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true, then following the man might lead me right to Tengo. Instead of searching me
out, this guy can serve as my guide
. The thought made her heart contract even more,
and then start to pound. She laid down the phone.
I’ll tell Tamaru about it later
, she decided.
There’s something I have to do first.
Something risky, because it involves the pursued following the pursuer. And this man
is no doubt a pro. But even so I can’t let this golden opportunity slip by. This may be
my last chance. And from the way he looks, he seems to be in a bit of a daze, at least
for the moment
.
She hurried into the bedroom, opened the dresser drawer, and took out the Heckler
& Koch semiautomatic. She flicked off the safety, racked a round into the chamber,
and reset it. She stuffed the pistol into the back of her jeans and went out to the
balcony again. Bobblehead was still there, staring at the sky. His misshapen head was
perfectly still. He seemed totally captivated by what he was seeing in the sky.
Aomame knew how he felt.
That was most definitely a captivating sight
.
Aomame went back inside and put on a down jacket and a baseball cap. And a pair
of nonprescription glasses with a simple black frame, enough to give her face a
different appearance. She wound a gray muffler around her neck and put her wallet
and apartment key in her pocket. She ran down the stairs and went out of the building.
The soles of her sneakers were silent as she stepped out on the asphalt. It had been so
long since she had felt hard, steady ground beneath her feet, and the feeling
encouraged her.
As she walked down the road she checked that Bobblehead was still in the same
place. The temperature had dropped significantly after the sun had set, but there was
still no wind. She actually found the cold pleasant. Her breath white, Aomame walked
as silently as she could past the entrance to the park. Bobblehead showed no sign that
he had noticed her. His gaze was fixed straight up from the slide, on the sky. From
where she was, Aomame couldn’t see them, but she knew that at the end of his gaze
there were two moons—one large, one small. No doubt they were snuggled up close
to each other in the freezing, cloudless sky.
She passed by the park, and when she got to the next corner, she turned and
retraced her steps. She hid in the shadows and watched the man on the slide. The
pistol against her back was as hard and cold as death, and the feeling soothed her.
She waited five minutes. Bobblehead slowly got to his feet, brushed off his coat,
and gazed up one more time at the sky. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he
clambered down the steps of the slide. He left the park and walked off in the direction
of the station. Shadowing him wasn’t particularly hard. There were few people on a
residential street on a Sunday night, and even keeping her distance, she wouldn’t lose
him. He also had not the slightest suspicion that someone was observing him. He
never looked back, kept walking at a set pace, the pace people keep when they’re
preoccupied.
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