"I don't see Goma here," Nakata said in a flat tone. He cleared his throat and shut the refrigerator door.

Are you absolutely sure?

"Yes, I'm sure."

The dog stood up and led Nakata back to the study. Johnnie Walker was still seated in the swivel chair, waiting for him. As Nakata entered, he touched the brim of his silk hat in greeting and smiled pleasantly. Then he clapped his hands loudly, twice, and the dog left the room.

"I'm the one who cut off all those cats' heads," he said. He lifted his glass of whisky and took a drink. "I'm collecting them."

"So you're the one who's been catching cats in that vacant lot and killing them."

"That's right. The infamous cat-killer Johnnie Walker, at your service."

"Nakata doesn't understand this so well, so do you mind if I ask a question?"

"Be my guest," Johnnie Walker said, lifting his glass. "Feel free to ask anything. To save time, though, if you don't mind, I can guess that the first thing you want to know is why I have to kill all these cats. Why I'm collecting their heads. Am I right?"

"Yes, that's right. That's what Nakata wants to know."

Johnnie Walker set his glass down on the desk and looked straight at Nakata. "This is an important secret I wouldn't tell just anybody. For you, Mr. Nakata, I'll make an exception, but I don't want you telling other people. Not that they'd believe you even if you did." He chuckled.

"Listen-I'm not killing cats just for the fun of it. I'm not so disturbed I find it amusing," he went on. "I'm not just some dilettante with time on his hands. It takes a lot of time and effort to gather and kill this many cats. I'm killing them to collect their souls, which I use to create a special kind of flute. And when I blow that flute it'll let me collect even larger souls. Then I collect larger souls and make an even bigger flute. Perhaps in the end I'll be able to make a flute so large it'll rival the universe. But first come the cats. Gathering their souls is the starting point of the whole project. There's an essential order you have to follow in everything. It's a way of showing respect, following everything in the correct order. It's what you need to do when you're dealing with other souls. It's not pineapples and melons I'm working with here, agreed?"

"Yes," Nakata replied. But actually he had no idea. A flute? Was he talking about a flute you held sideways? Or maybe a recorder? What sort of sound would it make? And what did he mean by cats' souls? All of this exceeded his limited powers of comprehension. But Nakata did understand one thing: he had to locate Goma and get her out of here.

"What you want to do is take Goma home," Johnnie Walker said, as though reading Nakata's mind.

"That's right. Nakata wants to take Goma back to her home."

"That's your mission," Johnnie Walker said. "We all follow our mission in life. That's natural. Now I imagine you've never heard a flute made out of cats' souls, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Of course you haven't. You can't hear it with your ears."

"It's a flute you can't hear?"

"Correct. I can hear it, of course," Johnnie Walker said. "If I don't hear it none of this would work. Ordinary people, though, can't detect it. Even if they do hear it, they don't realize it. They may have heard it in the past but don't remember. A very strange flute, for sure. But maybe-just maybe-you might be able to hear it, Mr. Nakata. If I had a flute on me right now we could try it, but I'm afraid I don't." Then, as if recalling something, he pointed one finger straight up. "Actually, I was about to cut off the heads of the cats I've rounded up. Harvest time. I've got all the cats that can be caught in that vacant lot, and it's time to move on. The cat you're looking for, Goma, is among them. Of course if I cut her head off, you wouldn't be able to take her home to the Koizumis, now would you?"

"That's right," Nakata said. He couldn't take back Goma's cut-off head to the Koizumis. If those two little girls saw that they might give up eating forever.

"I want to cut off Goma's head, but you don't want that to happen. Our two missions, our two interests, conflict. That happens a lot in the world. So I'll tell you what-we'll negotiate. What I mean is, if you do something for me, I'll return the favor and give you Goma safe and sound."

Nakata lifted a hand above his head and vigorously rubbed his salt-and-pepper hair, his habitual pose when puzzling over something. "Is it something I can do?"

"I thought we'd already settled that," Johnnie Walker said with a wry smile.

"Yes, we did," Nakata said, remembering. "That's correct. We did settle that already. Pardon me."

"We don't have a lot of time, so let me jump to the conclusion, if you don't mind. What you can do for me is kill me. Take my life, in other words."

Hand resting on the top of his head, Nakata stared at Johnnie Walker for a long time. "You want Nakata to kill you?"

"That's right," Johnnie Walker said. "Truthfully, I'm sick and tired of this life. I've lived a long, long time. I don't even remember how old I am. And I don't feel like living any longer. I'm sick and tired of killing cats, but as long as I live that's what I have to do-murder one cat after another and harvest their souls. Following things in the correct order, step one to step ten, then back to one again. An endless repetition. And I've had it! Nobody respects what I'm doing, it doesn't make anybody happy. But the whole thing's all fixed already. I can't just suddenly say I quit and stop what I'm doing. And taking my own life isn't an option. That's already been decided too. There're all sorts of rules involved. If I want to die, I have to get somebody else to kill me. That's where you come in. I want you to fear me, to hate me with a passion-and then terminate me. First you fear me. Then you hate me. And finally you kill me."

"But why-why ask me? Nakata's never ever killed anyone before. It's not the kind of thing I'm suited for."

"I know. You've never killed anyone, and don't want to. But listen to me-there are times in life when those kinds of excuses don't cut it anymore. Situations when nobody cares whether you're suited for the task at hand or not. I need you to understand that. For instance, it happens in war. Do you know what war is?"

"Yes, I do. There was a big war going on when Nakata was born. I heard about it."

"When a war starts people are forced to become soldiers. They carry guns and go to the front lines and have to kill soldiers on the other side. As many as they possibly can. Nobody cares whether you like killing other people or not. It's just something you have to do. Otherwise you're the one who gets killed." Johnnie Walker pointed his index finger at Nakata's chest. "Bang!" he said. "Human history in a nutshell."

"Is the Governor going to make Nakata a soldier and order me to kill people?"

"Yes, that's what the Governor will do. Tell you to kill somebody."

Nakata thought about this but couldn't quite figure it out. Why in the world would the Governor do that?

"You've got to look at it this way: this is war. You're a soldier, and you have to make a decision. Either I kill the cats or you kill me. One or the other. You need to make a choice right here and now. This might seem an outrageous choice, but consider this: most choices we make in life are equally outrageous." Johnnie Walker lightly touched his silk hat, as if making sure it was still in place.

"The one saving grace for you here-if indeed you need such a thing-is the fact that I want to die. I've asked you to kill me, so you don't need to suffer any pangs of conscience. You're doing exactly what I'm hoping for. It's not like you're killing somebody who doesn't want to die. In fact, you're doing a good deed."

Nakata wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his hairline. "But there's no way Nakata could do something like that. Even if you tell me to kill you, I don't know how to go about it."