Their eyes automatically drifted over to the screen. It was the shopping channel. An all-terrain folding wagon with divider in a range of colours was available for just $83.98 in three easy payments.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
A Calista set of twelve hot rollers with clips and travel bag had a final price of $59, available for four easy payments. ‘Mom, I need to talk to you.’
‘You’re leaving.’ She glanced at him. It wasn’t a question.
‘For a short while.’
‘Where will you go?’
A Joan Rivers jewelled oval pendant eighteen-inch necklace comprising antiqued gold tone and blue oval cabochon, framed by marquise-shaped beads in green, peach, pink and purple. The clearance price was $49.82 with $3.02 for shipping and handling.
Now this is not just about what you’re wearing, how you’re looking, or how you’re being perceived by the world. It’s about something more important than that. Something priceless. None of us can put a value on that, but if we were going to try, it wouldn’t be fifty bucks, would it, Ken?
No, it most definitely would not, Marie. So what is it about?
Great question. I’ll tell you. It’s about how what you’re wearing makes you feel.
‘I have to go pay a debt,’ Iwata said.
Nozomi took a breath and turned to face him. ‘Before you go, I need to talk to you.’
Iwata looked up and saw photographs of his wife and daughter. He had wanted to see them earlier; now, they felt like shameful ornaments. ‘I can’t talk now, Mom.’
‘Please, Kosuke. Please.’
Iwata stood and put his cup in the sink. He listened to the running water, keeping his back to his mother. ‘I don’t have anything to say.’
‘Well, I do.’ The loud desperation in her voice shocked him. ‘We never talk. All this time goes by and goes by and we never say anything.’
‘For what, Mom?’
‘Because I have to, son.’ Her old eyes were robin-egg blue in the moonlit kitchen. They were wet, and it was unbearable.
‘When I needed you …’ His voice stumbled. ‘You left me. You left me in the middle of nowhere. Years pass and you come back for me with America, with words. How can I forgive that?’
‘Kosuke, I’m not asking for forgiveness. I know you can’t … Son, I’m just asking you to understand me. Maybe if you –’
Iwata walked past her and stopped at the door. ‘I’ve already got my own regrets, Mother. I can’t carry yours too.’
Nozomi closed her eyes, then nodded to herself. ‘All right.’
Iwata left the kitchen and walked down the hall, ignoring the photographs. He opened the front door.
‘Kosuke!’ she called from the kitchen.
‘What?’
‘That box is for you.’
Iwata looked down at the white cardboard storage box by the door. For some reason it had a koi carp sticker on it. He picked it up and left.
Four a.m. Club Noir. Iwata was leaning against the wall, as far away from the bar as possible. He could not see Mara or Geneviève. His eyes kept returning to the bottles on the shelves above the bar. They gleamed in the neon like potions. For the first time in a long time, he craved them.
For years, he had not so much as considered a red-wine sauce but now he felt an angry thirst in his throat. He wanted to allow himself the fantasy of drinking. Of pills. The anti-gravity they promised. But allowing fantasy was the first step to relapse, and he could not accept that. Not while there was work to do.
Iwata closed his eyes. Even as a child he had been good at finding the truth. Ever since the bus station up in those mountains, he had been hypersensitive to it, waiting for reality to reveal itself again. The truth could not hurt him if he found it before it found him. And so he sought it constantly. At the orphanage he could see past why certain kids shouted and why others would hit out. When his best friend, Kei, disappeared a few months before they were due to leave, Iwata immediately deduced that the man responsible was the orphanage director.
But becoming police had not been down to some personal crusade. It was simply a logical career choice for a man with his natural inquisitiveness. From his first homicides on the cold banks of Lake Hinuma, through his years by the ocean in Chōshi PD, to his headline-grabbing apprehension of the Black Sun Killer in Tokyo, Iwata had always had a firm clarity. He always had the ability to see through other eyes, to imagine the angle, to see the logic in the lie. It was always there inside him.
But now Benedict Novacek was telling him that the truth would be found south of the border. He had implied there would be no coming back. After so long following cheating husbands and ensnaring perfunctory liars, at last Kosuke Iwata had a real case. He did not want it but he was absolutely bound to it, like a drinker’s hand on the neck of a bottle. If the truth was in Mexico, then Iwata would go. This was not a momentous occasion, it was an underwhelming homecoming.
Iwata turned to go. He passed the private rooms on his way out. But something stopped him. There were thick drapes, translucent fabric partitions, plump couches. Before each one, women were dancing on poles. Little Dragon’s ‘Pretty Girls’ was playing.
Iwata thought he’d seen something but now, in the red light, he was unsure. The only thing he felt with certainty was fatigue.
A hand emerged from behind a drape and beckoned. Iwata followed. He opened the drape to a loveseat. There was Mara enveloped in cushions and velvets, a dewdrop in a flower. She was leaning against the pole.
‘Mara.’
‘Who else?’ She slid down the pole like a flag lowered in tragedy and sat across from him. She had a wig on, of vivid scarlet, and a simple black bikini.
‘You disappeared.’
‘Like a ghost?’ She reached for Iwata’s hand and placed it on her calf. It was smooth at first, then rumpled with goosebumps. ‘See, flesh and blood.’
Leaning in this close to her, he could taste the spice in her perfume. Beneath olive skin and dark, small hairs on her arms, he could see the sea-green of her veins.
‘Mara, I think you’re in danger. There’s someone out there –’
‘Hush now,’ she whispered. ‘Lie back, relax.’
She eased him back on to the loveseat and folded his hands across his chest, a mother tucking in a restless child. Again he saw her tattoo, more clearly this time:
1:18 ISA–
A new song began and now Mara closed her lupine eyes in pleasure.
‘Ohhh, I love this one. “Locos” by León Larregui. The lyrics are so beautiful, I wish you could understand. It’s about how crazy we can be for love, how glad to have someone close to us.’
‘Mara, listen to me, there’s someone out there –’
She hopped back up to her pole and twirled. ‘There’s always someone out there, Inspector. We always have to watch out for someone.’
‘You don’t understand. He knows who you are –’
‘Who?’
Iwata saw her, the shape of her, the mass, the volume – yet, like a man crawling towards a mirage, he did not quite understand the sight of her, he could not trust his eyes.
‘Is Mara Zambrano your real name?’
‘You’re so good, aren’t you?’ She smiled gently, her whisper soothing. ‘So good at finding other people. But Inspector, tell me something. Have you ever searched for yourself?’
‘Wait. Mara.’
She brushed away the drape and then she was gone. Iwata wanted to reach for her. Wanted to hold her back. Wanted to give her a reason not to run. But this was sympathy for a bolting fox. Gone was gone.
It was dawn by the time Iwata had packed a small bag and was ready to leave his apartment. The sky couldn’t be called black and it couldn’t be called purple. It was some ugly word that men and women of language hadn’t yet bothered with.
Iwata took one last look at his mother’s white box with the koi sticker then o
pened the door. Outside, the Bronco wouldn’t start, the key drawing only wheezing coughs from the engine. Swearing, Iwata went back inside and called a taxi.
Half an hour later, he arrived at the Greyhound bus station. He bought pretzels, water and a ticket to Mexico. The bus opened its doors and Iwata got on along with passengers bound for home, bound for family. The driver honked his horn and pulled away. Iwata put his head on the window and closed his eyes. He would always be good at leaving.
A grey, rainy morning. Iwata leans against his Chōshi PD squad car. He has been called out early because of a fight between fishermen, which, in the end, has turned out to be nothing more than friends horsing around. Iwata smokes and watches the Tone River drift by. Tugboats blow their horns, heading out to sea. Tall grass on the riverbanks flutters in the wind like baby hair. Heavy clouds rush past as though late.
Iwata was once thankful to Chōshi, the only place that had given him a break and the means with which to raise his family. But now, a few years on, he resents it.
He speaks languages, he crushes his competition in test scores, he even has international police training. Yet month after month Personnel politely ignores him. Initially, Tokyo had been a professional goal, somewhere his skills could be put to use. Given what he could bring to the table, Iwata had been confident it would be only a matter of time.
But by now the rejection is personal. After several years in the police force he has worked only a handful of murders. His day-to-day has more to do with floods or farming squabbles than anything else. His studies are decorations on a dead Christmas tree. And when, perhaps once a year, a dismembered body is found floating in the bay, it will be kept at arm’s length by his superiors. Iwata will want to investigate, but the second tattoos are noted on the torso it will be dismissed as another difference of opinion between gangsters.
It starts to rain. Iwata crushes out the smoke and looks up and down the road. When he’s sure there’s no one, he reaches into his glovebox for the whisky. He rips open a sachet of honey, squeezes it into his mouth, then takes a long swig.
‘Kosuke?’
Iwata turns to see his partner’s wife. ‘Hoshiko. What are you doing here?’
‘I had some errands, then I felt like a drive. I thought I saw your squad car number …’
Iwata nods. He can’t be bothered to think of a response. A scathing wind picks up and he wipes away cold, meaningless tears. He crushes the last of the honey into his mouth, then takes another swig, his voice deeper now. ‘What do you want, Hoshiko?’
She looks around, her black hair flayed madly by the wind. She is wearing a stupid mauve puffa jacket, yellow rain boots and a rainbow umbrella, which for some reason he finds preposterous.
‘I just wanted to check …’ Hoshiko looks at the floor. ‘That you’re okay.’
He raises the bottle. ‘Never better.’
She walks over uncertainly. ‘Could I have some?’
Iwata frowns but hands over the bottle. She takes a small, pathetic sip and wrinkles her turned-up nose as she swallows. ‘I don’t like that.’
‘Yeah, well. This isn’t the country club.’
‘Do you mind if I stay a while?’
Iwata looks at her. They have shared dinners together, day trips, nights out. But they have never had a single conversation alone. For a while, he encouraged Cleo to socialize with Hoshiko, but she always pushed back. Watching her playing with the bottle, her plain eyes taking in the river, Iwata can see why.
‘How is Taba?’ he asks emptily.
‘He’s back at home. Things are better.’
‘Hm.’ Iwata cannot think of anything he wishes to discuss less than his partner’s shitty marriage. He clears his throat, takes the bottle away from Hoshiko and twists on the cap. He returns it to the glovebox and zips up his coat. ‘Well, I better go. Please tell him I’ll see him soon.’
‘Kosuke?’
‘What?’
‘Can you wait a second?’
He checks his watch. ‘What is it?’
‘I just need to talk to you.’
For the life of him, Iwata cannot envisage a single topic in this world that they would need to discuss. He feels saturated by her, almost as though her hollowness might envelop him.
‘I really do need to head off. You know how it is.’
‘Okay. But do you –’
‘Do I what?’
‘Do you think that I …’
‘Hoshiko, what is it?’
She turns around, unbuckles her belt, then pulls her jeans down to her thighs. Her pale buttocks are rippled with goosebumps, a solitary mole on the right.
‘Do you want me?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Do you want it?’ She juts her body out towards him. Her pubic hair is pitch black, her labia greyish. He does not want Hoshiko but before he can stop to consider the emptiness of it he is fucking his partner’s wife against the police car.
Iwata is sick of being a good man. He is sick of his beautiful wife. He is sick of being a father. He is sick of the existence that everyone assumes he is happy in. Somehow the banality of Hoshiko’s body feels natural. The wind carries the smell of her up to his nostrils and he turns his head away. He sees himself in the side mirror, the pointless bucking of his hips, the pointless emptying of his balls into this lonely woman, as though he were fucking the Tone River itself.
Iwata pulls out and rips up a wet clump of grass to clean himself. Hoshiko tries to kiss him, tries to tell him that she has always felt this way, but he pushes her away.
‘You’re crazy,’ he laughs. ‘Go home.’
Hoshiko’s mouth drops opens but she just looks at her yellow boots, Iwata’s semen dropping on to the dark concrete between them. She pulls up her jeans, picks up her umbrella and walks back to her car. As she opens the door Iwata calls after her.
‘Hoshiko? Don’t you fucking tell anyone. Understand?’
She begins to slam her face against the steering wheel, the horn resounding like clownish chuckles in the morning cold. Iwata gets in the squad car and drives away – a sick feeling in his stomach.
That night Cleo will ask him how he got grass in his underwear. Iwata makes up an excuse and swears to himself he’ll never do something like that again. Within three days he’s is back by the river, Hoshiko bent over and grunting as before.
Part Two
* * *
15. Clean Work
Detective Valentín distantly puffed out cigarette smoke and swallowed coffee, tasting neither. This was her last case. That had no taste either. She listened to the hot rain drumming on the roof of her car and looked down at Ciudad Cabral, a city put together like a child in hand-me-downs. It was home to one million souls, living either in elegant old colonias in the centre, or in the sundry slums shoved up against the surrounding mountains.
And it was to these slums that Valentín had been called so often down the years. People lived on top of each other, voices carried. The smell of cooking mixed in with dog shit, laughter with fucking, birdsong with the screams of women. It was a city within a city, all colourful breeze blocks, crooked satellites, simple dirt floors. Murders here were rarely planned, customarily a moment of male jealousy erupting, like oil spitting from a hot pan. Those cases were solved in a day. But Valentín knew already: today’s case would not be one of those.
As her eyes passed over the never-ending tin roofs tinkling in the morning rain, she realized she wouldn’t be coming back here again.
At the end of the street a child schlepped a massive bundle of recyclables on his back. Across from him a chubby woman was opening up her salon for the day. Reggaetón poured out of a bakery’s window. For Valentín, somehow seeing these little shacks for the last time was seeing them for the first time.
Today’s dawn was colourless. In the distance, by the highway leading out of the city, she could make out words on a billboard:
NOS GUSTA HACER TRABAJO LIMPIO
We like to do clean wor
k
Valentín didn’t know what the slogan was referring to. Not that it mattered. There was nothing that could be sold to her anymore. She sighed and glanced at the passenger seat, half expecting to see Morel dozing. But of course the seat was empty. Morel would not be a passenger in this car again. With difficulty, she sipped her coffee and wondered how long it had been so hard to swallow liquids. Closing her eyes, she heard his voice.
Not a good sign, Vali. You need rest.
‘And what about talking with my dead partner?’ Her voice was stale with a slight lisp. ‘Is that a good sign?’
You know what they say. To the dead the grave, to the living the pleasure.
She laughed. ‘Always the pendejo, Morel. Even now.’
Pendejo or not, I’ll be seeing you soon.
Valentín opened her eyes and forced some painkillers down with coffee. She had no answer for that.
Someone knocked at the window now. A young man in a grey raincoat stood there, shouting something over the downpour. Valentín wound down the window.
‘Ma’am. I’m Sub-Inspector Velasco.’
She opened the door to Morel’s side. ‘My replacement.’
Velasco got in and swept the rain from his hair. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You want a bachita?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
She lit up. ‘Where you from?’
He seemed surprised by the question. ‘The south.’
‘There’s a lot of south.’
‘Minatitlán.’
‘You must know what they call this kind of rain, then.’
‘No?’
‘Wives’ rain. The kind that annoys you for the whole day.’
Velasco forced laughter. ‘That’s a good one,’ he mumbled down into his papers. He pretended to read them while Valentín listened to the rain.
‘Tell me something, Velasco. Why are you here?’
He looked at her, puzzled. ‘The homicide.’
‘No, I mean in general. You could have been a lion tamer. You could have been a sailor.’
‘Well.’ He shrugged. ‘Because of the insecurity. I wanted to help.’
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