“You’ll lose all your friends, too, you know.”

“I don’t have any ‘friends,’ ” Aomame said, but then Ayumi came to mind. If I were to just disappear without saying anything to her, she might be sad. She might even feel betrayed. But there had been a problem with calling her a “friend” right from the start. Aomame was traveling too dangerous a road to make friends with a police officer.

“I had two children,” the dowager said. “A boy and a girl. She was three years younger than he. As I told you before, she died—she committed suicide. She had no children. My son and I have had our troubles and have not gotten along well for a very long time. I hardly ever talk to him now. I have three grandchildren, but I haven’t seen them for a long time, either. When I die, though, most of my estate will go to my only son and his children, almost automatically. Wills don’t carry much force these days, unlike the way it used to be. For now, though, my discretionary funds are quite considerable. I’d like to leave a lot of that money to you, if you succeed in this new task. Please don’t misunderstand, though: I’m not trying to buy you off. All I want to say is that I think of you as my own daughter. I wish you were my actual daughter.”

Aomame gazed quietly at the dowager, who set her sherry glass on the table as if suddenly recalling that she was holding it. She then turned to look at the glossy petals of the lilies behind her. Inhaling their rich fragrance, she looked once again at Aomame.

“As I said before, I was planning to adopt Tsubasa, but now I’ve lost her, too. I couldn’t help her. I did nothing but stand by and watch her disappear alone into the dark of night. And now, I’m getting ready to send you into far greater danger than ever before. I don’t really want to do that, but unfortunately, I can’t think of any other way to accomplish our goal. All I can do is offer you tangible compensation.”

Aomame listened attentively without comment. When the dowager fell silent, the chirping of a bird came clearly through the windowpane. It continued for a while, until the bird flew off somewhere.

“That man must be ‘taken care of,’ no matter what,” Aomame said. “That is the most important thing now. I have nothing but the deepest gratitude for the way you feel about me. I think you know that I rejected my parents and they abandoned me when I was a child; we both had our reasons. I had no choice but to take a path without anything like family affection. In order to survive on my own, I had to adapt myself to such a frame of mind. It wasn’t easy. I often felt that I was nothing but scum—some kind of meaningless, filthy residue—which is why I am so grateful to you for what you just said to me. But it’s a bit too late for me to change my attitude or lifestyle. This is not true of Tsubasa, however. I’m sure she can still be saved. Please don’t resign yourself to losing her so easily. Don’t lose hope. Get her back!”

The dowager nodded. “I’m afraid I didn’t put it very well. I am of course not resigned to losing her. I will do everything in my power to bring her back. But as you can see, I’m too tired right now. My failure to help her has filled me with a deep sense of powerlessness. I need a little time to get my energy back. On the other hand, I may just be too old. The energy might never come back, no matter how long I wait.”

Aomame got up from the sofa and went over to the dowager. Sitting on the arm of her armchair, she grasped the woman’s slim, elegant hand.

“You’re an incredibly tough woman,” Aomame said. “You can go on living with more strength than anybody. You just happen to be exhausted. You ought to lie down and get some rest. When you wake up, you’ll be your old self, I’m sure.”

“Thank you,” the dowager said, squeezing Aomame’s hand in return. “You’re right: I should probably get some sleep.”

“I’ll be leaving, then,” Aomame said. “I will be waiting to hear from you. I’ll put my things in order—not that I own so many ‘things’ to put in order.”

“Prepare yourself to travel light. If there’s anything you need, we’ll take care of it.”

Aomame released the dowager’s hand and stood up. “Good night. I’m sure everything is going to go well.”

The dowager nodded. Still cradled in her chair, she closed her eyes. Aomame took one last glance at the goldfish bowl and one last whiff of the lilies before she left the high-ceilinged living room.

.    .    .

Tamaru was waiting for her at the front door. Five o’clock had come, but the sun was still high in the sky, its intensity undiminished. The glare of its light reflected off Tamaru’s black cordovan shoes, which were perfectly polished as usual. A few white summer clouds appeared in the sky, but they gathered at its corners, where they could not block the sun. The end of the rainy season was not yet near, but there had been several days in a row of midsummer-like weather, complete with the cries of cicadas, which now sounded from the garden’s trees. The cries were not very strong. If anything, they seemed somewhat restrained. But they were a positive sign of the season to come. The world was still working as it always did. The cicadas cried, the clouds moved along, Tamaru’s shoes were spotless. But all of this seemed fresh and new to Aomame: that the world should continue along as usual.

Aomame asked Tamaru, “Can we talk a little? Do you have time?”

“Fine,” Tamaru said. His expression did not change. “I have time. Killing time is part of what I do for a living.” He lowered himself into one of the garden chairs by the front door. Aomame sat in the chair next to his. The overhanging eaves blocked the sunlight. The two of them sat in their cool shadow. There was the smell of fresh grass.

“Summer’s here already,” Tamaru said.

“The cicadas have started crying,” Aomame replied.

“They seem a little early this year. This area’s going to get very noisy again for a while. That piercing cry hurts your ears. I heard exactly the same sound when I stayed in the town of Niagara Falls. It just kept going from morning to night without a letup, like a million cicadas.”

“So you’ve been to Niagara Falls.”

Tamaru nodded. “It was the most boring town in the world. I stayed there alone for three days and there was nothing to do but listen to the sound of the falls. It was too noisy to read.”

“What were you doing alone in Niagara Falls for three days?”

Instead of answering, Tamaru just shook his head.

Tamaru and Aomame went on listening to the faint cries of the cicadas, saying nothing.

“I’ve got a favor to ask of you,” Aomame said.

This seemed to pique Tamaru’s interest. Aomame was not in the habit of asking people for favors.

She said, “It’s kind of unusual. I hope it doesn’t annoy you.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to accommodate you, but I’ll be glad at least to listen. It’s not polite to be annoyed when a lady asks a favor.”

“I need a gun,” Aomame said flatly. “One that would fit in a handbag. Something with a small recoil but still fairly powerful and dependable. Not a modified fake or one of those Filipino copies. I’ll only need to use it once. And one bullet should be enough.”

Silence. Tamaru kept his eyes on Aomame the whole time, unwavering.

Then, speaking slowly and carefully, Tamaru said, “You do know that it is illegal in this country for an ordinary citizen to own a handgun, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“And just so you know, let me say this,” Tamaru continued. “I have never once been charged with a crime. That is to say, I have no police record. Now, this may be owing to some oversights on the part of the justice system, I don’t deny that. But at least as far as the written record is concerned, I’m a good citizen. Honest, upright, pure. I’m gay, but that’s not against the law. I pay my taxes as ordered, and I vote in elections—though no candidate I voted for was ever elected. I’ve even paid all my parking tickets before the due date. I haven’t been stopped for speeding in the past ten years. I’m enrolled in the National Health Insurance system. I pay my NHK licensing fee automatically from my bank account, and I carry both an American Express card and a MasterCard. Although I have no intention of doing so now, I could qualify for a thirty-year mortgage if I wanted one, and it always pleases me immensely to think that I am in such a position. In other words, I could be called a pillar of society without the least bit of irony. Do you realize that you are asking such a person to provide you with a gun?”