The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 25

Bobby remained glued to the truck’s undercarriage for another ninety minutes. The crossbeam farthest away from his head helped him survive the trip. By hooking his knees over it, his arms and shoulders had to support only a fraction of his weight. He diverted his mind with a series of memories and fantasies. The latter included his favorite action sequence, the one where he completed an end-to-end rush and scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in overtime for the New York Rangers. Not that the uniform mattered that much, as long as it belonged to an NHL team.

He began to smell the ocean halfway through the second leg of the trip. This was his first clue they were not heading back to Tokyo. The second clue was the traffic pattern. The closer one got to Tokyo, the worse the traffic. If they were headed back there, the volume of cars would have picked up after two hours. It didn’t. Instead, traffic lightened.

An hour and a half after the stop at the gas stand, the driver exited the main road. He took two right turns and one left, and parked the truck. Bobby was surrounded by tires. He assumed it was a parking lot. Then he heard a long whistle. A man’s voice came over an intercom. He spoke with a rhythm and cadence consistent with someone announcing some form of transportation was departing or arriving.

A train station.

Bobby heard a door slide above his head. Footsteps and a man’s voice followed. The cabin went quiet for a count of sixty, and then more footsteps sounded. Weight shifted toward the back of the truck. The suspension dipped. Bobby felt the force of gravity pull him toward the asphalt until the shock absorbers kicked in. The back door opened. He heard feet hit the ground behind him. The first set connected with a heavy thunk. The second set kissed the asphalt.

The door shut. Two pairs of legs walked by him on the left. One belonged to a man. Black cotton pants and leather boots. Rubber soles with a thick tread but stylish enough to be worn into a casual restaurant. The second pair of legs belonged to someone slimmer. Blue jeans. Androgynous brown calfskin boots. The legs and the footwear might have belonged to a young man or a woman.

Bobby counted to twenty and slid out from under the truck. He tried to stand up but he couldn’t straighten his knees. He squatted down to stretch his thighs and tried again. A delicious pain wracked his thighs, like the kind he experienced at the end of a leg workout.

He followed the driver and Eva into the Joetsu train station. On the way in he took off his hoodie and reversed it. It was gray with light blue trim on one side, navy on the other. He switched it so that the blue was on the outside. He pulled his knit hat over his head to cover his ears. Unfortunately, his sunglasses were in the Global Medical van. The reversal of the sweatshirt and the hat were the only element of disguise available to him. Up close the driver would recognize him. This was going to be tricky. Bobby needed to follow the driver but keep a safe distance so as not to be discovered. That might prevent him from getting a good look at Genesis II to confirm she was Eva.

The inside of the station buzzed with activity. The walls were lined with ticket machines. Bobby took cover behind a vending machine and scanned the main lobby. People stood buying tickets at most of the machines. None of them resembled the driver or Eva.

A sign with male and female stick figures hung on a wall. An arrow pointed toward two doors in the far corner. If Bobby needed a restroom, they did, too. Especially Eva. The driver wouldn’t let her use the women’s restroom alone, nor would he dare go into one himself. He was attracting enough attention by being the oversized gaijin that he was. His only option was to pull the hood down low over Eva’s face and escort her into the men’s room as though she were a boy or disabled person who needed help.

Five minutes later the driver and Eva emerged from the men’s room, just as Bobby had suspected. The driver guided Eva to a ticket window. Bobby snuck up behind them to hear their destination, then hustled away. Once they disappeared down the platform, Bobby bought a ticket to Takaoka for himself.

“Joetsu line to Echigo-Yuzawa,” the agent said. “At Echigo-Yuzawa, transfer to Hakutaka Ten Limited Express. Four thousand two hundred ten yen, please.”

Bobby paid with a credit card tied to Nadia’s account. He used the restroom, bought a bottle of water and two Japanese candy bars, and boarded the train. He took a seat next to a man in a suit reading a comics magazine. Once the train took off, he devoured his candy bars and drank his water.

He made the necessary transfers. He spotted the driver and Eva once from behind, at the Echigo-Yazawa station. Two hours later he hurried off the last train and caught up to them on the platform heading for the exit. The smell of fish and salt hit him as soon as he followed them outside.

A large ship stood anchored in a port in front of the building next door. A vast sea stretched far beyond it. A long line of people began in front of the ship and disappeared into a side entrance at the other end of the building. They carried bags and cameras. A man in a blue uniform guarded the entrance to the gangplank. A yellow rope stretched across it and prevented the people in line from accessing it.

The driver led Eva into the building. Bobby waited a minute, then snuck inside, pulled his hat low, and watched. The driver purchased two tickets and walked over to a long line. A sign above the line contained a single English word as translation. “Immigration.” Bobby circled behind them to the information desk. An English-speaking woman answered his questions. The answers struck fear in Bobby’s heart. Afterward, he bought tickets to the boat’s destination.

Then he found a payphone and called Nadia.