Tattoo Murder Case

by Akimitsu Takagi

“Assuming that the tattoo artist could find someone who possessed such flawless skin, there remained the question of whether that person would want to be tattooed. Most people on the higher rungs of society would never even consider such a thing. There was a strong societal prejudice at work, exacerbated by the natural human fear of pain and permanent commitment. Once you cross the line into being tattooed you can never go back. However beautiful the design may be, a tattoo is a brand that cannot easily be removed from the skin.”

  Kenzo nodded dreamily, thinking of Kinue’s exotically decorated flesh, which he had memorized inch by lovely inch. “You’ve got that bewitched-by-foxes look again,” Professor Hayakawa said sharply, and Kenzo thought, If you only knew.

  11

  Professor Hayakawa took a silver flask from his leather briefcase, unscrewed the cap, and offered Kenzo the first sip. “No, thank you,” Kenzo said. He was a bit shocked that his companion would be tippling so early in the day.

  “It’s only green tea, you know,” the professor said, but Kenzo still demurred.

  The professor drained the flask, wiped his lips with a large plaid handkerchief, and then resumed his monologue precisely where he had left off.

  “When a person gets a major tattoo, there are also some permanent physiological side effects, including a perceptible change in metabolism. As a fellow physician, I’m sure you’re aware that having tattoos over a large area of the body radically lowers the body temperature. Even on the most torrid summer day, tattooed skin is cool to the touch. I once knew a woman, the wife of a prominent tattoo artist, who said that when she embraced her husband it was like making love to a refrigerated fish. She had a pathological fear of needles, but she finally got tattooed all over in self-defense, so that her naked skin would be as chilly as his.”

  The professor paused to light another forbidden cigarette, and Kenzo had a sudden vision of Kinue saying, “My skin is cold, you know. Don’t you want to touch it?” He shivered involuntarily at the memory of that first electrifying touch, and what had followed. Professor Hayakawa began speaking again, and Kenzo snapped to attention.

  “Even if a person has a sincere desire to have his body covered with a splendid tattoo,” the professor said, blowing twin plumes of smoke through his narrow nostrils, “that goal cannot be accomplished without an extraordinary amount of effort. Over the span of many months, there will be constant sharp pain as thousands of needles are plunged into the skin, and the inks, dyes, and pigments are poured into the resulting openings. There are unpleasant side effects, too, including the fever that is the body’s defense against this invasion, the physical exhaustion brought on by the accompanying decrease in white blood cells; and the drain on one’s finances. Good tattoos aren’t cheap, you know.” Kenzo nodded mutely, for he knew a reply was neither desired nor expected.

  “At any rate, with all these drawbacks, it’s hardly surprising that so many people who set out to get tattooed end up dropping out at some point in the process. Thus it can be said without exaggeration that the person who ends up with a completed full-body art tattoo is truly one in a million. Locating these rare examples of the tattooer’s art is no easy matter. Aside from occasional public appearances at festivals and the like, spectacularly tattooed people tend to be rather private, preferring to stay within their own tightly knit social groups.

  “My old friend, the late Professor F., who single-handedly assembled most of the specimens in the Tokyo University Pathology Department, was constantly on the lookout for beautiful tattoos to add to the university’s collection. Year after year, without missing a day, he would make the rounds of all the public bathhouses, searching for completed tattoos. He would mine every possible connection in order to make contact with the sort of people who were likely to be tattooed all over. He deliberately sought out gangsters, construction workers, firemen, and so on. In this shadowy realm of society, Professor F. met many men who had left their tattoos unfinished due to financial pressures. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but he would pay out of his own pocket for the work to be completed.

  “Even after a work-of-art tattoo was located, the problems were just beginning. The next obstacle in the collector’s path was obtaining a contract for posthumous conveyance of the tattoo. The potential difficulty of this cannot be overemphasized, for people tend to be passionately attached to their own skins, even after death. No matter how hard up he might be, a person would have to be mad to blithely sell the tattooed skin off his back just to raise a bit of cash. Professor F would pay visit after visit to the subject’s house, explaining the reasons why a great tattoo artist’s work should be left to posterity. Eventually, with patience, luck, and persuasion, he might manage to overcome the subject’s initial superstitious reluctance. The contract for posthumous dissection and conveyance of the tattoo would be drawn up and signed, and the fee paid in advance.

  “When the negotiations were concluded and the papers signed, the next step was to wait for the owner of the tattoo to die. There was no way of knowing whether this would happen in ten years, or twenty, or thirty. However, it is a medical fact that all-over tattooing decreases life span because heavily tattooed skin doesn’t breathe properly. No matter how frustrated and impatient the collector might become during this long wait, he couldn’t very well slip the tattooed person a dose of poison to hasten the process. All he could do during those long years was to pray that the tattoo would remain safe, for there are so many potential disasters that can befall a wonderfully decorated body. Natural calamities, war damage, domestic accidents, automobile wrecks, violent crime, to name a few. Then there’s the possibility that the tattooed person will decide to disappear, absconding with his own skin to avoid the imagined horror of being flayed after death.

  “All that suffering—the pain of the tattooing process, the struggle of the collector—is enshrined in every one of the hundred or so skins in this room. As a result of his lifetime’s work in building this remarkable collection, Professor F. came to be called Dr. Tattoo, and I’m honored to have inherited that nickname. Many of the tattoos on these walls belonged to gangsters, and to show their gratitude, crime bosses from all over the Tokyo area chipped in and bought a magnificent stone lantern for the garden.

  “It is common knowledge that if it hadn’t been for the noble efforts of Professor F., Tokyo University would not have this world-class collection to illustrate the unique art of the Japanese tattoo. However, it cannot honestly be said that these posthumous relics are an accurate representation of the opulent beauty of the tattoo. The background ink that appears as a deep, rich indigo on living skin grows darker after death, while the brilliant clear reds are transmuted into a reddish brown, like scorched brick. Putting aside for a moment the problem of changes in color and hue, there is also the matter of distortion of the design. When you take a tattooed human skin with all its subtle curves and contours and stretch it out flat, it will not meet the standards of a one-dimensional work of art.”

  Kenzo’s eyes glazed over momentarily as he visualized the subtle curves and lush contours of Kinue’s body, but he quickly resumed his attentive-pupil stance before the professor could accuse him again of being under a fox-spell.

  Oblivious to Kenzo’s reveries, the professor lectured on. “If you visit a Japanese tattoo artist at his studio and see his design-sketches, what Western tattoo artists call ‘flash,’ you will understand this very clearly. Like a picture on a paper kite, when the tattoo designs are drawn in a notebook, every part of the human body will appear to be out of balance. The head will look immense, while the arms and legs appear diminished. At first glance there seems to be something artless, almost childlike, about the awkward asymmetry of the figures in these drawings. But when the designs are removed from paper and transposed onto the complex canvas of a living human skin, what animation and luster are revealed! I have been surprised on many occasions by the startling disparities between the flat drawing and the living tattoo. As one famous tattoo artist so aptly said, a tattoo shoul
d not be viewed as a flat painting, but rather as a three-dimensional sculpture.

  “Of course, an eminent authority like Professor F. was well aware of the problems in displaying posthumously-preserved tattoos. The torsos that are hanging in the middle of this room illustrate his ultimate solution to that problem. The skins have been restored to the curved shape of a human body, thus giving the impression of three-dimensionality. This method also avoids the unnatural feeling that results when a tattoo is stretched tightly across a frame, like needlepoint. Many of the bodies have neither heads nor arms nor legs, just a disembodied trunk, and the uncanny shapes with their splendid coloration seem to float in empty space. As you can see, the illusion of ghostliness is intensified by the way the dim golden light shines through the torsos, illuminating the elaborate, mythopoeic designs.” Kenzo gazed around at the spectral hanging tattoos with renewed appreciation, while the professor went on talking.

  “At first glance it is impossible to tell whether the departed souls whose skins live on in this room were men or women. It is safe to assume that most of them were not pillars of polite society, and we can only guess at the lives of turmoil and transformation they must have led. For example, one of these tattooed skins is said to have belonged to a famously wicked adventuress named O-Den Takahashi, whose beautiful severed head stood on a pike in the center of Tokyo for a week after she was hanged for her crimes. However, no one has been able to corroborate that story. The same is true of a skin that was willed to the Osaka College of Medicine. It is popularly believed to have once adorned the body of the notorious female bandit known as O-Shin Kaminari, but.…”

  As the professor rambled on in his articulate, erudite fashion, it seemed to Kenzo that the older man was talking for his own pleasure rather than trying to impress or educate his audience of one. Finally the lecture ended and, after agreeing that it was time for both of them to go to work, the two men walked past the skeletal sentries to the door.

  “That woman still hasn’t given me a picture of her tattoo,” the professor complained with an enormous, windy sigh, as he and Kenzo stepped out of the sarcophagal dimness of the specimen room into a bright August day.

  “When you say ‘that woman,’ who do you mean?” Kenzo asked disingenuously.

  “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve been saying? I’m talking about Kinue Nomura, the beauty who has the magnificent Orochimaru tattoo on her back.”

  “Oh, that woman.” Kenzo tried to keep his voice casual. “I thought you would have long since gotten a photograph of her tattoo, since I gather it was finished six or seven years ago.”

  “No, I haven’t been around. During most of that time I was going from Manchuria to China on official military business. By the time I returned to Tokyo, her father Horiyasu had moved out of his old house, and I couldn’t track him down. When I saw Kinue recently, it was the first time in several years. But since we aren’t exactly unrelated—her patron is my nephew, in case you didn’t know—I don’t see why she couldn’t give me a measly photograph, at least.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re always hounding her, asking her to leave you her skin when she dies. I overheard your conversation by accident, in the garden after the contest.”

  “Humph.” Professor Hayakawa snorted derisively. “That’s not the case at all. If you look at it from a psychoanalytic point of view, a tattoo is a form of perpetual suicide. It’s as if the person has some subconscious awareness of having sinned, and their way of atoning for a guilty conscience is to inflict pain on their own body. Not just criminals, but martyrs and celibates too; what they all have in common is deep feelings of guilt. So the collector’s request to remove their skin after death and preserve it for posterity is actually the fulfillment of their deepest desires.”

  “I wonder if that’s really so. What you say may make sense in theoretical terms, but I think Miss Nomura is truly frightened. If you want to dismiss it as superstition that’s fine, but the fact is that the bearers of the other two cursed tattoos, Jiraiya and Tsunedahime, are already dead, and she’s afraid her turn will be next.”

  “Tsunedahime!” Professor Hayakawa’s face was suddenly transfigured by an expression of sheer terror. “Who had a tattoo of Tsunedahime? Who was it?”

  “I heard it was that woman’s sister, Tamae. Surely you must have known about that, Sensei?”

  Professor Hayakawa shook his head emphatically. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. It’s impossible. I refuse to believe it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s simply shocking, and inconceivable. If Horiyasu really did give Tamae the Tsunedahime tattoo, he must have been out of his mind.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Kenzo said, shifting from one weary foot to the other. The two men had been walking or standing for more than an hour, first in the Specimen Room and now on the sun-splashed steps of the building.

  “Listen carefully, all right! I’m only going to explain this once.” The professor’s tone was impatient, and emotional. “Among tattoo artists, there are certain taboos which it is absolutely forbidden to break. For example, they believe that if you tattoo a snake wrapped around a person’s torso you have to make a little cut under the armpit or somewhere else where it won’t show, otherwise the throttling power of the snake’s embrace will make it difficult to sleep, and within three years the person who has the snake tattoo will be dead. There are lots of persistent beliefs like that, call them superstitions if you like. Anyway, one of the most taboo of all tattoos is the Three Curses.”

  “The Three Curses?” Kenzo asked, feigning ignorance.

  “Surely you’ve heard that saying: ‘The snake eats the frog, the frog eats the slug, the slug dissolves the snake.’ At any rate, those creatures are the familiars of the three rival sorcerers. The sorcerer Jiraiya always appears riding on a giant toad, Orochimaru on a snake, and Tsunedahime on a slug. If anyone ever tattooed a snake, a frog, and a slug on one person’s body, the three creatures would fight to the death. That’s why such a tattoo is forbidden. Even if a client begged for that tattoo and offered to pay a fortune for it, the artist would be morally obliged to refuse.”

  “What if the three tattoos were divided among three separate people?”

  “That’s a valid point, but it doesn’t apply in this case. If the three separate people were totally unrelated that would be a different matter, but when it’s three siblings with the same blood flowing in their veins, and on top of that, his own children! I really don’t understand what could have possessed Horiyasu to do such a reckless thing. As a man, as a father, as a tattoo artist.…” Professor Hayakawa’s usually precise speech lapsed into incoherence. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, like a drowning man gasping for air. After a moment he spoke again, more calmly.

  “If what you say is true, then it’s as if Horiyasu put a curse on his own children. Maybe he carved the anger he felt at their mother into the skin of his children.”

  “What did their mother do to make Horiyasu so angry?” Kenzo asked, but Professor Hayakawa chose to ignore that question. The professor heaved a great sigh, then whispered some terrifying words. “If the other two are already dead, then Kinue probably doesn’t have long to live. I may get my wish sooner than I expected. But it’s just as well for her that the other two are already dead. If all three of them were living, they would probably end up destroying each other.”

  Those were not the sort of words Kenzo expected to hear from a rational, scientific sort of person. The realization that a scholar like Professor Hayakawa believed in the superstition of the Three Curses was very disturbing, indeed. After taking his leave of the older man, Kenzo walked to his office feeling almost dizzy with concern for the safety of his newfound love.

  12

  Kenzo’s professional mail was usually singularly unexciting, but on this morning he arrived at the university research laboratory to find a large square envelope waiting for him. His add
ress was written on the front in feminine, rather hesitant calligraphy. When he turned the envelope over, the sender’s name seemed to leap out at him: KINUE NOMURA.

  Hastily Kenzo stuffed the envelope into his briefcase. He went into an empty classroom, and after looking around to make sure he hadn’t been followed, he opened it. Several photographs fell out onto the table. He sat down. They showed a man and two women; there were eight shots in all, and all three of the people in the photos were heavily, beautifully tattooed.

  “Jiraiya, Tsunedahime, Orochimaru,” Kenzo whispered softly. He shook the envelope again and a letter fell out.

  Dearest Kenzo, it began. Kenzo felt deeply ashamed of himself as he looked at the letter, which was sloppily written and full of childish mistakes. When he read the words, his shame changed to alarm.

  I feel that I am going to be killed very soon, she wrote. A terrible death is stalking me, and I am terrified of what may lie in wait. I fear my days are numbered, and the happiness I’ve found with you will be cruelly snatched away.… You’re the only one who can rescue me, my love.

  At the bottom of the page was a postscript: The other night you said that you would like to have a photograph of me. Since I don’t have a new photo, I’m enclosing some old one. I am including some pictures of my sister and brother, too, and I’d appreciate it if you would keep them safe for me.

  “Just my luck,” Kenzo muttered, looking at the photographs. “The woman I love belongs to another man, and she’s seriously paranoid to boot.” Not that he cared very much about either of those drawbacks. He had spent every waking moment since leaving the Serpent Bar reliving his wondrously erotic night with Kinue and fantasizing about a sequel, consequences be damned.

  The pictures appeared to be several years old and were somewhat discolored. There were bits of glue sticking to the backs, as if they had been peeled out of an album. Two of the photographs were group poses showing the front and back views of a man standing between two women who looked remarkably similar apart from their very different tattoos. All three were dressed only in loincloths to show off the magnificent designs on their torsos. The remaining photos were individual front and rear portraits of the trio.