The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4)

by Sujata Massey

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s getting complicated, and I need your help. But we should sit down at the noodle bar before I tell you.”

  We walked through Jimbocho, the area in Kanda that was lined with wonderful small bookshops. I’d spent many happy hours looking for the antique illustrated books that were the precursors of manga and doujinshi. The sun was shining and the Virginia Slims models—pretty young women wearing smart green-and-white suits—tried to slip free cigarette samples into our hands.

  “What a shame you have to work like this,” I told one of the girls, remembering the smoky hell of the manga coffee shop. “People will die because of what you’re doing.”

  “A free gift! Please enjoy!” the woman kept reciting, not even looking at me.

  Rika took the cigarettes and said, when we were a few steps away, “I’m not going to smoke these, but I had to take them to save face. Rei-san, you embarrassed her.”

  “I’m in a very touchy mood,” I said. “That’s part of the reason that I need your help.”

  The restaurant that I’d chosen served somen noodles in a cold-water bath. The serving method was particularly ingenious: A metal-sided river was set into a long counter, with whirlpool-like jets. The noodles raced downstream past all the diners, and the goal was to reach with the non-eating ends of one’s chopsticks into the stream and catch a bundle. Small bowls of dipping sauces at each place insured the cold noodles could be seasoned according to personal taste. At less than $7 for a serving, this was definitely a lunch that I could afford.

  “Should we do this in English?” I asked Rika in my mother tongue.

  She smiled. “Of course! Although you must not laugh at my poor English.”

  “Don’t worry. Rika, you told everyone at the magazine that I was going to interview Kunio Takahashi about his work for Showa Story, didn’t you?”

  “I had to tell, so I made it sound very good. I described how this was a particularly artistic comic book, and Mr. Sanno loved the idea. They are going to make it the cover story.” Rika dug into her bag, pulling out a small silver steel rectangle. She pushed a button, and the screen lighted.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You’ve never seen one? It’s a Palm Pilot. I can take notes on it, so it’s very good for reporting,” Rika said.

  I was instantly jealous, but pretended not to be. “Here’s the big problem. Kunio’s disappeared, and his next-door neighbor—a guy called Nicky who was part of Showa Story’s creative circle—is dead. Or at least I think he’s dead.”

  “Could it be Nicky Larsen?” Rika asked. “He is the foreigner who hung around with Kunio at college. Why do you think he’s dead?”

  I told Rika the story about how I’d visited Kunio’s apartment and had the encounter with Nicky. I filled in with the description of Nicky’s bizarre costume, and how I’d recognized his Mars Girl clothing on the dead man on the evening news.

  Rika typed nonstop as I went through the story. At the end she asked, “Why don’t the police want to let you view the body to check that it’s really Nicky?”

  “I’m not supposed to know him well enough to make a judgment.”

  “I’ve met him only a few more times than you. I never saw him in the Mars Girl costume. I only know him to look manly.” She paused. “That is the correct word? Manly?”

  “That’s right. I think your college connection is really helpful. If you called the police hotline, I bet they’ll let you take a look. But you’d better not mention that you’ve seen him only a few times.”

  Rika was silent for a long moment, and I wondered if she was thinking that seeing a dead body would be more than she could bear. I’d seen three corpses in my lifetime, and they were stamped indelibly into my senses. The unexpected sound of a cat’s meow made me remember a woman with beautiful pale skin. The sight of a certain model of Toyota summoned up a middle-aged man slumped over in the passenger seat. I did not wish for someone as young and naive as Rika to have the kind of memories that I did.

  At last Rika spoke. “I am surprised that you asked me, Rei-san. First to come to lunch, and now to help you identify the body. I wonder how many more things you will ask me to do.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t have to do it.”

  “Actually, I am happy and surprised that you asked. I originally had a feeling that you wanted to write the story alone. You did not want my help, even though I had an interest in the topic.”

  I looked straight at Rika. “That’s not what counts anymore. We’re not going to be able to write any kind of article about Showa Story if all three circle members are dead or missing in action.”

  “But that’s exactly why we must write it! It is a really exciting article now. If it turns out that Nicky died and Kunio cannot be found, we have information to write a story that is much better than anything that could appear in Asahi Shinbun or the Japan Times.”

  I had brought her in because I needed her help to answer a question. But now I saw that she had a separate agenda. “Actually, Rika, I hate to think of profiting from somebody’s misery.”

  “That is because you did not train as a journalist, Rei-san! I did!” She hit a key on her device that made a loud beeping sound, as if to emphasize her point.

  I threw up my hands. “Well, I’m happy to share credit with you if there’s a story to write. But first we need to get that body identified.”

  “Yes, that’s the first thing. We must establish that we have a victim. Oh, I hope so!”

  “Rika!” I couldn’t hide my horror. “I thought you liked Nicky!”

  “This story could get me a job on MTV Asia, or CNN.”

  Her ambition was so raw. I felt revolted, then remembered what I’d been like a few years ago. When I first immigrated to Japan, I was desperate to get a job at a museum. I’d have done almost anything to make my application noteworthy. I was only doing my current mishmash of jobs because I’d never achieved my dream employment.

  Thinking about that made me realize that the Showa Story article under consideration certainly wouldn’t boost my arts career the way past articles had. Still, going ahead with the article would at least answer the question about whether it was Nicky lying dead in the morgue.

  “When you call the police, don’t mention my name,” I instructed her carefully. “I bet that if you identify yourself as a student who met Nicky several times, that should be enough. Of course, they might want to probe your background a little bit. Police are naturally suspicious.”

  Rika toyed with her pigtail. “That should be easy. I’ll mention that we know each other through Showa College’s animation club. I don’t have to tell them that I’m working on a story for Gaijin Times if they don’t ask about it,

  “I just have one more suggestion.” I paused, searching for the right words. “You must be completely honest about whether you recognize the corpse. If you aren’t positive that it’s Nicky, you must say that. I won’t be disappointed.”

  “Yes, we could still do the Showa Story article even without a dead man,” Rika said cheerfully. “The focus would change to our search for the missing circle members.”

  I wasn’t used to having someone else take over. It made me nervous. I stayed with Rika while she telephoned the police from the noodle restaurant’s vestibule.

  “I’d like to come in and identify the corpse.” Rika spoke loudly over the restaurant din, and I saw a few diners glance at her in curiosity. Yes, it was good that we’d had the bulk of our conversation at the noodle counter in English.

  “They want me to try!” she said gleefully after hanging up. “I’m going over to the morgue after work. I’ll be there at five-thirty, and I can probably call you with the answer shortly after that. Will you be home?”

  “Yes,” I said, knowing that I’d be pacing my apartment the same way I had the night before. This would be best. I could keep an eye on the evening news to see whether the police would break the news of the body’s identification to the press.
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  “I’ll talk to you then. Rei-san, I cannot thank you enough for helping my career with this story. You are an incredibly kind person.”

  We parted outside the noodle shop and I headed toward Kanda’s JapanRail station, stopping in at a few of the used-book stores to see if anything good was for sale. I found myself paging through a water-damaged paperback book illustrated with black-and-white wood-cut drawings that told a story with written commentary in blocks alongside each picture. I read onward and saw a man and woman tumble across the pages, the woman’s kimono opening just enough to show the curve of her breast. The illustration, however tasteful, was similar in theme to the modern manga that I’d seen at Animagine—yet the type of paper and printing technique told me the book had been printed in the late nineteenth century.

  As I paid for the book, the dealer noticed a copy of Showa Story peeking out of my book bag.

  “That looks like nice paper. May I see it?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I handed it over, and to my surprise he did a curious thing: sniffed the paper.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “The best.”

  “It’s like art-book paper, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “That’s right. This paper, which is called Contessa, is made in Singapore. It’s acid free, and one would expect to see it in art books, not in comic books! But this is Tokyo. Everything’s available if you’ve got the money for it.”

  “How do you some college students in their twenties could get hold of such a paper?” I asked.

  He paged through the comic book. “It’s photocopied; one can tell by the slight loss of resolution. The work was done on a color machine. They had to go to a photocopy shop, and the shop probably carried a variety of high-quality papers.”

  I thanked the dealer for his intelligence, but decided privately that going from photocopy shop to photocopy shop across Tokyo would be a logistical nightmare, even if I screened out ones that did not carry Contessa paper. Besides, I wasn’t so sure that the dealer’s theory that the paper came from a shop was right. Seiko, Nicky, and Kunio had a connection to Showa College. They could have used the college’s art department for the paper.

  I went home to rest my aching body in a bath foaming with blue salts from Hakone, a gift from my aunt. I was just drying off when the telephone rang.

  “Rika-san?” I said quickly when I picked up the phone. I had decided to show her some respect by addressing her with the formal honorific suffix -san rather than the affectionate but slightly belittling -chan that others at the Gaijin Times used for her.

  “Sorry, Rei,” came the answer in Japanese. At first I leaped at the thought that the caller was the mysterious Kunio. But as the masculine voice continued a litany of my crimes—why hadn’t I returned his telephone calls, where had I gone?—I realized the caller was Takeo.

  Reassuringly, I said, “I really have been trying to talk to you, but I lost my address book at the beach.”

  “Why didn’t you call the Kayama School? They’d give you my cell phone number.” Takeo sounded exasperated.

  I had no excuse to give him, so I said, “Sorry, I’m so glad you called.”

  “May I come over?”

  “Okay, but we’re going to have to stay in until I’ve heard from someone on the phone. It’s about the article.”

  “See you soon,” he said, and the warmth was back in his voice.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Takeo showed up at my doorstep in half an hour. For a change, he’d left his Range Rover at home and taken the subway.

  “I didn’t realize that you knew how to take the Chiyoda Line,” I teased, kissing him once I’d closed the door. I didn’t want my neighbors to think that I was wild.

  When we broke apart, Takeo said, “I should take the subway more often. It’s great being pressed up amidst all those bodies, thinking all the time of yours. Thanks for not dressing.” He stroked the light cotton fabric of my robe.

  “Um, I actually just took a bath. I meant to get dressed again.“

  “What’s the point? Here, this is for afterward. I brought your favorite tarts, the ones with butter-cream and mandarin oranges.” He handed me a pale green box that bore the seal of Mitsukoshi department store.

  He looked cheerful and relaxed as he kicked off his Birkenstock sandals in my apartment’s entryway and then began unbuttoning his shirt. “Takeo, let’s enjoy those tarts right now. I’ll put on the kettle for tea, or would you prefer sake?” I moved out of his grasp.

  “Since when do we practice tea ceremony with each other?” Takeo laughed delightedly. “What do you want to do, go backward in time?”

  Yes, I thought. I want to go backward one day to the time when Nicky told me that he had to go to an important lunch meeting, and that I couldn’t follow him. I should have said, I’m coming with you, and my presence might have saved his life.

  I must have let out a sound, because Takeo said, “What is it?”

  “I—I’m just sitting around waiting for bad news.” I watched him amble into the LDK, the Japanese term for a combined living, dining, and kitchen space. Even though I had tidied up that morning, my kitchen counter was packed with drying dishes, ripening fruit, and assorted tea-making equipment. The low tea table where I ate and conducted most of my business was covered by paper: daily newspapers, the Showa Story prototype I’d picked up at Kunio’s place, and my most recent find, the nineteenth-century book of woodblock prints.

  “May I?” he asked, setting the box squarely atop the antique comic.

  “Actually, it’s rather precious.” I crouched down beside him and slipped the comic out from underneath. The pages were open to a rather gratuitous sexy scene. The woman had a slim, realistic figure, save for the fact that she was completely hairless—ah, that Japanese aesthetic!—but her male partner had an organ the size of a late-August zucchini.

  Takeo blinked. “Wow, have you changed the plan? Are you going to write an article on historic erotic comics? What a great idea!”

  “No, it’s just for me. What I mean is, it’s not part of the article I’m writing for the Gaijin Times, but perhaps I can learn from it.” Realizing how damning that sounded, I corrected myself. “That is, I hope to learn more about the popular culture of the Meiji period.”

  Takeo smiled at me. “I can teach you. There’s a wonderful old text called The Pillow Book that I found in my father’s library. I know some of the moves by heart.”

  “You’re depraved!” I said, smiling, although I was not in the mood. “Let me do something with the sweets. I don’t want anything to contaminate the antique paper.”

  I moved around my kitchenette, swiftly putting the tarts on a blue-and-white Imari plate and warming a little bit of sake on the stove to pour into an earthenware flask. Sake tasted good with sweets. Asahi Super Dry Beer did not.

  I placed everything on an antique red-and- black lacquer tray that sat on two short legs and took it to Takeo’s side. A courtesan’s behavior, when my nerves were jumping up and down inside. When taking a forkful of tart, I accidentally dropped a mandarin orange segment down the front of my robe. Takeo snaked a hand between breasts to find it.

  “Here’s my opening,” he murmured, maneuvering me backward on the tatami mats.

  “Not just yet,” I said, rolling away.

  Takeo sighed heavily. “I’m sorry, Rei. I’ve been oblivious. You must be hoping for the telephone call.”

  “Yes. Crucial information is about to come. Forgive me, but I feel as if I’m jumping in a thousand different directions.”

  “You’re hoping the artist guy will call. Kunio Takahashi.” There was an edge to his voice.

  I shook my head. “He’s not interested in cooperating. The call I’m waiting for is from Rika, the intern I told you about. We’re working a new angle together. I’ll tell you about it.”

  Takeo poured a glass of sake for me, neatly taking over my role as host. “Well, first let me congratulate you for moving past your original competitive feelings toward Rika
. You never needed to worry, neh?”

  “If only it were so easy,” I said, taking a sip of sake. I’d bought the liquor at a very old brewery in the Japanese Alps town of Takayama. It had the subtle taste of pine needles, and I wanted to serve it quickly, before its taste deteriorated. It seemed fitting that I would sip ceremonial liquor while waiting for news of death or life.

  “You’re saying that you’re still angry with Rika?”

  “No.” I showed him the Asahi article about the dead foreigner. “Did you hear about this?”

  “Yes.” Takeo wrinkled his nose. “Gay-bashing. I thought that was only a problem in countries like the United States. It’s highly unusual here.”

  “I don’t think it was gay-bashing. The man who died was dressed up to look like Mars Girl. Men who dress as female characters usually do it just because they like a character, not because they want to be a woman.”

  “Mars Girl? Was that one of the ones we translated together?” Takeo asked.

  “That’s right. The commercial strip served as the inspiration for the doujinshi that I became interested in later.”

  “Oh, you’re talking about that doujinshi you bought at Animagine? I didn’t get a chance to translate that, since you took it with you.”

  “I have another one of their comics, too, a prototype that I picked up yesterday. The problem right now is that the death scene for the young man I mentioned is identical to the story told in the prototype.”

  “Wow. What are you doing about that?”

  “I sent Rika to the morgue to try to identify the body.”

  “Why didn’t you go yourself?”

  “Lieutenant Hata didn’t think I had seen Nicky enough times to be able to make a firm identification, but I suspect it’s just as much because I’m a foreigner,” I said, feeling defensive. “Rika has seen Nicky about the same number of times that I have, but because she’s Japanese, the police will take her more seriously.”

  “Don’t be so paranoid about being a foreigner,” Takeo said, smiling. “Not everyone is suspicious of you.”