Later, the same day. The doorbell chimes and my heart coils up again. I put the manuscript down. Not Buntaro, not Mrs Sasaki, so who? I am up in the attic study, but I hear a key turned in the front door. I am learning the silences that fill this house, and I know what is in my head and what is not there, the door swings open, feet in the entrance hall. The books are straining to hear, too. 'Miyake! Relax! This is Yuzu Daimon! Come out, come out, wherever you are! Your landlord gave me the key.' We meet on the stairs. 'You look better than when I last saw you,' I say. 'Most road-kills look better than me last Friday,' he replies. 'But you look worse. Sheesh! They did that to your eye?' His T-shirt reads Whoever dies with the most stuff wins Whoever dies with the most stuff wins. 'I came to bring you my apology. I thought I could chop off my little finger.'

'What would I do with your little finger?'

'Whatever. Pickle it, keep it in an enamelled casket: ideal for picking your nose in polite society. What a conversation piece: "It formerly belonged to the notorious Yuzu Daimon, you know."'

'I'd rather use my own finger, thanks. And' I wave my hand, vaguely 'going back was my decision, not yours.'

'Oh well, I bought you ten boxes of cigarettes to tide you over,' he says. I see he is still unsure whether or not I want to murder him. 'If I had to cut off a finger every time I needed to apologize, I'd be up to my shoulder blade by now. Marlboro. I remembered you smoked Marlboro in the pool hall on the fateful night. And your landlord thought you might like your guitar to keep you company, so I brought it over. I left it down in the entrance hall. How do you feel?' How do I feel? Weird, but not angry. 'Thanks,' I say. He shrugs. 'Well, considering...' I shrug. 'The garden is good for smoking.'

Once I begin from the point where I loaded him into the taxi I cannot stop until the end the point where Buntaro loaded me into his car. I can't remember talking so long, ever. Daimon never interrupts, except to light our cigarettes and to get a beer from the fridge. I even tell him about my father and why I came to Tokyo in the first place. When I finally finish the sun has gone. 'What amazes me,' I say, 'is that none of what happened has been reported. How can forty people get killed not quietly, either, but action-movie deaths and it not be reported?'

Bees peruse swaying lavender. 'Yakuza wars make the police look crap and the politicos look bent. Which, as everybody knows, is true. But by admitting it, the voters of Tokyo may be prompted to wonder why they bother paying taxes. So it gets kept off TV.'

'But the newspapers?'

'Journalists are fed reports of battles already won and lost higher up the mountainside. Original, story-sniffing journalists get blacklisted from news conferences, so newspapers can't keep them on. Subtle, isn't it?

'Then why bother with the news at all?'

'People want their comic books and bedtime stories. Look! A dragonfly! The old poet-monks used to know what week of what month it was, just by the colour and the sheen of dragonflies' whatd'yacall'em? fuselages.' He plays with his lighter. 'Did you tell your landlord the uncensored version of what happened to you?'

'I toned down the violence. I also left out the death threats to his wife, since the man who made them is... dead. I still don't know what is right, and what will give him nightmares and paranoia.'

Daimon nods. 'Sometimes there isn't a right thing to do, and the best you can hope for is the least worst. Do you dream about it?'

'I don't sleep much.' I open a can of beer. 'What are your plans?'

'My dad thinks I should disappear for a while, and for once we agree. I'm going back to the States in the morning. With my wife.'

I splurt out beer. 'You're married married? Since when?'

Daimon looks at his watch. 'Five hours ago.'

This is Daimon's sincere smile. I only see it once, and only for a moment.

'Miriam? Kang Hyo Yeoun?'

The smile is put away. 'Her real name is Min. Not many people know her real name, but we owe you. I gather she administered you her famous kick.'

'I sewed them back on. Min? Her name never stays the same.'

'It will from now on.'

We clink cans. 'Congratulations. Quick, uh, wedding.'

'That is the point of clandestine marriage and elopement.'

'I got the impression you hated each other.'

'Hate.' Diamon examines his hands. 'Love.'

'Do your parents know?'

'They've lived separately for ten years always very respectably, of course. But they kind of forfeited their rights to advise me on...' Daimon plays with his lighter. '...relationship matters.'

'Shouldn't you be with, uh, Min-san?'

'Yes. I need to be leaving to pick up our air tickets. But before I go, will you show me the photograph of your father?' I unfold it from my wallet. He studies it closely, but shakes his head. 'Sorry, I never saw the guy. But listen, I'll ask my dad if he can't find out the contact details of the detective Morino was in the habit of using. Yakuza usually use the same one or two trusted people. I can't promise the police department at City Hall is in pandemonium, nobody knows who's in bed with whom, and Tsuru is apparently back from Singapore, minus chunks of his memories and sanity, but maybe useful as a figurehead. But I can promise to try. After that you'll be on your own, but at least you may have a lead to a Plan B.'

'Plan G. Any lead is better than no lead.'

We go to the entrance hall. Daimon puts on his sandals. 'Well, then.'

'Well, then. Enjoy your honeymoon.'

'That is what I like about you, Miyake.'

'What is?'

He climbs into his Porsche, and gives me a quarter-wave.

'Truss her!' howled one section of the mob. 'Baste her!' howled another. 'Roast her with spuds!' How Mrs Comb wished Pithecanthropus would come running across the wrecked square and carry her away to safety. She wouldn't have complained, even if she found a flea in his hair. 'Chicken nuggets!' screamed a line of toddlers. 'Potato fries!' A ladder appeared, and with a fresh seizure of fear Mrs Comb realized they were going to climb up the statue of the beloved commander and cart her off to the ovens. How could Goatwriter possibly cope without her? He would starve. That was when Mrs Comb remembered the book he had given her. 'Hold your horses!' she squawked. 'And you'll dine on something tastier than stringy old chicken!'

The mob waited.

Mrs Comb waved the holy book. 'Stories!'

A hoochy-koochy hooker honked. 'Stories never filled my my belly!' belly!'

The ladder moved nearer. Mrs Comb gulped. 'Maybe you never heard the right stories, then!'

'Prove it!' yelled a wolfman in ash and sackcloth. 'Tell us a story, and see if they fill us up!' Mrs Comb turned to page one, wishing Goatwriter's handwriting wasn't so spidery. '"Once upon a time a high-wire artist visited the waterfalls at Saturn to perform the greatest tightrope spectacle that was ever seen or, surely, ever will be seen. The long-awaited night arrived, and the artist set forth on his death-defying balancing act. Every ounce of concentration the artist possessed would be needed. Above his head spun many moons. Below his feet, the unending cataract of Saturn fell, fell, fell to the limitless ocean, too deep for sound. Halfway across this majestic silence, the high-wire artist was amazed to see a girl strolling across the wire towards him. Why describe this girl of his dreams? You already know what she looks like. 'Why are you here?' asked the artist. 'I came to ask if you believe in ghosts.' The artist frowned. 'Ghosts? Why, do you believe in ghosts?' The girl of his dreams smiled, and replied, 'But of course I do.' And she skipped off the wire. Horror-struck, the artist followed her slow fall, but long before she hit the water she had dissolved into the moonlight-"' A cobblestone missed Mrs Comb by an inch. 'I'm still hungry!' yelled the wolfman in ash and sackcloth. The ladder was propped up against the body of the beloved supreme commander. Tooth and nail, the mob fought to climb up. 'Wait, wait, you'll crack up laughing when you hear this one.' Mrs Comb flapped, lost her place, turned to page nine. '"Father! Father! Why hast thou forsaken me?"'

The noon sun browned, greyed, chilled and marooned.

The mob fell silent then nervous and then hysterical.

'Phantoms!' screamed the crowd as one. 'Run for the bomb shelters!' The men, women and children drained away into cracks, crannies and culverts, until Mrs Comb was left alone with the beloved commander and the body of a black marketeer whose skull had been staved in by the hurled cobblestone. 'Goodness gracious,' said Mrs Comb.

'Great balls of fire!' said God, hovering up on his surfboard. 'Ma'am.' balls of fire!' said God, hovering up on his surfboard. 'Ma'am.'

'God?'

'I believe you called?'

'I did?'

'This neighbourhood ain't what is used to be, ma'am. What say I give you a lift someplace else?'

Mrs Comb clucked with relief. 'Oh, God! You arrived in the nick of time! Nowt but cannibals in these parts, nowt but cannibals! If it isn't too much of an imposition, I'd thank you kindly to take me back to the venerable coach.'

'Climb aboard, ma'am.' God moved his surfboard alongside the handlebar moustache of the beloved commander. 'And hold on tight!' Mrs Comb tightened her headscarf, and watched the hungry town unroll below her. Why did humans despise what was beautiful and good? Why did they destroy the things they needed the most? Mrs Comb could not understand human beings. She really could not understand.

Back on the balcony step I light another cigarette. The box of Marlboro is way too heavy. I look inside. Yuzu Daimon's platinum lighter. One side is inscribed in English, so I get a dictionary to work out what the words mean: To General MacArthur on occasion of seventy-first birthday, January 1951, from Aichi Citizens Repatriation Committee To General MacArthur on occasion of seventy-first birthday, January 1951, from Aichi Citizens Repatriation Committee Earnest Beseech to Assist Countrymen Captured USSR Earnest Beseech to Assist Countrymen Captured USSR. So the lighter really was the real thing! It must be worth... what? A lot. Way too much. I go back to the entrance hall and peer through the front door, but Daimon is gone. The sound of a sports car maybe Daimon's, maybe not is swallowed by the afternoon neighbourhood. This is more than a little finger. Sort of sad, too. I wonder how many Aichi citizens ever made it home.

QUEEN ERICHNID'S WEB.

Pithecanthropus peered out of his undercarriage hammock. The venerable coach was on its juddery night journey. White lines and cat's-eyes sped from blurry darkness ahead like salmon in a river of hyperspace. Pithecanthropus loved the lullaby swing of the hammock as the coach banked, and the headwind combing his hair. A piebald rabbit, headlit, hypnotized and huddled, hurtled unharmed between the wheels its nose nearly touched Pithecanthropus's. 'Hot diggetty!' thought the rabbit, finding itself alive after all. 'The angel of death is one ugly critter! Wait until I tell my relatives!' By and by, Pithecanthropus yawned, and slid back down his hammock, settling in the sediment of broken wishbones, flat batteries, oily rags, and Stilton rind. His final thought was that it wasn't the venerable coach which moved over the earth, it was the earth which spun beneath its ancient stationary wheels.

The vacuum cleaner of Mrs Comb in her boudoir directly above bumped Pithecanthropus out of his morning dreams, and he awoke a happy early man. The venerable coach had come to a standstill. Even in the undercarriage, Pithecanthropus could tell they were parked somewhere hotter than a Sahara saxophone sextet. After munching on dry-roasted locusts, he crawled out, and stood up in an arid ochre desert of pebbles, boulders and bleached behemoth bones. The naked eyeball of the sun stared unblinkingly from a sky pinkish with dry heat. A desert wind did nothing to cool the world it wandered through. The road ran as straight as a mathematical constant to the vanishing point. A quorum of quandom quokkas thumped off as Pithecanthropus flexed his powerful biceps, drummed his treble-barrelled chest and howled a mighty roar. The coach door opened and Mrs Comb shook the crumbs from the breakfast tablecloth. 'What an ungodly racket!' Goatwriter climbed down the steps and sniffed the desert air. 'Good morning.'

Pithecanthropus grunted a greeting and a question.

'I believe,' Goatwriter replied, 'we are in the Northern Territories, but of Australia or M-mars I cannot be sure. If one consults-'

Goatwriter never finished his sentence because a miraculous maelstrom of birds rose from nowhere and filled the air around the venerable coach moogurning, phewlitting, macawbering, endizzying birds, many unseen since the days when mythology was common gossip. 'Archaeopteryx!' exclaimed Goatwriter. 'Thewlicker's goose! Quetzalcoatlus Quetzalcoatlus! Greater Hopeless Auks! Nightjars at noon! Listen! Listen to the tune! Fragments! I hear fragments!' Goatwriter closed his eyes and a druggy smile graced his face. Pithecanthropus gazed too, remembering childhood days in fossilized forests. Mrs Comb had dived for cover beneath the venerable coach. The birds vanished thitherly as suddenly as hitherly. 'Extraordinary avifauna!' declared Goatwriter. 'You can come out now, Mrs Comb! Do you know, I heard fragments of a truly untold tale! The birds were singing it! Excuse me, friends, I m-must return to m-my writing bureau this very instant!' avifauna!' declared Goatwriter. 'You can come out now, Mrs Comb! Do you know, I heard fragments of a truly untold tale! The birds were singing it! Excuse me, friends, I m-must return to m-my writing bureau this very instant!'

Another two or three days of nothing weather go by. This is how I spend them. I get up late, smoke in the garden, and make some tea and toast. I watch my black eye dapple lighter. I clean up the living room and the kitchen, hide my rubbish, and go up to the attic to read. I feel safest up there. I am turning into a reading machine. I read detective stories by Kogoro Akechi. I read Kitchen Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto, and hate it, without being sure why. I read by Banana Yoshimoto, and hate it, without being sure why. I read The Makioka Sisters The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki, and love it. I read a weird novel by Philip Dick about a parallel universe where Japan and Germany won the Second World war, in which an author writes a weird novel about a parallel universe where America and England won. I read by Junichiro Tanizaki, and love it. I read a weird novel by Philip Dick about a parallel universe where Japan and Germany won the Second World war, in which an author writes a weird novel about a parallel universe where America and England won. I read No Longer Human No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai, but the hero feels so sorry for himself that I want him to jump in the sea long before he does. Anju used to read, never me. Looking back, I was jealous of her books for the hours she gave them. And at high school we had those Japanese classes designed to maim the fun of reading, with all those questions like by Osamu Dazai, but the hero feels so sorry for himself that I want him to jump in the sea long before he does. Anju used to read, never me. Looking back, I was jealous of her books for the hours she gave them. And at high school we had those Japanese classes designed to maim the fun of reading, with all those questions like Indicate the word most appropriately describing the emotion we experience when we read the following Indicate the word most appropriately describing the emotion we experience when we read the following: "The mournful cries of the seagulls were borne over the waves as my father set sail for the final time. "The mournful cries of the seagulls were borne over the waves as my father set sail for the final time." a] nostalgic. b ] poignant. c] wistful. d] esoteric. e] heartful a] nostalgic. b ] poignant. c] wistful. d] esoteric. e] heartful. 'We.' Who is this 'We' jerk-off anyway? I never met him. This morning I am reading a French novel called Le Grand Meaulnes Le Grand Meaulnes. I am fat on books. For snacks between meals I read the Goatwriter stories by Mrs Sasaki's sister. There are dozens of them. Mrs Sasaki says her sister wrote them for her nephew, Buntaro, when he was a little boy Buntaro had a childhood? Weird. Now she writes them to warm up in the morning. Reading is hungry work. When I feel like lunch I go down to the kitchen and eat some food from the fridge, and an apple or banana. Afterwards I trawl the pond for fallen leaves with a big net and feed the fish. Then I go back up to the attic to read some more until it gets dark. I tape black-out paper to the triangular window, and play my guitar until Buntaro or Mrs Sasaki come. We eat together and chat nobody has come looking for me at either Shooting Star or Ueno. So far. After supper, I lock, bolt and chain the door, do a load of push-ups and sit-ups, and take a shower. I still sleep downstairs on the sofa, where I stand a good chance of hearing an intruder before they get to me. I carry on reading until the early hours, and finally fall asleep. My dreams are shallow, floating dreams zoom lenses, parked cars, people who smile knowingly at me...

I can smell again. I never noticed smells so much as now. I remap the house, this time in smells. The living room is polish, tatami, incense. The kitchen cooking oil, stainless steel, hard currants. The main bedroom is linen, jasmine, varnish. The garden is leaf juice, pond life and smoke tufts. This house is so quiet! The slightest noise is as impossible to ignore as the squawkiest mobile phone conversation on the metro trains. I hear things I never normally notice. Fluids mulching through my tubes, my joints clunking as I climb the shelves, the vibrations of cars. Crows and doors several streets away, a fly head-butting a windowpane, a futon being beaten.

The fax machine beeps. I put down Le Grand Meaulnes Le Grand Meaulnes, go downstairs and find the fax lying on the floor. MIYAKE. MORINO'S DETECTIVE WILL RECEIVE MAIL SENT TO ADDRESS BELOW. BE CAUTIOUS. DO NOT GIVE ADDRESS UNTIL SURE OK. WE BOARD FLIGHT 30 MINS. HOPE YOU FIND THE MAN. A post office box number in Edogawabashi follows. I write it down on a cigarette box flap, hide it in my wallet, and set the fax alight in an ashtray with General Douglas MacArthur's lighter. This is overdramatic, but I like flames. I glance up at the photo of Mrs Sasaki's sister. The wine in her glass is cool and scents the air. 'So,' she says, 'what happens in the next chapter?'

Goatwriter sat down at his writing bureau. Luscious sentences swirled inches above his head, waiting for him to pin them on to paper. Goatwriter looked for his pen. Most odd, he thought, I recall quite clearly placing it here, on my blotter, when I heard Pithecanthropus perform his antemeridian grunt... He looked in all the places it should be, and then all the places it might be, and lastly all the places it couldn't possibly be. This left only one conclusion. 'Thief!' cried Goatwriter. 'Thief! Thief!' Pithecanthropus and Mrs Comb rushed in she knew exactly what to do. 'Not again sir. Let me explain your snack paper goes in here, and your writings and whatnot-' Goatwriter shook his head, numbly. 'No, Mrs Comb! My manuscript is not m-missing, but my fountain pen! The tongue of my imagination! The selfsame pen Lady Shonagon wrote her pillow book with over thirteen thousand crescent moons ago! The birds nought but a didactic tactic, a decoy deployed while the thief struck!'

'Whatever's the world coming to?' said Mrs Comb. 'Rob thy neighbour!'

Pithecanthropus grunted a question.

'Who? A gloatload of connival rivals have the will to kill my quill!' Goatwriter groaned tearfully. 'Without my fountain pen, my career is over, moreover! The critics will de-re-un-in(con)struct me!'

'Over my dead body, sir! Never you fear! We found us a thief before and we'll find us one again! Won't we, you?' Pithecanthropus was so pleased to be addressed by Mrs Comb directly that he grunted happily, not wishing to point out yet that tracking in the muddy margin was easy, but tracking in a windy baking desert was a different prospect entirely 'As usual, Mrs Comb,' said Goatwriter, forcing himself to calm down, 'you are quite right. Let us apply logic to the dilemma. My pen is missing. Where does one find pens? At the end of sentences. Where does one find the ends of sentences? The ends of lines. Now, how many lines does one find in a desert?'

Mrs Comb looked through the window. 'Only one line out here, sir.'

'Which is that, m-my dear Mrs Comb?'

'Why, sir the line running down the centre of the road!'

Goatwriter clapped his hoofs. 'Battle stations, friends! To war we go!'

Mrs Comb was tiring, perspiring beneath her parasol, wondering if the next egg she laid would come out hard-boiled. Pithecanthropus sweated profusely and the road cooked holes in his soles. Goatwriter saw mirages of verbs freeze and melt. The cruel sun shot dead hot lead at high noon. Time itself relapsed and collapsed. Goatwriter dabbed his brow with his drenched handkerchief and checked that what he thought he saw was truly true. 'Aha! Take heart, my friends! The white lines are veering off the road my fountain pen cannot be far!' Mrs Comb insisted they drank a prickly-pear dessert before the desert. Without the white lines to guide them, even Pithecanthropus would have lost his way in the smoulderboulders, jags and crags, rocks and blocks. Reptiles stood still, on alternate legs. Pithecanthropus felt they were being watched, but said nothing for fear of distressing Mrs Comb. 'I say,' said Goatwriter, at the head of the expedition. 'We seem to be... here.' The three drew level at the lip of a porcelain crater, as steep as it was wide. A black hole emerged at the centre. 'Extraordinary,' murmured Goatwriter. 'A primitive culture, evolving radiotelescope technology, unbeknown to the outside world...'

'You can call it a radiotellywhatsit, sir, but I know a kitchen sink when I see one. Must take a month o' Mondays to polish it, or-'

'Keeeeeeraaaaaaaaawk!' An evil-eyed, sawtooth-beaked pterodactyl appeared from the near rear to spear Goatwriter clear down the crater. 'Sir!' squawked Mrs Comb Goatwriter's hoofs were unable to gain traction on the ceramic surface. 'Sir! I'm coming! I'll rescue you!' Mrs Comb swooped down on an intercept course, but Goatwriter vanished into the blackness. Mrs Comb, unable to pull out of her beak dive, promptly disappeared too. Pithecanthropus watched the pterodactyl circle around for another attack. 'Keeeraaawkeeeraaawkeeeraaaaaaaaaw!' Pithecanthropus wasn't afraid of dinosaurs or anything else but the thought of Mrs Comb facing danger alone made his cranium throb with worry. He tobaggoned down the crater. The bottomless blackness boomed.

I sit at the writing bureau with a fresh sheet of paper, and for one moment my letter is perfect. The photograph of my father is open on the bureau too. How do you write a letter a real live private detective? Dear sir, you don't know me, but Dear sir, you don't know me, but rejected. rejected. Dear sir, I am the late Mr Morino's personal assistant, and I am writing to ask for a replacement Dear sir, I am the late Mr Morino's personal assistant, and I am writing to ask for a replacement rejected. rejected. Dear sir, my name is Eiji Miyake Dear sir, my name is Eiji Miyake you spied on me not so long ago for you spied on me not so long ago for rejected. I decide to be uncunning and brief. rejected. I decide to be uncunning and brief. Sir Sir: please send please send a a copy of the ID file on Eiji Miyake to box 333 copy of the ID file on Eiji Miyake to box 333 Tokyo Evening Mail. Tokyo Evening Mail. Thank you Thank you. If it works, it works; if it fails, nothing I could say would have persuaded him anyway. I go back down to the garden and burn the three drafts if Buntaro or Mrs Sasaki found out, they would tell me I am insane not to mention irresponsible for seeking out anyone connected with Morino, and of course they are right. But surely if the man posed a threat we would know about it by now. He sifted through my capsule for Morino so he already knows my address. I put the note into an envelope, address and seal it. That was the easy part. Now I have to go out and post it.

I pull my baseball cap down low, take the key from the hook by the door and put my shoes on. I raise the latch on the main gate, and enter the real world. No brakes. No mysterious cars. Just a quiet, residential street, built down a sedate slope. All the houses are set back from the road behind high fences with automatic gates. Several have video cameras. Each building probably costs more than a whole village in Yakushima. I may rain, says the weather, but there again I may not. I wonder if Ai Imajo lives in this sort of street, with that sort of bedroom window, above that sort of privet hedge. I hear a girl laughing, and from out of an alley fly a junior high-school kid on a bike with his girl standing on the rear wheel spindles. 'What a gross gross story!' she repeats, over and over, laughing and flicking back her hair. ' story!' she repeats, over and over, laughing and flicking back her hair. 'Gross!'

The slope leads to a busy main road, lined with shops. So weird, all this motion and noise. A mission in every vehicle. I feel as though I am a ghost revisiting a place where I was never particularly happy. I pass a supermarket where mangoes and papayas lie exquisitely ribboned. Kids play tag in the aisles. In the supermarket carpark the men watch TV in their cars. A woman lifts a pooched-up doggy into her bicycle basket. A pregnant girl my age walks along, hands on her hump. Builders clamber along girders, a blowtorch hisses magnesium. I pass a kindergarten playground children in colour-coded hats run along paths of Brownian motion. What is it for? What also weirds me out is that I am invisible. Nobody stops and points; no traffic crashes; no birds fall out of the sky; no 'Hey! Look! There's that kid who witnessed thirty or more men get blown away by gangsters three or four nights ago!' Do soldiers feel this, when they get back from a war? The utter weirdness of utter normality. The post office is full of babies bawling and pensioners staring into inner distance. I wait my turn, looking at the 'Have you seen this person?' posters of society's number-one enemies, with the plastic surgery faces they are fancied to have adopted. 'Do not attempt to apprehend these criminals. They may be armed and dangerous.' The person behind nudges me. The assistant asks for the third or fourth time. 'Yes, sir?'

'Uh, I'd like to post this, please.'

I pay, she gives me my stamps and change. It is true. What happened to me last Friday night is locked inside my head, and nothing shows on my face. I lick the stamps, stick them on, and balance the envelope on the lip of the box. Is this wise? I let the letter go; it falls with a papery slap. When did 'wise' ever come into it? Onwards, Plan G. I look up into the eye of a video camera. Outside, the air is heavier and gustier than it was, and swallows are diving low. Another video camera watches the supermarket carpark. Yet another is mounted on the bridge to meditate on passing traffic. I hurry back.

Evening ushers rain in slow motion. I am up in the attic. In the fading light the paper turned white to blue and now is nearly as grey as the ink. I watch the watercourses trickle down the windowpanes. I can almost hear the thirsty city make a frothing noise as its sponges up the rain. In Yakushima they boast about the rain. Uncle Pachinko says it rains thirty-five days per month. Here in Tokyo, when did it last rain? That summer storm, on the day of my stake-out. I was such a holy fool. Morino was a wake-up bomb. What if my father really has no interest in even meeting me? What if he is a Yakuza man too? Sometimes the watercourses follow the one before, other times they split off. Then my father owes it to me to tell me himself. His job his way of life even is not the point. In the street outside, the cars of ordinary husbands swish by on their way to ordinary homes. A car cuts its engine outside, and my sense of peace drains away. I peer through the triangular window: Buntaro's tired old Honda. Here comes my saviour, leaping over the flooding drain with a newspaper held over his head. His bald patch glistens in the rain.

I finish my noodles first so I broach the subject. 'Buntaro, I need to talk about money.' Buntaro fishes for tempura batter. 'What money?' Exactly. 'Rent for next month. I dunno how to tell you this, but... I don't have it. Not now the money from Ueno stopped. I know this is a hell of a lot to ask, but could you take it out of my deposit?' Buntaro frowns at me or the elusive tempura? I go on. 'I am really ashamed, after everything you and Mrs Sasaki have done for me. But you should know now, so if, I dunno, if you wanted to give me my marching orders, I mean I would understand, really...'

'Got you!' Buntaro holds up the prawn between his chopsticks and delicately nibbles its head off. 'The wife had a better idea, lad. She wants a holiday before she gets too pregnant for the airlines to let her on. You know, we got to thinking how long it's been since we took a week off together. Guess how long? Never! Literally, never. Before I took over Shooting Star we were always too broke, and since then... well, a video shop can never sleep. When I work, she rests; when she works, I rest. Nine years have gone by like that. She phoned around a few hotels in Okinawa this morning off-season, loads of cheap deals. So, our proposal is this: you look after the shop next week, and that can take care of the rent for October.'

'All of October?' of October?'

'The hours are piggish ten a. m. to midnight, seven days. Added up, it comes to a pretty measly rate. But it would give you a breathing space to land another job.'

'You would really leave me in charge of the shop?'

'No Al Pacino look-alike has come around asking for you. Hiding here was wise, but you can come out now.'