Masquerade and the Nameless Women

by Eiji Mikage

  Satsujinki Tantei no Netsuzou Bigaku © 2017 Eiji Mikage All rights reserved.

  First published in Japan in 2017 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo

  Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo

  English language version produced by Vertical, Inc.

  Published by Vertical, Inc., New York, 2019

  Cover art by Hiro Kiyohara

  This is a work of fiction.

  Ebook ISBN 9781949980240

  First Edition

  Vertical, Inc.

  451 Park Avenue South

  7th Floor

  New York, NY 10016

  www.vertical-inc.com

  v5.4

  a

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue II

  Chapter 1: Miss Direction

  Chapter 0

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Epilogue II

  Prologue I

  About the Author

  Editor’s Note:

  LINE, a social media app mentioned throughout this text, is a popular free communications app with messaging and video and audio call functions. Users make an account and can sign in through the Internet through multiple electronic devices including smartphones, tablets, and computers. It is developed by Line Corporation.

  Prologue II

  The serial killer Seiren Higano had rules.

  He always wore a white lab coat when he killed. He only targeted beautiful, elegant young women. He always took one part of their bodies. And he cut off their faces. However, it wasn’t as though he cared so much about beautiful women or had a fetish for a specific body part. These rules were only meant to send a signal to others.

  “Well then,” Higano said. “What am I going to do now?”

  He took off his white coat, speckled with blood. Underneath, a bespoke black Armani suit skimmed over the lines of his lean physique. He folded the white coat carefully so as not to stain his suit, and hung it over his arm. The refined gesture gave him the air of a capable butler swiftly clearing away his master’s tablecloth.

  Higano glanced down at the dead body.

  The muddy waters of Tokyo Bay washed in gentle waves against the concrete tetrapod blocks near the shore. On top of one block lay the body of a beautifully-proportioned woman. She was dead. A slender leg dipped into the water. It was easy to imagine that, when she’d been alive, she’d been captivating: her slender, seductive limbs stretched out from a flashy, well-tailored dress. She had a beauty mark on her collar bone that heightened her charm. Her long, well-manicured nails were blood-red and even a little mysterious.

  But this glamorous mystique was quickly punctured.

  Her beautiful left leg was severed at the ankle. The foot was gone.

  The corpse’s face had also been scraped off so the contours were ruined. Her once-elegant features were completely unrecognizable.

  These signs all suggested the crime had been committed by Seiren Higano, also known as the serial killer Masquerade.

  However, throughout his career Higano had removed many faces, and he judged the technique used on this corpse as extremely crude. The lips and everything on the face above the nose remained intact; conversely, the neck had been needlessly cut up. It wasn’t very attractive.

  “This is unacceptable.”

  Higano turned his head and averted his gaze, unable to look any longer.

  He calmed down quickly once he could no longer see the body.

  * * *

  —

  The serial killer Masquerade.

  His name came from his trick of cutting his victims’ faces off, as well as an urban legend that witnesses of the crimes had seen a man wearing a mask. It wasn’t clear who had started the rumor. However, as his killings on Odaiba went unchecked and the case got bigger and bigger, that name, which had begun online, permeated society at large. Now there wasn’t a single person in all of Japan who didn’t know about Masquerade.

  He was a serial killer who killed victim after victim, but left no traces behind. The story stirred the public’s imagination, leading to a froth of discussion as to his true identity. Some thought there were multiple killers, some that the killings were conducted by the mafia, and still others firmly believed that it was the establishment, that the whole thing had been made up, or even that the paranormal was involved. The serial killer Masquerade had, irrationally, become such a large presence in society that for each crazy rumor there was certainly a contingent willing to believe it.

  But in the end everyone’s inflated imaginations would fail them.

  They would discover that Masquerade wasn’t anyone powerful or fantastic—he was only the forgettable Seiren Higano.

  * * *

  —

  As the serial killer Seiren Higano strolled along on his usual morning walk, he mulled over using Crystal Mountain or Mandarin beans for his coffee. He smiled and also pondered the target for his next kill.

  __

  Please note:

  This is a personal story based on the serial killer Seiren Higano’s aesthetic.

  __

  Chapter 1

  Miss Direction

  misdirection - n - (mɪsdɪˈrɛkʃ(ə)n)

  1. An incorrect direction or instruction. An explanation that creates a misunderstanding.

  2. In a sleight of hand or a mystery novel, the act of distracting an observer or reader from the trick or the truth of the case. Also, something used to create this effect.

  0

  Here’s the awful truth: I couldn’t stop the women.

  1

  Skyscrapers in the manufactured cityscape zipped by me as I sped past, pedaling while standing on my basketed bike. Though it was early, the glare of the sun was already bright, and my sweat-drenched white shirt was hardly comfortable. This was the seaside, but it wasn’t the least bit refreshing.

  May 27th, 9:05 A.M. Early summer, and already the city was sweltering.

  As I frantically pumped the pedals, going click-click-click underneath me, my skirt began to rise up. I was wearing leggings so this hardly mattered, but someone walking by pointed ostentatiously at me, so I tugged the hem down with one hand. Judging from his clothes, the gawker might have been Chinese. Odaiba had been a popular destination for tourists even before 1999, when the casino-integrated resorts (known as IR) opened, but in recent years it had become a veritable melting pot. I’d learned that when you see Asians, it was easier to guess their nationality by their clothes rather than their looks. Fashion sense doesn’t change immediately just because you’ve moved abroad.

  The Odaiba Integrated Tourist Facilities District.

  In 1993, when the Special Integrated Resort Areas Promotion Act, aka the IR Promotion Act, went into effect, the government decided to try and bring casinos to Odaiba. When IR got going in 1999, there were some issues: domestically-managed casinos weren’t doing well, and Odaiba had become more dangerous as organized crime began to nudge its way in. Howeve
r, by the time the “integrated resorts” were really picking up steam two years later in 2001, the government had reached its limit with domestically-managed casinos and opened bidding for the management rights internationally, which helped improve the situation. The Hong Kong-based Melto Crown Entertainment’s entrance into the market marked the beginning of the upturn.1 As other foreign firms arrived, domestic corporations copied the operations of the foreign ones, and conditions improved dramatically. This was true with safety as well. A massive infusion of foreign investment diluted the influence of organized crime, and a renewal of the police system, with a focus on the Tokyo Bay Police, decreased the crime rate in Odaiba even as levels elsewhere remained the same.

  The overall number of tourists visiting last year surpassed 30 million, and the casinos brought in over two trillion and seventy million yen in annual profits. The Odaiba Integrated Tourist Facilities District had become one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world in both name and reality. Stunning hotels pulse in the vivid spark of LED lights, and there’s no sign of the typically delicate Japanese atmosphere, which has instead been replaced by everyday encounters with cosplaying samurai and ninja, and sushi shops, packed one right next to another, stuffed with specialties developed for the foreign tourists: sushi topped with Sriracha, chocolate sushi, and deep-fried futomaki-ish sushi rolls (if you could even call that “sushi”). One iekei-style ramen chain with pork broth was listed in every foreign guidebook and has itself become an Odaiba attraction, the chain’s shops packed with an endless throng of foreigners. Pawn Alley, a street lined with pawnshops, has also become something of a hotspot.

  Because of the nature of my work, I saw people bankrupted by gambling pretty regularly, so I’d never felt the desire to gamble myself, but I had indulged in Cirque du Soleil shows and the occasional swim in hotel pools. Whether you liked it or not, a sense of elation bubbled up from the earth in Odaiba and, for better or worse, made you constantly wired.

  The Odaiba Integrated Tourist Facilities District swelled with desire and the currency of foreign countries. It could no longer be contained by the original small patch of land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay and had started to expand like an amoeba. The sound of construction projects reclaiming land echoed across the city. Once a reclamation was complete, another new casino was put up.

  I rode along streets far from the gaudy casino area, lined with apartments built by the Urban Renaissance Agency. Eventually I made it to a park built for local residents, not tourists, bordering a city waterway. I hit the brakes, and my poor bike unleashed a loud screech and came to a stop.

  The investigative unit had arrived long before I did. I’d been to this park many times before, but the scene had taken on a serious air now that it was lined with police vehicles. I’d been told the park was part of a designated walking path to school for kindergartners, but there was no way they’d be able to use it today. Rubberneckers had gathered around with no clue of what was going on, crowding around a stranger’s misfortune like it was the climactic scene of a movie they didn’t want to miss.

  I hated this part of the job.

  It was my line of work, and I knew I shouldn’t let something so trivial get to me, but it still hurt every damn time.

  I took a deep breath, exhaled all of my gloom, and then stepped over the yellow police tape.

  “Excuse me, lady.” A uniformed officer approached me immediately. “You can’t just waltz in here.”

  I had anticipated this, so I quickly pulled my police pass case out from my back pocket and opened it with a flip.

  “I’m Sergeant Yuri Uguisu with the Tokyo Bay 1st Investigative Unit,” I said. “Reporting for duty.”

  “Yeah, right,” the officer sneered. “What the hell is this toy? Keep acting up and I’ll take you in for obstructing an officer!” The officer grabbed me by the back of my neck.

  “What? Wait a second! I actually am a police sergeant!”

  “Yeah, right. If you want to play cops and robbers, I’ll let you know when I get off work.”

  There was nothing I could do. The brawny, uniformed officer was about to throw me out on my ass, so I flailed my hands in panic.

  That’s when I noticed a man with a stubbled face watching this pathetic scene with a grin, as though it had nothing to do with him.

  “Hey!” I shouted. “Yamaji! Come clear this up!”

  “Oh,” Yamaji said and scratched at his disheveled hair. “Yeah, sure.” He placed a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “Officer. Princess here is the genuine article. She’s a career officer on training assignment with the Bay Station. Well, semi-career at least.”

  “Huh?” The officer blinked. Still baffled, he finally took a real look at my police ID. He realized it was without a doubt the genuine article. He quickly released me, his superior. His face went pale, and he saluted me. “P-Pardon me, Sergeant Uguisu. I’ve heard your name before.”

  What had he heard? I don’t mean to brag, but I was, after all, a legend for setting the record for lowest grades ever in judo, aikido, and arrest techniques at the Police Academy.

  “Well,” Yamaji said. “It’s no surprise he made that mistake. You don’t look like police at all. You’re so young. I mean…” The grin on Yamaji’s face started to get wider. “You are cosplaying in a sailor school uniform right now, Princess.”

  “C-Cosplay? This uniform is for work! And cut it out with the ‘Princess.’”

  He was right about the uniform, but of course I wasn’t dressed up like a school girl because I wanted to. Nonozuki in the Community Safety Section had asked me to help out with an undercover operation in a case involving a pervert who liked to cut off locks of hair from high school girls on their way to school. Recently the culprit had accidentally sliced the neck of one young girl with his knife, resulting in a minor wound, so the case had taken on a greater urgency.

  Yamaji, my supervisor, was already well aware of all this. But the bastard had just been laughing it up from the time I got to the scene. And Yamaji was basically a boring old man. He wore the standard police-issue suits until they were threadbare, so I was loath to take any wardrobe criticism from him.

  “Your message said to come ASAP,” I protested. “I had no choice but to come as I was!”

  “Still,” Yamaji said. “You had enough time for a change of clothes.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “When women are really embarrassed, nothing’ll stop them from changing. But you didn’t. So what I’m saying is that somewhere deep down inside you thought you’d look good.”

  My face burned. H-How was I supposed to feel?! I’d put a uniform on for the first time in forever and it fit as perfectly as when I’d been in school!

  “I’m only twenty-four,” I said quietly. “People think I’m a high schooler all the time. I even get carded when I buy beer.” I tried to pout.

  “That’s probably because you don’t wear any makeup and you have no sex appeal. That’s different from looking young.”

  Even if that’s what he was thinking, did he have to come right out and say it? Yamaji was just as he appeared: a complete brute!

  Yamaji ignored how pissed off I was and unwrapped a lollipop, an incongruous accessory. In an even more hateful voice he muttered, “A high-school girl? Haaa. There’s no way they’d mistake you for one. You’ve lost all that high-school girl goodness from your skin and your aura. Overall you’ve kind of faded.”

  Yamaji’s wife had recently run off, and I hoped she kept on running! I hoped she divorced him and got a huge settlement!

  “Stop kidding yourself, Princess.”

  I wanted to shout, “You’re the only jackass kidding around!” but Yamaji had gotten a serious look on his face, so I bit my tongue.

  Inspector Enishi Yamaji: His slovenly appearance made me want to brand him an idiot over and over again, but he was a shrewd veteran who had solved a few
difficult cases that had been nearly given up as unsolvable. His recent work especially was spectacular, with him solving several brutal crimes rapidly before an investigative task force could even be organized.

  I had only been working under Yamaji for two months, but as you might expect, I’d realized he wasn’t just an unpleasant old man. I should mention his eyes in particular. At times the glint in his eye harbored the edge of a freshly sharpened blade. And he somehow still had a strong sense of justice like an idealistic rookie, despite seeing so many of the worst aspects of the world since joining the force.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but somewhere inside me I had a deep respect for Yamaji. His slovenly appearance made me want to suppress this feeling, but it couldn’t be helped. Deep inside me somewhere…there was the slightest…the most minuscule amount of respect for him.

  So, yeah, this was the guy who had called me in so urgently.

  “Could we actually have another Masquerade murder on our hands?!” I asked.

  Yamaji didn’t say yes or no. He placed the lollipop in his mouth in an almost obscene way and raised an eyebrow. “I can’t confirm it categorically, but the face has been cut off.”

  I ran to look. A black guardrail with spots of red rust separated the park from the waterway. I climbed over it and down onto one of the massive, concrete tetrapod blocks at the water’s edge.

  I could see a woman’s thin legs submerged in the water. The skin had started to blacken and was clearly devoid of life.

  I gulped and steeled myself. This was my first time seeing a corpse at a crime scene. You’re fine, I repeated in my head. I had read all of the Masquerade case files so many times that they were basically seared into my mind. I had also seen the photographs of Masquerade’s victims so often that they appeared in my dreams. I should have been prepared to see an actual in-the-flesh corpse.