The Ruined Map (15 page)

For the second time the siren howled like a frightened calf. Finally the brother came back, biting his lower lip, grinding the pebbles under his feet, and making no attempt to hide his anger. The cook at once filled a steaming mug which the brother snatched up.

“Big joke. They told me there were only three girls. Are they up to something or what?”

“You know, nothing but colds just now,” replied the cook, shaking his head vehemently left and right. Taking up a green kettle with an enamelware handle, he filled to the brim another mug he had set out.

“Colds? Come on!” he laughed nervously, turning slowly to look at me. “Bad people do bad things. I give up. I let them do business for a fixed fee—those old bags, nobody else would have anything to do with them. Why don’t they really work hard and earn enough money and get out of the business? They’re too old to be protected by pimps.”

Suddenly the ground trembled and the darkness reverberated. Work had begun. The figures of several men came
running down with short, dancing steps, outlined against the band of light that followed the horizon of the embankment. The relief gang was coming, probably after a quick bath or a swallow of saké.

“There are only three girls? What are you going to do?”

This time, before taking the mug in his hands, he bent over and took several preliminary sips. The light that gathered in the bottom of the thick cup glistened. A ray shifted to his jaw, tracing a moon-shaped arc.

“Is this supposed to be your business?”

“Business?” he inquired, sniffing slightly and smiling bashfully. “Well, it’s different from a robber or a highwayman, I guess. When you have a permanent building it’s a bother, of course. But according to the law it’s okay as long as you move around by car. Interesting, isn’t it? The philosophy of the law here is a respect for human life in case of flood.”

“Was it quite some time ago that you started here?”

“Right after the work began. About last July, I think.”

Last July? Let’s see. Yes, the month M Fuel Suppliers became connected with Dainen Enterprises. The points of contact between the two links had strengthened. But were there two links, really? On the contrary, wasn’t there probably only one? In August the husband had vanished. I should make up my mind and ask about this; what in heaven’s name can the basis for shaking the fuel suppliers down be? No, if it were simply a question of asking and getting an answer, he would have exposed the trick himself long ago. Then should I pull in the net of the investigation with him as the object? But if I deliberately closed the net and if I caught my client along with him, then what? I was going round and round in depressing circles.

“Come on, I’ll have a drink too. It’s okay if you park around here, isn’t it? I can’t stand this cold.”

“Very commendable precaution,” he said, looking up at me cunningly. “As far as this place is concerned, you can have confidence in me. You can park here, if you want. There’s no ceiling, but I control this side of the embankment practically like my own house.”

“Maybe so, but …,” the cook muttered inaudibly, sliding the mug in front of me.

“What do you mean by that?” Grimly the brother took him to task. “For Christ’s sake, what are you griping about? Come on, speak up.”

“I’m not griping,” he replied indolently, swinging his body. “And don’t say I am.”

“Well, speak up then. What’s the matter tonight?”

Like a bored monkey, the cook continued to swing his body.

“Hey! Look! Looks like the customers made a damn good start this evening. Maybe a little too good.”

“A fine business.”

“Really, haven’t you heard anything?”

“What?”

“Well …” For the first time the cook seemed worried and raised his bloated face, looking directly at the brother. “I’m talking about the rowdiness around here tonight for some reason. Just when the construction chief is absent.”

“Come on, let’s have exactly what’s on your mind.”

“I don’t know. It’s just hearsay. There are no girls around and I’m relieved about that. But, what I don’t like is that the girls aren’t the only ones taking off. If what they say is true, they must be a bit short-handed, aren’t they? Of the
young boys in your gang only three showed up this evening, didn’t they.”

“So what’s the rumor? I’m asking.”

“Everybody knows. Well, since it’s about you, I count on you taking the necessary precautions. Boy, it’s really bad when
you
don’t know what they’re saying.”

Our bus was the only one where customers had not gathered. In the space of several minutes, as we were absorbed in our saké, around each lantern four or five men—at the most seven or eight—welled up, as it were, out of the darkness and formed a human fence. But I did not sense a particularly uneasy atmosphere, perhaps because I did not know the usual pattern. Everyone of them, in the same hunched-over stance, merely pecked at his dish of boiled vegetables and gulped down his saké. If I were forced to find something worrisome, it would be, I suppose, the number of men wearing work helmets, although they were off duty. But even so, the helmets might be simply to keep out the cold. The five silhouettes, their stance unchanged, stood quietly around the bonfire. It looked as if no one was still bantering with the girls.

Suddenly, a sharp tensing appeared in the muscles of the brother’s throat. He seemed to stretch his neck forward slightly, like a bird ready to strike, his hands still clasping the unfinished glass of saké. Abruptly he strode off in the direction of the bonfire. He walked on the balls of his feet, trying to keep from stumbling on the stones, and his back, swallowed by the larger darkness, was no longer like a wall.

“What’s going to happen with those guys?”

“He’s not a bad fellow,” said the cook, beginning to shake his head in his usual fashion and taking another cigarette. “He’s not bad, really, but he’s not likable. And since he
knows a thing or two, he’s even worse. It was especially stupid for him to let the guys in the bunkhouse order food and drink on credit. He’s been giving hush money to the head clerk in the office, you know. He gets him to take what they owe on credit out of their salaries.”

“I see.”

“It’s no fun leaving home to work in a place like this. And when you can buy on credit, even though you know you’re going to regret it later on, like it or not, the purse strings manage to loosen.”

“But it’s funny to go on a rampage because of that, isn’t it?”

“Well, you see, payday’s after tomorrow—the fifteenth. What about another sniff?”

“Well, okay … for cash …”

Placing his cigarette on a corner of the range, the cook chuckled, and when I looked, drawn toward a section of the frame of the chassis where he had glanced, I could see from where I sat the whole scene in the river bed mirrored in an oblong, curved reflector. The five shadows around the bonfire were all looking into the fire, motionless and quiet, like people in a picture. The cook continued speaking as if to himself.

“No, he’s not a bad sort. Look, all these girls are rejects. The men living on a work site like this would fuck a hole in a tree, otherwise they’d take to their heels with soft pricks at the sight of them. The girl with the biggest clientele beats a mare’s cunt. She can take on a hundred men, and right in the middle she snores away. The story goes she’s put away a hundred thousand yen.”

“Does he have some enemy?”

“Look,” he lowered his voice abruptly, “I don’t like the
way the customers are gathering a little before the corner over there … pretty strange. Don’t you think it’s funny? I don’t like it … this rumble. The one on the embankment must be a lookout … there.”

“Aren’t you getting carried away?”

“I don’t like the way those guys are pouring it down. One after the other the buses are emptying. They’ll be coming over here soon.”

“Somebody’s pulling the strings from behind the scene, don’t you think?”

“I … I don’t know.”

“Somebody local, with influence … a councilman, for instance.”

“Do you have a badge? If you do, say behind your lapel, get rid of it quick.”

Yet I couldn’t take it all seriously. Even if something were brewing, it would doubtless be at most some unpleasant words or a demonstration. A demonstration would mean, in other words, that the brother had enemies. The most important thing now was to get some clue as to who the enemy was. There’s a beginning and an end to every cycle. In any labyrinth, if there’s an entrance there’s got to be an exit. Well, do what you can and do your best to make a good showing.

It may have been the cold or the tension, but I felt no effects from the saké. Or was it that, since the glasses were so thick, I had not drunk so much as I calculated from the number of glasses piled up? I asked for still another; perhaps this was the fourth.

Finally, three workmen came swaying over to my bus, their arms linked together, and got in. The three were weaving because two of them were supporting on either side the
already dead-drunk one in the middle, who was wearing a padded kimono. The big fellow on the left with a square jaw glanced sharply at my face and my chest, but said nothing. Was he, in fact, looking for a badge? Between shouts of “Saké! Saké!” the man in the padded kimono sobbed in a choked voice.—“You! I’m on the list of missing persons for investigation. Ha, ha. My wife’s put in a request at the town hall for an all-out search.”—“Never mind,” said the smaller one, a friendly, balding man, patting his sobbing comrade on the back, “if you start worrying about that, there’ll never be an end to it.”—“Saké!” shouted the man in the padded kimono, still grumbling. “What’s a missing person? I’ll send a letter. If they knew I was working that’d be the end of the welfare checks. That’s what I told my wife. Try and put up with it for two years and not say anything. Be patient, and just imagine your husband’s dead. You can scratch along on welfare.” The larger fellow spoke in a quiet voice that carried surprisingly: “Don’t worry, it’s not your wife’s fault. It’s the interference from the city government. Interference from the government wanting to cut off your welfare checks. The head of the gang came with the search papers and threatened her. Look at this. Shall I contact city hall, or will you write a letter yourself? Don’t worry, we’re witnesses that you’re here. Look, you’ve got hands and feet; it’s a big laugh, you being missing. You are right here, aren’t you?”—“Right, I am. Ah ha!”—“You’re right here,” chimed the big fellow and the small one from either side.—“Saké, damn it! Still, do I have to write a letter? It’s a plot in the government office. Never mind. I’m so sad. I can’t play my favorite pinball any more. I’m missing. I get drunk all the time.”

The cook raised his thumb in a kind of signal. When I
glanced in the wide-view mirror attached to the frame, the brother, standing in the darkness midway between the bonfire and the buses, was beckoning intently to me with his hand. I slipped out of the bus quietly so as not to be noticed by the three men. It was hard walking because of the irregular stones peculiar to the river bed. Or maybe I was drunker than I realized. The brother took hold of my arm as if inviting me into the darkness and suddenly began to walk away at an angle, breathing hard.

“Things look pretty funny. You’d better be taking off.”

“Funny? In what way?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, glancing around restlessly. “I have the feeling they’re plotting against me.”

“I just saw a funny drunk. On the verge of blubbering. Says he’s being investigated as a missing person.”

“Such stupid morons, really.”

“I hope the fuel supplier’s boss is not in the plot.”

Dropping my arm, he stopped an instant and peered at me. “Stop imagining such nonsense,” he said. “I’ve been telling you. It’s a waste of time to come snooping around here. Money comes and money goes, but thirty thousand yen is still quite a bit. I’m asking you … get out of here quick.”

“But I’m drunk.”

“Being drunk’s nothing, if those guys really get rough. Don’t be silly,” he said. At that very instant a gang of men—seven or eight of them—who had slowly cut across near the bonfire, as if to move among the buses, suddenly changed direction and surrounded the fire. It was unclear who struck out first, but suddenly the dark silhouettes turned into a tangled mass. Two of the girls shrieked and began running toward us. But they were captured at once. More reinforcements came, and the girls, like sacks of potatoes, were hoisted
on shoulders, several men to each one, and carried away into the darkness beyond the circle of buses. Their cracked voices, shouting abuses and calling for help, came wailing back. Instantly, outcries and sounds of things breaking exploded from the bus nearest the embankment, drowning out the girls’ screams. There came the sound of breaking glass; and thrown rocks, clearing the bus, landed at my feet. Around the bonfire the situation had changed, and the three men had already shifted to counterattack. A screaming workman had been dragged in between them, something was swung over his head, and he was thrown violently down. He was kicked—possibly his arm was broken—and he fell writhing on the stones of the river bed. Several workmen knocked over the burning drum and, brandishing flaming pieces of wood, set upon the three men. But the reactions of the three youths were instantaneous and smooth. Apparently, they had got hold of some effective weapon, for they at once put their attackers to retreat. The workmen then began to use the fire to attack the buses. They began throwing the burning brands through the broken windows. They launched an attack against the three youths by throwing rocks. The three returned the fire, but victory went to the larger numbers. Little by little the young men gave ground; by that time all the buses had become objects of attack. The gas range had been dragged out. The gas tank had begun to send out flames. Pieces of crockery were smashed one after the other. But the destructive power of the mob could not be totally effective, for the force of the attacks was dispersed by the seductions of the saké and cheap whisky, which were now being swilled greedily, and, of course, by the two women who had been carried away down the river bed.

“I’m going to talk things over with the office people,”
yelled the brother, threading his way through the confusion and beginning to run. Just as he was crossing the semicircle of buses, he was overtaken by several workmen and thrown to the ground. Nevertheless, I made no move toward him. As I intently observed the black, agonizing, squirming mass, I did not regret nor did I feel particularly responsible for not extending a helping hand.