The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami Read Free Book Online Page B

and pulled out a roll of cloth-backed tape. Holding this, she stepped out of the car. I got out my side. Kneeling at the front end, she tore off a length of tape and covered the numbers on the license plate. Then she went around to the back and did the same. There was a practiced efficiency to her movements. I stood on the curb staring at her.
    “We’re going to take that McDonald’s,” she said, as coolly as if she were announcing what we would have for dinner.
    “McDonald’s is not a bakery,” I pointed out to her.
    “It’s
like
a bakery,” she said. “Sometimes you have to compromise. Let’s go.”
    I drove to the McDonald’s and parked in the lot. She handed me the blanket-wrapped shotgun.
    “I’ve never fired a gun in my life,” I protested.
    “You don’t have to fire it. Just hold it. Okay? Do as I say. We walk right in, and as soon as they say ‘Welcome to McDonald’s,’ we slip on our masks. Got that?”
    “Sure, but—”
    “Then you shove the gun in their faces and make all the workers and customers get together. Fast. I’ll do the rest.”
    “But—”
    “How many hamburgers do you think we’ll need? Thirty?”
    “I guess so.” With a sigh, I took the shotgun and rolled back the blanket a little. The thing was as heavy as a sandbag and as black as a dark night.
    “Do we really have to do this?” I asked, half to her and half to myself.
    “Of course we do.”
    Wearing a McDonald’s hat, the girl behind the counter flashed me a McDonald’s smile and said, “Welcome to McDonald’s.” I hadn’t thought that girls would work at McDonald’s late at night, so the sight of her confused me for a second. But only for a second. I caught myself and pulled on the mask. Confronted with this suddenly masked duo, the girl gaped at us.
    Obviously, the McDonald’s hospitality manual said nothing about how to deal with a situation like this. She had been starting to form the phrase that comes after “Welcome to McDonald’s,” but her mouth seemed to stiffen and the words wouldn’t come out. Even so, like a crescent moon in the dawn sky, the hint of a professional smile lingered at the edges of her lips.
    As quickly as I could manage, I unwrapped the shotgun and aimed it in the direction of the tables, but the only customers there were a young couple—students, probably—and they were facedown on the plastic table, sound asleep. Their two heads and two strawberry-milk-shake cups were aligned on the table like an avant-garde sculpture. They slept the sleep of the dead. They didn’t look likely to obstruct our operation, so I swung my shotgun back toward the counter.
    All together, there were three McDonald’s workers. The girl at the counter, the manager—a guy with a pale, egg-shaped face, probably in his late twenties—and a student type in the kitchen—a thin shadow of a guy with nothing on his face that you could read as an expression. They stood together behind the register, staring into the muzzle of my shotgun like tourists peering down an Incan well. No one screamed, and no one made a threatening move. The gun was so heavy I had to rest the barrel on top of the cash register, my finger on the trigger.
    “I’ll give you the money,” said the manager, his voice hoarse. “They collected it at eleven, so we don’t have too much, but you can have everything. We’re insured.”
    “Lower the front shutter and turn off the sign,” said my wife.
    “Wait a minute,” said the manager. “I can’t do that. I’ll be held responsible if I close up without permission.”
    My wife repeated her order, slowly. He seemed torn.
    “You’d better do what she says,” I warned him.
    He looked at the muzzle of the gun atop the register, then at my wife, and then back at the gun. He finally resigned himself to the inevitable. He turned off the sign and hit a switch on anelectrical panel that lowered the shutter. I kept my eye on him, worried that he might hit a burglar alarm, but