Kenzo had taken an immediate liking to this outspoken tattooed woman. Quite aside from his ulterior motive of hoping to learn something more about the intriguing world of the art tattoo, he found her frankness refreshing, and he was disarmed by her sunny disposition.
“I don’t think it’s so awful, at all,” said Kenzo. He suddenly realized that he was flirting for the first time since that enchanted evening with Kinue. “But of course there’s a big difference between painting on canvas or paper and painting on living human skin. Even if you carved the same design onto two people, it would turn out differently depending on whether they were fat or thin, squat or lanky. There really are a lot of factors to consider in creating an individual design. And if the artist makes a mistake on a tattoo, he can’t very well go back and do it over!”
“I suppose that’s where the tattoo artist proves his mettle,” the woman said. “And there are some preliminaries. First you choose the design from the flash—the designs drawn on paper—and then the artist sketches it on your body with erasable ink. He doesn’t start to put the ink under the skin until you’re absolutely certain that’s the design you want.” There was a folio filled with rough sketches for tattoo designs lying nearby. She picked it up. “Take a look at this,” she said, handing the book to Kenzo.
It was oversized, bound in the Japanese style, and filled with sheets of translucent rice paper on which were drawn innumerable designs for tattoos. They resembled nishiki-e, the colorful genre paintings called “brocade-pictures.” Viewed as individual works of art, the sketches were nothing out of the ordinary, more like art naïf than the work of a professional draftsman. Looking at the flash for the first time, Kenzo found it astonishing that such mediocre sketches could be transformed into designs that seemed to take on a vivid, animated life of their own when applied to living skin.
“Still,” Kenzo said, trotting out his favorite black-humor joke, “it might be better if your tattoo doesn’t turn out to be too gorgeous. Someone might try to steal your skin.”
The woman looked a bit shocked but showed her even, white teeth in a polite little laugh before remembering to clap her hand over her mouth. “You’re right, I suppose,” she said slowly, from behind her fingers.
Just then, O-Kané’s tattooing session came to an end. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. Unlike the other woman, O-Kané didn’t appear to be in any pain as she shrugged into her green kimono and belted it with a mustard-yellow obi.
Kenzo felt reluctant to say good-bye to Tsunetaro. Finally, after repeating over and over like an overprotective mother, “Please don’t take any unnecessary risks,” he allowed O-Kané to drag him away from the tattoo studio. Just before they went their separate ways at Shibuya Station, O-Kané warned Kenzo once again.
“Mr. Matsushita,” she said politely but emphatically, “Tsune seems to know something about who committed this crime, and it would certainly be fine if he could be of some help in the investigation. But please remember that his tattoo business is the only thing he has. Please do as he asked and keep this a secret from your brother until the very end. If the police find out about him, he would be in really big trouble.”
“Don’t worry,” said Kenzo solemnly. “A promise is sacred, and until Tsunetaro gives me the go-ahead, I won’t say a single word to my brother about him.” Thinking about how pleased his brother Daiyu would be when he learned about this break in the case, Kenzo couldn’t help smiling in anticipation.
34
A few moments after Kenzo and O-Kané had departed, the woman with the Shizuka Gozen tattoo slipped into her wooden geta clogs and left the tattoo studio. She turned at Shibuya Station and walked for a while along the electric-train tracks, then slipped down a narrow alley next to the police station. A ramshackle rooming house stood alone among the burned-out ruins of the neighborhood. The woman pushed open the latticework gate and went clattering up to the second floor, with her clogs making a ton-ton sound on the wooden stairs.
“Is that you, O-Kimi?” a rusty-sounding male voice called out. The woman slid open the tattered paper door. Inside, a half-naked tattooed man of about forty lay sprawled on the tatami-matted floor, reading a tabloid newspaper.
“Hello, sweetheart,” said the woman happily. “I didn’t think you’d be home yet.”
“Where’ve you been?” the man asked in his rough voice. There was a scar on his chin, like an off-center cleft, and his hair was extremely short.
“Oh, I’ve just been taking off my clothes in front of strange men,” she teased.
“Really?” growled the man.
“Yes, really. Are you jealous? You’re such a silly man.” The woman laughed, showing her dazzling white teeth. “I’ve only been to my tattoo session. Didn’t we agree that the only men who get to see me naked, besides you, are my doctor and the tattoo artist?”
“Oh, right.” Sulkily, the man sat up. “So what part of your body did the great artist work on today?”
Gingerly the woman got down on one knee, then eased her sore body into a sitting position on the floor. “I’ll show you in a minute,” she said. “Just let me catch my breath.”
From below there came the sound of the wooden gate creaking open, followed by muffled conversation. After a moment, the landlady’s voice called out, “O-Kimi! Can you come down for a minute?”
“I’m coming,” said the woman. She slowly got to her feet and descended the staircase with tentative, shuffling steps. A few minutes later, she limped back into the room. “Darling, there’s a strange man who wants to see you.”
“Who is he? What does he want?” The tattooed man looked alarmed.
“His name’s Heishiro Hayakawa, and he claims to be doing research about tattoos. He says he heard that we both had marvelous tattoos, and that’s why he stopped by. He called us an ‘honorable couple,’ isn’t that a scream? Anyway, he says he’d like to have a few words with us about preserving our tattoos for posterity.”
“Heishiro Hayakawa, huh? He’s the one they call Dr. Tattoo, because he’s always sniffing around, trying to buy people’s skins before they die. I’ve heard that he’s obsessed with getting his hands on a Horiyasu, like mine. Aside from my parole officer, I really can’t think of anyone I’d rather talk to less right now. Tell him this.…” The man began talking in a comical high-pitched voice, using feminine language and an impudent tone of mock-politeness. “’I’m terribly sorry, kind sir, but both my husband and myself are totally inarticulate, so there’s really no point in talking to us. We went through a lot of pain and suffering to obtain our marvelous tattoos, and we don’t have the slightest interest in showing them off to some snoopy stranger. So while we’re greatly honored by your gracious visit, we’d appreciate it very much if you’d put an egg in your shoe and beat it.’ Is that polite enough, do you think?” the man asked, lapsing into his normal raspy voice.
The woman giggled. “You’re awful,” she said adoringly. “But listen to this—he wants to know who did our tattoos! He asked me at least three times, “Who were the artists who carved your tattoos?’”
“There’s no reason why you should give him that information. Go back down and tell him to get lost, and then throw some salt on the doorstep to purify it after he leaves.”
“All right,” said O-Kimi. A few minutes later, she returned to the second-floor apartment, still brushing the salt from her fingers. She opened the glass window and peered down at the street.
“You know, sweetheart,” she said, “that guy really gives me the creeps. He’s still standing there, right where I left him.”
Just then the professor, who was indeed loitering at the entrance to the narrow alley, looked up, caught O-Kimi’s eye, and gave her a jaunty, purposeful little salute.
O-Kimi banged the window down. “He’s up to no good, that one,” she said.
“Shut up and show me your new tattoos,” ordered the man with the scar. O-Kimi obediently unsashed her kimono and let it drop to the floor, wincing sli
ghtly as the cloth brushed her newly embellished buttocks.
35
Kenzo spent the next few days on an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes he felt on the verge of solving the case, and his heart would swell with hope. Other days he would think it was the height of hubris to imagine that he, Kenzo Matsushita, could solve a case that had stumped the detectives of a great police force, and he was consumed with despair. He moped about, reading mystery novels and snacking compulsively. Every time the telephone rang he would leap to answer it, only to slink back to his room in disappointment when it turned out to be one of his sister-in-law’s pupils calling to reschedule a piano lesson.
On the morning of the tenth day, Kenzo began to think that Tsunetaro might have forgotten their agreement. Unable to sit still, he made two or three trips to the Peony Restaurant in Shibuya, but the tattoo artist was invariably out. Then, late that same evening, as Kenzo was lolling glumly about in his room eating black-market Hershey Bars and reading The Three Coffins by John Dickson Carr, the phone call finally came.
“Mr. Matsushita, this is Tsunetaro Nomura. I know the truth now.” Tsunetaro’s voice was so filled with emotion that it was frightening. Kenzo couldn’t believe his ears.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I said, I know who killed my sister and Takezo. It’s just as I thought, after all.”
“Really?” Kenzo had been so caught up in his own fantasies about solving the case by himself that his first reaction to this stunning revelation, oddly enough, was a sense of disappointment. “That’s really good news,” he said halfheartedly. “Really, it is. But tell me, who is the murderer?”
“I can’t talk about that right now.” Tsunetaro sounded nervous, as if someone might be listening in.
“Why is that? Oh, I see, now that you mention it, this really isn’t the sort of thing you can discuss on the telephone. Where are you now, at Peony? I’ll come to meet you right away.”
“No, there’s no point in doing that. Even if you came over here, I couldn’t tell you any more than I have already.”
“But you said.…”
“Please wait for three more days. If those three days pass without incident, I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise. But until that time, no matter what happens, I can’t say another word on this subject.”
“Why is that? Why do you want me to wait three days? Why can’t you just tell me right now?” Kenzo hated the way his voice sounded, high-pitched and boyish and hysterical, but he had no control over himself at that moment.
“It simply isn’t possible. I can’t explain now, but it’s taken a lot of effort to get this far, and I just have to ask you to respect my wishes. I’m begging you, please wait three more days.” Tsunetaro hung up abruptly, without saying good-bye.
Kenzo stood stunned, still holding the receiver to his ear. He could sense a vague feeling of unease rising in his chest, filling his heart with dread. Why did Tsunetaro want him to wait three more days? Why couldn’t he have told him right now? Was Tsunetaro plotting vengeance?
Tsunetaro’s behavior was like Kinue’s—full of secrets and foreboding. Her life had ended before Kenzo had a chance to make love to her again, or to be the protector she had asked him to be. And now her brother Tsunetaro was acting exactly the same way.
Kenzo’s heart was pounding as he recalled his first glimpse of Kinue’s dismembered body, and he trembled with fear at the thought that a similar fate might await her likable, talented brother. Oh dear, he thought, this is a real mess. Maybe I should just go ahead and tell my brother the whole story, and ask for his advice. But then he decided that he would have to keep it to himself, after all.
Still holding the telephone receiver, which was now emitting an indignant beeping sound, Kenzo took a deep breath. “You have to stop stewing about this,” he ordered himself sternly. “You need to assume that Tsunetaro knows what he’s doing. It’s only a matter of waiting three more days. Unlike his poor defenseless sister, Tsunetaro should be able to protect himself.”
Having convinced himself that there was no cause for concern, Kenzo hung up the telephone. He went into the narrow, immaculate kitchen and helped himself to a bottle of Kinn beer and a bag of dried shrimp, then climbed the steep stairs to his tiny bachelor room.
36
“Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!” Late the following night, in the usually solemn war room of the Metropolitan Police Department of Investigation, a great cheer went up from the detectives who were working overtime, as they learned of an unexpected harvest. The prime suspect for whom they had been searching, Ryokichi Usui, had finally fallen into their hands.
Just after 11 PM, in Chihaya Town in the Toshima district, Usui— Kinue Nomura’s former lover, the photographer turned small-time crook—had been spotted leaving a private house after a break-in. An emergency police squad was summoned to the scene by a silent alarm. They gave chase on foot and ended up cornering Usui in the Ikebukuro black-market area, where they made the arrest and recovered the cash stolen from the house.
At first, the arresting officers thought they had just caught an insignificant and not terribly competent sneak thief. They were surprised and excited to learn that Ryokichi Usui was on the national Most Wanted list, being sought as a possible suspect in the now-famous Tattoo Murder Case. The prisoner was transported to the Metropolitan Police Headquarters without delay, and the questioning began the next morning.
When Detective Chief Inspector Daiyu Matsushita saw Ryokichi Usui’s face, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed. Usui was handsome in a brutish way, with sharp features, thick eyebrows, piercing eyes, and a knife scar across his chin. Until then the chief had seen only Usui’s mug shots and he had thought those glittering eyes might denote intelligence, but now that the man stood before him in person Daiyu knew instinctively that he wasn’t looking at a criminal mastermind.
Assistant Inspector Shinohara undertook the interrogation with his usual thoroughness. He explored every angle and connection, and obtained a lengthy statement from Usui. By the time he was finished, Shinohara had unearthed a number of potentially useful facts.
When Usui was released from prison, he had begun searching for Kinue so he could carry out the plan of revenge he had been formulating during his years behind bars. Eventually he heard from an underworld contact in Yokohama that Kinue had split up with Takezo after Usui went to prison, and had subsequently ruined herself with dissolute living. Of course, that bit of grapevine intelligence was completely inaccurate, but at the time Usui had no way of knowing.
Disappointed, he returned to Tokyo, where he supported himself by buying and selling American goods on the black market. After a while, an intriguing rumor reached his ears. Someone told him that Kinue Nomura had been seen plying her trade among the women of darkness somewhere around Yurakucho or Shinbashi. He immediately rushed over there, taking with him an old photograph of Kinue which he had taken just after she got her tattoo. One or two of the prostitutes said they remembered the face, although no one had seen any tattoos. The woman evidently had worked the streets for a short time, then disappeared without a word to anyone. That sort of behavior was nothing unusual in the floating world of prostitution, and she was soon forgotten.
The trail was stone cold, but Usui wasn’t giving up yet. His obsession with finding Kinue was fueled half by desire, half by anger at her for sending him to prison, and he became almost demonic in his single-mindedness. (He did, however, find time to strike up a relationship with a young tattooed woman named O-Kimi, who worked in a bar near his apartment.) In his spare time, when Usui wasn’t engaged in burglary or in some shady moneymaking scheme, he searched for Kinue all over the city.
In the latter part of August he finally found her. Usui had gone to Shibuya to deliver some black-market watches purportedly made by the American company Timex, although for some mysterious reason the name on the watch face was spelled “Timox.” He was loitering around the station when he spotted Kinue passing by, carrying sev
eral shopping bags from an exclusive kimono shop.
Usui followed his prey, being careful to stay in the shadows of the buildings and war ruins along the way. Fortunately the streets were very crowded, so Kinue didn’t notice him creeping along a few paces behind. She boarded a train, and Usui actually managed to follow her all the way home to Kitazawa without being detected.
Watching the house every day, waiting for the chance to wreak his revenge, Usui bided his time. His anger was intensified by seeing Takezo Mogami coming and going with easy familiarity, and he resolved to beat the stuffing out of the so-called informant who had told him that Takezo and Kinue were no longer an item. Finally, on the night of August 27, Usui was ready. When darkness fell, he hid in the shrubbery near Kinue’s house and assessed the situation. He knew from long years of experience that he would have a better chance of success if he broke into the house m the early evening rather than waiting until late at night.
Around 8:40, Kinue emerged from a neighbor’s house dressed in a casual summer kimono and carrying a small wooden bucket, from which Usui deduced that she was on her way home from the public bath. Then, as if she had noticed that something was wrong, she stood for a moment with her hand on the garden gate and glared in the direction of Usui’s hiding place before going inside. At that inopportune moment a policeman approached on foot from the opposite direction. Usui was startled but, affecting a casual demeanor, he left his hiding place and walked around the neighborhood for twenty minutes or so.
At around nine o’clock he returned to his former spot, only to discover a new hitch in his plans. The second floor of the house next door was now a blaze of lights. Some university students were sitting by the open full-length windows, playing the guitar and looking down on the area directly in front of Kinue’s gate. Usui wandered around impatiently for the next two hours, watching the neighbor’s house from a distance. Around eleven o’clock the upstairs lights were finally turned off, but just as Usui was about to act, a man came walking along the street and vanished into Kinue’s house. It was pitch dark and there were no streetlights, so Usui couldn’t see the man’s face clearly—although he did get the impression that he wasn’t all that young.
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