The Thief by Fuminori Nakamura

Author:Fuminori Nakamura
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub
Tags: Thrillers, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781616950224
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2012-03-19T11:00:00+00:00

PERHAPS BECAUSE OF the pills, the woman cried out several times, digging her fingernails into my back, my shoulders, my stomach. After we finished she kept her tongue in my mouth for a while. I was still thinking about Saeko.

“Actual ruins, though,” she had said to me once, “aren’t abstract like that. Ruins are always boring. Solid, concrete and boring.”

When the woman finally got off me, she lit one of my cigarettes and inhaled deeply. She moved close again and put her hand on my heart. The rain had stopped and everything was quiet. In the distance I could hear a shrill siren.

“Um, will you see me again?” she said, resting her nose on my shoulder. “It wouldn’t have to cost this much, less would be fine.”

“No.”

“It was good, wasn’t it?”

Her voice grew louder. For a second it seemed to blend into Saeko’s voice and I looked away.

“It was good, wasn’t it? I bet it was. Absolutely.”

“It’s not that it wasn’t good,” I said. “You know they say that prostitution is the oldest profession?”

“The oldest? Hm. What’s the second oldest?”

“Pickpocket. Stealing. That’s the truth.”

“Picking pockets is a profession?”

I grinned.

“I don’t know, but if you’re going to screw up your life, do it on your own. Don’t get the boy involved.”

The siren grew gradually louder and finally stopped somewhere nearby.

“Okay. I won’t make him go shoplifting any more. I send him out when my boyfriend comes round. That’s all right, isn’t it? Sometimes he hits him, see.”

“Hits him?”

“Not badly. Just a tap, when he’s drunk.”

“Anyway, shoplifting is out.”

“Got it. But let’s get together again, eh?”

She looked at her watch, put on her clothes and snatched up the money.

• • •

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