I waited about a minute, just in case the guy might have forgotten something and come back for it. When nothing happened, I rolled out, came to my feet, and checked the door again. All clear. I went out, moved the boxes off the wheelchair, pushed it inside, and slid out the yakuza again. He’d been dead for about twenty-four hours, and in cold storage for much of that time, so his rigor mortis was pretty advanced. I spent several minutes flexing the joints until I was able to get the body off the tray and into the wheelchair. As I moved him, for the first time I noticed his back. Shit, he was covered in tattoos. Well, not covered — he was a young yakuza, and apparently only getting started — but still, there was a fair amount of ink. Clearly a yakuza body, not civilian. Okay, nothing I could do about it now. And I supposed the skin ink would be no more problematic than the rigor mortis and lividity and other incongruities that would similarly give up the game if Tatsu weren’t able to hold up his end. I put it out of my mind and focused on the simple if unpleasant job at hand, and within five minutes, I had the body and the wheelchair in the trunk of the rental car. Once I had pulled out and was safely away, the surrealism of the whole tableau hit me again, and I started laughing so hard I almost had to pull over.
I thought about the young doctor in love, a mental description that produced another laughing fit. I was glad I’d only had to overhear the episode; I thought if I’d been forced to witness it, I would have to find a way to bleach my eyes. But on reflection, I was glad to know such things could occur. After all, the hospital morgue had just lost a body, and I wouldn’t have wanted a facility where everything was carefully checked and monitored and confirmed to be the one trying to explain the body’s absence. No, I thought it would be better for the incident to have occurred in a place where at least some of the employees might prefer to disappear a little paperwork rather than report that a body had been misplaced. I imagined recollections might become suitably vague, records difficult to find, chains of custody confused and contradictory. The one constant would be that no one would want to own up to losing a corpse. And why would they have to? After all, who would want to steal one?
As I got closer to Ueno Park, light was creeping into the sky. The improbable craziness of what had just happened faded, and the reality of what was coming next began to weigh increasingly on my mind. Compared to getting and moving the corpse, I didn’t think the next part would be hard. But luck was always a factor. Of course, luck could be managed, but what happened after this would be almost entirely out of my hands. It would all come down to how tightly Tatsu could control the investigation and steer it where it needed to go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I parked in a deserted lot near Shinobazu Pond. It was five in the morning, and though the summer sun hadn’t yet made it over the horizon, the sky was now completely light. The area was quiet and empty.
I got the yakuza’s body out of the trunk and situated in the wheelchair, slipped the hat and a surgical mask on him to conceal the mangled mess that had once been his face, and covered him with the blanket I had bought the day before. I closed the trunk and wheeled him into the park. For anyone who happened to be up and about at this hour, I’d look like an attendant from a nearby hospital or convalescent home, kindly taking out an old and rather arthritic ward to watch the sun rise over the lotuses.
At the south end of the pond was a public restroom. I wheeled the yakuza in, dragged him into a stall, locked the door, pulled myself over the top, and wiped down the spots I had touched. Doubtful anyone would be here in the next fifteen minutes or so, and even if someone did come in, there were two open stalls.
I pushed the empty wheelchair back to the car and drove it to a medical clinic near the station, wiping the handgrips before walking away. No one would know who it belonged to or how it got there, but nor would anyone pay it any mind. Eventually, someone would bring it inside and the clinic would appropriate it, or it would be discarded, or stolen, or whatever. Regardless, it wouldn’t be connected with me. The scrubs and lab coat went into a nearby trash bin. Then I returned the car to the rental agency. They were closed, and it was a little unusual for someone to return a vehicle outside business hours, but there was enough space under the door to slide the keys. I got on Thanatos, rode back to the pond, and parked right across from it. I cut the engine, dismounted, and stood there for a moment, just gazing at that beautiful machine. Roman Red and Egret White. I sighed. I patted the gas tank, the seat. I smiled a little, knowing I was being stupid. It was just a motorcycle. I supposed I was turning it into some kind of surrogate, a microcosm of the life I was leaving, a receptacle for all my sorrow and regret. But I couldn’t help it. “Going to miss you,” I said, and turned and walked away.
I headed back to the bathroom and climbed over the stall where I’d left the yakuza, pausing to wipe down the spots I touched. The body was getting warmer, which was good. A non-refrigerated victim would mean one less discrepancy for Tatsu to have to manage. I opened my bag, pulled out some clothes, and dressed him. Underwear, socks, everything. I took off the shoes I was wearing and put those on him, too, taking the new pair for myself. Soles without any scuff marks would have looked strange, and again, the fewer discrepancies Tatsu had to manage, the better. There were going to be enough as it was.
I put my wallet in his pocket, and, smiling grimly now, a folded piece of paper with McGraw’s number on it. I even put my watch on his wrist. I slipped my bag around his shoulder. Everything I owned was inside it. Even the letters from my parents, the fading photographs, everything. All I kept were the gun and some cash. Probably there was some symbolism in that. If so, I was too young at the time to be dissuaded by it.
I stood and looked down at the yakuza, at myself. My heart was beating hard. There was no coming back from this. In a weird way, I felt I really was about to die, that Ueno Park had become a giant gallows and I was ascending the steps.
I unlatched the stall door with a knuckle, eased it shut behind me, and went to the restroom entrance. The path around the pond formed a C from here, with the restroom at its center. I could see far in both directions. No one was around. I dashed back to the stall, got the yakuza’s arm around my neck and my arm around his waist, and hauled him up. If someone saw us now, I was just helping my stumbling-drunk drinking buddy back to his apartment after an all-night bender. Weak, but probably enough to get me by. But there was still no one around. I heard a Yamanote train pull out of Ueno Station, traffic in the street. Tokyo was waking. I wouldn’t have long to wait.
There was a waist-high metal fence separating the path from the pond. I propped the yakuza against it, his ass on its edge, the balance of his body tipped toward the lotuses, the only thing preventing him from going over my grip on one of his wrists. I took the hat off his head and pulled it low over mine. The surgical mask went into one of my pockets. Then I pulled the last of the Hi Powers from the back of my pants, and waited.
A few minutes later, I saw two old women in track suits walking toward me on the path to my right, apparently out for a little early morning exercise around the pond. I checked left, and was pleased to see an old man with a small dog. I wondered absently what it was about old people that got them up so early. Well, it didn’t matter. The main thing was, they looked like sober, reliable, socially conscious citizens, who no doubt would make good witnesses. Their eyesight might be somewhat in doubt, but I wasn’t worried about them getting too close. They didn’t look like they’d be able to mount much of a chase.