Chapter Seven: Date with Destiny
The meeting had been arranged by someone who'd seen too many movies.
Shinjuku Central Park didn't look like it was in a snow globe anymore. Walking across it, Youji felt like he was in a picture post card, the kind of scene that's so carefully constructed it can't possibly be real. It had stopped snowing, but the park was still completely white. The skyscrapers looking down on the park cast long black shadows. The winter sunlight was warm. Inside the shadows it was cold.
The salarymen spoiled the postcard. They almost filled the park. The ones that had made it to work through the snow were enjoying their lunch breaks by getting it all over their polished shoes.
Youji didn't kid himself that he looked like one of them. He wore the suit: black pinstripes and a red patterned tie, but it was covered by his pale overcoat. No one else wore sunglasses, and he wore his to keep out the snow glare. His hair was too long and too pale. He hadn't brought his hat. He felt conspicuous enough without it.
He zigzagged across the park for ten minutes to make sure no one was following him who shouldn't have been. No one was following him at all. So he went to meet the man he'd seen from a distance waiting under a tree.
From a distance, he looked uncertain. From up close, he looked terrified. His suit didn't quite fit, as though he was expecting to grow into it. The snow around him was stamped flat. There was a collection of flattened cigarettes around his feet and he seemed to be trying to break a speed smoking record with his latest one. Youji thought they were the same age, but just looking at the man made him think of Omi.
"Hi," Youji said.
The young man blinked and bit down on his cigarette while he tried to remember what he was supposed to say. "Sakai-san?"
"No. Kudou-san." Youji smiled, wanting nothing more to pat the man on the head. "I'm Sasaki-san's associate. You aren't the man who employed him, and I am not the employee, so at least we both agree on our precautions. This is obviously making you very uncomfortable so we'll get it over with as soon as possible. Make your call and I'll make mine."
The young man dialled his mobile so Youji couldn't see the number. He spoke into it, quickly and quietly.
"Do you have it?" he asked.
"We have it," Youji replied.
"Can you prove that?"
"The fact that I'm here should be proof enough. After everything we've been through there'd be no point meeting to ask for payment for something we can't produce. Is that good enough for you? Or you, on the telephone?"
The young man spoke into the phone again. A moment passed, then he held it out.
"Hello?"
"Kudou-san?"
Youji had been expecting anything from a voice scrambler to a fake foreign accent, but the voice on the phone was very normal.
"I am."
"How do I know you represent Sakai-san?"
"He told me your first name was Itsuo," Youji replied. "You didn't tell him your last name. I don't care who you are, though. I'm here to arrange a meeting. We have what you want, do you have what we want?"
"Five million yen," the voice said.
"There's two of us now. Eight million."
There was a rustle on the line. "Seven."
"Deal."
"Tomorrow morning, four a.m. at the tennis courts in Hibiya Park."
"One moment."
Youji handed the phone back. He took out his own disposable mobile and dialled. It only had to ring once.
"Tomorrow morning at four. The Hibiya Park tennis courts. Seven million."
The phone lost the precise noise Sakai made at the other end. "Seven million yen? Really? That's great, Kudou. More than enough to get you and Aya to Australia. Tell him we agree. Thank you."
He hung up. Youji reached out and took the other mobile.
"See you tomorrow."
He turned the phone off and threw it back. Before the young man had caught it he was walking away through the snow. He gave it a minute and then stopped behind a tree for a cigarette. Behind him, the young man walked off the opposite direction. He was moving too quickly to be anyone else. He'd need a lot of practice if he wanted to be secretive and get away with it. And most people only got one chance. Youji thought about following him but decided it wasn't worth it. He'd probably be seeing him again in the morning.
He left the park in the shadow of one of the office buildings. This building had a florist's delivery bike outside. Every day they had fresh flowers delivered to their reception. Today the delivery had been a little late. As he crossed the road, Youji wondered if they'd bothered with an excuse. He should have been paying more attention. A car horn roared, it felt like it was all around him, then it faded. He reached the other pavement without being hit by anything. The car was already gone.
Aya Fujimiya stood on the pavement checking some paperwork. That's what it looked like to anyone else. Blue jeans, orange sweater, red hair, standing next to a pink motorbike. People should point and laugh when he went out in public. They didn't, and Youji wished he knew why. Looking permanently annoyed and aloof might convince a shop full of schoolgirls you were the coolest man on Earth, but Aya was able to do it to most people. Maybe that was why he wore the sweater. If he didn't, people might start worshiping him.
"Aya."
"Youji."
"How's Ken?"
"Omi has him on stockroom duty. He'll live."
"Tell him he'll be able to take his bad temper out on me soon enough. That'll make him feel better."
Aya swung his leg over the bike and started it. The engine whined hopefully. He put it in gear and revved the engine gently. The rev-counter danced and he looked sideways at Youji.
"Hibiya Park tennis courts," Youji said. "Four a.m."
The words were snatched by the sound of the engine. Aya's eyes narrowed and he nodded. He pulled his helmet on and let the break out. Then he was gone. Youji looked around without turning his head, then he walked back into the park. He crossed it once, then twice, then strolled into Tochomae station.
He took the Toei Oedo line down eight stops, then got off and retraced his route. He spent an hour bouncing from line to line like a hamster lost in a high-speed maze. All he had for company was a cheap newspaper. He read it three times before he realised it was a week old.
He managed to get all the way to Shinjuku Station without wondering what Sakai had that was worth seven million yen. Everything was worth something to someone. Whoever said that knowledge was power had it right. Knowledge was the most valuable commodity in the world, and some information was beyond priceless. Youji knew the sort of information Kritiker dealt in: it was the kind that destroyed people. He wondered if their buyer wanted to save a life, or destroy it themselves.
Sakai's door was undisturbed. He'd taken the phone call on Nakano Broadway and taken an hour and at least three trains getting back. Youji knocked twice and twice again. Sakai opened the door. There was a glass in his hand. He'd shed yesterday's anxiety like a skin.
"We're almost there, Kudou." He swirled the glass and drank.
Youji stepped through the door and closed it quietly behind him. He poured himself a glass and let the whisky slide down his throat. It was the best he'd drank in a long time. He poured another glass and let Sakai sit opposite him.
"The important word there is 'almost'."
"Relax, Youji, what could go wrong?"
"Ask me again when you're sober."
Sakai put down his glass and stood up. He walked over to the wardrobe and unwrapped a scarf from the neck of one of his winter jackets. It was an old scarf, a sickly autumn brown. Youji had never seen him wear it.
The scarf tore with a whisper of dying cloth. Sakai pulled a piece of wrinkled paper out and dropped it into Youji's lap. It was thin, cheap paper, from a photocopier. Youji unfolded it. The words were tilted. There were two dark streaks around the edge of the paper at slight angles to each other. A photocopy of a photocopy.
"Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience," he read. "Department of Neuropathology."
He skimmed the page, picking out the key words. Disorientation. Memory Loss. Mood changes. Recommendation for an MRI scan. Then the patient's name.
Standing opposite him, Sakai was smiling.
"So that's what's worth seven million yen," Youji said. "The Prime Minister is showing all the signs of Alzheimer's."