She pings open the till. ‘Sir, there isn’t even a ten-thousand note in here.’
Hog slavers and twitches his tusks. ‘So! You steal from the till as well!’
Maybe I am still semi-stoned from the hash, or maybe Virtua Sapiens reshuffled my sense of reality, but I find myself walking over and tapping the guy on his shoulder. He turns around. His mouth is one bent sneer. Hog is larger than I thought, but it is too late to back out so I attack first and hardest. I douse his face with coffee and head-butt his nose, really, really hard. Christmas lights flicker in my eyes – Hog backs off, leaking a bubbly ‘Aaaaaaaaa’ noise. Blood trickles from his nose through his fingers. I steady myself and my hand gropes for something to brandish. The pain in my forehead crushes my voice jagged. ‘Get out right now or I’ll smash your fricking teeth into tiny fricking splinters with’ – I look at what I’m holding – ‘this ashtray!’ I must look deranged enough to mean business – after wheezing about police and assault in a beaky voice, Hog retreats. The customers look on. Lao Tzu pats my shoulder. ‘Neat work, Captain.’ Donkey comes over to her co-worker, all concern. ‘Are you okay? I didn’t know what was going on . . .’ The waitress with the perfect neck slams shut the till, and glares at me. ‘I could have handled him.’
‘I know,’ I reply. The Christmas tree lights fizz dangerously.
‘But thank you anyway.’ She gives me a cautious smile, so when the Christmas lights fuse I have something to take my mind off the pain. I sit back down and pain takes over my head for a while.
I wonder if my mother drank at Jupiter Café during her time in Tokyo. Maybe after Anju and I were born, maybe in this very seat, waiting for a summons from Akiko Kato. PanOpticon drones work Sundays too. A steady stream files in and out of the building. Nearly two weeks have passed since my abortive stake-out, and my father is still lost in Tokyo. Could be a distant suburb, could be that guy reading the sports pages on the next table. Lao Tzu is two stools along, plugged into his nutty game. ‘Hi.’ The waitress with the most perfect neck holds a coffee jug. ‘Refill?’
‘No more money, I’m afraid.’
‘On the house. Payment in kind for security services rendered.’
‘Then I would love a refill. Thank you.’
She pours. I watch. She asks, ‘How is your head?’
I lean on my elbow and cover my throat to hide my lovebite. ‘Fine.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Anything else?’
‘Another muffin? I’ll pay for it.’
‘What I would love, if you wouldn’t, uh, mind’ – my pain makes me braver than I would normally dream of being – ‘is your name.’
Her cautious smile takes a moment to arrive. ‘Ai Imajo.’
‘Ai Imajo.’ What a cool name.
‘And yours?’
‘Eiji Miyake.’ Not so cool.
‘Eiji Miyake,’ says Ai Imajo, and I feel loads, loads better. She studies the bash on my forehead. ‘Doesn’t it hurt like crazy when you head-butt somebody?’
‘Not if you know what you’re doing. Apparently.’
‘So you don’t go around head-butting people every day?’
‘That was my first head-butt.’
‘An historic occasion.’ The intersection lights go green and the traffic buzzes and swarms into the haze. ‘Where else have I seen you, Eiji Miyake?’
‘The day of the storm. Two weeks ago. You thought I was – well, I was, I suppose – listening in to your phone call. At the end of your shift. I was sitting here for a couple of hours.’
‘Yeah.’ Ai Imajo thinks back, nodding. ‘I remember.’
‘Blasted, blasted, blasted bioborgs!’ Lao Tzu swears at the vidboy3.
‘I’m on my break. Mind if I sit here?’
Do I mind? ‘Sure.’ And to my joy and mortification – I am so cacked up from a night with a stranger in a love hotel – the girl with the most perfect neck in creation is sitting beside me. ‘So,’ she says. ‘Did you meet up with whoever?’
‘Who?’
‘Whoever you were waiting for, on the day of the storm.’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Girlfriend?’
I work from the abridged version and leapfrog Akiko Kato. ‘Relative.’
‘How long have you been looking?’
‘Three weeks . . .’
‘Three weeks since you arrived in Tokyo?’
‘How do you know?’
Her cheeks dome and her eyes crescent. I love smiles like this. ‘Your accent. You’ll lose it in six months. Where are you from?’
‘You won’t have heard of where I’m from.’
‘Try me.’
‘Yakushima. An island off—’
‘—Southern Kyushu where the Jomon cedars grow, the