After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 23 
Aomame 
PUT A TIGER IN YOUR TANK 
Aomame woke at just after six o’clock in the morning. It was a clear, beautiful day. 
She made herself a pot of coffee, toasted some bread, and boiled an egg. While eating 
breakfast, she checked the television news to confirm that there was still no report of 
the Sakigake Leader’s death. They had obviously disposed of the body in secret 
without filing a report with the police or letting anyone else know. No problem with 
that. A dead person was still a dead person no matter how you got rid of him. 
At eight o’clock she showered, gave her hair a thorough brushing at the mirror, and 
applied a barely perceptible touch of lipstick. She put on stockings. Then she put on 
the white silk blouse she had hanging in the closet and completed her outfit with her 
stylish Junko Shimada suit. While shaking and twisting her body a few times to help 
her padded underwire bra conform more comfortably to her shape, she found herself 
again wishing that her breasts could have been somewhat bigger. She must have had 
that same thought at least 72,000 times while looking in the mirror. 
But so what? I 
can think what I want as many times as I want. This could be the 72,001st time, but 
what’s wrong with that? As long as I’m alive, I can think what I want, when I want, 
any way I want, as much as I want, and nobody can tell me any different
. She put on 
her Charles Jourdan high heels. 
She stood at the full-length mirror by the front door and checked to see that her 
outfit was flawless. She raised one shoulder slightly and considered the possibility 
that she might look something like Faye Dunaway in 
The Thomas Crown Affair
. Faye 
Dunaway played a coolheaded insurance investigator in that movie—a woman like a 
cold knife: sexy, great-looking in a business suit. Of course Aomame didn’t look like 
Faye Dunaway, but the atmosphere she projected was somewhat close—or at least not 
entirely different. It was that special atmosphere that only a first-class professional 
could exude. In addition, her shoulder bag contained a cold, hard automatic pistol. 
. . . 
Putting on her slim Ray-Ban sunglasses, she left the apartment. She crossed the street 
to the playground, walked up to the slide where Tengo had been sitting, and replayed 
last night’s scene in her head. It had happened twelve hours earlier. The actual Tengo 
had been right there
—just
across the street from me. He sat there for a long time, 
alone, looking up at the moons
—the same two moons that she had been looking at. 

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499
It felt almost like a miracle to Aomame—a kind of revelation—that she had come 
so close to Tengo. 
Something
had brought her into his presence. And the event, it 
seemed, had largely restructured her physical being. From the moment she woke up in 
the morning, she had continued to feel a sort of friction throughout her entire body. 
He appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each 
other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally 
stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of 
my internal organs and my womb
. 
She stood there for a full five minutes, one hand on a step of the slide, frowning 
slightly, jabbing at the ground with the sharp heel of her shoe. She was checking the 
degree to which she had been stirred both physically and mentally, and savoring the 
sensation. Finally, she made up her mind, walked out of the playground to the nearest 
big street, and caught a cab. 
“I want you to go out to Yohga first, then take the Metropolitan Expressway Number 
3 inbound until just before the Ikejiri exit,” she announced to the driver, who was 
understandably confused by these instructions. 
“So, miss, can you tell me exactly what your final destination is?” he asked, his 
tone rather on the easygoing side. 
“The Ikejiri exit. For now.” 
“Well, then, it would be 
much
closer to go straight to Ikejiri from here. Going all 
the way out to Yohga would be a huge detour. And at this time of the morning, the 
inbound lanes of Number 3 are going to be completely jammed. They’ll hardly be 
moving. I’m as sure of that as I am that today is Wednesday.” 
“I don’t care if the expressway is jammed. I don’t care if today is Thursday or 
Friday or the Emperor’s Birthday. I want you to get on the Metropolitan Expressway 
from Yohga. I’ve got all the time in the world.” 
The driver was a man in his early thirties. He was slim, with a long, pale face, and 
looked like a timid grazing animal. His chin stuck out like those of the stone faces on 
Easter Island. He was looking at Aomame in his rearview mirror, trying to decide 
from her expression whether his current passenger was totally bonkers or just an 
ordinary human being in a complicated situation. It was not easy for him to tell, 
though, especially from the image in the small mirror. 
Aomame took her wallet out of her shoulder bag and thrust a brand-new ten-
thousand-yen bill toward his face. The money looked as if it had just been printed. 
“No change needed, and no receipt,” Aomame said curtly. “So keep your opinions 
to yourself and do what you’re told. Go first to Yohga, get on the expressway, and go 
to Ikejiri. This should cover the fare even if we get caught in traffic.” 
“It’s more than enough, of course,” the driver said, though he still seemed dubious. 
“Do you have some special business on the expressway?” 
Aomame shook the bill at him like a pennant in the wind. “If you don’t want to 
take me, I’ll get out and find another cab. So make up your mind, please. 
Now.
” 

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500
The driver stared at the ten-thousand-yen bill for a good ten seconds with his brows 
knit. Then he made up his mind and took the money. After holding the bill up to the 
light to check its authenticity, he shoved it into his business bag. 
“All right, then, let’s go, Metropolitan Expressway Number 3. It’s going to be 
badly backed up, though, I’m telling you, miss. And there’s no exit between Yohga 
and Ikejiri. No toilet, either. So if there’s any chance you might need to go, better take 
care of it now.” 
“Don’t worry, just take me straight there.” 
The driver made his way out of the network of residential streets to Ring Road 
Number 8 and joined the thick traffic heading for Yohga. Neither he nor Aomame 
said a word. He listened to the news, and she was lost in thought. As they neared the 
entrance to the Metropolitan Expressway, the driver lowered the radio’s volume and 
asked Aomame a question. 
“This may be none of my business, miss, but are you in some special line of 
work?” 
“I’m an insurance investigator,” Aomame said without hesitation. 
“An insurance investigator,” the driver repeated her words carefully, as if tasting a 
new food. 
“I find evidence in cases of insurance fraud,” Aomame said. 
“Wow,” the driver said, obviously impressed. “Does Metropolitan Expressway 
Number 3 have something to do with this insurance fraud stuff?” 
“It does indeed.” 
“Just like that movie, isn’t it?” 
“What movie?” 
“It’s a really old one, with Steve McQueen. I don’t remember what it’s called.” 
“