Chapter Nine: Stray Dog

"The mission was successful," Manx said. "Though perhaps next time you could manage without one of you sending another one to the hospital."

"Yes, Manx."

Omi handed over his report without a word. Youji gave her his. It had taken him a week to write. He hadn't wanted to start it.

"It's not The Long Goodbye but it'll do."

"Thank you," Manx said. "Is there anything else?"

Youji put out his cigarette, lit another and said, "I think we were being watched."

"Youji-kun?"

"What are you talking about?" Ken asked.

Youji stood. You should always stand for these things.

"We found out about Sakai too quickly. He should have been better at covering his tracks, even from us. Whoever fingered him had help, even if they don't know it. Someone was following us. He wasn't following me. He was following you. He was there when I hit Ken, when I met Aya, and in the park when we did the mission. He's a foreigner driving a red Mercedes sports car. The last thing Arai said was about an American who knew about this. No one cared who he was except me."

"Youji-kun... I found the car you told me about. It was a rental."

"Who drives a sports car in Tokyo?"

Ken was too stubborn not to answer, "Well... you."

"There are a lot of Americans in the city, Youji-kun." Omi sounded like he was apologising for it.

The cigarette had burned down to the filter. Youji watched them through the smoke. None of it felt real. He might as well have been telling a fairy tale to an empty room.

"I'll convey your concerns to Persia," Manx said. "Consider the mission over."

She left, then Omi left, then Aya left. Ken sat on the couch staring at him.

"You've got to admit, Youji," he said. "It's a pretty weird story."

"Yeah," Youji muttered. "I should stop painting and become a pulp novelist instead. I'm going out, Ken."

Ken said something friendly, but he didn't want to hear it. He found his coat and hat on a chair in the back of the stock room where he'd left them coming back from the mission. Someone hung the coat up on an old mop and left the hat on top of it. Only Ken would do something like that. It looked like the nineteen forties had come to visit but got tired of waiting.

He put on the coat and the hat, deciding this would be the last time. He could either be the detective Youji Kudou or the assassin Balinese, but he couldn't be both. He could look back, but he could never return.

It was dark, and it was still cold, but the snow had melted like it had never fallen. While there was snow, Tokyo had been transformed, but now normal service had been resumed. He walked two streets to bright clean coffee shop where all the fixtures were polished till they shone. They knew him there. The waitresses hadn't left school yet and did shifts after they'd finished their homework so they'd have money to keep up with the trends. The manager sometimes brought out coffee himself, got to know his customers and watched over the waiting staff like a father. There were other people from local businesses there. Youji got a nod from the clerk from the video rental store near the Koneko. He'd tell you anything you wanted to know about Takashi Shimura movies if you asked, but Youji wasn't in the mood to talk.

He watched the huge TV instead. The news was showing the highlights of the Prime Minister's resignation speech. For a whole day there'd been nothing on the news services but the revelation he was showing the early signs of Alzheimer's. The only thing that had got the news to shut up about that story was yesterday's announcement he was resigning. He'd kept it together and said it was because he wanted to spend more time with his children, especially in light of the tragic death of his close friend Itsuo Arai. Everyone knew what he wasn't saying. As he gave the speech, the old man looked like he wanted nothing more than just to drop dead on the spot and get it over with.

They were talking about who'd take charge of the party already. The journalists had been promised an announcement on when the party would vote for the new Prime Minister. All anyone knew so far was that vote wouldn't be for a while, out of respect, but that didn't stop everyone talking about the candidates. There were four so far, and at the top of everyone's lists was the Defence Minister, Reiji Takatori. During the after-school rush, while Youji had been selling carnations to schoolgirls, Takatori had formerly announced his candidacy.

Youji blinked. He took a swig of his coffee and looked again. They were still there. They were barely in the camera frame. Youji almost wished they weren't. Two men standing just behind Takatori's podium. They were both bodyguards, but they wanted everyone to know they weren't normal bodyguards because they were both wearing white suits. Even then, they wouldn't look normal. They were both at least six feet tall, and the taller one's hair probably added another two inches. He looked European, but Youji couldn't say from where. The other one could have been from anywhere western, but his suit said he was American.

There were lots of Americans in Tokyo, but only one of them was standing behind the man who could be the next Prime Minister. What if he was the American that Arai had worked with? What if he had found out that Kritiker had a copy of the Prime Minister's medical file? What if he had known Sakai was a Kritiker agent? What if he had persuaded Arai to hire Sakai to kill the other agent and take back the file? What if he had helped Kritiker find Sakai? What if his red-haired colleague had followed them every step of the way in a scarlet Mercedes? What if he knew that Kritiker would release the file out of vengeance? What if he had done all this so the Prime Minister would resign and his boss would be one step away from being the leader of Japan?

What if?

Too many what ifs. He could tell the others. Aya would ignore him, Omi would ask him if he was sure, Ken would tell him he was mad. But he knew. He understood it now.

Youji Kudou finished his coffee, walked out into the street and lit a cigarette. He wrapped his coat around himself and put his hat back on. He'd be keeping them both after all.

The End