The Thief (7 page)

I smoked two cigarettes and thought of Ishikawa. When I ran into Tachibana I could have questioned him more
closely, but I couldn’t trust what he said. I didn’t like the idea of being manipulated by his lies. The office where Ishikawa had worked had been turned into a beauty spa.

Suddenly I felt uneasy, like I had to get outside. I tried to decide where to go—the lounge of some high-class hotel, an exclusive brand-name shop, even Haneda Airport, where I’d thought about going before but changed my mind. I opened the door, planning to think about it as I walked. The boy was sitting in the cracked hallway. He seemed right at home in an old dump like this. He looked up at me blankly in the doorway, waiting passively.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He showed no reaction. I knew he’d been following me after we parted, but I never thought he’d come all this way. In his hand he held a brown paper bag, bigger than the one he’d had before. I think he knew that size wasn’t the issue, though.

“What is it this time?”

He held out a piece of paper. It was a list in cramped, twisted writing on the back of a flier:

Perhaps she was cooking for a male visitor.

“Impossible. These are no good for shoplifting. You should pick canned goods, processed veggies in packets, stuff like that.”

He was wearing the same blue shorts and filthy green windbreaker, and he was rubbing at his leg with his right hand. I couldn’t tell if he was doing it because of the cold or if it was unconscious, a deeply ingrained habit, but the movement of his arm was mesmerizing. When I went back inside for my bag he came in with me, still clutching his paper sack. Ishikawa would have laughed if he’d seen me now. I forced a brief smile. Then I hailed a cab, and as it pulled up the boy opened his mouth for the first time.

“Where to?”

His childish voice was high and pure, not yet worn down by his surroundings.

“You can’t go back to that supermarket. They’ll have their eye on you. We’ll go further away.”

I told the driver our destination and leaned back on the seat. For some reason the kid was staring avidly out the window at the passing scene as though he’d never seen anything like it before, his lips firmly shut.

WE ENTERED A giant supermarket in the basement of a department store and I got a basket. Then I picked up some sliced pork and slipped it in my bag, which was black with a slit hidden in the pattern so that I could put things inside without undoing the zip.

Once the boy saw my hand move he kept glancing at the bag.

“Grab the edge of my coat,” I told him. “Pretend I’m your father and stay right beside me. Your body will help hide the bag.”

I put a couple of packed lunches into the basket as camouflage while I filled the bag. This time the store detective was a woman in glasses, close to retirement age. The basket of her shopping cart was loaded with stuff so she’d look like a normal customer, but since she had to be on
duty for a long time there were no perishables among them. She was keeping an eye on a woman in her forties with dyed brown hair who was walking along the aisle, her long white down jacket swinging from side to side.

“Stay there, but watch that woman.”

Holding her basket in one hand, the woman in the white jacket quickly shoved a box of chocolates in her pocket. The security guard missed that one but kept following her as though she was sure the woman was up to something. They disappeared around the corner.

“Probably she’s sick.”

“Sick?”

“Stealing stuff without realizing it. There are people like that.”

I was careful to keep my expression neutral.

“Maybe it’s Pick’s disease. That’s also called early-onset
dementia
. But it’s strange, a complete mystery. Why does the subconscious mind make people steal? Why does it have to be stealing? Don’t you think it’s something deep-rooted in our nature?”

The boy shook his head to show that he didn’t know.

“But now’s our chance. It’s crowded and that store detective isn’t here.”

I put everything that was on the list into my bag, and beer, water and ham into the basket. Then we paid at the checkout and left.

WE WENT TO a park, and when I handed the boy one of the lunches he started eating without a word. I passed him a bottle of water but he barely touched it. Meat, omelet—he shoveled the food down so fast I thought he’d choke.

I opened a beer and chewed some ham. Dirty clouds were gradually closing in, blocking the light from the sun. In the distance a group of children clustered around a bench with Gameboys in their hands, all focused on the screens.

“As a kid, you have to choose what to take when you shoplift,” I told him. “Otherwise it’s too hard.”

He looked at me between mouthfuls.

“Sweets, or at most soft drinks. It’s pretty hard for you to take veggies from a supermarket.”

I touched his windbreaker.

“What you could do, for example, is sew a pouch inside your jacket. Then you make a hole in your pocket so that it
opens into the pouch. Or you can make a slit along the zip in the front so that it’s hidden by the flap. You put everything in the pouch, and you stop before it gets too full.”

Before I knew it he’d finished his lunch.

“Or a bag. A school bag is too conspicuous. A satchel like you would take to cram school is good. If you make a cut in a bag like the one I was using, you can put all sorts of stuff in. Then there’s stealing. Wallets.”

“I’ve done that.”

He was watching the gang of kids on the other side of the park.

“On a crowded train with my mom.”

“Really?”

“This wallet was sticking out of an old guy’s pocket. I thought it looked like I could take that, I wondered if I could take it, and I took it. It had seven thousand yen in it. I’ve done it a few times since then. On trains by myself.”

“Let’s try it.”

I put my own wallet in my back pocket and stood up. He bumped my left leg, as if by accident. Shifting his weight to his left, he took my wallet with his right hand.

“Not bad, but you should stop. I mean, it’s still just for fun and you’re not used to it. Anyway, you really do it like
this, with two or three fingers. You don’t use your thumbs like that. I guess you can’t help it, though, since your fingers are short and you still don’t have much strength.”

I finished my beer.

“You could use a tool. It’s got a tip like a fish-hook to snag the wallet.”

“Have you got one?”

“I don’t use tools. But there’s a famous pickpocket who did.”

“Who?” he asked, staring at me.

“A man called Barrington. An Irishman who lived in England a long time ago. He was in a theater company that was invited to noblemen’s houses, and he picked those rich people’s pockets like there was no tomorrow. He made the tools himself and was really good with them. He stole from ambassadors and Members of Parliament, even disguised himself as a priest. They call him the Prince of Pickpockets. He was brilliant, they say.”

“Anyone else?”

“Well, you probably don’t need to know about them.”

“Huh?”

He looked at me in surprise. Then he seemed embarrassed, as if he’d chattered too much, even though I was the
one who’d been doing all the talking. His skinny legs poked out from his shorts and his shoes were covered with dirt.

“There was also this eccentric who’d put a card with his own name on it in the wallet he’d lifted and then put it back. A famous American pickpocket called Dawson. And an amazing man, Angelillo, who’s estimated to have stolen a hundred thousand wallets. A woman called Emilie was arrested for picking pockets and in the middle of her trial she pinched the judge’s glasses case. Apparently the whole court burst out laughing.”

The boy’s mouth twitched slightly.

“What about in Japan?”

“There was a really good one called Koharu. In the old days coin purses were popular. They had a clasp that would snap shut like this. Some people wore them hanging on a cord around their neck. This woman Koharu could undo their coats and take the money from inside the purse. A technique called ‘nakanuki.’ What’s more, the story goes that after she emptied the purse she’d close it again and button up their coat. Incredible skill.”

“Really?”

“Surrounded by misery, those people laughed at the whole world.”

Seeing the time on the big clock, the kids put away their games and left the park. A young couple went by, walking a dog. A little girl holding her mother’s hand was looking at us and saying something.

“There’s also someone who took ten million yen in one day.”

“Ten million yen?”

“Yeah, a guy I know. He’s dead, probably.”

The boy looked up at me. I remembered my last glimpse of Ishikawa’s face nodding at me, and the van’s red tail lights disappearing down the street.

“People like that generally come to a bad end. So don’t follow them. It’s not worth it.”

I showed him the 220,000 yen I’d taken from the old man with the grandson.

“I’m going to give you all of this. Next time you’re told to go to the supermarket and steal, use this cash to buy the stuff. Don’t come and see me again.”

“Why not?”

“I’m busy.”

I stood up from the bench. The boy walked in silence, moving closer to me and then moving away. When we parted he still didn’t say a word. By the time I got home
I felt a chill. Even getting under the duvet didn’t warm me up, and I figured I’d caught a cold. Going out to buy medicine froze me even more, but I took some drugs and tried to sleep.

I spent most of the next two days huddled under the covers. The ringing of the doorbell woke me from a dream of Saeko. I ignored it but it didn’t stop. I couldn’t tell if it was early evening or the middle of the night. I lit a cigarette, though I couldn’t taste it. When I opened the door the boy’s mother was standing there.

10
She was wearing a short skirt with black patterned stockings. She stared at me suspiciously and then peered into my room, her gaze moving back and forth in bewilderment, even though she had come here of her own accord. She fiddled with the button on her bag, her right eye twitching fiercely, and finally looked up at me searchingly. When she did that she looked just like her son.

“What do you want?” I said.

“Um.”

Her eye closed tightly once more.

“You live in a place like this?”

“What?”

I realized it was raining outside and she was carrying an umbrella. In the drizzle a foreigner in work clothes was smoking a cigarette as he crossed the dimly-lit alleyway.

“I’m here because my boy said you gave money to him. A hundred thousand yen!”

Suddenly I’d had enough.

“You’ve come to give it back?”

“No way. I’m not giving it back. But why’d you do it?”

“No reason.”

“It’s kind of creepy, isn’t it?”

No doubt it did seem creepy, but I couldn’t believe that was her only reason for coming all this way.

“It’s OK. Go home.”

“Let me in. Or I’ll scream.”

She twisted her lips, trying to force a smile. I went back inside and she took off her boots, grumbling to herself. The way her right eye flickered, her nervous tension, reminded me of Saeko. When she removed her white half-length
coat she was wearing a close-fitting white sweater that emphasized her breasts.

I swept aside a tangle of clothes with my foot, planning to sit down, but she planted herself in the space before me. Money was scattered on the ironing board in the corner, mixed with scraps of paper. I went and sat on the bed.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked, still inspecting my room.

“None of your business. Now what do you want?”

“Why did you give him that much? Was it for that?”

“What?”

“I mean, you must have done something to him. If I went to the cops you’d be in trouble.”

She screwed up her face and glared at me as hard as she could. I grinned in amusement. She was too upset even to blackmail me properly.

“I’d never do anything like that.”

“But there must be a reason. You can’t fool me.”

“It’s because he looks like my dead son,” I lied.

She looked away for a second, uncertain. I continued, saying the first thing that came into my head.

“He’s the spitting image of my dead boy. I’ve got money,
but houses and stuff don’t mean anything to me so I live here. I rent a bunch of places all over Japan. For me, a hundred thousand yen is nothing. I saw this poor kid shoplifting, so I gave him some money on an impulse. Like a donation. I was drunk. Anyway, you’re the one who can’t afford to go the cops.”

“But….”

She seemed to be thinking about something. She looked at the money tossed carelessly on the ironing board, then at the clothes in the closet.

“So you didn’t….”

“I didn’t.”

“But still…. Um, well, I wasn’t absolutely sure that’s what it was.”

She looked down and then faced me again, as if she’d decided to take the plunge.

“In that case, be my client. Business has fallen off lately. My boyfriend spends money like water and I’m really in the shit. I need cash by tomorrow. I know I said before that ten thousand yen would do, but I need about fifty thousand straight away. He looks like your dead son, doesn’t he?”

“I think I’ll pass.”

For some reason I sounded disgusted. She looked at
me blankly, her right eye firmly closed. She was breathing heavily through her mouth.

“Are you kidding?” she shouted suddenly. “Don’t you fucking make fun of me!”

I was taken by surprise but tried not to show it. Unnatural wrinkles appeared on her face. She pounded the floor and made unintelligible gasping noises as if she couldn’t control herself. Her emotions didn’t seem to follow any predictable pattern. When I looked closely, I saw that her chin and shoulders were too thin for the rest of her body. Her neck and the backs of her hands were covered with red marks like she’d scratched herself.