Non-Stop Till Tokyo (14 page)

“No.” Heavy exhalation. “Okay. I guess you better stay out of the cities till we can get you out of Japan—”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Hear me out. You can disappear in the countryside pretty easily till we find you a passport. I know a guy can help you. He ain’t on the phone, is the only problem, but if I give you a letter, you can—”

“Letter? Where will you be?”

“Somewhere a long way away with a Japanese girl your height. Decoy. We get Taka to send a local guy to look after you—”

“Hold on a minute. You’re not leaving me. You aren’t, are you? Chanko, you promised!”

“I’m no good outside a big city—”

“So let’s go to a big city!”

“—and even in a city, I’m liable to attract more attention than you need. Goddamn, Butterfly, this is serious. I don’t know what the hell Taka thought he was doing sending someone so easily spotted—”

“Taka’s mental. He managed to do the right thing for once in his life when he sent you. I’m not asking for someone else, he’d probably hire a Kabuki clown, and anyway I don’t want to go to some rural shithole. I want to go to a
city
. Somewhere nobody knows your name and people don’t look at you twice and nobody gives a damn if you live or die. Civilisation.”

He smiled for the first time since the love hotel. “You’re not a country girl, are you? I can tell.”

“In the country, nobody can hear you scream.”

“You got a point, at that.” He scowled. “Cities. Kyoto’s full of tourists, but Osaka’s closer, and there’s a lot of international trade there. They both got international airports, too, and good transport links. Okinawa, you get people who look like me, but they might be thinking that way too. I figure—”

My old phone shrilled. I jumped about a foot in my seat.

“Withheld number,” I whispered.

“Pulling over,” said Chanko briefly, doing so.

I clicked the button and licked my lips. “
Moshi-moshi
.”

“Good morning, Ekudaru-san.” An unfamiliar voice, smooth and controlled and under heavy restraint. “I hope you slept well.”

“Very well, thank you,” I said automatically.

“Have you had a pleasant morning so far?” said Voice through his teeth. “Relaxing?”

“Delightful, thank you. We had peppers for breakfast.”

Piman
, bell pepper, is the Japanese equivalent of calling someone a vegetable. I caught Chanko’s expression when I said it, but I wasn’t just being provocative for the sake of it. I wanted to know if he’d heard back about his goons yet.

I guess he had.

“You fucking little bitch!” he roared, making me jerk in my seat. “Lying whore. What game are you gaijin sluts playing? How dare you attack the Mitsuyoshi-kai, you filth?”

“I’m not playing anything. You’re the ones attacking me!” I screamed back. “I never touched the old man and I never touched your bag, and I never did anything to you, so you’re trying to kill me for nothing. Why don’t you leave me alone?”

He sucked in a harsh breath. “Don’t play the innocent. You have attacked five of my men.”

“They attacked me first! For God’s sake, can’t you tell it wasn’t me? You
have
the guilty person. You’ve already done terrible things to my friend. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!”

Chanko gripped my shoulder warningly. I took a deep breath.

“No, I don’t think so,” said the voice. “No. You see, the American bitch is a very stupid woman. She can’t speak Japanese. She didn’t run away. She has nobody in this country. She
is
nobody. But you speak excellent Japanese, and you have eluded our people for several days, and you have very effective protection, and you want us to believe
you
are the one who was not involved? I don’t think so. Who are you, and where is the bag?”

“I’m just a hostess.” My voice was thin and reedy. “That’s all. You’re wrong.”

“Just a hostess,” he repeated. “Just a common bar slut, but you think you can fuck with the Mitsuyoshi-kai.”

“I’m not fucking with anyone. You started this. I did nothing. I’m just trying to stay out of your way until—”

He spoke over me. “Bring me the bag.”

“I don’t have the bag. I—do—not—have—it. Is there something wrong with my Japanese, perhaps, that I am not making myself clear? I don’t have your bag.”

“Then get it,” he said, very clearly. “You will bring me the bag. Today. Or we’ll put Toyoda Yoshikatsu in hospital, and Katori Noriko in the ground.”

I opened my mouth but nothing would come.

“The bag will be returned to the Mitsuyoshi-kai, intact, today,” he said, enunciating the order. “Or we will kill Katori. Slowly. Perhaps we will send the same men to her, hmm? That might wake her up. Then Toyoda. Maybe we will do to him what we did to Katori. He might enjoy that, wouldn’t you say? And that fat fucker, we’ll cut him up for whale meat.” His voice slowed, lingered. “And last of all, you. Many of us will
enjoy
meeting you.”

He went on and on, dwelling lovingly on details that my mind flinched from. I was trying to speak, but it was worse than a nightmare. My whole throat had closed up, my lungs were crumpling in my chest, my guts were liquid.

“I don’t have it,” I whispered. “I’m not in Tokyo. I can’t do it.”

“Then your friends are dead.”

“Wait. No. Stop. I’ll…I’ll get it, I’ll find it, but you have to give me time. I beg you, please, sir, please just give me more time, let me get to Tokyo, I swear I’ll find the bag if you want it, just please give me time!”

There was a silence that stretched out forever.

“Seventy-two hours. That’s all, bitch.” He rang off.

I didn’t even realise how hard I was gripping the phone till I felt Chanko prising it out of my locked fingers.

“Butterfly?”

“Drive. Just—just drive for a bit, okay?”

He pulled back into the sparse stream of traffic without comment, while I breathed deeply and tried to make the drumming in my head go away.

Chanko didn’t say a thing.

“They’re going to kill us,” I said at last.

“Gotta catch you first.”

“No. Us. Noriko and Yoshi and—and you, and me.”

“Me, huh?” He sounded mildly interested.

“Yeah. I think you annoyed them.”

“They have my name?”

“No. They just said…you know, the big guy.”

“Yeah?”

“
That fat fucker
, if you must know.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied. “They know who Noriko-san is, and who you are. You sure they know about your—about Yoshi-san?”

“Yeah. Oh, Jesus, I have to call him.”

“Tell me what they said first.”

I told him. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want it to be real.

“So they think…”

“They think nobody could be as stupid as that stupid bitch Kelly. They actually think her stupid plan to frame me was so stupid that it must be me being clever framing her.”

“They might not,” said Chanko calmly. “They might be covering all the bases. It’s a possibility, so they’re acting to you like they think it’s for definite, but you don’t know they mean it. You can’t take shit at face value, not in this situation.”

I thought about this. “But do you think they meant it? About Noriko, and Yoshi?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. We got to assume they did.”

“Shit. Chanko, what am I going to do?”

“Leave the country. Any means necessary. Hide out till Taka gets you a false passport and get the fuck out. This ain’t funny any more. Call your friends, tell them to pack a bag and go.”

“What about Noriko?” I said, and answered my own question. “Hospital flight or something. Okay. Alright, I have to call Yoshi, then I’ll ask Taka about passports, and…yeah. We’ll just go.”

Like it would be that easy.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Yoshi had interrupted me before I got to any of the important bits. “Are you joking? We can’t move Noriko and I’m not leaving her.”

“We have to move her.”

“We can’t. Why—”

“Because they’re going to kill you. You personally, Yoshi. They know your name. They said, if I don’t magically produce this stupid bag Kelly stole, they are going to kill you and Noriko and me and Chanko.”

“What?” he said, and then, “
What?
”

“They know who you are. They gave me your name. They threatened you.”

“No, wait. Wait. They can’t know anything about me. It’s just threats. They just know my name because I visited Noriko. This—”

“I’m sorry, Yoshi. But he said they were going to do to you what they did to Noriko—”

Yoshi made a strangled noise in his throat.

“And he said a stupid, vile thing—that you might enjoy it.” I swallowed. “They might know more than your name.”

“They’ve been looking—Taka!” he yelled away from the phone. “
Taka!
Oh my God. Kechan, what are we going to do?”

“Leave.” I approximated Chanko’s stating-the-obvious tone as best I could. “Pack a bag and go. I’ll get the money together to get Nori-chan onto a medical flight, you’ll go with her—”

“No. Wait.”

“Yoshi, we have to hurry. I don’t know if they’re watching her—”

“No. Kechan, you don’t understand. We can’t move her.”

Something in his voice made the hairs on my arms prickle. “Yoshi?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, then a painfully indrawn breath.

“Yoshi! What’s happening? How is Noriko?”

“Not very good. She… I told you she has bleeding on the brain. They had to operate last night to relieve the pressure. It—it doesn’t look good.” I could hear tears in his voice now. “Moving her didn’t help. I mean, it really didn’t. It probably caused the bleeding. She’s in such a delicate state… We can’t move her again. Not till she gets better.”

“She is going to get better, though. Isn’t she?” I hadn’t let myself think anything else. “Yoshi, she is going to make it, right?”

“It’s…it’s a bit different,” he said.

“No.” I pushed the phone harder against my ear, to hear his quiet, defeated voice and to stop the shaking in my hands. “No.”

“Maybe… I don’t know. They really hurt her, Kechan. I don’t know, and even if she did recover she might never…”

He tailed off. I held the phone tightly, listening to his efforts to get his breathing under control, struggling with the constriction in my own throat.

“I can’t go,” he said. “She hasn’t got anyone else. I can’t let her die alone. I can’t let her wake up and find the only people at her bedside are the yakuza. I can’t leave her, Kechan. You go.”

“No.”

“Yes. If it was the other way around, if I was running and you were here with Noriko, you’d stay. I know you would. And I’d run, because it’s the only logical course of action. This is just…how it is. Please, Kechan, go. But I can’t.”

I stared at the road ahead, the brown bonnet of the car with its chips and dents, the empty plains and distant mountains. I could just keep travelling on forever, I thought. Leave it all behind. So easy. Start a new life, forget the old, and never, ever look back.

“Right,” I said at last, rawly. “Okay. Text me your account details.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m putting money in there directly, to make it faster. I should be able to get a bit together. Spend everything you need on Noriko, and tell me if you need more.”

“Kechan…”

“If anything happens to me, the money’s yours. Please, do me the favour of allowing me to give it to you. Please!”

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I will. But don’t let anything happen to you, Kechan. Where are— No, don’t tell me where you’re going.” He swallowed, then continued with an awful effort at lightness: “I hope it’s somewhere nice.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s lovely. It’s Tokyo.”

“
What?
”

“I’m coming back to Tokyo. Now. Today.”

“The hell you are!” said Yoshi and Chanko in stereo.

“The hell I’m not. Do I meet you at Taka’s or somewhere else?”

“You can’t come back. Kechan, have you gone mad?”

“Tell Taka, okay? Get him to call Chanko. See you this evening, honey.”

“Kechan!” he squawked down the phone as I hit the button.

“No way,” said Chanko. “No. We need to head to Osaka. Or Hiroshima, or—”

“Tokyo.”

“Butterfly—”

“No. Noriko might not make it.”

“Hell,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too. And she can’t be moved. And Yoshi won’t leave her. And I’m not leaving Yoshi.”

“And I’m not driving you straight into the family’s hands.”

“Then don’t,” I told him, staring ahead. “Just drop me off where I can get a Shinkansen, okay? I’ll go myself.”

“You’re not going to Tokyo.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”