TOKUNAGA EASED the van to the curb in front of a shuttered fish shop. He turned off the engine and climbed out. A man and a woman walked hand in hand halfway down the block; a taxi turned the corner and drove past. He slid open the van’s sidewalk-side door and smiled. The flight from Kochi had landed on schedule and he’d had plenty of time to pick up the rental at Haneda and drive to Asakusa.
It had taken three trips to figure out and confirm her routine. The two girls had walked right past him a week before. Chattering and laughing, neither had seen him standing in the shadows. She’d returned by the same route a few minutes later.
Her aunt and uncle had promised a few million yen for the job. He laughed softly. He’d get a good deal more than that by the time he was finished. Those idiots didn’t understand even the basics of blackmail and extortion and it would be his pleasure to give them a lesson or two. But first he had to grab the kid. He checked his watch, looked down the street and grinned.
May quickened her pace, anxious to get home. A week before she’d trapped Sam in Helen’s apartment at seven in the morning. Their embarrassment had been cute and had only added to her pleasure. She wanted to get back to the club to be with them.
Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine being happier. She felt safe and easy, her steps as light as cotton candy. Sister Helen, Brother Sam. A family, a real family. She laughed at herself, adolescent cynicism spying on emotions that felt suspiciously dumb and squishy.
“I don’t care!” she yelled, and pointed a finger at the night sky drifting warm over Asakusa. She stood in place and jumped up and down. “Brother Sam, Sister Helen!” She laughed again. “Grandfather Manny and Sister Kiyomi!”
Tokunaga looked around in panic as the kid began to shout. Half the neighborhood was going to be on the street in a second if she didn’t shut up. He swore at her aunt and uncle. They hadn’t said anything about her being crazy. He jumped back in the van. Maybe another time. Fuck it, maybe never.
She calmed down just as he was putting the van in gear. After the yelling, the silence was spooky. He watched in the mirror as she approached the van.
“Excuse me,”
May stopped, startled by a man stepping onto the sidewalk in front of her.
“Excuse me,” he repeated. “I’m trying to get to Sensoji temple. Do you know the way? I’m sorry to bother you.”
She stepped back. Creep or not, it was hard to tell in the dark. He was tall and his head looked too small. Creep, she decided. But he’d been polite and she should be, too.
“It’s that way,” she pointed, and explained the route.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a step forward and smiling.
Too late she wondered why anyone would want to visit the temple at ten at night, too late she noticed the half-open door on the van.
One scream, that was all she managed. It chased after shouts of joy still echoing over the rooftops. Tokunaga clamped a hand over her mouth and forced her into the van. The door slammed and the van sped away.
The agent glanced at the boarding passes. Everything seemed OK—a father and daughter flying economy to Kochi. “Wait.” She held up her hand as they started for the gate. “Is she sick?”
The girl was wearing blue jeans and a yellow T-shirt. Her eyes were closed, her head lay on the man’s shoulder. His arm was wrapped around her waist. She looked like she would fall if he let go.
“She’s just tired. She’ll be fine as soon as we get home.”
His smile faded as she angled her head to force him to look her in the eye. Passengers in line grumbled at the delay. The girl wasn’t just tired, she was sick. Her face was pale, her eyelids fluttered beneath auburn bangs.
Tokunaga leaned toward the agent, a movement designed to remind her of exactly how small she was. He flexed his muscles beneath a blue jogging suit. The agent was twenty-six and frail. The top of her head barely reached the middle of his chest.
She sighed. It was one of those nights. Sometimes, about once a week, it seemed as if every jerk in the country showed up at her gate. Just an hour before, she’d had a remarkably unpleasant encounter with a group of slovenly housewives. They’d towed their husbands up to the gate like carry-on luggage and demanded new seat assignments.
Very politely, but with a wicked gleam in her eye, she’d told them to get on the plane or get lost. Their bleating had ceased almost instantly. Recognizing superior toughness, they’d filed past her like a flock of dumpy lambs.
And now this. She was deathly tired of men trying to push her around. A lot of other girls let themselves be intimidated but not her. It was humiliating and just led to even worse behavior. “Your daughter looks sick to me,” she insisted. “Has she seen a doctor?”
“She’s all right,” Tokunaga snapped. He started to drag May to the gate. The agent took a step and blocked his path. The other passengers complained louder. A supervisor rushed over from an adjacent gate and took charge. He listened with concern to Tokunaga’s indignant accusations. May’s condition became a secondary issue, the agent’s rudeness of paramount importance. He escorted Tokunaga through the gate to the waiting jet with ingratiating clucking noises.
The last passengers boarded the flight to Shikoku island and the supervisor winked as a pretty stewardess sealed the plane. He was still smiling as he returned to the gate. The agent’s independence had always been an irritant. Yelling at her would be good. It would make the shift go faster.
A shoe hit him in the face as he turned the corner. He felt blood trickle from his nose. She was on him before he could speak, wagging a finger in his face. “One of her shoes fell off as that guy dragged her down the tube. That doesn’t sound right to me. How about you? Just how stupid are you?”
May kicked and punched as Tokunaga dragged her through the darkness behind the barn. He cursed and smacked her in the face again. The drug had worn off sooner than expected and he’d nearly crashed on the way back from the airport. It had been stupid not to tie her. She’d nearly bit his ear off and split his lip before he’d been able to beat her into submission.
She didn’t want to go into the box. Something fetid crawled out the open door. Stay out, it warned, if you want to live. She fought harder. An arm and then a leg hung up outside the container. Tokunaga howled as she kicked him in the crotch. He stepped back and charged, driving her forward with his shoulder. A bone snapped and May popped into the box.
Old Tada-san shuffled up in bathrobe and slippers as Tokunaga slammed the heavy door and locked it. He nodded at the box. “You gave ‘em food and water, right?”
She nodded, thoughts dulled by sleep and age.
Tokunaga grunted and headed for his office. There was a first-aid kit in his desk. “OK. Make sure you give ‘em some more first thing in the morning.”
“Who’s the new kid?” Tada-san asked.
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll be gone in a day or so.”
Tada-san slowly made her way back to her quarters, trying to remember exactly what she’d put in the box. Cokes for sure, early in the morning. No, that wasn’t right. It had been grape sodas. She remembered because Tokunaga had gotten a special deal on the stuff from a shop in town. The food and water must have come later in the morning before she’d gotten busy with her soap operas. That she couldn’t recall the exact details didn’t trouble her. She forgot a lot these days.
The door swung open. A square of light, still gray and feeble, hit her in the eyes. May had been dreaming, lost and falling, confused and frightened. A hand reached in and dropped something inside. She leaped for the light.
“No,” she screamed. The door crashed shut on her shoulder and bounced her back into the box. Her arm exploded and something huge kicked her in the stomach. She vomited down the front of her T-shirt and into her lap.
May lay on her side, her arm snapped, her spirit broken. Down, down, pounded down, she fell. Down a shaft of pain and despair. Her hands flew to her face. Too small, too weak, to block the heat, like a hammer—the smell of death given life.
Lift and push, lift and push. Tears ran down her cheeks as she rolled the body away from the door. Stiff and heavy, it fought against her, hanging up on frozen arms and legs. Slow work with only one arm. The smell of shit and fear. Lift and push—she’d looked at the girl’s face once and never again.
“Reiko?” the boy called.
A steel sliver pierced her knee. She ignored the hurt, just one of many. Lift and push. And one last shove. The girl flopped into the corner, face against the wall.
She dragged the boy underneath the air holes in the front of the box. Beams of light, thinner her than her little finger, crisscrossed his face. He moaned once and was silent. She picked up the last can of grape soda tenderly. Less than a third was left. Three cans had seemed like a lot at dawn.
May lifted the boy’s head into her lap. “You’ve got to drink,” she whispered, and poured a little soda between his lips. He coughed and the liquid ran down his cheek. She watched it soak into his T-shirt.
“You’re wasting it,” she cried, frustrated and angry. “Try again.”
This time the boy kept a little down. May shook the can. There were only a few swallows remaining.
“Reiko,” he moaned again.
She shouted, “May, May, May! Why can’t you remember? I’ve told you a hundred times.” She pressed her face close to let him see more clearly.
“Please try to remember,” she begged. “My name is May. Reiko is sleeping now.”
The boy gagged and a bubble of blood formed on his lips. She wiped it away. Drop by drop, she poured the last of the soda into his mouth. A small voice in her head pleaded for her to stop, to drink it herself.
His eyes cleared for the first time. “May?” he whispered.
“Yes, yes,” she cried, joyful that he could see, that he could speak her name. It seemed very, very important.
“And who are you?” she asked, stroking his cheek.
He tried to lift his head to answer. May held him tight and put her ear close to his lips.
“Did you say Kenji?”
He nodded.
“You’re going to be OK, Kenji,” she promised. “Just lay back and don’t try to move. I’ll take care of you.”
For an instant all the pain and terror washed away. He was the cute little boy with the big ears again. He felt his mother’s cool hands on his face and chest. He smiled. And then he died.
May fell across Kenji’s body. Her sobs were poor diminished things. At last she fainted. It was a mercy, a blessing. At 10 a.m., the sun was still rising, the heat still building.
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