Free After Dark by Haruki Murakami

That’s the way they are with stuff like this. If some guy off the street gets away with making them look bad, they can’t keep their women in line, and they lose face with the other gangs. They can’t survive in that world if they lose face.”
    Kaoru takes a cigarette from the desktop, puts it in her mouth, and lights it with a match. Pursing her lips, she slowly releases a long stream of smoke at the computer screen.
    On the paused screen the enlarged face of the man.
     
    T en minutes later. Kaoru and Komugi wait near the hotel’s front door. Kaoru wears the same leather jacket as before, her woolen hat pulled down almost to her eyes. Komugi wears a big, thick sweater. She clutches herself across the chest to ward off the cold. Soon, the man who came to pick up the woman arrives on his big motorcycle. He stops the bike a few paces away from the women. Again he keeps the engine running. He takes off his helmet, rests it on the gas tank, and deliberately removes his right glove. He stuffs the glove into his jacket pocket and stands his ground. He is obviously not going to move. Kaoru strides toward him and holds out three copies of the photo.
    “He probably works in a company near here,” she says. “I think he works nights a lot, and I’m pretty sure he’s ordered women here before. Maybe he’s one of your regulars.”
    The man takes the photos and stares at them for a few seconds. They don’t seem to interest him especially.
    “So?” he asks, looking at Kaoru.
    “Whaddya mean, ‘So?’”
    “Why are you giving me these?”
    “I kinda figured you’d wanna have ’em. You don’t?”
    Instead of replying, the man unzips his jacket and puts the photos, folded in half, into a kind of document sack hanging across his chest. Then he raises the zipper to the base of his neck. He keeps his eyes fixed on Kaoru the whole time.
    The man is trying to find out what Kaoru wants in return for supplying him with this information, but he refuses to ask the question. He holds his pose, mouth shut, and waits for the answer to come to him. But Kaoru faces him with arms folded like his, aiming her cold stare at him. She is not going to back down, either. This suffocating stare-down goes on for some time. Finally Kaoru breaks the silence with a well-timed clearing of her throat.
    “Just let me know if you find him, okay?”
    The man grips the handlebar with his left hand and rests his right hand lightly on his helmet.
    “Just let you know if we find him,” he echoes mechanically.
    “That’s right.”
    “Just let you know?”
    Kaoru nods. “Just a little whisper in my ear. I don’t need to know what you do to him.”
    The man is thinking hard. He gives the crown of his helmet two light taps with his fist. “If we find him, I’ll let you know.”
    “I look forward to the news,” Kaoru says. “Do you guys still cut ears off?”
    The man’s lips twitched slightly. “A man has only one life. Ears, he has two.”
    “Maybe so, but if he loses an ear, he’s got nothing to hang his glasses on.”
    “Most inconvenient,” the man says.
    This brings their conversation to an end. The man puts his helmet on, gives his pedal a big kick, turns the bike, and speeds off.
    Kaoru and Komugi silently watch the motorcycle go, standing in the street long after it has disappeared.
    When she speaks finally, Komugi says, “I don’t know, he’s kind of like a ghost.”
    “Well, it
is
the right time of day for ghosts, you know,” Kaoru says.
    “Scary.”
    “Yeah, really.”
    The two walk into the hotel.

    K aoru is alone in the office. Her feet are on the desk. She picks up the photo and studies it again. Close-up of the man. Kaoru lets out a quiet moan and raises her eyes toward the ceiling.

7
    A man is working at a computer. This is the man who was photographed by the surveillance camera at the Hotel Alphaville—the man in the light gray trench coat who took the key to room 404. He is a touch typist of awesome speed. Still,