“You can’t go in,” No Neck protested, when Kit tried the new metal gate.
“I own this place.”
“Maybe,” said No Neck. “But it’s still padlocked. Talk to Mr. Togo in the morning…”
“I own this place,” repeated Kit, rattling the fence. He felt hands grip his shoulders from behind and the bozozoku lifted him aside.
“Leave it,” said No Neck. “Learn when to walk away.”
“I can’t,” said Kit.
Dark eyes looked at Kit from a face that would scare hardened criminals, the light from a street lamp falling across the bozozoku’s cheek like a scar. “This matters that much?” he said.
“Yes,” said Kit, “it does.”
“You want to tell me why?” The bozozoku stood between Kit and the gate, his head bent slightly to show that he was ready to listen. Kit knew almost nothing about No Neck and the man knew even less about him, it was one of the things that let them remain friends. “I mean,” said No Neck. “It’s not as if you and Yoshi even liked each other.”
“It’s not just Yoshi,” admitted Kit. “It’s the way it’s all getting whitewashed. No bomb, tragic accident. No bar, new apartments. I feel like a ghost in my own life. I want the bar back.”
No Neck considered that.
“Okay,” he said.
The metal fence was designed so that sections locked together. It should have been possible to separate one section from another merely by lifting. Unfortunately practise turned out to be very different from theory.
An old woman in a yukata had appeared from one of the few remaining wooden houses, a building even more ramshackle than the bar had been. And Mr. Ito now stood at the edge of the darkened graveyard, leaning on his broom. Both were watching intently and neither looked like being much help.
“We need more people,” Kit said, looking round.
“Tomorrow,” promised No Neck. “We’ll have lots of people. Let me make some calls first.”
“Want to talk about Yoshi?” asked No Neck, a few hours later, after one of the many calls he’d promised to make delivered them to another bar. With No Neck it was always a bar, unless that was just Tokyo.
“No,” Kit said. “I don’t think I do.”
“Okay,” said No Neck. “You ever wondered what it was you and Yoshi had in common?”
“I just said…”
“You’re not talking about it,” said No Neck. “I am. You ever wonder?”
Kit shook his head.
“Nothing,” said No Neck. “That was what you had in common…All those empty rooms. No television, no radio, no computers. Four floors of your own building in central Tokyo and the only room you bothered to decorate was the bar. Everything else was just storage space, without the storage.”
“Yeah,” said Kit. “Probably.”
“Does that sound like a marriage to you?”
Kit looked at him.
“She didn’t register it,” said No Neck, “because that way Yoshi could walk away…”
“If she needed,” said Kit.
No Neck nodded.
“Look,” Kit said. “You want to tell me what happened that night?”
Kit and No Neck sat in Seventh Gear, a biker shack on the northwest edge of Kabukicho, built under a raised section of the Seibu Shinjuku line. And Kit had earned his share of stares and comments just by pushing his way through its bead curtain. No Neck had to do some quick talking, his share of stares, shoulder slapping, and arm gripping before Kit’s presence became accepted.
“Sure,” said No Neck, taking off his shades to reveal bruises purple enough to make a goth rainbow. “Why not? She shopped me to the cops…The cops decided to beat the crap out of me, repeatedly.”
“Shit,” said Kit. “You know why?”
No Neck snorted. “Why do you think?” he said. “By then, they wanted me to sign a confession saying my friends bombed your bar.”
“They gave you a translation?”
“I can read Japanese.”
Kit stared at him. “You’re worse than me,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”
No Neck looked embarrassed. “I can read it,” he said. “And talk Japanese, if I must.”
“So why the me no speaks stuff?”
“Think about it,” said No Neck. “Why does Micki keep coming round to my apartment?”
“To teach you…” Kit stopped.
“Yeah.” The huge man smiled. “I’ve been here for twenty-five years,” he said. “Remember Madori? Namiko? Mai? They all wanted to teach me Japanese. You’d be surprised how many of those lessons ended up in bed.”
Actually, Kit wouldn’t.
“The police knew it wasn’t me,” said No Neck, with a shrug. “But it would have been tidier. One gaijin bombs another, famous Japanese artist caught in the conflict…they came very close,” No Neck added.
“Close to what?”
“Getting their confession.” Upending his bottle, No Neck killed what was left of his Kirin. “Not sure what changed,” he said. “One moment some psycho has me in a cell, the next there’s a knock at the door and I’m alone on the floor with foot prints on my face.” The Australian checked he really had finished his beer and got up to fetch another.
When No Neck returned it was with four Kirin and a saucer of chili nuts. “The bastard didn’t even bother to come back,” he said, sounding more fucked off by that than anything else. “Just left me on the floor in my own piss…a uniform kicked me free. Gave me back my wallet, permit, and resident’s card and told me to behave myself in future. He looked about twelve…”
“It could have been worse,” said Kit. “They could have shipped you back to Sydney.” For reasons unspecified, the bozozoku had let it be known that returning home could be fatal.
“Ex-wife,” said No Neck, as if hearing Kit’s thought. “Turkish, big family, half a dozen brothers.” Reaching for the chili nuts, he emptied the saucer with a single scoop and swallowed the lot, pulling a face. “Her father hated how it began and loathed how it ended.”
“How did it start?”
“In a school gym.”
Kit looked at No Neck. “I was teaching,” said No Neck. “She wasn’t…”
It was a long story, not pretty and the only thing No Neck would say in his defence was that he’d loved the girl. She’d been six months under legal and he’d married her as soon as he was allowed. Things had gone downhill from there.
“You know how many bodies I buried in the first Iraq war?”
Kit shook his head.
“Nor do I,” said No Neck. “There were that many, kids and conscripts…we just bulldozed sand over the top. I always thought that was my worst and then Maryam announced she was leaving and taking the kids.”
He caught Kit’s look, the unspoken question. “I was drinking,” he admitted. “Spending too much time with the Rebels. Things were rough.”
“So you ended up here?”
“There are worse places,” said No Neck, glancing round. He nodded to a couple of bozozoku in the far corner. One was wearing a white headband with shades, the other just had the shades. “These guys are family,” No Neck said, thumping his ribs over the heart. “Know what I mean?”
The Australian was missing when Kit got back from taking a piss. Although Kit found him easily enough, over in the far corner with the guy wearing a headband. “Meet Micki’s brother Tetsuo. He’s going to help us shift that fence.”
Kit shook, trying not to wince at the other man’s grip.
“According to Tetsuo,” said No Neck, “someone out there is looking for you.”