The Drowning God

by James Kendley

  Takuda rose from his chair. “It’s good that you’re sharing your knowledge now because the time has come for your Drowning God to die, and you’ll tell me how to kill it.”

  Ogawa smiled and shook his head. “There is no way.”

  “Someone had some ideas at some point, surely. Someone in this valley must know.”

  “They may think they know,” Ogawa said, “but they are fools. There’s no way.” He rolled over with his back to Takuda.

  Takuda stood over Ogawa as he pretended to sleep. Suddenly, the timeline made sense. It all made sense. It struck him like a thunderbolt.

  Takuda knelt and whispered into Ogawa’s ear:

  “We know things you don’t. We know exactly who was feeding your stinking monster from the time the cult members failed to the day you came along. We know how you were feeding it while you worked at Zenkoku.”

  Ogawa had gone very still. He wasn’t even breathing.

  Takuda doubled down on his bluff because it seemed to be working. “We can track missing Zenkoku employees, name by name, to the day you were fired. Then it’s just a countdown to the botched kidnapping of the Kawaguchi girl. A countdown to the day you failed the Kappa.”

  Ogawa burrowed into his covers.

  Takuda leaned in closer. “This lawyer you keep on talking about, Counselor Endo, allowed you to be fired so you would have to procure victims outside the plant. So you would be caught. He’s ready to give you up at a moment’s notice. You know it’s true. You’re on your own here.”

  Ogawa tried to pull the pillow over his head. Takuda lifted the corner of the pillow to whisper: “I’ll catch that stinking monster again. If I can’t kill it, I’ll tell it you helped me, and I’ll bring it here in irons. I’ll feed ten meters of rusty chain into the toilet to keep it from squirming out that way, and then I’ll handcuff you together so that it can eat your bowels from the bottom upward in tiny, tiny little bites.”

  “You’ve convinced me.” Ogawa turned over on the bed, smiling sweetly. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Takuda was sitting in the darkened apartment when Yumi came home. When she turned on the light, he said, “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I lost my phone, and they’ve cut off phone ser­vice at the temple.”

  She dropped the groceries and sat on the floor.

  “You thought I was still in the valley,” he said.

  “I thought you were dead.”

  “That doctor from the valley, Fujimoto. He said he called you and Yamada . . .”

  “He said he treated you, but I was sure it was a lie. You had to be dead to let him touch you.”

  He collected strawberries that had spilled from their package. She straightened her skirt and would not look at him.

  They ate in their accustomed places. Everything was in its accustomed place. The apartment was spotless. She would not look at him.

  “Four days ago, I finally saw it,” he said.

  She sat still, but she didn’t look up from her rice.

  “You told about the face in the water, the claw that dragged Kenji under, and the same claw ripping down my face when I almost had our boy safe again.”

  She put her chopsticks and rice bowl on the table. Finally, he pushed the table aside and sat formally. He placed his palms on the straw matting and bowed his forehead to the back of his hands.

  “For not fully believing you, I apologize. I did not know—­I did not let myself believe—­that Kenji’s killer was inhuman. It didn’t make sense. I would like to blame my failure on the poison the creature left in my face, but I cannot. I was a coward and a fool, and I beg your forgiveness.

  “Further, for failing to—­I’m sorry. I caught it, Yumi, and it got away. I had it pinned, but I wasn’t careful enough, and it almost killed me. I beg your forgiveness. I swear on our family tomb that I . . .”

  He heard her step into her shoes. By the time he looked up, the door latch clicked, and she was gone.

  He was already under the covers when she came back. She did her nighttime routine silently, in the dark, and then she crawled in beside him.

  “Yumi, I just want to say . . .”

  Her husky voice was heavy with sadness. “You thought we could compare notes, as one does in an investigation. Process and discipline.”

  “I thought it would help.”

  “You expected a rational conversation about this,” she said.

  After the fifth breath of silence, she said, “Tell me everything.”

  He told her everything. She did not cry when he told her what the creature had done to him. He finished with Officer Mori sneaking him out of the valley so he could recuperate at home.

  “Again, Yumi, I just want to say . . .”

  “Be quiet,” she said. “Let me think. Just let me think.”

  They both lay thinking until the sun rose, and she got up silently. She left for work without a word.

  It was only a few minutes’ walk to the coffeehouse where Mori and Suzuki were waiting, just far enough to stretch his legs and loosen the kinks in his back and neck. One night on his own pillow didn’t make up for days of drugged and unnatural sleep on Suzuki’s thin pallets. Still, he was beginning to feel better. Despite the uncertainties with Yumi, he was almost back to normal. The gray curtain of sadness had drawn back bit by bit as the monster’s poison left his system. It was a beautiful spring day, and he was on his way to see new friends. He believed on that morning that he was not much more complicated than a houseplant.

  Having a monster to kill was a bonus. A man likes clear objectives.

  Mori and Suzuki seemed amazed by his recovery. When he told them that his wounds had already closed, they made him roll up his sleeves to prove it. Mori moved his tiny table aside and stood to see. They had chosen a coffeehouse near Takuda’s apartment, a place so small that each man had taken a tiny table for himself.

  “Wow,” Suzuki said. “That’s fast.”

  “I’m not taking the stitches out for another week, just to be sure, but they feel pretty good.”

  Suzuki leaned over to see. “You see? Something is happening to us. He’s stronger than ever, and he heals up overnight.”

  “This is the sixth day,” Mori said.

  “Well, it’s still very fast. Meanwhile, I can’t get enough food now. I’m hungry all the time.”

  Mori sat. “That’s not new.”

  “Yes, it is. After I finish my dinner, I walk back to the temple, and I’m hungry by the time I get home.”

  “You should get takeout.”

  “If I did that, I’d have to stop and eat on the way home, and I’d go back for more. I’d never get home at all.”

  Takuda leaned forward. “How about you, Officer? Is it still like having a strobe light going off in your head?”

  “Music helps. I’m not sleeping, though. I stay up all night reading about monsters and Japanese financial conglomerates. The big ones. Zenkoku, actually.”

  “Let’s put it to work,” Takuda said. “Tell me everything you know about Zenkoku.”

  Mori scratched his head as if polishing his brain. “Well, it’s either the largest and oldest corporation in the world, or it barely exists at all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Zenkoku was one of the big conglomerates from way before the 1860s. As a matter of fact, it’s older than any of the ‘big four’ conglomerates. Mitsubishi and Mitsui only date back to the seventeenth century, but parts of Zenkoku may date from medieval times. As for what kind of thing it is, it’s hard to describe the structure because Zenkoku actually started to dissolve and weave its way deeper into Japanese life while the other conglomerates were getting fat and bossy.”

  “Dissolve . . .”

  “Zenkoku started going underground in the nineteenth century. When the Admiralty a
ttempted to nationalize the corporation’s shipping concerns during the first Sino-­Japanese War, that part of the firm just evaporated. Disappeared. No forwarding address. Zenkoku General went public, the key industrial concerns stayed private, and the whole company was managed through a series of interlocking directorships that was nearly impossible to trace.”

  “What about the brain? The family?”

  “The Endo clan. They died out.”

  Takuda and Suzuki looked at each other, alarmed, but Mori shook his head. “Not the same name as the counselor. Same pronunciation, en-­do, but it was made up of characters that aren’t even in standard use anymore. Losing that family name and becoming Zenkoku allowed the company to shed and reabsorb subsidiaries at will. ‘Zenkoku,’ meaning ‘the whole country,’ or ‘nationwide,’ is such a common phrase that there were—­and are—­literally hundreds of companies by that name in every city phone book, companies that have nothing whatsoever to do with Zenkoku General. I take my uniform to Zenkoku Cleaners. It’s a chain that might have been part of the Zenkoku group at one time. Maybe not. It’s impossible to tell.”

  “So it’s not like a normal corporation.”

  “It’s like a kudzu vine. You see one stalk over here, and you see another stalk over there, but there’s no way to know if they’re connected underground.”

  They sat for several moments, lost in thought. Finally, Suzuki said, “Why is a gigantic conglomerate like that interested in the Naga River valley? Why did it open a synthetic fiber mill there, of all places?”

  Mori blinked rapidly as if awakening from sleep. “Another question is why that plant still operates at all. The fibers it makes there are almost useless. It’s an antiquated technology, and Zenkoku must be selling them at a loss. More than once, they’ve quietly dumped the product into the sea.”

  “They wanted something else in the valley,” Takuda said.

  Suzuki nodded. “They wanted to study it.”

  Mori looked from one to the other. “They wanted to study the valley?”

  Suzuki shook his head. “It. It!”

  “Oh. Oh!” Mori leaned back in his chair. “Well—­Why? There’s no way to train such a thing. There’s no way to use it as a weapon because it’s too dangerous to keep in captivity. The toxin would be of limited use and very hard to synthesize, I imagine.” Mori looked out the window. “Anyway, why open a whole factory just to study one beast? It doesn’t make sense. Perhaps it’s not just the creature they wanted to study. Maybe it’s the situation, the valley and the creature together.”

  Suzuki looked horrified. “They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t do this just as an experiment. They wouldn’t let the monster live and bring new workers, new families into the valley just as some sort of insane sociology experiment.”

  Takuda shook his head. “I think both of you have missed the point.”

  “What do you mean?” Mori said.

  “We’ll never know if there ever was a profit motive, or a lesson to be learned, or any tangible interest to be served. It doesn’t matter for our purposes.”

  He tossed Endo’s business card on the table. The others looked at the card as if they expected it to burst into flame.

  “It’s over. Endo and his masters have grown tired of keeping a pet monster hidden in that little valley, and they want someone to clean it up for them.” Takuda looked up at them. “I believe we should oblige them.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Takuda sat cross-­legged on Okamoto’s balcony. She wouldn’t expect him, and she would be very jumpy, despite the note he had left her. When she entered her apartment, he rose and bowed, gesturing through the plate glass for her to be silent. He could be seen from apartment buildings across the expressway, but he doubted that her balcony was under visual surveillance.

  She stepped out silently and slid the glass door closed behind her.

  “There was a note at my desk that I would find a package on my balcony. What kind of nonsense is that? Did you leave the note?”

  He bowed in assent.

  “Well, this is ridiculous. You followed me all the way to Yamaguchi Prefecture, snuck into my office on a Saturday, and climbed like a monkey—­Wait, did you go through my apartment?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Of course not. Yet here you are. Are you the package?”

  “No.” He pulled the bulky packet from inside his jacket. “This is the package I wrote about.” He presented it with a bow. “Please accept it.”

  She sighed. “Detective, I appreciate your help, and I followed your advice. I want to leave my former life behind me, so please just let me be.”

  Takuda stood with his head lowered and the packet extended. “You followed part of my advice, and you didn’t even follow that very well. I found you too easily. Be assured that your husband’s former employers know where you are. They probably have listening devices in your apartment.”

  “I thought it might be better to hide in plain sight.”

  “This is the eleventh day since your husband botched the kidnapping of the Kawaguchi girl, so they must charge him with a crime or release him very soon unless a judge grants an extension. I think they would rather release him quietly.”

  Her face was immobile. Takuda had learned that this was her reaction to fear. He continued: “The only thing working in your favor is that Ogawa thinks you are still overweight. He doesn’t know what the strain has done to you. He might have trouble picking you out of a crowd, but eventually, he will find you, and he will kill you.”

  She gathered her breath to argue.

  “There is a man named Endo,” Takuda said, “a counselor for Zenkoku who has promised to help your husband find you. I don’t know if this counselor cares about fulfilling your husband’s revenge fantasies, but I think he dislikes leaving loose ends.”

  He waited. Finally, she took the packet.

  “It’s a detailed escape plan,” he said. “Execute it Monday. That gives you two days to commit as much of it to memory as possible. Carry it with you at all times.”

  She stared down at the packet.

  “Do not tell anyone you are leaving. At noon Monday, withdraw your entire savings in cash and go straight to the station. Use only cash. Your life depends upon it.”

  “This is insane,” Okamoto said.

  “At the station, you will stop once to drop your cell phone off at a courier kiosk. The enclosed prepaid mailer is already addressed to your parents in Osaka. The longer the phone works, the longer Zenkoku will think you’re on your way home. Make sure it’s fully charged and turn off the ringer to save power.”

  She opened the packet. Takuda watched her eyes twitch across the maps and timetables as if she could absorb this all at once. She would not.

  “You will have to memorize this like a dance. The train times, platform switchbacks, shortcuts, and clothing changes leave you little margin for error. The instructions tell how many changes of clothing you’ll need, lightweight clothing that will fit easily into trash bins as you discard outfits. You can’t miss a beat, but luckily, you’ll only have to do it once. Do it correctly, and you will be free.”

  She blinked at him.

  “I didn’t have time to write everything down. The travel timetables end on the third day. You’ll be at a seaside town called Hikari. Buy a can of lighter fluid at the tobacconist’s on the corner opposite the fishmonger’s. Walk down to the sand. There are piles of driftwood from last year’s typhoons. Build a fire big enough to burn your old ID, credit cards, bankbook, everything. When the coals are hot, throw in your personal seal. Then go to the ward office to start activating your new identity. That’s page two.”

  “Umm—­this says Yoshiko Kawamura. You want me to become Yoshiko Kawamura?”

  “Yoshiko Kawamura is an amalgam of old ID numbers and medical records. Essentially, you’ll be merging bits of three dif
ferent identities to make a whole.”

  “You have identities just lying around?”

  “They are debris of other lives left behind by murderers in the Naga River valley. A clever coworker of mine showed me how to put them to good use. Once you’ve activated all the different bits, your new identity will be in synch with an old family register buried in the archives of a town in Shikoku. The text of a letter that will allow you to retrieve that old register is included. The parents of your new identity, unfortunately, will have been missing for decades, presumed deceased.”

  “Fine by me.” She examined her new personal seal, pristine in its plastic case. “Can I get caught?”

  “No. Even if something doesn’t work the first time, or you take the steps out of order, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation and an alternative method for getting each document reassigned or account reactivated for your new identity. Learn it, and you’ll disappear.”

  “You’ll know where I am.”

  He nodded. “This is the best I can do.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you can get away. My son didn’t get away, and neither did my brother. Your husband didn’t get away, and I won’t get away. But you can get away. If I can help salvage a single life, it’ll make my own self-­destruction seem more worthwhile.”

  “That’s your selfish reason.”

  He nodded. I’ll sleep better in prison, he thought.

  She resealed the packet. “Monday, huh? Why not today?”

  Takuda tried not to smile at her false bravado. “Once you withdraw your savings, it will set off alarms if they’re watching you the way I think they are. If you follow the plan, you’ll disappear into the Japan Rail timetables. But the plan depends on your leaving work at noon on a weekday.”