The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4) (12 page)

The instant I put down the receiver, Takeo was all over me.

“Who was that?”

“Couldn’t you guess from my side of the conversation?” I asked, remembering how intently he had listened.

“No. I only heard half of it.”

“Rika says the body was Nicky. She based her identification not only on the face, but on some details she noticed before, like his teeth. There are plenty of foreigners running around with pierced ears, but not all of them have good teeth.”

Takeo raised his eyebrows. “So your theory was right on the mark. You’re turning into a crime reporter.”

“I don’t want to write about murder,” I confessed. “I could hand everything over to Rika, but then . . .”

“You might not be asked to do another story for the
Gaijin Times,”
Takeo finished.

“I really need the money. Even though, at this point, I’m coauthoring this article with Rika. But two hundred and fifty thousand yen split in two is still good money.” At the current dollar-yen exchange rate, my share would be almost $1,200.

“Isn’t Rika ineligible for salary because she’s an intern?” Takeo asked. “She should be pleased to be credited as a researcher. I’d describe her visit to the morgue as assisting with research. You’re writing the article.”

“I just don’t know if I should muddle into an area in which I have no expertise. This isn’t about antiques anymore.”

‘The story still ties into art,” Takeo pointed out. “Why not write an article about the
Showa Story
series, mentioning in passing that the gifted artist for the series could not be found for an interview, and that his colleague was mysteriously murdered? Do it your way.”

Boyfriends weren’t supposed to be like this, I thought sourly. They were supposed to want you to stay out of trouble, safe at home under the covers and in their arms. Hugh had been like that.

Takeo splashed more sake into my half-filled cup. “Let’s see. Where shall we start?”

“I think I’ve figured out the storyline of the
manga
that I bought at Animagine, but would you help me with a full, careful translation of the prototype I found?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

An hour and a half later, I had a word-for-word translation typed into my laptop computer. The central plot—Mars Girl’s attempt to buy prepared food to trick the family she was staying with into believing she could cook—was the same as I’d guessed from the illustration. Takeo translated the long passages of back story that I didn’t understand. Mars Girl had been sent from the year 2000 into the early 1930s to try to prevent a terrible historical event from happening. She had been told by her outer-space bosses to show up at the home of a middle-class family who lived in the city. Making up a story about being a long-lost country cousin, she was welcomed in. While Mars Girl struggled to gain intelligence on what she needed to do to save Japan, her host family tried to figure out who she really was. The mother had hopes that the new cousin would be a wonderful housecleaner and was stunned by the young woman’s woeful inability. The father decided Mars Girl might be a nice plaything for him, but his awkward passes were humorously defeated. The young son of the household feared that Mars Girl was competing for his inheritance, so he started a subtle campaign of dropping insects into her food and bed at every opportunity.

“Poor Mars Girl!” I said, utterly caught up in the situation. “She should just check out and get her own apartment.”

“In 1930s Japan? Impossible,” Takeo said. “Besides, the story tells us that she is needed to protect that family, as well as society, from a great evil. On the day that Mars Girl ventured out to buy some cooked rice to pass off as her own home cooking, she stumbled across a gangster threatening the owner.”

I’d assumed on my brief pass through the comic earlier that the gangster wanted money. But in Takeo’s translation, it became clear that the gangster was trying to pressure the owner into paying a tax to a new political party.

“The party in this comic is even more extreme than the conservative imperialists who led Japan into war,” Takeo murmured. “In this next frame, the gangster is explaining the party belief that Emperor Hirohito was an illegitimate claimant of the throne. The party members were asking businesses to contribute money so that their leader could raise an army to overthrow the crown.”

“That is so hokey!” I said.

“Oh, but it could have happened. A lot of businesses before the war—and even today, a half-century later—must make regular payments to gangsters to protect their shops from theft and their families from violence. What if all those payments no longer were distributed among various petty criminals, but went to a central source?”

“You’d have one very rich man,” I said.

“A powerful man with the wrong kind of ambition and ties to the military could accomplish a lot. Think of Yukio Mishima.”

He was talking about the famous writer who, with a cadre of right-wing army officers, seized the headquarters of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in 1970. The takeover ended when Mishima, with the assistance of one of his aides, killed himself.

“So Mars Girl was sent to stop this gangster political party,” I said.

“That’s right.” Takeo continued with the rest of the story: how the gangster kidnapped Mars Girl, and Mars Girl then killed him by means of strangulation, dumping his body in the river. She then picked up the rice that the gangster had taken from the restaurant, and brought it home to her family, who was very pleased with her cooking for a change.

“The problem is that Mars Girl realizes that the gangster she has defeated is just one of many underlings trying to secure funding for the new party. They’ve infiltrated the military. In this final scene, where she’s washing up the rice bowls, she is wondering if she can find a way to truly save Japan. The story will continue in the next issue.”

“With the artist missing and the author dead, how can the series continue?” I said. “Most of the readers will have to return to the regular, commercial
Mars Girl
comic series.”

“I like this amateur series better than the commercial one,” Takeo said. “I don’t know how you selected this particular story, Rei, but it’s excellent. I don’t read comics, but I’d buy this one.”

“I chose it for the art,” I said, remembering how I’d felt when I’d first seen the magazine wrapped in plastic at Animagine. “But now the whole alien theme is really appealing to me. In a way, it’s like the story of foreigners.”

I was nowhere near as strong as Mars Girl, but I did have powers that were different from others’. As an alien in the midst of Japanese, I could look around and see insecurity and tensions that nobody else did. And by Japanese standards, I’d learned my etiquette on a different planet.

“I’m glad you’re not destined to go back to outer space.” Takeo leaned over to kiss me and added, “Tomorrow I return to Hayama. Will you come with me?”

With genuine regret, I said, “How I’d love to—but I’m already scheduled to meet Rika. However, if you’re going to the beach, perhaps you could do a small favor for me.” I told him that I was pretty sure I’d lost track of my address book at the beach bar.

“What’s the bar called?” Takeo asked.

“Bojo. It’s an open-air place with a straw roof and funny tables—they look as if they were rolled off a ship’s deck
.”

“Bojo!” Takeo exclaimed. “I can’t believe you went there by yourself.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Didn’t you see a number of men wearing dark sunglasses? Even though it was night time? And did you notice their tattoos?”

“Are you saying it’s a gangster hangout?” I was unable to resist an incredulous smile.

“That’s right. You thought the gangster subplot in the comic book was unrealistic, but I can tell you it’s only too real. They lurk at the beach. Everyone pretends they don’t notice them, but they’re at that bar. And I’ve heard there are no decent Japanese patrons—just foreigners, who don’t know how dangerous the situation is.”

“Okay, you don’t have to go there,” I reassured him. “I can just telephone them to find out if they’ve got the book. What’s the area code for Hayama?”

“Zero-four-six-eight. But would they have a telephone in an outdoor bar?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see what the operator tells me,” I said, already dialing information. “Hello? I’m trying to get the number for Bojo, a commercial establishment on Isshiki Beach.”

But there was no listing. I gritted my teeth, thinking how ironic it was that every other schoolgirl seemed to have her own cell phone, but a business such as Bojo could flourish without a regular telephone or flush toilet.

“I’ll go there for you,” Takeo said.

“No. You said that men in sunglasses made you uncomfortable.” I stopped, struck by a memory of Sunglass Man, who had been watching me in the anime coffee shop.

“What is it, Rei?” Takeo seemed to sense my change in thought.

I said, “I hate to admit that you’re right. I ought to be more wary.”

“I’ll get the book for you,” Takeo said.

“Really, I can do it myself—”

Takeo interrupted me with a surprising, hard kiss. It ended as abruptly as it had begun, and the next thing I knew, he was out the door.

When I woke up late on Wednesday morning, I snapped on the television right away. A tabloid news program was already in full swing. Topic: Nicky Larsen. Police had finally identified the gaudily dressed body washed up on the banks of the Sumida River. The newscaster gave more details: Mr. Larsen had been a Japanese-language major at the University of Minnesota who had come to Japan in 1998 to study at Showa College. He enjoyed Japanese animation, and the bizarre costume he’d been wearing when he died was that of his beloved Mars Girl.

So the cops had released the news, and other journalists had acted quickly and broken the story. Well, they didn’t know he was part of
Showa Story
—just that he was an animation fan. I was concerned about how easily the news team had picked up on the story. Would Rika and I still have a scoop?

The picture on the screen changed to the headquarters of Dayo, the comic publisher that produced the genuine
Mars Girl
comic that
Showa Story
had imitated. Mr. Mori, a spokesman for the company, looked like a typical forty-five-year-old salaryman in his dark gray suit. He fairly droned a statement from a sheet he held between his hands.

“It is sad news that an admirer of
Mars Girl
has died. The situation is especially poignant, since Mr. Nicky Larsen was a foreigner who had traveled many miles from his home in America to enjoy Dayo’s best-selling series. Our goal at Dayo is to produce comics that delight and enlighten.” Mr. Mori’s face twitched; it made him look as if he didn’t believe what he was saying, or was about to sneeze. “Unfortunately, those young people who create their own comic books using our characters are infringing on copyrights. The artists at Dayo who produce the real
Mars Girl
work very hard. Our efforts are compromised when imitators charge money for unauthorized depictions of our series.”

Mr. Mori bowed, revealing a balding semicircle, and the screen changed to a commercial.

As a woman crooned about toilet bowl cleaner, I tried to filter her out and understand the subtext of Mr. Mori’s message. Dayo Comics was using Nicky’s death to make a jab about
Showa Story
‘s copyright infringement. This struck me as cold-blooded and also rather surprising. Rika had said that comic publishers didn’t care about copyright infringement. Did she really know …or was this another example of one of her quick, casual untruths?

Could the Dayo company be somehow involved in Nicky’s death? Kunio had suddenly vanished, ostensibly to collect money to repay debts. Could he have been collecting to make a settlement with Dayo? But if so, why would he have taken on all the financial load and not share it with Seiko and Nicky?

I went out for my morning run. I was starting later than usual, so instead of cool air, there was a warm, humid fog, and heat rising up even from the cement pavement, toasting my feet. I saw a neighbor walking her golden retriever and was reminded of Seiko Hattori, the
manga
circle member who allegedly dressed as Mars Girl’s dog. I ended my run early, and instead of drinking my usual Aquarius or Pocari Sweat, I chose a cold Georgia Coffee from the vending machine outside Sendagi Station. I had enough change in my shorts pocket to jump on the Chiyoda Line to make a visit to Showa College.

I’d been to the college once for a film festival; it had been a dark winter evening, and I’d gotten the impression of a modern office complex rather than a place devoted to scholarship. It was the architect’s fault; many buildings had gone up in the boom-boom 1980s, and they were the standard white Tokyo boxes that become gray fast and do nothing to improve the landscape. It was a shame, because I was willing to bet that the campus had once been nice. The college was founded in 1928, shortly after Emperor Hirohito had come to power. Reflecting the emperor’s personal taste, marine science was an important department; his original museum of marine biology was still one of the leading draws on the campus. It was a round building built of stones with windows shaped like portholes. Because it was old and quirky, of course I considered it the most attractive building.

A campus map mounted outside the museum showed tiny photographs of the various buildings corresponding to the various academic departments. I couldn’t see the word ‘art’ anywhere. I wondered if art was housed in another building, such as communications. I would check with the administration. Scanning the building names printed in
kanji
characters, I triumphantly recognized the symbol for ‘admissions office’ and set off on a smooth cement path toward it.

As Rika’s friend had mentioned, the regular school year was over, so things were quiet. There were no bicycles leaning in the bike racks, and no students sitting on the steps. Still wearing my shorts and tank top, I was the only person walking around who looked remotely collegiate. A few grown-ups in business suits walked by with briefcases; professors, I imagined, doing summer research. It was past 9 a.m., so I figured the offices had to be open.

I entered the mauve-and-white room that was the admissions office, and before I could speak, I was handed a form written in Japanese. It appeared to be some sort of preliminary application. The receptionist, a kind-looking middle-aged woman who wore glasses on a necklace chain, waved to me, indicating that I should sit down on one of the plush chairs.

I remained standing, and told her, “I’m trying to get some basic information about students… and the art department.”

“There is no art department here,” the receptionist told me. “Some of the students enjoy art as a hobby, and there are clubs for it, of course. You may indicate your interest in the application.”

“Where are the art hobby clubs located?” I asked.

“The second floor of the student union. But I’m very sorry that it’s closed for the summer. Can you come back in late August?”

“Um, actually, I’m visiting from America,” I said semi-truthfully. I was sure the Japanese government would like to think of me as a visitor and not a permanent resident.

“
Ah so desu ka!
We have programs for foreign students. Your Japanese was so good that I did not realize. I gave you the wrong application
.
”

She began frantically rummaging through a series of folders.

“Please don’t go to any trouble,” I apologized. “It would be a great help to me, though, if I could meet a particular student I heard about who is interested in the same things as I am.”

“Well, it is a bit irregular for me to do this, but seeing as you’ve traveled so far, I will ask the registrar if he can help.” The woman seemed relieved to be able to pass the buck. “What is this student’s name?”

“Seiko Hattori.”

“All you know is her name? Not her major?”

“Well, I have heard that she is in the
manga
club.”

The receptionist frowned. “The Japanese immersion program here is very rigorous. Those who come to Japan seeking only to play at
manga
can be disappointed in the college experience. We had an American like that, and the dean does not want the experience repeated.”

“Oh, I agree. Are you talking about that boy who was in the news: Nicky Larsen?”

“He was so consumed with
manga
that he dropped out. And then look at what happened!” She shook her head. “I’m going to telephone the registrar right now. While you wait, you can look at our student publications in the reception area,

I located the Showa College yearbook on a rack, and since I wasn’t sweaty anymore, I sat down on a small mauve-and-cream print chair. The chair reminded me of the kind of customer seats one encountered in banks, sized at an elementary-school-student scale. They were seats that made you feel small in the face of the authority.

I paged through the yearbook; fortunately the
manga
group was called Comic Club, so I was able to easily identify the picture. Two rows of students were mugging for the camera, some wearing costumes, some holding their fingers like rabbit ears over the head of the person in front of them. Before looking at the faces too closely, I checked the text for names: Nicky Larsen, Kunio Takahashi, Seiko Hattori.

Nicky was easy to spot: his blond head was higher than everyone else’s. He was wearing a long leather coat and looked pretty glamorous. I could see why Chiyo had hired him for the host bar. Kunio Takahashi, standing to his right, was dressed in what looked like a vintage tuxedo complete with wing-tip shoes and gloves. He was wearing sunglasses, so I didn’t get much of an impression of his face, except that he had a pointed chin, giving a rather pixielike character to his face. He looked almost like an animation character. I considered whether he could be Sunglass Man who had watched me in the
anime
coffee shop a few days earlier. The picture was too small for me to decide, and the sunglasses were a different style, but I did think that Kunio was probably close in height to Sunglass Man.

Why did Kunio have to wear sunglasses in the picture?
I groused to myself. It was so unfair. Seiko Hattori was on the other side of Kunio. I’d been thinking to myself that since Kunio was supposed to be so hot, she might have been a girlfriend. Nicky had called her a bitch. It sounded like they had some past bad history.

In this picture, Seiko was standing with her hands flat against her thighs, smiling into the camera as if she owned it. I had an impression of long straight black hair and a round, softly pretty face. In other words, she looked like half the Japanese college students or office ladies that I saw on the street. I couldn’t pick her out of the crowd.

I went through the back of the book, looking for an index to see if there were more photos of Seiko and Kunio. There was no index. Instead, there was page after page of advertisements, in English or Japanese, congratulating graduates and the various extracurricular organizations. There were a number of pages showing support for the volleyball team, and one especially showy page congratulating members of the journalism club, which included Rika Fuchida. Reading the fine print at the bottom of the page, I saw that her parents had paid for the advertisement. Well, that was normal for American high school and college yearbooks, too.

An ad with a smiling Mars Girl holding a diploma conveyed congratulations to the whole animation club, courtesy of Hattori Copy Shop. The advertisement listed the participating students’ names. Kunio, Nicky, and Seiko were listed along with twenty others. There was one name I’d expected to see there but didn’t: Rika’s.

Looking at the ad, two questions cropped up. First, I wondered if the people running Hattori Copy Shop had any connection to Seiko Hattori. Second, I was curious why Rika hadn’t been featured in the
manga
club photo or named in the advertisement. Rika had told Mr. Sanno she was active in the Showa College
manga
club, but she was turning out to have been less of a player than I thought. Maybe, like her friends had suggested, she was a non-player.

“Not available,” the receptionist said suddenly.

“Hmmm?” I’d been so lost in Rika’s absence from the animation club that I hadn’t heard the full sentence the receptionist uttered. With Japanese, I always had to listen very carefully to a whole sentence to understand it.

“It seems that Seiko Hattori used to study here as an English major. She is no longer enrolled.”

“Did she graduate?” I asked.

“No, the last year she completed was her third. We have a four-year program.” She sighed. “This is a private college, and scholarships are unfortunately few. Perhaps, with the economic crisis, her parents couldn’t afford it any longer.”

Three members of a
doujinshi
circle, all missing from college. I doubted it had anything to do with the current economic crisis.

“Nicky left after his third year as well, didn’t he?”

“Technically he was enrolled as a senior this year,” the receptionist said. “It’s just that he didn’t come to class.”

“You know a lot about Nicky Larsen,” I said, hoping to tease out more.

“Oh, as you can imagine, the staff was very concerned after he died. We heard just a few days ago. He’s on people’s minds.”

“Did you know him personally?”

She shook her head. “He started the application process while he was a student in the United States. Therefore he didn’t have any reason to enter the admissions office. The foreign-students’ office dealt with him, but because it is summer, it’s closed.”

“I hear that he had a Japanese friend called Kunio Takahashi who recently graduated.”

“You are so interested in particular students who are not enrolled here any longer,
neh
?”

Oops. I’d crossed a line, and I was in danger of being found out.

“Um, well, these were the names I was told,” I said. “I’d like to take this application and be on my way, but I really am impressed with this yearbook. Is there any way that I can buy my own copy?”

“The student union sells copies, but since that is closed, you could try to find a copy at the shop that printed it. Hattori Copy Shop is very close by, just outside Takadanobaba Station.”

Hattori Copy Shop was the same company that had placed the advertisement congratulating the animation club. Excellent. I smiled my thanks and was on my way to the station. The copy shop was easy to locate; it was a typical mom-and-pop store with a big sign in the window reading copy now! only 5 yen. I thought of dashing in, but I realized it was only twenty minutes till my lunch date with Rika. The perils of rising late, I thought sourly. Rika was on a tight schedule at the magazine, so I owed it to her to be punctual. I checked the hours of the copy shop, which were posted on the door, and hurried to my meeting.

Rika arrived at the restaurant at nearly the same moment as I did, and we found seats together just before the noon rush hour. As always, the service was like lightning. The goal of the place seemed to be feeding people and releasing them as quickly as possible. Some restaurants had no conversation allowed, in an attempt to speed things up even more. The fact that we were talking was arousing a few evil stares from people standing in the doorway waiting for tables.