Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [37]
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, there are too many things kept secret. Even I didn’t really expect much from a country fuel supplier’s like this. It’s pretty shabby if it’s a crucial spot.”
“But when a blackmailer and extortionist enters the picture …”
“Yes … and furthermore, if he’s a relative of the missing man …”
With his eyes raised, he brought his lips close to the teacup and noisily sipped his tea. “Just as I thought, you’re pretty clever. But even a monkey can fall out of a tree, as they say. This isn’t monkey business. When it falls right on me it’s too much. Where do you want me to start explaining? What about my purpose, for a starter? Why did I ever scheme up anything like blackmail?”
Suddenly he was interrupted by the blast of a horn. From the breathless wheeze of the engine, it must have been a rather antiquated three-wheeler. Apparently my car was in the way of the loading or unloading. Then came the sound of voices from the outside.—“Sorry, but would you move your car, sir.” When I began to walk in the direction of the door, the brother stood up too and quickly slipped on his suit jacket.—“Well, I’ll be leaving too for this evening.” Wearing his jacket, he instantly became a black wall again. As he passed by, he suddenly reached out and tweaked the girl’s nose. The girl sprang to her feet and the chair jumped with her, but even then she did not even try to cry out. “No, don’t forget to give your boss the message.” Taking up his overcoat from the corner by the screen where he had left it, he hung it over his arm. “I don’t care how many days you take, but the interest goes up proportionately.”
A breeze had sprung up. The sky rippled like a black blanket. I exchanged meaningless civilities with the men at the storehouse and then got in my car. The brother too stood waiting in the most natural way, his hand on the handle of the other door. I turned on the ignition. He had barely got in when I stepped hard on the accelerator, but as luck would have it the cold engine simply sputtered and I was helpless, paralyzed.
“No, you’re quite wrong,” the brother continued nonchalantly. “The main thing is the means, not the end. Why blackmail? I need money too. Right? Just the investigation expenses I pay you come to thirty thousand yen a week. I can’t make do with just what my sister got when she quit her work. Thirty thousand yen a week. Let’s see, that comes to one hundred and twenty thousand a month. I could never make ends meet with an honest job, could I.”
“By the month? Are you planning on continuing the investigation that long?”
“Of course I am. I’ve been at wit’s end for half a year now. I don’t suppose that even you have the self-confidence to think you can clear things up in a week, do you? I can and will get the money. For a year if I need to. It’ll be an endurance test.”
He chuckled, and I was perplexed. Continuing the investigation—the very fact that I might not do so had already put my digestion out of kilter. The white heads and the black heads in the matchbox. The much too obviously happenstance meeting in the parking lot in front of the Camellia coffee house. The even more obvious encounter at M Fuel Supplier’s. The blackmailer’s confession. I could see things better if he remained a strange shadowy character. Though he had come rather into the light, he was still a strange character indeed. I wanted a smoke. Was it to go on forever? The rhythm of the motor was irregular. I pushed in the choke and turned on the heater. Could I have been mistaken? Supposing, on the client’s side, she and her brother were seeking the truth, the facts in a precise sense of the word, and not merely displaying a superficial harmony of views. Well, I would see her again with that in mind. I had to get the boundary lines of the map absolutely clear. But only after first establishing whether—I remember her running the tips of her bloodless fingers along the corner of the table, with the bookcases and the lemon-yellow curtains in the background—whatever she was intently waiting for was indeed one and