a woman adjusting her shoe. She is my age, with sexier legs than Zizzi Hikaru. I smell perfume and wine. She regains her balance and walks the way I came. Ahead is a single door, ajar – Daisuke Tsukiyama, Partner. Inside, a man – my father, I guess – is on the telephone. I eavesdrop. ‘Darling, I know! You’re overreacting – you – just – darling – listen to me! Are you listening? Thank you. I had to spend the night here because if I give this one to the underlings they’ll fuck it up and then I’ll have to spend even more nights here sorting out the mess and my client will be fucked off too and take his account somewhere swankier, so my bonus gets slashed and then how am I supposed to pay for the fucking pony in the first fucking place? Stop – stop it, darling – yeah, I know her friends all have ponies, but all her friends’ daddies are judges with more money than fucking Switzerland . . . You think I like doing this overtime-slave shit? You think I like – what? What ? Oh, oh, oh, this is what we’re really talking about it, is it? Paranoia strikes back! Ever occurred to you, darling . . . What ? You didn’t! No. Tell me you didn’t. You did. Well, this is your morning bombshell. A private investigator. You stupid little woman. Of course, private investigators feed you bullshit! Why? Because they want repeat business! I am too outraged’ – a filing cabinet bangs – ‘to continue this conversation. I have a company to run. And if you have cash to throw away on those games, why all the hurry to sell off the shares the old man left? Yeah, you have a nice day too. Darling.’ He hangs up. ‘And throw yourself off the balcony, darling.’
I take a deep breath—
He may recognize me—
He may not recognize me, and I may tell him—
He may not recognize me, and I may not tell him—
I knock. A pause. Then a cheerful ‘Come!’ I recognize my father from the photograph I got from Morino. He lies on a vast sofa, wearing a dressing gown. ‘Pizza boy! You overhear my telephone call?’
‘I did my best not to.’
‘Let it be a lesson to you.’
‘I’m sorry, I—’
‘Remember: it costs more to keep a pony in straw than a whore in fur.’
‘I can’t imagine ever needing to remember that.’
My father grins – a grin that is used to getting what it wants – and beckons me over. There is a great view of skyscrapers in the background, but I drink in every detail. The too-black hair. The racks of shoes in his closet. The photo of Half-sister on his desk as a ballerina swan. The shape of his hands. The way he swivels upright. His body seems to be in better shape than his company – I guess he works out at a gym. ‘You’re not Onizuka, and you’re not Doi.’
No, I am your son by your first mistress. ‘No.’
‘So?’ My father waits. ‘You are?’
‘The chef.’
‘Oho! So you make my delectable Kamikazes.’
‘Only this week. I’m temporary.’
He nods at the pizza box. ‘Then I betcha never came across anything quite like my kamikaze, am I right?’
I place the box on the coffee table. ‘It’s an unusual combination.’
‘Unusual? Unique!’
I smell perfume and wine.
My father smiles and frowns at the same time. ‘Are you all right?’
I tell you now, or I go away for ever.
He grins. ‘You look like your night was almost as long and hard as mine.’
How you love yourself. ‘Goodbye.’
Mock-offended surprise. ‘You don’t want me to sign anywhere?’
‘Oh. Yeah. Here, please—’
My father scribbles on the receipt.
I want to smash your skull with your golfing trophy.
I want to shout and I think I want to cry.
I want you to know. Your consequences, your damage, your dead. I want to drag you down to the seabed between foot rock and the whalestone.
‘Hell-o-oo-ooo!’ My father waves his hand. ‘I said, is Doi back next week?’
I swallow and nod and leave this man who I will never meet again. I look back once – his eyes close as his jaws sink into black stodge.
Outside PanOpticon, I buy a pack of Hope, sit on a bollard and watch the traffic stop and start. Twenty years translated to two minutes. I smoke one, two, three. The cloud atlas turns its pages over. Crows dissect a pile of trash. Tokyo is a dirty eraser. Summer left town