. As Matt ran across the courtyard his feet pounded as they raced towards the bike shed. His fingers fumbled with the lock it's like his mind went blank as he tried to remember the combination he put in early. Finally the lock was off and he was off on his bike, sweat was already beginning to stream down his face. Suddenly outside the gates he saw Madison. As he pulled back on the brakes he quickly set to Madison.
"Hey Madison, you OK?" Madison was a sweet and happy girl. She had sparkling blue eyes and long wavy black hair; she was always someone to talk to no matter what it was. She turned around and she smiled.
"Hey Matt," she said kindly "Yeah I'm great, but what about you?" Matt smiled back.
"I'm just fine; I wanted to thank you for the other day."
"No problem."
"It's sweet of you, but I think you should keep the video. My dad won't be able of to see it now." Madison looked confused, what video was Matt talking about? But before Madison could answer Matt saw the very van that he was looking for, he pedalled after it as fast as he could. As Madison watched Matt pedalled off in a cloud of dust she said slightly confused about the conversation she just had. "But I didn't film your concert." Matt followed the van through the traffic, narrowly avoiding oncoming cars. As he stood back a fair amount of distance he scanned the area. J. P. Hyundai's was a square of wasteland behind some abandoned warehouses just outside Tomoeda port. The area was enclosed by a high brick wall topped with broken glass and razor wire. Two metal gates made from an old tin roof hung open, and from the other side of the road Matt could see an old booth with a security window and beyond it a tall tower of dead and broken cars. Anything of any value had been stripped away and left only the rusting carcasses, had one on top of the other, waiting to be fed into the beast called the crusher. There was a guard sitting in the booth, reading daily Tomoeda. In the distance, a crane coughed into life, then roared down on a battered Mitsubishi Pajero, its metal claw smashing through the window to scoop up the vehicle and carry it away. A telephone rang somewhere in the booth and the guard turned round to answer it. That was enough for Matt. Holding his bike and Wheeling it along beside him, he sprinted through the gates. He found himself surrounded by dirt and debris. The smell of diesel was thick in the air and the roar of the engines was deafening. Matt watched as the crane swooped down on another of the cars, seized it in a metallic grip dropped it into the crusher. For a moment the car rested on a pair of shelves. Then the shelves lifted up, toppling the car over and down into A trough. The operator – sitting in a glass cabin at one end of the crusher – pressed a button and there was a great belch of black smoke. The shelves closed in on the car like a monster insect folding its wings. There was a grinding sound as the car was crushed into there was no bigger than a rolled up carpet. Then the operator threw a gear and the car was squeezed out, metallic toothpaste being chopped up by a hidden blade. The slices tumbled on to the ground. From what Matt saw the crusher was a big monster that was ugly to look at and had a giant mouth. It's only desire and purpose to be in the scrap yard was to eat, a hungry beast wanting more. Leaving his bike propped against the wall, Matt ran further into the yard, crouching down behind the wrecks. With the din from the machines, there was no chance that anyone would hear him, but he was still afraid of being seen. He stopped to catch his breath, during a grimy hand across his face. His eyes were watering from the diesel fumes. The air was as filthy as the ground beneath. He was beginning to regret coming –but then he saw it. His father's Toyota Camry was parked a few metres away, separated from the other cars. At first glance it looked absolutely fine, the metallic silver bodywork not even scratched. Certainly there was no way this car could have been involved in a fatal collision with a lorry or anything else for that matter. But it was his father's car. Matt recognized the number plate. He hurried closer, and it was then he saw that the car was damaged after all. The windscreen had been smashed, along with all the windows on one side. Matt made his way around the bonnet. He reached the other side. And froze in shock. Mahon Ishida hadn't died in any accident. What had killed him was plain to see –even to someone who had never seen such a thing before. A spray of bullets had caught the car fall on the driver's side, shattering the front tyre, then smashing the windscreen and side windows and punching into the side panels. Matt ran his fingers over the holes. The metal felt cold against his flesh. He opened the door and looked inside to see what he could find. The front seats, pale grey leather, was strewn with fragments of broken glass and stained with patches of blood. He didn't dare to imagine where the blood had a spilled from. He could see everything. The flash of the machine gun, the bullets ripping into the car, Mahon Ishida screams of pain and anguish as the bullets ripped through his flesh, like scissors through paper. His lifeless body then sliding down the seats and blood slowly dripping from the bullet wounds on to the leather... But why? What would they accomplish a financial reporter? And why had the murder been covered up? It was the police that brought the news, so they must be part of it. Had they deliberately lied? None of it made sense.
"You should have got rid of it two days ago, do it now!" The machines must have stopped for a moment. If there hadn't been a sudden lull, Matt would never heard the men coming. Quickly he looked across the steering wheel and looked out the other side. There were two of them, both dressed in loose fitting overalls. Matt had a feeling he had seen them before. At the funeral. One of them was the driver, the man he had seen with the gun. He was sure of it. Whoever they were, they were only a few paces away from the car, talking in soft voices. Another few steps and they would be there. Without thinking, Matt threw himself into the only hiding place available, inside the car itself. Using his right foot, he hooked the door and closed it. At the same time, he became aware that the machines have started again and he could no longer hear the men. He didn't dare look up. A shadow of the two men that form to become one blob as they passed the window. But then they were gone. He was safe at last... Or at least he thought he was. Suddenly something hit the Toyota with such force that Matt cried out, his whole body caught in a massive shock wave that tore him away from the steering wheel and threw him helplessly into the back. At the same time, the roof buckled and three huge rusty metal fingers tore through the skin of the car like a knife through butter, trailing dust and sunlight. One of the fingers grazed the side of his head –any closer and it would have cracked his skull. Matt yelled as blood trickled over his eye. He tried to move, then was jerked back a second time as the car was hoisted into the air and flew helplessly towards the crusher. He couldn't see. He couldn't move. But his stomach lurched as the car swung in an arc, the metal crumpling and the light spinning. It had been picked up by the crane. It was going to be put inside the crusher... With him inside. He tried to raise himself up, to punch through the windows. But the Claw had already flattened the roof, pinning his right leg, perhaps even breaking it. He could feel nothing. He lifted a hand and managed to pound on the back window, but he couldn't break the glass, even if the workmen was staring at the Toyota, they would never see anything moving inside. His short flight across the breaker's yard ended with a bone shattering smash as the crane dropped the car on the iron lips of the crusher. Matt tried to fight back his sickness and despair and started to think of a way to escape the iron beast. He had seen a car being processed only a few minutes before. Any moment now, the operator would send the car tipping into the coffin shaped trough. The machine was a sobaku, a slow motion guillotine. At the press of a button, the two wings would close on the car with a joint pressure of 500 tonnes. The car, with Matt inside it, would be crushed beyond recognition. And the broken metal –and flesh –would then be chopped into sections. Nobody would ever know what had happened until the blood oozed out of the crushed cubes. He had tried with all his strength to break himself free. But the roof was too low. His leg and part of his back were trapped in the mesh of the leather seats. Then his whole world tilted and he felt himself falling into darkness. The iron mouth had opened. The Toyota slid to one side and fell the few metres into the trough. Matt felt the metalwork collapsing all around him. The back window exploded and a glass showered down on him, dust and diesel fumes were punching into his nose and eyes. There was hardly any daylight now, but looking out of the back he could see the huge steel head of the hydraulic piston that would push what was left of the car through the exit hole on the other side. The engine tone of the sobaku changed as it prepared for the final act. The metal wings shuddered. In a few seconds time, the two of them would meet, crumpling the Toyota like a paper bag. Matt pulled with all his strength and was astonished when his leg came free. It took him perhaps a second, one precious second, to work out what had happened. When the car had fallen into the trough it had landed on its side. The roof had buckled again... Enough to free him at least. His hand scrambled for the door, of course that was useless. The doors were too bent now. They would never open. The back window! He thought as he saw a small ray of light shining through. With the glass gone, he could crawl through the frame, but only if he moved fast enough... He didn't have much time, the wings began to move. The Toyota screamed as two walls of solid steel relentlessly crushed it. Glass shattered all around him. One of the wheel axles snapped with the sound of a thunder bolt. The darkness began to close in. Matt grabbed hold of what was left of the back seat. Ahead of him he could see a small triangle of light, shrinking faster and faster. With all his strength, he surged forward, finding some sort of purchase on the gear column. He could feel the weight of the two walls pressing down on him. Behind him the car was no longer the car, but the first of some hideous monster snatching at the insect that he had become. His shoulders passed through the triangle, out into the light. But his legs were still inside. If his foot snagged on something he would be squeezed into two pieces. Matt yelled out loud and jerked his knee forward. His legs came clear, then his feet, but at the last moment his shoe caught on the closing triangle and disappeared back into the car. Matt imagined he heard the sound of the leather being squashed, but that was impossible. As he clinged to the black, oily surface of the observation platform at the back of the crusher he dragged himself clear and managed to stand up. He found himself face to face with a man so fat that he could barely fit into the small cabin of the crusher. The man's stomach was pressed against the glass, his shoulders squeezed into the corners. A cigarette dangled on his lower lip as his mouth fell open and his eyes stared at Matt. He couldn't believe what he had saw, in front of him was a boy in the rags of what was once a school uniform. The sleeves had been torn off and his arm, streaked with blood and oil, hung limply by his side. By the time the operator had taken all this in, come to his senses and turned the machine off, Matt had disappeared. He clambered down the side of the crusher landing on the one foot that still had a shoe on. He was aware now of pieces of jagged metal lying everywhere. If he wasn't careful he would cut the other foot open. His bicycle was where he had left it, leaning against the wall, and gingerly, half hopping, he made for the exit. Behind him he had the cabin of the crusher open and a man's voice called out, raising the alarm. At the same time, a second man ran forward, stopping between Matt and his bike. It was the driver, the man he had seen at the funeral his face, twisted into a hostile frown, was curiously ugly; greasy hair, watery eyes, pale, dry, lifeless skin.
"What do you think...!" He began. His hand slipped into the leather jacket. Matt remembered the gun and instantly, without thinking, swung into action. He had started learning karate when he was six years old. One afternoon, with no explanation, Mahon Ishida had taken him to a local club for his first lesson and had been going there, once a week, ever since. Over the years Matt had passed for of the various kyu –student – grades. But it was only last year that he had become a first grade Dan, a black belt. When he had arrived at Tomoeda Elementary, his looks and accent had quickly brought him to the attention of the school bullies; three hulking eleven year Olds that looked sixteen. They had cornered him once behind the bike shed. The encounter had lasted less than a minute, and after it one of the bullies had left Tomoeda elementary and the other two had never troubled anyone again. Coincidently that was the same day he first met... Sakura! She was hiding around the corner, waiting for the teacher to come but was afraid that Matt might get hurt. As Matt brought on one leg, he twisted his body round and lashed out. The back kick – Ushiro geri-is said to be the mostly lethal in karate. His foot pounded into the man's abdomen with such force that he didn't even time to cry out. His eyes bulged out and began to fill with water and his mouth hung half open in surprise. Then, with his hand still halfway into his jacket pocket, he crumpled to the ground. Matt jumped over him, snatched up his bike and swung himself on to it. In the distance, a third man was running towards him darting in and out of the rusted wreckage's. He heard a single word "Stop!" Called out. Then there was a crack a bullet whipped past him, missing him by a few hairs. Matt gripped the handle bars and pedalled as hard as he could. The bike shot forward, over the rusty rubble and out through the gates. He took one look over his right shoulder. Nobody was following him, questions started to form in his mind. The bullet holes? The men at the scrap yard? And the blood stained leather seats? It just didn't make sense, he wanted some answers... but who would give them to him? With one shoe on and one shoe off, his clothes in rags and his body streaked with blood and oil, Matt knew he must look a strange sight. But then he thought back to his last seconds inside the crusher and sighed with relief. He could have been looking a lot worse. As he got home, he quietly sneaked his bike into the back garden and locked it in the big brown, wooden, shed. He then decided to be extra quiet and sneak through the back door, as he pulled down the silver handle to the French style door the hinges squeaked and Matt Winced, surely Julie heard that. As he tip-toed in he thought he was clear, if he could just get to his room he would be in the clear. But just as he got to the bottom of the stairs a voice from the living room called out to him, it was Julie.
"Your home late..." Before Matt could reply Julie was in shock when she saw Matt's clothes and body as she came out of the living room. She nearly dropped to her cup, "What happened to you?" She asked, worriedly about the blood and oil streaking down his arms.
"I got into a bit of trouble; you could say it was almost... Car-nage." He said with a smile.
