From the Fatherland, with Love, page 41
“I and I noticed that all the guns you described were of different calibers,” Ishihara said. “Which means they all take different ammo. Correct? That gun you’re holding that looks like a salted salmon, what caliber is it again?” Takei looked down at the assault rifle in his hands. “This Heckler & Koch G11? It’s 4.73-by-33 millimeters.” Ishihara sighed. “Well, either I and I can’t remember for trying to forget or can’t forget for trying to remember, but run through all those calibers again, will you?” Takei, pointing affectionately at each gun in turn, said, “The M16 is 5.56-by-45 millimeters, the AKM is 7.62-by-39, the AK-74 next to it is 5.45-by-39, the FAMAS is the same as the M16, 5.56-by-45, and the handguns, let’s see, the FN and the Beretta are 9-by-19, the Tokarev 7.62-by-25, the Colt Government 11.43-by-23, the Smith & Wesson 10-by-23, and as for the sub-machine guns, well, the Uzi is 9-by-19, Sergeant Saunders’ Thompson is 11.25-by-23, the Scorpion is 7.65-by-17, and the Dragunov and Galil are both 7.62, but the case lengths are slightly different.”
“See?” Ishihara shook his head. “What a loser. Takei, twenty years ago, I and I would have pulled down my PJs, bared my snow-white ass, and sprayed you with projectile diarrhea.” He spread his arms to address the rows of guns on the floor and table before him. “O you pitiful stingers, you lonely insects, companionless, weepin’ weapons. Sad stingers, come: let me hold you lovingly, yea, and squeeze you till the pips squeak. But listen to me: here you will find no mates, and no happiness. And there’s no one to blame but that old fool Takei.” Ishihara slowly looked upward, then folded his hands against his breast and closed his eyes as if in prayer. Listening to this impromptu poem, or whatever it was, Mori thought he finally understood what he was driving at. The others did too and began hashing it out with one another. Tateno said to Hino, “The Koryos all have AKs and Scorpions, right?” Matsuyama said to Fukuda, “Now I get it—if the calibers are different, you can’t share ammo during a firefight.” Felix told Yamada that NATO cartridges were standardized at 5.56 millimeters, and Takeguchi told Shinohara that was why, even though the guns of the German, French, Italian, and Belgian armies were different, they could exchange ammo. Ando told Takeguchi that when Europe was divided into East and West, the two sides used different calibers, to make their own ammunition useless to the enemy. Fukuda said to Ando, “Most of us have never fired a real gun, so we’ll need to train and practice.” Yamada asked Mori, “How can we train as a group, or hold drills, if the guns are all different?” and Hino said to Kaneshiro, “It’s amazing that he found so many different kinds of guns, though,” and Kaneshiro said to no one in particular, “Why couldn’t he get weapons of the same caliber?” Shibata wondered what good uniforms were if they were all different; Sato said that this wasn’t a high-school military-history club, after all; Miyazaki said it wasn’t a fashion competition either; and Orihara muttered, “Fighting isn’t about looking good anyway.” Kondo wiped the sweat from under his arms and mumbled, “I mean, snow camo? In Fukuoka? In springtime?”
They weren’t addressing their remarks directly to Takei, if only because none of them desired or were accustomed to confrontation of any kind. When someone made curry and it was delicious, they would all nod to themselves and mutter under their breath that it wasn’t bad, but no one ever turned to the cook and said, for example, “Hey, Mori, this is great!” If a dish didn’t turn out well, on the other hand, everyone would try a few bites and leave the rest but not say anything. Whoever made it realized that it wasn’t any good, but his feelings weren’t hurt. No one was used to offering criticism of any kind, so when they didn’t like something they just kept quiet. This was the wisdom of children who’d grown up in dangerous surroundings, unable to trust anyone.
When Mori had first arrived at the welfare facility, he was scarcely able to speak to people. Having recently witnessed his brother’s murderous rampage, he was terrified of any contact or interaction with others. A clinical psychologist there had tried an unusual method with him. He’d placed a doll between Mori and himself and used it as a medium of communication. The doll was named Suzy. “Hey, Suzy,” the psychologist would say, looking at the doll. “Hey, Suzy, I’d sure like to talk to Mori-kun for a minute. I wonder what I should do?” Somewhat reassured because the man wasn’t speaking directly to him, Mori had begun little by little to reply through Suzy.
The negative comments about Takei’s guns-and-uniforms show were, Mori thought, mainly blowback from having had such high expectations. Everyone was focused on the coming offensive; a clear target for their destructive urges had finally appeared in the form of the Koryos. Mori didn’t know what gave people the urge to destroy, but everyone here had it, and they all knew it. When there was no clear external focus for that drive, you turned it against yourself, or those close to you, or society. You cut yourself or killed yourself or stabbed your parents or murdered strangers or started fires or set off bombs, and of course society dealt severely with such behavior. Since coming to Fukuoka and meeting so many other kids from similar circumstances, Mori had managed to dial his own destructiveness down a few notches, but it had never completely disappeared. And now that a suitable object for it had come along, it was time to dial it back up.
Everyone here was a bit mental, but none of them lacked intelligence. They understood only too well that the Koryos were well-trained professional soldiers and virtually unbeatable as a fighting force. Since their sudden appearance at the Dome, the Ishihara group had been studying their every move, the way small children intently watch their parents. They knew that they didn’t stand a chance without weapons, but Takei’s armory, while impressive, had turned out to be less than practical. Mori didn’t feel that the muttered criticisms were based on any actual ill feeling toward the man, however, but rather a general and sudden disillusionment. It was obvious that you weren’t going to defeat the Koryos with the private collection of an eccentric gun enthusiast.
“Wait a minute.” It was hard to tell unless you looked closely, but Takei was furious. There were tiny bubbles of foam at the corners of his mouth, and his shoulders were trembling. “Takei, pwease don’t be angwy,” Ishihara said, as if trying to comfort a child. Kaneshiro stood up and said, “Weapons are weapons, after all.” Matsuyama turned to Felix and said, “That’s right. If you pull the trigger, bullets come out. We can still fight,” and Ando and Takeguchi and Fukuda nodded in agreement. Takei had been standing there in his GSG-9 uniform with his head bowed, biting his lip as though enduring an unendurable humiliation, but now he looked up. “Trigger? Bullets?” he said, then turned to peer over his left shoulder and point a coy finger at Matsuyama—a pose a pop star might have employed a decade earlier.
“What did you just say? ‘If you pull the trigger, bullets come out’?” Scowling, he called Toyohara’s name. Still in his T-shirt and shorts, Toyohara stepped stiffly forward, as if expecting to be yelled at, rigid with such tension that it filled the air of the room and made it hard to breathe. This was a genuinely serious lad. “Bring me that pistol you were wearing just now,” Takei said. With an obsequious “Hai!” Toyohara picked up the Tokarev from the row of pistols on the table. “That’s not it,” Takei said, and Toyohara’s cheeks flushed so red against his pale skin that they looked like ripe tomatoes. Fukuda said, “Here,” and handed him a larger, silvery gun—the Colt Government.
“Look at this, everyone.” Takei took the Colt and displayed it for all to see, like a magician holding up a top hat. Mori almost expected him to say, Nothing up my sleeve… “Look right here, this is the safety,” he said, pointing to a little lever on the side of the gun. Mori was too far away to make it out. Kaneshiro, Fukuda, and Takeguchi were in the front row, but apparently they couldn’t see it properly either: they looked at one another, shaking their heads and shrugging. Kaneshiro, looking thoroughly bored, muttered, “What you’re saying is that if you don’t release the safety, no bullets will come out, right?” Ishihara, seated in his rocking chair, released a beery belch. Perhaps he was a tad drunk; he was watching Takei’s performance with sleepy eyes and not much apparent interest.
“That’s right. The safety keeps the gun from going off accidentally. Now watch this. See? I’m pushing the catch forward, so the safety is off. Now we’re set, right? Hey, Matsuyama, we’re set now, right? If I pull the trigger now, a bullet will come out, right?” Takei was aiming a finger at Matsuyama again. “I guess so,” Matsuyama said, looking perplexed. “Takei’s just upset right now,” Felix assured him. “He’s just blowing off steam.”
On the floor below the stairway was a square, beige-colored tin container about the size of an unabridged dictionary. Takei levered it open and extracted a square paper package, approximately half the size of a carton of cigarettes. Something was printed on the package in English, but Mori was too far back to read it. Takei slid the empty magazine out of the Colt, opened the package, plucked out a single cartridge, and held it up for all to see. “This is what you call a Hydra-Shok,” he said. “Velocity is a bit on the slow side, but the kill power is exceptional.” The bullet was about as long as the first joint of his index finger. In the center of the rounded, dull-gold tip was a small hole.
Takei loaded the magazine, counting out loud as he did so. “One round. Two rounds. Three rounds…” He loaded seven in all, slid the magazine into the butt end of the grip, and slapped it home. “Here,” he said, handing the gun to Toyohara. He had him stand in front of the staircase, several meters away from the others and with his back to them. Taking up position beside him, Takei pointed at the big bookcase against the wall they were facing, clapped him on the back, and said, “Shoot at the bookcase.” Toyohara took aim. Ishihara sat up in his rocker and was about to protest, when Takei turned and showed him both palms. “It’s all right,” he said, then turned to Toyohara beside him and shouted: “READYYYYY…” Toyohara opened his stance and held the Colt Government straight out, supporting his right wrist with his left hand. “AIMMMMM…” Ishihara’s enormous bookcase, which housed Rimbaud and Takuboku alongside S&M Sniper and Scatolo: The Complete Young Babes Pooping, was about twice Toyohara’s height.
“FIRE!” Takei yelled, and Toyohara squeezed the trigger. His index finger turned bone-white, but nothing happened. “What’s wrong? I said ‘FIRE’!” Takei screeched. Toyohara’s shoulder was trembling, and his face turned scarlet as he tried unsuccessfully to pull the trigger. “What’s going on?” Yamada wondered, and Kaneshiro snapped his fingers and said, “I get it. There’s a grip safety.” He explained that the gun was equipped with another, internal safety catch, and that you had to squeeze hard on the grip itself to release it. Toyohara was on the balls of his feet, leaning slightly forward, holding the pistol straight out in front of him, left hand cradling his wrist—a stance that Takei must have taught him in rehearsals upstairs. He was grimacing now as he continued to squeeze the immovable trigger. Thick veins popped into relief at his temples. His mouth was open, and a raspy moan leaked out: Uuuurrrgh! Mori wondered if Toyohara himself wasn’t going to explode.
His eyes were closed. His mouth was twisted and his hands and arms, as well as his shoulders and knees, were shaking visibly. He was blaming himself for the gun not firing. “What’s the matter, Toyohara? Shoot!” The anguished moan died, and Toyohara tried to speak. No sound came out, but Mori could read his lips easily enough: I’m sorry! There was a harsh chill in the air of the Living. Toyohara was being deliberately tormented in front of everyone. Perhaps Takei blamed him for destroying the party atmosphere of his show. “That’s enough,” Ishihara said, and Takei spread his arms and turned to the group, smiling, as if to say: You see? Only we pros know the real score. And it was then that Toyohara’s arms jerked upward and a short flame spat out of the barrel of the gun. There was a percussive pop, like a car backfiring, and the steel staircase rang like a bell as the bullet ricocheted off it—the recoil being so powerful that Toyohara had missed the bookcase altogether. Kaneshiro, Fukuda, and Takeguchi dived to the floor, followed immediately by Tateno, Hino, Shinohara, Matsuyama, Felix, and the five Satanists. Mori, Yamada, Ando, and Okubo were equally startled but didn’t move; they were still sitting upright on the carpet, mouths agape. Ishihara’s eyes shone. “Woo-hoo!” he remarked from his rocking chair. “The little bug flew straight and true! Good work, Hulk!”
Mori’s ears were ringing. He had heard more gunshots in Ohori Park than he could possibly count, but indoors the sound was very different, and he began to worry that the Koryos in the danchi had heard it. Toyohara was nearly in tears, mouthing the words I’m sorry, again and again. His hand was dangling at a strange angle. “He must’ve dislocated his wrist,” someone said—apparently the recoil had pushed the joint out of its socket. But he was still holding the gun, presumably too focused on blaming himself to feel the pain. He didn’t even seem to realize he’d actually fired the thing. Ishihara rose from his rocking chair. “It’s all right, Toyo. That’s enough!” he shouted, but Toyohara wasn’t hearing anything. “Weird,” Takei muttered, shaking his head. “The kid must be crazy strong.” He stepped toward him and held out his hand. “That’s enough,” he said. “Give me the gun.” But his words weren’t reaching Toyohara, whose ears seemed as tightly shut as his eyes. He gave another grunt and clenched his limp-wristed hand again, and this time when his arms jerked upward the muzzle was pointed to the right, directly at Takei, no more than half a meter away. A brief spark pierced the right breast of Takei’s jacket, accompanied by another dry pop.
Takei reeled back as if body-punched and looked at Toyohara as if to say: Huh? And then he crumpled, buckling at the knees before falling face downward. Under his right shoulder blade was a blackish-red hole the size of an apple, and both of his legs were twitching. The atmosphere in the room seemed to turn to chilled jelly. Mori could neither speak nor move. After some moments Ishihara bellowed: “Kaneshiro, Tateno—get the gun!” Kaneshiro ran up and bear-hugged Toyohara from behind and Tateno lunged forward to grab the Colt, but no sooner had he taken it away than he cried out and let it fall clattering to the floor. “The barrel is red-hot!” he said. With Kaneshiro shaking him by the shoulders, Toyohara finally opened his eyes; and then, seeing smoke issuing from the barrel of the gun, he said, “Did I shoot it?” and started to smile until he noticed Takei lying on the floor beyond the wisp of smoke.
He squatted down and lightly touched Takei’s bleeding wound, then looked up at Kaneshiro. “Did I do that?” he asked. Kaneshiro was having difficulty catching his breath and didn’t reply. Ishihara came forward. “It wasn’t you, Toyo,” he said. “He walked right into the line of fire. He always was an unlucky bugger.” Takei was still breathing, his legs still twitching. Blood had already pooled in a circle about a meter across. “What do you want to do?” Kaneshiro asked Ishihara. Everyone else stood or sat frozen—Yamada with his mouth open and his arms oddly akimbo—but Mori moved unsteadily to the window and peered out toward the danchi. Tateno asked what he was doing, and he said he was just checking to see if the Koryos heard the gunshots. The room went electric with tension.
“Can you see anything?” Fukuda whispered. “I see a bunch of people,” Mori reported, “but they’re too far away to tell what they’re doing.” Toyohara got to his feet, ran to the hat tree next to the kitchen, and brought back his binoculars. “Made in Germany,” he said as he handed them over. Mori nodded: “I know.” The binoculars were aligned to Toyohara’s remarkably close-set eyes. Mori adjusted them, steadied them on the windowsill, and pointed them at the danchi. Work projects were under way at various spots on the danchi grounds, with large machinery tearing up asphalt and moving dirt around. He could hear crashing and clanking sounds, and could see the blue sparks of welding torches. Crews of workers were checking electrical wiring and testing the valves on water lines and so forth. The MAVs in the background weren’t moving. But when he scanned to the right of the MAVs, his heart leaped into his throat. “Oops!” he said. He had focused on a Koryo soldier who stood near the entrance to the danchi, talking to a city official, and the soldier had seemed to look up and stare right into the lenses. Mori pulled back and ducked, the blood draining from his face.
Someone asked what was wrong, and he said, “I think we’ve been spotted.” Everybody in the room, including Ishihara, hit the deck. It wasn’t actually possible to see into the Living from the danchi, so they weren’t really in any danger of being shot, but for a moment there was panic. The five Satanists, on the floor beside the gun table, all reached for weapons before realizing they didn’t know how to use them. And who knew how to use the hand grenades? “Should we run?” Tateno said to Ishihara. Ishihara asked Fukuda and Takeguchi if those cookies of theirs were operative. Clutching their duralumin cases, they shook their heads—they hadn’t brought any detonators. “Well, then, what are we waiting for?” Ishihara said. “Let’s get out of here.” He pointed at the Colt Government on the floor. “Somebody put the gun in Takei’s hand,” he said, already crawling toward the door, “so we can say he topped himself.”
Hino picked up the Colt, but as he got closer to the blood-splattered body his nerve failed. “Give it to me,” Kaneshiro said, squatting down next to Takei and holding out an open hand. Hino gave him the gun. Kaneshiro took hold of Takei’s right wrist, but the moment he did so Takei’s torso twitched and a faint Oooh escaped his lips. Kaneshiro rocked back on his heels and sat abruptly on the floor, saying, “What the hell? He’s still alive!” Hino gave a sharp, rasping gasp, Tateno shivered, and Yamada stood with both hands clamped over his gaping mouth. “Shouldn’t we take him to a hospital?” Shinohara said quietly. “Don’t be stupid,” said Ishihara. “They’d find out we have weapons here.” Kaneshiro climbed to his feet. He stared at the Colt in his hand, then pointed it at Takei’s head. “If we’re going to claim it was suicide,” he said, “shouldn’t we make sure he’s dead?” His eyes looked weird. They seemed to be out of focus, or focused on something a long way off. Ishihara slowly approached and took the gun from his hand. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “He’ll be dead in a minute. You don’t have to shoot him.”
