Frankenstein sings a song in English with a chorus that goes ‘I can’t liiiiiiiiive, if living is without yoo-ooo-ooo, I can’t giiiiiiiiive, I can’t take any moooooore’. The horn players bay along with the vowels. The noise is so bad I watch for the sushi to sprout maggots. Leatherjacket sips a glass of milk in the corner. He doesn’t seem to belong here either. Morino calls over the elderly waitress who has been nervously serving us. ‘Sing.’ Without arguing she performs an enka number called ‘Cherry Blossoms of the Inland Sea’, about a mah-jong gambler who dies to honour a gambling debt, but only after ninety-nine verses. Lizard sings a song called ‘Electrode Incest’ by a band of the same name. It contains no verses, choruses or chord changes. The horn players clap wildly as Lizard does a turkey dance on the table and wanks the microphone. Finally the song is over and Morino gestures me up.
‘No,’ I say flatly. ‘I don’t sing.’
A hail of sushi slaps my face. The horn players boo.
‘I don’t like music.’
‘Bollocks,’ says Morino. ‘My pet investigator said you have twenty CDs, loads by that Beatle who got snuffed, a file of sheet music and a guitar.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Nightmares do their homework.’
I swab rice off my face. ‘You had my room broken into?’
Morino holds his glass for the waitress to fill. ‘If I thought you had touched my baby girl, you virtual-orphan brat, I would have had you broken into. So be grateful.’
‘I hate karaoke and I’m not going to sing.’
Lizard does a squitty imitation. ‘I hate karaoke and I’m not going to sing.’ Then his fist fills my eye and the table becomes the ceiling.
I pick myself up. My eye sort of sings, throbbing up.
‘I wanted to do that all day.’ Lizard examines his knuckles. ‘Father told you to sing.’
I should be afraid, but I shake my head. There is no blood.
Frankenstein places a chopstick over his index and ring fingers, belches, and snaps the chopstick with his middle finger. ‘I say Miyake is in danger of a breach of contract, Father.’
Morino wags his finger. ‘You have to make allowances. He was never the same after his sister drowned. They had their own little country. Fuck, they had their own language. What a pity he buggered off to Kagoshima the day she died, selfish fuck that he is. Hey!’ He clicks his fingers at the waitress. ‘More edamame beans!’ Drugged with cold germs as I am, I can’t guess whether Morino has a gift for inspired guesses or a skeleton key to the basements of minds. Either way, I want to spike his eye with my chopstick. I imagine myself doing it. Squirt. His wart throbs. I swear, the thing is watching me.
According to the Cadillac clock we enter the reclaimed land perimeter road at 23:04. Thirty minutes later we are still driving. Military band music pumps through the car and a fever pumps through me, or maybe the fever is in the car and the military music in me. Millimetres away from being a killer, I was. I am. Can a chance difference in spin and angle really make me not guilty? I threw. I had to. But I threw. One more hour and the document wallet will be mine. Plus a magnificent black eye. I was expecting the pretender to the Yakuza throne of Tokyo to be joined by fleets of armoured personnel, but no. Just these two Cadillacs. My nose streams uncontrollably, and my neck feels clamped in some sort of truss. Maybe some code of honour binds the two factions to non-violence. Or, please no, maybe this is a suicide mission. I tell myself if Morino was the kamikaze type he wouldn’t have made it to his age, or even his body weight, but I no longer know what to think. Nobody says much. Morino calls Mama-san, at Queen of Spades, I guess. ‘Is Miriam at work yet? I called her place. Tell her to call my mobile the moment she gets in.’ Lizard and Frankenstein smoke their Camels, Morino his cigar. I am too ill to want to smoke. Popsicle whimpers in her narcotic sleep. The sea is calm enough to walk on and the sky is stars, acre after acre. The full moon is a thirty watt bulb no more than several inches away. Morino makes another call, but nobody answers. ‘Suicides tend to check themselves out when the moon is full, a nurse once told me.