The three men shared a light meal of rice, miso soup with tofu and straw mushrooms, grilled butterfish, and various savory side dishes. (Daiyu’s wife Manko, as was customary, served them in silence, then ate later by herself in the kitchen.) Between bites, Daiyu and Kyosuke poked good-natured fun at Kyosuke’s theory that Sumiyo Hayashi, the elusive prostitute, was really Tamae Nomura. They took particular delight in skewering Kenzo’s argument that the woman’s habit of dressing year-round in dark tights and long-sleeved dresses proved that she was Tamae, covering up her full-body tattoos.
“Lots of women in this country never go out with bare legs or arms,” Daiyu pointed out. “I mean, who ever heard of a short-sleeved kimono?”
“That’s true,” Kyosuke said. “As for the dark tights, I once read in a women’s magazine that they are recommended to make legs look slimmer. And you know how self-conscious Japanese women are about having legs that look like a daikon radish!”
After the laughter had died down, the talk turned serious. They discussed the war, the Occupation, and the future of an economically-shattered Japan ruled by an emperor who had announced that he was not, after all, a god. In the course of the conversation Kyosuke effortlessly quoted Chekhov, Chaucer, and Heine, though not in a pretentious way, and always with perfect relevance. His extensive knowledge and breadth of interests were evident at every turn, and before long Daiyu Matsushita’s gruff heart had been captivated by the penetrating intellect of this exceptional young man.
After several cups of after-dinner tea, Kyosuke finally stood up. As he put on his hand-made brogues in the entry hall, he gave a clear guarantee that within a week’s time he would point his finger at the culprit in the Tattoo Murder Case. The investigation was to begin the following morning, and he and Kenzo made a date to meet at ten o’clock.
“Gardez la foi,” Kyosuke said as he bowed his way out the door. When Daiyu looked quizzical Kyosuke explained, “That just means ‘Keep the faith.’ It’s the only thing I remember from French class, besides soup du jour and cherchez la femme.” That was a gigantic fib, of course; Kyosuke was a gifted linguist and had even won a major prize from the Tokyo branch of the Alliance Française.
After Kyosuke had gone, Daiyu blew out a huge corona of cigarette smoke and said, “That’s quite a friend you have there, Kenzo. To have such self-confidence at such a young age.… I have to admit, I’m very impressed. I don’t understand all the heavy-duty academic stuff he talks about, but I get the feeling he has the kind of remarkable mind that only comes along once every ten or twenty years. If all goes well, I’m not at all certain that he won’t be able to solve this case, just as he promised.”
46
The following day, precisely at ten o’clock, Kyosuke showed up at Ogikubo Station. In his dove-colored cashmere suit and matching overcoat, with a pale gray fedora worn raffishly down over one eye, he looked like a stylish young English gentleman. Kenzo had also dressed in a suit, though nothing as elegant as Kyosuke’s symphony in gray. He had arrived early and had been pacing up and down in front of the station since nine forty-five. As soon as Kenzo raised his hand in greeting, Kyosuke fell into step with him and they began walking briskly toward their first destination.
The Mogami Group headquarters proved easy to find. The company was housed in a two-story building right on the main street, and the glass door bore the words, in rich gold lettering: THE MOGAMI GROUP—ENGINEERING, CONSTRUCTION, GENERAL CONTRACTING. The two men went into the wood-paneled lobby, where several disreputable-looking characters were sitting around a hibachi brazier, talking in low voices. One of the men, whom Kenzo recognized immediately as Gifu Inazawa, leapt up like a jack-in-the-box as Kenzo and Kyosuke approached.
Kenzo spoke first. “Mr. Inazawa, it’s been a while. The truth is, we have one or two questions we’d like to ask you, if that’s convenient.”
Gifu Inazawa was clearly disturbed by this request. His face changed color several times, going from pale to red and back again, until he resembled a large, flustered turkey. Finally he spoke, or rather squawked, in a voice that sounded as if he had something caught in his throat. “Ah, Officer, it’s good to see you. It’s difficult to talk out here, so please follow me.” Inazawa led his visitors to a spacious, well-furnished inner office with a brass door-plate that read TAKEZO MOGAMI, PRESIDENT.
Kenzo suppressed a smile. He had been introduced to Gifu Inazawa at the tattoo contest a few months earlier and had seen him again at the scene of the murder. Since Inazawa’s stern interrogation by Daiyu Matsushita, the man had evidently gotten it into his head that Kenzo was a policeman, too. The misunderstanding was very convenient.
“No one will be able to hear us in here,” Inazawa said, gesturing for the two amateur detectives to sit down in a couple of foreign-looking chairs covered in black leather, while he took a seat behind a large mahogany desk. “Has something else happened?” Inazawa asked in a worried tone. “Who is it this time?”
“No, we aren’t here about the murder case today. That’s a relief, to tell the truth, because even policemen get sick of talking about nothing but murder all the time. Actually, this gentleman is an old friend of the late Mr. Mogami’s.” Kenzo waved a hand in the direction of Kyosuke, who was somehow managing to keep a straight face. “Mr. Kamizu recently returned from Java, and when he heard about Mr. Mogami’s death he was naturally very shocked. He expressed a desire to learn more about what had happened to his friend, and so I decided to bring him along with me today.”
Kyosuke stood up and made a formal bow. “My name is Kyosuke Kamizu,” he said. “I was treated very kindly by Mr. Mogami on many occasions, and I would like to offer my sincere condolences on the truly terrible thing that has happened.”
Following the plan that he and Kenzo had rehearsed on the walk from the station, Kyosuke introduced himself in exceedingly polite terms.
Inazawa breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Oh, so that’s how it is,” he said. “Yes, it’s really been a shock to us all. Even in this dog-eat-dog business, we could never have imagined that such a terrible thing could happen to our boss, who would never have hurt a flea, and who didn’t have an enemy in the world as far as I know.”
Kenzo stifled another smile at this disingenuous description of Takezo Mogami, who by all accounts had been a rapacious and unprincipled wheeler-dealer with enemies in every ward of Tokyo. “How about it?” he said. “If you can spare the tune, won’t you tell Mr. Kamizu what happened?”
Obligingly, Gifu Inazawa proceeded to relate the entire story of Takezo Mogami’s disappearance and subsequent murder, scratching his head perplexedly as he talked. Kenzo could find no discrepancies whatsoever between this narrative and the statement Inazawa had earlier given to the police.
Kyosuke listened intently to the story, and when Inazawa had finished he said in a sympathetic tone of voice, “This has been really rough on you, too, hasn’t it? But from what you’ve told me I get the feeling that Miss Nomura had quite a crush on you. It must have been very hard for you to lose her just when you were becoming so close.”
“It’s very kind of you to say that. There’s no telling what might have happened if she had gone on living, if you know what I mean.” Licking his narrow lips like a hungry wolf, Inazawa gave a lecherous chuckle.
Watching that coarse, sensual face, Kenzo couldn’t help thinking that the man was the sort of incorrigible beast who gave all men a bad name. Kyosuke, too, appeared to be stifling a grimace as he said, “From what I’ve heard, Miss Nomura seems to have been, shall we say, a woman of healthy appetites. Do you know whether she had any trouble with men in the past?”
“No, not as far as I know. I think she had more trouble with women, to tell you the truth. They were all terribly jealous of her, my own wife included. Miss Kinue was the kind of woman who made other women very angry, whether by stealing their men, or living a luxurious life, or just by being beautiful. As for men, though, I do remember that there was a big uproar at one point when someo
ne said Miss Kinue’s relationship with the boss’s younger brother Hisashi was more than friendly, but that turned out to be just a rumor. Knowing how strongly the boss felt about Miss Kinue, I don’t think Hisashi would have had the courage to take that kind of risk, no matter how attracted to her he might have been. And in any case, I don’t think she was his type. He’s always talking about how much he dislikes tattoos, on men or women.”
“Speaking of taking risks, you were about to cross a rather dangerous bridge yourself,” Kyosuke said.
Inazawa smiled sheepishly. “I know,” he said “I’m really ashamed of my behavior, acting like a lovesick fool at my age.”
“On another subject,” Kyosuke said, “how are things with the business?”
Inazawa sighed. “Hisashi has absolutely no ambition, so it’s a major problem. He’s the boss’s only brother, and we had hoped that he would take over the company and run it with our support, but he just keeps saying that he isn’t cut out for this sort of business. Not only that, but he’s undermining the strength of the company by selling off some important land rights much too cheaply. On top of that, it’s been a very difficult time for me, having my behavior regarding Miss Kinue made public by the police. Sometimes I just feel like crawling into a hole, but I can’t desert the company.”
“Everyone makes mistakes, and what’s past is past,” Kyosuke said breezily. “What’s that old saying, ‘There’s no shame in being a fool for love’? Oh, by the way, I gather you’ve taken up dancing.”
“You heard about that?” Looking embarrassed, Inazawa ran his hand over his sparse, oily hair. “Yes, well, when you’re in this sort of business there are certain things you have to do as a matter of social courtesy.”
“Are you sure you aren’t doing it for another reason? I hear those dance-hall girls are very charming.” Evidently that random remark hit the bull’s eye. Inazawa laughed self-consciously, and Kyosuke seized that opportunity to change the subject. “By the way, do you have any other interests or hobbies?” he asked.
Kenzo was amazed that Gifu Inazawa would tolerate such a prolonged intrusion into his private affairs, but he concluded that the presence of a “policeman” had made him more docile than he would have been had he known his guests’ true identities.
“No,” Inazawa replied, “I’m ashamed to say it, but I’ve somehow managed to live my life until now without any special hobbies or passionate interests, outside of work.”
“But surely you enjoy horse racing?” Kyosuke probed.
“Oh, yes, now that you mention it, I do.”
“There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you bet on a long shot and end up getting a big payoff, is there?”
“You can say that again. I remember back in 1939, in the good old days, I put a bundle on a long shot, and won big. In prewar money, I made over five hundred yen, but it didn’t last very long. My buddies and I drank it up in no time, celebrating. Unfortunately that sort of a win is really rare.”
“Is that so?” Kyosuke said languidly. He appeared to have suddenly lost interest in the conversation, and after a brief exchange of pleasantries with the ever-obsequious Inazawa, he and Kenzo left the building.
“How’s this for a hypothesis?” Kenzo ventured as the two friends walked toward the station. “Inazawa ran up some huge gambling debts, so he embezzled money from the company. When Mogami found out, Inazawa panicked and killed him. As for Kinue, she laughed in his face when he tried to seduce her, and he killed her in a fit of pique.”
“Not a chance,” Kyosuke said flatly. “I mean, think about it. How could an unimaginative, cowardly pig like that carry out such an ingenious crime?”
“But he certainly seemed to like gambling.”
“Sure, he may like to place an occasional bet, but that doesn’t make him a big-time gambler, I’m absolutely certain of that. He doesn’t have the character, or the capabilities.”
“But he doesn’t have a perfect alibi, either,” Kenzo argued.
Kyosuke pursed his lips for a moment, and then said very slowly, as if addressing a child, “All right. If you’re going to be stubborn about this, then tell me: what’s his motive? I can’t deny that there could be something to your theory about embezzling money from the company, but I don’t really see him bumping off his boss over such a small thing. If you propose to make him the culprit, there are just too many things that don’t make sense, and too many discrepancies in his behavior. First, he left his fingerprints on the outside of the doorknob of the bathroom at Kinue’s house, right? A criminal that careless would surely leave his fingerprints on the inside of the knob as well. He didn’t. If he were the kind of sloppy criminal who would not only strew his prints all over the place, but would leave behind a piece of incriminating evidence at the murder scene and go back in broad daylight to retrieve it, I think the police would have solved this case long ago. They wouldn’t have needed my help.”
There was nothing Kenzo could say in self-defense. He walked along m silence, feeling like the village idiot, and before he knew it they were nearly at the station. “Now what?” he asked.
“Well, I called Professor Hayakawa earlier and was told that he wouldn’t be home until early evening. I wonder whether Hisashi Mogami has a telephone at his house?”
“Yes, he does. Shall I give him a ring?”
“No,” said Kyosuke after a moment’s consideration. “Let’s stage a surprise attack, without phoning first. But first, what do you say we grab some soba for lunch? It’s my treat, in return for dinner last night.”
“You know what I just remembered?” Kenzo said as they wandered through the narrow alleys behind the station, looking for a restaurant that specialized in buckwheat noodles. “The dining room at Ikko Academy.”
“Oh, that’s a lovely thought,” Kyosuke said sardonically, for the dining hall had not been famous for its comfort, or its cuisine. “That reminds me, though, are you still the Ultra?” In their days at Ikko, Kenzo had been nicknamed the Ultra-Extraordinary Eater because of his boundless appetite and his ability to consume prodigious amounts of food.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Kenzo said with a mischievous grin. He slid open the frosted glass door of a promising-looking soba shop and bowed low like an Elizabethan courtier, sweeping the ground with an imaginary feathered hat.
47
It’s the quintessential sound of lunchtime in Japan: the sibilant din of noodles being aspirated into hungry mouths at great velocity. Kenzo and Kyosuke were contributing their share of noise as they slurped up their extra-large bowls of buckwheat soba noodles garnished with deep-fried tofu strips and sliced green onions in a dark, rich broth. Between bites, Kyosuke went on talking.
“Why do you suppose Professor Hayakawa didn’t try to produce any confirmation of his own alibi? It’s true that if someone suddenly asked either of us what we were doing on such-and-such a day in the past, we’d be hard pressed to remember where we were or what we were doing. If it were a question of a day or two ago, though, that would be entirely different. You can’t very well say you’ve completely forgotten such recent events, and even if you didn’t have any witnesses, the natural human instinct would be to tell the investigators what you were doing. For someone in danger of being charged with a capital crime, to refuse to give an alibi is very strange indeed.”
“Maybe the professor was just peeved about having been roughed up by the police,” Kenzo said, sprinkling a pinch of five-spice powder on his broth.
“I don’t think mere peevishness begins to explain it, in a serious case like this. No, I think there’s some secret that the professor doesn’t want to reveal, some deep, dark secret that he’s willing to risk his reputation and even his future to protect.”
Kyosuke picked up his cup and took a sip of hot green tea. “The next thing that strikes me as strange,” he went on, “is why, in the first murder, the killer took the entire torso away with him if all he wanted was the tattoos. It would have been much easier
to have removed the skin at the scene. As you know, if you take the subcutaneous tissues as well, the skin will keep without spoiling for quite some time even without chemical processing, so there was no need to take the entire torso, bones and all. On top of that, a human torso is very heavy, and it would have been difficult to deal with all the blood pouring from the neck and from the stumps of the limbs. I mean, picture someone staggering along with a huge burden on their back, leaving a trail of blood. Whether it was in broad daylight or in the middle of the night, you’d think such a sight would attract some attention, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, that struck me as strange, too.”
“I think it’s because no one understands the axiom of criminal economics.”
“What on earth is that?” Kenzo said.
“Well, suppose a murderer carries a torso away from the scene of the crime. What does he do with the leftover bones and internal organs once he’s stripped off the skin? Actually I must confess that it only just occurred to me now that this sort of problem—the efficient management of cnme-related waste products—might be called ‘criminal economics.’ I’m not talking about something like making dyestuffs from the by-products of coal, what the Germans call koks, or ‘coke’ in English. This is a much more sinister business. But anyway, what happened to all the blood that resulted from chopping up the body? Were there any bloodstains in the garden?”
“Not as far as I know. The bathroom where the body was found had ceramic tiles on the floor and walls, and the water had been left running overnight, so all the blood was probably washed down the drain. The forensics people examined the drain and found evidence that quite a large amount of blood had passed through it.”
“A large amount of blood, eh?” Kyosuke drank the last of his tea, replaced his disposable wooden chopsticks in their paper wrapper, and stood up. In the course of the conversation Kyosuke had tossed out a number of hints, but, try as he might, Kenzo had found himself unable to follow his friend’s line of thought. He didn’t want to seem dense, though, so he didn’t ask any of the questions that were in his mind.
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