Jon Grimwood - End of the World Blues

“Fuck off, ” said Micki, using up most of her English.

Gaz Maguire, erstwhile provider of portfolios to would-be models, grinned, stepped sideways to block Micki’s path again, and snapped another shot at the exact moment Micki stuck one finger up and scowled at the camera. “Perfect,” he said. “Thank you.”

Gaz was about to say something else when Namiko shoved him aside, grabbed Micki by the shoulder, and dragged her away from the photographers that had begun to gather around her.

“That’s enough,” said Namiko crossly, passing the cat to Micki. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

“What’s going to happen?”

Namiko snorted. “They’ll fight,” she said, stepping around a vast stone torii near the entrance to the graveyard. Gravel crunched underfoot as they walked towards an old man leaning on a broom.

“Konichiwa,” said the old man.

“Konichiwa,” Micki and Namiko said together. Everyone bowed. After names had been exchanged, Mr. Ito made space for them by moving a pile of prayer sticks he’d leaned against a moss-covered tomb. “Big fight,” he said. “But over soon.”

“How do you know?” asked Micki.

“Bozozoku,” said Mr. Ito, appearing to weigh the word in one hand. “Little monkeys…” He juggled his hands slightly, before finding the first heavier. “As long as the police stay quiet this will be quick.”

Mr. Ito was right. As a first wave of yelling chimpira charged towards the bikes, the bozozoku fired up their engines, blipped the throttles, and hit switches crudely wired to the handle bars.

Micki grinned. “Afterburners,” she said, as flame lanced from each bike and a chimpira dropped his bat and began clutching his ankle.

“Clever,” Mr. Ito said. “Also inventive.”

What was most interesting was that the police continued to do nothing.

True, they’d left their vans. But that was the only movement they made, apart from securing both ends of the street and moving the press back slightly. And yet, in their black-visored riot helmets, body armour, and studded gauntlets they looked easily the most frightening of the three groups gathered at the site of Kit’s old bar.

“When it’s over,” said Mr. Ito. “That’s when they’ll move.”

Micki looked at him.

“I lived through the sixties,” he said, with a smile. “You watch. They’ll arrest the losers…”

Ito-san’s prophesy probably explained why the police eventually climbed back into their riot vehicles, having done little more than watch, keep casual spectators off the street, and stop the photographers from getting themselves hurt. Because when the battle ended, everything was pretty much as it had been.

Paramedics treated five chimpira with burns, but since all the burns were below the knee, the journalists were refusing to take the injuries seriously. A couple of bozozoku had broken heads and one chimpira had been carried away unconscious, his colleagues angrily refusing offers of medical help.

“Interesting,” said Mr. Ito.

“What is?” asked Micki.

“Most things,” he said. “Particularly this.”

Five miles above Siberia, with the clouds below the plane set out like a slab of ice, the youngest of the Japanese cabin crew brought Neku a copy of TunaBelly to sign.

Approaching diffidently, the girl dropped to a crouch beside Neku’s seat, before producing the battered paperback.

“I wondered, perhaps…?”

Without a word, Neku produced a pen and opened the book at its title page. TunaBelly was a million-selling novel about teenage lust, love, and murder set in the half-lit world of Tokyo’s Tsukiji market. It featured drugs, graphic sex, and a working-class boy who loved a twenty-eight-year-old Yakuza hit woman against his better judgment. The neatly made-up girl holding the book looked exactly like Neku’s idea of the target reader.

Cherry, read the nametag on her jacket. So Neku inscribed the book to Cherry, added her best wishes, and signed the title page with a scrawl.

It was as well the real Mika Aiko was a recluse. This was the third copy of TunaBelly to be thrust at Neku since she presented herself at the check-in counter with a regular ticket and a fake passport. If anyone had known what Aiko really looked like then Neku would have been in trouble. As it was, the fake passport was a good one, its biological data was spot on, and fame, even borrowed fame, was becoming addictive. Not least for its ability to clear problems out of the way.

If the woman at the check-in counter had got her way Neku would now be travelling Business Class, maybe even first.

“No,” Neku had insisted.

“We must, please,” the woman had said. “It would be terrible for us to make Mika Aiko…”

Neku’s first excuse having faltered against the woman’s certainty that anonymity could be guaranteed wherever Miss Aiko sat, Neku admitted that her real reason for wanting to travel Economy was because this was how her next heroine would fly on a similar trip to London.

After that everything was easy. Neku was given a choice of the remaining seats and chose one right at the back—near the toilets—where no one could sit behind her. So far Neku had refused offers of wine, gin, and beer and turned away a meal one of the crew tried to serve her an hour after take off. This seemed to be entirely what the cabin crew expected of a media brat travelling as incognito as five piercings, red hair, and a ripped skirt allowed.

“Miss Aiko?”

Having checked that her celebrity passenger really was awake, the stewardess who’d wanted her book signed wondered if Miss Aiko would like to see the cockpit. Since refusing seemed rude, Neku agreed—and found herself being escorted through a darkened cabin towards the front.

A handful of people watched their screens in Premium Economy and a solitary man in Business was stubbornly working at his laptop, surrounded by darkness. Most of the beds in first were empty, with the only bed actually occupied carrying two people, though they slept chastely, curled around each other and half covered by a blue blanket.

Neku smiled, though mostly her amusement was reserved for Kit Nouveau and his companion. They were on this plane, as she’d been told to expect, on the far side of Business, their seats ratcheted back and their feet on flip-up stools. The woman slept with a whisky glass clutched in one hand. Nouveau-san had a copy of Hagakure Kikigaki open on his lap.

Those two were the reason she’d refused an upgrade. Neku didn’t want to be seen yet, and just agreeing to come forward like this had taken more nerve than she expected.

It had been Kit’s friend who had told Neku where Kit was going and why. She’d found him in a gaijin bar, along with two girls, half a dozen bozozoku, an English photographer called Gaz, a black cat, and a map of Roppongi spread out across a table. It was the third Irish bar she’d tried.

“Ah,” said the huge man. “It’s the goth kid.”

A couple of bozozoku looked up.

“Which kid?” demanded one.

“That one,” he said, nodding towards the door. “She’s friends with Kit…”

A girl snorted.

Making herself approach the table, Neku bowed slightly. “Can I talk to you?”

The man pointed to a stool at the next table and made dragging motions, indicating that Neku should join them.

“Not here,” said Neku.

The man sighed.

His name was No Neck and his first kiss tasted of beer. There wasn’t a second, because Neku had turned her face away by then. “It wasn’t like that,” Neku said, when he asked how long Neku and Kit had been friends.