“You got complaints about my surgical skills? You’d better learn more respect for the medical profession or else, my friend. I could come along and steal your organs in the night while you’re sleeping, you know!”
The surgeon stared down the gangster boss, gimlet-eyed. His underlings began to move in to eject this insolent fellow, but the boss had other ideas. A flash of intuition had told him that he could use this man. He soothed him with a polite apology about the severed finger episode, and added a hefty payment for all the fruitless trouble he’d been put to.
There was a fuss at the hospital over the fact that the surgeon had helped a gangster fulfil his obligations. The result was that he was removed from his post for unprofessional behaviour, and that was the end of his medical career. But the gangster boss had taken a fancy to him. He found him a new place in another hospital, and in effect he was kept under the wing of the gang as its pet surgeon. Most of his work these days was in the line of extracting bullets and looking after wounded patients who couldn’t reveal their identities in public.
Yashiro was aware of all this, but he hadn’t heard why this surgeon had added part-time murderer to his profession. It just takes a slight rerouting of the neurons for a surgeon to become a killer, of course, but the patients at their hospital have no idea. This man at least had conscience enough to perform the job outside the hospital.
To cut a long story short, the surgeon took on the job of assassinating Kita for five hundred thousand yen. Even if he did get the remaining half of his pay after Kita had met his accident according to instructions, plus an extra hundred thousand, it would still not be enough in his opinion. Sure, it was the going rate for a professional Filipino killer, but this guy came with a guarantee from Yashiro’s gangster friend, so he could be trusted. Yashiro calculated that if Kita could have an accident that didn’t involve much physical damage, he’d get a tidy thirteen million in his own pocket: a million commission for selling the cornea and organ set to a waiting transplant patient, plus twelve million for being Kita’s insurance beneficiary. He’d done a deal with Miss Koikawa behind Kita’s back, which made Kita a paper employee of his company with the company head as beneficiary, and made thirty per cent of proceeds payable to the insurance agent (Miss Koikawa). Yashiro was taking meticulous care that Kita’s death should not go unrewarded.
Kita was apparently of the same opinion. Therefore, when Yashiro had heard from the studio boss that Shinobu had been kidnapped, he’d decided he had to hasten matters with the killer. Once the police got mixed up in the story, the killer would have a harder job, his plans for the insurance money would go awry, and the price of the victim’s organs would go down. Whatever Kita’s motives for this abduction might be, Yashiro wasn’t going to sit back quietly and watch his own profits go up in smoke.
In order to limit Kita’s movements, Yashiro cancelled his cash card and credit card. Meanwhile, the studio boss planned to use the abduction to give Yoimachi all the publicity he could. He also used his connections with the Finance Minister who’d paid for use of Shinobu, and thereby managed to get onto the bank’s online records and find out where he’d been trying to withdraw money. Then he set about controlling things by hastily selling the story of the abduction to the media, arranging to provide them with video footage and photographs from her debut as a star until now, and even gathered comments from family and friends.
Impelled not so much by the half a million yen reward as by an inextricable combination of Yashiro, who was intent on making a profit from Kita’s death, and the studio boss, who was intent on wringing money out of Shinobu’s abduction, the killer found himself to his own bewilderment mingling with the passengers on the northbound bullet train. At his feet lay a Boston bag containing the seven essential tools of his trade. Kita and Shinobu were apparently headed for Niigata. He knew that Kita had tried to withdraw money from a regional bank in a hot springs town in Gunma, and that he was hoping to escape somewhere and cover his tracks. The killer put in a telephone call to the station nearest the bank, and asked if anyone had seen Yoimachi Shinobu. Yes, one of the young station employees at Jomo Kogen had seen the nationally famous star apparently as happy as could be. Few people passed through the station, so the fellow’s memory would be reliable. Apparently the man with her had on a backpack, and was humming some unfamiliar tune. The two had taken the northbound bullet train.
Kita and Shinobu arrived at Niigata Station at two in the afternoon. After buying a change of clothes and a pair of sunglasses for Shinobu in the shopping mall of the station building, and some stomach and eye medicine for himself, Kita had only thirty thousand yen left in his wallet. Once they’d run through it, that would be that. But since all was due to be over on Friday anyway, things were going to plan. There was nothing to be scared of.
Shinobu emerged from the changing room in a shiny dress printed with tiny carnations, and crossed her white ankles in a pretty pose for him. “How do I look?” The faint brown birthmark on the outside of her left calf was clearly visible. Kita had discovered it the night before, and felt it added something new to Shinobu’s list of charms. This short black dress with its carnation print would be more photogenic than the torn jeans and shirt that revealed her belly button, he thought. He had Shinobu promise to reveal to the media that her abductor had bought her this dress. Shinobu said the round yellow sunglasses were to hide her tears.
At three, they boarded the bus for Niigata Port. Shinobu had declared she wanted to look at the sea.
Kita had been on the same bus two years earlier, but the ride felt quite different this time. Back then he’d been a travelling salesman in the health field, intent on cultivating his outlets, an expression on his face that was quite unrelated to his feelings and the same words constantly in his mouth. Sure, that had been one way of sustaining life, but he hadn’t felt there was much life in him to sustain. The company had a motto to the effect that an employee who was selling health had to be healthy himself, but in fact Kita was a burned out wreck at the end of every day. That had been back when health products actually sold. Egg oil, turtle extract, royal jelly, chlorophyll juice, immune system boosters, multivitamins, slimming oils, seaweed soap – this all-purpose health product company had handled them all. Health was no exception to the rules of season and fashion. The company employees were the monitors of early signs of trends; they anticipated what was going to be next, and went around promoting its health benefits to the public.
Two years ago, Kita had been in Niigata Port trying to sell turtle extract and multi-vitamins to the fishermen and crew of a Russian boat, but they weren’t having any of it. As long as they lived on the sea, they were plenty healthy enough, they told him. So Kita gave up selling health, with the result that his spirits markedly improved, and he regained his own health.
They arrived at the bus terminal. The sunlight bouncing off the white concrete was dazzling. They set off along the quayside, a warm salty breeze playing on their cheeks. Soon it would be time for Kita to telephone the television station again and make his announcement. They went into the ferry terminus, and located a public telephone. The ferry wouldn’t be in for quite a while, and there were only a couple of people in the waiting room. The ticket office was closed.
“I’d love to go there,” Shinobu said, pointing to a poster for Sado Island, but it seemed to Kita that they shouldn’t try an island. There’d be nowhere to go if they were cornered. He shook his head.