Journey Under the Midnight Sun

by Keigo Higashino

  Ryo ate in silence.

  ‘You don’t live with your parents?’ she asked again.

  ‘What is this, an interrogation?’ He snorted.

  ‘Why do you do what you do? Is it the money?’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘You don’t have sex?’

  ‘I do when I need to. If you hadn’t gone home today, I would have done it with you.’

  ‘Bet you’re glad you didn’t have to, then.’

  ‘I wasn’t glad to lose the money.’

  ‘Look at you, a big businessman. This is all just a game to you, isn’t it? You’re like a little boy.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Ryo glared at her. ‘Say that again.’

  Namie swallowed. She hadn’t expected the look she was seeing in his eyes, and she felt embarrassed to have flinched.

  ‘I said you’re a little boy. What do you think these ladies are, your toys? No wonder you don’t have sex with them. I bet you can’t even get them off before you blow your wad.’

  Ryo took another sip of beer. No sooner had he set down the can than he was out of his chair, rushing her with feral speed.

  ‘Wait! What are you —’ she managed to shout before he had her off the chair and on her back in the living room. She hit the tatami mats hard enough to knock the wind out of her and leave her gasping for breath.

  She tried to sit up and he was on her again. He’d already undone the zipper on his jeans.

  ‘You want this? C’mon! Use whatever lips you want, baby, I ain’t picky!’ He gripped her face in his hands and thrust his penis towards it. ‘What’s the matter? I’m gonna blow my wad fast, right? Show me what you got!’

  His penis was growing erect, twitching. She saw a vein in clear relief running down its side before she managed to get her hands on his thighs and push, struggling to turn her head away.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he growled. ‘My little-boy cock scare you?’

  Namie closed her eyes and groaned. ‘Stop – please, I’m sorry.’

  Several seconds later, she was released to fall back on the floor. Ryo was walking back towards the dining room table, zipping his fly as he sat down and went back to eating. It was as if nothing had happened. Only the way he jabbed at his food with his chopsticks gave any hint of his irritation.

  Namie steadied her breath and smoothed back her hair. Her heart was still racing. Her eyes flickered to the television in the next room. The same two words still hung on the screen:

  GAME OVER

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘There are so many other jobs you could do. Why this?’

  ‘I’m just selling something people want. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Just selling something… right.’ She stood and walked towards the door, shaking her head. ‘I guess I’m too old to understand.’

  She was past the table and at the door putting on her shoes when he called out to her. ‘Hey, lady.’

  She looked around, one foot still raised in the air.

  ‘Interested in a job opportunity?’

  ‘What kind of opportunity?’

  ‘Nothing crazy,’ he said. ‘I got something needs selling.’

  It was Tuesday of the second week in July and summer vacation was so close Tomohiko could taste it in the air.

  He went up to get his graded English exam when his name was called and immediately wished he hadn’t. He’d been ready for a disappointment, but this was worse than he’d imagined. Every subject this term was the same. He didn’t have to look hard for the reason: he hadn’t studied for exams one bit. This was unusual for him. He might have a little bit of a bad streak, and there was the shoplifting every now and then, but for the most part Tomohiko took school seriously.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried. He’d sat down at his desk to take a stab at learning the bare minimum he thought he’d need to pass his exams. But his mind was so thoroughly elsewhere that no matter how hard he attempted to focus on his studying, his thoughts dragged him away.

  Which all led to the test result he held in his hand.

  Better not let Mom see this one. He sighed and crammed the paper into his bag.

  After classes Tomohiko headed to the café in the lounge at the New Japan Air Hotel in Shinsaibashi. It was a sunny, spacious place, where you could look out through large windows at the hotel’s central courtyard.

  As always, Yuko Hanaoka was there, reading a book at a corner table. She had on a white hat that hung low over thick-rimmed sunglasses.

  ‘Why are you hiding your face? What’s up?’ Tomohiko said, sitting across from her.

  The waitress came over before she had a chance to respond. Tomohiko was about to wave her away, when Yuko whispered, ‘No, order something. I want to talk here.’

  Tomohiko raised an eyebrow at the tension in her voice and ordered an iced coffee.

  Yuko reached out for her Campari soda, already two-thirds gone, and drained the rest. She sighed. ‘How long till school’s out?’

  ‘End of the week.’

  ‘You working over summer vacation?’

  ‘You mean… my regular job?’

  She smiled a little. ‘Of course. What else would I be asking about?’

  ‘I don’t plan to, no. Lot of hours, not a lot of money. Why bother?’

  She pulled a pack of Mild Sevens out of her white handbag. Lifting the cigarette to her lips, she paused, a flash of irritation crossing her face.

  Tomohiko’s iced coffee came. He drank half of it down in one gulp. He was terrifically thirsty.

  ‘Why aren’t we going to the room like always?’ he asked in a low voice.

  Yuko lit her cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke. Then she stubbed it out in the glass ashtray even though there was hardly a centimetre of ash at the end.

  ‘There’s a problem.’ She glanced around the café then stared right at him. ‘I think the old man found out.’

  ‘What old man?’

  ‘My husband, you idiot.’ She shrugged as though she were trying to make light of it and failing.

  ‘You mean he found out about us?’

  ‘Not everything. But it’s only a matter of time before he does.’

  ‘Whoa…’ Tomohiko felt the blood rush to his face.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ Yuko said. ‘I should have been more careful.’

  ‘How’d he find out?’

  ‘A friend of my husband’s saw me talking with a young man. Having a little too much fun. You get the picture.’

  Tomohiko looked around, suddenly conscious of the other people in the café.

  Yuko chuckled. ‘According to him, he suspected before his friend said anything. I was acting different, he says. He’s right, you know. I do feel like I’ve changed in a lot of ways since I started seeing you. Maybe that’s why I forgot to be careful.’ She scratched her head through her hat.

  ‘So, what, did he interrogate you or something?’

  ‘He wanted to know who it was, of course. He wanted a name.’

  ‘You told him?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘I wasn’t saying that!’ Tomohiko drank the rest of his iced coffee. Still thirsty, he gulped down his glass of water.

  ‘I just played dumb. He doesn’t have proof. Not yet, anyway. He’ll get it, though. Knowing him, he might even hire a private detective.’

  ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘No, it’s not. And there was something else I noticed.’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘My address book. I think he was looking at it. I had it hidden in my dresser drawer… it had to be him.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you wrote my name in there.’

  ‘No name. Just a phone number. But he might have figured it out anyway.’

  ‘Can you get someone’s name and address from a number?’

  ‘I don’t know. I bet if you really needed to you could find a way. He’s pretty well-connected, my husband.’

  Tomohiko was beginni
ng to form an image of Yuko’s husband in his mind and it frightened him. He’d never imagined what it might feel like to be the target of a grown man’s anger. Now that he knew, he didn’t like it.

  ‘So what do we do?’ Tomohiko asked, his mouth already dry again.

  ‘I don’t think we should see each other. Not for a while at least.’

  Tomohiko nodded listlessly. Even as a junior in high school he saw the sense in what she was saying.

  ‘But, since we’re here anyway,’ she said, downing the last drop of her Campari soda and picking up the bill, ‘shall we?’

  Their relationship had already been going on for a month, beginning with the encounter at the apartment. Yuko Hanaoka had been the woman with the ponytail.

  It wasn’t that he’d fallen for her, Tomohiko told himself. He just couldn’t forget how his first time had felt. When he masturbated, it was her he’d see in his mind’s eye. The sheer intensity of the act had swept away all his other fantasies. He’d lasted three days before he called her. She was only too eager to suggest they meet.

  He’d first learned her full name between the sheets of a hotel bed. She was thirty-two years old. Tomohiko told her things, too. His real name, what school he went to, his home phone number. He tried not to think about his promise to Ryo. The reality of it was that her skills in bed had disarmed him to the point where he had trouble thinking straight about anything.

  ‘It was my friend who invited me to that party,’ she told him. ‘You remember, the one with short hair? Anyway, it sounded like she’d been a few times before, but that was my first time. I was so nervous. I’m glad it was you, Tomohiko,’ she said, snuggling under his arm. She knew how to make him melt like that.

  Tomohiko was surprised to hear that she had paid twenty thousand yen for the party. That meant Ryo had taken more than half for himself. No wonder he had been so businesslike about the whole thing.

  Tomohiko met with Yuko two or three times a week. Her husband was always busy, she said, so she could come home a little late without raising any suspicions. On her way out of the hotel she would slip him five thousand yen, telling him it was his ‘allowance’.

  Even though he knew that sleeping with another man’s wife was wrong, Tomohiko was drunk on the attention and the sex. Their regular routine continued, even when his finals loomed close. Which was what had landed him in his current quandary with his grades.

  ‘I don’t know if I like not being able to see you,’ Tomohiko said. They were in bed.

  ‘You think I’m happy about it?’ she said from beneath him.

  ‘Isn’t there something we can do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t think now is the best time.’

  ‘So when will be a good time?’

  ‘I don’t know that either. The sooner the better, of course. I’m not getting any younger.’

  Tomohiko embraced her slender body and went at it again. Thinking this might be their last time, he didn’t want to leave anything undone. He wanted to pour all of his energy into her. Again and again she screamed, each time arching her body backwards like a drawn bow, her hands and legs extending, trembling.

  It was after the third round that she announced in her usual languid voice that she had to go and pee.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, rolling away. She sat up in bed, naked, but then she gave a little gasp and lay back down again. Tomohiko thought she must have felt faint. It had happened many times before. But this time, she wasn’t moving. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep and gave her shoulder a shake. She didn’t stir. A horrible scenario flashed through Tomohiko’s mind. He got out of bed and tried tapping her eyelids with his fingers. There was no response.

  He began to tremble violently.

  No way. This isn’t happening!

  He held his hand to her chest. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat.

  Tomohiko was almost home when he realised he still had the hotel room key in his pocket. He gritted his teeth. If the key wasn’t in the room the hotel staff would suspect something. He shook his head. They’ll suspect something when they find a woman’s dead body in their bed.

  Tomohiko had considered calling the hospital from the hotel room. But then he would have to admit that he was with her. He couldn’t do that. Besides, what was the point in calling a doctor, he thought. She was already gone.

  He had changed quickly, gathered everything that was his, and fled the hotel, trying to avoid everyone he could on his way out.

  He was already on the subway when the realisation dawned on him that running hadn’t solved a thing. There was someone who knew about him already, possibly the worst person of all: Yuko’s husband. He would put two and two together and realise that a high school student named Tomohiko Sonomura had been with his wife and he would tell the police. Once the police were on it, the truth would come out in a matter of hours.

  It’s over, he thought. Once word gets out, I’m ruined for life.

  He arrived home to find his mother and younger sister in the middle of dinner. He told them he’d already eaten and went straight to his room. Sitting at his desk, he thought about Ryo Kirihara.

  If the police found out about Yuko, they’d find out about what was going on in that apartment and that would be bad news for Ryo. What he was doing was enabling underage prostitution. He was a pimp – even if his prostitutes happened to be boys, and his johns women in their thirties.

  I need to talk to him.

  He ran out of his room and picked up the hallway phone. The television was still blaring in the living room. He prayed that whatever his mom and sister were watching, it was interesting enough to hold their attention for five minutes.

  Ryo answered immediately. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, his tone revealing that he already expected something was up.

  ‘It’s bad,’ was all Tomohiko could say before his tongue twisted in his mouth.

  ‘What’s bad?’

  ‘It’s hard to say over the phone. And it’s kind of a long story.’

  Ryo was silent. Finally he said, ‘This better not be about those women.’

  Tomohiko’s mind went blank. All he could hear was Ryo sighing on the other end of the line.

  ‘Right. Let me guess: ponytail?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Ryo sighed again. ‘No wonder she hasn’t been coming lately. So, what, she work out a business deal with you?’

  ‘No, there was no deal.’

  ‘What was there, then?’

  Tomohiko rubbed his mouth. He couldn’t think of what to say.

  ‘Whatever. You’re right, this isn’t something to talk about over the phone. Where are you now?’

  ‘Home.’

  ‘Be there in about twenty minutes,’ Ryo said and hung up the phone without waiting for a reply.