Tokyo Heist Read Online Free PDF

flicking on lights.
    I hug myself while I wait and try to picture where my mom is in Italy right now. Unpacking her suitcase in a dorm room. Throwing open shutters on a tall window. Biting into a fresh tomato while someone sings an aria in the market square below. I take out my cell phone, wanting to call and hear her voice. Then I slip it back in my pocket. I’m sure my mom never imagined a scene like this when she made my summer arrangements. I can’t worry her now.
    After a few minutes, my dad pokes his head out the broken window. “Coast is clear. Watch your step,” he adds as a coat tree heaped with plastic bags topples behind him.
    Inside, I step over art magazines, art books, blank canvases. I walk around boxes filled with driftwood, twigs, rocks, bird feathers, shells, and moss. My stomach lurches at the smell. It’s as if a stew of paint thinner, rotting fruit, and old socks has simmered on the stove all day. I’d give anything right now to walk into my own home, to smell my mom’s famous pasta sauce and to hear her sing out, “Hey, V, where’s my hug?”
    I can’t take my eyes off the mess. “Oh my God, your place got trashed .”
    “No, no. Except for the broken window, it always looks like this. I’m still unpacking. And the place needs work. Used to be a pretty nice old Craftsman bungalow. Drug dealers lived here, and let it go to pot. That’s a joke,” he adds. “Sorry. Maybe you’re too young to get it.”
    “I got it.” I join him in the dining room, where he kneels to pick up glass. Just beneath the broken window, surrounded by glistening shards, sits a big, ugly rock. It looks totally out of place, even in the crazy dining room with the leaning card table and mismatched folding chairs.
    “Aren’t you going to call the police?”
    “Naw.”
    “Why not? They could fingerprint that rock.”
    “Not granite. The surface is too uneven.”
    “They could send a cruiser to check things out. Look for footprints and stuff. What if the same people that broke into the Yamadas’ house did this to your window?”
    “No. There’s been a rash of petty vandalism in the neighborhood lately. Besides, no one’s going to steal my art. I’m no van Gogh. Look, the fact is, I hate to call the police with this investigation going on. I don’t want a bunch of police and reporters sniffing around here.”
    “Really? Why not?” I stare at him. He never mentioned his girlfriend to me. Does he have something else to hide?
    “Because I have to focus on my mural commission, now that Kenji’s nephew has moved the trip date up. This chitchat with detectives on Monday is enough of a disruption. I need to not think about things that don’t concern me. Like punks throwing rocks through my window.” He picks up the rock and hefts it to the entryway. “Hey, at least I got a fine doorstop. Don’t worry. I’ll board up this window. I know a glass guy who owes me a favor. He’ll come by tomorrow and replace it. And here’s the dead bolt. See? Solid. But if you’re uneasy, I’ll call the cops.”
    I am deeply uneasy. But if he wants to focus on his work and not report this, I guess there’s nothing I can do. Maybe it is just a coincidence anyway. “I’ll be okay.” I look past him, suddenly aware of the living room walls, which are covered, floor to ceiling, with elaborate murals. “Wow. Your walls are amazing.”
    “Thanks! My friends call them my frescoes. I like to work out ideas on the walls.”
    I walk into the living room, grateful for a distraction from the broken glass, from my whole shattered illusion of staying with my dad. The pictures seem alive. My eyes can’t fix on any one spot. One image leads me into another, and another, and suddenly I’m just rotating, trying to take everything in. So this is what it feels like to stand inside a painting.
    “I started out covering up some water damage I couldn’t afford to fix. Then I just kept going.” My dad points to a train disappearing into