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The Thomas Crown Affair
,” Aomame said.
“Yeah, that’s it. Faye Dunaway plays an insurance investigator. She’s a specialist
in theft insurance. McQueen is this rich guy who commits crimes for fun. That was a
great movie. I saw it when I was in high school. I really liked the music. It was very
cool.”
“Michel Legrand.”
The driver hummed the first few bars of the theme song. Then he looked in the
mirror for another close look at Aomame.
“Come to think of it, miss, something about you reminds me of Faye Dunaway.”
“Thank you,” Aomame said, struggling somewhat to hide the smile that formed
around her lips.
The inbound side of Metropolitan Expressway Number 3 was, as the driver had
predicted, beautifully backed up. The slowdown started less than a hundred yards
from the entrance, an almost perfect specimen of chaos, which was exactly what
Aomame wanted. The same outfit, the same road, the same traffic jam. Unfortunately,
Janá
č
ek’s
Sinfonietta
was not playing on the car radio, and the sound quality didn’t
measure up to that of the stereo in the Toyota Crown Royal Saloon, but that would
have been asking for too much.
501
The cab inched ahead, hemmed in by trucks. It would stay in one place for a long
time and then unpredictably creep ahead. The young driver of the refrigerated truck in
the next lane was absorbed in his
manga
magazine during the long stops. The middle-
aged couple in a cream Toyota Corona Mark II sat looking straight ahead, frowning,
but never saying a word to each other. They probably had nothing to talk about, or
maybe they
had
talked and now they were silent as a result. Aomame settled deeply
into her seat. The taxi driver listened to the broadcast on his radio.
The cab finally passed a sign for Komazawa as it continued to crawl along toward
Sangenjaya at a snail’s pace. Aomame looked up now and then to stare out the
window.
I won’t be seeing this neighborhood anymore. I’m going somewhere far
away
. But she was not about to start feeling nostalgic for the streets of Tokyo. All the
buildings along the expressway were ugly, stained with the soot of automobile
exhaust, and they carried garish billboards. The sight weighed on her heart.
Why do
people have to build such depressing places? I’m not saying that every nook and
cranny of the world has to be beautiful, but does it have to be this ugly?
Finally, after some time, a familiar area entered Aomame’s field of vision—the
place where she had stepped out of the cab. The middle-aged driver had told her, as if
hinting at some deeper significance, that there was an emergency stairway at the side
of the roadway. Just ahead was the large billboard advertising Esso gasoline. A
smiling tiger held up a gas hose. It was the same billboard as before.
“Put a tiger in your tank.”
Aomame suddenly noticed that her throat was dry. She coughed once, thrust her
hand into her shoulder bag, and took out a box of lemon-flavored cough drops. After
putting a drop in her mouth, she returned the box to the bag. While her hand was in
there, she gave the handle of the Heckler & Koch a strong squeeze, reassured by its
weight and hardness.
Good
, she thought. The cab moved ahead somewhat.
“Get into the left lane, will you?” Aomame said to the driver.
“The right lane is moving better,” he objected softly. “And the Ikejiri exit is on the
right. If I get into the left lane here, I’ll just have to move over again.”
Aomame was not ready to accept his objections. “Never mind, just get into the left
lane.”
“If you say so, miss,” the driver said with resignation.
Leaning over and sticking his hand out the front passenger window, he signaled to
the refrigerated truck behind him in the left lane. After making sure the driver had
seen him, he raised the window again and squeezed the cab into the left lane. They
moved ahead another fifty yards until the traffic came to a full stop again.
“Now open the door for me. I’m getting out here,” Aomame said.
“Getting out?” the driver asked, astonished. He made no move to pull the lever that
opened the passenger door. “Here?!”
“Yes, this is where I’m getting out. I have something to do here.”
“But we’re right in the middle of the Metropolitan Expressway. It would be too
dangerous to get out here, and even if you did, there’s no place you could go.”
“Don’t worry, there’s an emergency stairway right there.”
“Emergency stairway.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if there’s an emergency
stairway or not, but if anyone found out I let a passenger out in a place like this, I’d be
502
in big trouble with the cab company
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