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

by Sujata Massey

  Now she wanted my business card for clarification. The only way around it was to hand her my personal calling card, which simply said Rei Shimura Antiques and had Tokyo and San Francisco addresses. I explained to the receptionist, “I’m a stringer—that is, a local correspondent—who covers Tokyo arts for the Times. Is it possible for me to learn a little more about Mars Girl?”

  She tapped her chin with a perfectly pink fingernail. “Would you prefer to speak to the editor who supervises the series?”

  “Yes, please.” I hadn’t known whom exactly to ask for, but she’d made it easy.

  “Mori-san would ordinarily have made arrangements to take you, but at present he is dealing with the local press on another matter. I will therefore send you directly to the art department.” She placed the card carefully on the center of her desk’s blotter and got back on the phone.

  Then she made another call, said a few words, including what sounded like “Ros Angeres Time-zu.” Los Angeles Times. Apparently, she’d made an erroneous guess about my employer’s identity based on my California address. Clearly, she thought I was much more important than I was, which could be helpful.

  “You are very kind,” I said, sticking to exaggeratedly simple English. The more I kept the language distant, the fewer things she’d ask. Most Japanese people don’t venture into complicated English conversations for fear of making mistakes. This girl, with her perfect brows and nails and wrinkle-free clothing, was probably more agitated about making mistakes than most. I noticed how she’d strategically not asked the actual name of the paper I worked for, but guessed about it from my address. Not that San Francisco was near Los Angeles, but if it was in the same state, that was enough.

  The sprite in purple reappeared to escort me to the art department, which was one floor higher. I’d heard that the “creative” and “business” sides of advertising agencies and media publications often were separated like this. But the art department was no cheerful, creative jungle. Instead there were rows of neat drafting tables with workers bent over them, interspersed with computers. Dayo Publishing’s art section could have been a bank office, if you swapped the bank employees’ navy for the funky casual look that the workers wore.

  We were met by a woman in her twenties wearing a suit of sorts: hot pants with a jacket in the same pink polyester double knit. Her legs were covered by white tights. As she ushered us to the conversation area—a pair of purple leather love seats. I was surprised to learn that this hot-looking woman wasn’t another office lady but Hiroko Shima, managing editor for Mars Girl and three other manga series. I was thrilled. I’d expected a managing editor to be a man.

  “So, people are interested in Mars Girl in the United States?” Hiroko Shima spoke very good English with the slightest trace of a California “Valley” accent.

  “Yes, she has a global, or should I say galaxy-wide, appeal,” I answered with a little laugh. “I’m trying to learn why she’s become so popular that other artists in Japan are knocking off the comic.”

  “Actually, I agree with you about the wide appeal of manga, especially the series that are animated for video. I spent my junior year at UC Riverside,” she answered with a bright smile. “There were so many anime clubs that I had trouble deciding which one to join. So I joined them all. I didn’t get much studying done that year.”

  I joined in her trilling laughter. Hiroko was engaging in the kind of ostensibly carefree girl talk that was supposed to help us form an alliance.

  “Do many women draw comics? I’ve heard many of the fans are women,” I said, smiling back. I was very glad that Mr. Mori had been too busy to see me. I had a feeling I could get exactly what I wanted from Hiroko.

  “Slightly over half of the main artists for our comics are women. It takes a woman to write a comic that excites women.”

  I followed up the softball I’d thrown her with a harder pitch. “What about the schoolgirl comics? The ones where the girls get raped, and so on?”

  Hiroko waved her manicured hand in a dismissive gesture. “That’s an old, misunderstood story. Of course there’s a little sex in certain series. But those series are as likely to be written by women as men! I think the ones by women have a little more, um, sensitivity and romance. Oh, is this on the record?”

  “Why not? I think you’re fascinating. But if you can introduce me to the originator of Mars Girl, I can turn the focus onto her. Or him.”

  “I probably could do that. Manami Oida is here today. She originated the series six years ago; it first appeared as part of a compendium of many comics. We gave her the chance to create a monthly Mars Girl magazine a year later.”

  “She is absolutely the one I want to talk to! Thank you!” I gushed.

  “She comes just two afternoons each week. Usually she spends her days working out of an office near her home. But you’re lucky this is a Thursday. She’s here Mondays and Thursdays.”

  “Is that typical? I’d think creating a monthly magazine is a full-time job. Are the others I see in the office also working part time?”

  Hiroko shook her head. “No, they’re here all day, every day. They do the rote things: lettering, setting up covers, general kinds of artwork. They’re not involved in creating stories. As you can imagine, the writers are the most important element in the comic. The art in our comic is relatively simple and straightforward—it is the spell-binding adventures of Mars Girl that cause our readers to buy and buy again.”

  “I must confess to you I haven’t read every Mars Girl comic published,” I admitted.

  “Please don’t feel bad. The series has been running for five years with a monthly issue, so what does that make? Sixty issues to read? You’ve got many other things to do with your time.”

  “Have you read each issue?” I asked.

  Hiroko nodded. “Yes. That series is one of my personal favorites. I like the power she has. The way she lives within a traditional Japanese structure, but lashes out from time to time.”

  “Has Mars Girl ever done time travel? Has she solved crimes in another era?”

  “Oh, no. Our version—the original Mars Girl—lives in the future! She is a twenty-second-century woman. She has the heart of a typical Japanese girl but the strength of a super human. You cannot kill her. She’s thrown down ten flights of stairs, and she jumps up, ready to fight. Wouldn’t we all like to do that?”

  I changed tactics. “What do you think of what the amateur series Showa Story has done by taking Mars Girl back to pre-World War II Japan?”

  Hiroko crossed her legs, making her shorts ride up a little higher. I had the sense it was a movement she used frequently in job situations. Maybe it distracted men who were doing business with her, but it didn’t distract me. She asked, “Why are you speaking to me about Showa Story?”

  “I’m sort of an art critic.”

  “Sort of?” Hiroko’s friendliness was changing to frost.

  “My area is Japanese art history. My article involves a discussion of how manga have evolved from wood-block prints. That’s why I asked what you think of Mars Girl in a pre-World War II background.”

  “You must keep this off the record.” Hiroko looked at me intently.

  I nodded, knowing that Rika would disapprove of my acquiescence. I told myself that it was more important to learn something than it was to print it.

  “To answer what I think you’re really asking—what do we think about Showa Story’s appropriation of our character—well, we have known about it for a while. Many doujinshi groups create comic books based on different Dayo products. Our general policy is to ignore them. They do not produce enough copies, and they aren’t sold in enough places to steal market share. I would also argue, based on my experience in college manga clubs, that there can be positive results from doujinshi. If Mars Girl is cool enough to inspire an underground comic, she’s pretty cool indeed. Until now, Showa Story provided us free advertising.”

  “Do you know if anyone at Dayo Comics was in contact with the
Showa Story circle?”

  She shook her head. “We have more pressing things to do with our time.”

  “But what about your spokesman’s reaction? On television, he hinted that Showa Story had engaged in plagiarism.”

  “The circumstances around that death put the Mars Girl series in a bad light. We have to make it clear that our Mars Girl is not their Mars Girl. We can’t have a controversy like the one that occurred over Pokemon. You heard about that, didn’t you?”

  “Of course!” A few years ago, all across Japan, several hundred children watching one episode of the animated show Pokemon had suffered seizures. Stories appeared worldwide about whether the culprit was really a blinking strobe effect or a more sinister side to Japanese animation.

  “The only reason I’m talking to you is that I don’t want stories appearing in Los Angeles talking about the evils of Japanese animation. I’m being direct so that you will better understand the situation, I hope.” Hiroko looked straight at me, all the coyness gone.

  “I can assure you no such stories written by me of such an ilk will ever appear in Los Angeles,” I said emphatically. “One last question, strictly theoretical: Would a publisher be upset with a photocopy shop that was printing an unauthorized doujinshi? Could the publisher accuse the shop of trademark infringement?”

  “No! I’ve been trying to tell you that doujinshi publishing does not disturb us. As Mr. Mori said, it’s not really fair that they get tax-free income resulting from use of our characters, but that’s just the way it is. I am very upset that a crime was committed that relates to our icon. But naturally, I feel bad for the American man who died. It’s tragic, isn’t it?”

  She was so forthcoming, but was she for real? I tried to figure that out as something at her waistline beeped: a cell phone. She unsnapped it from her mod white patent leather belt and held it to her ear.

  “Is Oida-san available? I’ve got a reporter to meet her,” she said.

  I watched her face as she said yes a few times, and finally clicked off.

  “You can meet the Mars Girl artist. But please, no questions that might embarrass her. She’s a very shy person.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that but didn’t comment as I followed her through a warren of computer cubicles into an area where drafting tables were packed closely together in a similar way. At first I thought the slightly plump, middle-aged woman wearing bottle-thick glasses had to be a visitor to the department, because she looked so hopelessly square next to the mod Hiroko. But when she put down a pencil on the drafting table and I got a glimpse of an outline of Mars Girl on a piece of paper, I realized she could be the head artist.

  She smiled at me and spoke first. “This is the first time we meet, Miss Shimura. I am Manami Oida. I beg your consideration.”

  Her words were the standard Japanese greeting. They sounded right coming from her. It did make me reflect, though, on how Hiroko hadn’t used the same words. She was young and modern, like a lot of the women drinking at Show a Boy. Manami Oida, in her white polyester blouse and black wool skirt, was the opposite.

  I parroted my own rote greeting back and then got down to business.

  “There are so many admirers of your series,” I began.

  “Oh, no! We are trying hard to make an amusement for the young readers, but these days, new comics are growing! I don’t think we’re so well known.”

  “You may have heard that some of your fans started their own amateur copy of the magazine.”

  “Yes, Showa Story. I’ve bought many copies. It’s absolutely beautiful! Much better than our product, don’t you think?” Manami Oida beamed, and her boss, Hiroko, smiled in a strained, artificial way. Hiroko probably didn’t like hearing that the Mars Girl rip-off was better than the original.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said. “Since they are students, they have leisure to work on the stories as they like.”

  “I sent a letter to Showa Story once, congratulating the three young people involved in its production. I suppose they weren’t interested in correspondence with someone my age, for he never replied.”

  Was Manami being sincere? She was too nice. I shook my head, unable to fathom it. I said, “I heard that someone from Dayo sent Kunio Takahashi a letter. Perhaps it was you.”

  “So that’s what this is about!” Hiroko said. “A man named Kunio Takahashi—not Nicky Larsen?”

  “I didn’t specifically address the letter to Takahashi-san,” Manami Oida said. “However, if he is the main artist, I would like to meet him. Could you arrange that for me?”

  “I wish I could,” I said. “The only other living member of the group that I can find is Seiko Hattori. And I’m afraid that she doesn’t draw.”

  “I’m always looking for gifted artists to render my series. That’s what I wrote in my letter. If Takahashi contributed his talents, perhaps Mars Girl could be in the top five again.”

  “Until last year, Mars Girl had the fifth-largest circulation of all the monthly comic books,” Hiroko explained. “Right now, we’re number ten. Can you just put it that way in your article? That we are in the top ten?”

  “Um, sure,” I said, making a show of writing the phrase “top ten” on my notepad. “I was wondering how much such an artist might earn drawing for you.”

  Both women exchanged glances.

  “Actually, I don’t know,” said Manami Oida. “Mmm, let’s just say about a fifth of what the series originator earns. Drawing is an important job, but it is not as creative as what the series originator does.”

  Not very tempting for Kunio, I thought. I had probably come to a dead end in that direction. I needed to get back to Nicky. “Oida-san, for how many years have you been drawing comics?”

  “Seventeen years,” she said. “I used to illustrate children’s books, but I moved into manga publishing because it was more regular employment. I enjoy it very much.”

  “Where do you create your drawings?” I asked.

  “My hometown of Kurihama. It’s quite pleasant there. Would you like to visit my studio?”

  “I usually have time on Mondays.” I was striving to get the facts on her recent activities.

  “Mondays I come to this office,” Manami answered. “There are staff meetings, that kind of thing.”

  “Just my luck,” I said ruefully. “Does it take all of your day?”

  “Well, let’s see. I arrive here around nine-thirty in the morning, and I must stay until at least three. Maybe later?”

  “Are those the same hours you worked this past Monday the seventeenth?”

  Hiroko interrupted. “I’m sorry, but Oida-san must get back to work, neh?”

  “Yes, there really is a lot to do,” Manami Oida apologized. “But to answer your last question, last Monday I was in the office from nine-thirty to six. We were so busy nobody even went out for lunch.”

  Ten minutes later, I was at Tokyo Station, waiting for the subway train to pull in and thinking about what had happened. Now I knew what had happened between Dayo Publishing and Kunio Takahashi. Kunio had opened the letter Manami Oida had sent and boasted a bit about it to the other members of the circle. It didn’t seem anything else had come of it.

  A recorded jingle told me the train doors were about to close, so I jumped on and headed west toward home. The Marunouchi Line at this time of day was only lightly crowded with students and housewives. Because there was room, people were doing slightly inconsiderate things such as putting a shopping bag on the seat to them, or sprawling their legs out so it was impossible to sit in the neighboring seat. So in effect, the train had as few seats available as it would during rush hour.

  I stayed standing, because the only space left was near a man wearing a gauze mask covering his mouth and nose. The last thing I needed was to come down with a cold. I had about a week until the article was due. The deadline frightened me, since even the easiest column on antiques took me five days to write and polish. The Showa Story investigation was ongoing, so days of
research lay ahead before the writing.

  As we pulled into Kasumigaseki Station, I could see a horde of suited government workers waiting on the platform. The mass seemed impenetrable, but I knew that once the doors slid open, the crowd would part in two neat wings to allow the disembarking people to leave the train, then fill the void efficiently. A lot of people were getting off with me; Kasumigaseki was the ground zero for Japan’s government. I stepped off the train, my eyes scanning the wall for directions to the Chiyoda Line, the subway to which I needed to transfer to get home. I was so busy looking into the distance that when a passenger bumped against my back, I almost tripped into the gap between the train and the platform. In a rare example of hands-on concern, a blue-suited bureaucrat on the platform caught my arm, enabling me to step to safety. I thanked the man, but he had already boarded the train before I could press the issue. Japanese etiquette meant never acknowledging when you do something nice for someone. I moved on, the summer heat wrapped around me like a scratchy thermal blanket. Treading up the sticky staircase in my stacked heels toward the Chiyoda Line, I knew that it would be even more miserably hot outside. In Tokyo, the humidity was the killer. I wished I were at the beach with Takeo.

  I moved a fraction more slowly than the crowd, due to the impractical styling of my dress. I promised myself that if I ever made it up the stairs, I was going to sell the dress at a consignment store. My mother would kill me, but her dress was really cramping my style. Most of the people who’d been on the train with me were a half flight ahead. How pitiful for me, a twenty-eight-year-old woman, to be outpaced by men my father’s age. There was only one figure moving as sluggishly as I: the man with the bad cold.

  As I approached the top of the flight of steps, I thought I heard him say my name, though his words were muffled by the gauze mask.