Chapter Eight: Cold as Snow
Every time Youji went into Shinjuku Station he felt like he could live his entire life there. It was a city without a population. Millions of people came through there every day. None of them stayed there. People shopped, ate, drank and worked inside. None of them lived there. At three in the morning, there was none of that life inside. At three in the morning Japan's largest train station was a tomb.
They might as well have been alone there. Some trains still went in and out of the station, moving along the tracks like death rattles. Their passengers sleepwalked through the station, more like ghosts than men. Youji and Sakai were wide awake. They knew they were alive and they made the most of it.
There was a reason hiding things in train lockers was a cliché. It worked. Sakai hadn't kept the key on him, he'd paid the desk clerk to keep it and hand it back to him. It could have been the key to any locker. The one it opened might as well have been any other. It was near the East Ticket Gate, under the Chuo Line platforms. Sakai had chosen it completely at random. Youji didn't think anyone else would have thought of this. No one respected the classics anymore.
There was nothing in the locker but a shoulder bag. There was nothing in the bag but a buff folder. Youji didn't need to open it to know it contained photocopies of the neuropathologist's report on the Prime Minister. He didn't want to open it anyway. He saw folders like that all the time. It looked just like the ones Manx gave to Omi.
There were still people on the subway, but they had no constant company on the Marunouchi Line to Kasumigaseki Station. Neither of them spoke on the train. They didn't speak as they came out into the night and shivered. It was snowing again. The flakes were dancing like stars under the lights. On any other night it would have been beautiful. Now Youji just pulled his hat down, put his hands in his pockets and followed Sakai towards the park.
If you didn't look at the buildings behind it, the park could fool you that you were in Paris or London. It had everything: swathes of manicured grass, beautiful flower gardens, not one but two open-air concert halls, even a library. All in the heart of Tokyo's business district, with the Imperial Palace smiling benevolently down.
No space in the park was as prized as the tennis courts. More deals were made here than in Chiyoda's boardrooms. Patronage and alliances flourished between sets. The price of land in Tokyo was high enough as it was but the demand for space in those courts was so high they may as well have been sown with gold dust instead of grass. They could have been for all the effort that the park workers had gone to keeping the snow off, but all the snow in the last few days would have left a lot of people with bookings sorely disappointed. Waiting in the snow on the main path next to the courts, Youji wondered if they'd got their money back.
The city outside the park was as bright as ever. The snow was fresh on the ground. In the dark, it glowed. The night was silent. They could have been alone. It was four a.m.
The men didn't step out of the night. They tried to, but they just walked up like anyone else. There were four of them. The man who led them was professionally smart. He was flanked by two men who might as well have been the same guy twice. Behind him was the nervous young man from the park. That was a pity.
"Sakai-san, Kudou-san, good morning."
The man at the front spoke, and Youji knew who he was. He hadn't lied about his name. It really was Itsuo. He was Itsuo Arai, personal secretary to the Prime Minister. They said he and the Prime Minister knew each other better than they knew their wives. Now Youji knew how it would all end, and he couldn't say he liked it.
"Good morning," Sakai said.
He was trembling. Youji knew it wasn't from the cold.
"Do you have the file?"
"Do you have the money?"
The two interchangeable bodyguards stepped forwards. Each one had a case slung over his shoulder which he put on the ground and opened. They weren't moving at the same time, which spoiled the effect. Seven million yen took up a lot of space. There was three and a half million in each bag. It must have been heavy too.
Arai stood in between the cases and waited. Sakai stopped looking at the money, took out the file and then handed it over.
"Is this the only copy?"
"It's on paper from the Institute, copied straight from the original file by the agent," Sakai said.
"And we don't need another copy," Youji said. "In twenty-four hours we'll be so far from Japan, when we meet people they'll ask if we're Chinese."
They bought it, but his heart wasn't in it.
Arai smiled, tucked the folder under his arm and said, "That's just what the American said you'd say."
"Which American?" Youji asked.
Arai opened his mouth to answer. He didn't. He couldn't answer. He died without a sound.
You can learn a lot about a man from how he dies. Youji had known that for too long. He stood still, watching it like a movie he'd already seen. The two bodyguards started to draw their guns. They always had guns. Ken hit the nearest one in the back. One of his blades would have been enough, the rest just made sure. The other bodyguard tried to find the source of the arrow. It found him first. The young man screamed and ran for his life. Straight into Aya.
Ken did what he did best and kept going forward. The claws reached out for Sakai.
"Ken, stop!" Youji shouted.
Ken couldn't stop, but he could slide. He went straight past Sakai as he reached down for the bodyguard's fallen gun and aimed at Ken. Youji picked up the other one without even thinking. It was as cold as ice in his hand.
"Sakai!"
He started to turn. He should be allowed to face his betrayer and fire at the same time. That was what honour demanded. He deserved that much.
Youji shot him. The gun writhed in his hand like it was alive. He fired again. He fired twice more. Sakai's gun was still at his side. Sakai fell to his knees and it slipped into the snow. He raised his head and his face spoke a thousand words, but he didn't try to say any of them. He fell forward into the snow.
The angry gun burned in Youji's hand. He threw it as far away from him as he could, which wasn't far because it weighed a thousand tons. It landed in the blood amongst the dead men. Blood on the snow could have been beautiful, should have been artistic, but it was as ugly as any stain on anything pure, and this stain would never come out even if you cleaned until you went mad.
"This is a lot of money," Aya said.
"Seven million yen," Youji replied.
"What do you think Kritiker will do with it?" Ken asked.
"I'm sure they'll put it to good use, Ken-kun."
Youji was glad when Omi called Kritiker to clean up after them. He and Aya carried the money back to the Porsche and threw it in the trunk. He didn't know why there were other cars in the parking lot at this time in the morning, and he didn't care. He just wanted to go home. Youji knew he wasn't a florist, but he'd be happy to be one after this, for a few days at least.