Nan-Core

by Mahokaru Numata

  Chie had been close to contracting pneumonia, and her doctor had told her she needed complete rest and quiet. Her husband had dropped her at her parents’ home a week ago, and he was supposed to pick her up on Friday. That was in two days’ time.

  “For the time being we have to keep her hidden. He probably knows about the cafe.”

  Ms. Hosoya then told me the fragments of information she had gotten from Chie and her parents. Chie’s husband’s name was Tetsuji Shiomi. He had always enjoyed gambling and became increasingly obsessed with it after his company went under, so he was struggling financially. At the same time, he took to the bottle, getting drunk nearly every day, and beat Chie because she was the nearest thing at hand. It was the typical picture of someone on a downward spiral. It was so textbook that it was hard to believe it was real.

  “They told me he’d been a decent, caring man before they got married. They’d trusted him. The change came the moment the ceremony was over. In time Chie was working hard to support the two of them, putting up with it, hoping that things would someday go back to normal. Even though he’d apparently used up all their money and broken her ribs and teeth from beating her.”

  Something bright white sparked across my frontal lobe. I was momentarily blinded, unable to hear Ms. Hosoya as she spoke. I had never really known what rage felt like until that moment. At the very least, I’d never felt such tremendous anger directed at a single human being before.

  “Two years ago she ran away, unable to bear it anymore, taking with her what little funds she’d managed to stash away. She didn’t tell her parents where she was going because she knew Shiomi would look for her. She said she had been overjoyed when she started working here after some time.”

  I remembered the somehow unstable expression she’d worn when she approached me, asking me to hire her. It was that odd sense of danger that had so thoroughly driven me to distraction.

  “I think Chie became complacent. A year and a half had gone by without anything happening, so she decided it would be safe to call her parents. She hated to think they were worrying about her. She didn’t give them an actual address but she did say she was fine and working in Nara, at a cafe with an area for dogs to run around in.” Ms. Hosoya paused for a moment, sighing under her breath. That was the only time she let her guard down, a hint of tiredness rising to the surface. “I don’t have all the details but it seems that Chie’s parents’ house was quite old, and they’d renovated it using some of Shiomi’s money. Her mother also went through a period as a follower of some new cult I’d never heard of, again borrowing large amounts of money from Shiomi for donations. With such a history between them her parents were so indebted to him that they could barely look him in the eye. He visited them repeatedly, demanding his money back, always pushing for information on Chie. Eventually, they let slip about the call.”

  The full picture was slowly coming into view but I stayed silent, listening intently to her voice so I didn’t miss a single word.

  “Chie hadn’t given them the address, but there aren’t many cafes in Nara that also have a dog run. Going through them one by one he’d track us down eventually.”

  She was right. When Chie was working outside, she was visible from any number of places around the cafe. The idea that Shiomi had once come close to Shaggy Head brought with it another dizzying rush of anger.

  “She said he just turned up without warning. He was leaning against her apartment door one night when she got back from work. When he saw her he clung to her, desperately begging for help, telling her he’d be killed if he didn’t pay the money back.”

  “So what?! That’s no reason to leave without a word!” I half-shouted the words, briefly losing control.

  Ms. Hosoya kept her eyes on me, remaining quiet for a while. When she opened her mouth again, she spoke more slowly. “Shiomi is under pressure from the yakuza. It’s been going on for so long he’s started acting like one himself. He knows all too well how to threaten Chie, how to hit her where she’s most vulnerable.”

  I waited for her to continue but she didn’t say anything else, so I prompted, “By vulnerable, you mean her parents?”

  “There was that, too. He threatened to send the yakuza that were coming for him to her parents’ home, telling her they owed him lots of money, that he’d get it back even if it meant causing them pain. Even worse was the fact that he’d worked out Chie was seeing you.”

  “Shit. He went that far?”

  “I’m sure he threatened to harm you, telling her that anyone messing with another man’s wife had to pay. I think it was the photos, though, that were probably the hardest for her to ignore.”

  “What photos?”

  “I don’t really know. Just that he’d threatened to send you some photos from her past, ones she wouldn’t want you to see.”

  We both fell silent. Part of me felt that I didn’t want to ask anything more, but still I had to know. “Did you find out about what work Chie did when she was living with Shiomi?”

  “Not specifically. But I think the photos she didn’t want you to see are probably related.”

  It wasn’t hard to imagine the kind of photos they’d be. I felt ready to cry and wail aloud. I didn’t want Ms. Hosoya to see how badly my lips were quivering. I envisioned untold numbers of men jacking off as they flicked through photos of Chie in various indecent positions.

  “She had no choice but to become Shiomi’s puppet, just as before. She couldn’t refuse him when he told her to steal all that money from you. I don’t have any details, but seeing how emaciated she is, there’s no doubt he had her working hard to bring in more money.”

  “I’ll kill him.” The words leapt from my mouth, startling even myself. At the same time I felt a wave of something like rapture course through me.

  Ms. Hosoya frowned, giving me a sharp look. “You can’t think like that.”

  “What else can I do? Report it to the police?” Ms. Hosoya must have been well aware that reporting anything was only a stopgap solution, setting off a game of cat-and-mouse. “Whatever we do, the moment Shiomi finds out Chie is missing he’ll be here to have words with me.”

  The decision came naturally, without conscious thought. I would lure Shiomi and then kill him. If I didn’t, I was certain my anger would eat me alive. I hadn’t been able to protect my mother, so I wanted to protect Chie no matter what happened.

  “There’s a chance he’ll come right here. I got the impression that Shiomi was under a lot of pressure, too. So we have to be quick in moving Chie somewhere else.”

  What would the kind woman before me think, I wondered, if she found out I had the blood of a murderer running through my veins? The notion just popped into my mind.

  When I imagined running a sharp blade through Shiomi’s body, I felt a numb burst of something like elation. Right through the heart, with my own hands. I felt confident that I could do it. My blazing rage had already blasted away the hatred I’d felt for my own blood. I would never have supposed even moments earlier that I could come to terms with being my mother’s son in such a manner. No doubt Dad would have said it was providence, fate. I couldn’t help but feel it myself, the sense that everything happening was somehow predestined.

  Had I thought about it rationally, I might have decided that blood had nothing to do with it at all. Maybe it wasn’t just me, maybe everyone has a killer lying dormant within, waiting for the conditions necessary to rouse up and fall into place. How else were acts like genocide or war possible? I remembered reading in some book that senseless acts of killing increase during peacetime.

  “At the very least, boss, we need to decide our plan of action. It won’t be long before people start to arrive.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall. There was less than half an hour before the cafe opened at nine. Chie was probably awake by now. The lack of options meant I didn’t have to waste any time pondering the decision. I hated to let Chie out of my sight, but the only recourse I had was to accept Ms. Hos
oya’s offer to take her in. The weather being the way it was, the cafe would be quiet. I asked her to take Chie back early that afternoon, then to take a few days off to stay with her and get some rest. We were discussing how to work out the workers’ schedule for when she was away when Nachi turned up and called out, “Morning!”

  While Ms. Hosoya bundled him off to one side and took him through the extra hours, I took Chie’s breakfast up on a tray.

  To my surprise, she was still sound asleep. I was suddenly anxious that the pills had been too strong, but her breathing was even and her expression placid. Her eyes were moving under her eyelids and her eyebrows were twitching. She was probably dreaming. A faint smile spread like a soft veil across her too-prominent cheekbones. It was as though she knew I was there, like she was smiling at me.

  She was back, and that was enough. It didn’t matter what had happened or what kind of work she’d been involved in. As I watched her, there was no doubt in my mind. She deserved my appreciation, if anything, for having made it through such exceptional hardship. My mother had been a prostitute, too. With that in mind, I couldn’t help but find the word “fate” floating into my mind once again.

  The rain showed no sign of letting up, even after lunch. On such days, only the more eccentric of our customers ventured out, usually regulars that knew each other and who liked to relax around a table for hours, gossiping or boasting about their pets. The dogs, used to the routine, stretched out lazily on the floor, as though the gloom and rain were too much for them to handle. They wagged their tails obligingly each time their masters broke into laughter.

  The cafe was peaceful, salon-like. I spent the whole time thinking of how I was going to kill Shiomi.

  My mother had stopped killing once she met Dad. But it was different for me. If I hadn’t met Chie, I was sure I would have lived my whole life without taking another’s, without the killer inside me ever waking up. This would be the first and last murder. By killing Shiomi, I was protecting Chie. I had to be reborn as someone worthy to be her partner, I had to be strong and filled with vigor, and I had to sever all links with the old, indecisive me. Killing Shiomi would serve as a rite of passage. Successfully pulling it off would prove once and for all that I’d accepted in the truest sense that I am my mother’s son. So I had no choice but to kill him.

  I had to avoid being caught once it was done, of course. Getting arrested would mean not being able to make Chie happy. For that reason I needed a little more time, enough to plan and prepare everything carefully. Shiomi wasn’t scheduled to collect Chie from her home in Okayama for two days, so I hoped to have at least that long.

  This was, as it turned out, optimistic. Shiomi discovered that Chie was no longer at home before the day was out, perhaps by calling her home or going over to check on her. He called soon afterwards, a little after one p.m. Instead of the cafe, however, he called Ms. Hosoya’s cell phone. He’d probably gotten the number from Chie’s parents. Her phone rarely rang during work hours, and it was clear from the way her eyes sharpened as soon as she brought the phone to her ear that it was Shiomi.

  “Yes, speaking.” She threw a meaningful look in my direction and went out onto the deck. Nachi was fussing over Clutch, the black pug, and chatting to a group of customers. He gave me a puzzled look but I ignored him and followed her outside. “I’m afraid that’s impossible … She’s still ill … No … That’s none of your business.”

  I leaned over the handrail and looked around, not caring that I was getting wet. Something told me he was nearby, but I couldn’t see anyone, just the gray of the trees getting pelted by the rain. Ms. Hosoya was giving brief responses into the phone. My clothes and hair were already damp from the gusting wind as it carried a fine, mist-like rain that sprayed the deck. I felt an unpleasant sweat springing up. I shifted my weight back and forth, growing impatient. I wanted to snatch the phone from her and talk to Shiomi directly. I wasn’t sure I could hold back the impulse much longer.

  “How much do you want?… No, that’s too much … I can only withdraw so much at a day’s notice. Okay … Fine, I’ll tell him. And you’ll hand over the negatives as well?… I will … And what time do you want me there?”

  Their conversation ended abruptly. Ms. Hosoya stared at the phone, dumbfounded, when she pulled it from her ear.

  “Sounds like he’s been driven into a corner. He said they’d kill him unless he repaid part of his debt immediately. He was so terrified he was barely coherent. I don’t think he was putting on an act.”

  “What did he say about Chie?”

  “He knows she’s here. He wanted me to tell you he’d be here soon to sort things out with you. Right now he wants us to buy Chie’s compromising photos plus the negatives. I’m surprised he’s willing to part with those, actually. They would be a cash cow for him. It’s probably a sign of how desperate he is for quick money.”

  “How much does he want?”

  “He said three million yen. When I told him that was too much on such short notice, he said one million would do, for the first time, anyways. It sounded like he’d already heard from Chie that you had nothing left after the two million she took. I don’t think he’s the type to give up because of something like that, though. He made it clear that this would be just the first time, so we can assume he plans to wring you dry, perhaps hoping to make you borrow money from relatives, or a loan shark, even if you have to put up the cafe as collateral. It’s by sheer chance that he doesn’t have the luxury of time right now.”

  “A million.”

  “He wants the money tonight, at the lookout point at the top of the mountain road.”

  I felt so pathetic for not even having that much money. The only possibility was to borrow it from Dad. I felt bad, knowing I’d left without a word after he’d explained everything about my mother, but it wasn’t the time to worry about such things. We would just about make the deadline if I called and asked him to wire the funds immediately. I was still busily running this through my mind when Ms. Hosoya spoke again, surprising me with what she said.

  “Boss, Shiomi said he wanted me to bring the money, not you.”

  “He said that? Why you?”

  She looked puzzled, but there wasn’t a trace of fear in her expression. “He probably just wants it to be a woman, because we’re not as strong as men. In their wedding photos, he looked shorter than Chie and seemed pretty unfit. And he’s probably hoping I’ll come up with the money if you can’t.”

  Is that why he called her phone? What a fucking coward.

  “Shit. Does he really think I’ll just stand back and do whatever he says?” My rage was starting to boil over.

  “Please stay calm. Right now our first priority is to get the negatives back, so we should play along for the time being. I shouldn’t have any trouble getting a million yen together.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that. I can borrow it from my father.”

  “In that case you can borrow it from him later to pay me back. We can’t spare the time to explain the whole situation to your father, not at the moment.”

  “But that’s—”

  “It’s unlikely Shiomi would offer the negatives for so little in any normal situation, but right now he’s too panicked to consider the consequences, which could work out well for us. If you look at it that way this is an opportunity.”

  I didn’t know what to say anymore. I’d dragged Ms. Hosoya so far into this mess, all because she had doted on Chie like a daughter.

  “Thank you. Thank you, so much, for—”

  “Okay then,” she interrupted. “How about we stop procrastinating and get everything going. I need to withdraw the money and get Chie out of here. We may not have that many customers in today, but the cafe needs to be attended to as well.”

  “Wait, there’s just one thing I want to make clear. I’m going to the lookout point, all right? What time did he tell you to be there tonight?” It was the one thing I couldn’t cede. I had to go in person, otherwise I woul
dn’t be able to kill Shiomi. I would take the one million yen for show, but I had no intention of letting him touch it.

  “Ten. But he’ll be expecting me.”

  “I’m sure he won’t complain, not if I give him the money and don’t make a fuss. He needs the money to weasel his way out of whatever situation he’s in. I’m going. I just can’t let you go, I’m sorry.”

  She considered this for a while, then nodded. “To be honest, that would be a big relief. I was quite scared.”

  16

  I left the cafe at half past eight. The moon was hidden behind the clouds, but thankfully the rain had stopped. I concentrated on each step, firmly planting my feet as I climbed, using a flashlight to light up the muddy path. The lookout that Shiomi had mentioned was some distance below the peak, at the spot where the meandering mountain road came to an end.

  If I followed a narrow path little known to common hikers, it was less than an hour on foot from Shaggy Head to the lookout point. I had wanted more time to plan things carefully, but that couldn’t be helped. In my rucksack I had the one million yen from Ms. Hosoya, a long-blade knife I’d taken from the kitchen, a change of clothes, an extra pair of sneakers in case his blood spattered me, a bunch of hand towels from the cafe, and some other small items. I also had my trusty folding mountain knife stuffed in one of the pockets in my chinos.

  Ms. Hosoya had gone to the area by the train station to withdraw the money immediately after Shiomi’s call. While she was gone I summarized events for Chie and got her ready to leave. She was still a little spaced out, either from the drugs or too much sleep, and helplessly submissive.

  I used the outside stairs to sneak out because I knew Nachi would kick up a fuss if he saw us. I stopped Ms. Hosoya from calling a cab and told her she could use the business car, knowing it would be useful to have for the few days she was looking after Chie. Normally, I tried to keep personal use of the car at a minimum, but the situation had to be taken into account. She seemed a little surprised when I told her it was fine because I was planning to walk to the lookout. Instead of asking why, however, she kept her face solemn and told me to take care.