Girl in a Box

by Sujata Massey

  Where was she? I thought about that again as I went confidently into the reception area of the hotel, walking as if I had a right to be there. I sat on a low cushion by the sunken fireplace, acting as if I were awaiting someone. I could clearly see Masahiro Mitsuyama’s brogues and his son’s loafers resting with their toes turned out, ready to go. My shoes were there, facing outward, as if one of the clerks had come along and straightened them for me.

  I had wanted to bug all five men’s shoes, but my Coach backpack could handle only two pairs, so I went for the main players. It took me twenty seconds of precious time to wrestle Enobu’s Gucci loafers and Masahiro’s wing tips into the backpack and then shoot outside to my spot behind the waterwheel. The rapidly darkening sky was excellent for privacy, but a challenge in terms of seeing what needed to be done with the shoes. Fortunately, I had a flashlight attachment on my key chain, which I used, in the shelter of my elbow, as I set about examining the heel of Masahiro Mitsuyama’s left shoe.

  First on the agenda was prying up the U-shaped rubber heel protector. It came off with a flat, spatula-like tool, and I found that the underlying heel was made of a synthetic material—an easy place for my tiny battery-powered screwdriver to drill a quarter-inch diameter hole and slip the bug in, after making sure it was switched on. Then I selected, from a small case I’d been carrying in one of my leg pockets, some black putty that matched the color of the synthetic heel. I filled up the part of the heel that was now open, and nailed the protective heel covering back on. Perfect. Michael had told me that one microphone in one heel was enough to pick up sound.

  I’d spent five minutes, total, on the first shoe. I was confident I’d be even faster on Enobu Matsuyama’s heel, but after I’d turned his shoe over, my hopes were dashed. This loafer was more expensively made than his father’s shoe, so it was going to be trickier to penetrate. The heel was shorter—giving me less room within for the bug—and both the heel and the sole were covered with nailed-down leather, not glued-on rubber, with a horseshoe-shaped metal tap. I worked gently with a nail puller to remove the tap and then the heel covering. It was frustrating; I knew I should work as fast as possible, but if in my haste I tore the heel’s cover, it would be noticed. I had a few extra heel covers with me, just in case I needed to make a replacement; but everything in my bag was standard black, dark brown, or white. I didn’t have one in the corresponding toast-colored leather.

  Finally, I had it open; now the challenge was to drill. A couple had walked into the garden to lean against the waterwheel for a kiss. I waited impatiently for them to leave so that I could use the drill, which was as audible as an electric toothbrush. I remained motionless as the kiss went on, the woman giggling as the man shifted his weight over her.

  After my own months of celibacy, being witness to someone’s passion felt unseemly, although I now understood that exhibitionism was the way of the world. I thought about my own behavior, the way I’d gotten out of the bath—a snap decision that I thought I had made entirely for my own safety. But as I thought it over, I had to admit that having all the visual attention had not been as humiliating as I’d expected. In fact, I was slightly stoked by the whole event.

  I shook myself. I didn’t like to think of myself as a narcissist, but maybe I had become one, without even noticing. Perhaps the reason Michael had nicknamed me Sis had more to do with the character out of Greek mythology, Narcissus, who lost track of time staring at his reflection in a pool of water. I’d been looking at myself in mirrors a lot lately, checking my makeup. Obviously, the habit had gone too far.

  There was no doubt that my naked boldness could have repercussions. I could be fired on a trumped-up charge. I didn’t know whether Masahiro Mitsuyama would take seriously what had happened, but Mr. Fujiwara was Mrs. Okuma’s boss, so he could easily force her to fire me. It all depended on how the men had decided to regard the experience. Japan had a cultural history of communal bathing—men, women and children together. The tradition continued, though usually the bath was just for the immediate family, at home.

  Things between the lovers were getting hotter. The man was slowly edging the woman around the edge of the wheel, toward greater darkness. For all I knew, they were going to try to consummate their passion against my hideout. Feeling faint, I began to slowly gather up the shoes and tools in the bag and edge backward. I couldn’t help rustling as I squeezed my way under a stand of camellias.

  “What’s was that?” the woman whispered to the man.

  “Nothing,” he muttered thickly.

  “I think someone’s out here!” She pulled herself together hastily and began to trek back to the inn’s driveway, her high heels making squishy noises in the wet grass until she reached the stone path. The man grunted, clearly frustrated, and after rearranging his clothing, stalked after her.

  Well, they had a room where they could finish their business. I didn’t feel sorry for being Agent Interruptus.

  It took me only five minutes more to finish the shoe bug for Enobu Mitsuyama. I drew closer to the genkan and waited to return the shoes until the clerk at the front desk went to the restroom. So my job was done. All I had to do now was pray that sound would come through—something I’d learn for sure on Monday, when the men were back at work, and in the proper radius of the listening post.

  Owing to a combination of stress and exhaustion, I fell asleep a few minutes after boarding the bullet train back to Tokyo. Few things are as sleep-inducing as a quiet, smooth, fast train, and I had to be physically awakened at Tokyo Station by one of the car’s attendants. Feeling foolish, I stumbled through Tokyo Station and caught the Hibiya line back to Hiroo. I went out at the station, past the Kobeya bakery and a beauty salon advertising “Lovely Hair and Meke.” I would probably want to go there, sooner than later, to keep up my strict grooming, but not tonight: I was headed home, to finally curl up in bed.

  I unlocked the apartment door. This evening—just as I’d done every evening since I’d arrived in Japan—I turned off the security alarm, and checked the monitor tucked behind the false back of a kitchen cabinet, which had a flashing green light. All systems safe, but I still had to inspect the room’s electric outlets and telephones, using a couple of handheld devices, just to be sure. Everything was good to go, as Michael would say. I was so tired that I just wanted to flop between the sheets, but there was a message light blinking on the answering machine.

  The answering machine was in the apartment, to make it look like a normal home, although the machine itself was a bit of a risk, because anyone who penetrated the apartment and listened to messages would learn plenty. Therefore, Michael never left recorded messages for me on the house phone; he left cryptic text messages only on my cell. But apparently Mrs. Taki hadn’t been clued in on this security proceeding, because she’d blithely left a message requesting that I buy her a Shizuko Natsuki novel she couldn’t find in the United States. She’d apparently checked on the Internet and found that there was a copy in Mitsutan’s book department, so picking it up wouldn’t be too much of an effort. She’d be happy to refund me the cost of the book and postage, when I returned.

  I rolled my eyes, glad at least that the message was innocuous and that she’d spoken in Japanese, not English. After erasing the message, I settled down to more serious business; setting up the listening station to turn on two channels, which I hoped would gather sound recordings of conversation from Masahiro and Enobu Mitsuyama.

  I flipped up the control panel of the dishwasher to get to the hidden panel that held the listening station. It was an ingenious hiding place, but a bit irritating because it meant that I couldn’t actually use the dishwasher and had to wash everything by hand.

  Tonight, the light for the listening stations blinked white, which meant that recordings had been made. I could fast-forward until the light blinked green, meaning that I’d reached a chunk of recorded conversation, or some other significant noise. The first recording I listened to was from the device I’d left inside the de
partment telephone in Accessories. The conversations seemed mundane to me: a salesclerk, Miss Oita, had called up to the Yves St. Laurent department, alerting its sales manager that a certain customer was headed for the department—a very good customer, who’d just bought the new Vuitton purse with cherries on it and would be in the market for clothes that went well with it. Very smart, I thought, as I listened to Miss Oita make more calls around the store, advising her colleagues about several big spenders who were still on the premises.

  The second recorder had picked up what was going on at the K Team in my absence. A floater had been assigned to help Miyo for the day. Over the recorded phone, I heard this young woman repeatedly call the cashier’s office, confused over how to process tax rebates for customers who were shopping without their passports. The answer came back as I’d expected: no can do. The customers, if they returned within the same day with a passport, could get the rebate; but the passport was the essential proof of their temporary status in Japan. The girl whimpered a bit about being afraid of offending the customer, but the cashier’s office was firm.

  I also heard Miyo Han on the phone, calling her friends in other departments to complain about how this was the fifth Saturday she had been made to work in three months, and it was totally unjust. Miyo also made a few calls to the K Team’s clients, trying to coax them in. The ones Miyo phoned were, of course, all male. One shouted at her for waking him up before noon on a Saturday morning; another agreed, somewhat wearily, to a shopping appointment the following week.

  As I was listening to Miyo’s halting English, the sound of another voice came clearly from position nine on the listening board. One of the shoe bugs, I realized in excitement. One of the Mitsuyamas actually had put on his street shoes and was talking to somebody, despite the fact that it was eleven o’clock at night. I was hearing it live, something I shouldn’t have been able to do, because the shoe bugs were too far away from Tokyo—the plan had been for me to be able to hear them later on, when they were back in the city, within fifteen miles of the listening station.

  I switched off position three and cranked up the volume on position nine.

  “What’s the report?” The speaker’s voice was gruff, obviously that of Masahiro Mitsuyama.

  Mumble, mumble. The other person speaking wasn’t close enough to Masahiro Mitsuyama’s shoe for the shoe microphone to record the sound clearly.

  “Where are you?” Masahiro Mitsuyama spoke in the powerful plain-form Japanese I had heard everywhere—from the Mitsuyama basement to the mineral bath.

  More silence, then a reply. “That’s not enough. How many times have I told you to take charge? Every time you’ve failed! What are you, stupid? I should never have given you the power I did.”

  Maybe he was talking to an underling, or to his son. Although if it was his son, Enobu, the Gucci loafers were not in use. Perhaps Enobu was wearing another pair of shoes, or Masahiro was standing on the stone entryway and his son was still up on the tatami mats.

  “You do what needs to be done, or you’ll be erased.”

  Pause.

  “I won’t tolerate any more excuses or pleas. The situation has too much of a risk, and it’s got to—”

  There was no more recorded sound after that. I stayed by the listening station for a good hour longer, waiting for more talk, but none came. So I played back the tape again and again, to make sure I understood what had been said.

  The big boss had used a verb I’d learned years ago as a student of Japanese. Kesu meant “to erase.” In the most literal context, it meant cleaning up a chalkboard. But I’d heard it used as slang, and in slang it also meant “kill.”

  Erase. It was a horrible verb that made me feel sickened and desperate, because I didn’t know the identity of the person on the receiving end of the conversation. And to my ear, it sounded as if Masahiro Mitsuyama had been threatening murder.

  19

  It was midnight now, ten in the morning in Washington. Michael was not at home, but he picked up his cell phone after a few rings. He shouted a greeting over the background of what sounded like cheers.

  “You should have called in hours ago! Didn’t you catch all the messages I left on your cell?” Michael demanded after I’d identified myself.

  “Sorry, I didn’t check for a few hours because getting the job done was rather—tricky. But it’s all systems go with the listening station, which is why I’m calling—”

  “Super. Well, we can talk about the details when I’m out of this circus—”

  “Yeah, I was trying to find out where you are.”

  “Just like I told you, at the circus. Ringling Brothers came to D.C. I’m on a Big Brothers field trip with Jamal. You remember him, right?”

  Jamal was a ten-year-old boy whom Michael was mentoring. I’d never met him, but a few times in the office, I’d overheard Michael talking on the phone about reporting to a youth center for some activity or other.

  “I do. I hope you have fun at—at the circus—but I need to talk to you ASAP.”

  “Are you safe?” His voice changed timbre.

  “Of course. But I think someone else—isn’t.”

  “Rei, I wish we could talk now, but I won’t be in Virginia for hours. By the time I get in, you’ll be asleep.”

  “No, I’ll probably be at Mitsutan, and I can’t possibly use the phone to chat with you there,” I said glumly.

  “I wish I could walk out now, but I can’t.” Michael sounded as frustrated as I felt. “Just call me when you’re done with work. I don’t care if you wake me up, I want to hear what’s going on.”

  I went to bed after that, sleeping until the brutal alarm clock roused me at eight. Still, I lingered, not getting out of the bed until eight twenty-five. No time to shower; I patted ineffectively at the great bags under my eyes with a Shiseido under-eye toner, which brought things down slightly, so I could cover up what was left with concealer. I realized that I’d discovered the cure for jet lag; it was a mixture of adrenaline and exhaustion. If you could bottle it, the stuff would outsell melatonin.

  Try as I might, I couldn’t stop brooding about what I’d heard the previous night—the murder threat. The worst part was that I had no idea whose life was at stake. I could only hope that the intended victim was not Mrs. Okuma, who had vanished for absolutely no reason just a few hours before that scary conversation.

  The doors to the subway train that I’d wanted to catch closed just as I was sprinting down the steps to the platform, and since it was Sunday, this meant I’d wait seven minutes till the next train. A short time, in the scheme of things, but enough of a lapse for me to arrive at the Mitsutan locker room around nine-twenty, not at five minutes to nine. And this meant, no matter how quickly I tried to change into my uniform in the locker room, I might actually be late.

  “Demerit,” said the self-important chief of security to me when I attempted to enter the store’s back entrance.

  “Are you sure? My watch says nine-thirty.” Once the words left my mouth, I regretted them. I should have just apologized.

  “The instructions are to be in place on the main floor at nine-thirty.” He swiped the employee card I had to show when starting my shift. It recorded the start of working time, for purposes of payroll and, I realized now, punishment.

  I slipped into the back of a group of workers standing at attention. The good-morning music had already been played, and the weekend manager, a man called Yasuda-san, was talking about the slow start to chocolate sales, despite the teddy bear advertising campaign: how it might be a reflection of a decline in women’s feeling duty-bound to buy chocolates for their male coworkers.

  I thought to myself about why the store didn’t try to get the men shoppers to buy chocolate for themselves. Perhaps because it was emasculating for a man to choose sweets himself. Valentine’s Day was about women pleasing men. White Day, which came a month later, was supposed to be the payback; the man you’d given chocolate to would give you something sweet and white in
return. If Michael had been Japanese, I would have had to buy him chocolate. And with his sweet tooth, he would have adored it, though he could never admit it.

  What would be the best chocolate for his particular taste? Jean Paul Hevin, or something else—

  I shook myself out of my fantasy. Someone was about to die. That was all I needed to think about.

  Sunday, the biggest shopping day of the week in Japan, forced a different rhythm in the K Team’s office. Because it was a Sunday, the foreign customers tended to be bona fide residents, rather than tourists, so few people came in for tax rebates. This was a day when more couples and families shopped, and there was less need for interpretive services.

  Miss Ota, the salesclerk who’d been on with Miyo the day before, was on duty today at the K Team’s office with me. She seemed hesitant to speak to me beyond saying hello, but I expected that this was because she’d heard bad things from Miyo. I tried to make friendly conversation in between taking people upstairs to buy kimono or toys or shoes, but it was no use.

  By the day’s end, I was in need of something to take away the bad taste in my mouth. On my break, I’d gone down to the food floor and found some tempura to carry over and eat in the cafeteria, but it had been cold and limp by the time I’d gotten there. I held off from eating any of the chocolates. Instead, I went home and made a cup of cocoa from a tin of Schaffenberger I’d bought at Meidi-ya. With my mouth pleasantly full of the round, dark taste of seventy percent chocolate, I placed the return call to Michael. He picked up, then told me to hang on because he was going to turn on his tape recorder.