a toothpick. The thought occurs to me that I should at least check that Akiko Kato is in the PanOpticon before I go up to her office – if I barge past her secretary only to find a ‘Back Thursday’ Post-It sticker on her computer screen I will look a total fool. I carry Ms Kato’s name card in my wallet. I borrowed it from my grandmother’s fireproof box when I was eleven, intending to study voodoo and use it as a totem. AKIKO KATO . ATTORNEY. OSUGI & BOSUGI. This Shinjuku address and telephone number. My heartbeat is already quickening. I make a deal with myself – one iced coffee, one last Carlton, then I call. I wait until my waitress is at the counter and go up to receive my coffee and her blessings. ‘Glasses!’ calls Dowager so sharply I mistakenly believe she’s talking to me. Donkey comes to the counter and my girl goes back to the sink. I’m in danger of ODing on caffeine, but I’ll look stupid if I change my mind now. ‘One iced coffee, please.’ I wait until Lao Tzu gets rekilled by the bioborgs and swap a Carlton for another match. I try to bisect an almond flake, but it wedges itself up my fingernail.
‘Good afternoon. Osugi and Bosugi.’
I try to inject a shot of authority into my voice. ‘Ye-es—’ My voice squeaks as though my balls are still in puberty freefall. I blush, fake a cough, and restart five octaves down. ‘Is Akiko Kato working today, please?’
‘Do you want to speak with her?’
‘No. I want to know if . . . yes. Yes, please.’
‘Yes what, sir?’
‘Could you please put me through to Ms Akiko Kato. Please.’
‘And may I ask who’s calling, sir?’
‘Is she, uh, in the office, then?’
‘May I ask who’s calling, sir?’
‘This is a’ – disaster – ‘confidential call.’
‘You can count on the utmost confidence, sir, but I must ask who is calling.’
‘My name, uh, is Taro Tanaka.’ The duddest of dud names. Idiot.
‘Mr Taro Tanaka. I see. May I ask what your call is concerning?’
‘Certain legal, uh, matters.’
‘You can’t be any more specific, Mr Tanaka?’
‘Uh. No. Actually.’
A slow sigh. ‘Ms Kato is in a meeting with the senior partners at the moment, so I can’t ask her to speak with you right now. But if I could ask for your number and company, and some outline of your business, I could ask her to return your call later today.’
‘Naturally.’
‘So, your company, Mr Tanaka?’
‘Uh . . .’
‘Mr Tanaka?’
I drown and hang up.
A D-minus for style. But now I know that Akiko Kato lurks in her web. I count twenty-seven floors up the PanOpticon before touching cloud. I blow smoke at you, Akiko Kato. You have less than thirty minutes to live with Eiji Miyake as nothing but a foggy memory from a foggy mountain island off the southern foot of Kyushu. Do you ever daydream about meeting me? Or am I just a name on certain documents? The icebergs in my coffee fuse and chink. I pour in the juglets of syrup and cream and watch the liquids swirl and bleed. The pregnant women are comparing baby magazines. My girl is going from table to table emptying ashtrays into a bucket. Come this way, empty mine. She doesn’t. Dowager is on the telephone, all smiles. A man crossing Kita Street catches my attention: I swear I saw this same man cross this same street a minute ago. I focus on him, tracking his progress among the puddle-hopping masses. He crosses over, then waits for the man to turn green. He crosses over Omekaido Avenue, waits for the man to turn green. Then he crosses back over Kita Street. He waits, and crosses back over Omekaido Avenue. I watch him complete one, two, three circuits. A private detective, a bioborg, a lunatic? The sun will rub through the cloud cover any minute now. I prod my straw down through the ice, and suck. My bladder will no longer be ignored. I get up, walk to the toilet door, turn the handle – locked. I scratch the back of my head and go back to my seat, embarrassed. When the occupant leaves – an office lady – I avert my gaze so she doesn’t suspect me of rattling her toilet knob, and so lose my turn to a demure high-school girl in uniform, who emerges fifteen minutes later as a boob-banded, candy-striped, miniskirted wet dream. I get up, but this time a