Number 9 dream Page 0,55

must look deranged enough to mean business – after wheezing about police and assault in a beaky voice, Hog retreats. The customers look on. Lao Tzu pats my shoulder. ‘Neat work, Captain.’ Donkey comes over to her co-worker, all concern. ‘Are you okay? I didn’t know what was going on . . .’ The waitress with the perfect neck slams shut the till, and glares at me. ‘I could have handled him.’

‘I know,’ I reply. The Christmas tree lights fizz dangerously.

‘But thank you anyway.’ She gives me a cautious smile, so when the Christmas lights fuse I have something to take my mind off the pain. I sit back down and pain takes over my head for a while.

I wonder if my mother drank at Jupiter Café during her time in Tokyo. Maybe after Anju and I were born, maybe in this very seat, waiting for a summons from Akiko Kato. PanOpticon drones work Sundays too. A steady stream files in and out of the building. Nearly two weeks have passed since my abortive stake-out, and my father is still lost in Tokyo. Could be a distant suburb, could be that guy reading the sports pages on the next table. Lao Tzu is two stools along, plugged into his nutty game. ‘Hi.’ The waitress with the most perfect neck holds a coffee jug. ‘Refill?’

‘No more money, I’m afraid.’

‘On the house. Payment in kind for security services rendered.’

‘Then I would love a refill. Thank you.’

She pours. I watch. She asks, ‘How is your head?’

I lean on my elbow and cover my throat to hide my lovebite. ‘Fine.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Another muffin? I’ll pay for it.’

‘What I would love, if you wouldn’t, uh, mind’ – my pain makes me braver than I would normally dream of being – ‘is your name.’

Her cautious smile takes a moment to arrive. ‘Ai Imajo.’

‘Ai Imajo.’ What a cool name.

‘And yours?’

‘Eiji Miyake.’ Not so cool.

‘Eiji Miyake,’ says Ai Imajo, and I feel loads, loads better. She studies the bash on my forehead. ‘Doesn’t it hurt like crazy when you head-butt somebody?’

‘Not if you know what you’re doing. Apparently.’

‘So you don’t go around head-butting people every day?’

‘That was my first head-butt.’

‘An historic occasion.’ The intersection lights go green and the traffic buzzes and swarms into the haze. ‘Where else have I seen you, Eiji Miyake?’

‘The day of the storm. Two weeks ago. You thought I was – well, I was, I suppose – listening in to your phone call. At the end of your shift. I was sitting here for a couple of hours.’

‘Yeah.’ Ai Imajo thinks back, nodding. ‘I remember.’

‘Blasted, blasted, blasted bioborgs!’ Lao Tzu swears at the vidboy3.

‘I’m on my break. Mind if I sit here?’

Do I mind? ‘Sure.’ And to my joy and mortification – I am so cacked up from a night with a stranger in a love hotel – the girl with the most perfect neck in creation is sitting beside me. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Did you meet up with whoever?’

‘Who?’

‘Whoever you were waiting for, on the day of the storm.’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘Girlfriend?’

I work from the abridged version and leapfrog Akiko Kato. ‘Relative.’

‘How long have you been looking?’

‘Three weeks . . .’

‘Three weeks since you arrived in Tokyo?’

‘How do you know?’

Her cheeks dome and her eyes crescent. I love smiles like this. ‘Your accent. You’ll lose it in six months. Where are you from?’

‘You won’t have heard of where I’m from.’

‘Try me.’

‘Yakushima. An island off—’

‘—Southern Kyushu where the Jomon cedars grow, the oldest living things in the eastern hemisphere. So how are you finding Tokyo, this difficult town?’

Tokyo, this difficult town. How cool is that? ‘Full of surprises. Sometimes lonely. Mostly weird. I can’t walk in a straight line. I keep bumping into people.’

‘You have to stop thinking about walking. Like catching food in your mouth – think about it, you miss. How do you know your relative passes by here?’

‘I don’t, really. I don’t even know what he looks like.’

‘Is he a distant relative?’

‘I wouldn’t want to bore you.’

‘Do I sound bored? Why not look in the telephone book?’

‘Dunno his name, even.’

Ai Imajo frowns. ‘And does he know your name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Place an ad in the personal columns. “Relatives of Eiji Miyake – please contact this PO box.” That kind of thing. Most Tokyoites read the same three or four newspapers. Your relative might not read it himself, but somebody else might. You’re looking dubious.’

I think hard.

Ai Imajo studies me. ‘What?’

Oh, I love being studied by Ai Imajo. ‘I have no idea.’

That smile again, mixed