Number 9 dream Page 0,67

Miyake? If yer pass yer entry exams, slave in an office all yer life, save your bonuses, get reincarnated nine times, yer’ll be able to zip around in a Cadillac too.’ I stare ahead. ‘Miyake! I’m talking to yer!’ ‘Sorry. I thought I had to shut the fuck up.’ Lizard whistles and a switchblade knife hisses open. ‘Watch yer lippyliplip’ – the knife flashes at my wrist; the blade slices through the casing of my wristwatch and scrapes through its innards – ‘fuckhead.’ The knife is spinning back in his fingers. Lizard’s eyes flare, daring me to open my mouth. He wins his dare and laughs this scratchy, staccato laugh.

Xanadu, way out beyond Tokyo bay, is having its grand opening today. Bunting flutters over the expressway exit, a giant Bridgestone airship floats above the enormous dome. The glands in my throat start to throb. Valhalla opens in the new year, and Nirvana and its new airport monorail terminus are still under construction. The traffic slugs to a crawl. Coaches, family wagons, jeeps, sports cars, coaches queue bumper to bumper through the toll-gate. Flags of the world hang limp. An enormous banner reads ‘Xanadu Open Today! Family Paradise Here on Earth! Nine-Screen Multiplex! Olympic Pool! Krypton Dance Emporium! Karaoke Beehive! Cuisine Cosmos! California Lido! Neptune Sea Park! Pluto Pachinko! Parking space for 10,000 – yes, 10,000! – automobiles.’ A motorbike cop waves us into an access road. ‘Cadillacs get you in anywhere.’ Lizard stubs out another Hope. ‘One of ours,’ says Frankenstein as the window slides down. ‘The good old days are back. Before your time every fucking cop in the fucking city recognized us.’ The Cadillac veers up a slope straight into the sun, tinted by the windscreen into a dark star. Over the top we enter a building site, walled off from Xanadu by a great screen of metal sheeting. Gravel piles, slab stacks, concrete mixers, unplanted trees with roots in sacks. ‘Where are all the happy workers?’ asks Lizard. ‘Holiday for the Grand Opening,’ says Frankenstein. Rounding a block of Portakabins comes Valhalla. This is a dazzling black glass pyramid built of triangles rising from building rubble. The Cadillac drives down a ramp into shadow, surfing to a halt in front of a barrier arm. A porter slides open the window of his box. He is about ninety and is either drunk or has Parkinson’s disease. Frankenstein’s window lowers and Frankenstein glowers. The porter repeatedly salutes and bows. ‘Open,’ growls Frankenstein, ‘fucking sesame.’ The arm rises and the porter bows out of sight. ‘Where did they dig him up?’ asks Lizard. ‘The pet sematary?’ The Cadillac cruises into the black, reverses and halts. I feel a lurch of excitement. Am I really in the same building as my father?

‘Out,’ says Lizard.

We are in a basement carpark smelling of oil, petrol and breeze blocks. Two Cadillacs are parked alongside ours. My eyes need more time to adjust – it is too dark to see the walls, or anything. Frankenstein pokes me in the small of my back. ‘March, cub scout.’ I follow him – a ball of dim light flickers on and off. A round window in a swing-door. Beyond is a gloomy service corridor smelling of fresh paint and echoing with our footsteps. ‘Hasn’t even been built yet and the lighting’s already fucked,’ notes Lizard. Other corridors run off from this. It occurs to me to be afraid. Nobody knows I am here. Wrong: my father knows. I try to fix landmarks in my memory – right at this fire hose, straight on past this notice-board. Frankenstein halts by a men’s toilet. Lizard unlocks it. ‘In you go.’

‘I don’t need the toilet.’

‘It wasn’t a fucking question.’

‘When do I meet my father?’

Lizard smirks. ‘We’ll tell him how eager yer are.’ Frankenstein foots the door open, Lizard clamps my nose and shoves me in – the door is locked before I regain my balance. I am in a white bathroom. The floor tiles, wall tiles, ceiling, fittings, sinks, urinals, cubicle doors – everything is snowblindingly white. No windows, no other exits. The door is metal and unkickdownable. I bang on it a couple of times. ‘Hey! How long are you going to leave me in here?’

Behind me a toilet flushes.

‘Who’s there?’

A cubicle door unbolts and swings open. ‘Thought I recognized that voice,’ says Yuzu Daimon, doing up his belt. ‘What timing. You caught me in mid-dump. So what are you doing in a bad dream like this?’

Yuzu Daimon washes his