T.K. lay on his bed in the attitude of a vampire in its coffin, eyes shut, shoes on. The room was dark. The clock read 11:17. His cellphone, lying on the bed beside the pillow, rang.

"Hello?"

An indistinct voice on the other end. His expression was serious and calm as he propped himself up on one elbow.

"I don't think she'll be coming back tonight," he said, "so this could be our best chance. How soon can you be over?"

Leaving Davis' building, the last Nishitetsu train had just pulled out of Takamiya Station, but it was only a fifteen-minute walk along the line, under the arches of the raised track, to Yakuin where she and T.K. were lodged at New Otani Hakata Hotel. Maybe it was her mood, but the space seemed charged with romantic energy, the old iron arches and trestles ancient and secretive, like the covered arcades she had read about in certain Italian cities. But the further she walked, the less it seemed romantic and strange, the more it seemed only strange. There was no one else on the street, although every once in a while a car slid past with its invisible passengers. It was as if she had fallen through the cracks of her own life, into a space no one was meant to inhabit; or if she were playing a video game, if she had pushed through a glitched wall into a space full of indistinct shapes the developers had left unfinished.

She thought she'd made the sensible choice. But had her sudden exit been just as impulsive as taking Davis' hand in the first place? She felt weightless. And she remembered how comforting his arms had felt cinched around her waist.

It was fun to think that dreams really came true. But wasn't what didn't happen much more interesting than what did happen? What T.K. had said about women and submarines. It had been fun to think, to wish and fantasize and dream all those years, but what if something really did happen?

Maybe it was wiser, as T.K. seemed to, to live in the imagination only. And she felt a sudden irritation with him—not that he had palmed her off on Davis, as if Davis were second prize, a donkey to his winsome stallion; but that he had made provisions for her real life before returning to lord it over a world of pure fantasy, never considering that she might want to live there too. Maybe real happiness was impossible with him, but there was something to be said for illusory happiness, wasn't there? And she felt bad for Davis that she would think that, even momentarily. Kari, who walked out into the night practically skipping, returned to the warm light of the hotel foyer dragging her feet, listing about like a sad ghost.

There was no adventure in life, no real fun. It was possible to pretend for a while, but sooner or later you had to go to sleep, and when you woke up it was gone.

Back in her room, she retrieved the half-empty wine bottle from the mini-fridge. Whatever else, they needed to talk.

But when, her feet shod in the hotel slippers, she had crept five doors down and across the hall, she suddenly came up short.

Voices were issuing from behind T.K.'s door. One unmistakably his. The second belonging to another man.

Oh, she thought, with a wry little smile. So that's how it is.

Then her irritation flared back up. Even if that was—as she had vaguely suspected—T.K.'s deal, it wasn't like him to pick up some stranger in a bar. It must have been a guy he had arranged to come down here to meet, someone he had known for a long time. Had that been the real reason for the trip? Certainly, for all they got along better now, he hadn't come down here just to see Davis. And he'd never breathed a word of it to her!—not on the train, not the night she'd been running her bath; not even after karaoke. Then again, he'd kept his plans for her secret, but somehow that offended her less, as if his business were more her business than her own. And he'd even tried to get her out of the way!

She scurried back to her room, stashed the wine in the fridge, and, with a look that was mischievous but somehow fixed and grim at the same time, dialed his extension.

It took him a while to pick up.

"Um, hello?"

"Hey, you," she said, making her voice small.

"Hey. Oh. Jeez. It's really late—Kari. Are, are you back here?"

"Uh-huh."

"What's…what's up?

"Oh…nothing much. I kinda, sorta just wanted to talk. Can you maybe come over?"

"I kind of think I'd better not? If that's okay."

"Why-y?" she whined, twirling the phone cord around her finger.

"Because…your brother'd kill me?"

"Aw. C'mon, that didn't stop you before. I promise I'm decent. Just throw on some pajamas and get over here, okay? Or is there some reason you can't?"

"I don't think that's a very—"

Then she heard a voice in the background—as she expected—but what it said was so unexpected that she sat bolt upright. It was the voice she'd heard in the hall, that she now realized was extremely hoarse, and it said:

"Is that Hikari? Why not just…"

The rest was lost.

"T.K.," she said sharply, "who's there?"

"Nobody."

"Takeru Takaishi!"

"Wha-at! There's nobody else here, Kari, it's your mind playing tricks on you. Look, I'm sorry your date didn't go well, okay? We'll talk about it the morning. Now…"

There was the sound of a scuffle on the other end of the line. For a moment she gripped the phone, alarmed, but the voice quickly resumed. It was the second, hoarser voice, that now seemed extremely familiar:

"Sorry about that. Maybe you had better come over here?"

Her own voice dipped into hoarseness as she replied:

"Cody?"

The shock was compounded when she opened T.K.'s door to see, not—as a part of her suspected—a sheepish Cody wearing the hotel pajamas, but the short, stockily built, and now austerely handsome young man wearing a full, burgundy-colored suit and tie, and she almost closed the door in his face assuming there'd been some mistake; but there was no mistaking the hair, like a monk's tonsure, crowning his face with its deep-set green eyes.

He smiled and made a half-bow.

"Hikari-san. It's been a while."

"I'll say." She rubbed her eyes. "I thought it was almost June, not April First."

"I suppose I owe you an explanation…"

"You don't."

She cut past him—he shut the door carefully behind her—T.K. was sprawled on the bed, leaning against the wall, his hands netted behind his head. He looked rakish in the light from the desktop lamp.

"You're back awfully late, young lady," he said.

"You're up awfully late, mister. Now was all that stuff about Davis just to throw me off the track?"

T.K. held up his hands. "Guilty as charged! Well—not exactly. I mean, I totally had your best interests at heart. I hoped it would work out. But I guess, since you know me so well and you'd figure I was up to something anyway, I'd better have another something to be up to. If you follow."

"It's not what you think," came Cody's voice, close by her shoulder.

"You don't owe me any explanation! It's the twenty-first century, you two are consenting adults…"

"It's really not what you think." Turning, she saw Cody's face flush as deeply as if he were still ten years old. "I ah," he went on, coughing into his fist, "you might say I'm here in a professional capacity. Although from my point of view, it's just as well that it involves friends."

"Refresh my memory." She squinted at him. "You're some kind of lawyer…correct?"

"A prosecutor," he said, "to be exact. I specialize in international law. Specifically, cases related to theft, smuggling and fraud."

There was a faint smile on T.K.'s face as he observed them from the bed. He seemed less than upset to be discovered.

"And were you planning on telling me any of this?"

"It seemed easier to keep you out of it. But," he shared a glance with Cody, "I think at this point…"

Cody nodded.

"Kari," said T.K., "supposing you wanted to steal something? I mean something very large and extremely valuable."

"Well—I'm not sure exactly what you mean."

"I mean, how would you go about it? For example."

"I guess…well."

"I'll give you a hint," he said. "Wouldn't it be great if there were something that distracted a lot of people? Like, a big, public event. Maybe something that only happens once a year."

Comprehension was dawning in her eyes. "Like a Ramen Show," she said. Then she blinked and shook her head. "You have got to be kidding me."

"I only wish we were," said Cody, "and that we could catch up under more leisurely circumstances. But I'm afraid there can be no mistake."

"All right, then," she said, "just what is it that's supposed to be stolen?"

Although, at the back of her mind, she already knew the answer even before T.K. said it:

"The Madonna of Port Lligat."