The Hunter

by Asa Nonami

  Takizawa's bearing was mild, and yet he had no intention of backing off, something that the young doctor could see; sourly, he glanced in Takako's direction. She bowed her head reflexively, not averting her eyes. That expression of sour disgust was familiar to her and her colleagues. It was the role of a detective to thrust himself forward insistently, without regard for the convenience of others—even, as now, to make unreasonable demands. No wonder people were always taking offense. In the past, Takako had felt apologetic and embarrassed in situations like this, but now she took it all in stride; everyone had a duty to perform.

  "Incidentally, Doc, what would you say were Kizaki's chances of looking normal again? She'll be permanently scarred, will she?"

  The answer came stiffly, after a pause. "You mean, assuming she pulls through the shock?"

  "Naturally."

  Again the pause. "She probably never will regain her former looks."

  "That's tough. What about her eyes? Will she be able to see?"

  Pause. "With time, she should recover her vision."

  In the end, Takizawa succeeded in drawing the doctor out concerning Kizaki's condition and was even granted permission to visit her, "but only for a short time, mind you," as well as the other three patients. Takako mentally tipped her hat to Takizawa for his tenacity, and for the suave smile that was so unlike the self he presented to her. She was inclined to doubt that a woman could have been so successful. At her young age, it would have been impossible to carry off the same degree of pushiness and cheek.

  "I can't be in the room with you, but I will see that a nurse is present."

  With this parting shot, the aggrieved doctor walked off, his white coat flapping. For whatever reason, of all professionals, doctors were the least in awe of police. They often looked down on them.

  "Take the stick outa your ass, ya little bastard," Takizawa muttered under his breath, scowling, as he watched the doctor walk down the corridor. Takako had the feeling that she had just witnessed the skill of a master of subterfuge. And without her knowing, he had also somehow gotten the room numbers of the casualties he wanted to visit. He consulted his notebook, and began to walk down a long corridor that smelled of antiseptic. Takako followed behind.

  As Takizawa knocked on the first patient's door, his facial expression softened.

  "Hello, sorry to disturb you again at a time like this, but I'd like very much to talk to you for a little while, if that's OK. I'm a detective."

  What a terrible disaster that was, he went on, entering the room and ignoring Takako as usual. She remained self-effacingly in the background, now and again smiling at the patient's family members while saying not a word, only watching as Takizawa conducted the interview.

  They took statements from the three most seriously injured casualties. By the time they arrived at the room of Masayo Kizaki, it was almost noon. There was a red-lettered sign saying no visitors. "Please promise to do this quickly," said the nurse, evidently under orders from that doctor. She seemed a bit scared as she looked at Takizawa.

  6

  Takizawa was sitting in a window seat, jiggling his leg and staring moodily out the window, beyond which lay a dusty landscape. This was the first time he'd been in this ramen shop, which faced a chronically jammed thoroughfare of dump trucks, semi-trailers, and other oversize vehicles. The poor excuse for a sidewalk that led here was so close to the street that when you crossed paths with someone coming from the other direction, you worried the oncoming traffic might slice off a body part. Even though it was noon, the ramen shop was deserted. Takizawa was not surprised.

  This beats everything. Of all the lousy luck.

  Takizawa's leg-jiggling was a nervous habit that came on when he was upset. He had never noticed it himself until his colleagues pointed it out; now when he found himself jiggling a leg, he made pointed efforts to calm himself down. He wasn't a hothead, not really.

  In front of him sat the female detective, expressionless as ever. This tall woman whose neck, arms, and legs were so long and slender looked to be around twenty-seven, maybe twenty-eight—no, make that twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She had small tits and a small face that didn't seem to have on much makeup, but her skin was nice. From Takizawa's point of view she was hardly more than a kid, yet she showed total calm, following him around since yesterday without a peep.

  How come it's gotta be me?

  When the special investigation headquarters was set up, Takizawa for the first time in a while felt a surge of excitement and energy. He himself had been the first to see the burned body carried out of the fire scene, and the moment he did so, the oddness of the burns made him suspicious. That his powers of observation and his instincts were so dead-on had given him secret delight. But then to be paired with a woman was like having cold water thrown in his face.

  "Tanmen coming up!" The thin, fortyish man running the place by himself brought each of them a big bowl of hot noodles.

  When Takizawa sat down and ordered tanmen, noodles in a salty broth topped with stir-fried meat and vegetables, the female detective simply said, "Two, please." After that she said nothing at all, just looked around the place as they waited for their food. Her face wore an extremely unconcerned look. For Takizawa, nothing could have felt more awkward.

  Now Otomichi took a pair of wood chopsticks out of the upright container on the table and began to poke at the noodles gently. "Mmm, looks good," she said quietly to herself. She brought some noodles to her lips, blew the steam off vigorously, and ate them with a faint slurping sound. Takizawa reached for his own set of chopsticks, and watched as she ate with her head down over her bowl. There seemed to be a touch of a wave in her hair, which looked fine and soft. Her hand plying the chopsticks was delicate; there was a raised vein on the back of her hand.

  And yet she's so inconsiderate! Takes out chopsticks only for herself.

  A woman ought to demonstrate a little more consideration for others than that. With scarcely a glance at him, she just went on eating. Was she unaware of what she was doing, or was this a subtle way of busting his balls? Either way, it did nothing to endear her to him. Takizawa's leg jiggled as he poked his chopsticks into his bowl of noodles.

  He had his reasons for not talking to her. First off, he didn't trust women. They were flighty. They let their emotions run away with themselves. They lied. They stabbed you in the back. Being a detective required mutual trust and teamwork. There was no way he would ever choose someone like her as his partner on the job.

  Second, Takizawa basically did not approve of female detectives. This was a man's work, a man's world. Danger lurked around every corner and the work was demanding. You saw the dark side of the human psyche. Stress built up, the hours were irregular, and the job called for quick decisions and quick action. Anybody who signed up for a job like this had to have the guts and determination to stick it out. This was no job you could take as a temporary expedient.

  Besides, women's inferior physical strength and deficient fighting instincts made them ill-suited for the job. If, despite everything, a woman still wanted to be a detective, then she should find something less risky to investigate, like larceny or intellectual crimes. But the woman in front of him was in a patrol unit, of all things. Even granting that society today promotes equal rights for the sexes, what in god's name was the brass thinking? Takizawa was getting more and more pissed off.

  Third, women were just a lot of trouble. Things like going to the can. They couldn't go anywhere, like a man could. And when they went home late at night, you worried about them walking dark streets alone. You even had to watch how you talked; you couldn't just say what you wanted to in a free and easy way, like you could with another man. And since she was young to boot, naturally she would end up respecting Takizawa's opinion on everything, relying totally on him. He'd end up feeling like a teacher taking a student on a goddamn field trip. Who needed that?

  Fourth—actually, this reason weighed surprisingly heavily on Takizawa— when Takako Otom
ichi had first appeared in headquarters, a wave of murmurs had gone through the officers around him:

  "Since when did we have such a looker on the force?"

  "Wouldn't mind having her as a partner a coupla times."

  Truth is, Takizawa himself had thought she was an attractive woman, just to look at. That's how much she stood out. If she had a physique that would put a man's to shame, or a face that evoked only grimaces, he didn't know if she would still attract that much attention; but as it was, one look at her and you could see she was a different kind of creature.

  "How come I get a desk job now, of all times?" young Wada had lamented, seemingly full of sincere regret. Takizawa had joined in the laughter, never dreaming what his luck of the draw would be. But when he found himself paired with Otomichi, it was no laughing matter. He felt as if every drop of blood had drained from his body.

  "That was good," Takako said, finishing up her meal.

  As he sat staring vacantly, suddenly her chopsticks entered his field of vision as she laid them across the top of her bowl. Seeing traces of her lipstick on the end of the chopsticks, Takizawa began to feel even more foul. He glanced at her as he brought some noodles to his mouth, and caught her in the act of patting the corners of her mouth with a handkerchief. Her creamy-white cheeks were flushed, and there was a touch of perspiration on her forehead.

  Ate too fast, eh?

  This is one stubborn female. Takizawa figured maybe it was a point of pride for her not to take longer to eat than him, but again, such behavior was hardly endearing. He deliberately took his time, and paused to slurp the broth. Before he was done, she excused herself, got up, and disappeared into the ladies' room. Watching out of the corner of his eye as she walked by, her legs long and slim, he nearly sighed out loud. This stoicism of hers was hard to take. A girl who burst into tears would be better; at least then you could yell and scold.

  A few minutes later, as he was laying his chopsticks down, she came back. Right away she started to slip into her coat.

  "What's your hurry? The meeting's not till 1:30," he said gruffly, reaching out for a toothpick. When he phoned in at the set time, right around noon, headquarters had informed him that the victim's identity was now established. A full meeting was scheduled for 1:30. That's how come they had time to sit and have lunch like this.

  Expressionless, the female detective sat back down.

  Takizawa, cigarette in his mouth, stared her in the face. He was brazenly cool. "I know what you think," he drawled, blowing out cigarette smoke.

  "Yes?" said Otomichi, looking directly at him.

  "What you think deep down."

  "And what would that be?"

  "That if it wasn't for you, Masayo Kizaki wouldn't have talked." Jiggling his leg, Takizawa looked hard at her with his eyes narrowed.

  A little flushed, Otomichi scarcely reacted, apart from a tiny frown. After a moment she spoke slowly: "I'm glad I could help." Her voice was restrained and unemotional. "It's true that we needed to get her story today if at all possible, and since it worked out that we did, it seems like a good outcome to me."

  The girl named Masayo Kizaki, whom the doctor had been so reluctant to let them interview, had demonstrated abnormal fear about everything in her environment, due perhaps to damaged eyesight. Takizawa had spoken to her gently enough, he thought, but the girl screamed and kept saying she was scared.

  "I had nothing to do with it! Why do the police keep coming back to me over and over again! I didn't do anything! All I did was try to bring him his order!"

  She was trembling, a sign of shock. Takizawa did not want the girl to panic, so he stepped back; if she went into secondary shock, she'd be no use and the police would be held accountable. That was when Otomichi stepped forward and grasped Kizaki's hand, which quieted the girl down immediately.

  "It's all right, you're all right now. There's nothing to be scared of. You're safe here, and your injuries are going to heal in no time." Otomichi had spoken slowly and calmly, as if to impress the words on her listener. Bending down by the bed, she ran her fingers lightly over Kizaki's bandaged arm and said things like: "It must have been terrifying," and "You must have been in such terrible pain." A few minutes later, little by little Kizaki began to tell Otomichi her story. Sounding like a little sister relying on her big sister for support.

  "Well, if all you did was walk behind me, I guess you'd be stealing your pay, wouldn't you?" Takizawa said, his leg jiggling. He averted his gaze from Otomichi as he spoke.

  She said nothing.

  "You're not here for decoration. You gotta pull your weight."

  Still nothing.

  "Well, here's hoping from now on we run into nothing but women and children who are afraid of men, and guys who dig chicks."

  Takizawa was astonished at the harshness of his own words. Yet Otomichi's eyes never flickered. Wishing she would cry or sulk or something, Takizawa got up with a clatter. Leaving Otomichi behind as she paid the bill, he strode outside where a dusty wind was blowing, and started walking without a glance back. She was just a chit of a girl and yet she was a lot more collected than he was. That was really galling.

  The longer you go on bein' a cop, honeybun, the more you're gonna have to put up with this shit. Why don't you go get married or something, have a kid.

  The next thing he knew, from behind him came the sound of her footsteps following him at the same tempo he was walking. Feeling for some reason a desire to escape, he walked on toward the station as if being driven by a whip. Having to think about all this on top of the murder investigation was enough to wear a guy out.

  Two

  1

  On the thin sheet of paper, the image was of a man standing, leaning slightly to one side, a smile playing on his lips. A stray lock of hair on his forehead, a gaze of invincible cool. He was staring straight into the camera, in perfect control. His slanting eyes and too-thin eyebrows were rather effeminate; had he been ten years younger, he might have passed for a second- or third-rate teen idol. His smile conveyed the sense that he was fully aware of his attractiveness, took pleasure in his looks. But this man would never smile again. His body was now a shriveled, black crisp, split open from cranium to belly, and stored in the city morgue. As yet no relatives had come forward to claim his remains.

  "He went by the name Takuma Sugawara, which is an alias. Real name is Teruo Hara. Age 34, not 30. When he was 20, he committed assault with intent to commit bodily harm, but punishment was deferred and he was released on probation."

  It was 8:00 p.m., the setting was special investigation headquarters, and the voice of the chief investigator, Captain Watanuki, filled the room.

  Two days had passed since the noon hour when Takako sat across from Takizawa eating ramen. This night meeting had been called to bring everyone up to speed. Exhausted and half-frozen, Takako had dragged herself to the station at 7:00 to spend the hour sitting next to Takizawa as he wrote up the day's report without a thought or a peep from her. While struggling with the drowsiness that threatened to engulf her as she warmed up, Takako retraced the last couple day's activities in her mind, trying to connect any dots she might have missed. But the only picture that popped up in her mind was the hateful sight of her partner's backside.

  Takizawa still had made no effort to adjust to her presence. Again today, while continuing to interview the witnesses in the hospital, he had ignored her, as if she were thin air. Perhaps, like an artisan in the old days, he meant that she had to learn by watching and copying his techniques—although by now she found it impossible to believe that anything he did was out of solicitude. He never once asked her opinion, and no matter whom he was interviewing, he would thrust himself forward and shove her to the side. If she said anything to him, he scowled in annoyance. Now, back at headquarters, by rights she, as the junior member of the team, should be writing the report while he went off and had a cup of coffee; yet here he was grumpily twisting his head left and right as he appropriated the task for hims
elf.

  I'd think whoever reads it would be happier reading my writing—that's unless the reader is a numskull who thinks you can't trust anything a woman wrote.

  As long as her partner maintained this attitude, Takako found herself putting a negative spin on everything. Although there was precious little fruit of their labor to report, Takizawa pressed down heavily with his ballpoint pen, writing in an oddly square ideographic style developed no doubt from years of presenting written evidence—a cover for lack of results, she thought sarcastically. She gazed at Takizawa, bent over his desk with the posture of a bad student cramming for an exam. Deep down, men like him, who made such an issue of their masculinity, were just a bunch of chicken-livered fools, with all the heart of a flea. That was Takako's humble opinion, arrived at after staring day and night at the rear end of this emperor penguin.