After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

Except you’re a female cop and I kill people. We’re 
inside and outside the law. I bet that counts as one big difference
. 
“Let’s play it this way,” Ayumi said. “We both work for the same casualty 
insurance company, but the name of the company is a secret. You’re a couple years 
ahead of me. There was some unpleasantness in the office today, so we came here to 
drown our sorrows, and now we’re feeling pretty good. How’s that for our 
‘situation’?” 
“Fine, except I don’t know a thing about casualty insurance.” 
“Leave that to me. I’m good at making up stories.” 
“It’s all yours, then,” Aomame said. 
“Now, it just so happens that two sort-of-middle-aged guys are sitting at the table 
right behind us, and they’ve been looking around with hungry eyes. Can you check 
’em out without being obvious about it?” 
Aomame glanced back casually as instructed. A table’s width away from the bar 
stood a table with two middle-aged men. Both wore a suit and tie, and both looked 
like typical company employees out for a drink after a hard day’s work. Their suits 
were not rumpled, and their ties were not in bad taste. Neither man appeared unclean, 
at least. One was probably just around forty, and the other not yet forty. The older one 
was thin with an oval face and a receding hairline. The younger one had the look of a 
former college rugby player who had recently started to put on weight from lack of 
exercise. His face still retained a certain youthfulness, but he was beginning to grow 
thick around the chin. They were chatting pleasantly over whiskey-and-waters, but 
their eyes were very definitely searching the room. 

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Ayumi began to analyze them. “I’d say they’re not used to places like this. They’re 
here looking for a good time, but they don’t know how to approach girls. They’re 
probably both married. They have a kind of guilty look about them.” 
Aomame was impressed with Ayumi’s precise powers of observation. She must 
have taken all this in quite unnoticed while chatting away with Aomame. Maybe it 
was worth being a member of the police family. 
“The one with the thinning hair is more to your taste, isn’t he?” Ayumi asked. “I’ll 
take the stocky one, okay?” 
Aomame glanced backward again. The head shape of the thin-haired one was more 
or less acceptable—light-years away from Sean Connery, but worth a passing grade. 
She couldn’t ask too much on a night like this, with nothing but Queen and ABBA to 
listen to all evening. 
“That’s fine with me,” Aomame said, “but how are you going to get them to invite 
us to join them?” 
“Not by waiting for the sun to come up, that’s for sure! We crash their party, all 
smiles.” 
“Are you serious?” 
“Of course I am! Just leave it to me—I’ll go over and start up a conversation. You 
wait here.” Ayumi took a healthy swig of her Tom Collins and rubbed her palms 
together. Then she slung her Gucci bag over her shoulder and put on a brilliant smile. 
“Okay, time for a little nightstick practice.” 

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