Counterfeiter and Other Stories (15 page)

The automobile crossed the bridge with the tire flat, and after going on a little further, turned off the highway onto a rice-paddy field. Kagebayashi and Jiro Kaibara both remained silently sitting in the parked car. Kaibara thought that by the time they arrived at Kagebayashi's second home in Kamakura he should be able to consolidate his arguments for setting up an employees' baseball team at the company. This was something that he had been proposing for the past year, at least whenever he met Kagebayashi, but he was never able to get a definite reply. The baseball commentator figured that by having them set up an employees' baseball team at S——Industries, he could solidify his own very insecure standing at the company, where he was just receiving a retaining allowance.

However, Kaibara was born superstitious, and an ill-omened flat tire was not the occasion for broaching this subject, so the better part of wisdom was to forget this talk for today.
But if I keep all this to myself what's the purpose in my riding in the President's car when he's going to his second home in Kamakura?
When it turned out that he was unable to answer his own question, Kaibara's actions became strikingly peculiar.
I have to talk to him about something!
But nothing intelligent or relevant came into Kaibara's head, as always.

Kagebayashi was also exasperated by the flat.
My car, which did not have a flat even once during my presidency, has to have a flat now that I've stopped being president!
Just as he was thinking this, he for some reason or other became filled by an uneasiness about going to Teruko's house in Kamakura. Whenever he was going down to Teruko's, he always put in a telephone call a few days in advance, but this time his visit was without notice.
Mightn't she not be there? Didn't she go to Fukuoka to buy a diamond?
(Kagebayashi had by now convinced himself that this had been true.) And once this uneasiness reared its head, he began quickly to accept it as established irrefutable truth that Teruko would not be home.

"
Shacho
, your fast-ball was sure hard to get—you know, I don't know anyone with such a fast-ball."

Little by little, the words he had been holding back were coming forward in Kaibara and he was saying them. Kaibara had never said things like this when he was alone with Kagebayashi. This was the first time. This did not mean that what he was now blurting out was just lip service on this occasion. But just because he had so often repeated this same thing over and over again, it had become a reality in his mind now. Kagebayashi was startled by his words. And as if he had discovered something priceless inside a desk drawer, the fast-ball of his student days was now being recalled to him as the only glory that was left to him. That arm of his had pitched fast-balls that were hard for even Kaibara to get—Kaibara, with his big name in baseball.

Kagebayashi opened the door and called out to the driver, "Not yet?"

"It'll be another five minutes." The driver had finished removing the flat tire and was standing holding it. Pushing his hair out of his eyes and back on top of his head while standing holding the tire, he had the appearance of something out of the comics. The driver's shadow was as dark as spilled ink, and the ground was an exceedingly clear, pale blue-white in the moonlight.

Kagebayashi got out of the car and stood on the ground. Then suddenly, in order to whisk away the cold emptiness of the moonbeams which were closing in on him, he swung his right arm forward and up in a large arc. After several decades, Kagebayashi was now again posing in his pitcher's motion. Of course, as a reserve player, he had never had any experience stepping up to the pitcher's mound. But in his current frame of mind, Kagebayashi had forgotten details like that. He arched his body forward, and as though he were actually pitching a ball, he mightily brought down the right arm that he had just swung upward. Because once again he was throwing a fast-ball that even Kaibara would miss.

Inside the car, Jiro Kaibara raised his eyes toward the window and saw something in the shape of a funny old man flinging his emaciated arm around in circles. He sucked in his breath. This figure was ghastly like a phantom devil dancing and bathing in the white rays of the moon which tomorrow would be called the Full Moon.

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