intensive collectivity known as ‘city’ really is.” Frog said this with a gentle shake of the head. “The epicenter will be close to the Shinjuku ward office.”
“Close to the Shinjuku ward office?”
“To be precise, it will hit directly beneath the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank.”
A heavy silence followed.
“And you,” Katagiri said, “are planning to stop this earthquake?”
“Exactly,” Frog said, nodding. “That is exactly what I propose to do. You and I will go underground beneath the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank to do mortal combat with Worm.”
As a member of the Trust Bank Lending Division, Katagiri had fought his way through many a battle. He had weathered sixteen years of daily combat since the day he graduated from the university and joined the bank’s staff. He was, in a word, a collection officer—a post that carried little popularity. Everyone in his division preferred to make loans, especially at the time of the bubble. They had so much money in those days that almost any likely piece of collateral—be it land or stock—was enough to convince loan officers to give away whatever they were asked for, the bigger the loan the better their reputations in the company. Some loans, though, never made it back to the bank: they got “stuck to the bottom of the pan.” It was Katagiri’s job to take care of those. And when the bubble burst, the work piled on. First stock prices fell, and then land values, and collateral lost all significance. “Get out there,” his boss commanded him, “and squeeze whatever you can out of them.”
The Kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku was a labyrinth of violence: old-time gangsters, Korean mobsters, Chinese mafia, guns and drugs, money flowing beneath the surface from one murky den to another, people vanishing every now and then like a puff of smoke. Plunging into Kabukicho to collect a bad debt, Katagiri had been surrounded more than once by mobsters threatening to kill him, but he had never been frightened. What good would it have done them to kill one man running around for the bank? They could stab him if they wanted to. They could beat him up. He was perfect for the job: no wife, no kids, both parents dead, brother and sister he had put through college married off. So what if they killed him? It wouldn’t change anything for anybody—least of all for Katagiri himself.
It was not Katagiri but the thugs surrounding him who got nervous when they saw him so calm and cool. He soon earned a kind of reputation in their world as a tough guy. Now, though, the tough Katagiri was at a total loss. What the hell was this frog talking about? Worm?
“Who is Worm?” he asked with some hesitation.
“Worm lives underground. He is a gigantic worm. When he gets angry, he causes earthquakes,” Frog said. “And right now he is very, very angry.”
“What is he angry
about
?” Katagiri asked.
“I have no idea,” Frog said. “Nobody knows what Worm is thinking inside that murky head of his. Few have ever seen him. He is usually asleep. That’s what he really likes to do: take long, long naps. He goes on sleeping for years—decades—in the warmth and darkness underground. His eyes, as you might imagine, have atrophied, his brain has turned to jelly as he sleeps. If you ask me, I’d guess he probably isn’t thinking anything at all, just lying there and feeling every little rumble and reverberation that comes his way, absorbing them into his body, and storing them up. And then, through some kind of chemical process, he replaces most of them with rage. Why this happens I have no idea. I could never explain it.”
Frog fell silent, watching Katagiri and waiting until his words had sunk in. Then he went on:
“Please don’t misunderstand me, though. I feel no personal animosity toward Worm. I don’t see him as the embodiment of evil. Not that I would want to be his friend, either: I just think that, as far as the
“Close to the Shinjuku ward office?”
“To be precise, it will hit directly beneath the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank.”
A heavy silence followed.
“And you,” Katagiri said, “are planning to stop this earthquake?”
“Exactly,” Frog said, nodding. “That is exactly what I propose to do. You and I will go underground beneath the Shinjuku branch of the Tokyo Security Trust Bank to do mortal combat with Worm.”
As a member of the Trust Bank Lending Division, Katagiri had fought his way through many a battle. He had weathered sixteen years of daily combat since the day he graduated from the university and joined the bank’s staff. He was, in a word, a collection officer—a post that carried little popularity. Everyone in his division preferred to make loans, especially at the time of the bubble. They had so much money in those days that almost any likely piece of collateral—be it land or stock—was enough to convince loan officers to give away whatever they were asked for, the bigger the loan the better their reputations in the company. Some loans, though, never made it back to the bank: they got “stuck to the bottom of the pan.” It was Katagiri’s job to take care of those. And when the bubble burst, the work piled on. First stock prices fell, and then land values, and collateral lost all significance. “Get out there,” his boss commanded him, “and squeeze whatever you can out of them.”
The Kabukicho neighborhood of Shinjuku was a labyrinth of violence: old-time gangsters, Korean mobsters, Chinese mafia, guns and drugs, money flowing beneath the surface from one murky den to another, people vanishing every now and then like a puff of smoke. Plunging into Kabukicho to collect a bad debt, Katagiri had been surrounded more than once by mobsters threatening to kill him, but he had never been frightened. What good would it have done them to kill one man running around for the bank? They could stab him if they wanted to. They could beat him up. He was perfect for the job: no wife, no kids, both parents dead, brother and sister he had put through college married off. So what if they killed him? It wouldn’t change anything for anybody—least of all for Katagiri himself.
It was not Katagiri but the thugs surrounding him who got nervous when they saw him so calm and cool. He soon earned a kind of reputation in their world as a tough guy. Now, though, the tough Katagiri was at a total loss. What the hell was this frog talking about? Worm?
“Who is Worm?” he asked with some hesitation.
“Worm lives underground. He is a gigantic worm. When he gets angry, he causes earthquakes,” Frog said. “And right now he is very, very angry.”
“What is he angry
about
?” Katagiri asked.
“I have no idea,” Frog said. “Nobody knows what Worm is thinking inside that murky head of his. Few have ever seen him. He is usually asleep. That’s what he really likes to do: take long, long naps. He goes on sleeping for years—decades—in the warmth and darkness underground. His eyes, as you might imagine, have atrophied, his brain has turned to jelly as he sleeps. If you ask me, I’d guess he probably isn’t thinking anything at all, just lying there and feeling every little rumble and reverberation that comes his way, absorbing them into his body, and storing them up. And then, through some kind of chemical process, he replaces most of them with rage. Why this happens I have no idea. I could never explain it.”
Frog fell silent, watching Katagiri and waiting until his words had sunk in. Then he went on:
“Please don’t misunderstand me, though. I feel no personal animosity toward Worm. I don’t see him as the embodiment of evil. Not that I would want to be his friend, either: I just think that, as far as the
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