brass plaque. ‘This is us – Juno. Zeus turned her into a swan.’ Her fingers dance over a security keypad. ‘Or was it a bull?’ A video camera watches us. ‘Rather draconian security, I know, but our client list includes television stars, et cetera. You would not believe’ – Mari Sarashina glares at heaven – ‘what the grubbier paparazzi will do for a quick peek. Your father reviewed security after a reporter, disguised as a health ministry inspector, tried to bluff his way into our client files. Jackals, those people. Leeches. He had fake ID, name-card, the works. Ms Kato, your father’s lawyer, bled them dry in court, naturally – although I gather she’s not exactly flavour of the month, vis-à-vis yourself.’ An elevator arrives. Mari Sarashina presses ‘9’. ‘A room with a view.’ She smiles reassuringly. ‘Apprehensive?’
I nod, hollow with nervous excitement. ‘A little.’
She brushes fluff off her cuff. ‘Quite natural.’ She stage-whispers. ‘Your father is three times jumpier. But – relax.’ The doors open on to a gleaming white reception area decked with lilies. Perfumed antiseptic. Pin-striped sofas, slab-of-glass tables, a tapestry of swans on a lost river. The walls curve into the ceiling – whorled and delicate, bones inside an ear. Celtic harp music accompanies the aircon hush. Ms Sarashina jabs the intercom on her desk – ‘Dr Tsukiyama? Congratulations, it’s a boy!’ She shows me her perfect teeth. ‘Shall I send him in?’ I hear his voice crackle. Mari Sarashina laughs. ‘Fine, Doctor. Coming up.’ She sits down in front of her computer and gestures towards the steel door. ‘Go on, Eiji. Your father is waiting.’ I move, but real time is on ‘Pause’. ‘Thanks,’ I tell her. She makes a ‘don’t mention it’ face. One door away now – go! I turn the handle – the room beyond is airtight. The steel door opens with a kissing sound.
My arms are swung behind my back, my body is rammed against the wall, my feet are kicked away, and the cold floor slams into my ribs. One set of hands frisk me while another set holds my arms way past the angle they were designed to bend – the pain is record-breaking. Yakuza again. If I did have a concealed knife I would stick it into myself for being so stupid. Again. I consider volunteering to give up the Kozue Yamaya disk until a foot in the small of my back knocks the thought from my head. I am flipped over, and hauled to my feet. At first, I think I am standing on the set of a medical drama. A trolley of surgical equipment, a drugs cabinet, an operating table. The edges are shadowy, with ten or eleven men whose faces I cannot make out. I smell sausages. A man is filming me with a handycam, and on a large overhead screen I see myself. Two men with the bodies of Olympic shotputters are holding an arm each. The handycam zooms in, and captures my face from various angles. ‘Light!’ comes an old man’s voice, and whiteness fills my eyeballs. I am dragged forward a few paces, and sat down. When I can see again I find myself at a card table. Here is Mama-san and three men. Near enough to touch is a smoked glass screen taking up most of the wall. An intercom clicks on, and the voice of god fills the room. ‘This lamentable specimen is him?’
Mama-san looks at the smoked glass. ‘This is him.’
‘I had no idea,’ says God, ‘Morino had fallen on such hard times.’
Now I really know I am in trouble. ‘The man on the telephone?’ I ask her.
‘An actor. To save us the trouble of sending someone to get you.’
I try to rub life back into my arms, and glance at the three man also sat at the card table. From their postures and faces, I can tell that they are also here against their will. A sweat-shiny fat-as-a-donut asthmatic, a man who keeps twitching as if his face is under attack, and an older guy who was once handsome but who has had scars gouged upwards from the corner of his mouth which fix his face in a mockery of a smile. Mr Donut, Twitcher and Smiley all fix their eyes on the table.
‘We are gathered here today,’ says God, ‘for you to pay your debts to me.’
I cannot address a disembodied voice so I address Mama-san. ‘What debts?’
God replies first. ‘Major damage to Pluto Pachinko. Compensation for