- Chapter 13: Snooping -
"How long do we have to sit here?"
"Till we spot her," Haruhi whispered back to me. "If you didn't want to do the newspapers in the lobby thing, you should have gone with the B team."
For those not well-versed in the detective genre, the "newspapers in the lobby thing" involved the two of us sitting on a bench in the hotel lobby, holding newspapers in front of us so that we could keep an eye on who was coming and going while keeping our own faces blocked so that our target wouldn't recognize us. We were both wearing business suits, so we would have been inconspicuous enough if not for our bickering.
"I didn't say I don't want to do the newspapers in the lobby thing," I returned. "It's just that it would be nice to have an end in sight. And by the way, your choice in paper..." I let a note of disgust fall into my voice as I glanced at the headline above her left thumb, "Passengers' Chilling Tale of Terror: Satan Was Our Pilot".
"My choice of paper? As if you have any room to criticize. You're not even reading yours!"
"No, I definitely am."
She sniffed. "The comic strips don't count as reading, Kyon."
"Well, they're not half as embarrassing as having my head buried in that scandal sheet."
"Hey, it's not just scandals. There are important stories in these pages."
"'Stories' is right."
"Did Truman drop the atomic bombs because he was warned by a visitor from the future that Japan was going to win the war with the United States? I want to know! Is the Chilean government keeping a three-headed alien prisoner in the heart of a volcano? I want to know! Is a clone of Elvis pop idol Leo Ieiri's real father? I want to -"
"Can you keep it down? The Wylies can probably hear you all the way from their room."
"You're such a wet blanket. We'll spot her well before she's close enough to hear that. If you don't want these stake-outs to feel interminable, you've gotta learn to live a little."
She wasn't completely wrong. If Haruhi had scripted this episode so that the Wylies wouldn't be alerted to our presence, then they wouldn't be alerted to our presence if we announced ourselves through a megaphone. After all, Nagato wanted to adhere to Haruhi's script, come what may. But that wasn't the reason why I wanted her to quiet down. Even though I wasn't going to see any of these people (if they were people at all, remembering what Koizumi said) after we got back to the real world, sitting beside Haruhi while she loudly proclaimed her interest in the paranormal was embarrassing.
Haruhi glanced at me. "You do look yummy in that suit, though. Maybe instead of reading newspapers, we can pretend to be -"
"Knock that off."
"Okay, fine. You look completely average in that suit."
"Much better," I muttered.
"So you like it better when I put down your appearance?"
"I like it better when you're honest. I like it better when you're yourself." And not "Haruhi Addison".
"Are you coming on to me now?"
"Nobody's coming on to anybody. I'm just saying, I don't mind it when a girl tells me I'm good looking with sincerity," Not that any girl ever has. "...but when I hear it from someone who doesn't believe it, just as part of playing some role, that's insulting. And I know you love to insult me, but you should at least have the courage to do it straight."
"What are you talking about? Of course I have the courage. But if you want no more fake compliments, then you got it."
One less annoyance on my mind. "Hey," I lowered the paper a moment. "There she is."
She was wearing the black dress and veil, but at this distance I couldn't tell if it was Nagato or her wife. His wife. Her female automaton that is playing the wife of the character that she's playing. Aagh, no matter how I describe her it sounds horribly disturbing.
After a surreptitious look around, she headed out the door. Watching her move, I became certain it was Nagato. No one else had that inhumanly steady, unhurried lope. We took our papers and went after her.
Outside, she stepped into a waiting taxi and took off. Haruhi hailed us a taxi cab of our own. As we climbed in, she said to the driver, "There's an extra fifty bucks for you if you -" She paused dramatically. "- follow that cab!"
We drove off. Studying the satisfied grin on Haruhi's face, I said, "You've always wanted to say that, huh?"
"I'll let you say it next time."
Who said I wanted there to be a next time? "I still think Barbara Wylie was telling the truth."
"Why's that?"
"Well," I scratched my jaw. "She just sounded so sincere, so genuinely confused by everything we said."
"Hmmph. Is that all? I guess you still haven't been in this business long enough. People are liars, Kyon, and criminals are professionals at it. They can make the foulest untruth sound totally sincere. If you're a detective, you can't trust anyone but your partner."
Was she just being melodramatic, or did she really believe that, because of what Nagato did when she trusted her with her powers? "People do lie sometimes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't ever trust them again," I said. As if that were some great insight. "There are people who lie all the time, and people who are honest all the time, but most are honest people who tells lies now and then. Sometimes you have to forgive people, and open up to them, even if it means you might get hurt again. Otherwise, you'll miss out on some good friends."
"Friends? Who said anything about friends? I'm talking about trust. You can have friends who lie to you, but you shouldn't trust them. You should only trust people who never lie to you. Like how you never lie to me, so I know I can count on you."
She wasn't picking up on the fact that I was talking about Nagato. Or was pretending not to pick up on it.
"Hey." She leaned forward in her seat. "Look at this."
Nagato's taxi had pulled over at a car rental place. She went in, came out a minute later, and drove off in one of the available cars.
"Huh," I said, puzzled, as our driver continued to follow her.
"Don't you get it? She doesn't want the cab company to have a record of where she's been."
That made sense. "But that just means she's up to something secret. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Frank Harbert," I tried.
"What, it's just an amazing coincidence?"
"Well... Amazing coincidences have to happen sometimes, don't they?"
"Well, sure. They can make things exciting. But what other secret could she have? It's not like she could be having an extramarital affair with that face."
"You shouldn't say things like that. What if something ruined your face?"
"What's the problem? I'm not saying it where she can hear. Besides, she's a murderer, remember? Now stop trying to change the subject and just answer my question! What other secret could she possibly have?"
Damned if I know. You're the one with the wild imagination.
We followed Nagato to a park with a river running through it. It seemed so ridiculous that I couldn't just walk up and talk to her. But she and Haruhi were both determined to play out this little drama. Two friends, in a fight so bitter that they wouldn't even talk to each other except in the roles of master detective and evil criminal, and I was just a third friend caught between them.
We got out and walked through the park, on the other side of the river from Nagato. The park was wide open, so we could still see her while keeping our distance. Typical of Nagato, she was taking her time. It almost felt like a nice stroll in the park.
I decided to try Koizumi's suggestion. "Haruhi, have you thought about why we're doing this?"
"To get evidence, Kyon. Honestly, do you need a junior detective kit?"
"I mean, why are we trying to catch Wylie at all. No one's paying us to do this."
"You want to let a woman get away with murder just because you're not being paid to catch her?" She didn't sound the least bit outraged when she said this. Like she already knew that wasn't what I meant, and was just trying to prod me for an explanation.
"Think of it from her perspective. She only murdered him because she wanted justice for what he did to her."
"He already got justice. What she did to him is revenge."
Good, so we agree. "And what we're doing to Wylie..."
"Yeah, it's justice. We're going to turn her in to the law."
I released a soft breath of relief, lost in the spring air. I didn't think Haruhi would want Nagato dead, but it was good to hear it. That relief lasted all of five seconds.
"Besides, she lied to us. She asked us to give her something, and when we gave it to her, she did something completely different with it than what she said she was going to. Doesn't that make you angry, and excited about getting her?"
A lump lodged itself in my throat. What she was saying was just as true of Yuki Nagato as it was of Yuki Wylie. "Well... I, uh... I think we should forgive her for that."
"Are you crazy? She hasn't even apologized for it. Or even admitted she did it!"
That also was true of both Wylie and Nagato. But the only reason Nagato hadn't apologized was because she couldn't do so without telling Haruhi about her powers, which would likely cause the destruction of the world, assuming Haruhi actually believed her. And she couldn't apologize in this world, because in this world Haruhi didn't even remember Nagato.
Before I could figure out where to take the debate from there, we both noticed Nagato make a move. There was a small pavilion, with a traditional slanted roof, projecting into the river. Nagato walked out onto it.
"Look!" Haruhi whispered.
Nagato gave a cursory look around, then took a gun out of her purse and dropped it into the water.
"You can apologize for questioning my suspicions any time."
I'll get right on that when you start catching up on apologies for the thousand or so times you've belittled my ideas. So now what? Even Haruhi can't be distracted from the Wylies as suspects now. Should I go along with Nagato's plan – I mean, the plan she was scripted to use – and let Barbara Wylie take the blame?
Haruhi tugged on my sleeve. "She's leaving. Come on."
"Shouldn't we get the gun?"
"We can do that later! Come on, we're going to miss an exciting part!"
An exciting part? She's probably just headed back to the hotel.
Called it.
It was evening as we pulled up to the hotel. Either whoever filmed this episode got the time of day screwed up, or that drive to the park was a few hours longer than it felt like. With the power of scene jumping, I couldn't be sure it wasn't the latter.
We watched Nagato go inside. "This is exciting?" I scoffed.
Haruhi pursed her lips. "I just had a feeling that something exciting was going to happen here, okay? Listen, Kyon. Sometimes you need to trust your intuition, or you'll never do anything interesting with your life. Now pay the driver and let's go."
Why can't you pay for once? I handed the driver a hundred dollar bill. Why am I complaining; it's not like this is my real money.
We walked across the parking lot, vaguely in the direction of where our car might be. Forgetting where you parked – yeah, this was real exciting.
Wait a second.
My steps froze before I could put my finger on what had made them do so. Out of the corner of my eye, it was Nagato, coming back out. I don't know what she's up to, but I'd better make sure Haruhi doesn't -
"What'd you stop for? Hey... Kyon, what's she doing coming back out of the hotel?"
Dammit. Feet, why couldn't you have just kept on walking?
"Come on." Haruhi grabbed my tie to pull me along, again tailing Nagato, who ducked into a door to a wing marked "Receiving".
We ducked in after, Haruhi thankfully releasing my tie in the process. I didn't need her to drag me along, period, and being dragged up a flight of stairs was rather on the unsafe side. And up the stairs was exactly where we went, once it became apparent that we'd lost sight of our quarry.
Our quarry. I like that expression. "Where are we going?" I asked.
"Shhh. My detective's instincts are giving me an idea."
"Detective's instincts"? So more intuition. I guess I can't question it, since everyone's always talking about how Haruhi has this preternatural intuition. It's hard to think of any other explanation for how she does some of the things she does. Maybe this is how her intuition works: She watches things happen in one universe, then creates another universe where she's one of the people involved in those things, so even though she doesn't consciously remember the previous universe, she knows what to do. Maybe in the universe that existed before Haruhi recreated everything four years ago, we all were just characters in a TV show that Haruhi saw. She made us real, set things up so that we would meet, and...
...and I've been listening to Koizumi so much, I'm starting to spout insane theories, just like him. If the universe we came from is just a TV show, then why is there no scene jumping? Besides, a TV show which revolves around the routine insanity of the SOS Brigade could never get produced, because really, what kind of brain-damaged moron would want to watch that? Even the compensation of seeing Miss Asahina in revealing outfits wouldn't be enough to get people to tune in each week.
We were now on the roof. A short distance away were the rooms of the hotel's main wing. Near the roof's edge was a rectangular ventilation shaft. Haruhi took a seat on it and pulled me down beside her. "What are we doing?" I asked.
"Watching Barbara Wylie get undressed. You enjoy that sort of thing, don't you?"
"If I did, would I knock whenever I come to the clubroom to make sure Miss Asahina isn't getting changed?"
"Clubroom? Puh, never mind. Just keep your eyes on Barbara Wylie's window. It's room 413, right up there."
Actually, discretely watching a woman undress did sound pretty enjoyable. Having Haruhi beside me all the while, giving her approval, made it all the better, adding a touch of kinkiness. But there was the nagging aspect of violating someone's privacy, and the fact that this was a male Nagato we were spying on. If she did start taking her clothes off in front of the window, I was going to cover my eyes and run like hell.
...Not, of course, that I for one minute thought Haruhi seriously brought us up here to peep on Nagato while she undressed. Obviously, I knew she was joking. Even if Haruhi never jokes in normal circumstances, I could recognize when she was playing her role as Addison. I'm not a complete fool.
"Hmm. Maybe I misremembered the room number?" Haruhi pointed to another room, where the light had come on and the silhouette of Nagato in her dress and wig were visible.
"No," I assured her, without taking my eyes off the rows of rooms. "It was definitely 413."
"Well, why would she change rooms?" Her voice turned sour. "And why did you forget to bring the binoculars?"
"Me?" I watched Nagato turn off the room's surprisingly small TV set and head into the other room, where we couldn't see her. "This whole stakeout was your idea. Why didn't you bring them?"
"You're the boss. You're supposed to take responsibility for these things."
Then how come you never take responsibility when you're the boss, back in the real world? Also, since you created this world, how easy would it have been for you to make us have binoculars just by wishing for them?
Nagato returned to the room with a bottle of soda pop and a book in hand. She sat down on the couch, spread the book out on her lap, and lifted the bottle towards her mouth. The mask was in the way, so she removed it.
Haruhi's breath caught in her throat.
"Oh," I said, remembering that I wasn't supposed to have seen her without the mask yet. "It's her husband."
Haruhi elbowed me. "Shouldn't you be more shocked than that?"
"Ah... Well, something about her did always seem masculine, like the way she walked. I just didn't know what to make of it until now." It was strange, now that I thought about it. Nagato was the one insisting "no spoilers", yet she'd given me and Koizumi the biggest spoiler of all by letting us see her with her mask off.
Then again, I guess I left her no choice when I recognized her in Haruhi's office. If I had been as oblivious to her identity as Koizumi was, she probably would have just gone straight back to her hotel room and let the whole episode play out as scripted. As it was, she needed to reassure me by telling me what was going on. Though of course I'm not very reassured by the knowledge that Haruhi might be planning to have Nagato die.
...Wait a second. Nagato didn't have to mention that part, did she? She said she wants to experience whatever ending Haruhi has in mind, so why would she tell us about it? She had to know that we would want to protect her, or at least that I would. Is that what she really wants? Did she only say she wants to be at Haruhi's mercy so that the responsibility wouldn't be on my shoulders?
She hasn't taken the option of having the Data Integration Thought Entity get her out of here. But maybe that's not an option at all. She could have lied about that. Like Koizumi said, Haruhi should have blocked that escape route. It's even possible that her big boss decided to leave her to her fate. I threatened to sic Haruhi on them if anything happens to Nagato, but what if Haruhi kills Nagato herself?
So maybe the real reason Nagato stopped to talk to us back at the agency was because she wants our help?
Or... because she wanted to say goodbye?