The Gate of Sorrows

by Miyuki Miyabe

  A sensible woman living alone would be certain to ignore a PUBLIC PHONE caller ID, especially if the caller was persistent. But Keiko was not in a sensible state of mind. She would be no more sensible than Kotaro’s strategy to snare her was sensible.

  She had succeeded in erasing her rival. She would be drunk with victory, but afraid as well. What if she’d overlooked something important?

  Her vigilance and suspicion would make it hard for her to ignore an anonymous call. In fact, an anonymous caller ID would only make her more likely to answer.

  Kotaro heard the ringtone.

  If Keiko was as busy with her career as Ayuko had been, she’d be sure to check her phone at least once this late in the day. If she got off work every day at the same time, she’d be even more likely to keep an eye on her phone. It’s the evening that makes the day worthwhile.

  She picked up after three rings. Kotaro held his breath.

  “Hello?” The voice was quiet, wary. She’d taken the bait. Kotaro gritted his teeth and steadied himself.

  “I’m sorry to call so suddenly. My name is Mishima. From Kumar’s Tokyo office.”

  Kotaro was waiting for her near the corner of the construction site. He bowed deeply. “I apologize for disturbing you this late.”

  It was 10:20 p.m. The stars and moon were invisible. Kotaro could feel the chill north wind through his thin jacket.

  Keiko wore a boldly patterned monochrome one-piece dress and black enamel high heels. If she’d worked that day, this wasn’t what she’d worn to the office. Her pearl earrings matched her pearl necklace. Perhaps her restrained outfit was meant to suggest that she was still in mourning for Ayuko. Her makeup was a mask, skillfully applied. She wore more than a little perfume.

  “It’s this way. Please.” Kotaro gestured lightly toward the operations shack. “We’re sorry to put you out like this.” He stepped forward to meet her as her heels clicked on the sidewalk. With the three inches they added to her height, she was a bit taller than Kotaro.

  “It’s quite all right. If Sei-chan—Seigo—was kind enough to drive all the way out here …”

  “He feels it would be rude to ask you to let him in at this hour.”

  “Why not? He’s a friend.”

  Her loose sleeves cast shadows around her waist. When she said “friend,” the shadows writhed.

  “That’s very kind of you,” Kotaro said and turned toward the shack.

  “Why did he park in such a dark spot?” she asked, calling him to wait.

  “We’re sorry.”

  “Why doesn’t he park in front of my building?”

  “You see, it’s just …” Kotaro scratched his head, pretending to be perplexed. He was worried that if he didn’t use body language, his real feelings would burst through. Shut up and do what I tell you, murderer.

  “The media are dogging him, as I’m sure you can imagine. He wanted to make sure he didn’t inconvenience you, in case he was followed here by paparazzi.”

  The whites of her eyes flashed in the dim light. “Dogged by the media? What do you mean?” She pretended to be flustered. “He’s not under any suspicion, is he?”

  Kotaro had only said that the media was trailing Seigo, yet she couldn’t resist touching on the murder. Her guilt practically oozed out of her.

  “Oh no, of course not. You misunderstand me.” Kotaro waved both hands in an exaggerated gesture. “Ms. Yamashina was on TV quite often. She had a high profile. Reporters are chasing her parents and Mr. Maki for interviews.”

  “Oh, so that’s what you meant.” Her shoulders sagged. “I guess it can’t be helped. But you know, I really don’t mind if he comes up.” She gave a warped smile. Her lipstick was opalescent; in the dim light it seemed to be melting. Kotaro was reminded of a vampire.

  “Mr. Maki is parked on the other side of the shack.” He started walking. The click of her heels was right behind him.

  Earlier that evening, Kotaro had set the trap.

  My name is Kotaro Mishima. I’m calling on behalf of our new president, Seigo Maki. Mr. Maki is distributing some of the late Ayuko Yamashina’s possessions to select people who had a close relationship to the deceased. He’d like to deliver something to you personally. Would that be possible? He’s quite busy, as you can imagine, and he wouldn’t be free until later this evening. Still, he’d like to meet you as soon as possible. If it’s convenient, he’ll park near your residence around 10:00 p.m.

  You will? Thank you! Then shall we agree on the location? Mr. Maki regrets having to ask you to leave your residence, but I believe there is a vacant lot nearby? Yes, the one with the rope around it … Yes, about fifty meters in the direction of the station. He can park off the street there.

  Yes, it’ll be late, but if you can make time, he’d like to go somewhere more comfortable. He’d enjoy the chance to see you, however briefly. As I’m sure you’ll understand, he’s quite depressed.

  Seigo, Seigo, Seigo. For Keiko Tashiro, no bait would be more enticing. Sei-chan was coming to see her. Who cared what he was bringing? He was coming to see her. Maybe the part about a memento was just a ruse. After all, if he wanted her to have something, he could’ve sent someone else. He could’ve mailed it. But he was coming to see her.

  The shadows around her were full of dancing threads. Kotaro realized he wasn’t seeing just the words she had spoken throughout her life. Desires, hopes, prayers, fantasies, jealousy, doubts, fear—every silent thought and emotion also leaves a trace, as words.

  It made sense, once he thought about it. Without language, thinking is nearly impossible.

  “I wonder what he’s brought me?”

  Perhaps she didn’t notice how she sounded, or maybe she just couldn’t keep up the facade. Keiko sounded happy.

  “Ayuko had such good taste. Clothes, jewelry—I’d be happy with anything.”

  The night was deeper beyond the shack. Against the faint light from the street, its silhouette seemed cut from pure darkness. Kotaro walked into the shadows and turned.

  She stopped behind him, surprised. Her white skin and the luster of her pearls still shone faintly. But closer to the shack, the blackness was utter, the color of sin.

  “What—?”

  Galla’s giant form rose up silently behind her. At first Kotaro thought he had hallucinated her; she seemed to have emerged from the earth itself.

  “Where’s the car?”

  Kotaro spoke, but not in answer. “It’s time.”

  The coal-dark wings engulfed them.

  Where are we?

  Darkness. His knees ached. His hands felt gritty. The ground was—no, not ground. Extruded concrete. He’d seen that dull gray many times.

  The roof of the tea caddy building. The skyscrapers glowed above West Shinjuku. The sky was heavy with clouds, cloaking the familiar, shining nightscape in a smoky blur.

  The north wind swept over the roof. He rubbed his arms and stood up. Keiko lay on her side in a fetal position a few feet away, her hands covering her face. That was her first impulse when Galla’s wings closed around her.

  But where was Galla? Kotaro looked this way and that, blinking to sharpen his vision.

  The black-clad warrior crouched at the edge of the roof on the gargoyle’s perch. She held her scythe by the handle, with its ominous blade high above her head.

  There was no moon, no stars. There were no lights on the roof of the tea caddy building, and no lights nearby high enough to shine directly on it.

  But night in the city is never truly dark. Galla, Keiko, and Kotaro stood out from the darkness as dim silhouettes.

  The woman groaned faintly and opened her eyes. Before Kotaro could speak, she leapt to her feet.

  “What’s going on? Where am I?” She sounded half-delirious. Trembling violently, she peered anxiously around her. Her eyes were wild and unfocused. “Whe
re the hell is this? Help! Somebody help me!”

  She dashed toward the edge of the roof. With no time to react, Kotaro put a foot forward to block her. She stumbled and crashed into him.

  Tall women can be surprisingly heavy. For a moment, they both seemed in danger of tumbling over the edge. Limbs entangled, they struggled to regain their footing. The heel of her shoe ground into Kotaro’s instep.

  “Oh, it’s you—”

  “Are you all right?” Kotaro was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. “Please be careful. Try to breathe slowly and don’t panic. You’d better sit down, away from the edge. The wind is cold. You could get a chill.”

  Still half-leaning on him, she stared in confusion and disbelief.

  “You’re that kid from Kumar. Where’s Sei-chan? He’s waiting in his car, right?”

  “If you’ll just be patient, I’ll explain everything. First you’d better sit down.”

  There was nothing to sit on, other than the fragments of the original gargoyle. Keiko squatted next to the largest one with a look of disgust.

  Kotaro was mystified; she didn’t seem to notice Galla. How could she overlook such a huge—

  He glanced toward Galla and nearly shouted with surprise.

  She was gone. The gargoyle was back.

  Camouflage. No, it was mimicry. Kotaro blinked. When that didn’t work, he ground his fists into his eyes. The gargoyle didn’t disappear. Galla had transformed herself. This was the gargoyle that had started it all, the monster that had sent Shigenori off on his investigation. Morphing into the gargoyle seemed to be Galla’s way of saying that she’d fulfilled her part of the bargain. The rest was up to Kotaro.

  “Listen, what am I doing here?” Keiko looked up at him, arms clasped around her knees. “Where’s Sei-chan? You promised he’d give me some of Ayuko’s things.”

  Her initial panic seemed to have passed. Now she was simply complaining. There was no anger or fear in her voice. Either Kotaro had done a stellar job of deceiving her, or she was mocking him.

  “You’re the errand boy, right? Let’s get going then. Take me to Seigo.” Her voice betrayed a flash of irritation, but she suddenly brightened. “Or maybe this is all a surprise? He’s coming here, isn’t he?” She batted her eyelashes in coquettish embarrassment.

  “He hasn’t changed a bit. He used to love giving surprise parties in college—for people’s birthdays or anything, really. He was so good at it.”

  Kotaro looked down at her, a dim silhouette squatting on the roof with her arms around her knees. A dim shadow slowly growing darker, from dark gray to a black deeper than night.

  Keiko Tashiro was turning into her own Shadow, a squatting body bag. Inside it, a wriggling mass of words, like maggots swarming over a corpse.

  Kotaro closed his right eye. Nothing changed. He tried closing his left eye. Everything was dark; he couldn’t see at all.

  “But if we don’t get going soon, I’m going to catch a cold. Where’s Sei-chan hiding?”

  “Keiko Tashiro.”

  At the sound of Kotaro’s voice, the body bag stopped chirping and fell silent.

  “You murdered Ayuko Yamashina.”

  A Shadow in the form of a statuesque woman. Darkness made solid. Its long hair hung motionless in the wind.

  “Why did you do it? Was it because you couldn’t stand to see her marry Seigo? You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

  The maggots writhed violently. Kotaro heard what he saw and saw what he heard.

  why why why why how does he know what did I do did I make a mistake why does this kid know what I did to Ayuko I Sei-chan I Sei-chan Sei-chan Sei-chan Sei-chan

  Kotaro squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block the words from his mind. Otherwise he was sure he would vomit where he stood.

  “Are you crazy?”

  The Shadow, the word-gorged body bag that was Keiko Tashiro, rose to a half crouch, leaning forward with her head cocked. She was ready to flee.

  he can’t know why does he know he’s dangerous why

  “There’s proof. You can’t talk your way out of this.”

  The Shadow froze, still half-crouched.

  no he doesn’t know I’m safe no one suspects no one knows I’ll never let them I couldn’t help it couldn’t help it help it help it

  Eyes opened suddenly in the Shadow. The whites were the color of a maggot’s belly. The pupils were black voids yawning in soft maggot flesh. They bored into Kotaro defiantly.

  “There’s no proof. I’m not that stupid. I thought of everything.”

  Kotaro started in shock. She had confessed.

  No. She had not confessed. Her words had confessed; they knew her crime. Word maggots gorged on dead flesh, the incarnation of her sin, had opened her mouth and testified.

  “You called her while she was in the taxi. Where did you go after you met her in Shibuya?”

  The writhing maggots were silent.

  “Where did you murder her?” Kotaro peered at her questioningly. “It must’ve been a challenge, disposing of the body by yourself. But you didn’t have an accomplice. You used a car, then. Was it yours?”

  no one knows I washed everything it’s gone I got rid of it

  “Thank you. So you killed her in the car. The same car you drove to Shibuya. You said you’d pick her up. How did you kill her?” His tone was matter-of-fact. He was asking about a mundane administrative detail.

  The Shadow’s hand went reflexively to its throat.

  “You strangled her.”

  Ayuko goes to meet a friend from college. The friend picks her up in her car. She suspects nothing. She gets in the car willingly, feels welcome and at home. How about something to drink? She accepts the refreshment with thanks and puts it to her lips …

  “Did you cut her fingers off to make it look like the work of the serial killer?”

  I got rid of everything her phone her purse no one will find them there no one will look for them there I should’ve hidden her too that face that bitch

  “But cutting off her fingers wasn’t enough. You sent letters with Ayuko’s belongings. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  The Shadow finally withdrew its hand from its throat. The hand disappeared into darkness.

  “Or maybe you really are the Serial Amputator? Tomakomai and Akita and Mishima and Totsuka? Did you kill those other people too?”

  The Shadow became suddenly human. Keiko Tashiro had returned, a fashionably dressed woman in high heels on the roof of an empty building at the edge of West Shinjuku. Her perfume filled the air.

  “You have got to be crazy.” It was her voice. Kotaro heard rather than saw it. “Stop talking nonsense. Why am I standing here listening to someone accuse me of being a serial killer?”

  Kotaro was stunned. What had just happened?

  “I don’t know anything about those murders out in the sticks. I just put them to good use.”

  Keiko Tashiro, the real Keiko Tashiro, had just confessed. She had murdered Ayuko Yamashina.

  But she wasn’t finished. Perhaps he had touched a nerve, or maybe she was just cold; she wrapped her arms around herself and paced back and forth in irritation.

  “He’s killed four people already,” she said, almost spitting the words. “Ayuko’s just another notch on his belt, you know? If you’re gonna do something, may as well do it with style. The public loves it.”

  The public loves it? Yeah, they do. Everyone’s eating it up. TV. Internet. Good people and bad people. Smart people and stupid people. Everybody loves murder.

  “Still, sending those letters to the media was going too far.”

  At the sound of his voice, she stopped pacing and looked at him with doubt in her eyes.

  “Why? What was going too far?”

  “The Serial Amputator might not be too pleased. He could just
as easily contact the media and tell them you’re a fake. You didn’t consider that possibility?”

  She stared back at him in the dimness. It struck Kotaro that the whites of her eyes were not very white. The maggot-belly eyes he’d seen moments ago—the eyes of the Shadow—were they the eyes of her soul?

  “Why should I care what some pervert thinks? I wanted the letters to look like he wrote them, that’s all. He hasn’t made any statements. He’s never sent any letters. So I thought I’d spice things up a little. Why would that upset him?”

  Kotaro couldn’t speak. He was dumbfounded.

  “Ayuko was going around like this big celebrity. The Serial Amputator was killing people out in the sticks. He’d jump at the chance to kill someone like her. I actually went out of my way to make him look good.”

  Kotaro found it hard to speak. It was like she was throttling him, too. Finally, he asked the question.

  “Why did you have to cut off all of her fingers? The Serial Amputator has never done anything like that. You must’ve had a reason.”

  The woman was crazy. Her actions were perverse. Yet Kotaro felt like praying. Please, tell me you had a reason. Anything logical. Tell me you thought it would fool the police. Please.

  “I told you. I wanted to make a big splash. You know, I think I actually got kind of carried away. The more fingers I chopped off, the more fun it was.”

  Kotaro felt something in the deepest part of his being, something at his very core, slowly cracking off.

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  His voice rang in his ears with a metallic tone. Something distinctively human in that voice was missing. It was as if his mind itself had broken off and fallen into the deepest chasms of his personality, crashing from wall to wall as it plunged into the abyss.

  “It’s strange the police haven’t taken an interest in you yet,” he added.

  Or maybe they already had. This bimbo simply hadn’t noticed it. He’d been wise to take precautions before he approached her.

  “Why do you say that?” she said with a sneer. “I took care of everything. I was really careful not to leave fingerprints or anything. Nobody can trace those letters. I even posted them from places neither of us ever went to.”