Bullet Train (Assassins #2)

by Kōtarō Isaka

Bastard will pay. If someone can push a six-year-old boy off the roof of a department store and still be walking around, breathing easy, then something in the world is broken.

The teenager by the window had whirled round and pressed something into Kimura’s thigh, like an oversized TV remote. By the time Kimura realises it’s the same sort of home-made stun gun those schoolkids had used before, he’s paralysed, every hair on his body bristling.

‘Never seen a rash look so much like a slash.’

Minegishi.

No matter what the subject is, Lemon always manages to steer the conversation to Thomas. A long-running TV show for kids, filmed with model trains – Lemon loves it.

Lemon sticks his hand in his jacket pocket, rummages around, pulls out a glossy sheet about the size of an address book. He points at it. ‘Look, this is Donald.’ There are a bunch of trains on it, Thomas and Friends stickers.

Nanao gets his jobs from Maria. She describes herself as basically just an agent, but Nanao doesn’t think that’s all there is to Maria.

Maria calling the shots and Nanao following orders, the genius coach and the amateur player.

You’re like a hermit crab who won’t leave its shell because it’s worried about earthquakes.’

Anyway, you still haven’t told me anything about this job you want me to do now.’ ‘I did tell you. Steal someone’s suitcase and get off the train. That’s it.’

‘Think of it this way. The more complicated a job is, the more you need to know ahead of time.

The man scoops it up irritably. Nanao realises it’s a hairpiece. More like a full wig. Upon closer inspection the woman in the green dress is not a woman, but a man in make-up. Adam’s apple, broad shoulders.

He had been yelled at by a cross-dresser and a man with a beard, and that would be it as far as bumps in the road. He tells himself this like performing a ritual, like he’s banishing bad energy from the path ahead.

There are three digital wristwatches with alarms. He’s found alarms to be useful in all sorts of situations. Maria makes fun of him, calls him a walking Swiss Army knife, but it’s all just stuff he had in the kitchen or bought at a convenience store. Except for the steroid paste and blood-clotting cream, in case he gets burnt or cut.

the Wolf.

‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘the Wolf, he’s always dealt with kids and animals, things weaker than him. Really, he’s the worst.

The more emotional someone gets, the easier they are to control.

They do see a guy two or three cars up standing right in front of the door to car five or six and pointing inside, someone they don’t recognise, wearing a flat cap, but other than that there’s nothing particularly noteworthy.

‘No, no, if you try to shoot it, it explodes.’

As Lemon says it, the details creep back to him: someone will be at the station to make sure Little Minegishi and the ransom money are both safe and sound on the Shinkansen. ‘Oh, right. Trouble.’

‘You’re in no position to be making demands, Ladybug.’ This makes Nanao mad. His head momentarily buzzes with heat. More than a few people in the business call him Ladybug.

it’s all too clear that when other people in the business grinningly call him Ladybug they’re making fun of him, likening him to a weak, tiny insect. He can’t stand it.

He’s got a whole collection of before and after shots – before and after beating, before and after death – and he loves to show them off.

The Wolf presses the blade up to Nanao’s throat. ‘Scared?’ ‘Yes.’ Nanao doesn’t feel the need to bluff.

Nanao knows how to break necks.

He convinced himself that he needed alcohol to do his job.

‘Oh, that’s me,’ the kid said lightly. ‘My last name is Oji, spelled with the Chinese characters for prince.

That’s right, the bag had Tangerine’s sticker on it.

‘If Thomas was on the college entrance exams, I’d have got into Tokyo U.’

The first item tells him that a snake was stolen from a Tokyo pet shop. Apparently a rare breed of snake.

‘Thirteen dead in the Fujisawa Kongocho killing. Security cameras at the scene had been sabotaged.’ Was it thirteen?

‘Anyway, declaring someone the most dangerous in the business is pretty much the same as picking the favourites for this year’s Academy Awards – people just say whatever they want to.

the Hornet

Terahara,

Apologies create obligation and hierarchy, so he never makes them when he doesn’t have to.

It was easy for the Prince to understand how a genocide could occur. It was because people make decisions based on feeling. But those feelings are extremely susceptible to outside influence.

Human beings are creatures of conformity.

The people doing the killing didn’t trust their own judgement, but rather went along with the group, believing that was right.

He won’t run away. He thinks he can’t. Human beings don’t operate on logic. Deep down we’re built just like animals.’

Asagao

‘You’re always so jumpy and paranoid, it’s like you bring bad luck on yourself,’ Maria once said to him. ‘You need to relax.

One time my lucky friend said to me, your family’s poor, so you should try to be either a football star or a criminal.’

‘A man cannot give what he hasn’t got.’

the main client who first ordered the job is a man in Morioka, name of Minegishi.’

I’ve learned an important lesson since we started working together: life is full of bad luck, just lying in wait. A job that feels like it’s impossible to mess up can go unexpectedly wrong. Or even if the job doesn’t go wrong, something else terrible can happen. Every time you go out, I discover a new way for things to fall apart.’ ‘But every time you still say it’s a simple job.’ ‘Which is always true. It’s not my fault that trouble follows you around.

His hopes and dreams never come true, but everything he fears always does.

When you lead a group by fear the rank and file lose trust in one another. The stronger the fear, the weaker the trust. The anger and resentment at the despot is turned on people who should be allies, making the spark of rebellion less likely. Everyone just wants to keep themselves safe, their only goal is to avoid being punished, and they start watching one another.

By setting up a situation like this he can make the people he hired feel like they owe him, instead of the other way round.

Whether it’s war, genocide, or revisions to the law, in most cases people don’t notice until it’s already happening, and they feel like they would have protested earlier if they only knew.

documentary in the ‘80s The Atomic Cafe.