Something is in the room. I could hear it moving. Bloody knife in hand, I stood frozen like a statue, scanning the room, searching for the source of the sound. Out of the corner of one eye, I spotted something near the far wall.
Long Face was there.
Killing the Commendatore had lured Long Face into this world.
52
THE MAN IN THE ORANGE CONE HAT
The scene in the room now matched the lower left-hand corner of Tomohiko Amada’s Killing Commendatore. Long Face had poked his head out of a hole, and was raising its square cover with one hand as he peeked at what was taking place. His hair was long and tangled, and a thick black beard covered much of his face. His elongated head was shaped like a Japanese eggplant, narrow with a jutting chin and bulging eyes. The bridge of his nose was flat. For some reason, his lips glistened like a piece of fruit. His body was small but well proportioned, as if a normal person had been shrunk in size. Just as the Commendatore made you think of a scaled-down copy of a human being.
The big difference between the Long Face in Killing Commendatore and here was his expression—now he looked stunned as he stared at the lifeless body of the Commendatore. His mouth gaped in disbelief. How long had he been watching us? I had no idea. I had been so focused on snuffing out the Commendatore’s life, and gauging Tomohiko Amada’s reaction to his death, that I had been oblivious to the odd-looking man in the corner of the room. Yet I bet he hadn’t missed a thing. After all, that was the scene in Killing Commendatore.
Long Face remained completely still, there in the corner of our tableau. As if assigned a fixed position. I moved slightly to see how he would respond. But Long Face didn’t react. He maintained the same position he had in the painting—one hand holding up the square lid, his eyes round as he gawked at the slain Commendatore. He didn’t even blink.
As the tension drained from my body, I moved from my own assigned position. I edged cautiously toward Long Face, deadening my footsteps like a cat, the bloody knife in one hand. I could not let him slip back underground. To save Mariye Akikawa, the Commendatore had given his life to re-create the scene in the painting, and drawn Long Face out into the open. I must not allow that sacrifice to be in vain.
Yet how could I wrest from Long Face what I needed to know about Mariye? I was at a loss. Who or what was Long Face? How was his presence linked to Mariye’s disappearance? What the Commendatore had told me was more riddle than information. One thing was clear, though: I had to get my hands on him. I could figure the rest out later.
The lid that Long Face was holding was about two feet square, made of the same lime-green linoleum as the rest of the floor. When closed, it would blend in perfectly, perhaps even disappear altogether.
Long Face did not move a muscle as I approached. He seemed rooted to the spot. Like a cat in the headlights. Or maybe he was just fulfilling his designated role—to maintain the composition of the painting for as long as possible. Whichever, it was lucky for me. Otherwise, he would have sensed me behind him and slipped back underground for good. Once the lid had been closed, I doubted it would open again.
I crept behind him, softly laid down the knife, and snatched his collar with both hands. He was wearing drab, snug-fitting clothes. Work clothes, from the look of it. Clearly different from the fine cloth of the Commendatore’s garments. These looked rough to the touch and were covered in patches.
Jolted from his trance, Long Face thrashed about, desperately attempting to flee down his hole. I held tight to his collar. There was no way I was going to let him escape. I gathered my strength and tried to yank him all the way out. He fought back, grabbing the sides of the hole with both hands. He was much stronger than I’d anticipated. He even tried to bite my arm. What could I do—I slammed his eggplant-shaped head against the corner of the opening. Then I did it again, this time more violently. The second blow knocked him out cold. I could feel his body go limp. At last I could drag him out into the light.
Long Face was a little bigger than the Commendatore. Two and a half feet tall was my guess. He was wearing what a farmer might have worn in the fields, or a manservant sweeping the yard. A stiff, rough jacket over baggy work pants cinched at the ankles. His belt was a thick piece of rope. He wore no shoes, and his soles were thickly callused and stained black with dirt. His long hair showed no sign of having been recently washed or combed. Half his face was covered by a black beard. The other half was a sickly white. Nothing about him looked clean, yet, strangely, his body had no odor.
Based on appearance, I figured the Commendatore belonged to the aristocracy of his time, while Long Face was lower-class. Perhaps he was dressed the way commoners did back then. Or maybe Tomohiko Amada had imagined, This is how people might have dressed in the Asuka period. Historical accuracy, however, was beside the point. What I needed to do was squeeze from this man with the strange face any information that would lead me to Mariye.
I rolled Long Face over onto his stomach and tied his hands behind him with the belt of a bathrobe hanging close by. Then I dragged his motionless body to the center of the room. Because of his size, he wasn’t very heavy. About the weight of a medium-sized dog. I grabbed a curtain tie and bound one of his legs to the bed. Now he had no way to flee.
Stretched out unconscious in the bright afternoon light, Long Face just looked pitiful. Gone was the weirdness that had alarmed me when he had poked his head up out of his hole, observing events with those glittering eyes. I could find nothing sinister about him. He didn’t look bright enough to be evil. Instead, he looked honest in a dull-witted sort of way. And timid, too. Not like someone who concocted plans and made decisions, but, rather, the type who meekly followed his superiors’ orders.
Tomohiko Amada was still stretched out on the bed, his eyes closed. He was completely still. I couldn’t tell, looking at him, if he was alive or dead. I leaned down and put my ear less than an inch from his mouth. His breathing was faint, like a distant surf. He wasn’t dead yet, just sleeping on the floor of his twilight world. I felt relieved. I didn’t like the idea of Masahiko returning from his phone call to find that his father had died in his absence. Tomohiko’s face, as he lay on his side, looked far more peaceful and satisfied than before. Maybe witnessing the slaying of the Commendatore (or someone else he wished to see killed) had put some of his painful memories to rest.
The Commendatore was slumped in his cloth chair. His eyes were wide open, and I could see his tiny tongue curled behind his parted lips. Blood was still seeping from the wound in his chest, but the flow was weaker than before. His right hand flopped lifelessly when I took it. Although his skin retained some warmth, it felt remote and somehow detached. The kind of detachment life acquires as it moves steadily toward its own end. I felt like straightening his limbs and placing him in a proper-sized coffin, one made for a small child. I would lay the coffin in the pit behind the shrine, where no one could bother him again. But all I could do now was gently close his eyes.
I sat in the chair and watched Long Face on the floor as I waited for him to regain his senses. Outside the window, the broad Pacific sparkled. A few fishing boats were still plying the waters. I could see the sleek fuselage of an airplane shining in the sun as it slowly made its way south. A four-prop plane with an antenna jutting up from its tail—probably an antisubmarine aircraft from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force base in Atsugi. Some of us were quietly going about our business on a Saturday afternoon. I, for one, was in a sunlit room in an upscale nursing home, having just slain the Commendatore and fished out and tied up Long Face in my quest to find a beautiful thirteen-year-old girl. It takes all kinds, I guess.
Long Face didn’t regain consciousness for some time. I checked my watch again.
What would Masahiko think if he came back now? The Commendatore in a pool of blood, Long Face bound and unconscious on the floor. Both in the unfamiliar garb of an ancient time, neither standing even t
hree feet tall. Tomohiko Amada comatose on the bed, a faint but satisfied smile (if that’s what it was) on his lips. A square, black hole gaping in a corner of the room. How could I explain what had led to this scene?
Of course, Masahiko didn’t come back. He was tied up in a work-related phone call of great importance, as the Commendatore had said. He would be dealing with it for some time yet. Everything had been arranged in advance. No one would bother us. I sat on the chair, eyeing the unconscious Long Face. I had whacked his head pretty hard on the edge of the hole, but it shouldn’t take him that long to come to. He’d have a fair-sized lump on his head, that’s all.
At last, Long Face woke up. He twisted and turned a bit on the floor, and uttered a few incomprehensible words. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes a crack. Like a child looking at something scary—something he didn’t want to see, but must.
I went and knelt beside him.
“There’s very little time,” I said, looking down at him. “I need you to tell me where I can find Mariye Akikawa. If you do, I’ll untie you, and you can go back.”
I pointed to the square hole in the corner. The lid was still raised. I couldn’t tell if he understood what I was saying or not. But I decided to keep talking. All I could do was give it a shot.
Long Face violently shook his head back and forth several times. I couldn’t tell if he was saying that he didn’t know anything, or that my language was foreign to him.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you,” I said. “You saw me stab the Commendatore, I bet. Well, there’s no big difference between one murder and two.”
I pressed the bloody blade of my knife against his dirty throat. I thought of the fishermen and the pilot of the southbound airplane. We all have jobs we have to do. And this was mine. I wasn’t going to kill him, of course, but the knife was real, and very sharp. Long Face quivered in fear.
“Wait!” he gasped in a husky voice. “Stay your hand.”
His way of speaking was strange, but I could understand him. I eased off on the knife.
“Where is Mariye Akikawa?” I pressed him. “Come on, spit it out!”
“No, sir, I do not know. I swear it.”
I studied his eyes. They were big and easy to read. He seemed to be telling the truth.
“All right then, tell me, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I am enjoined to verify and record these events. I do only what I am told to do. You have my word.”
“Why must you verify them?”
“Because I was so bidden. I know nothing beyond that.”
“So what on earth are you? Another kind of Idea?”
“Goodness no! I am a Metaphor, nothing more.”
“A Metaphor?”
“Yes. A mere Metaphor. Used to link two things together. So please, untie my bonds, please, I beseech you.”
I was getting confused. “If you are as you say, then give me a metaphor now, off the top of your head.”
“I am the most humble and lowly form of Metaphor, sir. I cannot devise anything of quality.”
“A metaphor of any kind is all right—it doesn’t have to be brilliant.”
“He was someone who stood out,” he said after a moment’s pause, “like a man wearing an orange cone hat in a packed commuter train.”
Not an impressive metaphor, to be sure. In fact, not really a metaphor at all.
“That’s a simile, not a metaphor,” I pointed out.
“A million pardons,” he said, sweat pouring from his forehead. “Let me try again. ‘He lived as though he were wearing an orange cone hat in a crowded train.’ ”
“That makes no sense. It’s still not a true metaphor. Your story doesn’t hold. I’ll just have to kill you.”
Long Face’s lips trembled with fear. His beard may have been manly, but he was short on guts.
“My sincerest apologies, sir. I am yet but an apprentice. I cannot think of a witty example. Forgive me. But I assure you that I am the genuine article, a true Metaphor.”
“Then who is your superior—who commands you?”
“I have no superior, per se. Well, perhaps I do, but I have never laid eyes on him. I only follow orders—acting as a link between phenomena and language. Like a helpless jellyfish adrift on the ocean. So please do not kill me. I implore you.”
“I can spare your life,” I said, my knife still on his throat. “But only if you agree to guide me to where you came from.”
“That is something I cannot do,” Long Face said in a firm voice. It was the first time he had used that tone. “The road I took to get here is the Path of Metaphor. It is different for each one who traverses it. It is not a single road. Thus I cannot guide you, sir, on your way.”
“Let me get this straight. I must follow this path alone, and I must discover it for myself—is that what you’re saying?”
Long Face nodded vigorously. “The Path of Metaphor is rife with perils. Should a mortal like you stray from the path even once, you could find yourself in danger. And there are Double Metaphors everywhere.”
“Double Metaphors?”
Long Face shuddered with fear. “Yes, Double Metaphors lurking in the darkness. The most vile and dangerous of creatures.”
“It’s all the same to me,” I said. “I’m already mixed up in a whole lot of craziness. So it’s no skin off my nose if the craziness grows or shrinks. I killed the Commendatore with my own hands. I don’t want his death to be in vain.”
“I see I have no choice. So let me offer you a word of warning before you set out.”
“What kind of warning?”
“Take a light of some kind with you. You will pass through many dark places on your way. You will come across a river. It is a metaphorical river, but the water is very real. It is cold and deep, and the current is strong. You cannot cross without a boat. You will find a boat at the ferrying spot.”
“How about after I cross the river—what should I do then?”
Long Face rolled his bulging eyes. “The world that awaits you on the other side, like this one, is subject to the principle of connectivity. You will have to see for yourself.”
I checked Tomohiko Amada’s bedside table. Sure enough, a flashlight was there. A facility like this one was sure to store one in each room in case of fire or earthquake. I flicked it on. The light was strong. The batteries weren’t dead. I slipped on my leather jacket, which I had draped over a chair, and started for the hole in the corner, flashlight in hand.
“Please, sir,” Long Face begged. “Will you not loosen my bonds? I fear what may transpire should I be left in this state.”
“If you’re a true Metaphor, untying yourself should be easy. Aren’t Concepts and Ideas and others like you able to move through space and time?”
“No, you overrate me. I am blessed with no such marvelous powers. Concepts and Ideas are Metaphors of a much higher order.”
“Like those with orange cone hats?”
Long Face looked stricken. “Please do not mock me, sir. My feelings can be hurt too, you know.”
After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to untie his hands and feet. I had bound them so tightly they took time to undo. Now that we had talked, he didn’t appear to be such a bad fellow. True, he didn’t know where Mariye was, but he had volunteered other information. I doubted that he would interfere or cause me any harm if I untied him. And I certainly couldn’t leave him bound and trussed where he was. Should anyone find him like that, it would only make things worse. When I finished, he sat there for a moment, rubbing his chafed wrists with his tiny hands. Then he felt his forehead. It appeared a lump had already sprouted.
“Thank you, sir. Now I can return to my world.”
“Go ahead,” I said, gesturing to the hole in the corner. “I’ll follow later.”
“I shall now make m
y departure. Please ensure that the lid is securely closed when you follow. Otherwise, someone might trip and fall in. Or grow curious and climb down. Then I would be held responsible.”
“Understood. I will make sure it’s closed.”
Long Face trotted to the hole and climbed inside. Then his head and shoulders popped up again. His saucer eyes had an eerie glow. As they did in Killing Commendatore.
“I wish you a safe journey,” Long Face said to me. “I hope you can find What’s-her-name. Was it Komichi?”
“No, her name isn’t Komichi,” I said. A chill ran down my spine. My throat turned to sandpaper. I couldn’t speak for a moment. “The name was Mariye Akikawa. Do you know something about Komichi?”
“No, I know nothing at all.” Long Face seemed to realize that he’d let drop something he shouldn’t. “The name just slipped into my clumsy metaphorical brain. A simple mistake. Forgive me, please, sir.”
Long Face vanished down the hole. Like smoke in the wind.
I stood there for a moment, plastic flashlight in hand. Komichi? How could my sister’s name come up here, of all places? Could she be connected to this strangeness? But I had no time to ponder that question. I switched the flashlight on and entered the hole, feetfirst. It was dark below, and there seemed to be a long path sloping downward. That was odd, too, come to think of it. The room was on the third floor, so the second floor should be directly beneath. I trained the flashlight on the path, but couldn’t make out where it led. I lowered the rest of my body inside and closed the lid tight behind me. Now everything was black.
The darkness was so complete that my five senses were useless. As if the links between my body and my mind had been severed, and no information was passing between them. It was the strangest feeling. As if I were no longer myself. Nevertheless, I had to go on.
“If my friends wish to save Mariye Akikawa, then do the deed.”
Killing Commendatore Page 61
