“It is not the same,” Fuka-Eri said. “You changed.”

“I changed,” Tengo repeated.

Fuka-Eri nodded.

“How have I changed?”

Fuka-Eri stared for a long time into the wineglass she was holding, as if she could see something important inside.

“You will find out when you go to the cat town,” the beautiful girl said. Then, with her ear still showing, she took a sip of white wine.

CHAPTER 23

Aomame

PUT A TIGER IN YOUR TANK

Aomame woke at just after six o’clock in the morning. It was a clear, beautiful day. She made herself a pot of coffee, toasted some bread, and boiled an egg. While eating breakfast, she checked the television news to confirm that there was still no report of the Sakigake Leader’s death. They had obviously disposed of the body in secret without filing a report with the police or letting anyone else know. No problem with that. A dead person was still a dead person no matter how you got rid of him.

At eight o’clock she showered, gave her hair a thorough brushing at the mirror, and applied a barely perceptible touch of lipstick. She put on stockings. Then she put on the white silk blouse she had hanging in the closet and completed her outfit with her stylish Junko Shimada suit. While shaking and twisting her body a few times to help her padded underwire bra conform more comfortably to her shape, she found herself again wishing that her breasts could have been somewhat bigger. She must have had that same thought at least 72,000 times while looking in the mirror. But so what? I can think what I want as many times as I want. This could be the 72,001st time, but what’s wrong with that? As long as I’m alive, I can think what I want, when I want, any way I want, as much as I want, and nobody can tell me any different. She put on her Charles Jourdan high heels.

She stood at the full-length mirror by the front door and checked to see that her outfit was flawless. She raised one shoulder slightly and considered the possibility that she might look something like Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair. Faye Dunaway played a coolheaded insurance investigator in that movie—a woman like a cold knife: sexy, great-looking in a business suit. Of course Aomame didn’t look like Faye Dunaway, but the atmosphere she projected was somewhat close—or at least not entirely different. It was that special atmosphere that only a first-class professional could exude. In addition, her shoulder bag contained a cold, hard automatic pistol.

.    .    .

Putting on her slim Ray-Ban sunglasses, she left the apartment. She crossed the street to the playground, walked up to the slide where Tengo had been sitting, and replayed last night’s scene in her head. It had happened twelve hours earlier. The actual Tengo had been right there—justacross the street from me. He sat there for a long time, alone, looking up at the moons—the same two moons that she had been looking at.

It felt almost like a miracle to Aomame—a kind of revelation—that she had come so close to Tengo. Something had brought her into his presence. And the event, it seemed, had largely restructured her physical being. From the moment she woke up in the morning, she had continued to feel a sort of friction throughout her entire body. He appeared before me and departed. We were not able to speak to or touch each other. But in that short interval, he transformed many things inside me. He literally stirred my mind and body the way a spoon stirs a cup of cocoa, down to the depths of my internal organs and my womb.

She stood there for a full five minutes, one hand on a step of the slide, frowning slightly, jabbing at the ground with the sharp heel of her shoe. She was checking the degree to which she had been stirred both physically and mentally, and savoring the sensation. Finally, she made up her mind, walked out of the playground to the nearest big street, and caught a cab.

“I want you to go out to Yohga first, then take the Metropolitan Expressway Number 3 inbound until just before the Ikejiri exit,” she announced to the driver, who was understandably confused by these instructions.

“So, miss, can you tell me exactly what your final destination is?” he asked, his tone rather on the easygoing side.

“The Ikejiri exit. For now.”

“Well, then, it would be much closer to go straight to Ikejiri from here. Going all the way out to Yohga would be a huge detour. And at this time of the morning, the inbound lanes of Number 3 are going to be completely jammed. They’ll hardly be moving. I’m as sure of that as I am that today is Wednesday.”

“I don’t care if the expressway is jammed. I don’t care if today is Thursday or Friday or the Emperor’s Birthday. I want you to get on the Metropolitan Expressway from Yohga. I’ve got all the time in the world.”

The driver was a man in his early thirties. He was slim, with a long, pale face, and looked like a timid grazing animal. His chin stuck out like those of the stone faces on Easter Island. He was looking at Aomame in his rearview mirror, trying to decide from her expression whether his current passenger was totally bonkers or just an ordinary human being in a complicated situation. It was not easy for him to tell, though, especially from the image in the small mirror.

Aomame took her wallet out of her shoulder bag and thrust a brand-new ten-thousand-yen bill toward his face. The money looked as if it had just been printed.

“No change needed, and no receipt,” Aomame said curtly. “So keep your opinions to yourself and do what you’re told. Go first to Yohga, get on the expressway, and go to Ikejiri. This should cover the fare even if we get caught in traffic.”

“It’s more than enough, of course,” the driver said, though he still seemed dubious. “Do you have some special business on the expressway?”

Aomame shook the bill at him like a pennant in the wind. “If you don’t want to take me, I’ll get out and find another cab. So make up your mind, please. Now.”

The driver stared at the ten-thousand-yen bill for a good ten seconds with his brows knit. Then he made up his mind and took the money. After holding the bill up to the light to check its authenticity, he shoved it into his business bag.

“All right, then, let’s go, Metropolitan Expressway Number 3. It’s going to be badly backed up, though, I’m telling you, miss. And there’s no exit between Yohga and Ikejiri. No toilet, either. So if there’s any chance you might need to go, better take care of it now.”

“Don’t worry, just take me straight there.”

The driver made his way out of the network of residential streets to Ring Road Number 8 and joined the thick traffic heading for Yohga. Neither he nor Aomame said a word. He listened to the news, and she was lost in thought. As they neared the entrance to the Metropolitan Expressway, the driver lowered the radio’s volume and asked Aomame a question.

“This may be none of my business, miss, but are you in some special line of work?”

“I’m an insurance investigator,” Aomame said without hesitation.

“An insurance investigator,” the driver repeated her words carefully, as if tasting a new food.

“I find evidence in cases of insurance fraud,” Aomame said.

“Wow,” the driver said, obviously impressed. “Does Metropolitan Expressway Number 3 have something to do with this insurance fraud stuff?”

“It does indeed.”

“Just like that movie, isn’t it?”

“What movie?”

“It’s a really old one, with Steve McQueen. I don’t remember what it’s called.”

“The Thomas Crown Affair,” Aomame said.