My mischievous thoughts faded as Joe steered me down a spiral staircase and into a small lounge. This could be trouble, being alone with him. He pushed open the door, and I made out the silhouette of a man looking out the window at the sparkling Tokyo night landscape. He wore an ill-fitting gray suit that didn’t follow the evening’s black-tic dress code. As he turned, the weathered face with dark blue eyes snapped into my memory. He was the leader of the veterans who had stonewalled me in Yokosuka.
“Master Chief Jimmy O’Donnell, meet Rei Shimura.” Joe’s voice was hearty.
What did one say in a case like this? Pleased to see you again? I took a sip of wine and shifted from foot to foot until Joe told me to sit down.
“I can leave you two alone if you like,” Joe offered.
“Please don’t,” I begged. As nervous as I was about Joe, Jimmy O’Donnell was a totally unknown entity.
“I had to sort some old business out before I could talk to you. Do you understand?” O’Donnell’s voice rasped.
“Yes. I’m glad you decided to trust me.” I settled down in a plush chair across from him and after a second, he also sat down.
“I thought you weren’t being straight. I didn’t understand why you cared more about the grandfather than the gal who claimed to be his offspring. The whole thing rubbed me the wrong way.” He cast a glance at Joe. “We talked about it, and he told me you were the real thing.”
“I’m not the granddaughter,” I said quickly.
“No, but you’re the genuine article. You support yourself in Tokyo without any handouts. You’re asking questions because you’re in love with that fellow who’s in trouble, the Englishman.”
Mrs. Chapman must have exaggerated wildly to Joe, who in turn was feeding the rumor. I shook my head. “There has to be a link between the American father and Setsuko’s death. I think he’d stopped sending her money about six months ago.”
“Five months ago, a guy called Willie Evans died. We got a copy of the obituary at Old Salts for our scrapbook,” O’Donnell said. “Kind of a sad hobby we have, keeping track of the dead.”
“Did you know Mr. Evans well?” I asked.
“Not at all. There were so many sailors around, three times as many as there are now. I knew most of the gals who worked the bars and was sorry when the big stores drove them out. I guess I felt as much loyalty to them as I do my own people.”
I knew what Jimmy O’Donnell was talking about. He was as in love with Japan as Joe and I were. The three of us sat quietly for a minute, as if appreciating that.
“In the early fifties, he had a girlfriend here who worked in the bars. She already had one kid, but he didn’t care. They got a house together and lived like they were married. They had a baby. Evans’s name didn’t go on any birth certificate because he didn’t want his commanding officer to know.”
“Typical.” Joe nodded. “So how did he leave her?”
“His tour of duty ended and he just went back to the States, met some gal at a church picnic. They were together thirty-three years before she passed away, breast cancer, I think.”
“Did the American wife know about his first love in Japan?” I asked.
“I have no idea. The two sons might be able to help you. They’re still living in the Boston area, as the obituary says.” He handed me a blurry photocopy of a notice in the Boston Globe. Skimming it quickly, I saw no mention of Texas—it appeared Willie Evans’s entire life before and after Japan took place in Framingham, Massachusetts.
“You should call them, Rei,” Joe said, as if hearing my silent question. “You’ve got dates and other locations to check by them. There’s no need to jump to conclusions, but it’s worth acting sooner than later.”
“You’re right.” I folded the paper into my evening bag, where I caught sight of the envelope I had not returned to Hugh. “Actually, I have a letter from the father—”
Joe was practically on top of me to get it, ruining my hopes of keeping off fingerprints. “Let me see.” He looked up at O’Donnell. “There’s a Texas postmark here. Not Boston.”
“You know, he could have retired to the West…a lot of guys do, for the weather,” James O’Donnell said lamely. “I can start looking into folks from Texas. I suppose I should get going.”
“No, you’re staying for a drink and spending the night with me in Aoyama,” Joe coaxed. “After we drop the young lady off, you and I’ll paint the town red, just like we used to.”
Back in the ballroom, Jimmy O’Donnell stayed busy holding up the hors d’oeuvre table while Joe took me out on the dance floor. I had some trouble with the Blahnik heels and the fact I’d never swing-danced before. I was whirled from Joe into the arms of a small, dark man who kept telling me he’d gone to Princeton. After that came a lean young Japanese whose name I recognized as connected to a powdered soup fortune. My final partner was Molly Mason’s husband Jim, who swore he hadn’t confused me with Rie Miyazawa and wondered how the Imperial Hotel sounded for lunch next Tuesday….
I excused myself to tell Joe I was going home.
“The glorious reality of the party page has hit you, huh?” he teased. “Now you see why I lead a quiet life devoted to my business.”
“But you don’t! You’re in the Weekender at least every other issue. Tonight we had our picture taken two dozen times.”
“Not my picture. Yours,” he corrected.
“I don’t normally look like this—”
“You should from now on,” Joe said. “While you were dancing, I was spreading the word on your upcoming antiques venture. I tickled them a little about the box you sold to the museum, and the upshot is I have five gals who want appointments as soon as possible.”
“That’s wonderful.” I was unable to concentrate. “Joe, if I go home now, I can figure out my strategy for the Evans brothers. I have to call them early tomorrow morning.”
“You’re hopeless.” Joe brought my coat and escorted me outside and into a taxi, kissing me good-bye in front of a battalion of Japanese media. The taxi driver seemed ecstatic until we started moving and I directed him to drop me at the nearby Kamiyacho station. It looked cheap, I guess, for a woman wearing Hervé Léger. Still, the sale of the box had been a fluke. It could be a long wait for my next influx of cash. In the meantime, budget was going to be my mantra.
As had become my custom, I scanned the crowd exiting Minami-Senju station with me. A few motley bands of drunken men got off. Trailing a safe distance behind them, but not totally alone, I wrapped the thin leather coat around me and started over the steel pedestrian bridge for home. I waved at Mr. Waka through the window at Family Mart but didn’t go in. My feet were killing me. I wanted to get home and stick them in the bathroom sink.
My street was silent except for a drip coming from somewhere high above. Paired with my footfalls in the unusually high shoes, the sounds formed a rhythmic percussion. After a few minutes, I realized a quieter, clipped noise was marring the rhythm. I stopped, feigning a look in the window of the closed fishmonger, and it ceased.
I started walking again, sorry that I hadn’t taken the taxi all the way home. To return to Mr. Waka’s shop, I’d have to run toward my stalker. Where was Kenji Yamamoto tonight? I wondered. Or Keiko’s yakuza friends?
I slipped off Karen’s shoes and took them in my hands so I could walk faster. The street was freezing cold and rough against my feet, with disgusting wet spots that soaked through my pantyhose. As the footsteps fell faster behind me, I spun around and a slight figure leaped into the gas company’s doorway. He was shorter than Joe Roncolotta and Yamamoto, but maybe it was the man who had tried to run me over with the motorcycle.
“Yamete,” I said loudly. Quit it. There was no response. I broke into a run, my apartment looming like a beacon just fifty feet away. I made it in and took the stairs two at a time, cursing the fact there was no lock on the vestibule door. My stalker could run up the stairs behind me if he wanted.
When I turned the key into the lock
of my door and tell inside, I was trembling so violently that Richard got up from eating an octopus–corn pizza with Mariko and put his hand on my forehead.
“What is it? The flu or something? Poor baby—”
“No, it’s the guy who rode the motorcycle at the train station. He came back to get me,” I said as I ran to the telephone and dialed 110. An English-speaking officer came on halfway through my conversation with the sergeant who had answered the call.
“Excuse me, miss, but how long will you remain in Japan?”
“I’m not a tourist, I live here!” I gave my name and street address again. When they realized I was the Friday girl who had been involved in an accident at Minami-Senju station earlier, the English-speaking officer asked if Hugh Glendinning was with me. I said no.
The policeman decided to dispatch a car to my street, all the while warning me an arrest would be unlikely, given that it wasn’t a crime for a person to walk around at night. “Unless, of course, the person is carrying a weapon—in our country, unlike yours, guns are not allowed!” the officer huffed.
I hung up and asked Richard to make me tea. He gave me a can of Pocari Sweat, insisting the soft drink’s ionization action would settle me better than caffeine. But I didn’t want to sleep.
We sat by the window with the lights off watching for the stalker. All that appeared was the police cruiser, which double-parked in a manner so obvious and unusual that lights started snapping on in neighboring windows. Two cops got out. They peered in doorways and roused a few street people, but left after twenty minutes with nothing to show for it.
“When you came in, he must have given up. He probably was just a lecher who followed you from the station,” Richard told me.
“But I only noticed him on our street. It was almost like he was here first, waiting for me to arrive.”
“The guy was probably sent by Keiko,” Mariko said grimly. “Earlier this evening I called Esmerelda at the bar. She said a punk wearing a motorcycle helmet showed up asking for payment.”
So the attack was Keiko’s doing and had nothing to do with Joe Roncolotta or Kenji Yamamoto. I should have told the police…or would that have made things worse? I felt clammy and realized that I was sweating into the Léger. Karen would kill me if I stained it. I shooed Richard and Mariko back to their room, then undressed and gently sponged the arm holes with a mixture of water and baby shampoo.
The silk felt good under my fingers; it really was a nice dress. And what my mother always told me about quality fabrics had proven true. The material was implausibly unwrinkled, even after my battles with the piranhas of the Tokyo American Club and the phantoms of the East Tokyo streets.
32
I hit the alarm clock’s SNOOZE button twice before struggling into a sitting position at six-thirty on Saturday. I couldn’t figure out why I was awake. Through blurred eyes, I saw the evening dress on its hanger and the memory of my wild night came back.
I turned on all possible sources of heat—my kerosene heater, the water tank, broiler, and range—before showering fast and sliding into jeans and Hugh’s white shirt, which had been washed and ironed by someone. Richard didn’t usually do my laundry. I chuckled a little as I made coffee and dialed California.
My father picked up the phone on the second ring.
“It’s Rei on the telephone, Catherine! She’s all right.” Then he started in on me. “Rei-chan, there’s a crazy rumor about your name being on Japanese television! Eric Hanada saw something on cable, and his granddaughter says she’s going to mail a magazine called Friday with you on the cover.”
“Baby, it’s time for you to come home.” My mother had gotten on another extension. “Cash in that ticket we sent you last year or just buy a new one—”
“Stop, will you?” I snapped before realizing how I was falling into my old, ungracious patterns. I took a deep breath and started again. “Sorry, I can’t fly out. The police are watching for me at Narita Airport.”
The story took half an hour to tell. My mother gasped at the story of Setsuko’s murder, but seemed equally curious about matters relating to Hugh.
“Married or divorced?” she asked casually.
“Neither. Mom, that’s not important”
“Sendai? Hmm,” my father said.
I felt it my duty to confess he was on indefinite leave. There was an uncomfortable lull.
“You see, everything hinges on finding Setsuko’s killer,” I said, trying to get back on track. “If we can prove there were other people in Setsuko’s background, these awful questions and the possibility of the indictment will be over.”
“Something like ninety-nine percent of the people who stand trial in Japan are convicted. Did you know that?” My father demanded.
“Yes, Dad.” As if I hadn’t heard it a dozen times already.
“Hugh’s an attorney, not a killer,” my mother cut in. Ordinarily, that kind of generalization would have drawn an argument from me, but I kept my mouth shut.
There was a silence on my father’s side. I pictured him sitting on the edge of his walnut desk with the phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, staring through the study’s glass doors at the rock garden my mother and I built together. He could ponder the swirls of gravel and small, moss-covered boulders for hours. I preferred the garden from outside, with the fresh air around me and the birds in the trees. I remembered how I’d spent a long-ago afternoon there, deciding whether I would risk coming to Japan without a job. The garden had told me yes.
“Dad, are you looking at the garden?” I asked him.
“Yes.” He sounded faintly surprised.
“It’s special because the stones and plants all followed a plan. There’s a pattern here, too, in what happened to Setsuko. And I’ve got it drawn in my mind, all but the last few pieces.”
“What do you need from us, Rei? Should we come?” my mother pressed.
“You can help me best from where you are.” But as I started to talk about calling directory assistance in Boston and Texas, it was my father who asked for the Evans brothers’ first names. My father, my champion.
After I hung up, Richard and Mariko drifted in, talking about making pancakes. From the way Richard looked at Hugh’s shirt on me, I could tell he had planned on wearing it. Mariko was wearing a pair of his long johns with her own Ranma sweatshirt. Standing at the stove with a spatula, she looked very much like she belonged.
The pancakes she produced were perfectly golden, fluffy, and all about the size of a 500 yen coin.
“Mariko’s such a perfectionist,” Richard said, watching her arrange a square butter pat on each cake. I thought of getting some maple syrup but she had something else in mind: strawberry jam.
“You probably wonder why I’m staying with Richard again,” Mariko said, watching me cut into a diminutive pancake.
“It’s better for you here than at the Marimba, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Even though this neighborhood is horrible.” She shot Richard a sidelong glance. “We’re friends again. I like him, you know? At first it was just his looks. Now I know his heart, and he is the only man who wants more than my body.”
“Are you planning to continue living together?” I asked cautiously.
“Well, I’m actually moving out of here.” Richard ran his fingers through his hair so it stood straight up. “Simone has a lead on a place in Shibuya and figures we could afford it together.”
“Shibuya’s pretty ritzy,” I said, envy running through me along with the awful feeling I wouldn’t be his best friend anymore.
“It’s one bedroom, but I said I’d take the living room.” Richard shrugged. “It’s similar to the way we live here, but it will be a thousand times neater with me out front.”
“How stupid to leave such a cheap apartment in Tokyo!” Mariko, who had previously mocked our neighborhood, exclaimed.
“I’ll be earning more money now that I’m leaving Nichiyu!”
“You have a new job?” I was incredulou
s. He really had locked me out of his life.
“Hugh and I were shooting the breeze at Marimba, and he told me about some French businessman who wants to back a new language school. It’s going to be an expensive place oriented to people going on European tours, and I’ll do English and Simone will teach French. She was getting sick of selling bracelets in Ueno Park anyway.”
“So where am I going to live?” Mariko demanded.
“Doesn’t your bank have a dormitory?” Richard sounded nervous.
“That’s for full-time workers. I’m trying to get them to give me more hours, but…” Mariko trailed off, looking like she was going to cry.
“As boring as you find this neighborhood, there’s no reason you can’t stay with us a while longer. Richard, you aren’t quitting Nichiyu right away?” I asked.
“Nope. We’ve got to save up for the key money and realtor fees, and I don’t want to send old Katoh off the deep end just yet.”
“As I told you before, Mariko, you’re welcome to sleep in my room,” I offered.
“But Mariko and I are living in harmony.” Richard squeezed her hand. “We lie head-to-toe on our futons so no one gets tempted, and she tells me Japanese ghost stories!”
Mariko showed her dimples, and I had an uneasy feeling her ardor had not completely cooled.
“I’ll be moving out,” I said, my mind made up. “I have to go to Shiroyama but when I get back, Hugh will probably have returned to his apartment to convalesce. I want to be there.”
“Well, it is centrally heated. I can’t blame you,” Richard said. “Will you have us over for dinner in the fabulous white kitchen?”
“As long as you don’t mind facing the paparazzi outside the building.”
“No! Really?” Richard had loved giving quotes to the tabloid reporters, and was miffed when all they had wanted were snapshots of me.
The phone rang as we were finishing breakfast.
“I can hardly understand the way these people speak in Boston, but I think I’ve located one of the men you’re looking for,” my father.
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