Number 9 dream Page 0,125

through her half-moon glasses. Suga glares at the fallen video rack. ‘Poltygeists liv’nn heeer, Miyake. Needter leanov’r theeer a mo, mo-mo, justamo . . .’ He tightrope-walks to the counter, lifting his head towards the monitor. ‘Cassyblanca.’ The movie is actually Bladerunner. I right the rack and collect the videos boxes. Suga dangles his head, broken-puppet-style. ‘Myaki.’

‘Suga. Nice to, uh . . .’

Suga loses spittle control. I intercept the saliva stalactite with the Tokyo Post. ‘Notdrunk, nvergetdrunk, notme. Happy, happy, he-he-hep-py, yes, mebbe, butnotnever out-of-cont. Roll.’ He sinks to his knees, his knuckles gripping the edge of the cliff. Even Uncle Pachinko on a whisky bender is not this hopeless. ‘Wentaseeya, Mishish Shashashaki sedyja quit. ByebyeUenobyebye, badvibes, bad, badbadbadvibes in Ueno, where allverlostnf’gottn orphans ended after the war, did did y’knowthat? Died like flies, poorlittlpootlittl . . .’ Tears blossom in Suga’s eyes and one runs down his pocked cheeks. Death-Ray Specs has a rape-alarm-in-a-library shrill: ‘Too much! The way you youngsters behave today makes me vomit out my own lungs!’ She leaves before I can begin an apology. For a moment I wish Suga would pass out – I could pretend not to know him and maybe an ambulance would take him away. ‘Suga! You need to get home! You drank too much!’

Suga sniffs and focuses on me with puffy dogfish eyes. ‘I’m curshed.’

‘Have you got enough money for a taxi?’

‘Curshed.’

‘Can you tell me your address, Suga?’

He clenches his eyes and deliberately whacks his head back on the front of the counter as hard as he can, which luckily is not too hard as his neck control functions are off-line, but even so his face is bright with pain. I hold his head and he pushes me away. ‘I’m curshed, Miyake! Dontchoogettitt? Curshed! One donut! For one fcknmeashly donut! Littlkid, kindygartn littlkid, waiting jushinside th’bakery doordoor, hewuzcryin’seyes out . . .’ The tears begin again and Suga trembles. A scared dog sort of shiver.

‘Suga, my room is upstairs, I’m going to—’

‘One’ – whack! – ‘meashly’ – whack! – ‘donut. I opnd the door, littlkid runs out, fastazafastaza.’ Sugas eyes screw up in pain. ‘Batman’n’Robn on his T-shirt, littlkid, straight intr the middlvthe . . . road . . .’ Suga blubs and his breathing is chopped and sliced. ‘Wtchythink Idid, Miyake? Swoooooopd t’th’rescue, d’ythink? Nope, Miyake, nope nope nope rootd, rootd, I’s rootd. T’th’spot, Miyake. Saw. Heard. Audiovshl. Car. Brakes. Littlkid. Wham, wham, wham. Flew, littlkid, flew like a baggashopping, ber-lattt, bowlingball, bloodontheroad, markerpen . . .’ Suga’s fingers claw for a ripcord on his face to pull – I grip his hands in my fists. Suga is losing his will to resist. ‘Mum, she . . . pushpass-pusspashme, wailing right . . . AaarrrAaarrrAaaaaarrrrrr . . . I ran. Ran ran ran . . . Ran, Miyake, nverstppd never, run, Suga run, you MURDER-RER . . . Suga the mudderer.’ Suga swallows a stone of grief. ‘Betchawishdyr poisoned th’pineapple now, doncha? Howdjathink I got this pizza cheezgraterskin? Curshed. Icrossaroad, Isee Littlkid. Iseeanuvva Littlkid, Isee Littlkid. Curshed. Curshed.’ His eyes ease themselves shut.

I see.

I take the key from the till, and manhandle the sack of Suga upstairs. ‘Toilet. If you piss my futon I’ll blowtorch your computers, okay? Suga? You hear me?’ Suga nods, bleared and mumbly beyond grammar. ‘I’ll be downstairs.’ Down at the till a girl in a cow-print T-shirt stands holding every Brad Pitt video in the shop. She studies her watch and emits a sigh of pain. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ I say. She ignores me. I hear Suga barf. Barf one, Cowgirl looks puzzled. Barf two, Cowgirl breaks her vow of non-interaction and stares at me questioningly. Barf three, Cowgirl says, ‘Can you hear anything?’ I look at her as if she is an utter lunatic. ‘Nothing. Why?’ She leaves and I rearrange the fallen video cases on the rack. My toilet flushes, which is sort of encouraging. A flurry of custom follows. I have lost track of who is human and who is a replicant on Bladerunner. I wonder how many years Suga has been carrying his cursh around with him. I forget that other people in the world have broken parts too. Eleven o’clock swings around, and the night shows no sign of cooling. I hear a thump or two upstairs: at least I don’t have a dead body on the premises to explain to Buntaro. I hear the drumming of water, and for a moment think the heat has turned