me you’re not intending to pay. Is that correct?’
Namie finished off her drink and slid the empty glass his way. ‘That’s absolutely correct.’
Ohara signalled to the bartender, who nodded and immediately went to work on the drinks. Ohara’s attention returned to Namie. ‘May I ask who you work for?’
‘Nobunaga. He asked us to pay the Night Glow a visit. He said the only way to distract you from your backroom poker games was to hold out on a bill.’
Ohara nodded tensely. ‘When you are here with his blessing, it is not my bar to deny you.’
‘Do you work for Nobunaga, too?’ asked Taro.
‘I have a partnership with him. And a lifetime debt. Let the reason be a respectful secret between himself and me. But a lifetime debt buys a lot of drinks.’
‘It is not for the drinks that Nobunaga has sent us here,’ said Namie. ‘And that’s just as well ‘cause there’s a bar where the bartenders wear miniskirts and climb ladders and that’s more our kind of place.’ She watched the bartender arrive at the table with her follow up Black Russian and shook her head as he shyly returned to the bar. ‘Completely disappointing.’ She pressed the glass against her cheek and sighed. ‘Nobunaga has not told us everything about why we’re here. He’s polite enough to have left that to you. So, no more respectful secrets. We prefer ugly truths. If it’s extortion, gambling debts, till skimming or just a slow few months, we need to hear it straight. Your bar has stopped making money and that is a concern.’
Ohara pulled a strained expression. His embarrassed smile had nowhere left to go and slowly faded away. ‘I would appreciate a couple of days to gather my thoughts. Is that too much to ask?’
Namie slapped her pistol onto the table. ‘Be careful,’ she said icily. ‘Your silent partner has a voice. You really don’t want to hear it.’
Even in the bar’s dull light, Ohara went visibly pale. ‘Please,’ he said urgently, ‘there is no problem here that warrants such measures.’
‘Really?’ replied Namie. ‘Nobunaga didn’t send a couple of tax advisors. He sent us. That tells me something. It tells me that to straighten out this bar we’re going to have to deal with something pretty crooked.’
Taro draped a napkin over the gun. ‘A couple of days isn’t too much to ask for a true friend.’ He got up out of his chair. ‘We’ll be back on Monday and you’d better be ready for us.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ohara breathlessly. ‘I appreciate your thoughtfulness.’
Taro stood tall over him. ‘But that’s as far as that friendship thing is going to get you. What we’ll take instead of that is honesty. Your business may only live by night but we’re about to shine a big bright light into it. Don’t hold out on us. The Night Glow is not earning its keep and we’re going to find out why.’
Ohara nodded. ‘I understand.’
Taro turned and marched out of the bar. Namie caught up to him on the way up the stairs.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she snapped.
‘I’ve just got us the weekend off,’ Taro replied.
They reached the narrow street above the bar. Taro looked one way and then the other and saw that there was nothing much about with a scene of apartment buildings, lines of parked cars and a huddle of vending machines on the corner. Namie still had her Black Russian in hand and was struggling to tuck her gun away in its spot against the small of her back.
‘You’ve got us the weekend off,’ she muttered, ‘but you’ve also given away the element of surprise. Who knows what Ohara will have cooked up for us by Monday?’
‘Surprise is a two way street,’ replied Taro. ‘Ohara could just as easily have spiked our drinks or found a gun of his own.’
‘Surprise is a two way street?’ said Namie incredulously. ‘Go back to the New Japan Guard clubhouse and see how many more bus tyres you can slash. I’d like to see that.’
‘I’d rather not.’
Namie eyed him intently and sipped her drink. ‘I liked the way you talked to Ohara back there,’ she said with a smirk. ‘You sounded like a real player.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So, what are we supposed to do now then?’
‘We’ll take a look at the Night Glow’s set up. Find out if Nobunaga really is getting ripped off with his investment. You could see in Ohara’s face that he probably is.’
‘The face I was about to crack?’
‘We’re only going to crack faces when it’s necessary. We might not be tax accountants, but I don’t want us to be just mindless thugs, either.’
‘Are you sure that’s not why Nobunaga picked you? All that previous experience. I hear you needed a new identity more than most. A very bad boy.’
Taro shrugged. ‘The one thing I’ve learnt is that crooked operators get their throats cut. It’s not something I’m keen to experience for myself.’
Namie leaned in closer. ‘Well, I suppose I could do with a calming influence. No matter how much I’m liable to hate it. But what I was trying to ask is what are we supposed to do now that we’ve got the weekend off?’
‘I’ve got a place in mind,’ said Taro. ‘It’s a little way down the road, but if we leave now, we’ll be there by dawn.’
Namie turned and smashed her glass against the nearest wall. ‘Alright, Ichiro, you win. But Ichiro isn’t even your real name, is it? Tell me what your name is.’
Taro started walking in the direction of their rental Mazda sports car parked by the vending machines. ‘I’ll forget it more quickly if you don’t bother asking,’ he murmured.
53
Taro had finally made it. He was squinting with the glare. Even with the sun still low, there was sunshine enough to dig the shadows out of the sand at his feet. He needed a pair of sunglasses. He supposed he wasn’t wearing any now because he was concerned they might make him look like a gangster.
The beach season had ended on Shikoku Island but the surf season was never ending. The surfers in their colourful wetsuits were using the small waves the way farmers utilised their tiny fields, trying to draw everything possible from what little was on offer. Taro was watching them from the seaweed strewn beach, wondering if Shimizu was amongst them. Had Shimizu really found a destination in his friend’s surf shop? It would be a long journey from the hard benches of Ueno Park but it was possible. Taro had run into some luck when he needed it most and maybe Shimizu had too. Best not to go looking for him, though. Taro had a new identity to protect and that meant forgetting everything about the old. It would take some time, but he would do it.
Taro was walking along the beach with Namie. He had left his boots beside Namie’s on the roof of their car. His jacket was slung over his shoulder and his shirt sleeves were rolled up. Namie had put her gun back into her handbag and she was setting a slow pace. Her hair was down and was fluttering about in the sea breeze. She was wearing a summer polka dot dress; she looked like she belonged on a beach. Not that she couldn’t survive anywhere. Her defiant nature reminded Taro of a voodoo doll: whatever was stabbed into her would be someone else’s pain.
Namie tilted her head to Taro, her eyes hidden behind her oversized Police sunglasses. ‘I don’t want you to become sexually attracted to me,’ she abruptly said.
Taro laughed with the shock of the comment.
Namie was unfazed. ‘The best way for a guy to pick up girls is to have a female friend to do the ground work for him. She’ll have ease of access and won’t be putting her foot in her mouth with stupid comments. Let’s put it to the test tonight. I’ll be getting you so many girls your head will be dizzy.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’ Taro asked.
Namie shrugged. ‘I’ll pull a gun on the owner of a bar, I’ll get my partner sex drunk, I’ll take a hike in the suicide forest. What can I say? It’s a bitch of a world to control.’
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