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

by Sujata Massey

I was reminded again of the voice on the telephone that had told me that Kunio wasn’t interested in making money. But Nicky had insisted that Kunio had debts to pay.

  “How much did this table cost you?” I asked Hedgehog.

  “Mmm. Ten thousand yen for the whole weekend. If we’re lucky, we’ll make it up in sales. But in the past, we have taken a loss.”

  “You’re here because of your love of the art,” I said.

  He shook his head. “We don’t love art. We love manga.”

  “I really appreciate the time you’ve given me. I’d like to buy one of your comics,” I said.

  “Great! I’d recommend you start with the first in the series. Would you like my autograph?”

  “Very much so.” I opened my backpack and took out a thousand-yen note to pay for the magazine. When I was handed back four hundred yen, I said, “Can you give me a receipt? I think I can claim this as a business expense.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t. We’re not like a regular shop or anything. We don’t pay taxes.”

  I’d forgotten what Hiroko, the managing editor at Dayo Publishing, had said about doujinshi. She’d mentioned, with a slight air of resentment, how her company had to pay taxes on their profits from the magazines sold. The amateurs could keep everything.

  I took the magazine from the hedgehog and wandered off, thinking about what he’d told me. Nicky had been the business manager for the circle. I wondered if, in some way, tax issues might have led to his death.

  Now I had to decide where to venture next. I didn’t think I’d get much out of sitting in a dark room watching anime films, and I thought there was no point in going to the costume contest, since I could see pretty wild costumes going right by me. I decided to go the main stage, where an event called Freestyle Draw Room was taking place. An emcee, a twenty-something boy with a harsh blond dye job, was speaking earnestly into the microphone about the competition at hand. The audience would suggest popular manga characters, and the artists onstage would draw them in two minutes or less. The audience would vote for originality and accuracy, two concepts that seemed to me to be antithetical.

  When the call for the first character came, a young woman dressed in a school uniform was picked to choose the theme.

  “Um, well, how about Sailor Moon?” she ventured.

  I expected to hear groans of boredom from the hundreds of anime fans sitting cross-legged around her, but there was only polite applause. So Sailor Moon it was. The three artists sketched, and out of the wide strokes of calligraphy pen, marker, or pencil, the familiar saucer-eyed schoolgirl began to take shape. Everyone drew Sailor Moon’s braids and face in a similar manner—here was accuracy in play. Originality was to be seen in Sailor Moon’s actions. One artist drew her with an assault weapon pointed at the audience; another depicted her with her skirt blowing up; the third drew her standing at an easel, drawing a picture of herself.

  Even though the artist who drew the sketching Sailor Moon hadn’t quite finished the illustration when two minutes were up, he received the most applause. I didn’t agree. I thought the sketch of the gun-toting schoolgirl was the best, even though the theme disgusted me.

  The artists autographed and ripped off their work from the easels. A few people rushed forward to claim the rejected art. Collectors wanted everything: even unpublished manga.

  I watched a few more cartoon characters get their two minutes in the spotlight. Two of the three artists kept winning. The artist who kept drawing each character with weapons in hand did not. Her thin shoulders sagged with desperation, and she drew more slowly.

  Watching the art contest was making me tense, so I stood up to leave. All around me, people were spread out with colorful comics around them. The colorful patchwork they made reminded me of beach goers with their towels spread out over the sand at Isshiki Beach.

  Applause meant that someone had won again. Now the emcee was calling on another audience member to suggest a theme.

  “You, you,” a woman sitting near me said, suddenly pointing at me.

  Oh, God. The fact that I was standing made them think I had a suggestion. And then I had it. “Mars Girl.”

  “She said Mars Girl!” the girl near me shouted toward the stage.

  “How about it?” the emcee said to the artists. “Can your talents take on the universe’s deadliest girl alien?”

  Now I had to stay. I moved back closer to the front so I could see the artists working. I was rooting for the girl who kept losing, but it didn’t look as if things were going to change—her Mars Girl was skewering herself with a long, sharp bayonet. An uncomfortable, violent, sloppily drawn image. The artist who liked sexual themes drew Mars Girl pulling on a pair of stockings, and the third artist, who had won the very first round with Sailor Moon, depicted a beaming Mars Girl holding up two fingers in the peace sign.

  This camera-mugging Mars Girl won, to my dismay. Sure, it was executed precisely, but the theme had nothing to do with the storyline. I surveyed the artist. a tall, thin young man who was dressed like a salaryman. Maybe this was the kind of doujinshi artist who would someday be hired by a mainstream publisher, I thought as hands stretched out for the finished picture he was tossing off the stage.

  Belatedly, I realized this was the perfect art to illustrate the convention that wouldn’t let us take photographs. I surged forward, trying to make it to the stage, keeping my eyes open for the lucky fans who got pictures. Later on, I’d have to pay them to get what I needed.

  A young man who had stood up from the group was dressed in a tailored white jacket and trousers gone yellow with age. His profile revealed an elegant jaw, but his eyes were masked by wrap-around sunglasses. He had gone straight to the young woman who had drawn the ill-fated picture with a bayonet. As if to better see her picture, the man took off his sunglasses and left them casually dangling from one hand. He took the sketch of Mars Girl disemboweling herself with the other.

  I could see the artist’s expression. She looked rapturous. A flush bloomed on her cheeks, and she blinked rapidly. She didn’t say anything, but her lips parted, as if for a kiss.

  With a reaction like that, she had to be looking at Kunio Takahashi.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The conversation lasted only a moment, and by the time the emcee was calling out for new draw-on-demand requests, the man I suspected was Kunio had slipped his glasses back on and was striding toward the room’s exit.

  Quickly I beat him there and draped myself casually against the set of doors that shielded the exit. Now, he would need to ask me to step aside. Contact would happen.

  As he advanced in my direction, he unrolled the picture and began looking it over. It’s hard for me to walk and read a map at the same time, but Kunio took everything—literally—in his stride. I thought I saw his nostrils flare slightly while he studied the picture, and I wondered if that meant he disliked it.

  We were about six feet away from each other. Kunio took off his glasses, as if to get a better look at my costume. I examined his face, the high, sculpted cheekbones and dark eyes with velvety lashes that looked as if they’d seen a few coats of mascara. A perfect, side-parted red-brown bang swooped over one of his eyes.

  I recalled how gorgeous all the girls had said he was. To me, though, he was an androgynous mannequin, a good-looking boy straight out of the comics.

  Kunio offered me a charming smile and a half bow. I readied myself for some kind of compliment on my costume. He looked like a flatterer. He had probably flattered the artist who gave him the picture.

  “Excuse me,” he said in a soft voice. I didn’t move. He tried again. “Um, sorry. I need to get out.”

  “Why did you take that sketch?” I asked. His conversational style was less charming than I’d expected.

  “I like Mars Girl.” He moved closer to the door, as if trying to coax me to move away from it.

  “I guess you’re collecting all forms of Mars Girl now that your doujinshi is finished.”

  Kunio bli
nked his perfect eyes and examined me more closely.

  “You don’t recognize me,” I said.

  “Did we drink tea together once or something?” He was using a Japanese euphemism for dating.

  “Sorry, that’s not it.”

  “Your teeth look American,” he said.

  “That should be a clue.”

  He put his dark glasses back on. “Come on, who are you?”

  People in the hallway were banging on the other side of the door, wanting to get in. But I kept it barred, not wanting to end my talk with Kunio. “My name is Rei Shimura,” I said at last. “I’ve left some messages for you to call me.”

  “Oh!” He bit his luscious lower lip. “You look different today.”

  You look different today. If he’d only heard me on the phone, he wouldn’t have known what I’d looked like that day. I put two and two together. He had to be Sunglass Man, who had stalked me in the anime coffee shop the afternoon Nicky died. And maybe pushed me in the train station, too. Now that he’d concealed himself behind his dark glasses, his expression was unreadable.

  “How did you learn so much about Japanese history? Comfort women, organized crime, all that?”

  “Nicky studied Japanese history in America. He told us those stories. I wasn’t sure if half of them were true, but they made good comics,” Kunio said. “So he’s the one you should have concentrated on. Not me.”

  “But you have an artistic gift,” I said. “I loved your illustrations in the comics, and your mural at Show a Boy. I thought that I could organize a gallery show for you. You could create provocative paintings based on the best illustrations you’ve done in the comics.”

  “You talk about provocative painting. That sounds like bull. All I want to do is make comic books!”

  “A comic book gives you just a few inches of space to exercise your creativity. A painting, such as the mural you made, shows the breadth of what you can do. In fact, I believe that mural was promising, but just a hint of the good things that are to come from you.”

  “It was a stretch. Drawing at that different scale was fun, but . . .” He shook his head. “How many times will I ever be given a blank wall like that to work on? In a city as crowded as Tokyo?”

  “You could work on canvas,” I suggested.

  “Who can buy materials like that?” he scoffed.

  “But you’re ahead financially now that Nicky’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “You borrowed money from him.”

  “I repaid him.”

  “Not before he died,” I said. “I know. I was at the apartment building where you live, and he complained to me.”

  Kunio was still for a minute. Suddenly his arm flashed out and pushed the door open. He squeezed through the anime fans waiting on the other side of the door.

  “Hey,” I called, trying to catch up with him. But the crowd that had amassed while I kept the door shut had surged forward. I was like a surfer on top of a fast-rising wave.

  “Stop the man in white,” I shouted. I’d been so stupid to reveal my identity to Kunio. Why had I done it? I’d wanted to get a reaction. Well, he’d come through with one, and it wasn’t what I’d wished for.

  My calls for help had attracted attention.

  “Ooh, it’s a role-playing game!” someone shrieked.

  “Mars Girl, may we join you?” my hedgehog friend called out.

  “Yes, yes!” I said wildly, trying to keep Kunio in my line of vision. “Just catch the man in white.”

  Now the wave had turned into a riptide. I was carried along in the collective energy of a group of ninja warriors, Sailor Moons, and Pocket Monsters surging behind the slim figure in white hurrying down the hall. In the midst of the multicolored throng, I thought I caught a flash of blue. Yes, a man in his thirties wearing a police uniform had joined the crush. It was Lieutenant Hata.

  “Police,” he boomed. “All people must stop running. Stop running now!”

  The crowd obediently halted, which in turn caused a massive collision. It was like standing in the middle of a packed subway car that had suddenly come to a halt. I was pushed back and forth, and someone grabbed at my Mars Girl wig. A girl toppled on me; I lost time brushing myself off and engaging in mutual apology. All the fans were getting sheepishly to their feet and grumbling about the unfair censorship of a great role-playing game.

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t lead the game in here, Shimura-san,” the hedgehog mourned. “Let’s try again outside, say, in a couple of hours? How about on the beach?”

  Lieutenant Hata’s loud voice cut into our conversation. “Shimura-san, so you’re here! Were you responsible for inciting this riot?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said, feeling desperate. God, was inciting a riot punishable by jail time? “I was only trying to catch up with Kunio Takahashi.”

  “You were?” He shook his head as if in disbelief. “A riot is not what we want.”

  “The comic book freaks promised they’d be calm. This is a violation of that agreement!” A middle-aged man on Lieutenant Hata’s heels threw in his own two yen’s worth. I guessed he represented the convention hall.

  “It’s not the group that’s at fault, though I must say they behaved without thinking,” the lieutenant said to him. In a louder voice he added to the crowd, “All right, everyone, pick yourselves up and go back to what you were doing. But please don’t ever run in this hall. Even in the case of emergency, proceed quietly to the nearest exit.”

  “After exiting, convention-goers cannot come back in,” the manager said. “And you, young miss, must exit immediately.”

  Everyone was looking at me. I looked back and caught a glimpse of Rika behind someone. She looked horrified, and I wondered if it was because she was really worried for me, or because now she knew our news story had totally collapsed.

  “You must go,” the manager repeated.

  Lieutenant Hata cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to say, Shimura-san, that by law he can decide that.”

  “But I—I’m in costume. I’ve got to get my real clothes back.”

  “No time for that. We must restore order.” The sumo wrestlers who had served as the convention security had appeared. They looked even more menacing this time around.

  I thought I caught a flash of sympathy in Lieutenant Hata’s eyes, but he only said, “Actually, it is the prerogative of the building’s management to refuse admission. I’ll walk out with you. In fact, I’ve got those questions I want to ask you—”

  “Forget about it,” I said furiously, gathering my convention bag tightly against my blue unitard. I began my solitary walk toward the exit sign.

  A high voice came from behind me. ”Rei-san, I’ll retrieve your clothing for you. Where did you leave it? Please don’t be anxious.” It was Rika, following me, but then that was the usual course of events.

  “Do you think I believe you’d do anything in my interest? And I’m not worried about my clothes,” I snapped at her.

  “But you said—oh!” Her eyes widened. “You were making an excuse to stay in.”

  I was almost to the steel exit door. In a stony voice, I said, “Now that I’m going, the story is in your hands. Take it.”

  “Don’t say that!” Rika cried. “We work together. You are the sempai, and I am the kohai.”

  She was using classical terms, calling me the superior and herself the inferior. Phony flattery.

  “You’ll stay and finish up, won’t you?” I asked bitterly.

  “I’ll try.”

  The sumo wrestler who had been tailing us held the exit door open. There was nothing for me to do but go through it.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  It was the weekend, which meant Hayama and Zushi were dogged with traffic. I waited with a crowd at the bus stop, feeling the sweat trickle under my costume. I felt as if I’d been wrapped in foil.

  There were a few conventioneers at the bus stop who didn’t give me a second glance, but I could tell that the we
ll-dressed beachgoers were intrigued. Surfers poked their friends and whispered about whether I’d made my outfit out of a tanning blanket. I stared into the road, willing the bus to come. At last one came, but it was headed in the wrong direction: toward Zushi Station, not the emperor’s palace.

  I decided to walk. This way I could keep scanning the landscape for Kunio Takahashi, who probably was on the loose from the convention. But I saw no young man dressed in a white military uniform, just people on motorcycles or in cars. What had happened to the Japan where people were known for walking for many miles?

  The heat seemed to increase exponentially underneath my tight nylon outfit. Within a few minutes, I went from feeling damp to completely soaked. Now my costume was almost obscene. Probably no bus driver would permit me to board his vehicle. I would have to walk all the way to Takeo’s house.

  I was so hot and thirsty that I stopped at a vending machine to buy a Pocari Sweat. I drank it down in less than a minute. The machine had a little hole in it where you were supposed to throw the empty can, but it was all filled up. Too many thirsty people.

  I continued my walk, looking for a place where I could throw away the can. There was an actual wastebasket on the corner ahead. It looked fairly stuffed, but I could perch the can on top of it. As I drew closer, I saw something hairy on top. It looked fairly unappealing; as I launched my can into the wastebasket, I saw that the hairy object was a dog’s head. Not a real one, but one made of acrylic fur with holes for eyes. It was a dog’s head mask.

  A dog’s head. I remembered Seiko Hattori’s supposed dog costume. Had she recently walked by? If so, why had she discarded the head of her costume?

  It was an odd place where the head had been dropped: about a quarter mile from the convention hall, but just a stone’s throw from a beach entrance. This was part of Isshiki Beach, but not the end that was close to Takeo’s house. I didn’t know it. I looked at the dog’s head, and I listened to the waves hitting the rocks, just across the street. I supposed that a person heading to the beach might abandon a heavy mask.