Sins As Scarlet

by Nicolas Obregon

  A raspy, dispassionate female voice answered.

  ‘Good morning. I’m looking for Mr Novacek.’

  ‘I’m Mrs Novacek. Who is this?’

  ‘Ma’am, my name is Kosuke Iwata. I’m a professional investigator.’

  ‘I see. Well, he’s not home.’

  ‘I really need to speak with him. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘Hard to say. Is this serious?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then you’d better come in.’

  The gate clanked open and Iwata crossed the brown lawn. The house was not as handsome as it had seemed from the outside – windows rimy with dust, a large rubber plant growing over the balcony above like a suicidal housewife.

  Iwata climbed the steps to the cankering porch and found the door open. The hallway smelled faintly of cat urine. He stopped as he heard music he recognized – Nina Simone’s ‘I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)’. The song was like a kick in the gut.

  Iwata wanted to turn and walk straight out. But he’d been given an envelope full of money, there was a gun in his pocket and women were missing. He’d already walked out on walking out.

  The living room could have been plush but its owner had gone for expressive – dove-white walls, thick rugs, marble pyramids, framed feathers belonging to birds of paradise, ugly paintings, a jade chandelier in need of dusting.

  Mrs Novacek was splayed out on a large green leather couch. She ran a slow hand through her roaring copper hair and sipped a tumbler full of something similar in colour, the lemon rind pushing against her lips as she did. The brass side table held a bottle of good bourbon. She looked up at him like she had forgotten his call.

  ‘Mrs Novacek,’ he said. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’

  ‘It’s Dana.’ She pointed to the armchair opposite, the ice cubes tinkling like some little charm. Iwata thanked her for the seat, unable to decide if her black crêpe dress was especially for the morning drinking session or a leftover from the night before. She tossed French Vogue from her lap and watched him.

  ‘You have a beautiful home,’ Iwata offered.

  ‘No, you hate it.’ She leaned forward and curled a bare toe into the telephone wire, the receiver lying off the hook. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A little bit?’

  ‘I’m not the right person to ask.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think maybe I hate everything a little bit.’

  She laughed now, taking her time about it, as if tasting a wine she was unsure about. She had green eyes and her face had a sulky beauty, but her real allure, Iwata thought, was the warm apathy in her voice. ‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘you have good taste.’

  ‘So, Mrs … Dana –’

  ‘You want to ask about my Benny. What’s he done?’

  ‘Well. Nothing.’

  ‘Then let’s gab a little while longer. We can talk about him after.’

  ‘All right.’

  Silence passed between them until she grinned. ‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’

  ‘At what?’

  ‘This.’

  ‘I guess not.’

  ‘Ask me something, then.’

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  ‘A Horse’s Neck. Would you like one?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Why’d you ask about it if you didn’t want one?’

  ‘Wanting is different from asking.’

  She took a long swallow then slowly tilted her head from side to side. Though the music was still playing, her movements followed no rhythm that Iwata could discern. He looked past her at the turntable in the corner. It cost more than he made in a steady month.

  ‘So, Mr Investigator Iwata, you don’t like my house. Do you like my music at least?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I can tell. It looks like it pains you.’

  ‘I just prefer other things.’

  ‘Who doesn’t like Nina Simone?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Because it’s personal? Does it make you think of a girl?’

  Iwata saw Cleo, dejectedly thumbing through a baby name book. We need something that makes sense in both languages, but there’s nothing in here. Nina Simone’s ‘Do What You Gotta Do’ had been playing at the time – Cleo’s favourite. How about Nina? he had said. Nina works.

  Dana Novacek tinkled her ice cubes like a bell. ‘Cat got your tongue?’

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time, Mrs Novacek. I’d really appreciate your help.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you share with me first? To establish trust?’

  ‘If you won’t tell me, you won’t.’

  ‘I’m curious about you. Aren’t you curious about me?’

  ‘I just need to find your husband.’

  ‘What a cruel thing to say.’

  She downed her drink and poured herself another few fingers, though fingers thicker than any of those on her own hands. Iwata imagined how the coldness of the ice might feel, the flavour of the bourbon seeping down his gullet. He couldn’t stay in this place. Iwata stood.

  ‘Okay, okay. I can tell you where he might be. But first you have to tell me something.’

  ‘About what? The song?’

  ‘You already pretty much told me about that by getting so sore. No, I want to know why you’re after my Benny.’

  ‘I think he could have information I need. That’s all.’

  ‘If I asked you to find out if he’s fucking someone else, would you do that for me?’ Her face retained the same unwavering expression as she asked this – hazy eyes and a Xanax smile.

  ‘That isn’t my business.’

  ‘Yet your business brought you here, didn’t it?’ She chewed her lips. ‘What happened to your face, anyway?’

  ‘I’m not the right person to ask.’

  She scolded Iwata with her forefinger and mouthed two words: Bad boy.

  ‘Mrs Novacek, if you want me to look into the possibility of your husband having an affair, we could talk about that another time. But frankly, you don’t seem to give too much of a shit.’

  ‘Knowledge is not made for understanding; it is for cutting.’

  ‘That Nietzsche?’

  ‘Foucault.’ She downed her second Horse’s Neck and grimaced. ‘Though I like Nietzsche too. I’ve always had a thing for melancholy men. Is man one of God’s blunders, or is God one of man’s? Well somebody messed up, right?’ Dana threw back her red hair and laughed. ‘Jesus, look at us. Philosophy, violence and infidelity. If you’d have worn a jacket, I’d call this one of my better dates.’

  ‘Mrs Nov—’

  ‘All right, all right. So pushy.’ She tore out a fragrant page from her magazine and wrote down an address. ‘Benny’ll most likely be at his little studio. It’s not too far from here – horrible little soulless place. Benny, of course, thinks it’s the cat’s meow.’ She handed over the page but held on to Iwata’s hand. ‘One last thing, buster.’

  His heart had been thudding since the word ‘studio’.

  ‘Come back and visit me sometime?’

  Iwata took the page and left.

  Tokyo – 1975

  Dear Mr Kuroki,

  My name is Nozomi Iwata. I’m 26 years of age, a graduate of Sophia University, currently working as a waitress. Please forgive my presumptuousness but enclosed you will find the first few pages of my novel in progress, The Mannequins. I know your highly successful weekly magazines serialize genre novellas and I believe my own sits within the horror fiction you have published recently. My sincere thanks for your time, I can only imagine how many submissions an esteemed editor such as yourself must receive.

  Once again, please forgive the trouble.

  The Mannequins

  Yoko Maeda was twenty-one years old. People said she was very beautiful and she was fine with that. Being so attractive wasn’t always a picnic but, undoubtedly, it had some benefits. It cert
ainly hadn’t hurt her chances when applying for the job at Department Store Q; the manager was salivating as he listened to her answers.

  She had been at Q for a month now, in ladies’ fashion, and she excelled in her work. It wasn’t rocket science, murmuring approval when women tried on blouses or silk scarves they couldn’t afford. But even so, Yoko had a talent for making people feel good about themselves. This was no simple task, given her beauty. Most people felt threatened by it, so immediately she adopted her silly-girl routine, pretending to forget her train of thought, or that the customer had illuminated her with some perfunctory statement. This way she invited them to judge her for being an idiot. And an idiot who told you that the scarf suited you was probably telling the truth. After all, idiots tended to be guileless.

  The manager let Yoko keep her commission on the designer items, which, at the brand-new Department Store Q, housed in Osaka’s premier shopping complex, accounted for most things on sale. She worked on the sixth floor, a clean, windowless expanse of fabrics, heels and curvy white mannequins. Tinny music played discreetly over the speakers, and the mirrors, which gleamed, were everywhere, making it seem like there were more people present than there actually were.

  Yoko worked with a team of eight girls, though she hadn’t made any friends. That suited her fine; they seemed boring in any case, spending most of their time in the back room, whispering amongst themselves. Yoko didn’t feel left out at all. If anything, it boosted her ability to rake in commission.

  No, nothing bothered her at Q. Well, except for the one small, trivial matter. It would have been invisible to anyone passing through, but after a few weeks Yoko had caught glimpses of prayer beads being worn by the girls. Here and there around the store, almost hidden, she had come across yakuyoke talismans to ward away evil. When she asked the security guard about it, he just laughed it off.

  ‘Those girls are all as superstitious as each other.’

  But it wasn’t long afterwards that she noticed he too wore the prayer beads. Yoko didn’t care if her foolish colleagues wanted to waste their money on trinkets. She put it to the back of her mind and went about her work.

  Yoko was in charge of four mannequins at the back of the floor. They were very tall, practically six feet, and a pure, eggshell-white colour. Though they had no hair and no eyes, their full lips came together in a slight smile.

  It was Yoko’s responsibility to ensure that the mannequins were the very embodiment of elegance and she took it seriously. She changed their clothes every other day and slowly developed what she supposed one could call a fondness for them.

  Sometimes she even got the funny feeling they were smiling at her, as if they enjoyed her fussing. Frankly, Yoko quite enjoyed this part of her job. It reminded her of being a little girl – posing and dressing them. She didn’t care if her colleagues called her ‘The Puppet Master’.

  After all, it was an almost daily occurrence that a customer would ask her where they could find the exact outfit that mannequin was wearing. More often than not, that meant raking in commission.

  People could say what they wanted, Yoko didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be long until her credit-card debt was completely paid off. At least, that’s what she told herself. She often told herself this, though deep down she knew it was untrue.

  She was not the sort of person to change her spending habits. No, what she bought was an expression of her desires. Suppressing them was out of the question. Besides, Yoko loved to look good. What was so terrible about that? Not to mention the fact that she had an in-store discount.

  On her free days, it was her favourite thing to sit outside the cafés of Ginza wearing the latest French label, just smoking and watching the people pass, rebuffing men loudly if they dared to approach. They mostly stared at her from a distance, though. And this, for much of her life, was the only kind of relationship Yoko had been comfortable with.

  It was true that she could turn on the charm to make a sale: she was an expert in that sort of interaction, one with a clear narrative and outcome. But when it came to the freehand of socializing, she often felt lost and irritated. All through university she had tried, but it had been exhausting. Vagueness and subtlety drained her. Men never said what they meant, and women could do nothing else.

  Afterwards Yoko groped around for purpose like a child reaching for a medicine they do not particularly want to take. Though they said nothing, she knew her parents had expected her to take a job more deserving of her expensive education. But Yoko had no real drive, no genuine ambition.

  Sometimes she daydreamed about being noticed by a talent scout or a famous photographer, but even then she had no desire for fame. No, Yoko just liked to be looked at from afar. That was probably the reason why a job in a department store appealed to her so much. She was an ambassador for the things that would turn heads. A peacock to sell peacock feathers. Yes, Yoko would work extra hard, clear her debt and live out the next decade experiencing only simple, empty pleasures. What else were her twenties for?

  *

  Yoko had been working at Q for four months when her manager asked her to dinner. She knew he was married and she had no intention of it going anywhere, but she also happened to love grilled eel and this is precisely what the manager was offering – dinner at the best eel spot in Osaka. When he suggested sake, Yoko agreed. What he didn’t know was that her family was in the sake trade and she could handle her drink better than most. But Yoko had not just agreed to dinner for the free food.

  After she had had her fill of eel and once her manager was slurring his words, she seized her opportunity.

  ‘Sir …’ She looked at the floor. ‘I was wondering something.’

  ‘Anything, Yoko,’ he purred. ‘You just have to ask.’

  ‘I hope you know how much I think of my colleagues. You should be praised for your acumen in selecting such fine employees.’

  ‘Thank you, dear.’ He took a languid sip. ‘I hope you include yourself in that.’

  ‘You flatter me!’

  ‘But what did you want to know? Don’t be shy. I’m your manager, you should trust me. I have your best interests at heart, Yoko.’

  ‘Well …’ She bit her lip and glanced out of the window. ‘I don’t mean to pry. But do you know why all the girls wear prayer beads? Even the security guard wears them.’

  The manager lost his smile.

  Undeterred, Yoko kept on driving at her point. ‘It just seems so odd for a group of such smart girls to act so skittishly.’

  He licked his lips before answering. ‘Yoko, there are certain things which happen in life … And people don’t always respond logically.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘I suppose you have a right to know.’

  Yoko wondered if he was realizing now that it was not he who had lured her here under false pretences. Perhaps he was accepting the fact that there was no way someone like Yoko would ever do anything more than drink his sake and eat his unagi.

  He sighed. ‘Years ago, before the renovation, there was an incident on the sixth floor.’

  ‘Incident?’

  ‘There was an employee, Kameko. Now, she was a plain-looking girl, maybe even ugly. Even so, she worked in fashion, just like you. She was, by all accounts, gifted in sales. She would take little extra steps to ensure the customer would feel valued, wrap the purchases beautifully, even trivial items, offer refreshments, that sort of thing.

  ‘Anyway, the story goes that there was one particular customer. He came in one day looking for a gift for his wife. He seemed the wealthy type so, of course, Kameko pounced on him. He obviously liked the service he received because he came back the next day. And the day after. After a while he started pestering the girl to come out with him. Nobody could understand it; the man was, apparently, quite handsome and clearly rich. Why was he so taken with plain old Kameko?

  ‘Even so, it got to the point where he would buy things he didn’t need, just so the security guard couldn’t say any
thing to him. You know, sunglasses in December. Or an atlas of the world. Anyway, eventually Kameko requested a transfer to another store, but her boss was loath to lose her. Instead, he proposed a holiday. She hadn’t taken any in three years and he thought it might convince her admirer to fixate on someone else.’

  The manager ordered more sake, as if he required Dutch courage to continue. Yoko was enraptured by the story; she realized her back was arched and her toes were curled in her shoes. She exhaled, trying to disguise the shuddering in her breath. ‘Did the man come back?’

  ‘Kameko took the time off and after that the man stayed away for a month or two. She thought things had gone back to normal and she was beginning to flourish again. Now, as you know, winter is a fruitful season, given the demand for good jackets. She was doing very well, always ready to take a second shift straight after her first if someone was sick. It so happened that this is what she did on the night in question.’

  ‘What happened?’ Yoko could barely breathe.

  ‘The man came back, of course. He waited until closing time and must have slipped into the bathrooms to hide. The security guard had left early that day. Kameko was alone and tidying up when the man attacked her.’

  ‘What did he do?’ she whispered.

  ‘He dragged her into the changing room, raped her and beat her to death. Her colleagues found her the next morning with her neck broken. Well, some say it was a broken neck, others say she was stabbed.

  ‘Now this alone, though obviously deeply unpleasant, wasn’t enough to make people say the sixth floor was haunted. But a few weeks after the murder the boss who had convinced Kameko to stay on died in a traffic accident. A little later the security guard who forgot to check the toilets died of a heart attack. He wasn’t that old. After that, some odd things were apparently seen around the store.’

  ‘Like what?’

  The manager finished his sake and considered the empty cup. ‘It’s just stupid talk, Yoko. People say the sixth floor is haunted by Kameko’s ghost, angry that she was talked into staying and ultimately murdered. But it’s just a silly story. A girl did die in the store, it’s true. Honestly, I’m not even sure if she was called Kameko. Then again, it was just as likely that she had an aneurysm as that she was murdered. Before the renovation, all the old staff were laid off, so nobody can corroborate. And, of course, people prefer to cling to the ridiculous than hear the truth. Reality is boring.’