432
Someone
lifted the receiver, and Tamaru said, “I’m here.”
“Good!” Aomame said.
Tamaru seemed to sense an unusual tension in her voice. “Are you all right?” he
asked.
“For now.”
“How did the job go?”
Aomame said, “He’s in a deep sleep. The deepest sleep possible.”
“I see,” Tamaru said. He sounded truly relieved, and it colored his voice. This was
unusual for him. “I’ll pass on the news. She’ll be glad to hear it.”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t. But you did it.”
“One way or another,” Aomame said. “Is this phone safe?”
“I’m using a special circuit. Don’t worry.”
“I got my bags out of the Shinjuku Station coin locker. Now what?”
“How much time do you have?”
“An hour and a half,” Aomame said. She explained briefly. After another hour and
a half, the two bodyguards would check the bedroom and find that Leader was not
breathing.
“An hour and a half is plenty,” Tamaru said.
“Do you think they’ll call the police right away?”
“I don’t know. Just
yesterday, the police went into the group’s headquarters to start
an investigation. They’re still at the questioning stage and haven’t launched the
investigation itself, but it could be real trouble for them if the head of the religion
suddenly turned up dead.”
“You think they might just handle it themselves without making anything public?”
“That would be nothing for them. We’ll know what happened when we see
tomorrow’s newspaper—whether they reported the death or not. I’m no gambler, but
if I had to make a bet, I’d put my money on their not reporting it.”
“They won’t just assume it happened naturally?”
“They won’t be able to tell by appearances. And they won’t know whether it was a
natural death or murder without a meticulous autopsy. In any case, the first thing
they’re going to want to do is talk to you. You were
the last one to see him alive, after
all. And once they learn that you’ve cleared out of your apartment and gone into
hiding, they’ll be pretty sure it was no natural death.”
“So then they’ll start looking for me—with every resource at their disposal.”
“That’s for sure,” Tamaru said.
“Do you think we can manage to keep me hidden?”
“We’ve got it all planned out—in great detail. If we follow the plan carefully and
persistently, no one’s going to find you. The worst thing would be to panic.”
“I’m doing my best,” Aomame said.
“Keep it up. Act quickly and get time on your side. You’re a careful and persistent
person. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Aomame said, “There was a huge downpour in the Akasaka area, and the subways
have stopped running.”
“I know,” Tamaru said. “Don’t worry, we weren’t
planning for you to use the
subway. You’ll be taking a cab and going to a safe house in the city.”
433
“In the city? Wasn’t I supposed to be going somewhere far away?”
“Yes, of course you will be going far away,” Tamaru said slowly, as if spelling
things out for her. “But first we have to get you ready—change your name and your
face. And this was a particularly tough job: you must be all keyed up. Nothing good
can come of running around crazily at a time like this. Hide out in the safe house for a
while. You’ll be fine. We’ll provide all the support you need.”
“Where is this ‘safe house’?”
“In the Koenji neighborhood. Maybe twenty minutes from where you are now.”
Koenji
, Aomame thought, tapping her nails against her teeth. She knew it was
somewhere west
of the downtown area, but she had never set foot there.
Tamaru told her the address and the name of the condo. As usual, she took no
notes but engraved it on her brain.
“On the south side of Koenji Station. Near Ring Road 7. Apartment 303. Press
2831 to unlock the front door.”
Tamaru paused while Aomame repeated “303” and “2831” to herself.
“The key is taped to the bottom of the doormat. The apartment has everything
you’ll need for now, so you shouldn’t have to go out for a while. I’ll make contact
from my end. I’ll ring the phone three times, hang up, and call again twenty seconds
later. We’d like to avoid having you call.”
“I see,” Aomame said.
“Were his men tough?” Tamaru asked.
“There were two of them, and both seemed pretty tough. I had some scary
moments. But they’re no pros. They can’t touch you.”
“There aren’t too many people like me.”
“Too many Tamarus could be a problem.”
“Could be,” Tamaru said.
. . .
Carrying her bags, Aomame headed for the station’s taxi stand, where she
encountered another long line. Subway operations had still
not returned to normal, it
seemed. She had no choice but to take her place in line.
Joining the many other annoyed-looking commuters and patiently waiting her turn,
Aomame mentally repeated the safe house address, the name of the building and
apartment number, the code for unlocking the front door, and Tamaru’s phone
number. She was like an ascetic sitting on a rock on a mountaintop, intoning his
precious mantra. Aomame had always had confidence in her powers of memory. She
could easily memorize those few bits of information. But these figures were now a
lifeline. If she forgot even one
of them in this situation, it could put her survival in
jeopardy. She had to make sure they were engraved on her brain.
By the time Aomame finally got a taxi, a full hour had passed since she had left
Leader’s corpse in the hotel room. So far, it was taking her twice as long as she had
planned—a delay that the Little People had caused, no doubt.
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