uniform. When Sachiko introduces us, he says this: ‘Last guy before you, he fucked up the orders. Customers gave me shit. Don’t you fuck up the orders.’ He comes from Tohoku and still has a northern accent as thick as crude oil – this worries me, in case I mistake a mortal threat for a weather remark. Doi is ancient, over forty, walks with a limp and has a Jesus-being-crucified expression. Suffering, spaced-out screensaver eyes, not much hair on his head but loads on his chin. ‘Don’t let Onizuka get you down, man,’ he tells me. ‘The man is mellow. Saw to my motor for free, man. Smoke dope?’ When I say no, he shakes his head sadly. ‘Youth of today, man, you misspend the prime of your life, you’ll repent at your leisure, man. Got friends who know how to party? Premium quality, discreet service.’ Tomomi enters the cage – she is a gifted eavesdropper. ‘Discreet? As discreet as a mile-wide UFO playing the Mission Impossible music over the Imperial Palace.’ At 3 a. m. Sachiko brings me a mug of the thickest coffee known to chemistry – thick enough to stand pencils in – which makes my body forget how tired it is. Onizuka waits in the staff cube at the end of my rat-run, but never says another word to me. Twice I smoke a JPS outside the shopfront. I have a prime view of PanOpticon. Anti-aircraft lights blink on and off from dusk till dawn. Very Gotham City. Both times the inferno summons me back before I can finish the cigarette. While I am waiting for a Health Club to emerge from the inferno – asparagus, sour cream, olives, potato wedges, garlic – Doi leans over the hatch. ‘You know how hungry I am, Miyake?’
‘How hungry are you, Doi?’
‘I am hungry enough to cut off my thumb and chew it.’
‘Really hungry, then.’
‘Pass me that knife, will you?’
I make a ‘do I have to?’ face.
‘Pass me the knife, man, this is a hunger crisis.’
‘Be careful with that knife. Razor sharp.’
‘Why else would I want it, man?’ Doi places his left thumb on my chopping board, places the blade over it, and thumps the handle with his right fist. The blade slices clean through the knuckle. Blood spills over the counter – Doi reins in his breath. ‘There, that wasn’t so bad! He picks up his thumb with his right hand and dangles it in his mouth. Plop. I gargle dry air. Doi munches slowly, deciding if he likes the taste. ‘Gristly, man, but not bad!’ Doi spits out his thumb bone, sucked shiny and white. I drop whatever it was I was holding. Sachiko appears in the hatch – I point, and glug. ‘Doi!’ scolds Sachiko. ‘You prima donna! You just can’t resist a captive audience, can you? Sorry, Miyake, I should have warned you about Doi’s little hobby: magic school.’ Doi mimes a kung-fu retaliatory shuffle. ‘The Sacred Academy of Illusionists ain’t no hobby, chieftainess. One day there’ll be queues outside the Budokan to see me perform.’ He waggles his two attached thumbs at me. ‘You can tell from his eyes that Shiyake is one cat in sore need of the magic arts.’ ‘Miyake,’ corrects Sachiko. ‘Him too,’ says Doi. I don’t know how to respond to all of this – I am just relieved that the blood was only tomato juice. Five o’clock. Morning comes in for landing. Sachiko asks me to prepare some mini-salads, so I wash some lettuce and cherry tomatoes. The pizza orders thicken again – who eats pizzas for breakfast? – and before I know it Sachiko is back, doing a high-court voice. ‘Eiji Miyake, by the powers vested in me by Emperor Nero, and in view of your satisfactory behaviour, I declare your life sentence suspended for the period of sixteen hours. You will, however, present yourself at this correctional institution at midnight, for a further eight hours hard labour.’ I frown. ‘Huh?’ Sachiko points at the clock – ‘Eight o’clock. Surely you have a home to go to?’ The shop door slides open. Sachiko glances around, and looks back at me with an ‘aha!’ look. ‘The prisoner has a visitor waiting outside the gates.’
Ai says anywhere except Jupiter Café, so we walk towards Shinjuku to find a breakfast place. Talking is a bit awkward – we have not actually met since the day in Jupiter Café, even though we must have spent over twenty-four hours on the telephone last