David Peace - Tokyo Year Zero

And I run out of the meeting room and down the stairs to vomit in the toilets. I vomit in the toilets of Atago police station a third time. Yellow bile . I spit. I turn on the tap again. I wash my face. I look up into that mirror again. I stare into that mirror –

I can’t forget. In the half-light, I can’t forget …

Adachi is waiting for me outside the toilets –

‘We’ve both seen this before, detective…’

Adachi grabs my arm. ‘Where’s Fujita?’

‘Did you find that file, inspector?’

‘I sent him to the Salon Matsu in Kanda,’ I lie but I don’t ask him why; why Adachi wants Fujita. I don’t ask him why because I turn back into the toilets. Back to vomit. Grey bile . Back to the sink. Back to the tap. Back to the mirror –

In the half-light …

Adachi is gone but Nishi and Kimura are waiting for me in the corridor. They are hot and they are dirty. They know I have forgotten about them. They are tired and they are angry –

‘There are no records of a Takahashi of Zōshigaya,’ says Nishi. ‘Because there are no records of anyone because all their records were lost when their ward office burnt down…’

‘But did you go to the address in Zōshigaya?’

Kimura nods and Nishi says, ‘Yes.’

I ask them both, ‘And…?’

‘It’s cinders,’ says Nishi.

I ask, ‘Have either of you seen Detective Fujita today?’

Kimura shakes his head and Nishi says, ‘No.’

‘Right then,’ I say and I take out the envelope from my pocket and hand them the piece of newspaper. ‘Find out which paper this advertisement is from and the date it was run. Then, last thing tonight, before they pull this man in tomorrow, you two are coming with me to Kanda to help me wake up the ladies of the Salon Matsu.’

Kimura nods. Nishi nods. They both bow. They both turn to leave. I wait until they’ve gone and then I run back to the toilets of Atago police station to vomit in the toilets –

But this time I do not vomit –

Nothing comes up.

*

Everything is falling into place . Back to Shimbashi to give Senju the name. Everything is turning out fine . Back to Shimbashi to get some Calmotin. Falling into place . Back through the pots and the pans, through the knives and the spoons. Turning out fine . Back through the suits and the sardines, the tinned fruit and old army boots –

‘ Red apple to my lips, blue sky silently watching…’

But tonight there are many more pale-suited goons out here, many more patterned shirts and American sunglasses in the alleys and the lanes, in the shadows and the arches –

Trains screaming overhead …

Eight goons tonight at the foot of the stairs that lead up to his office, their legs apart and their hands in jackets, with twitches in their cheeks and pinpricks for pupils –

In the half-light …

His office door is closed, his office lights out tonight –

I straighten my jacket. I ask them, ‘Is the boss in?’

‘And who the fuck are you?’ asks one of them –

I tell him, ‘Inspector Minami of Metro HQ.’

This goon tells that goon to go up the stairs and so that goon goes up the stairs and taps on the door to the office and then that goon comes back down the stairs and whispers in the ear of this goon and so now this goon says, ‘You’re to wait, Minami of Metro HQ.’

No dice tonight. No calls of odd, even and play …

Now the door to the office opens. A foreigner, an American, a Victor, comes down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs, this man turns to me and says, ‘Good evening, inspector…’

‘Good evening, sir,’ I reply.

The foreigner, this American, this Victor, he winks at me now and Senju’s goons all laugh along –

‘Up you go now, Minami of Metro HQ,’ says one of the goons as the Victor disappears –

And up I go now –

Senju Akira is sat cross-legged in the dark with only the street lights illuminating the sweat on his skull and the sheen on his skin; Senju Akira naked except for a traditional loincloth –

‘You better have a name for me,’ whispers Senju Akira. ‘Or you won’t be leaving here again tonight…’

I curse him and I curse myself …

I kneel before him. I say, ‘Hayashi Jo of the Minpo paper.’

Senju says nothing. His eyes on me . Senju says nothing –

My face to the floor, I say, ‘He was seen with Nodera.’ His eyes on me . Nothing.

His eyes on me . Nothing –

‘They were drinking together in the New Oasis.’

His eyes on me . Nothing. His eyes on me …

‘The night before the hit,’ I tell him –

In the dark. Senju shifts his weight. In the dark. Senju hisses, ‘Get out, detective! Go now! Quickly before I change my mind…’

I slide back on my knees towards the door, the stairs –

‘Red apple to my lips, blue sky silently watching…’

In the dark, Senju is getting to his feet. In the dark, Senju is rising, saying, ‘You want your drugs, you be here tomorrow night.’

*

I open the door to the borrowed office at Atago. Fujita still not here . They are all asleep now. Fujita gone again . I put my head down on my desk. But Fujita will be back . I still can’t sleep. Fujita is safe now . Tomorrow I will sleep. Tomorrow Fujita will return. Tomorrow …

Everything will fall into place. Everything will turn out fine –

Tomorrow Kai and the First Team will make their arrest –

Tomorrow the killer will confess to both crimes –

Tomorrow everything will fall into place –

Everything will turn out fine –

Everything will end –

‘Boss … Boss…’

I open my eyes –

‘The advertisement is from the Asahi newspaper,’ says Nishi. ‘It ran on the nineteenth of July…’

‘Thank you,’ I tell him –

Nishi smiles. Nishi asks, ‘So is it time to go and wake up the ladies of the Salon Matsu yet?’

*

The streets are dark and silent now, the heat heavy still, as we walk up Hibiya-dōri and show our passes again and again as we walk in front of the illuminated Dai-Ichi Assurance Building, Emperor MacArthur’s Headquarters opposite the darkened Imperial Palace of the old Emperor, as we walk on up past the Imperial Theatre and the Meiji Seimei building, then the Yūsen building and the Kaijo building, to Marunouchi and Ōtemachi –

The old Mitsubishi Town …

Here most of the modern steel and concrete buildings are still standing, just the odd ones gutted here and there; here where the Victors rule from their offices and their barracks; here in the new heart of Occupied Tokyo –

Same as the old heart …

Now Kimura, Nishi and I cut under the tracks of Tokyo station to Kanda –

Here, less than a mile from the Emperors old and new, few of the wooden buildings are still standing. There were train yards here once. Family businesses. Bicycle shops. Homes. Now there are only burnt-out ruins and makeshift shelters, rare clusters of old timber houses that were spared and sudden alleys of one-storey offices that have sprung up among the fields of weeds and mountains of ashes, the braziers and lanterns, the guitars and girls, the songs and shouts –

‘Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu …? Asobu…?’

From the alleyways and the doorways with their permed hair and painted faces, they coo and they call, luring and then leading their catches back to the shabby little buildings where their foreign names and Japanese prices are written on placards or posters –