I shook my head and exhaled. No words came. Gotanda waited patiently. “I’m not sick or anything,” I assured him. “I just haven’t been sleeping or eating. I think I’m okay now. Anyway I’ve been wanting to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere. I haven’t eaten a full meal in ages.”
We took the Maserati out into the rainy neon streets. Gotanda’s driving was precise and smooth as ever, but the car now made me nervous. The deep soundproofed ride cut a channel through the clamor that rose all around us.
“Where to?” Gotanda asked. “All I care is that it’s somewhere quiet where we can talk and get decent food without running into the Rolex crowd.” he said. He looked my way, but I said nothing. For thirty minutes we drove around, my eyes focused on the buildings we were passing.
“I can’t think of any place,” Gotanda tried again. “How about you? Any ideas?”
“No, me neither.” I really couldn’t. I was still only half present.
“Okay, then, why don’t we take the opposite approach?” he said brightly.
“The opposite approach?”
“Someplace noisy and crowded. That way we can relax.”
“Okay. Where?”
“Feel like pizza? Let’s go to Shakey’s.”
“I don’t mind. I’m not against pizza. But wouldn’t they spot you, going to a place like that?”
Gotanda smiled weakly, like the last glow of a summer sun between the leaves. “When was the last time you saw anyone famous in Shakey’s, my friend?”
Shakey’s was packed with weekend shoppers. Crowded and noisy. A Dixieland quartet in suspenders and red-and-white striped shirts were pumping out The Tiger Rag to a raucous college group loud on beer. The smell of pizza was everywhere. No one paid attention to anyone else.
We placed our order, got a couple drafts, then found a table under a gaudy imitation Tiffany lamp in the back of the restaurant.
“What did I tell you? Isn’t this more like it?” said Gotanda.
I’d never craved pizza before, but the first bite had me thinking it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. I must have been starving. The both of us. We drank and ate and ate and drank. And when the pizza ran out, we each bought another round of beer.
“Great, eh?” belched Gotanda. “I’ve been wanting a pizza for the last three days. I even dreamed about it, sizzling hot, sliding right out of the oven. In the dream I never get to eat it, though. I just stare at it and drool. That’s the whole dream. Nothing else happens. What would Jung say about pizza archetypes?” Gotanda chuckled, then paused. “So what was this that you wanted to talk to me about?”
Now or never, I thought. But come right out with it? Gotanda was thoroughly relaxed, enjoying the evening. I looked at his innocent smile and couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not now, at least.
“What’s new with you?” I asked. “Work? Your ex-wife?”
“Work’s the same,” Gotanda said. “Nothing new, nothing good, nothing I want to do. I can yell until my throat gives out, but nobody wants to hear what I have to say. My wife—did you hear that? I still call her my wife after all this time—I’ve only seen her once since I last saw you. Hey, you ever do the love hotel thing?”
“Almost never.”
“I told you she and I have been meeting at love hotels. You know, the more you use those places, it gets to you. They’re dark, windows all covered up. The place is only for fucking, so who needs windows, right? All you got is a bathroom and a bed—plus music and TV and a refrigerator—but it’s all pretty blank and anonymous and artificial. Actually, very conducive to getting down and doing it. Makes you feel like you’re really doing it. After a while, though, you feel the claustrophobia, and you begin to sort of hate the place. Still, they’re the only refuge we got.”
Gotanda took a sip of beer and wiped his mouth with the napkin.
“I can’t bring her to my condo. The scandal rags would have a field day if they ever found out. I got no time to go off somewhere. They’d sniff it out too anyway. We’ve practically sold our privacy by the gram. So we go to these cheesy fuck hotels and …” Gotanda looked over at me, then smiled. “Here I go, griping again.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind listening.”
The Dixieland band struck up “Hello Dolly.”
“Hey, how about another pizza?” Gotanda asked. “Halve it with you. I don’t know what it is with me, but am I starving!”
Soon we were stuffing our faces with one medium anchovy. The college kids kept up their shouting match, but the band had finished their final set. Banjo and trumpet and trombone were packed in their cases, and the musicians left the stage, leaving only the upright piano.
We’d finished the extra pizza, but somehow couldn’t take our eyes off the empty stage. Without the music, the voices in the crowd became plastic, almost palpable. Waves of sound solidifying as they pressed toward us, yet broke softly on contact. Rolling up slowly over and over again, striking my consciousness, then retreating. Farther and farther away. Distant waves, crashing against my mind in the distance.
“Why did you kill Kiki?” I asked Gotanda. I didn’t mean to ask it. It just slipped out.
He stared at me as if he were looking at something far off. His lips parted slightly. His teeth were white and beautiful. For the longest time, he stared right through me. The surf in my head went on and on, now louder, now fainter. As if all contact with reality was approaching and receding. I remember his graceful fingers neatly folded on the table. When my reality strayed out of contact, they looked like fine craftwork.
Then he smiled, ever so peaceably.
“Did I kill Kiki?” he enunciated slowly.
“Only joking,” I hedged.
Gotanda’s eyes fell to the table, to his fingers. “No, this isn’t a joke. This is very important. I really have to think about it. Did I kill Kiki? I have to give this very serious thought.”
I stared at him. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes weren’t.
“Could there be a reason for you to kill Kiki?” I asked.
“Could there be a reason for me to kill Kiki? I don’t even know myself. Did I kill Kiki? Why?”
“Hey, how would I know?” I tried to laugh. “Did you kill Kiki, or didn’t you kill Kiki?”
“I said, I’m thinking about it. Did I kill Kiki, or didn’t I?”
Gotanda took another sip of beer, set down his glass, and propped his head up on his hand. “I can’t be sure. Sounds stupid, doesn’t it? But I mean it. I’m not sure. I think, maybe, I tried to strangle Kiki. At my place, I think. Why would I have killed Kiki there? I didn’t even want to be alone with her. No good, I can’t remember. But anyway, Kiki and I were at my place—I put her body in the car and took her someplace and I buried her. Somewhere in the mountains. I can’t be sure if I really did it. I can’t believe I’d do a thing like that. I just feel as if I might have done it. I can’t prove it. I give up. The most critical part’s a blank. I’m trying to think if there’s any physical evidence. Like a shovel. I’d have to have used a shovel. If I found a shovel, I’d know I did it. Let me try again. I buy a shovel at a garden supply. I use the shovel to dig a hole and bury Kiki. Then I toss the shovel. Okay, where?
“The whole thing’s in pieces, like a dream. The story goes this way and that way. It’s going nowhere. I have memories of something. But are the memories for real? Or are they something I made up later to fit? Something’s wrong with me. It’s gotten worse since my wife and I split up. I’m tired. I’m really … lost.”
I said nothing.
After a pause, Gotanda went on. “Well, what’s real anyway? From what point is it all phobia? Or acting? I thought if I hung around you, I’d get a better grip on things. I thought so from the first time you asked me about Kiki. Like maybe you’d clear away this muddle. Open a window and let some fresh air in.” He folded his hands again and peered down at them. “Let’s say I did kill Kiki—what would be the reason? I liked her. I liked sleeping with her. When I was down, she and Me
i were my only release. So why kill her?”
“Did you kill Mei?”
Gotanda stared at his hands for an aeon, then shook his head. “No, I don’t believe I killed Mei. Thank god, I have an alibi for that night. The day she was killed, I was at the studio until midnight, then I drove with my manager to Mito. What a relief. If no one could swear I was at the studio that night, I’d worry that I killed Mei too. But I still feel responsible for Mei’s death. I don’t know why. I wasn’t there, but it’s like I killed her with my own hands. I have this feeling that she died on account of me.”
Another aeon passed while he stared at his fingers.
“Gotanda, you’re beat,” I said. “That’s all. You probably didn’t kill anyone. Kiki just vanished somewhere. When we were together, she used to disappear like that. It wouldn’t be the first time. You’re riding yourself too hard. Don’t do it.”
“No, it’s not like that. Not that simple. I probably did kill Kiki. I don’t think I killed Mei, but, yes, I think I killed Kiki. The sensation of the air going out of her throat is still in my fingers. I can still feel the weight of the dirt in the shovel. In effect, I killed her.”
“But why would you kill Kiki? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No idea,” he said. “Maybe an urge to self-destruct. It’s happened before. I get this gap between me Gotanda and me the actor, and I stand back and actually observe myself doing shit. I’m on one side of this very deep, dark fault, and then unconsciously, on the other side, I have this urge to destroy something. Smash it to bits. A glass. A pencil. A plastic model. Never happens when other people are around, though. Only when I’m alone.
“But once, when I was in elementary school, I knocked into this friend of mine, and he fell off a small bluff. I don’t know why I did it. But the next thing I knew, he was down there. It wasn’t a big fall, so he wasn’t hurt too bad. It was supposed to be an accident. I mean, why would I push this friend of mine over the edge on purpose? That’s what everyone thought. I wasn’t so sure. Then high school, I set fire to these mailboxes. I’d put a burning rag down the slot. Not just once, not even as a prank. It was like I was compelled to do it. Like it was the only thing that’d bring me to my senses. Unconsciously, that was what I thought. But afterwards I would remember the feel of things. I could still feel it in my hands. And I wouldn’t be able to wash it off. God, what a horrible life. I don’t know how I can stand it.”
Gotanda shook his head.
“How do I check if I killed Kiki?” Gotanda went on. “There’s no evidence. No corpse. No shovel. No dirt on my trousers. No blisters on my hands. Not that digging a hole is going to give you blisters. I don’t even remember where I buried her. Say I went to the police and confessed, who’d believe me? If there’s no body, it’s not a homicide. She disappeared. That’s all I know for sure. There’ve been times I wanted to tell you, but I just couldn’t. I thought it’d wipe out whatever closeness we had. Whenever I’m with you, I feel so relaxed. I never feel the gap. You don’t know how precious that is. I don’t want to lose a friendship like ours. So I kept putting off telling you, until you asked, like this. I really ought to have come clean.”
“Come clean? When there’s no evidence you did anything?”
“Evidence isn’t the issue. I ought to have told you first. But I concealed it. That’s the problem.”
“C’mon, even if it were true, even if you did kill Kiki, you didn’t mean to kill her.”
He held out his palms, as if he were going to read them. “No. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t have a reason. I liked her, and in a small way we were friends. We could talk. I could tell her about my wife, and she’d listen, honestly. Why would I want to kill her? But I did, I think, with these hands. Maybe I didn’t do it willfully. But I did. I strangled her. But I wasn’t strangling her, I was strangling my shadow. I remember thinking, if only I could choke my shadow off, I’d get some health. Except it wasn’t my shadow. It was Kiki.
“It all took place in that dark world. You know what I’m talking about? Not here in this one. And it was Kiki who led me there. Choke me, Kiki told me. Go ahead and kill me, it’s okay. She invited me to, allowed me to. I swear, honestly, it happened like that. Without me knowing. Can that happen? It was like a dream. The more I think about it, the more it doesn’t feel real. Why would Kiki ask me to kill her?”
I downed the last of my lukewarm beer. A dense layer of cigarette smoke hovered like an ectoplasmic phenomenon.
“Feel like another beer?” I asked him.
“Yeah, I could use one.”
I went to the bar and came back with two mugs, which we drank in silence. The turnover at the place was as busy as Akihabara Station at rush hour, customers coming and going constantly. Nobody bothered listening in to our conversation. Nobody even looked at Gotanda.
“What’d I tell you?” Gotanda summoned up a smile as he spoke. “Not a star in sight.” Gotanda swished his two-thirds empty glass around like a test tube.
“Let’s forget it,” I said quietly. “I can forget it. You forget it too.”
“You think I can forget it? Easy to say, but you didn’t kill her with your own hands.”
“Hey, you hear me? There’s no evidence you killed Kiki. Stop blaming yourself for something that might not have even happened. Your unconscious is using Kiki’s vanishing act as a convenient way to lay a guilt trip on you. Isn’t that a possibility?”
“Okay, let’s talk possibilities,” said Gotanda, laying his palms flat on the table. “I’ve been doing nothing but considering possibilities lately. All sorts of possibilities. Like the possibility that I’ll kill my wife. Am I right? Maybe I’d strangle her if she allowed me to, like Kiki did. Possibilities are like cancer. The more I think about them, the more they multiply, and there’s no way to stop them. I’m out of control. I didn’t just burn mailboxes. I killed four cats. I used a slingshot and busted the neighbors’ window. I couldn’t stop doing shit like this. And I never told anyone about it, until this minute. God,” he sighed deeply, “it’s almost a relief, telling you.
“What goddamn thing am I going to do next? That gap-it’s too big, too deep. Professional hazard, huh? The bigger the gap, the more weird the shit I find myself doing. Is it in my genes? God, I’m afraid that I will just kill my wife. I haven’t got any control over it. Because it won’t take place in this world.”
“You worry too much,” I said, forcing a smile. “Forget this nonsense about genes. What you need is a break from work. Stop seeing your wife for a while. It’s the only way. Throw everything to the wind. Come with me to Hawaii. Lie on the beach, drink piña coladas, swim, get laid. Rent a convertible and cruise around listening to music. And if you still want to worry, you can do that later.”
“Not a bad idea,” he said, the folds of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “We’ll get us two girls and the four of us can fool around till morning again. That was fun.”
Shoveling that good snow. Cuck-koo.
“I can take off any time,” I said. “How about you? How long will it take you to finish up what you’re doing?”
Gotanda gave me the oddest smile. “You don’t understand a thing, do you? There’s no such thing as finishing up in my line of work. All you can do is toss the whole thing. And if I do that, you can be sure I’ll never work again. I’d be drummed out of the industry, permanently. And, I’d lose my wife, permanently.”
He drained the last of his beer.
“But that’s fine. Back-to-nothing is fine. At this point, I’m ready to call it quits. I’m tired. Time I went to Hawaii and blanked out. Okay, let’s scrap it all. Let’s go to Hawaii. I can think things over later. I’ll … become a regular human being. Maybe too late, but worth a try. I’ll leave everything up to you. I trust you. Always did, from the time you first called me up. You seemed like such a decent guy. Like what I’d always wanted to be.”
“No such decent guy here,” I protested. “I’m just … keeping in step, dancing along. No meaning
to it at all.”
Gotanda spread his hands a body-width apart on the table. “And just where, pray tell, is there meaning? Where in this life of ours?” Then he laughed. “But that’s okay. Doesn’t matter anymore. I’m resigned to it. I’ll follow your example. I’ll hop around from elevator to elevator. It’s not impossible. I can do anything if I put my mind to it. I’m sharp, handsome, good-natured Gotanda after all. So, okay, Hawaii. We’ll get the tickets tomorrow. First class. It’s gotta be first class. It’s in the cards, you know. BMW, Rolex, Azabu, and first class. We’ll leave the day after tomorrow and land on the same day. Hawaii! I look good in an aloha shirt.”
“You’d look good in anything.”
“Thanks for tickling what remains of my ego.”
Gotanda gave me a good, long look. “You really think you can forget I killed Kiki?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, one other thing you don’t know about me. Remember I told you I got thrown in confinement for two weeks?”
“Yeah.”
“That was a lie. I blabbed everything and they let me out right away. I wasn’t scared. I wanted, in some sick way, to do something gutless. I wanted to hate myself. I’m such a louse. You didn’t know that when you clammed up to save my face, you also saved my rotten hide. You did something for me that I wouldn’t do for myself—wash away my dirt. And I was glad, you know. It gave me the chance to finally be honest with myself. I feel like I’ve come clean at last. Man, I bet it wasn’t too pleasant to watch.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. It’s brought us closer together, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. I decided to wait for a time when the words would mean more. So I just repeated myself, “Don’t worry about it.”
Gotanda took his rain hat from the back of his chair, checked to see how damp it was, then put it back. “I got a favor to ask you,” he said, “as a friend. I’d like another beer, but I don’t have it in me to get up and go get one.”
“No problem,” I said.
I stood up and went up to the bar. There was a line, so it took me a while. By the time I waded back to the table, mugs in hand, Gotanda was gone. Ditto his rain hat. And no Maserati in the parking lot either. Great, I shook my head, just great.