Iwata descended stairs lit by bare bulbs and stood in a small waiting room. The carpet was marked with cigarette burns and the walls were cheap slats of plywood. An elderly woman with rosacea and a blanket around her shoulders opened the door. She smiled a fox’s smile. Iwata wanted to run.
Four young women appeared behind her, all staring at the floor, smiling demurely.
Iwata shook his head.
“I’m very hungry,” he said.
Unperturbed, the old woman picked up a phone and whispered something. The women left, and Iwata was asked to sit down. He was brought a tray of cold soba and green tea. He hardly paused to chew, though it all tasted of nothing. When he was done he wanted to leave but the old lady appeared again.
“Better?”
“Yes. I should go. Please tell me how much I owe.”
“Oh no, you need to be taken care of.”
Iwata said nothing but felt himself nodding. A young Mongolian man stood behind the old lady now. She turned to speak to him slowly.
“Please take this gentleman downstairs, he needs a bath.”
The young Mongolian smiled and ushered Iwata down another set of stairs. He was led into a bathing room of old green tiles. Iwata smelled chlorine. There was a plastic stool and an old tub in the corner.
“Long night for you,” the man said in gentle, broken Japanese.
“I’m a policeman,” Iwata replied, without knowing why.
“Not first to visit.”
The man took Iwata’s coat and hung it up carefully. He bent down and took Iwata’s shoes, seeming not to care that he wore no trousers. He unbuttoned Iwata’s shirt, not looking into his eyes. He folded the clothes and placed them on a rack outside. The man returned and slid shut the frosted glass door, trapping the warmth. He pulled down Iwata’s boxers and his erection jutted free. The young man showed no reaction and led Iwata to the plastic stool.
“Sit.”
Iwata sat and closed his eyes as he heard a shower hiss on. Then hot water was cascading down his spine. Iwata shivered as it ran down his buttocks and flowed over his chest. The young man soaked Iwata for a long time, scrubbing him with a soapy flannel. Iwata’s penis bobbed like a fish gasping. The young man clutched it now.
“You need?”
“Wait.”
Iwata walked over to the wall. He rested his forehead against the hot pipes, breathing in the steam. The tiles were cold against his chest. The Mongolian stood behind him. Iwata felt a face between his shoulder blades, kisses at his spine.
A hand slipped around his waist and began to masturbate him.
I walk and I walk, swaying, like a small boat in your arms.
Iwata came on the tiles.
The Mongolian showered them off, watching the semen curl into the drain.
Iwata stood there shivering, needing to vomit, needing to sleep.
“Do you need me to go?” he said.
The younger man shook his head.
He came up behind Iwata again and held him in the clouds of heat.
Iwata began to cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I am as one who is left alone at the banquet, the lights dead, the flowers faded.
CHAPTER 16: OTHER PLACES
BY 9 A.M., IWATA WAS back at home, looking at his reflection in the mirror. He had never looked older. This was, of course, a biological given for all living things. But today, it was a truth that clung to every crack of skin and every shining pore. He showered and shaved carefully, before combing his hair back and taking out a clean suit. He dressed, his head the silence after a quake.
Iwata made coffee, put on Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations and looked out of his window. He listened only to Aria da Capo, allowing himself precisely two minutes and eight seconds of music. When it was over, he washed out his cup and left his apartment.
Outside, the sky was stainless steel but there was no rain. Iwata took the Chiyoda Line to Meiji-jingumae Station, where he switched on to the Fukutoshin Line. He sat between a teenager hunching over equations and a man deliberating over the wording of a covering letter to a medical devices company. Iwata thought of what Sakai had said in the car.
Tokyo is a million cities. You ever wonder if maybe some of those cities are good and some of them are bad?
Iwata pictured little Hana Kaneshiro’s gray face once again, her body lying on the metal slab. He closed his eyes and clutched his forehead, waiting for the images to pass.
Beyond dull pain and a hangover, Iwata felt nothing today. He got off the train at Ikebukuro and walked the ten minutes to the small lot beneath the apartment block where he had left his car. Iwata called Sakai twice but got no answer. He started the engine and kept the radio off.
* * *
Seagulls circled over the dark teal of Sagami Bay. On the surface of the inlet, a single wooden plank floated. Dead leaves had gathered around it as though lonely. Mrs. Ohba’s road was still cordoned off, a single policeman guarding the house. Iwata parked in a sandy lay-by and showed his badge.
Inside, he searched each room devoutly, hoping for some new angle. He had come here instead of the Kaneshiros’ house because he knew the likelihood of the killer becoming complacent was higher on the second occasion than the first. After all, an old widow cut off from the world would require less concentration than an entire family. Iwata knew this was true statistically, but he also knew deep down that complacency from the Black Sun Killer was a long shot. Then again, those were the only shots he had left.
The first time Iwata had entered this house he’d sensed something from the killer—like the last few moments of a dream before it untangled. But whatever he had felt back then was long gone now.
Upstairs, the only sound was the distant breathing of the waves and the tiny ticking of the gold watch by the bed. Iwata went back out to the corridor and peered at the holiday photographs on the wall, the Ohbas’ faces aging, their postures sagging—a chronicling of decline. Under each framed photograph, a small white card carried a location and date.
PARIS 1988.
GUAM 1994.
ITALY 1979.
LONDON 2000.
OKINAWA 1973.
EGYPT 1992.
Every single holiday commemorated, stretching back into the early 1970s—one for each year. Strangers from all over the world had been asked to take these pictures, asked to record these smiles in front of landmarks and sunsets. They were all that was left of the Ohbas now. Iwata took out his notebook and wrote down the dates and locations.
He went back downstairs, this time looking for any possible way the killer might have spied on Mrs. Ohba. Serial killers were likely to watch their victims before a kill but there would have been no easy way in these conditions. It was clear the widow hardly used the lower level of the house except for the Butsudan, which was in a room with no windows. All windows downstairs were covered. Upstairs, there were large windows, but the house was tall and there were no vantage points behind it. In front, there was only ocean. The killer would have needed a boat and some kind of telescopic lens to see her.
Remote possibility?
Iwata shook his head.
“He knew you were here, he came for you specifically. But why?”
Iwata sat down on the floor and shut his eyes, a wave of fatigue filling him. He pictured Mrs. Ohba’s chubby, brutalized body, which had lain within arm’s reach. It had been taken away, like an unpopular fairground attraction finally removed.
* * *
Kei flicks ash in the girl’s direction.
“Look at the fat on that. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. There’s no class in this town.”
Kosuke gazes after the girl. He sees the movement of her buttocks under her skirt and the black sheen of her hair in the autumn sun. He feels an instant rush of desire.
The schoolgirl hurries past them, wondering how two boys her age can sit out sipping Cokes and smoking cigarettes on a Tuesday morning.
They�
��re sitting outside the less pathetic of the two cafés in town. Kei is still only fifteen but he has grown into his features already—a boisterous pair of lips, a darkening chin, and a stubborn crop of black hair. Kosuke is not yet there, the undecided softness of adolescence still about his face. He returns to the table as the jukebox plays the opening bars of Billie Holiday’s “Gloomy Sunday.” Kei rolls his eyes and snaps his fingers at the waiter.
“Another Coke for my friend here.”
“Kei, have you actually got the money this time? I’m not running.”
Kei sits back and puffs smoke between them, squinting one eye.
“You know what your problem is, Kosuke?”
“My choice in friends?”
“You have no faith.”
Kei leans back on his chair and lifts up his shirt, revealing an alarming amount of hair creeping up from his navel and a small wedge of bills in his waistband.
“Let’s get out of here. This joint bores me.”
Kei raises his voice at these last words just as the waiter returns with the Coke. Kei drops the money contemptuously.
“Take that with you, come on.”
They set off down the road, Kei bobbing on his heels. Kosuke follows him, Coke bubbles spilling down his knuckles. He checks over his shoulder.
“Kei, where did you find that money?”
“I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you’re asking me.”
“I’m asking you where you found it, I didn’t say anything about stealing.”
“That’s your downfall. You never say what you mean.”
“And that’s yours. You find fault in everything.”
Kei laughs.
“Am I ever wrong?”
Kosuke drains the last of his Coke and slings away the bottle. It rolls down a ridge and is swallowed by the long, dead grass. They walk on for a time and cross the concrete bridge. Kei spits into a stream flowing underneath. This place is just two listless hamlets that merged for want of anything better to do. A dog raises its head above the grass line but doesn’t bother barking.
“Where are we going, then?” Kosuke asks.
Kei shrugs.
“Somewhere man, I don’t know. Where is there to go in this fucking place?”
Kosuke checks his watch, and Kei laughs bitterly.
“You got somewhere better to be?”
“Class. Uesugi will shit if we cut again.”
“Will he now?”
The mountain on the horizon is a pale blue pyramid. Farms spread out on either side of the road into the distance, a patchwork of boring colors. In any part of this town you can see its end.
“You know something I won’t find fault in?” Kei had regained his smile now.
“What?”
“The yakitori at The Foxhole. How about it, Kosuke-kun? I’ll even let you play your goddamn American love songs.”
“Kei—”
“No fuck that, man. Fuck ‘Kei.’ We’ll sit outside The Foxhole with yakitori and beers and watch the ugly bitches of this town go by like fucking kings. Don’t hold out on me, man.”
“Uesugi—”
“Uesugi nothing. What’s he going to do, kick you out? Best thing that has ever happened to you, if he did.”
Kosuke looks up at the sky scornfully and tries to imagine other places.
The Foxhole is empty at this time of day, and they have prime seats to watch the flow of schoolgirls returning home. Kosuke tosses another skewer away and licks his fingers clean.
“I tell you.” Kei pats his belly. “This goddamn chicken is the only worthwhile thing on this fucking mountain.”
“So leave.”
“Watch me. Just a couple more years and I’m cutting loose for Tokyo. Then it’ll be city living and all the mod cons.” Kei juts his chin toward the street. “Hey, look at the tits on that one. Shame about the eel face.”
Kosuke looks at the girl, who is easily beautiful, and wonders how his friend can see things so differently from him.
“And what if Tokyo turns out to be a heap of shit as well?”
Kei waltzes his beer bottle between his thumb and forefinger, then drains the last of it.
“I’ll go somewhere else. But at least it won’t be the same shit every day, man.”
“Hey, what about her?”
“Buck teeth?”
“No, the shorter one.”
Kei scoffs as he picks his teeth clean with a skewer.
“I’m beginning to think you have a thing for fat chicks, Kosuke.”
“There’s no fucking way that you could call her fat.”
“I’m sure she’s a nice girl, and I’m sure your parents, if you had any, would love her. But she’s clearly a fucking fat pig.”
“Kei, I can’t remember one single time you ever pointed to a girl in this town and said, ‘she’s okay.’”
“That’s because I haven’t. Look, I’m not saying I’m too good for everybody. I’m just saying that I’m not interested in living in these mountains all my life with some fucking dim peasant girl, waiting about for me to make her pregnant again.”
“In this whole valley. Not one?”
“Not a single fucking one. Show me one fucking chick in this backwater worth my time.”
Kosuke shakes his head.
“Go on, one.”
Kosuke finishes his beer, wipes his fingers on his thighs, and beckons. They cross empty, half-flooded paddy fields, toward the caramel and copper of the tree line. The forest is dense and twisted beneath the shadow of the mountain, never having seen enough of the sun. They pick their way through brambles and duck through exposed roots. They come to a path marked mostly by deer tracks.
After a silent mile, a brick enclosure, about head high, comes into view. Kosuke leads them off to one side around it. There is a house in the middle of the enclosure and the garden surrounding it is a sight to behold. Water trickles, pebbles are brushed into place, and the plants and rocks sit in harmony.
They hear a small cracking sound. Kosuke first, then Kei, peek over the wall. A thin wisp of smoke drifts up from a foliage fire, which is surrounded by chestnuts in their spiky casings. A small pile of bare Spanish chestnuts sits by the fire, while a linen sack has been fixed above the flames. The smoke wafts through the bag.
But Kosuke does not notice any of that. He is mesmerized by the girl. She sits by her pile, reading her book, occasionally fanning the fire. Her hair is swept up in a bandana to keep the smell of the smoke out, Kosuke presumes. She is very beautiful and the weak golden light only makes her more surreal. Her lips are two slices of red apple skin, and Kosuke aches to know why she paints them like that. He aches to know why—and for whom.
“There,” Kosuke whispers. “There’s one.”
Kei glances down and sees that Kosuke’s penis is pushing against the bricks. Kei sees his quivering bottom lip and unblinking eyes.
“All right,” he whispers back, returning his eyes to the girl. “There’s one.”
She closes her book and shuts her eyes to look up at the sun, unaware of her two observers.
CHAPTER 17: FAVORS
IWATA WALKED THE ILLUMINATED STREETS of Roppongi, passing foreign embassies, international schools, designer boutiques, and modern art galleries. The luxurious Park Residences rose up in the distance. He cut through the rock gardens and cypress trees of Hinokicho Park. The cherry trees surrounding the artificial lake were bare.
Iwata forced his way through the media scrum outside the Park Residences building and identified himself to the officers at the doors. The plush lobby was empty except for the immaculately dressed concierge at his desk. Iwata walked down the sleek corridor, its pink marble floor gleaming. On either side there were modern chairs and tables holding expensive lamps.
A large reproduction of Henry Moore’s Pink and Green Sleepers hung on the wall.
Iwata took the elevator to the penthouse suites. The doors slid open to a tastefully lit corridor, the air smelling faintly of wood and
lemon, the carpet pure wool. There were strange oil paintings of lakes and dancers on dark beaches. Iwata passed the first suite, which belonged to a famous variety show host. At the other end of the corridor, the door to Mina Fong’s apartment was open.
Inside it was a spacious mix of dark greens and champagne yellows, the furniture and surfaces all complementary. The apartment would have been a tranquil space but for the twenty-strong police forensics team.
At the far end of the apartment, curtains billowed out of the open terrace doors. Iwata saw Sakai.
She stood alone, looking out over Tokyo. She hugged herself against the cold, her short hair wild in the wind.
“Sakai.”
“Iwata.”
“You heard what happened?”
Sakai nodded.
“And you know Ezawa killed himself?”
“I spoke to Shindo this morning.” She looked over her shoulder. “You shouldn’t be here, Iwata. If Moroto comes back…”
Below them, traffic ran along straight lines, trains ran along curves. Millions of Tokyoites poured through all available space. Innumerable existences. Aphids skating on a gray lake.
“What’s the deal here, Sakai?”
She puffed out her cheeks.
“Different killer, same sinking feeling. Mina Fong was beaten to death. No real evidence left behind. They’re ramping up the investigation. Not that there’s much else they can throw at this.”
“There must be CCTV in a place like this.”
“Oh, there is. In the car park, elevator, lobby—pretty much everywhere except the residents’ corridors and apartments. And we did pick up footage of an unidentified male on the night of her murder. He spends twenty minutes up here, then he’s back in the elevator. No angle on the face.”
Sakai went back inside, pouring herself coffee from a thermos.
“What does the concierge say?” Iwata said.
“Guy came in through the car park; the concierge never saw him.”
“So he must have access.”
Sakai winced as she sipped the coffee and motioned for them to move away from the forensics team, which was buzzing around a blood-stained wall. They sat at a long, black lacquer dining table—a perverse honeymoon breakfast scene.
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