The Thief (12 page)

“That was quick, only one left. You got the envelope from the mailbox?”

His voice was unpleasantly high and harsh.

“Who is this?”

“I think you can guess. The last guy, Yonezawa, will be in Shinjuku at eight o’clock tomorrow night. Grab it then.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You’ve got till next Tuesday. Five days left. But thanks to you, my job has gotten a whole lot easier. I hear that if you don’t succeed you’re going to die. Don’t think about doing a runner, though.”

A young blonde walking her dog was looking at me strangely.

“Is Kizaki with you?”

“Mr. Kizaki? No. I don’t know where he is.”

“What’s he really after?”

The man on the other end sighed wearily.

“I don’t mean just the papers and the lighter,” I said.

“That’s none of your business.”

Behind him I could hear a woman’s faint laughter. The background noise gradually grew louder and then the line went dead. The woman was still watching me as her plump pet sniffed urgently at a telephone pole. When I stared back, she spoke to the dog and dragged him away. The area was dark. Perhaps she hadn’t been looking at me at all, but at something just behind me.

15
In his photo Yonezawa was wearing a scruffy black coat, but his condo was big enough to have a reception desk and getting inside wouldn’t be easy. I didn’t know what he did for a living, but if he walked around with a gun in his pocket he was probably no saint. Looking at the deep-set eyes in his picture I felt that murder or something similar was lurking behind them.

I hired a car and parked in a place where I could keep an eye on the entrance to his building, but not too close.
Though there was a risk the cops might ask what I was doing there, a car is definitely best for surveillance. I expected to see a taxi pull up outside his apartment, but when he came out he left on foot. He walked with a bounce, as though he was dragging his feet slightly. He looked idly around, glared at some children coming towards him.

I got out of the car and tailed him, keeping a safe distance. He was clearly a man who didn’t like spending money. If he was living in a place like this, I figured he must really feel he was in danger. In the station he took a long time buying his ticket. After casting his eye over the people around him, he fixed his gaze on a woman in a skimpy outfit, staring at her intently. I shifted further away. It didn’t look like I’d be able to get close to him until we got on the train.

When he reached the platform, Yonezawa scratched his neck several times and checked out a woman in a coat standing near him. His hair was oddly slicked down and his cheeks were dotted with freckles that hadn’t shown up in the photo. His shoes were filthy. When the train arrived it was hardly crowded at all. I opened my newspaper, still keeping a good distance from him. Yonezawa didn’t sit, but stood in a corner with a vacant look on his face.

His wallet was jammed tightly in his right front pocket, but he wasn’t carrying a bag and I couldn’t tell where the envelope was. Probably in his inside coat pocket, I thought, but the chances of taking it now looked slim. Gradually, however, the train started to fill up, and I mentally prepared myself. I got up, threaded my way through the passengers and stood in front of the door.

At Ikebukuro a whole lot of people got off, but even more got on, so that it was hard to move inside the carriage. An announcement over the loudspeaker told us that we were approaching Shinjuku. Then the doors opened and the crowd started to move. I focused on edging closer to Yonezawa in the crush. When my body was right up against his I unbuttoned his coat and slipped my hand inside. His breath felt unpleasant against my cheek. My fingertips felt something shaped like an envelope and I thought I could take it, but when I extended my fingers I realized that the inner pocket was closed up. Not with a button or a zip, but actually sewn shut. With a dull pain in my heart I quickly withdrew my hand. Merging with the river of people boarding, I shoved close to him again and fastened his coat once more. The crowd continued to heave violently.

Yonezawa exited onto the platform, and just before the doors closed I got off, too. My pulse was racing. It was impossible to switch the envelope sewn into his pocket with the one I had. If I cut the stitches to steal it, there was no way he wouldn’t notice for two days. I followed him slowly, but I didn’t have a clue what I should do next. Maybe I could somehow replace his whole jacket with a different one, but I’d never be able to buy a coat that matched his shabby old thing. Even if I could find something similar, it would be hard to reproduce exactly the same worn patches. It was inconceivable that someone as highly-strung as he was wouldn’t notice the difference.

Yonezawa took the east exit towards Kabukicho. His body swung as he walked, his eyes scanning the crowd. He tripped and lost his balance, then scowled at a passing woman for a few seconds before going into a gray building. I thought about going to see Kizaki, but I didn’t know where to find him. Remembering the condo in Ebisu, I decided to visit room 702. I caught a cab and all the way there my head was filled with images of Ishikawa and Saeko’s faces.

When I arrived I took the elevator up and pressed the doorbell of the apartment. After a silence, a man’s voice
came over the intercom. I told him my name and the door opened. The guy who came out looked at me sullenly and then went back inside. I didn’t think it was the same one I’d talked to on the phone yesterday. The room resembled Ishikawa’s old office, just a desk and sofa on a gray carpet.

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly.

I stood directly in front of him.

“Yonezawa’s got the envelope sewn inside his jacket. It’ll be impossible to steal it without him knowing.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“I want to talk to Kizaki.”

“Tough.”

He stared at me like I was a real pain in the ass, sat at the desk and turned on the TV. A woman in a bikini ran across the screen as if she were chasing something.

“If I fail, it’ll make things harder for you guys too, won’t it? Let me talk to Kizaki. If you don’t, you could be in deep shit.” I paused. “Well, if you won’t help me, I’ll go.”

Still gazing at the screen, the man muttered something and picked up the phone without looking at me. He spoke into it quietly, then took his ear away from the receiver, turned the TV off and sighed. Racing papers
and candies were scattered around the desk. He passed me the phone. After a short wait a man I didn’t know answered. I told him I wanted to talk to Kizaki and he said I couldn’t, but then there was another pause and Kizaki came on. He told me I had five minutes. There was no doubt it was him, but his voice was so low he sounded like a different person.

“Yonezawa’s envelope is sewn inside his coat. There’s no way I can switch it. Can’t I just steal it?”

There was a brief silence and then he laughed.

“Bad luck. What a shame.”

“What is?”

“If you can’t do it, you die. That’s what I promised, isn’t it? Though I guess I’ll let the woman and her brat go.”

“But if I don’t succeed, won’t that cause trouble for you?”

He laughed again.

“I didn’t think you’d be so attached to your life.”

He was holding the receiver so close to his mouth that I could almost feel his breath in my ear. His voice crackled.

“And no, it wouldn’t bother me too much. Anyway, apparently he’ll be going to Shinjuku again three days from now. Try again then. If you can’t do it, we’ll just have to kill him and snatch the envelope. It would be worth more if
we could get it without killing him, but them’s the breaks. It’s no big deal.”

“But….”

“You knew if you failed you’d die. That was our agreement. I never change my mind. Fate shows no mercy. Yours is a cruel life. I’ve been checking up on you.”

I caught my breath.

“Don’t think so much. In the course of history billions of people have died. You’ll just be one more among them. It’s all a game. Don’t take life too seriously.”

I tried to speak but nothing came out.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve got your destiny inside my head. It’s addictive. Anyway, you’ve got four days. It’s unfortunate but it can’t be helped. People like you nearly always end up like this. Right, listen. It makes no difference to me whether you succeed or fail and die. I never change my mind, so if you fail I will kill you. It’s as simple as that. I’ve got dozens of people like you working for me. You’re just one among many. You’re just a tiny fraction of all the feelings that pass through me. Things that are trivial to the people at the top of the pyramid are matters of life and death to those beneath them. That’s the way the world works. And above all—”

He paused for a second.

“You do not make any demands. Do not ask any questions. Maybe you can’t understand me, but that’s how it is. Life is unfair. All over the world there are millions of children starving to death as soon as they’re born. Dying like flies. That’s just how it is.”

Kizaki hung up.

I RETURNED TO Shinjuku, to the office building where I’d lost track of Yonezawa. I didn’t expect that he’d still be there, and even if he was I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Leaving the busy streets and the hotels behind, I came out in a residential area in the middle of nowhere, with rows and rows of apartment blocks. It was late at night but many of the windows were still lit up. I guess people were still awake because the next day was a holiday. The lights were soft and fuzzy in the darkness.

As I looked up at them, feeling restless, I sensed something unfamiliar in the inside pocket of my coat. I took out a wallet I didn’t recognize and a silver Zippo lighter. The wallet contained 79,000 yen, various credit cards, a driver’s license and a golf club membership card. My vision
contracted. A bloated dog eyed me, then slunk off watchfully. I saw a man walking towards me wearing a raincoat.
It’s not raining
, I thought, and when I looked again there was just a large stain on a wall. It wasn’t even shaped like a person.

In a narrow alley off to the left I spotted the lights of a small bar. I tucked the wallet back inside my coat and put the lighter in the basket of a bike lying on its side. The place was tiny, its feebly illuminated sign faded to black. I couldn’t read the name.

Inside there were four stools at the counter and two tables. I ordered a whiskey from the seedy bartender, who didn’t look at me, and took a seat at a table. An office worker who looked like a regular was passed out drunk, sound asleep with his forehead resting on the bar.

Classical music was flowing out of small speakers and the barman moved absent-mindedly, as though listening to it was his sole purpose in life. A mongrel was tied up beside the counter, sprawled motionless on the floor, only its eyes moving. The man ignored me as he placed a scotch on the rocks on my table. Looking idly around the room, I figured this bar would never be popular.

I soon finished my drink and asked for another. The
barman put a bottle and ice on the table and went back behind the counter. Neither Ishikawa, who used to stop me from drinking too much, nor Saeko, who had urged me to drink more, was there, of course. I began to feel drunk and the glass in front of me seemed to grow dim, and then so did everything else.

There was no one else in the bar apart from the owner, still listening to his music, the unconscious man in the suit, and the dog, which looked bored out of its mind but didn’t seem to object to its leash. I thought about my own mortality, about what I had done with my life until now. Reaching out my hands to steal, I had turned my back on everything, rejected community, rejected wholesomeness and light. I had built a wall arround myself and lived by sneaking into the gaps in the darkness of life. Despite that, however, for some reason I felt that I wanted to be here for a little while longer.

The barman was sitting on a chair behind the counter with his eyes closed. I knew nothing about music, so I just watched him as he listened. There were many things I didn’t like about my life, but there were also some things I didn’t want to lose, people I didn’t want to lose. The people I cared about didn’t live very long, though, their lives
ending in heartbreak. I wondered what my life had meant, thought about it ending, thought about the moment of my death.

The guy in the suit went on sleeping, and the bartender hadn’t moved a muscle. If I could, I planned to watch them until I fell asleep myself.

16
When I was young, there was always the tower in the distance.

In dirty lanes lined with row houses and low-rise apartments, every time I looked up I could dimly make it out. Covered in mist, its outline vague, like a spire in some ancient daydream. Solemn, beautiful, exotic, so tall that I couldn’t see the top and so far away that no matter how long I walked I’d never reach it.

I would go into a store and slip a rice ball into my little
pocket. Other people’s possessions weighed heavy in my hands, like foreign objects. Yet I never felt any guilt or wickedness in these actions. My growing body demanded a lot of food and I didn’t see how there could be anything wrong with taking and eating it. Other people’s rules were just something they’d invented for themselves. I put that weighty rice ball in my mouth, chewed and swallowed vigorously. Then I stared beyond the lines of power poles, beyond the grubby houses, beyond the trees on the low hill, at the high tower standing in that obscure realm. One day, perhaps, it would speak to me. Scratching my thighs, which poked out of my shorts, I was faintly aware of the stolen property sitting heavy in my stomach.

I heard the laughing cries of a group of children my own age. A boy with long hair was holding a little toy car. It was bought overseas, he shouted in a piercing voice. Operated by a small controller he held in his hand, the sophisticated car sparkled brilliantly as it went racing around.

My heart pounded when I saw it. The boy was boasting about something he hadn’t bought himself, that had been given to him. It was revolting. To cure his ugliness, I thought it would be good if he lost his car. I took it. Since the kids didn’t even know I was there, it was all too easy to
take. For some reason items from other countries always reminded me of the tower.