All Tomorrow's Parties

71. YAMAZAKI

YAMAZAKI, grim and nervous, descends into the early morning rush hour accompanied by a very large Australian, shaven-headed, with one mutilated ear.

'You knew he was here? the large man asks.

'He desired secrecy, Yamazaki says. 'I am sorry.

Yamazaki leads the Australian to the cardboard city and points out Laney's carton and its entrance.

'This one?

Yamazaki nods.

The Australian produces a knife that telescopes silently at the touch of a button, both its edges serrated. He slits the top from Laney's carton, lifting it like the lid of a box of cereal, and Yamazaki sees the stickers of Cody Harwood that he glimpsed once before.

The Australian, much taller than Yamazaki, stands staring down into the carton. Yamazaki himself is not yet ready to look.

'What was he running from? the Australian asks.

Yamazaki looks up at the man's small, fiercely intelligent eyes, set in a face of the most abiding brutality. 'Toward, Yamazaki says. 'He ran toward something.

A train arrives in the depths of the system, shunting a wall of stale warm air toward the surface streets and a new day.