The Miracles of the Namiya General Store

by Keigo Higashino

  Maybe she would save the manju-head after all.

  10

  There was no way to tell, but dawn seemed to be getting close. Atsuya looked down at a blank sheet of stationery.

  “You think it’s really possible?”

  “What? Think what’s possible?” asked Shota.

  “You know,” he huffed. “That this house could be connected to the past, and these letters could somehow make it here. And if we put a letter in the milk crate, it winds up traveling across time.”

  “Did this only now occur to you?” Shota looked puzzled. “Yeah, it’s really happening. How else would we have gone back and forth with all these people?”

  “It’s definitely weird, though,” concurred Kohei. “It’s gotta have something to do with the ‘One-Night Special’ being tonight.”

  “Be right back.” Atsuya got up with the paper in his hand.

  “Where are you going?” Shota called out.

  “To check. I’m gonna try it out.”

  Atsuya went out through the back door and closed it tight behind him. He proceeded down the alley and around to the front of the shop, whereupon he folded up the paper and slipped it through the mail slot. He came around back again and went through the house out into the storefront and looked into the cardboard box set up against the shutter. The piece of folded stationery wasn’t there.

  “Just as I thought,” said Shota triumphantly. “If you put something in the mail slot now, it lands in the shop thirty-two years back. That’s what’s behind the ‘One-Night Special.’ All this time, we’ve been on the other side of it.”

  “And once it’s morning here, thirty-two years back…?” asked Atsuya.

  “The old man dies. The guy who used to own the store.”

  “That’s gotta be it.” Atsuya let out a long, belabored breath. It was truly bizarre, but there was no other explanation.

  “What happened to that kid?” wondered Kohei. Atsuya and Shota both looked at him. He flinched. “You know, Dubious Doggy. I wonder if our letter helped her.”

  “Who knows?” said Atsuya. “She probably didn’t believe us.”

  “It must have sounded shady, any way you slice it.” Shota scratched his head.

  When the three guys read the third letter from her, they had to act—fast. Some dodgy guy was tricking her, trying to use her. And then they found out she had lived at Marumitsuen! They had to do something to save her—no, not just save her; they had to do something that would make her successful.

  The three of them decided they would tip her off on the future. The Japanese price asset bubble was just around the corner, at the end of the ’80s. They could advise her on how to capitalize on what was coming.

  They looked it up on their smartphones and crafted their letter to Dubious Doggy, making it like a prediction. They threw in a few hints on what to do after the bubble burst. It was hard not using the word Internet.

  It was even harder deciding whether to warn her about accidents and disasters. There were some big ones coming—the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the Tohoku earthquake in 2011.

  But ultimately, they decided not mention them. Just like how they decided not to tell Floundering Musician about the fire. They knew better than to mess with matters of life and death.

  “It’s so weird that there’s all these connections to Marumitsuen,” Shota commented. “What’s that all about? Could it be just a coincidence?”

  Atsuya had been wondering about that, too. That would be a hell of a coincidence. After all, Marumitsuen was why the three of them were here tonight.

  Shota was the one who broke the news that their childhood home was in dire straits at the beginning of last month. As usual, Shota and Atsuya and Kohei were sharing a few drinks, but not at the pub or anything. They bought cans of beer and chuhai, a mix of shochu and carbonated water, at the discount liquor store and cracked them open in the park.

  “I heard some lady CEO is really gouging them. She says she’s gonna renovate it. I bet she’s full of shit.”

  Shota had been laid off by a big-box electronics retailer, currently getting by with shifts at a convenience store. It wasn’t far from Marumitsuen, and he still went by to visit from time to time. As a side note, he lost his job only because of mass layoffs at the company.

  “Shit, man, I was hoping if I wound up homeless, I could live there,” Kohei whined.

  He was unemployed. His job as an auto mechanic fell through when the company went bankrupt. He was living in a company dorm, but he could be kicked out any day.

  Atsuya was in between jobs, too. Up until a couple of months ago, he had been working at a parts factory. During his time there, they got an order for a new part from a new company. The dimensions were totally different from any other orders in the past. He checked and double-checked, but that was what it said, so he went along with the design. As it turned out, it was a mistake. Their contact, a new hire at the new company, had mixed up his units. The result was a useless batch of rejects, but somehow, they held Atsuya responsible. They said he didn’t check hard enough.

  This sort of thing happened to them all the time: Their company can’t talk back to the parent company. Their boss doesn’t stick up for them. Whenever there’s trouble, the blame falls to the bottom of the ranks and lands on people like Atsuya.

  He’d lost his temper. “I’m done,” he announced and turned his back on the job and the factory.

  He had almost no savings. When he checked his balance, it was worse than he thought. He was already two months behind on rent.

  No matter how much these three guys cared about Marumitsuen, they were in no position to help. The most they could do was badmouth and curse at the woman trying to buy the building.

  Atsuya couldn’t remember whose idea it had been. Maybe it was his.

  At the very least, he remembered clenching his fists, proclaiming, “Let’s get her. Even Mother Mary would forgive us for stealing money from that bitch.”

  Shota and Kohei thrust their fists in the air. They were pumped.

  They were all the same age, always together through middle school and high school. As students, they had done a whole slew of bad things. They’d shoplifted, stolen handbags, and broken into vending machines. They favored nonviolent acts of theft. They still thought it was a miracle that they were almost never caught. They had their theories—never hit the same spot twice, always change up your technique—and they didn’t do anything taboo.

  Just once, they robbed somebody’s house while the owners were out of town. It was their third year of high school. They’d put a pause on their job hunt, but they really wanted new clothes. Their target was the richest kid in their school. They figured out the day that he was leaving with his family on vacation, thoroughly checked for security devices, and made their move. No part of them considered what would happen if they failed. They came out with about thirty thousand yen, just sitting in a random drawer. They were satisfied and split. The best part was that no one seemed to notice. This game was pretty fun.

  They stopped messing around once they were out of high school and turned over a new leaf. In the eyes of the law, they were adults. If they got arrested, their names would wind up in the paper.

  But this was different. No one spoke out against the plan. All of them were sick and tired of their circumstances and wanted to take it out on someone. To be honest, Atsuya wasn’t shaken up about what was happening to Marumitsuen. The old director was a good man, but this Kariya guy was an asshole. Once he took over, the whole operation went to shit.

  Shota was the one who scouted out the house.

  When they met up a few days after their first discussion, he started off with “Good news.” He had a twinkle in his eye. “I found the second home of the CEO. After I heard she was coming to Marumitsuen, I staked out nearby on my scooter. I followed her back and figured out the address of her house. It’s only, like, twenty minutes from the children’s home. It’s just a little cottage, a sitting duck. Should b
e simple getting in. According to her neighbors, she’s only there, like, once a month. Oh, don’t worry; it’s not like I actually asked someone in the neighborhood face-to-face.”

  As long as Shota was right, this was great news. The only problem was whether there was anything worth stealing.

  “There’s gotta be,” Shota argued. “This lady wears designer goods from head to toe. That second home is probably where she keeps her gems. I bet it’s full of expensive vases and paintings.”

  “Damn right,” said Atsuya and Kohei.

  In actuality, they had no clue what rich people had in their houses. They were going off the mansions of impossible millionaires in anime and dramas. All conjecture.

  They planned to do the job on September 12. The date had no significance. Shota was off that day, but he had plenty of days off. It was just a coincidence.

  Kohei had procured the getaway car. He used some tricks from his time as a mechanic, but he was embarrassed that he only knew how to steal the old ones.

  A little past eleven, the three men made their entry. They busted the glass door on the garden side and spun open the latch, a classic move, although they first made a big star on the glass with duct tape to keep the breaking glass from shattering and going everywhere. Or worse, making a clamor.

  As predicted, there was no one home, and the whole house was theirs for the taking. They were amped up and ready to grab anything and everything. But there was nothing to lay their hands on. They had swung—and missed.

  They searched every corner of the house; no dice. For the second home of a CEO who supposedly decked herself out in designer goods, it was surprisingly plebian. That’s weird, thought Shota, cocking his head. There has to be something somewhere.

  But there wasn’t.

  That was when they heard a car stop right outside the house. They switched off their flashlights in a start. Then they heard the key turn at the front door. Atsuya’s balls ducked up into his stomach. That lady CEO, of all the nights she could have come. He was going to tell Shota that this wasn’t what he promised, but it was too late to complain.

  Lights went on at the entrance and the front hall. Footsteps were coming closer. Atsuya braced himself.

  11

  “Hey, Shota,” said Atsuya. “How’d you find this dump anyway? You said you stumbled on it when you came to check things out. What were you doing all the way out here?”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly an accident.”

  “It wasn’t, huh? Then what was it?”

  “Stop glaring at me. It wasn’t anything, okay? Remember how I said I followed her home on my scooter? On the way, she came and stopped out front of the store.”

  “Stopped? For what?”

  “How should I know? For some reason, she was staring up at the sign. She got me wondering, so after I followed her home, I swung back here to see for myself. I figured it would come in handy if we had to hide, so I made a mental note of where it was.”

  “But your perfect hideout turned out to be a frigging time machine.”

  Shota shrugged. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  Atsuya crossed his arms and groaned. He turned his eyes on the bag against the wall.

  “What’s up with that lady CEO? What’s her name again?”

  “Something Muto. Haruko? Haruko Muto?” Shota couldn’t remember, either.

  Atsuya reached for the bag, undid the zipper, and pulled out a handbag. If he hadn’t noticed the car key left on the shoe cabinet by the front door, they would have missed it. When he opened up the passenger-side door and saw the handbag sitting on the seat, he’d stuffed it in the duffel, without another thought.

  He opened it. Just under the clasp was a slender navy wallet. At least two hundred thousand yen in cash. That alone redeemed the burglary. He couldn’t care less about the credit and debit cards.

  He found her driver’s license, which said Harumi Muto. Based on her picture, she was pretty hot. Shota had said she was over fifty, but she certainly didn’t look it.

  Now Shota was staring at Atsuya. His eyes were a little bloodshot, probably from lack of sleep.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Atsuya.

  “This… This was in the handbag.”

  Shota was holding out an envelope.

  “What’s that? What’s wrong?”

  He showed Atsuya the face of the envelope. When Atsuya saw what it said, he looked like his heart was about to jump from his mouth.

  To the Namiya General Store, it said.

  To the Namiya General Store,

  When I heard about your “One-Night Special” on the Internet, I asked myself if this was really happening. But I’m writing you this letter because I’m going to believe that it’s true.

  I wonder if you remember me. I wrote you a letter in the summer of ’80 as “Dubious Doggy.” At the time, I was barely out of high school, a real neophyte. In my letter to you, I declared I was going to make a living as a hostess but didn’t know how to tell my friends and family. You put me in my place. You slapped me silly.

  But I was young and disagreed with your advice. I described my upbringing and my circumstances, and I insisted that to give back, this was the only way. It must have been exhausting to put up with such a stubborn little girl.

  You could have easily brushed me off and told me to do as I pleased, but instead you gave me valuable advice and steered me in the right direction. And not in some general direction, but on a very specific trajectory. You told me what to learn and when to know it by. The games to play, and which cards I should toss or hold. This was no usual advice. It was a prophesy.

  I did what you instructed me to do. To be honest, I had my doubts at first, but once I saw the world begin to change in accordance to your predictions, I let go of my misgivings.

  I can’t help wondering where it came from. How did you predict the Japanese asset price bubble and its demise? How did you foresee the coming of the Internet?

  But maybe there’s no sense in asking all that now. An answer wouldn’t change the way things played out.

  I guess my message for you is pretty simple.

  Thank you, Mr. Namiya.

  I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If I had never received your advice, I would never have made it to where I am today. In a worst-case scenario, I could even have wound up in the gutter. I will remain indebted to you for as long as I live. I’m frustrated at having no way to return your kindness, but I hope you can accept this modest letter as a substitute. I am going to pay it forward as best I can and help others however I am able.

  According to the website, this coincides with your thirty-third memorial service. It’s been thirty-two years since I wrote you for advice. It makes me emotional to consider that I may have been your last. I believe it was fate.

  May you rest in peace, Mr. Namiya.

  —Doubtless Doggy

  Atsuya held his head in his hands. He felt as if his brains were curdling. He wanted to tell the others how he felt. No words would come out of his mouth.

  The other two hugged their knees, equally perplexed. Shota was staring off into space.

  How could this be? It was only a little while ago that they had steered the aspiring hostess on a different route, tipping her off on the future. By all accounts, she was successful. But thirty-two years after the fact, Atsuya and his friends busted into her house…

  “Something’s up,” muttered Atsuya.

  Shota looked up. “Up with what?”

  “I mean…like, look. Something must be linking Marumitsuen to the Namiya General Store. An invisible thread, or something. It’s like someone in the sky is tugging on the strings.”

  Shota looked at the ceiling. “Maybe, yeah.”

  “Ack!” Kohei was looking at the back door.

  The door was ajar. Morning light was filtering in. The night was over.

  “Looks like this letter’s never gonna make it to the Namiya General Store.”

  “That’s all right. I mean,
this one’s for us. Right, Atsuya?” said Shota. “We’re the ones she’s thanking. She tells us she’s grateful to us. Us, of all people. This crew of scumbags.”

  Atsuya looked into his eyes, rimmed red with tears.

  “I believe her. You know? When I asked, ‘You gonna turn the building into a love hotel?’ She said no way. She wasn’t lying. Dubious Doggy would never lie to us.”

  Atsuya felt the same. He nodded.

  “So whatta we do now?” asked Kohei.

  “We’re going back.” Atsuya stood up. “Back to her house. To put back what we stole.”

  “We gotta untie her,” Shota continued. “And take off the blindfold, and the duct tape.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what? Run?” Kohei asked.

  Atsuya shook his head. “We won’t run. We’ll wait for the police.”

  Shota and Kohei showed no signs of protest.

  Kohei muttered “We’re going to jail” and drooped his shoulders.

  “Maybe they’ll give us parole for turning ourselves in,” said Shota, before turning to Atsuya. “But that’s only the beginning of it. You think it’s hard to find work now? Just wait. What’ll we do?”

  Atsuya shook his head again. “I dunno. But I do know one thing. I’m done messing with other people’s stuff.”

  Shota and Kohei nodded in silence.

  They got their things together and went out the back door. The sun was bright. They could hear sparrows chirping.

  The milk crate caught Atsuya’s eye. How many times had they opened and shut that thing that night? It made him sad to think he’d never handle it again.

  He popped the lid open one more time. Inside, he found a letter.

  Shota and Kohei were halfway down the alley.

  “Hey! Look what I found,” he yelled, waving the letter.

  The front of the letter said To John/Jane Doe in fountain pen. The handwriting was beautiful.

  He opened the envelope and pulled out the pages inside.

  What follows is an answer to whoever sent me the blank letter. If this does not concern you, please put it back where you found it.