“You just have to sit there. They’ll find you.”

“They’ll find me.”

Tamaru cleared his throat. “By the way, do you know the story about the vegetarian cat who met up with the rat?”

“Never heard that one.”

“Would you like to?”

“Very much.”

“A cat met up with a big male rat in the attic and chased him into a corner. The rat, trembling, said, ‘Please don’t eat me, Mr. Cat. I have to go back to my family. I have hungry children waiting for me. Please let me go.’ The cat said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. To tell you the truth, I can’t say this too loudly, but I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat any meat. You were lucky to run into me.’ The rat said, ‘Oh, what a wonderful day! What a lucky rat I am to meet up with a vegetarian cat!’ But the very next second, the cat pounced on the rat, held him down with his claws, and sank his sharp teeth into the rat’s throat. With his last, painful breath, the rat asked him, ‘But Mr. Cat, didn’t you say you’re a vegetarian and don’t eat any meat? Were you lying to me?’ The cat licked his chops and said, ‘True, I don’t eat meat. That was no lie. I’m going to take you home in my mouth and trade you for lettuce.’ ”

Aomame thought about this for a moment. “What’s the point?”

“No point, really. I suddenly remembered the story when we were talking about luck before. That’s all. You can take whatever you like from it, of course.”

“What a heartwarming story.”

“Oh, and another thing. I’m pretty sure they’re going to pat you down and search your bag before they let you in. They’re a careful bunch. Better keep that in mind.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“All right, then,” Tamaru said, “let’s meet again somewhere.”

“Again somewhere,” Aomame repeated by reflex.

Tamaru cut the connection. Aomame looked at the receiver for a moment, grimaced slightly, and put it down. Then, after committing the telephone number displayed on the pager to memory, she deleted it. Again somewhere, Aomame repeated to herself. But she knew she would probably never see Tamaru again.

Aomame scoured the morning paper but found nothing on Ayumi’s murder. This probably meant that the investigation had turned up nothing new. No doubt all the weekly magazines would be mining the case for every weird angle they could find. A young, active-duty policewoman engages in sex games with handcuffs in a Shibuya love hotel and is strangled, stark naked. Aomame didn’t want to read any sensationalistic reports. She had avoided turning on the television ever since it happened, not wanting to hear some female news announcer reporting on Ayumi’s death in the usual artificial high-pitched tones.

Of course, she wanted the perpetrator to be caught. He had to be punished, no matter what. But would it make any difference if he were arrested, tried, and all the details of the murder came out? It wouldn’t bring Ayumi back, that much was certain. In any case, the sentence would be a light one. It would probably be judged to have been not a homicide but involuntary manslaughter—an accident. Of course, not even a death penalty could make up for what had happened. Aomame closed the paper, rested her elbows on the table, and covered her face with her hands for a while. She thought about Ayumi, but the tears no longer came. Now she was just angry.

She still had a lot of time until seven o’clock in the evening but nothing to do in the meantime, no work at the sports club. Following Tamaru’s instructions, she had already deposited her small travel bag and shoulder bag in a coin locker at Shinjuku Station. The travel bag contained a sheaf of bills and enough clothing (including underwear and stockings) for several days. She had been going to Shinjuku once every three days to deposit more coins in the slot and double-check on the contents. She had no need to clean her apartment, and even if she wanted to cook, the refrigerator was nearly empty. Aside from the rubber plant, there was almost nothing left in the room that still had the smell of life. She had gotten rid of everything connected to her personal information. All the drawers were empty. And as of tomorrow, I won’t be here, either. Not a trace of me will be left.

The clothes she would wear that evening were nicely folded and stacked on the bed. Next to them she had placed a blue gym bag. Inside was a complete set of stretching equipment. She checked the contents of the bag once more for safety’s sake: jersey top and bottom, yoga mat, large and small towels, and small hard case containing the fine-pointed ice pick. Everything was there. She took the ice pick out of the case, pulled off the cork, and touched the point to make sure it was still plenty sharp. To make doubly sure, she gave it a light sharpening with her finest whetstone. She pictured the needle sinking soundlessly into that special point on the back of the man’s neck, as if being sucked inside. As usual, everything should end in an instant—no screaming, no bleeding, just a momentary spasm. Aomame thrust the needle back into the cork and carefully returned the ice pick to its case.

Next she pulled the T-shirt-wrapped Heckler & Koch from its shoe box and, with practiced movements, loaded seven 9mm bullets into the magazine. With a dry sound, she sent a cartridge into the chamber. She released the safety catch and set it again. She wrapped the pistol in a white handkerchief and put it in a vinyl pouch. This she hid in a change of underwear.

Now, was there anything else I had to do?

She couldn’t think of anything. Standing in the kitchen, Aomame made coffee with the boiled water. Then she sat at the table, drinking it with a croissant.

This may be my last job, Aomame thought. It’s also going to be my most important and most difficult job. Once I’ve finished this assignment, I won’t have to kill anyone anymore.

Aomame was not opposed to losing her identity. If anything, she welcomed it. She was not particularly attached to her name or her face and could think of nothing about her past that she would regret losing. A reset of my life: this may be the one thing I’ve longed for most.

Strangely enough, the one thing that Aomame felt she did not want to lose was her rather sad little breasts. From the age of twelve, she had lived with an unwavering dissatisfaction with regard to the shape and size of her breasts. It often occurred to her that she might have been able to live a far more serene life if only her breasts had been a little larger. And yet now, when she was being given a chance to enlarge them (a choice that carried with it a certain necessity), she found that she had absolutely no desire to make the change. They were fine as they were. Indeed, they were just right.

She touched her breasts through her tank top. They were the same breasts as always, shaped like two lumps of dough that had failed to rise—because of a failure to properly combine the ingredients—and subtly different in size. She shook her head. But never mind. These are me.

What will be left of me besides these breasts?

Tengo’s memory will stay with me, of course. The touch of his hand will stay. My shuddering emotion will stay. The desire to be in his arms will stay. Even if Ibecome a completely different person, my love for Tengo can never be taken from me. That’s the biggest difference between Ayumi and me. At my core, there is not nothing. Neither is it a parched wasteland. At my core, there is love. I’ll go on loving that ten-year-old boy named Tengo forever—his strength, his intelligence, his kindness. He does not exist here, with me, but flesh that does not exist will never die, and promises unmade are never broken.

The thirty-year-old Tengo inside of Aomame was not the real Tengo. That Tengo was nothing but a hypothesis, as it were, created entirely in Aomame’s mind. Tengo still had his strength and intelligence and kindness, and now he was a grown man with thick arms, a broad chest, and big, strong genitals. He could be by her side whenever she wanted him there, holding her tightly, stroking her hair, kissing her. Their room was always dark, and Aomame couldn’t see him. All that her eyes could take in was his eyes. Even in the dark, she could see his warm eyes. She could look into them and see the world as he saw it.