I told you to sit down.’ I obey, numb. ‘You are here because you want information. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know. This information cost me good money. How do you intend to pay?’
I try my best to ignore the fact that this man just had someone thrown through a window, and pull myself into focus. ‘I would be grateful if . . .’ My sentence dies.
Morino dabs the cigar with his tongue-tip. ‘I am sure your gratitude is five-star gratitude. But I have metropolitan overheads. Your gratitude is worth fleashit to me. Try again.’
‘How much?’
Morino takes a tool from the desk and circumcises the cigar. ‘Why is it always money, money, money with kids nowadays? Little wonder Japan is becoming this moral and spiritual graveyard. No, Miyake. I do not want your money. Besides, we both know that most pigeons have more disposable income than you. No. I propose this. I propose you pay with your loyalty.’
‘My loyalty?’
‘Is there a fucking echo in here?’
‘What would giving you my loyalty mean?’
‘So like your old man. Living in small print. Your loyalty? Let me see. I thought we could spend the rest of the day together. Go bowling. An outing to a dog show. A bite to eat, and afterwards a get-together with some old friends. Midnight comes around, we give you a lift home.’
‘And in return—’
‘You receive—’ He clicks his fingers and a horn player hands him another document wallet. Morino leafs through it. ‘Your father. Name, address, occupation, résumé, personal history, pix – colour, black-and-white – itemized telephone bills, bank accounts, preferred shaving gel.’ Morino closes it and smiles. ‘You give me and my family a few hours of your time, and your historic search ends in crowning success. What do you say?’ From the deserted pachinko floor below I hear glass crunching and electric shutters lowering. It occurs to me that saying ‘No’ may have consequences far worse than being denied a document wallet, bearing in mind what I witnessed.
‘Yes.’
A wet dab, and a needle plunges into my left arm, just above the elbow. I yelp. Another horn player grips me tight. He shoves his face up to mine, and opens his mouth wide, as if he wants to bite off my nose. Pond-water breath. I have a close-up view of his mouth before I can turn away, then I turn back. His tongue is a clipped stump. A formless giggle. The horn players are all mutes. The syringe fills with my blood. I stare at Morino as a syringe in his arm fills up with blood. He seems surprised that I may be surprised. ‘We need ink.’
‘Ink?’
‘For the contract. I believe in the written word.’ The syringes are removed and my arm is released. Morino squirts both into a teacup, and mixes our blood with a teaspoon. My puncture is dabbed with disinfectant again. A horn player spreads a sheet of calligraphy paper in front of Morino, and hands him a writing brush. Morino dips the brush, breathes deeply, and in graceful strokes draws the characters for Loyalty, Duty and Obedience. Mori. No. He rotates the paper on the desk. ‘Quickly,’ he orders, and his mouth seems to be in his eyes, ‘before the blood clots.’ I pick up the brush, dip it and write Mi and Yake. Red already stiffening to dung. Morino watches with a critical eye. ‘Penmanship. A dying art.’
‘At my high school we practised with ink.’
Morino blows the paper dry, and rolls it into a scroll-case. Everything seems to have been prepared. Mama-san puts down her knitting needles and puts the scroll-case into her handbag. ‘Perhaps now, Father,’ she says, ‘we can get down to the serious business?’
Morino puts down the cup of blood and wipes his mouth. ‘Bowling.’
A basement shopping mall will connect Xanadu with Valhalla and Nirvana. It is still a gloomy underpass, lit by roadworker’s lamps, and strewn with tarpaulins, tiles, wood planking, sheet glass and a prematurely delivered army of boutique dummies huddled naked in misty polythene. Morino is ahead, a megaphone in one hand. Mama-san walks behind me, and the horn players bring up the rear. Somewhere above my head in the sunlit real world, Ai Imajo is playing Mozart. Words from Morino could be the darkness speaking. ‘Our ancestors built temples for their gods. We build department stores. In my youth I went to Italy with my father, on business. I still dream about the buildings. What we lack in Japan is megalomania.’ Down here it is chilly and