Number 9 dream Page 0,52
not turn around. ‘Show the scoundrel in.’ His voice is far too high for his bulk. The head chef stands aside and prods me forward. Master turns around. He is wearing a blowtorcher’s mask that reveals a petite mouth. He holds a cleaver sharp enough to castrate a bull. ‘Leave us, Head Chef Bonki. Hang the sign on the door.’ The office door clicks shut. Master tests the blade on his tongue. ‘Why prolong your little deception?’
‘Sir?’
‘You are not the mousseboy who served me so amply at Jeremiah the Bullfrog’s, are you?’
Lie, quick! ‘Uh, true. I’m his brother. He got sick. But he didn’t want to let down the crew, so he sent me instead.’ Not bad.
‘How supremely sacrificial.’ Master advances. Not good.
The door touches my back. ‘My pleasure,’ I say. Do I hear banging?
‘My pleasure. Mine, I tell you. Touch it. Mousse is springy.’
I see my face in the black glass of his mask wondering what the mousseboy is supposed to do exactly. ‘You are the best in the business, Master.’ Sudden commotion is loose in the kitchen. No way around him to the yard door. Master pants. I smell liver pâté on his breath. ‘Tweak it. Mousse is delicate. Slice it. Oh yes. Mousse is soft. So soft. Sniff it. Mousse will yield. Oh yes. Mousse will yield.’ Four fat fingers swim towards my face.
A shout. ‘Oy!’
‘Irksome. Irksome.’ Master lifts up a tiny curtain next to my head that covers a peep-hole. His mouth stiffens. He picks up his cleaver, knocks me aside, flings the door open, and barges through. ‘Whorehouse vermin!’ he screams. ‘You have been warned!’ I glimpse Mr Sumo throwing assistant chefs over counters. ‘You have been warned!’ shouts Master. ‘You have been warned what happens to pimps from the dark side who bring herpes and syphilis on to my spotless ship!’ He hurls his cleaver. No point hanging around to examine the damage – I am out through the door, running up the steps, leaping over the plastic garbage bags, scattering through the crows, sprinting across the back yard, down a side street, and I don’t stop zigzagging and checking behind me until seven-thirty.
At seven-forty I suddenly know where I am. Omekaido Avenue. That zirconium skyscraper is PanOpticon. I walk a little farther towards Shinjuku and get to the intersection with Kita Street. Jupiter Café. The morning is already shallow-frying. I check my money. If walk back to Ueno, I can afford my submarine back to Kita Senju and buy a light breakfast. So light it would blow away if I sneezed.
Jupiter Café is air-conned soggy cool. I buy coffee and a pineapple muffin, sit at my window seat and examine my ghostly reflection in the window: a twenty-year-old Eiji Miyake, hair matted with sweat, smelling of dope and shrimpish sex, and sporting – I see to my horror – a lovebite the size of Africa over my Adam’s apple. My complexion has completed its metamorphosis from Kyushu tan to drone-paste. The waitress with the most perfect neck isn’t working this morning – if she saw me in this condition, I would give a howl, age nine centuries and desiccate into a mound of dandruff and fingernails. The only other customer is a woman studying a fashion magazine with a toolbox of make-up. I vow never to mentally stroke another woman again, ever. I savour my pineapple muffin and watch the media screen on the NHK building. Missile launchers recoil, cities on fire. A new Nokia cellphone. Foreign affairs minister announces putative WW2 Nanking excesses are left-wing plots to destroy patriotism. Zizzi Hikaru washes her hair in Pearl River shampoo. Fly-draped skeletons stalk an African city. Nintendo proudly presents Universal Soldiers. The kid who hijacked a coach and slit three throats says he did it to stand out. I watch the passing traffic, until I hear a hacking cough. I never noticed Lao Tzu appear. He takes out a pack of Parliament cigarettes, but has lost his lighter. ‘Hello again, Captain.’ I lend him my lighter. ‘Morning.’ He notices my lovebite, but says nothing. In front of him is a flip-up video game screen, book-sized but designed in the twenty-third century. ‘Brand-new vidboy3 – ten thou by ten thou res, four gigabytes, wraparound sonics, Socrates artifical intelligence chip. Software was only launched last week: Virtua Sapiens. A present from my daughter-in-law.’ Lao Tzu shifts on his stool. ‘On doctor’s orders, to stave off senility.’ I slide the ashtray between us. ‘That’s nice of her.’