The Thief Read Online Free PDF

him.”
    While the tall guy was speaking the door opened and Kizaki himself came in. I was taken by surprise, but the other three men seemed to be shocked as well. He was wearing a black suit, a brand I didn’t recognize,sunglasses, and a watch on his left wrist. I couldn’t identify the watch either. On his neck was a striking purple scar. The tall man started to say something but he cut him off.
    “I’ve got nothing to do today,” he said, face twisting in what might have been a smile.
    The men fell silent. In the hush that followed I could hear the sound of my breathing. Their nervousness seemed to be catching, and I stared at the man moving around in the stillness. He appeared to stand out from his surroundings, to draw people’s attention somehow. My skin tingled where it was exposed to the air, as if he was emitting something. He watched us with amusement.
    “So we meet at last,” he said, curling his lip at Tachibana.
    He seemed cheerful, a completely different person from the one I’d met before in the same office. Tachibana smiled back, trying to look cool, but he was sweating.
    “All right, this is important.” Kizaki turned to his subordinates. “It doesn’t mean I don’t trust you. So far you’ve done everything I’ve asked of you perfectly. But I’m going to talk to them now, because I’m at a loose end.”
    The three men nodded and he flopped himself downin the space between us. My throat was dry and I sipped from my bottle. He was a little too close for comfort.
    “The most important thing about carrying out a crime is planning. People who commit crimes without planning are idiots.”
    For some reason he looked at me when he said this.
    “But because they’re idiots in the first place they still commit the crime. They can’t help it. On the other hand, really brilliant people don’t care about the law either. In fact, without the law crime would be boring. Get it?”
    He still didn’t take his eyes off me. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.
    “After that, it’s all about courage. Do you know the book
Crime and Punishment
? Probably not. Raskolnikov, he had no courage.”
    Without turning around, he shifted position slightly and gave the flattop guy behind him a violent blow. I was shocked but tried not to show it. Flattop keeled over and as he lay on his side the man continued to beat him around the ear as though pounding his head into the floor. The harsh sound echoed. I kept my breathing shallow. My instincts told me not to move.
    “That means that even if you see something unexpected like this you don’t panic.”
    The guy who had been beaten picked himself up slowly and returned to a sitting position, his face swollen. When Kizaki turned back towards me his expression was unchanged but his breathing was somewhat ragged. I got the feeling this was caused less by physical exertion than by excitement. I looked away.
    “OK, I’ll put it simply. Maybe they told you already, but first of all, you two keep your mouths shut. We’re going to the house of this old man, an investor. He’s a perfect example of one of those pigs that the world spews out all the time.”
    I glanced at Flattop again. Our eyes almost met and I didn’t know where to look.
    In the aftermath of the violence Kizaki’s low voice rang out clearly. He was wearing a business shirt of some kind under his jacket.
    “You’ll go by car, so you don’t need to know the address, but you do need to memorize the layout of the house. It’s really big.”
    The tall man brought out a plan. His hands were shaking slightly. None of the men seemed to have quite come toterms with the fact that Kizaki was there. Neither the guy who had been attacked nor Buzzcut moved a muscle, as though they had been turned to stone. They just stared at the man’s back, sweating.
    “There’s the old man and a woman living in the house. She’s his housekeeper and his mistress or something. His wife isn’t there. That means