Out

by Natsuo Kirino

  'Have you eaten?' Jumonji asked. He had been drinking iced coffee while he waited. Masako thought for a moment, then shook her head.

  'No, not yet.'

  'Me either,' he said. 'Let's order.' Masako decided on spaghetti and Jumonj i flagged down the man in the suit. He ordered spaghetti for himself as well and, without consulting Masako, told him to bring their coffee after the meal. 'It's been a long time,' he said, when the man had gone. 'It was great running into you like that after all these years.' His manner was fawning, and he seemed almost afraid to look her in the eye. Why should he be nervous?

  'What is it you wanted to talk about?'

  'I appreciate your making time,' he said, giving a slight shrug.

  'You said you couldn't discuss it over the phone.'

  'You haven't changed,' he said.

  'What do you mean by that?' she asked, taking a sip of water. It was ice cold.

  'You were always so businesslike.'

  'And you could afford to be a little more that way yourself. Why don't you get to the point? I think I know what's coming anyway.' Masako recalled what he'd been like in the old days, when he helped out in the collection department. His look had been all biker punk, with part of his eyebrows shaved off and tightly permed hair; and there had been rumours that he was actually in a gang. He had cleaned up his act considerably since then, transforming himself into a fairly presentable young man, but it was still the same Jumonji.

  'The point?' he said, scratching his head. 'You're amazing.' Just then, the waitress arrived with their spaghetti. Masako picked up her fork and began eating. She had planned to skip dinner and here she was sharing a meal with him - of all people. The thought made her smile to herself. 'What's so funny?' Jumonji asked.

  'Nothing.' She suddenly realised why she had wanted to punish herself by going hungry: it was for suppressing her desire to be free. She wiped her mouth with the paper napkin when she'd finished the spaghetti. Jumonj i had finished as well and immediately lit a cigarette.

  'So what's this business you mentioned?' she said.

  'Before we get to that, I want to offer my congratulations.'

  'For what?'

  'The whole thing was so cool,' he said, grinning at her, apparently without a hint of irony.

  'What was so cool?'

  'Koganei Park,' he whispered. Masako stared into his eyes, stock-still.

  'So you know about that?'

  'Yes.'

  'Everything?'

  'Pretty much.'

  'Kuniko blabbed, didn't she? For a lousy ¥440,000.'

  'You shouldn't blame her,' he said.

  'Maybe not,' said Masako. 'Still I'm impressed that you figured it out.'

  'Just my morbid curiosity, I guess,' he said. Masako stubbed her cigarette out among the butts in his overflowing ashtray. She'd lost.

  'And the business proposition?' she asked.

  Jumonji leaned forward, lowering his voice. 'I'm wondering whether you'd be interested in helping to dispose of some more bodies. It seems there's a fairly steady supply of people nobody wants found. We'd take care of them.' Masako stared at him, mute with amazement. She'd been expecting threats and blackmail, not a pitch for a start-up business. But then she should have realised that a group of poor housewives weren't exactly a likely target for extortion, unless it was for the insurance money. 'What do you think?' Jumonji said, looking at her in an almost deferential way.

  'What have you got in mind?' she said.

  'I would drum up the business. It involves a pretty rough crowd and I wouldn't want you to have to deal with that. Once we took delivery on a shipment, you would cut it up and then I'd get rid of it. I know a place with a huge incinerator, so it would all disappear without a trace.'

  'Why can't you just throw it in there without cutting it up?'

  'It wouldn't work. Shifting a whole body is too risky. Somebody would notice it before it got to the incinerator. But cut up in pieces so it looked like all the rest of the garbage, it should be okay. The other hitch is that we have to get it all the way to Fukuoka.'

  'Are you planning to ship it?' Masako said, the look of amazement returning to her face. Was he really serious?

  'Exactly,' he said. 'In five-kilo packages, say a dozen or so. Then I would fly down to meet them and take them to the dump. What could be simpler?'

  'Then all you want me to do is cut them up?'

  'That's right. Are you interested?' The coffee had arrived. Jumonji took a sip, desperately trying to read her expression. Masako noticed that there was something intelligent about his eyes.

  'What made you think of all this?' she asked.

  'I wanted to find something we could do together.'

  'We? You and me?'

  'I just thought it would be .. . cool, working with you.'

  'I'm not sure I understand.'

  'It doesn't matter. Just call it a quirk of mine.' He ran his fingers through the soft hair hanging over his ears. Masako turned and took a quick look at the nearly empty restaurant. No sign of anyone from the factory. At the cash register, the man in the black suit had dropped his formal expression and was chatting amiably with a young waitress. As Masako hesitated, Jumonji appeared to be getting anxious. 'This loan shark racket has a short life-span,' he said. 'A few years at most. By next year I'll be looking for something else. I just wanted to do something with a bit more kick to it. I guess you must think I'm flaky.'

  'But would you really be making any money?' she interrupted. Jumonji nodded.

  'A lot more than a two-bit loan shark,' he said.

  'How much would your customers pay? - per unit, let's say.' Having decided she might be interested, Masako asked the obvious question. Jumonji's tongue flicked across his narrow, well-shaped lips as he debated how much to tell her. 'Don't beat about the bush,' she said. 'If we can't be frank about this, we can't work together.'

  'Okay, I'll tell you. The source I spoke to promised eight million. He wants three million of that for bringing in the business. That leaves five: what would you say to two for me and three for you?' Masako lit a cigarette.

  'I won't do it for less than five,' she said, almost without missing a beat.

  Jumonji choked. 'Five million?'

  'Five million,' she repeated. 'You might think this is easy, but it's not. It's a dirty, stinking business, and you get nightmares afterward. You can't understand until you've done it. And you need a place to do it in, a bathroom. But I wouldn't want to use my house; it's too risky. Where were you thinking we'd do it?'

  'Jonouchi-san told me you did the first one in your bathroom, so I was hoping we could use it again,' he said, looking dismayed.

  'Why not at your place? You're single.'

  'It's an apartment,' he said. 'The bath is too small.'

  'But my place is almost impossible. We'd have to find a time when nobody else was home, and then get it in without the neighbours noticing. The "unit" comes with bits of telltale belongings; getting rid of those is tricky.' Masako stopped for a moment, remembering how the Brazilian had retrieved the key. Jumonji held his breath, waiting for her to continue. 'And it's virtually impossible for one person,' she said. 'And there's the clean-up afterward, which is almost as bad as the job itself. I couldn't do that at my house again for less than five million.' Jumonji picked up his empty coffee cup and put it to his lips, visibly perplexed. Realising the cup was empty, he signalled the waitress, who was still chatting with the manager, and she brought a pot of weak coffee over. When she'd gone, he spoke again.

  'What if I get it into your house, take care of the clothes, and handle the disposal?'

  'I think the problem is that three million is too much for your middle man. He's telling you eight, but you can bet he's charging ten. So he ends up with five million before we ever see anything. I assume we're talking about some yakuza friend of yours?'

  'I see what you mean,' said Jumonji, finger at his lips as he considered what she'd said. 'You've got a point.' She hadn't exactly said
he'd been taken, but that was the implication.

  'So you'll either have to ask him to take a cut or figure out if he's really getting ten million, one or the other.'

  'Okay. But how would you feel about a million five for me and three and a half for you?'

  'No dice,' she said, glancing at her watch. It was nearly 11.00; time for her to be getting to work.

  'Just give me a minute, would you?' he said, taking out his cell phone, apparently with the aim of conducting the negotiations on the spot. Masako took it as her cue to go to the bathroom. She stared at her face in the mirror there for a moment before pressing a paper towel to her oily forehead. What was she getting herself into? She felt anxious, but also a bit excited. Remembering she had a lipstick in her purse, she fished it out and applied a dab of red to her mouth, which produced a look of surprise when she got back to the table.

  'What?' she said.

  'Nothing. I think we worked it out.'

  'That was quick.'

  'I just appealed to his better instincts,' he laughed. Masako remembered that, with a little instruction, he'd been good enough at his job even in the old days.

  'And what did you decide?'

  'I told him we couldn't do it for eight, but he swore that until we'd proved we could deliver, that was the ceiling. So in the end he reduced the finder's fee to two million; which leaves two for me and four for you. The one condition is that if anything happens, we're on our own and he'll deny he's ever heard of us.'

  'Of course he will, which is exactly why you should have asked for more right from the start.' Masako ran through the numbers again in her head. If Yoshie agreed to help her, she could pay her a million. Kuniko was definitely out; and she'd decide what to do about Yayoi later.

  'What do you think?' He sounded more confident this time.

  'You've got a deal,' said Masako.

  'Great!' he said, sighing with relief.

  'Just a couple more things.'

  'Yes?'

  'I'd prefer we use your car for the deliveries. And I want you to get a set of scalpels from a medical supply store. I'm not sure we could manage it again without better equipment.' Jumonj i scratched his cheek as he listened to her requests.

  'It's like being a butcher, isn't it?' he said.

  'With meat and bone and steaming offal,' she added. Jumonji clenched his teeth. 'And there's just one more question I want to ask you. How did you get Kuniko to spill the beans?'

  'I told her I'd cancel her loan,' he said, laughing cheerfully for the first time since they'd sat down. 'Her story cost me ¥440,000, so we need to do some brisk business to recoup my investment.'

  'And you're okay with two million?' she asked.

  'I am, if there's a decent turnover.'

  'Do you really think there's that kind of demand?'

  'There's only one way to find out,' he said. She found his enthusiasm appealing. Nodding, she put the money for her share of the bill on the table and stood up. The whole thing still seemed far-fetched to her - at least for the moment.

  4

  The wind, which before had been howling ominously in the upper reaches of the sky, had died down while she was in the restaurant, but now the air was warm and close, announcing the approach of the typhoon. With her hair plastered to her head, Masako found herself worrying how the weather would be in the morning, after the shift. She turned on the radio in the car, but she reached the factory before she could find a weather report.

  In one corner of the parking lot, a small, prefabricated guardhouse was under construction. She stared at it for a moment, but her mind was elsewhere, preoccupied with Jumonji's proposal. Before fully realising what she was doing, she'd entered a new and very foreign world; and regardless of whether her decision had been the right one, she was excited by the mere fact of having made it. There was something almost amusing about the way her new concern had driven the familiar sights and sounds of the parking lot right out of her head.

  As she slipped out of her tennis shoes in the entrance hall of the factory, she realised that a woman she didn't at first recognise was standing in front of her.

  'Masako.' The voice was familiar - Yayoi's. Her shoulder-length hair had been cut short, revealing the graceful nape of her neck. Her eyebrows had been drawn on, narrow and arched, and she wore red lipstick. The change was startling, and it was more than just her appearance. The dreamy, ineffectual Yayoi was gone, replaced by a woman who seemed younger but more certain of herself.

  'Sorry,' Masako said. 'You startled me. I didn't know who it was at first. You're a different person.'

  'So they tell me.' She smiled bashfully, but even this familiar gesture seemed more confident. 'But you look different yourself. You're wearing make-up.'

  'What?'

  'The lipstick,' Yayoi said. Masako had completely forgotten that she'd put it on in the bathroom at the restaurant. When she touched her finger to her lips, it came away stained sticky red. 'Don't,' said Yayoi, taking her hand. 'You'll wipe it off. Leave it. It looks nice on you.'

  'Are you starting back today?' Masako asked.

  'No, I just came by to show my face. I brought some cakes and wanted to apologise to the boss and Komada-san for all the trouble I've caused.'

  'Then you're heading home?'

  'With the typhoon, I wanted to be home with the boys. They say it'll come inland by the morning.'

  'Then you should get home.'

  'I also paid Kuniko and the Skipper,' she whispered close to Masako's ear, pressing a thick brown envelope into her hand.

  'What's this?' Masako asked. Ignoring the question, Yayoi gave a quick bow.

  'I start again tomorrow. See you then,' she said, slipping past her through the door. Her whole manner was different, brisker and more self-assured than the old Yayoi. Masako ran after her as she marched across the green Astroturf and down the stairs.

  'Wait,' she called. Yayoi turned, smiling brightly. 'What's in here?' said Masako, waving the envelope. Yayoi held up two fingers - the two million yen she'd promised. 'Did you get the insurance already?' Masako asked in a softer voice.

  Yayoi shook her head: 'No, not yet. I told my parents I needed to pay off a loan. I didn't want you to have to wait any longer.'

  'You didn't need to do that.'

  'I prefer it this way. Kuniko was getting impatient, and I know how much the Skipper needs it. I just felt like it was time.'

  'Still, it seems too soon.'

  'I know, but this way I can finally feel free of the whole thing.' Masako had wanted to say that it was too soon for Yayoi to have changed so radically, but she knew the comment would have fallen on deaf ears. Masako herself had changed - it was natural enough that Yayoi should want to, too.

  'I understand,' she said. 'Thanks.' Yayoi gave a quick wave and disappeared down the stairs into the humid darkness.

  Masako went back inside. After the health inspection, she skirted the lounge and headed straight for the bathroom. Once she was safely in a stall, she opened the envelope. Inside she found two bundles of ¥10,000 bills, still in their bank wrappers. As she shoved them to the bottom of her bag, she realised that this toilet stall was the only place in the factory where you could find any privacy.

  Back in the lounge, she found Yoshie and Kuniko sipping tea together. They had already changed for work and were talking quietly, but their faces betrayed a kind of giddy excitement.

  'Did you see Yayoi?' Yoshie called, waving for Masako to join them.

  'I ran into her on her way out.'

  'Did you get it?'

  'You mean money?'

  'We got ¥500,000 apiece,' she said. Kuniko looked down, her cheeks flushed with pleasure. Hers will be gone in no time, Masako thought. And now that she's had a taste of easy money, there was no telling what she'd do next time. They would have to watch her.

  'I imagine it was hard for her to come up with it,' said Kuniko.

  'I'm sure it was. I told her we could wait, but she insisted,' Yoshie said, though she cou
ldn't help still sounding cheerful at this sudden windfall.

  'Then don't worry about it,' Masako said.

  'And you don't mind?' asked Yoshie, giving her a concerned look. Masako shook her head and smiled. She had rationalised the fact that she was getting more - and hiding it from them - by telling herself that the money could be used, if-necessary, for a getaway, or as working capital for this new business. Since she was going to use it for the good of the group, she had no qualms about keeping it secret in the meantime.

  'It's fine,' she said.

  'Well, we're grateful,' said Kuniko, clutching the bag that held her share as if someone might try to snatch it from her. Masako glanced at her, fighting to control her temper.

  'This means you can repay your loans,' she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Kuniko smiled vaguely but said nothing. 'What are you going to do with it while you're downstairs?' she asked, as she was pulling back her hair and fastening it with a barrette.

  'We were just talking about that,' Yoshie told her, looking around the room. 'We thought we'd ask someone to put it in a locker.' The only people entitled to lockers were the regular employees who'd been there three years or more, and the Brazilians, who were said to be more concerned about their privacy. But the number of regular employees was almost too small to count.

  'Maybe I should ask Miyamori-san?' said Yoshie, turning again to look around her. She found Kazuo sitting in a corner of the room with the rest of the Brazilians. He was smoking a cigarette, his legs stretched out in front of him on the floor. His eyes seemed to avoid the corner where Masako and her friends were sitting.

  'What about Komada-san?' Masako suggested. As health inspector, Komada was one of the few regular employees; but as she said her name, Masako realised it would be unwise to let her know they'd come into large sums of money. 'No, maybe not,' she corrected herself.

  'No, I've got a feeling we can trust Miyamori to keep quiet about it,' Yoshie said. 'I'll go ask him.'

  'Will he understand you?' Kuniko sounded sceptical, but Yoshie ignored her and got to her feet.

  When he saw Yoshie approaching, Kazuo shot Masako a questioning glance. She could see the wounded look in his eyes as he waited to hear what Yoshie had to say. Masako would have preferred to avoid any dealings with him, but it was none of her business what those two did with their money.