The Devouring God (4 page)

 

CHAPTER 7

Wednesday Morning

H
is shift over, Takuda went home with the dawn. At his apartment block, his neighbor met him with a bow. “Thank you again. Your family is very generous.”

Takuda had his helmet and uniform tied in a bundle on the end of his staff, like an old-­fashioned deliveryman. He didn't bother to lower it as he spoke to this neighbor. He always forgot the man's name. “Good morning. You're up early.”

“Yes, well, it's off to the market, thanks to your brother.”

Off to the pachinko parlors and the speedboat races, more likely.
“My brother, the tall one, he gave you money again?”

“Yes, he did. He's very kind. Now we can afford the basics, even if we can't afford any of the little luxuries that make life so nice.”

Takuda didn't have any cash at all, even if he were willing to give it up. He sighed and bowed before starting up the stairs.

Suzuki and Yumi hadn't left the apartment.

“Welcome home,” Suzuki said. He bent over the breakfast table to shovel more rice into his mouth.

Takuda slipped off his shoes and stepped up into the apartment. The apartment was the 2LDK style, the same size as the mental health satellite office: two bedrooms, a living-­and-­dining room, a kitchenette, and a tiny bath. It would have been adequate for three adults of normal size, but Takuda's width and Suzuki's height left little space for Yumi and Mori.

“You gave the gambler next door more money for his vices,” Takuda said.

“Perhaps he will learn from the virtue of generosity, which will outweigh and overcome his vices.”

Takuda sat sideways so he didn't rub knees with Suzuki. “And there you were begging yesterday. You spent the money my employer dropped in your bowl on the neighbor's vices. Unbelievable.”

Suzuki grinned. “I brought in enough for a week's groceries. Yumi and I are going shopping before work.”

Yumi bumped Takuda's tailbone as she opened the bathroom door. He stood so she could get out.

Her greeting was warm enough, but she didn't quite meet his eyes. Something was wrong.
It could be anything. The apartment? Suzuki? Her two jobs? What isn't wrong?

She dished up his breakfast as he returned his attention to Suzuki.

“So, out begging again. What happened to the tutoring job?”

“Oh, they didn't like my teaching style.” Suzuki looked slightly guilty.

“Your teaching style? It's a cram school. They don't do anything but test preparation. How can your teaching style have anything to do with it?”

“Well, maybe the disagreement was more about educational philosophy than style.”

Takuda tried to control his expression. “You didn't stick to their lessons.”

“The testing system is stunting the minds of a whole generation.” Suzuki awkwardly lit a cigarette. He had accidentally severed the nerve in the forefinger of his left hand with his own sword, and some everyday activities were still difficult.

“If the police catch you begging without papers, we can't pay the fine,” Takuda said.

“The last time a patrolman stopped me, he ended up dropping five hundred yen in my bowl.”

Yumi bent over the rice maker. “And what happens now that the rainy season is over? What will you do now?”

“True, the rainy season is the best,” he called to her over his shoulder. “Everybody's under cover. I catch them at the bus stops, and they can't ignore me.” He seemed to mull the question over. “Still, they were generous enough this weekend.”

That was enough for Takuda. “This isn't a game anymore. You don't . . .”

“Please stop. You're wasting your breath on him. He's like a child,” Yumi said. “You and Suzuki have bigger problems. No one will be working a week from now. Not Suzuki, not you, not me, not even young Mori. And if it's like what happened in Hagi or Sado Island, we'll have to move. Again. In two weeks, we'll all be begging in the streets.” She put Takuda's breakfast on the table, and then she went into their bedroom and slid the door closed behind her.

Suzuki studied his cigarette with a half-­smile that signified nothing at all.

It's easy to be happy when you are a complete fool.

“You all talk about me as if I'm not here,” Suzuki said.

“You
are
barely here, Priest. You swim in a sea of your own silliness and we just see you when you surface for air.”

Suzuki's brow furrowed, but he still smiled. “It must be painful to be bound by fate to someone for whom you have so little respect.”

“Fate? Fate has nothing to do with it. You could walk away right now. So could I. So could Mori. We could all go our separate ways and go build normal lives. Eventually, everyone would forget about us.”

“We tried that once, and the three of us showed up at the villa. All of us showed up at the same place at the same time. And we did battle, and we won.”

Takuda sat forward. “We decided to stay together. That makes life tough. But it doesn't have to be this tough.” He pointed at Suzuki. “You make life tougher.” He sat back. “Quit begging. Get rid of your ragged robes. Get a steady job and keep at it, and quit giving money to lazy, drunken gamblers like that fellow next door. Help save up for the next move. You know it's coming.”

The smile never left. “But no matter what, I'm still a priest. That's my calling and my inheritance.”

“Yes, you're a priest, but you're officially discredited, your temple is gone, and you have no followers. You're a one-­man sect. Every time you pick up a stray dog who wants to hear your message, the police get involved because you're still posing as a priest.”

“I'm not posing,” Suzuki said.

Takuda picked up his chopsticks and prepared to tuck in. “Then find us a temple so we can all stay off the streets. I'm just about out of ideas here.”

Suzuki looked at his hands. His little smile was so tight it was almost a frown.

Takuda ate. There was rice, fermented soybeans, egg, and strips of dried laver. They had breakfast on the table, and they had a clean, dry place to sleep. Maybe he was being too hard on Suzuki. They were living one paycheck ahead of disaster, but that was no surprise. It wasn't anyone's fault.

Still, the brooding priest filled half his vision, and he wished there were something else to look at while he ate breakfast. There was no TV, and no one had yet picked up an abandoned newspaper. Takuda just put his head down and ate.

Finally, Suzuki carefully unfolded his lanky limbs and pulled himself out from under the table. He moved to the middle of the floor and called to Yumi.

“We'll leave in a moment,” she said.

“Please lend me your phone.”

The door slid open a crack and then slid shut just as the phone hit the straw matting at Suzuki's knees.

Suzuki put it on speaker. Mori answered on the second ring.

Suzuki bowed with his palms flat on the floor and his face just a hand's width above them. “Lieutenant Mori, I wish to apologize to all three of you right now.”

Yumi slid the door open. She was still combing her hair.

“I beg your pardon for my foolishness and my selfishness. I have held on to an old dream too long, and it has inconvenienced you all. I beg forgiveness for all the trouble I've caused.”

He sat up briskly. His smile was gone for the moment, but nothing had come to replace it.

There was silence all around. Takuda felt a small pang of regret, but they had all given up any semblance of a normal life. Suzuki was just catching up to reality.

Finally, Suzuki said, “Do you have any ideas about what we're facing?”

Takuda told them what he knew. Mori gave details of the phone trace and the revelation that the call had come from a phone registered to Nabeshima, the office assistant.

“It seems as if Nabeshima recognized the voice, but she denied it later. I left your fax with the women, and I doubt they've even told anyone that the call came from Nabeshima's phone.”

“They're playing a dangerous game,” Yumi said.

“Well, they aren't fools. It's not our place to tell their boss or ours unless we think they're in danger,” Takuda said.

Suzuki looked past Takuda's ear at the bathroom door. His head was cocked to one side, and his expression had dropped back into his usual half-­smile.
He's gone already.
So much for resolutions.

Mori sighed over the phone. “Do we even know what we're looking for?”

“We don't,” Takuda answered. “And last night, did you even find out where we should look?”

“No, it took longer than I expected to figure out the PIN for her phone. This Nabeshima girl is no dummy. I just had time to narrow the call down to a series of relay stations. The rest of it, account information and so forth, was a breeze.”

“Well, the account information doesn't help us. We know where to find Nabeshima. What about the caller?”

“I can get you within two kilometers.”

“Two kilometers? That's no good.”

“That's good enough,” Suzuki murmured.

“That's good enough,” Yumi repeated. “Walk around asking for the foreigner. Pretend to be a delivery­man.”

“Newspaper salesman,” Takuda and Mori said almost in unison.

“I need my phone,” Yumi said. “I'll have to go to work in a few minutes. There'll be no time for shopping this morning, Priest.”

He nodded, but he clearly wasn't listening.

When Mori hung up and Yumi left for work, Suzuki sat in thought for several minutes.

“You said that this foreigner said something was missing, that someone had stolen something from him.”

“What of it?”

“He didn't say what it was? He didn't say anything about a jewel? A big curved jewel?”

Hair stood up on Takuda's neck. “A curved jewel? He was just angry about something stolen. Why would you ask me about a curved jewel?”

“Because there are no coincidences. Not in our line of work.” Suzuki went to his room and returned with a sheet of onionskin paper. “If you find the foreigner, or find his house, keep an eye out for this.”

Takuda took the page. The onionskin was crisp and new, as if Suzuki had just pulled it from a pad before folding it. It was an ancient curved jewel, like the dark half of a yin-­yang symbol. A single notation in the lower right-­hand corner:
Black as night. Inner curve is razor-­sharp. This is the actual size.
If the curved jewel really were as large as the drawing, it would be too heavy to wear, too heavy for personal ornamentation.

He sighed. “The foreigner was asking about a Kurodama.”

The priest shook his head. “Coal is too brittle to be shaped like this.”

“But it's black, it says here. Black as midnight. A black jewel, a Kurodama.” Takuda compared the drawing to the span of his hand. “Ancient curved jewels weren't like this. This is huge.”

“No, actually, some curved jewels were quite large, but this one is different in other ways. It's a tighter curve, like a comma from an English font, a half-­circle, and it comes to a definite point. A very sharp point. The inner curve of the tail is also razor sharp, or it was.”

“Priest, you've seen this thing.”

“I've heard of it, years ago, from my father. This sheet showed up in my begging bowl. I didn't see who put it there. There was another sheet, but I don't know where it is. Look, there will be characters incised right here, along the blade . . . or the tail, I should say.” Suzuki pointed out rough and angular pictographs.

Takuda squinted at the characters. They were so rough and random-­looking he had thought they were just bad shading on the sketch. He handed the page back to Suzuki. “Is it some sort of ceremonial knife?”

Suzuki folded it into a small, tight packet. “Ceremonial knife is one way to put it,” he said. “It's the fang of the Devouring God.”

 

CHAPTER 8

Wednesday Evening

W
ith Ota's consent, Takuda took Mori along on the next shift at the mental health satellite office. The shift started with their witnessing an argument.

“There are just too many foreigners in this area. Just on the main rail line between here and the city, I see a new language school almost every week. All these foreigners have students they may be attracted to.” Detective Kimura looked around the room, his long hair swaying slightly. Nabeshima returned his gaze. It was after hours, and she had been prepared to go before the detective showed up. She was in jeans and a tee shirt advertising Gen-­Key, an energy drink:

I am a leopard.

We must everyday nutritional,

happy with B
1
, B
2
, B
12
. . .

Yoshida stood in the doorway to the kitchen. In the consultation room, Section Chief Hasegawa shouted into the telephone. Takuda stood at ease by the front door. Young Mori, sitting beside Nabeshima, bent over his laptop trying to reconstruct the foreigner's call from the garbled audiotape. The detective glanced at Yoshida and Takuda, who were both staring off into the middle distance. He turned back to Nabeshima, the only one who seemed to be listening to him.

“There's really no starting place, no reports of disturbing behavior by foreigners. There are a few complaints about noise and public drunkenness. There's one young man who urinates from his balcony, but that's part of a dispute with his downstairs neighbors.” He put his hands on his hips. “I might have to go undercover to the clubs where the foreigners hang out.”

Yoshida stifled a grimace and went toward the back of the office.

Nabeshima said, “Detective, you would be conspicuous, wouldn't you? I mean, if you went to a club, I'm sure everyone would know you're a policeman.”

“No, of course they wouldn't. I haven't done a lot of clubbing since I left Tokyo, but I'm sure I'll catch up. We aren't talking about high school girls here.”

Nabeshima smiled. “We might as well be. They're a month or two behind the fashions in Shinjuku, but they're still just girls. Down here, the foreigner clubs are full of community college students.”

“Oh, do you know these clubs?”

“Of course I do. I've lived here my whole life, and I can tell you that you would be out of place.” She glanced over at Mori. “Could some of our private security force be of use here?”

Mori looked back at her, and she tilted her head at him. His eyes dropped back to his laptop screen as red spots appeared on his cheeks.

The detective sat forward. “I don't think there's any place for private contractors in an ongoing investigation. That tape is your property, and it's not evidence of any crime except a prank call, so you can do with it as you choose. As long as he doesn't tear it up, right? Right?”

Mori looked up long enough to give a slow, measured bow of assent, then returned to his work.

“Anyway, we now have a phone trace in place here and at the central exchange. The second we learn where these calls are coming from, we'll have more direction.”

Nabeshima glanced at Takuda. Yoshida drifted in from the kitchen. She stared at Takuda, but he continued to look off into the middle distance. The women were waiting to see if he would tell the detective that the calls had come from Nabeshima's missing cell phone.

The section chief burst out of his office, purple-­faced with rage. Yoshida stepped aside in surprise.

“I've just talked to your chief of detectives. The man is a fool! He does not think this is a serious matter! A prank call, he said. Prank call! A mentally unstable man has threatened to polish the bones of my staff's cannibalized corpses as a form of worship, and he calls it a prank call!”

Yoshida and Nabeshima stared at him openmouthed. The section chief stepped toward the detective, pointing a finger at his face.

“You are personally responsible. Do you understand? These women work day and night to get help for the mentally ill. Day and night! There should be a staff of six here. Do you understand that? We may not get computers or a decent phone system this year because we have to pay for security guards. We didn't get the equipment we needed last year because it was a choice between modernization and hiring another staffer.” The finger shifted from the detective to Nabeshima. “Do you know how I could budget for someone as smart as she is? She passed the exams to get into Waseda University, but she stayed here and went to a junior college to help her family. Junior college! That's the only way I could afford her. Capitalizing on the misfortune of others, that's the only way I can get my job done here. Now, you so-­called elite law-­enforcement professionals tell me you can't protect my staff!”

The finger slowly tracked from Nabeshima to the detective. The finger had been trembling with rage; now it was dead steady. The detective sat back as if pushed.

“I hold you personally responsible for persuading your fool of a boss to do his job. Do you understand this? If you cannot convince him, then you had better find a way to protect my staff yourself.” The finger dropped, and the manager bowed deeply from the waist. “I place my safety and the safety of my staff entirely in your hands. As one public servant to another, I implore you to help us at this difficult and dangerous time. Please do your best for us.”

The detective leapt to his feet and returned the bow. “Yes, yes, of course, I am doing what I can. How can I resist your passionate and well-­reasoned plea for . . .”

“Perhaps we should go together to speak to the chief of detectives.” The section chief straightened his tie and smoothed his hair. “Do you have a car, or shall I drive?”

“I . . . uh . . . took the train this afternoon. Greenhouse gasses, you know.” Kimura bowed in apology.

“Admirable. I will drive.” He nodded to Yoshida and Nabeshima. On his way out the door, he stopped to talk to Takuda. The detective, following too closely, almost bumped into him.

“Security Guard, please convey our thanks to Ota Southern Protection Ser­vices. I will call later to formalize the end of your contract.” He indicated Yoshida and Nabeshima with a nod of his head. “You may miss being the thorn among the roses here, but I'm sure you will find pleasant work.”

Takuda bowed as the section chief and the detective left.

Yoshida turned on Takuda as the door closed. “Why didn't you tell him? Are you going to attempt to blackmail this poor girl?”

“Blackmail her? Blackmail her for what?”

“For our silence. We know who you are. We could tell your boss, and then you'd be finished in this town.”

Mori looked up and made to take off his headset, but Nabeshima raised one sculpted eyebrow:
It's nothing.
He almost smiled as he went back to work.

Takuda stood very still. “We just happened to show up when your troubles started, but that's always how it happens. There are no coincidences in this world.”

“What do you want, then?”

“We want to help,” Takuda said. “We want information we can act on.”

“Act on? There's nothing to act on. This has nothing to do with you. A disturbed young man who found Kaori's lost phone has made a ­couple of phone calls to her workplace. She's confirmed that the number is on speed dial. Some girls are missing, and there are rumors—­unconfirmed rumors—­of dismemberments. Rumors and unrelated occurrences. Don't you understand that? If you get involved as if this were some ghost-­hunt, you will get us all fired, and it might endanger our town.”

Takuda frowned at Yoshida. Nabeshima looked away. Takuda said, “What would it take to convince you that we are sincere?”

“Your sincerity is the problem. Your sincerity is ten times more dangerous than most ­people's dishonesty. A hundred times. A thousand times. There is nothing you could do to convince us that you are anything but dangerous criminals.”

“Even if I retrieved Nabeshima's cell phone from the foreigner's house?”

Nabeshima straightened. She and Yoshida glanced at each other before she spoke. “It would convince me,” Nabeshima said.

“Wait,” Yoshida said. “What do you two want in return?”

“We just want information about the foreigner and about Nabeshima's connection to him. She has been caught up in something we don't understand, but none of it is her fault.”

“Ridiculous!” Yoshida said. “How do you know that?”

“We've all been brought together for a reason,” Takuda said. “I'm sure that the reason is not the destruction of an innocent girl's reputation.”

“Coming from you, the word
innocent
means so little that . . .”

Nabeshima stood. “Please let me speak to them. Please. Let me tell them what I told you.” Her eyes were downcast. Her handkerchief lay twisted like a tiny storm on Yoshida's desk. “I rely on you as my senior. Please allow them to help me.”

Yoshida stepped toward her. She watched the tears begin to flow again. Then she turned back to Takuda.

“I want assurances,” she said. “And I want information about you and your friends. I want the truth.”

Takuda bowed. “I will tell you everything,” he said. “Anything you want to know, from the very beginning.”

Mori took his headset off completely. “Miss Nabeshima, this is going to be a long story. Let's have some tea, okay?”

Nabeshima looked down at him coolly. Mori's intentions were good, but he had misjudged Nabeshima. Women of previous generations had escaped to the kitchen at times like this to wipe away the tears and soothe themselves with little office rituals like making tea. But Nabeshima was not an old-­fashioned girl, and even if she had been, Mori was an outsider. Takuda himself wouldn't have asked her to make tea. He certainly wouldn't have asked in such a casual way, and he certainly wouldn't have asked while she was still crying. Young Mori was about to receive a lesson in manners.

Instead, Nabeshima picked up her handkerchief. “If we need tea, very well,” she said. “Come help me carry.” She turned toward the kitchen.

Mori watched her leave. He was clearly picturing himself in the cramped kitchen with the pretty young Nabeshima. He stood quickly and straightened his uniform, then followed her without a glance at his elders.

That left Takuda the security guard and Yoshida the social worker. Takuda waited for her to move, and then followed her to her desk. She folded her hands and waited. When he sat across from her, their eyes met. He didn't like her, and she didn't trust him, but that sort of thing didn't matter anymore.

“You let Nabeshima tell me what I need to know,” he said. “Then I'll tell you what I have seen. When I finish, you may believe that I am a madman or a liar, as you choose.” He looked her in the eye. “When I tell you my story, you must finally choose, for now and forever, whether you believe in devils, angels, and monsters.”