Mona Lisa Overdrive

41 - Mr. Yanaka

The Maas-Neotek unit was still warm to the touch; the white plastic pad beneath it was discolored, as if by heat. A smell like burning hair ...

She watched the bruises on Tick's face darken. He'd sent her to a bedside cabinet for a worn tin cigarette box filled with pills and dermadisks -- had torn his collar open and pressed three of the adhesive disks against skin white as porcelain.

She helped him fashion a sling from a length of optic cable.

"But Colin said she had forgotten ... "

"I haven't," he said, and sucked air between his teeth, working the sling beneath his arm. "Seemed to happen, at the time. Lingers a bit ... " He winced.

"I'm sorry ... "

"'S okay. Sally told me. About your mother, I mean."

"Yes ... " She didn't look away. "She killed herself. In Tokyo ... "

"Whoever she was, that wasn't her."

"The unit ... " She glanced toward the breakfast table.

"She burnt it. Won't matter to him, though. He's still there. Has the run of it. What's our Sally up to, then?"

"She has Angela Mitchell with her. She's gone to find the thing that all that comes from. Where we were. A place called New Jersey."

The telephone rang.

Kumiko's father, head and shoulders, on the broad screen behind Tick's telephone: he wore his dark suit, his Rolex watch, a galaxy of small fraternal devices in his lapel. Kumiko thought he looked very tired, tired and very serious, a serious man behind the smooth dark expanse of desk in his study. Seeing him there, she regretted that Sally hadn't phoned from a booth with a camera. She would very much have liked to see Sally again; now, perhaps, it would be impossible.

"You look well, Kumiko," her father said.

Kumiko sat up very straight, facing the small camera mounted just below the wallscreen. In reflex, she summoned her mother's mask of disdain, but it would not come. Confused, she dropped her gaze to where her hands lay folded in her lap. She was abruptly aware of Tick, of his embarrassment, his fear, trapped in the chair beside her, in full view of the camera.

"You were correct to flee Swain's house," her father said.

She met his eyes again. "He is your kobun."

"No longer. While we were distracted, here, with our own difficulties, he formed new and dubious alliances, pursuing courses of which we could not approve."

"And your difficulties, Father?"

Was there the flicker of a smile? "All that is ended. Order and accord are again established."

"Er, excuse me, sir, Mr. Yanaka," Tick began, then seemed to lose his voice altogether.

"Yes. And you are -?"

Tick's bruised face contorted in a huge and particularly lugubrious wink.

"His name is Tick, Father. He has sheltered and protected me. Along with Col ... with the Maas-Neotek unit, he saved my life tonight."

"Really? I had not been informed of this. I was under the impression that you had not left his apartment."

Something cold -- "How?" she asked, sitting forward. "How could you know?"

"The Maas-Neotek unit broadcast your destination, once it was known -- once the unit was clear of Swain's systems. We dispatched watchers to the area." She remembered the noodle seller ... "Without, of course, informing Swain. But the unit never broadcast a second message."

"It was broken. An accident."

"Yet you say it saved your life?"

"Sir," Tick said, "you'll pardon me, what I mean is, am I covered? "

"Covered?"

"Protected. From Swain, I mean, and his bent SB friends and the rest ... "

"Swain is dead."

There was a silence. "But somebody will be running it, surely. The fancy, I mean. Your business."

Mr. Yanaka regarded Tick with frank curiosity. "Of course. How else might order and accord be expected to continue?"

"Give him your word, Father," Kumiko said, "that he will come to no harm."

Yanaka looked from Kumiko to the grimacing Tick. "I extend profound gratitude to you, sir, for having protected my daughter. I am in your debt."

"Giri," Kumiko said.

"Christ," Tick said, overcome with awe, "fucking fancy that."

"Father," Kumiko said, "on the night of my mother's death, did you order the secretaries to allow her to leave alone?"

Her father's face was very still. She watched it fill with a sorrow she had never before seen. "No," he said at last, "I did not."

Tick coughed.

"Thank you, Father. Will I be returning to Tokyo now?"

"Certainly, if you wish. Though I understand you have been allowed to see very little of London. My associate will soon arrive at Mr. Tick's apartment. If you wish to remain, to explore the city, he will arrange this."

"Thank you, Father."

"Goodbye, Kumi."

And he was gone.

"Now then," Tick said, wincing horribly as he extended his good arm, "help me up from this ... "

"But you require medical attention."

"Don't I then?" He'd managed to get to his feet, and was hobbling toward the toilet, when Petal opened the door from the dark upstairs hall. "If you've broken my bloody lock," Tick said, "you'd better pay me for it."

"Sorry," Petal said, blinking. "I've come for Miss Yanaka."

"Too bad, mate. Just had her dad on the phone. Told us Swain's been topped. Told us he's sending round the new boss." He smiled, crookedly, triumphantly.

"But you see," Petal said gently, "that's me."