The Thief (6 page)

Tachibana climbed out and I followed. Ishikawa started to get out too, but Buzzcut stopped him.

“Sorry, could you drive for a bit longer? These guys are out to it. We’ve got to go to Shinagawa to get rid of the car. Could you take us halfway?”

“No, I—” began Ishikawa, but Buzzcut laughed.

“You guys are so jumpy. OK, just as far as Kannana. I’ll drive from there. Real pain in the butt, though.”

I looked at Ishikawa. He nodded slightly, so without a word I watched the door close in front of me. The van moved off, gradually picking up speed, and before long it disappeared into the darkness. The area abruptly went quiet.

Tachibana and I stood for a while in silence. I stared
vacantly at the occasional passing car and smoked, thinking about Ishikawa. When I told Tachibana about the note that he’d passed me, he lit another cigarette.

“Get out of Tokyo, right?” He smiled faintly. “You know, he’s too chicken. It was all cool, wasn’t it? Anyway, I’m not hanging round here. I’ve got people to meet, women to fuck.”

“I think I’m going to leave.”

“Do what you like. But that was fantastic. It was easy and we won’t get caught.”

He stopped talking, seemed to be thinking about something.

“Who is that guy?”

“Who cares? Kizaki or whatever his name is? Anyway, it’s best not to know. Just like he said. We should be quietly grateful.”

We walked to the convenience store to call a cab. As two taxis pulled up in the parking lot, Tachibana threw away his cigarette butt in a ceremonial gesture.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll meet up again,” he said. “Guys like us are bound to meet again sometime.”

• • •

I WENT STRAIGHT to Shin-Yokohama by cab. The city was blurry and the buildings and the people walking along the empty streets seemed to be floating in the blue dawn light. I got out of the car and went into a business hotel in front of the station. The woman at the desk went on and on about there only being a few hours left until checkout time. I told her I didn’t mind paying for two nights, handed over the money and went up to my room.

When I lay on the bed I realized my body was still tense. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still in the car, and at the same time that I was still in the old man’s room. It didn’t look like I’d be able to sleep so I thought about calling a hooker, but I didn’t think I’d be able to find anyone to send me one at this hour. I lit a cigarette and wondered what would happen to me next. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to do and what I was going to live for. I saw images of the bound woman in the bedroom, and I thought of Saeko once more.

I HARDLY SLEPT all day. Seven o’clock, the time Ishikawa had given me, crept closer. Crowds of people were milling
around the north entrance to the station. Looking at them, all with far more energy and vitality than my sleep-deprived self, gave me a mild headache.

Eight o’clock passed, then nine, but Ishikawa didn’t show. I sat there, smoking nonstop. Under the neon lights the colors of the people’s clothes hurt my eyes. I looked at a couple laughing boisterously, I looked at a businessman leaning against the wall, I looked at my watch, I looked at my shoes. I looked at a man walking towards me with his hand raised, and then realized that he was waving to someone else. Just then an elderly homeless man came up behind me.

“No matter what happens after this,” he said, looking me in the eye.

My heart started to beat faster. All around me thousands of people were smiling at each other, their faces indistinct.

“Keep a low profile if you still value your life. You interest me. Let’s meet again sometime.”

I stared at him. My breathing grew rapid, and I consciously tried to slow it down.

“Who are you?”

“It’s a message. I got it just now from a dude in a suit.”

He took a bottle of whiskey from his pocket.

“Is there more?”

“Ah, what comes after that?” He coughed and screwed up his face. “ ‘I’ve decided to let you go for now. Be secretly grateful to me wherever you go.’ I think that was it.”

I went into the station, bought a ticket at random and waited for the bullet train. A news item about a war was blaring from the TV in the waiting room. The screen changed and I saw the headline: Mr. XX, House of Representatives Member, Murdered. Above it was a picture of the old man we’d robbed.

“According to an eye-witness who escaped unharmed, the assailants appeared to be foreigners. They forced Mr. XX to open the safe and then killed him with a sword-like weapon. The metropolitan police have opened an investigation and are treating it as another burglary by a Chinese crime syndicate, which have been increasing in recent years. And in the Diet….”

I found out later that the following day the private secretary of another politician had committed suicide. The director of a public corporation fell onto a railway line and was hit by a train, and the president of an IT company disappeared and turned up dead. Share prices made an abrupt
and unusual jump, then fell sharply. A Minister resigned, citing health reasons, and soon afterwards another politician belonging to the same faction also died.

I left Tokyo that night.

8
Leaning against a dingy office block, I lit a cigarette, shielding it with my coat against the wind. I put my hands in my pockets, felt the cold air chill my neck and shoulders. Two middle-aged women in uniform, so similar they could have been twins, came out of the building and gave me a suspicious look as they passed. My fingers just wouldn’t warm up, so I went into a convenience store and bought a can of hot coffee. I wrapped my hands around it as I walked towards the concert hall.

In the smoking area I pretended to check my email and smoked another cigarette. I sensed the bustle of a crowd of people and looked towards the doors just as the concert-goers came pouring out. Since it was a classical program, most of the audience was elderly and rich. Berlioz’s
Symphonie Fantastique
, Elgar’s
Enigma Variations
, stuff I didn’t know much about.

I joined the people making their way towards the taxi stand, picked out the most elegant retired couple in the crowd. Walking slowly, I moved closer, flexing my fingers in my pockets. They were looking at each other happily, praising the French conductor, talking about possibly going to hear him in France next time. The man wore a heavy brown Loro Piana jacket, and she was wearing a thick cream coat and a Gucci scarf. The man suggested they buy a present for their grandson and she smiled in agreement. In the afterglow of the concert their faces were filled with goodness, brimming with satisfaction at the beautiful music they had just heard. The soft lines on the old man’s face showed that their lives had arrived at this point without a single wrong turn or false step.

His wallet was probably in the inside pocket of his coat, so I thought I’d have to take the orthodox approach,
bump into him from head on. But then he said he was hot, slowed his pace and began undoing his buttons. I placed myself right behind him, using my own body to block the view of anyone following. I had to get it done before his wife started to help him. Just as he finished with the buttons and began to open his coat, I stretched out my hand at an angle, coming at him from his left. I slid my index and middle fingers into his pocket and grasped the wallet. At that moment it was as though my fingers could feel his genial expression and their easy lifestyle. I lifted the wallet and slipped it up my sleeve. As I passed him on the left he was struggling with his jacket. His wife said something to him and extended a slender arm to assist.

His wallet held 220,000 yen, several credit cards and some small photos taken with his grandson. The smiling boy standing between them and making a funny face looked really happy. I stuffed the wallet violently into a mailbox as though rejecting everything it stood for. A lightning rod glittered silver on top of the row of office blocks. It rose straight up, catching the rays of the sun. I looked away and plunged into the crowd once more.

• • •

I CAUGHT A cab and got out near my apartment. A small boy with long dyed brown hair came sprinting out of the shadows of the decaying apartments on the other side of the road, shouting. I passed rusted signboards, looked vacantly at shuttered-up shops next to concrete walls covered in graffiti. I thought about having a smoke but then changed my mind. I still wanted something in my mouth, though, and at that moment my fingers closed on a packet of chewing gum in my pocket. A car drove by right in front of me, accelerating as it went. I wasn’t sure if it was gum I’d bought ages ago and forgotten about or if I’d lifted it when I got the coffee.

I lit a cigarette after all and wrapped my coat around me, trying to compose myself. When I came out onto the main street, among the sluggish passers-by I saw the kid who’d been shoplifting with his mother. He was alone, carrying the same paper bag and going into the same supermarket. I considered going home, but after hesitating for a few seconds I followed him in.

He was wearing blue shorts and a green windbreaker, but the fabric was shabby. After walking to the meat section, he paused briefly and then as quick as a flash seized some sliced meat and stuffed it in the bag. He chose the
nearest packet and his movements were seamless. I felt as though the course of his life had been determined at birth, that he was constantly pushing against a powerful current.

Next he moved to the vegetables. Weaving his way through the cluster of housewives around the bargain bin, he used the blind spot they offered to pilfer some potatoes and onions. He was right-handed, and it only took him a split second to grab the goods and stash them in his bag. As I watched him I wondered which of us was more skillful at that age. But no matter how good he was, a child walking around a supermarket on his own stood out, and his choice of a paper bag was all wrong. A middle-aged woman pretending to be a customer was observing him, surely a detective hired by the store to catch shoplifters. It was a different woman this time, with long hair. She was tailing an old man who was acting suspiciously, but keeping her eye on the kid at the same time.

Unaware of her gaze, he stopped in front of the liquor shelves. He wavered, disconcerted, I was guessing, by the mismatch between what he was supposed to pinch and the size of his bag. The store detective’s attention was locked on him. I had an image of hundreds of arms reaching out to seize him. I pictured him standing tiny and defenseless,
bombarded by accusing glares and whispers of pity and shock, exposed to the world as “that kind of kid.” I moved closer and stood beside him. Taken by surprise, he started to tremble slightly, keeping his face averted.

“You’ve been spotted,” I said. “Dump the bag and get out.”

He looked up at me helplessly.

“Same as before. You’ve been seen. Give it up.”

I walked towards the woman who was watching. When she noticed me she looked away, bending down and pretending to be choosing some sweets. But the boy put three cans of beer into his bag, one after the other, and then trotted to the dairy products. There his head moved from side to side, searching for what he wanted to steal—or rather, what he’d been told to steal. I followed him. Checking that the woman wasn’t looking, I quickly grabbed a basket and took his bag from him.

“That’s enough,” I said. “I’ll buy it for you.”

His first impulse was to fight back, but then he saw how much bigger I was and stopped. His face was dirty but his eyelashes were long, his eyes large and clear.

“What else do you need?”

He didn’t answer. I saw a scrap of paper peeking from
his coat pocket, and I plucked it out and unfolded it. A shopping list, written in ballpoint. Untidy, slanting handwriting, probably his mother’s.

I put the groceries in the basket and moved on. The boy came with me. The woman caught up with us and looked curiously at me, this adult who had suddenly appeared beside the child. Then she looked at the things in the basket and set off in pursuit of the suspicious old man, who had disappeared round a corner. The boy trailed after me passively, without even a show of resistance. Since I was dressed for work, my clothes were much flashier than his. Maybe he was ashamed that his pilfering had been spotted by someone like me. I turned to face him.

“You’re good, but this is how you do it. Watch.”

The only thing left on the list was yogurt. I stretched my hand towards the shelves where it was displayed, acting like I was trying to make up my mind. Glancing left and right, I caught the lid with my middle finger and tipped it into my sleeve. Sliding my hand to the left, I snagged three more containers. He watched my fingers earnestly and then turned and stared at my face as though he was seeing a miracle. He was clearly impressed that the yogurts didn’t fall out when I lowered my arm.

“Now we buy the rest. Okay?”

Without waiting for an answer I went to the checkout and paid. We left the store and I transferred the purchases into his bag.

“You can’t come back here. They’ve got a look-out and she knows your face.”

The boy looked at me, one shoulder dragged down by the weight of the bag.

“Hiding things under the towel is a good idea, maybe. But you’d better stop. First, it doesn’t look natural for a kid to be carrying a paper bag, so people notice. And it’s small so you can’t fit much stuff in it. Your moves—you go for the target too obviously. When you’re shoplifting, you need to make some unnecessary movements as a diversion.”

I saw that his face had turned serious and I looked away.

“Okay, take those and go home.”

I walked away without looking back, chewing viciously on the gum I’d found in my pocket.

9
When I woke my neck and shoulders were drenched in sweat. I thought I’d been dreaming but I couldn’t remember clearly. There’d been a tower in the fog, a long way off beyond the houses and the power poles. A stone tower that had probably been standing there for centuries, its surface carved in geometric patterns. It stretched straight up, dim and massive.