The concentrated downpour brought the subway to a stop. Will this have any influence on my actions? I’ve got to make my brain work faster. I go to Shinjuku Station to get my travel bag and shoulder bag out of a coin locker. Then I call Tamaru for instructions. If I’m going to have to use the Marunouchi Line from Shinjuku, things could get very messy. I only have two hours to make my getaway. Once two hours have gone by, they’ll begin to wonder why Leader isn’t waking up. They’ll probably go into the bedroom and discover that he’s drawn his last breath. They’ll go into action immediately.

“Do you think the Marunouchi Line is still not running?” Aomame asked the driver.

“I wonder. I really don’t know. Want me to turn on the news?”

“Yes, please.”

According to Leader, the Little People caused that downpour. They concentrated the intense rain on a small area in the Akasaka District and caused the subway to stop. Aomame shook her head. Maybe they did it on purpose. Things don’t always go according to plan.

The driver tuned the radio to NHK. They were broadcasting a music program—folk songs sung by Japanese singers popular in the late sixties. Having listened to such music on the radio as a girl, Aomame remembered it vaguely, but in no way fondly. If anything, the memories it called up for her were unpleasant ones, things she would rather not think about. She put up with it for a while, but there was no sign of news about the subway situation.

“Sorry, that’s enough. Could you please turn off the radio?” Aomame said. “I’ll just go to Shinjuku Station and see what’s happening.”

The driver turned off the radio. “That place will be jammed,” he said.

As the driver had said, Shinjuku Station was horribly congested. Because the stalled Marunouchi Line connected with the National Railways here, the flow of passengers had been disrupted, and people were wandering in all directions. The evening rush hour had ended, but even so, pushing her way through the crowd was hard work for Aomame.

At last she made her way to the coin locker and took out her shoulder bag and her black imitation-leather travel bag. The travel bag contained the cash she had taken from her safe-deposit box. She took the items out of her gym bag and divided them between the shoulder and travel bags: the envelope of cash she had received from Buzzcut, the vinyl pouch containing the pistol, the hard case with the ice pick. The now useless Nike gym bag she put into a nearby locker, inserted a hundred-yen coin, and turned the key. She had no intention of reclaiming it. It contained nothing that could be traced to her.

Travel bag in hand, Aomame walked around looking for a pay phone in the station. Crowds had formed at every phone. People stood in long lines, waiting their turn to call home and say they would be late because the train had stopped. Aomame put her face into a light frown. I guess the Little People are not going to let me get away that easily. Leader said they can’t touch me directly, but they can interfere with my movements through the back door, using other methods.

Aomame gave up on waiting her turn for a phone. Leaving the station, she walked a short distance, went into the first café she saw, and ordered an iced coffee. The pink pay phone here was also in use, but at least it had no line. She stood behind a middle-aged woman and waited for her long conversation to end. The woman flashed annoyed glances at Aomame but resigned herself to hanging up after she talked for five more minutes.

Aomame slipped all her coins into the phone and punched in the number she had memorized. After three rings, a mechanical recorded announcement came on: “Sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the beep.”

The beep sounded, and Aomame said into the mouthpiece, “Hello, Tamaru, please pick up if you’re there.”

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.”

“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.”