'Scrape his head off!'

'Turn the gas off!'

'His lip has fused to the metal!'

'Ambulance ambulance ambulance someone call a-'

'Fuck! His eyeball just popped!'

'Wipe it off on your own shirt!'

'Get that fucking dog out of here!'

Someone vomits noisily.

The dog barks joyfully.

Mama-san scrapes a metallic object down the smoked glass. The screech is unbearable, and the chamber falls silent. Her composure is perfect, as though she scripted this moment many years ago and has rehearsed it ever since. 'Mr Tsuru's entertainment has been overtaken by a deus ex machina deus ex machina. It appears the excitement was too much, triggered a second stroke, and since our dear leader chose his barbecue to fall on, it no longer matters particularly when that ambulance gets here.' She now addresses the two or three older men. 'I am appointing myself the acting head of this organization. You shall obey me, or oppose me. Make your intentions known. Now.'

The moment is dense with calculations.

The men look at us. 'What will we do with them, mama-san?'

'Card games are no longer company policy. Show them the door.'

I dare not trust this new development, not until I am outside and running. Mama-san addresses us. 'If any of you go to the police and somehow convince a recently-graduated detective that you are not a lunatic, three things will occur, in this order. One: you will be taken into protective custody. Two: a bullet will be put through your head within six hours. Three: your debts will be transferred to your next-of-kin and I will personally ensure that their lives are destroyed. This is not a threat, this is standard procedure. You will now indicate that you understand.'

We nod.

'We have been in business for thirty years. Draw your own conclusions about our ability to protect our interests. Now get out of here.'

The cinema is full. Couples, students, drones. The only free seats are in the front, where the screen looms over your head. Everything in Tokyo is nearly full, full, or too full. There was no trace of Mari Sarashina in the reception outside the chamber. 'If I was you guys,' said the guard as the elevator doors closed, 'I'd buy a fucking lottery ticket.' In the seat next to me is a girl her boyfriend's hand has been edging over the back of her seat. The elevator began its long, slow descent. Mr Donut dropped his cigarettes. We watched them lying there where they fell. Mr Donut began shaking, but with laughter or fear or what, none of us knew. Smiley closed his eyes and tilted his head back. I kept my eye on the descending floor numbers. Twitcher picked up a cigarette and lit it. This movie is brutal and cheap and fake. If people who dream up violent scripts ever came into contact with real violence, they would be too sickened to write such scenes. When the elevator doors opened we plunged into the afternoon crowds without a word. The sunny weather was a sick prank. I came to a place where street performers twisted balloons into crocodiles and giraffes, and had to dig my fingernails into my arm to stop myself crying. The movie finishes and the audience files out. I stay and watch the credits. The key grips, the animal trainers, the caterers. A new audience files in. I re-watch the movie until my brain starts to melt. After the balloon man, I wandered wherever the crowds looked thickest. I cursed myself for not leaving Tokyo after Morino. I should have known. In the cinema foyer I call Ai and quickly hang up when she answers. I get on a Yamanote circle line submarine, and sit with the drones. I wish I was a common drone. The stations roll by, and by, and by, and repeat themselves. I am too full of fear-pollution to ever sleep again.

A conductor gently shakes me awake. 'You gone around six times, kid, I thought I should wake you up.' His eyes are kind and I envy his son.

'Is it night or are we underground?'

'Quarter to eleven, Thursday the fifth. Know what year we are in?'

'Yeah, I know that.'

'You should get home while the trains are still running.'

I wish. 'I have to get to work.'

'What are you, a grave-robber?'

'Nothing so exotic... Thanks for waking me up.'

'Any time.'

The conductor moves down the compartment. Above the seats opposite, behind the swaying hand-rings, is an ad for an Internet advertising company. An apple tree grows from a computer chip, and from its computer chips fruit grow more apple trees, and from these apple trees grow more computer chips. The forest grows out of the frame and invades the advertising spaces either side. I was unaware that any part of my brain was thinking about the Kozue Yamaya disk, but an enormous idea occurs to me. I am wide, wide awake.

My mind is not here, but I never need my mind in Nero's. When I arrive on the last stroke of Thursday, I get a weird look from Sachiko she knows about my argument with Ai but it is hard to care. I think about the twenty-four-hours-ago Eiji Miyake, chicken-cooping up and down these same three-by-one square metres of Tokyo giving birth to his pizzas. Lucky, blind, cursed idiot. I wish I could warn him. I knock back a genki drink to ward off sleeplessness and start work on the backed-up orders. 'You got a nine of diamonds for me, man?' asks Doi when he returns. I forgot it. 'No. Tomorrow.' Doi congratulates himself. 'Magic is the manipulation of coincidence, man. In this life, coincidences are the only thing you can count on.' I wash my hands and face. Every time the door buzzes, I am afraid it could be a Tsuru thug. Every time the telephone rings, I am afraid Sachiko or Tomomi will appear in the hatch and hand the receiver through, saying: 'A call for you, Miyake. No name.' Doi is super-talkative tonight he tells me how he got dismissed from his last job. He was a night-watchman in a multistorey cemetery where the ashes of the dead are stored in hives of tiny locker-shrines. He was fired for substituting his own music for the tapes of Buddhist funerary mantras. 'I figured, man, if I I were stuck in a box for all eternity, which would I prefer? Priests making opening-seriously-larger-than-expected-phone-bill moans, or the golden age of rock'n'roll? No contest! I could were stuck in a box for all eternity, which would I prefer? Priests making opening-seriously-larger-than-expected-phone-bill moans, or the golden age of rock'n'roll? No contest! I could feel feel the vibes in the place change, man, whenever I put on my Grateful Dead tapes.' Doi slashes his throat with his forefinger. I hear Doi without really listening to him. His pizza comes through for delivery. I box it and off he goes. The radio plays 'I Heard It on the Grapevine' a sweaty, scheming song. Sachiko opens the hatch 'You have a mystery caller on line three!' the vibes in the place change, man, whenever I put on my Grateful Dead tapes.' Doi slashes his throat with his forefinger. I hear Doi without really listening to him. His pizza comes through for delivery. I box it and off he goes. The radio plays 'I Heard It on the Grapevine' a sweaty, scheming song. Sachiko opens the hatch 'You have a mystery caller on line three!'

'Ai?'

'Nooo...'

'Who?'

'She said it was a personal call.' Sachiko leans through to the kitchen wall phone, presses a button and hands me the receiver.

'Hello?'

The caller does not respond.

Fear makes my voice sharp. 'I don't owe you anything now!'

'Is two a. m. good morning or good night, Eiji? I'm not very sure.' A middle-aged woman, not Mama-san. She is as nervous as I am, I think.

'Look, would you just tell me who you are?'

'Me, Eiji, your mother.'

I lean against the counter.

Tomomi is studying me through the crack in the hatch. I close it.

'This is, uh, a surprise.'

'Did you get my letters? My brother said he forwarded them on to you. He said you're living in Tokyo now.'

'Yeah.'

Yeah, I got your letters. But therapy that closes wounds in you just opens wounds in me.

'So...' we both begin.

'You first,' she says.

'No, you first.'

She takes a deep breath. 'A man has asked me to marry him.'

What do I care? 'Oh.' Tomomi inches open the doors. I bang them shut savagely. Hope I broke the bitch's nose. 'Congratulations.'

'Yes. The hotelier in Nagano I told you about in my last letter.'

A hotelier, huh? Nice catch. Especially with your history.

Why are you telling me this now?

You never bothered telling us about your life before.

You never cared what we thought. Not remotely.

You want me to be happy for you? To say 'Sure, Mum, great news!'?

I very nearly put us both out of our misery and hang up.

'Where are you calling from?' I end up saying.

'I'm back at the clinic in Miyazaki. The... drink, you know. I was poorly for a very long time. That's why... But now, he the hotelier, his name is Ota by the way he says after we marry my problems are his problems too, and so... I want to get better. So I came back here.'

'I see. Good. Good luck.'

'Mrs Ota.' Ordinary, married, respectable. RESET. A new patron, a new set of bank cards, a new wardrobe. Nice. But answer my question: Why are you telling me this now?

I see.

Mr Ota doesn't know about us. You never told him. You want to make sure I'll agree keep your nasty little secrets to myself. Am I right?

'He'd love to meet you, Eiji.'

How nice of Mr Ota. Why would I want to meet this owner of fat hotels?

Twenty years is a little late to start playing the dutiful mother, Mother.

Fact is, you only ever make me unhappy. You are making me unhappy now.

So fine. Get over your drink problem, get married, live happily ever after and leave me alone. You neurotic, grasping, betraying witch.

The hatch opens a pen with a white flag waves Sachiko's untouchable Doraemon mug appears on the shelf, emitting coffee particles. The hatch closes.

'Eiji?'

The DJ cuts 'I Heard It on the Grapevine' short.

Why I say what I say now, I could never explain, not even to myself.

'Mum, how about I, uh... come and see you in Miyazaki tomorrow?'

When I finish explaining, Sachiko nods. 'Not the sort of humanitarian mission I could stand in the way of, is it? But my last order as your superior officer in the great army of Nero is this: phone my flatmate before you leave Tokyo.'

'Did she, uh, say anything?'

'I can tell her mood by her piano-playing. While you were calling her last week Ai played Chopin and nice stuff. Yesterday evening, I had to get ready for work to those blocky-cocky Erik Satie pieces he wrote to evict his neighbours.'

'I, uh, sort of messed up, Sachiko.'

'Ai is no Miss Twenty-four Hour Sunshine. Life is short, Miyake. Call her.'

'I dunno...'

'No. "Dunno" is not acceptable. Say: "I hear and obey, Miss Sera."'

'I really-'

'Shut up and say it or you'll never make pizza in this town again.'

'I hear and obey, Miss Sera.'

'Tomomi tells me you had a heavy session, man...' Doi appears in the cage with a mini food blender. 'Know what I do to subdue all those spike-vibes, man?'

I turn away. 'Doi, this is my last night. Have mercy.'

'No tricks, man! Just a magic anti-stress cocktail...' Would he put me through this if he knew I had come within one card and a burst artery of having my organs removed this afternoon? Probably, yes. 'First, strawberries!' Doi empties a punnetful into the blender. He pulls a black velvet hood over the blender and liquidizes them. He removes hood and lid. 'Then, tomatoes!' He drops three overripe tomatoes in. 'Red food massages away stress waves. Green aggravates. That's why rabbits and veggies are so uptight... What next? Raspberry juice... raw tuna... azuki beans... all the major food groups.' Doi replaces the lid, the hood, and blends. 'And last of all, the crowning glory-' With a flourish he produces a pink budgerigar from a handkerchief. It flaps, blinks and tweets. 'In you go, little guy!' He gently lowers it into the bright red liquid mush, and replaces the lid and hood. I know it is a stupid trick, so I refuse to look shocked. He lowers the blender behind the ledge between the cage and my rat-run where he switches blenders, perhaps? and then shakes the blender jug, cocktail-barman-style, to the Hawaiian slide guitar music on the radio.

'Doi!' Sachiko comes into the cage with her clipboard.

Doi jumps and puts down what he is holding guiltily.

'I hate to inconvenience you with this annoying "work" business, but...'

'Still on my break, chieftainess! Three more minutes! I'm showing Miyake my peace potion...' He picks up the blender jug, still in its black hood, and liquidizes the contents for thirty seconds. Sachiko, defeated, sits down. Doi removes the hood, the lid, and drinks the soupy liquid straight back. 'Deeelicious.'

'Wow...' Sachiko stands up, putting blender B I knew it on the ledge, minus velvet hood. 'Did you make this imitation budgie? It's so realistic. What's it made of?' She is genuinely impressed.

'Ladyboss! You gave my trick away!'

'Then don't leave your props lying around the kitchen!'

'Don't call my Tutu a prop! Budgies have feelings too, diggit?'

'Tutu doesn't look very animated for a live budgie.' Sachiko extracts the bird from the red gunge. Its head comes off in a shower of white powder.

'Doi,' I say, 'please tell me this is a part of the trick.'

'Doi's eyes bulge in pure panic. 'Oh, man...'

After the ambulance takes Doi to hospital for a stomach pump and rabies injections, I offer to do the scooter deliveries. Sachiko says she should because she knows the area better. Tomomi mans the phones alone. I prepare and box up three El Gringo thick base, gorgonzola, spicy salami, tomato and basil crust by the time Onizuka gets back. Tomomi tells him what happened to Doi for a moment I think Onizuka may abandon his principles and smile, but the danger passes and he reverts to his miserable self. Business slackens a little. By 07.30 I have already memorized the breakfast news round-up. Trade talks, summits, visiting dignitaries. This is how to control entire populations don't suppress news, but make it so dumb and dull that nobody has any interest in it. The weather on Friday, 6th October will start cloudy, with a 60 per cent chance of rain by mid-afternoon, and a 90 per cent chance of rain by evening. I scour down the counters, hoping that no more orders come in during the next thirty minutes. I need to work out the cheapest way to get to Miyazaki. I peer into the inferno six pizzas inching onwards, glowing karma-like. The radio plays a song called 'I Feel the Earth Move under My Feet'. Radios and cats both go about their business whether anyone is there or not. Unlike guitars, which sort of stop being guitars when you close their cases. Sachiko lays an envelope on the counter of my rat-run. 'I fiddled petty cash, but this is what Nero owes you.'

'Sorry to leave you in the lurch.'