“You never texted me you were planning that. I would have stayed!”
“I wanted to surprise you. At least I caught up with Tom. He filled me in on what he knew about you finding Ishida-san’s apprentice, and I shared some of the things you told me about Mayumi’s death. Hope that was okay.”
“Of course. Those were my old concerns. You haven’t heard about my phantom texter.” I described the menacing text messages that had been flowing since my arrival in Tokyo and the disturbing man I’d met at Summer Grass.
Michael’s voice was tight. “My first question is: who have you recently met that has your phone number?”
“Akira knows it and so does this guy called Toshi. Also: Mayumi’s parents, and the antiques dealer Mr. Morioka, because I briefly misplaced the phone at his store and he found it. Oh, and I told Glock today as well.”
“Did you bring the phone to this hotel?”
“Of course. It’s in my backpack in the other room—” Before I could finish my sentence Michael had stood up and was shedding water as he stepped out on the tiled floor. Grabbing a tiny hand towel, he strode into the bedroom. “What’s your password?”
“After the SIM card went in, I skipped putting the password back on. I had a lot on my mind. I didn’t think…” I stood up from the bath and reached for the remaining small towel to dry myself. Then I put on the crisp yukata robe hanging on the door.
Michael was sitting naked on the edge of one of the small beds, my phone in his hand. “Okay, I’ve gone into the phone’s settings and can see that someone’s activated your GPS. I’ve also discovered that every outgoing e-mail and text message, as well as your voice mails, is being forwarded to a Japanese address. It’s in kanji. Can you read this?”
I scrutinized the inscrutable array of characters and numbers. “I could ask my aunt what this means. It would be fabulous if it turned out to be someone’s name—but I’m guessing no stalker would be that stupidly transparent.”
“You never know. The tracking that was put on was very straightforward. But Rei—” He shook his head. “You must not have spent any time examining your phone when you got it back, because this is all stuff you could have figured out.”
“No,” I admitted. “But I wasn’t expecting to be tailed.”
“It’s easy enough to undo,” Michael said. “We’ll stop all the e-mail and GPS forwarding. I’d like to add a different GPS tracker just between your phone and mine, so I’ll know where you are, if you run into trouble.”
“Will that address the issue of the harassing texts? My number’s still the same.”
“I want a full record of those texts. They can be used to prove guilt if the police ever respond to this situation.”
There weren’t many things sexier than a gorgeous, irritated man wearing no clothes. I put my arms around Michael and said, “I want to forget about all of it for a while. Let’s have some fun, and then I’ve got to leave you for the private room I told the concierge I wanted.”
“No,” Michael said. “I’ll go to the mat to keep you with me for the whole night.”
“Prove it.” I smiled encouragingly as he pressed me back on the blanket.
No bones about it. A straight married couple making love in a gay men’s hotel room was downright subversive. If the concierge happened to pop in again with his master key, how would he react to me lying exposed while Michael slowly stroked my breasts? As we moved together, relearning each other’s bodies, I fantasized that I might actually be a sexy young man called Ray who’d checked into a Japanese bathhouse because he was curious and succumbed to the desires of a powerful, older producer. Other people did this kind of thing all the time. I didn’t know what Michael was thinking as we made hard, fast love that night, but I felt different: outside of my body and reckless. He was above me, behind me, beside me.
Everywhere I wanted him.
“Hey, the group bath might be empty at this hour.” I sighed as Michael emerged from the bathroom’s miniscule shower the next morning.
“Unh-unh. The baths manager advised me bathing hours are nine to midnight.” Michael was drying himself with the face cloth-sized towel he’d used the night before.
“You spoke with the baths manager yesterday?”
“Yes. I went in for a dip with Enrique because my back hurt from the helicopter ride.”
“Hold on. You soaked in a bath with a bunch of gay men?” I could imagine the ripples of excitement this muscular gaijin would have created.
“Actually, soaking in a jetted tub with other guys is hardly a big deal. I’ve done it other places in Japan and Korea as well. Here, it was rather mind-opening.”
Now I was angry. “Come on. It’s like you getting naked with a lot of horny sorority sisters.”
Michael made a time-out sign with his hands. “Enough, Rei. The mind-opening thing I’m trying to tell you about is I now understand what it’s like to be a minority.”
“What do you mean, Michael? You’re waspier than almost anyone I know.”
“It’s about sex. Whenever you and I check into a hotel, people look at us and assume we’re okay to sleep together. You might be Japanesish, I might be Connecticutish, but it’s no matter to anyone. We’ve got our wedding rings.”
“I don’t see a ring on your finger today,” I said archly.
“Hey, what about you, Mrs. Hendricks?”
“It was Richard’s idea that I take it off,” I admitted. “It’s in my backpack in the locker downstairs along with my regular clothes. By the way, do you have any extra clean underwear I can borrow?”
Michael shook his head. “Forget the underwear. There’s a larger picture to worry about. How can we get you out of here looking like you did when you came on to me last night? Your moustache and beard went down the bathtub’s drain.”
I pulled away from his caress and looked into the mirror across from the foot of the bed. Adjusting the tweed cap over my new short hair, I thought I looked like one of the Hardy Boys. “I’m passing as transgender—here, it’s known as toransukei or nyu hafu. Richard and Yoshiko say it’s still hard to be gay in Japan. You can’t be out unless you work in entertainment, fashion and beauty, or the arts. And Tokyo’s much more gay-friendly than other small towns.”
“Sexual identity may have been Mayumi’s struggle, and why she really left Sugihama,” Michael said. “That’s if she actually was playing for the girls’ team. Going to a gay bar a few times is no proof. You’re the living testimony.”
“Now I’m wondering about Eri, the third roommate,” I said. “She paints urinals—as you know, those vessels are colloquially called benjo. And benjo is also the slang term for a straight girl who hangs around with lesbians.”
“Maybe that adds a double meaning to her art,” Michael said.
“I want to see those women again,” I said.
“There’s a risk to that,” Michael said.
“I know.”
Chapter 29
Michael had prepaid his room the previous evening, so there was no need for conversation with anyone at the front desk when we left Boys Bath. He escorted me straight out, an arm protectively shielding me from view, although my reputation must have spread, because a number of staff pulled out phones and took pictures. I ignored autograph requests and kept my face pressed to his bicep.
After making our break, we high-fived each other and ran all the way to the west entrance of Shinjuku Station, where Michael planned to take the subway to a meeting in Kasumigaseki.
“I’m so glad you’re just seeing people in Tokyo today,” I said. “No more ships, no more radiation, no more fires. Right?”
“That’s the working plan,” Michael said. “After my morning and afternoon meetings, I’m focused on you.”
We kissed a long goodbye, causing a mother to cover her child’s eyes and glare angrily. Smiling, I tilted my cap at her and walked back around Shinjuku to Night Flower.
It was early. No doorman or guest list at this hour—but the door was unlocked.
“Sorry. I’m a friend of Richard and Enrique’s,” I began, using the same casual Japanese he had with me. “My name is Rei.”
“And they call me Queen. Queen Cake,” he said with a grin. “But the scene here doesn’t start until much later, onee-chan. I can give you coffee now, but that’s about it.”
“That is very kind of you,” I said, taking the cup he poured. “I had coffee here yesterday evening, too. I was wondering about a girl who’s come here before? She’s called Mayumi and has blue hair.”
“Oh, I’ve seen that girl a few times. She’s not available, one-chan. She goes with another girl called Glock.”
“I know. And I met Glock the other day to give her some very bad news. I might as well tell you, too.”
“I like to know news. Even if it’s hard.” Queen Cake put his thick forearms on the counter and leaned sympathetically close.
“Mayumi died.”
His lightly lined eyes blinked rapidly. “Oh, how awful! She is young—eighteen or so?”
“Nineteen, and yes, it was a terrible tragedy. I’m not employed by the police, but as a friend to this community, I’m trying to figure out some things about her unfortunate death.”
“A crime of hatred, maybe.” Queen Cake pressed his lightly glossed lips together in a hard line. “I wonder if I can help. Our bouncer photographs outsiders who watch this place. We keep the phone here all the time.”
“I’d be interested to look at the pictures.”
He opened the cash register and from a drawer, pulled out a mobile phone in a rainbow-striped case. “You can look through.”
There were hundreds of pictures. Most were of men with ages in the twenties through the seventies. I guessed that plenty of them might have longed to go inside the bar, but not felt the courage. Other snapshots captured middle-aged women, almost all with worried expressions—but neither Mrs. Rikyo nor Mrs. Kimura were among them. I focused on the men until I found a snapshot of someone I recognized.
Akira Rikyo had a baseball cap covering his rooster hairstyle. Still, the black leather jacket and anxious, pressed lips gave him away. He’d looked similarly stressed much of the time I’d seen him in Sugihama.
“You took a picture of this young man on March first, according to the data line on the photo,” I said to Queen Cake. “Do you remember him from other times?”
He shrugged. “It’s hard to know. All I can say is keep looking….”
I spent the next fifteen minutes going through the rest of his photo archive, but Akira didn’t reappear. Maybe seeing Mayumi arrive here one evening was all he needed to know.
I thanked Queen Cake for his help and left, promising to let him know if it proved Mayumi had met with foul play. I also left my business card, in case anyone at the bar remembered something.
Walking along Shinjuku-dori, I quickly scanned my phone for messages and e-mails. Michael had sent a message asking whether the phantom texter had been in touch. I answered quickly no, that I was fine. There was also a phone message from Akira asking me to call him. I did so, and he picked up on the second ring. “At last, Rei-san. Didn’t you get my message to call yesterday?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know what it was about—sorry, I ran out of time.”
“I called to apologize that my friend Toshi couldn’t meet you. He’s sorry for the inconvenience.”
“No problem. But I’m surprised he didn’t contact me directly.”
“The fact is, he’s a bit nervous now. He received an anonymous text message he wasn’t sure he understood, so he forwarded it to me. Rei-san, the message to him was a warning to stay away from a dangerous woman called Rei. Who do you think sent that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling tightness in my stomach. If my anonymous harasser had contacted Toshi Abe, this meant he knew about Akira, too.
“Toshi doesn’t want to speak to you now,” Akira said. “But you could still verify my whereabouts that day by calling my boss, Mr. Koji.”
“Why would he give information to a stranger over the phone?”
“Shimura-san, you have good ideas. I’m sure you can think of something.”
Flattery didn’t work on me. Clearing my throat, I said, “I’m glad that you called, because there’s something else I need to ask you about.”
“Sure.”
“On March first, you were photographed hanging around a Shinjuku gay bar called Night Flower. Why?”
“I never went in there!”
“That may be true, but you remained outside the door long enough for the bouncer to think it was worth recording your image. Why was that?”
“Because of Mayumi. She was walking through Shinjuku with one of her roommates and went in. My plan was to wait nearby to make sure she left safely.”
“Isn’t that a little overprotective?”
“I wanted to know if there was a new boyfriend. She’d been with some older guy recently. He looked like a bad sort. But when I saw the kind of guys going into Night Flower, I realized I didn’t have anything to worry about. I left an hour later, after she and her roommates left together. Just a girls’ gathering, you know.”
I decided to ask him straight out. “Did you ever think Mayumi might be bisexual or lesbian?”
He gave a choked laugh. “Not really. But it’s true, we never did it.”
As I deliberated over whether to say anything more, his quick words cut into my chance.
“I must return to work. But let me know when you’ve spoken to Koji-san. I don’t like you thinking bad things about me, Rei-san. It’s not correct.”
After ringing off with Akira, my phone buzzed again. This time, I saw it was Michael on the line.
“Hey. Are you already through with your meeting?” I looked at my watch and saw it was past twelve.
“Did you ever have breakfast?” Michael asked.
“No. But it’s a bit late—”
“Let’s do lunch. I’m on the west side. Remember that little place in Roppongi where they cold-cure the salmon with salt and lemon?”
“Ew. I still can’t stand the idea of fish.”
“You pick the place then. I have a gap until my next meeting.”
“There’s a ramen shop I like in Shibuya. It’s called Usagi. Or is it Usago?” “Never heard of it. Do they have a website?”
“I’ll just look…” As I took the phone away from my ear to open the browser, I saw a luminous line of hiragana text marked Sender Unknown.
Damn it. No texts for a halfday had lulled me into a sense of complacency. But now I could feel someone breathing on my newly shorn nape.
“Can you give me those spellings again?” Michael asked.
“Sorry, I just got a text.” I put the phone back close to my ear. “It says Sender Unknown, but for the first time, there’s a scary emoticon attached to the text.”
“What kind of emoticon?”
“A gun.”
Michael exhaled sharply. “Sounds like an escalation. I’ll come to you right now.”
“Yes, but… hold on. Let me read the message—there’s a bit of kanji in it, for a change. I might have to use my online decoder.”
But the text turned out to be rather straightforward—and once I figured out the sender, I relaxed. “I think it’s okay. It’s a message from one of the girls I met yesterday. It just says, ‘We need to talk to you. Come back, because Eri knows something.’ What could that be?”
“But Eri or Glock may have been texting you all along,” Michael pointed out. “And if there are two of them against you—in an apartment with a closed door—I don’t like it. Even if they’re women.”
“The gun is probably Glock’s sig line—get it? But what does Eri know? Is it about the
lacquer, or, like Richard suggested, a spooky man who came through the place and hankered after Mayumi?”
“Could you just ask the gun and urinal artists to lunch? This sounds like a good conversation to be held in public.”
“They’re not going to spill anything with you at the table.”
“I won’t be at your table, but nearby. Hey, I’ll bring my own lunch date. I’m really hungry, Rei. I’ll get there before you.”
“Okay, but where? I hardly know where to suggest—”
“Let’s try CocoLo, which isn’t far from where you are in Shinjuku. Double Cs and the L in caps. If the gals refuse, call me back with where they’d rather meet.”
“They may not want to go out at all—”
“What did you say they were, NEET? Unemployed people are usually up for a free meal. Especially if you throw in a bottle of wine.”
An hour later, I was seated in a charming café with walls lined with cheerful, cartoonlike images of circus animals. Glock and Eri were across from me; Glock in paint-stained overalls and glasses and Eri in a simple, stylish black dress. She did clean up nicely, I thought. And Michael had been right about the wine. Eri was quick to suggest the most expensive rosé on the tab.
The host had put us at a central table that had one unique characteristic. Right behind was the only table with the only foreigners in the place.
My husband had scored not one lunch date, but two. He was with Richard and Enrique, who both looked rather hung over. Judging from sporadic bursts of laughter, it seemed the trio was recounting antics from the past evening. I only hoped that Michael wouldn’t kiss and tell.
“Please choose whatever you want. I’m just so glad you were able to join me,” I said. “Oh, the wine’s already half-gone. That’s no fun. Should I order another?”
I was very glad when my shiitake and tomato omelet arrived; the wine only made me feel hungrier.
“How did you know about this place?” Glock said after we’d all eaten a bit. She’d ordered a chicken cutlet with salad and potatoes, and Eri a salmon salad that I couldn’t quite look at.
The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) Page 25