The Pornographers by Akiyuki Nozaka

Author:Akiyuki Nozaka [Nozaka, Akiyuki]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307828033
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-11-27T14:00:00+00:00

* A famous warrior.

IV

THE NEXT DAY, after Subuyan had paid his fine in court and returned to the workaday world after a lapse of twelve days, he at once put in a call to the office, leaving a message for Paul to contact him. And this was merely the start of a long frenzied round of telephoning.

“Well, to tell the truth, there was one of those little mishaps that occur from time to time. I had to put up with some pretty bad cooking for a few days. But now everything is safely arranged. From now on everything will be fine, and I’ll be looking for opportunities to be of service to you and be depending upon your kind patronage. Yes, yes, I’ve just gotten out, and I’m calling across the street from the court. Oh well, it’s all part of human experience. And there are quite a few good stories I’ve got to tell. Any time that’s convenient for you, I’d be most happy to get together with you …?”

And so Subuyan paid his respects to his clients. To run afoul of the police occasionally did the business no harm in his customers’ eyes—on the contrary, it added a dash of spice.

There was not much point in returning home immediately since Keiko was probably still at school. Well, he would have to shave first of all, he thought. So he decided to go right over to Banteki’s and do it there.

He found Banteki surrounded by debris, wrestling with an odd-looking lump of foam rubber.

“How’d you make out with the police?” Banteki asked.

“No trouble. You can run rings around a stupid bunch like that. The only thing is, next time I’m picked up, I won’t be able to get off without a sentence. So we’ll have to watch our step.” Then, pointing his finger, Subuyan asked, “What’s that thing, anyway?”

What it was was Banteki’s own painstakingly constructed version of the Arima bath attendant’s male solitary consolation device, considerably improved over the original.

“You squeeze this bulb,” he explained, “and the hole contracts.” He had gotten the idea from a toy jumping frog. “Here’s another thing: from this tube here, a lubricant drips down. Of course the thing doesn’t have a very nice look to it. The hair’s a problem. You want to make it as realistic as possible, but still …” Banteki had experimented with the Arima souvenir, and in the course of this, the hair, which seemed to be merely pasted in place, had often worked loose and become entangled in his own, which later made for a rather painful situation.

“You know,” said Subuyan, “it seems to me I heard something about these expeditions to the South Pole taking along something like this.” Banteki expressed a keen interest in obtaining one and doing further research. “Okay, I’ll look into it,” Subuyan said. “There should be somebody who knows about it among my customers.”

As Subuyan was enjoying that refreshed feeling that comes after a shave, Paul burst in. “Ah! Congratulations, boss!” he said, his greeting obviously influenced by having seen too many gangster movies.

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