“Very much obliged,” said the man, stiff but cordial.
And so, with no more resolve than before, I returned to my Shibuya apartment.
Three more, I thought.
In the scheme of things, what possible meaning was there to Dick North’s death?
Alone in my room, I mulled it over a whiskey. It happened so suddenly, how could there have been meaning? All these blank spots in the puzzle and this piece didn’t fit anywhere. Flip it over, turn it sideways, still no good. Did the piece belong somewhere else entirely?
Even if Dick’s death had no meaning in itself, a major change of circumstances seemed inevitable. And not for the better either, my intuition told me. Dick North was a man of good intentions. In his own way, he had held things together. But now that he was gone, things were going to change, things were going to get harder.
For instance?
For instance, I didn’t care for Yuki’s blank expression whenever she was with Amé. Nor did I like Amé’s dull, spaced-out stare when she was with Yuki. There was something bad there. I liked Yuki. She was a good kid. Smart, maybe a little stubborn at times, but sensitive underneath it all. And I had nothing against Amé, really. She was attractive, full of vision, defenseless. But put the two of them together and the combination was devastating.
There was an energy that mounted with the two females together.
Dick North had been the buffer after Makimura. But now that he was gone, I was the only one left to deal with them.
For instance—
I rang up Yumiyoshi a few times. She was as cool as ever, although I may have detected a hint of pleasure in her voice. Apparently I wasn’t too much of a nuisance. She was working every day, going to her swim club twice a week, dating occasionally. The previous Sunday, she told me, a guy had taken her for a drive to a lake.
“He’s just a friend. An old classmate, now working in Sapporo. That’s all.”
I didn’t mind, I said. Drive or hike or like, I didn’t need to know. What really got to me was her swim club.
“But anyway, I just wanted to tell you,” said Yumiyoshi. “I hate to hide things.”
“I don’t mind,” I repeated. “All I care about is that I get up to Sapporo to see you again. You can go out with anybody you like. That’s got nothing to do with us. You’ve been in my thoughts. Like I said before, I feel a bond between us.”
Once again, she asked me what I meant. And again, my heart was in my words, but the explanation made no sense. Typical me.
A moderate silence ensued. A neutral-to-slightly-positive silence. True, silence is still silence, except when you think about it too much.
Gotanda looked tired whenever I saw him. He’d been squeezing trysts with his ex-wife into an already tight work schedule.
“All I know is, I can’t keep this up forever,” he said, sighing deeply. “I’m not cut out for this living on the fringes. I’m a homebody. That’s why I’m so run-down. I’m over-extended, burned out.”
“You ought to go to Hawaii for a break,” I said. “Just the two of you.”
“Wouldn’t I love to,” he said, smiling weakly. “Maybe for five days, lying on the beach, doing nothing. Even three days would be terrific.”
That evening I’d gone to his condo in Azabu, sat on his chic sofa with a drink in my hand, and watched a compilation tape of the antacid commercials he’d appeared in. The first time I’d ever seen them.
Four office building elevators without walls or doors are rising and falling at high speeds like pistons. Gotanda is in a dark suit, briefcase in hand, every inch the elite businessman. He’s hopping back and forth from elevator to elevator, conferring with his boss in one, making a date with a pretty young secretary in another, picking up papers here, rushing to dispatch them there. Two elevators away a telephone is ringing. All this jumping back and forth between speeding elevators is no easy trick, but Gotanda isn’t losing his cool mask. He looks more and more serious.
VOICE OVER
Everyday stress builds up in your stomach. Give the business to your busy-ness with a gentle remedy.…
I laughed. “That was fun.”
“I think so too,” he said. “Idiotic but fun. All commercials are nonsense, but this one is well shot. It’s a damn sight better than most of my feature films, I’m sorry to say. Ad people have no qualms about spending on details, and the sets and those special effects cost a lot. It’s not a bad concept either.”
“And it’s practically autobiographical.”
“You said it,” he laughed. “Boy, does my stomach get stressed out. But let me tell you, that stuff doesn’t do a damn thing. They gave me a dozen packs to try, and it’s a wonder how little it works.”
“You really do move, though,” I said, rewinding the tape by remote control to watch the commercial again. “You’re a regular Buster Keaton. You might have found your calling.”
A smile floated across Gotanda’s lips. “I’d be interested. I like comedy. There’s something to be said when a straight man like me can bring out the humor of a routine like that. You try to live straight in this crazy, crooked, mixed-up world—that’s what’s funny. You know what I mean?”
“I do, I do,” I said.
“You don’t even have to do anything especially funny. You just act normal. That alone looks strange and funny. Acting like that interests me. That type of actor simply doesn’t exist in Japan today. People always overact when it comes to comedy. What I want to do is the reverse. Not act.” He took a sip of his drink and looked up at the ceiling. “But no one brings me roles like that. The only roles they ever, ever bring into my agency are doctors or teachers or lawyers. You’ve heard me go on about this before, and let me tell you, I’m bored, bored, bored, bored. I’d like to turn them down, but I’m in no position to reject anything, and my stomach takes a beating.”
Gotanda’s first antacid commercial had been so well received, he’d made a number of sequels. The pattern was always the same. If he wasn’t jumping back and forth between trains and buses and planes with split-second timing, he was scaling a skyscraper with papers under his arms or tightrope-walking between offices. Through it all, Gotanda kept a perfect deadpan.
“At first the director told me to look tired. Like I was about to keel over from exhaustion. But I told him, no, that it’d come off better if I just played it straight. Of course, they’re all idiots, they didn’t go for it at all. But I didn’t give in. I don’t do these commercials for fun, but I was sure about the right way to do it. I insisted. So they shot it two ways and everyone liked mine much more. And then, of course, the commercial was a success, so the director took all the credit. He even won some kind of prize for it. Not that I care. What eats me is how they all act so big, as if they thought the whole thing up. The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves.”
Gotanda switched off the video and put on a Bill Evans record.
“All these idiots think they’re so sharp, they got me dancing on their pinheads. Go here, go there. Do this, do that. Drive this car, go out with that woman. It’s a bad movie of a bad life. How long can it last?”
“Maybe you ought to just toss it and start again from scratch. If anyone could do it, you could. Leave your agency, and take your time paying back what you owe.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. If I was on my own, that’s what I’d do. Go back to square one, and join some theater group. I wouldn’t mind, believe me. But if I did, my ex-wife would drop me, just like that. She grew up under pressure—star-system pressure—and she needs people around her who feel that pressure too. If the atmosphere drops, she can’t breathe. So if I want to be with her, I haven’t got a choice,” said Gotanda, with a smile of resignation. “Let’s talk about something else. I could go on until morning and still not get anywhere.”
And so he brought up Kiki.
It was because of Kiki that Gotanda and I had become friends, yet he’d hardly heard a word out of my mouth a
bout her. Did I find it hard to talk about her? If so, he wouldn’t insist.
No, I told him, not at all.
I told him that Kiki and I got together entirely by chance and that we were living together soon after that. She burrowed into my life so unobtrusively, I could hardly believe she hadn’t always been there. “I didn’t notice how extraordinary it was at the time. But when I thought it over later, the whole scenario seemed completely unreal. And when I put it into words, it sounds silly. Which is why I haven’t told anyone about it.”
I took a drink, swirling the ice in my glass.
“In those days, Kiki was working as an ear model, and I’d seen these photos of her ears and, well, I got obsessed, to put it mildly. Her ear was going to appear in this ad—I forget what for—and my job was to write the copy. I was given these three photos, these three enormous close-ups of her ears, close enough to see the baby fuzz, and I tacked them up on my wall. I started gazing at these ears, day in and day out. At first I was fishing for some kind of inspiration, some kind of catchphrase, but then the ears became a part of my life. Even after I finished the job, I kept the photos up. They were incredible—they were perfectly formed, bewitching. The dream image of an ear. You’d have to see the real thing, though. They were …”
“Yeah, you did mention something about her ears.”
“I had this total fixation. So I made these calls and found out who she was and I finally got ahold of her and she agreed to see me. The first day we met, we were at a restaurant and she personally showed me her ears. Personally, I mean, not professionally, and they were even more amazing than in the photograph. They were exquisite! Fantastic! When she exposed her ears professionally—that is, when she modeled them—she blocked them, she said. So they were gorgeous but they were different from her ears when she showed them. And when she did, it was like the entire world underwent a transformation. I know that sounds ludicrous, but I don’t know how else to put it.”
Gotanda considered seriously what I’d said. “What do you mean by her ‘blocking’ her ears?”
“Severing her ears from her consciousness.”
“Oh.”
“She pulled the plug on her ears.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sounds crazy, but it’s true.”
“Oh, I believe you. I’m honestly trying to understand. Really, no kidding.”
I eased back into the sofa and looked at a painting on the wall.
“Her ears had special power. They were like some great whirlpool of fate sucking me in. And they could lead people to the right place.”
Gotanda pondered my words again. “And,” he said, “did Kiki lead you anywhere? To some ‘right place’?”
I nodded, but didn’t say more about it. Too long and involved to explain.
“Now,” I said, “she’s trying to lead me somewhere again. I can sense it, very strongly. For the last few months, I’ve had this nagging feeling. And little by little I’ve been reeling in the line. It’s a very fine line. It got snagged a couple of times, but it’s gotten me this far. It’s brought me in contact with a lot of different people. You, for instance. You’re one of the central figures in this drama. Still, I can’t get a grip on what’s going on. Two people I knew have died recently. One was Mei. The other was a one-armed poet. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know something is.”
The ice in the bucket had all but melted, so Gotanda fetched a new batch from the kitchen to freshen both our drinks.
“So you see, I’m stuck too,” I picked up again. “Just like you.”
“No, there you’re wrong. You and I are not alike,” Gotanda said. “I’m in love with one woman. And it’s a dead-end kind of love. But not you. Maybe you’re confused and wandering in a maze, but compared with this emotional morass I’ve gotten myself dragged into, you’re much, much better off. You’re being guided somewhere. You’ve got hope. There’s possibility of a way out. But not for me, not at all. That’s the big difference between us.”
Well, maybe, maybe so. “Whatever. I’ve been clinging to this line from Kiki. That’s all I can do for now. She’s been sending these signals, these messages. So I spend my time trying to stay tuned in.”
“Do you think,” Gotanda started cautiously, “that there’s a possibility Kiki’s been killed?”
“Like Mei?”
“Uh-huh. I mean, she disappeared so suddenly. When I heard Mei was murdered, right away I thought about Kiki. Like maybe the same thing happened to her. I didn’t want to say it before.”
And yet I’d seen her, in downtown Honolulu, in the dim dusk light. I’d actually seen her. And Yuki knew it.
“Just something that crossed my mind. I didn’t mean anything by it,” Gotanda said.
“Sure, the possibility exists. But she’s still sending me messages. Loud and clear.”
Gotanda crossed his arms for a few minutes, pensive. He looked so exhausted, I thought he might nod off. Night was stealing into the room, enveloping his trim physique in fluid shadow.
I swirled the ice around in my glass again and took a sip.
That was when I noticed a third presence in the room. Someone else was here besides Gotanda and myself. I sensed body heat, breathing, odor. Yet it wasn’t human. I froze. I glanced quickly around the room, but I saw nothing. There was only the feeling of something. Something solid, but invisible. I breathed deeply. I strained to hear.
It waited, crouching, holding its breath. Then it was gone.
I eased up and took another sip.
A minute or two later Gotanda opened his eyes and smiled at me. “Sorry. Seems we’re making a depressing evening of it,” he said.
“That’s because, basically speaking, we’re both depressing people,” I said.
Gotanda laughed, but offered no further comment.
Toward the end of May, by chance—as far as I know—I ran into one of the cops who’d grilled me about Mei’s murder. Bookish. I was coming out of Tokyu Hands, the department store with everything for the home you ever wanted, and found myself squeezed up against him at the exit. The day seemed like midsummer, yet here he was in a heavy tweed jacket, entirely unaffected by the heat. Maybe police stiffs are trained to be insensitive. He was holding a Tokyu Hands bag like me. I pretended not to see him and was moving past when the undaunted detective spoke directly to me.
“You don’t have to be so standoffish, you know,” he quipped. “As if we didn’t know each other.”
“I’m in a hurry,” was all I said.
“Oh?” said he, not swallowing the line for a second.
“I have to be getting back to work,” I stammered.
“I can imagine,” said he. “But surely even a busy man like yourself can spare ten minutes. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, business aside. Honest, just ten minutes of your time.”
I followed him into a crowded coffee shop. Don’t ask me why. I could’ve politely said sorry and gone home. But I didn’t. We went in and sat down alongside young couples and clusters of students. The coffee tasted horrible, the air was bad. Bookish pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
“Been trying to quit,” he said. “But there’s something about the job. When I’m working, I gotta smoke.”
I wasn’t going to say anything.
“The job’s rough on the nerves. Everybody hates you. The longer you’re in homicide, the more they hate you. Your eyes go, your complexion starts to look like shit. You wouldn’t know your own age. Even the way you talk changes. Not a healthy way to live.”
He added three spoonfuls of sugar and creamer to his coffee, stirred well, and drank it like a connoisseur.
I looked at my watch.
“Ah, yes, the time,” said Bookish. “We still have five minutes, right? Fine. I’ll keep this short. So about that murdered girl. Mei.”
“Mei?” I asked. I’m not snared that easily.
He twisted his lips, insinuating. “Oh, right, sure. The deceased young woman’s na
me was Mei. Not her real name, of course. Her nom d’amour. She turned out to be a hooker, just like I thought. She may not have looked professional, but I could tell. Used to be you could spot the hookers in a second. The clothes, the makeup, the look on their faces. But nowadays you get girls you’d never believe in the trade. It’s the money, or they’re curious. I don’t like it. And it’s dangerous. Or don’t you think so? Meeting unknown men behind closed doors. There’s all types out there. Perverts and nut cases.”
I forced a nod.
“But young girls, they don’t know that. They think everything’s cool. Can’t be helped. When you’re young, you think you can handle anything. By the time you find out otherwise, it’s already too late. You got a stocking wrapped around your neck. Poor thing.”
“So did you find the killer?”
Bookish shook his head and frowned. “Not yet, unfortunately. We did discover some interesting facts. Only we didn’t publish them in the newspaper. Seeing as how the investigation is still going on. For example, we found out her professional name was Mei, but her real name was … Aww, what difference does it make what her real name was. The girl was born in Kumamoto. Father a public servant. Kumamoto’s not such a big city, but he was next-to-top there. Family very well-off. Mother came to Tokyo once or twice a month to shop. No financial problems. The girl got a good allowance from them. She told them she was in the fashion business. She had one older sister, married to a doctor; one younger brother, studying law at Kyushu University. So what’s a nice girl from a good home like that doing selling her tail? The family had a big shock coming. We spared them the call girl part, but their darling daughter strangled to death in a hotel room was pretty unsettling.”
I said nothing and let him continue.
“We looked into the prostitute ring she was involved in. It wasn’t easy, but we managed to track it down. How do you think we did it? We staked out the lobbies of some luxury hotels around town and hauled in a few women on suspicion of illegal commerce. We showed them the same photos we showed you and asked a few questions. One of them cracked. Not everyone’s got a tough hide like you, heh heh. Anyway, turns out the deceased worked for this exclusive operation. Superexpensive membership. Nothing the likes of you or me can swing. I mean, can you pay seventy thousand yen a pop? I know I can’t. At that price, I’d just as soon screw the wife and buy the kid a new bike,” he laughed nervously. “But suppose I could swing the seventy grand, I still wouldn’t be good enough. They run a background check, you see. Safety first. They can’t afford weird shit from customers. But also they prefer a certain class of customer. No way a detective can get membership. Not that law enforcement is necessarily a strike against you. If you’re top brass, real top brass, that’s another story. You might come in handy someday. But a cop like me, no way.”