The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4) (17 page)

She smiled at me and spoke first. “This is the first time we meet, Miss Shimura. I am Manami Oida. I beg your consideration.”

Her words were the standard Japanese greeting. They sounded right coming from her. It did make me reflect, though, on how Hiroko hadn’t used the same words. She was young and modern, like a lot of the women drinking at Show a Boy. Manami Oida, in her white polyester blouse and black wool skirt, was the opposite.

I parroted my own rote greeting back and then got down to business.

“There are so many admirers of your series,” I began.

“Oh, no! We are trying hard to make an amusement for the young readers, but these days, new comics are growing! I don’t think we’re so well known.”

“You may have heard that some of your fans started their own amateur copy of the magazine.”

“Yes,
Showa Story.
I’ve bought many copies. It’s absolutely beautiful! Much better than our product, don’t you think?” Manami Oida beamed, and her boss, Hiroko, smiled in a strained, artificial way. Hiroko probably didn’t like hearing that the
Mars Girl
rip-off was better than the original.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said. “Since they are students, they have leisure to work on the stories as they like.”

“I sent a letter to
Showa Story
once, congratulating the three young people involved in its production. I suppose they weren’t interested in correspondence with someone my age, for  he never replied.”

Was Manami being sincere? She was too nice. I shook my head, unable to fathom it. I said, “I heard that someone from Dayo sent Kunio Takahashi a letter. Perhaps it was you.”

“So that’s what this is about!” Hiroko said. “A man named Kunio Takahashi—not Nicky Larsen?”

“I didn’t specifically address the letter to Takahashi-san,” Manami Oida said. “However, if he is the main artist, I would like to meet him. Could you arrange that for me?”

“I wish I could,” I said. “The only other living member of the group that I can find is Seiko Hattori. And I’m afraid that she doesn’t draw.”

“I’m always looking for gifted artists to render my series. That’s what I wrote in my letter. If Takahashi contributed his talents, perhaps
Mars Girl
could be in the top five again.”

“Until last year,
Mars Girl
had the fifth-largest circulation of all the monthly comic books,” Hiroko explained. “Right now, we’re number ten. Can you just put it that way in your article? That we are in the top ten?”

“Um, sure,” I said, making a show of writing the phrase “top ten” on my notepad. “I was wondering how much such an artist might earn drawing for you.”

Both women exchanged glances.

“Actually, I don’t know,” said Manami Oida. “Mmm, let’s just say about a fifth of what the series originator earns. Drawing is an important job, but it is not as creative as what the series originator does.”

Not very tempting for Kunio, I thought. I had probably come to a dead end in that direction. I needed to get back to Nicky. “Oida-san, for how many years have you been drawing comics?”

“Seventeen years,” she said. “I used to illustrate children’s books, but I moved into
manga
publishing because it was more regular employment. I enjoy it very much.”

“Where do you create your drawings?” I asked.

“My hometown of Kurihama. It’s quite pleasant there. Would you like to visit my studio?”

“I usually have time on Mondays.” I was striving to get the facts on her recent activities.

“Mondays I come to this office,” Manami answered. “There are staff meetings, that kind of thing.”

“Just my luck,” I said ruefully. “Does it take all of your day?”

“Well, let’s see. I arrive here around nine-thirty in the morning, and I must stay until at least three. Maybe later?”

“Are those the same hours you worked this past Monday the seventeenth?”

Hiroko interrupted. “I’m sorry, but Oida-san must get back to work,
neh
?”

“Yes, there really is a lot to do,” Manami Oida apologized. “But to answer your last question, last Monday I was in the office from nine-thirty to six. We were so busy nobody even went out for lunch.”

Ten minutes later, I was at Tokyo Station, waiting for the subway train to pull in and thinking about what had happened. Now I knew what had happened between Dayo Publishing and Kunio Takahashi. Kunio had opened the letter Manami Oida had sent and boasted a bit about it to the other members of the circle. It didn’t seem anything else had come of it.

A recorded jingle told me the train doors were about to close, so I jumped on and headed west toward home. The Marunouchi Line at this time of day was only lightly crowded with students and housewives. Because there was room, people were doing slightly inconsiderate things such as putting a shopping bag on the seat to them, or sprawling their legs out so it was impossible to sit in the neighboring seat. So in effect, the train had as few seats available as it would during rush hour.

I stayed standing, because the only space left was near a man wearing a gauze mask covering his mouth and nose. The last thing I needed was to come down with a cold. I had about a week until the article was due. The deadline frightened me, since even the easiest column on antiques took me five days to write and polish. The
Showa Story
investigation was ongoing, so days of research lay ahead before the writing.

As we pulled into Kasumigaseki Station, I could see a horde of suited government workers waiting on the platform. The mass seemed impenetrable, but I knew that once the doors slid open, the crowd would part in two neat wings to allow the disembarking people to leave the train, then fill the void efficiently. A lot of people were getting off with me; Kasumigaseki was the ground zero for Japan’s government. I stepped off the train, my eyes scanning the wall for directions to the Chiyoda Line, the subway to which I needed to transfer to get home. I was so busy looking into the distance that when a passenger bumped against my back, I almost tripped into the gap between the train and the platform. In a rare example of hands-on concern, a blue-suited bureaucrat on the platform caught my arm, enabling me to step to safety. I thanked the man, but he had already boarded the train before I could press the issue. Japanese etiquette meant never acknowledging when you do something nice for someone. I moved on, the summer heat wrapped around me like a scratchy thermal blanket. Treading up the sticky staircase in my stacked heels toward the Chiyoda Line, I knew that it would be even more miserably hot outside. In Tokyo, the humidity was the killer. I wished I were at the beach with Takeo.

I moved a fraction more slowly than the crowd, due to the impractical styling of my dress. I promised myself that if I ever made it up the stairs, I was going to sell the dress at a consignment store. My mother would kill me, but her dress was really cramping my style. Most of the people who’d been on the train with me were a half flight ahead. How pitiful for me, a twenty-eight-year-old woman, to be outpaced by men my father’s age. There was only one figure moving as sluggishly as I: the man with the bad cold.

As I approached the top of the flight of steps, I thought I heard him say my name, though his words were muffled by the gauze mask.

He had stopped and was facing me. I nodded to affirm my identity but didn’t move closer, for fear of his germs. He was walking up a step to be closer to me, I realized uneasily, and I took a step away from him just as his arm flashed out and punched me in the jaw. The punch sent me backward, sailing through the air, back down the staircase. My body glanced off the cement steps and then rolled over and over, down the length of stairs. My first thought was for my sensitive knees, so I pulled my thighs tightly to my chest. I was rolling, rolling, rolling. No time to think about my head or neck or back.

My ricochet down the staircase ended against something soft and giving.

A soft, furry animal had caught me. A great big dog.
No, I have to be dreaming
, I thought as I stared into the eyeholes of my rescuer’s costume. Japanese eyes, streaked with tears, peered back at me. I’d been caught by Seiko Hattori.

“Are you all right? Oh, it’s my fault! I saw that you were having trouble walking. I should have helped you.” Seiko didn’t stop talking, even while the paramedics were checking me out and placing me on a board. I was talking back, to reassure us both.

“The fall wasn’t bad. But I told you, I didn’t fall on my own, I was pushed!”

“But Rei-san, nobody was there. I told you.” Seiko had lifted off the dog head that was part of her costume, so I could see her face in full.

“Were you on the same train?”

“I was in the compartment behind you. When you gave me that business card with your address yesterday, I became curious. This morning, I followed you from home to the
Gaijin Times
and then to Dayo Publishing.”

“In the dog costume?” I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed.

“No. I was dressed normally. I must resemble a typical Japanese, because you didn’t notice.” Seiko smiled weakly. “I always carry my costume in my backpack. When I saw you go into Dayo Publishing, I decided that I should visit there, too! I changed in a Dunkin’ Donuts restroom nearby. I knew that if I went inside dressed like the dog, they would believe me a typical fan and let me go upstairs.”

“But I never saw any dogs there—real or costumed.” I was still confused.

“By the time I was dressed and ready to go in, you were coming out, and your expression was serious.  It made me think you’d figured everything out. So I decided to follow you on the train, but I stayed in the next car because I thought you’d find it strange for someone dressed like a dog to speak to you.”

“While you were on the train, did you see a young foreign man wearing a Porno for Pyros T-shirt anywhere?” I remembered Alec and the concert T-shirt he had worn to the
Gaijin Times
meeting that morning.

“I wasn’t looking closely, but I do think there were several foreigners on the train. Didn’t you notice?”

“No. I’m as unobservant about foreigners as I am about typical Japanese.” I was joking, but my body was hurting terribly. All my instincts told me to reach around and rub my bruised upper vertebrae, but I knew that only after an X-ray would it be safe to move. Thinking about the possibility of paralysis was terrifying. I asked, “Well, did you see a Japanese man wearing a gauze mask? You know, the kind of mask that keeps you from spreading germs?”

Seiko hesitated. “I didn’t see anyone touch you, but there were several people on the steps. I was too involved in catching you to look at them, I’m afraid.”

“So you saved me. Seiko-san, I don’t know what to say.” In truth, I was still a little confused about what had happened. Something that Hiroko had said about Mars Girl popped into my head: she falls down ten flights of stairs and gets up and fights. Had that allusion to the comic been a warning to me? Were the forces at Dayo more upset about my visit than she’d let on? Or was it Alec?

“The stationmaster is mortified that such an accident happened in his jurisdiction. He wants to know if you request a certain hospital, so that you are satisfied,” Seiko rattled on.

The stationmaster’s face swam over me. His brow was covered with sweat. I wondered if he was worried that I might sue for damages.

“St. Luke’s International Hospital. My cousin works there. It’s funny. I was just thinking about trying to avoid catching a cold, and now I’m going to the hospital. Well, I’ll be fine there. You can go back to whatever you were doing today.”

“But Rei-san, you are in danger!”

“Not anymore.”
She falls down a flight of stairs, and she gets up ready to fight.

“Sei Roka Byouin,” said Seiko to the paramedics, using the Japanese pronunciation of the international hospital’s name. “Do you want me to telephone the
Gaijin Times
to say that you’ve been hurt?”

“No.” I paused, thinking it over. “Well, maybe you’d better say something. If I’m indisposed, I’m not going to be able to finish the story.”

“Really?” Seiko’s eyes got big. “Isn’t there someone who could help you there?”

“I suppose there is one person.” I gave her Rika’s name and telephone number.

“I know that girl,” Seiko said. “She went to college with me. I didn’t think she was old enough to graduate.”

“She didn’t graduate. She’s doing a summer internship,” I said.

“Oh.” Seiko’s expression remained grave.

“So you know Rika. What’s she like?” I asked, but there was no time to get an answer, because just then the paramedics lifted me up and started carrying me out of the station. Seiko put my backpack next to me on the board. Being carried up endless flights of stairs was actually pretty embarrassing—I was aware of how people glanced at me quickly, then looked away as if shocked at the sight of an injured person. I wondered if it was because I was young—maybe they thought I was a subway track jumper. Suicide was on the rise in Japan, and I supposed that a young woman like me, presumably unlucky in love or job, was a likely candidate.

The paramedics wouldn’t let Seiko ride in the ambulance, but she made her way to St. Luke’s via subway and was there to see me after I’d come out of various X-ray machines and was standing up, looking at the X-ray pictures on a light box with the radiologist, Dr. Natsuki, and my cousin, Dr. Tom Shimura.

“You’re like a cat. Nine lives,
neh?”
Tom commented after telling me that the X-rays showed that my spine and head were fine. The aches I felt were a pulled muscle in my back, bruised bones, and the beginning of bruises that would show their ugly selves in the next forty-eight hours.

“I don’t know whether I should credit my survival to your care or our shared genes,” I answered gratefully. Tom was the emergency-room attending doctor at St. Luke’s. It was a high-status job for a man as young as he was—just thirty-four—but Tom’s life was far from perfect. He worked long, hard hours at the hospital, and after that, he went home to his parents, who were now pestering him to get married. Tom told them he was too busy to make any woman happy. He spent 90 percent of his waking hours in the emergency room, and in fact, my arrival was the first time we’d gotten together in months. Dr. Natsuki seemed to sense this, and after giving me a container of Valium to take as a muscle relaxant, he faded away, leaving me to talk with Tom and Seiko.

“Tell me about the man who hurt you. The officer who accompanied you here didn’t seem to know anything.”

“It’s probably because he didn’t want to record what I told him,” I said bitterly. “The station manager told the policeman that I was confused by the accident. He said that although I claimed that I’d been punched, nobody had seen an attacker. Then he questioned Seiko.”

“What about this mark?” Tom touched my jaw.

Seiko piped up. “I think the mark didn’t show right away. I’m really sorry, but I couldn’t say that I saw the person. When your body was rolling down the stairs, all I could concentrate on was stopping it—you know, breaking the fall.”

“Thank you for what you did,” Tom said. “You saved my cousin from serious injury or even death.”

“It has been a bad-luck day,” I said. “You know, when I was getting out of the train, I almost fell onto the tracks. I thought it was because I was distracted, but I think there might have been some pressure on my back. I didn’t suspect anything at the time. But now I think there’s a good chance the push from behind came from the man with the mask.”

“A mask? You mean the sort that criminals wear while committing robberies?” Tom asked.

“Well, my backpack wasn’t taken or anything like that, but he was covered. He was wearing one of those gauze face masks that people wear when they have colds or allergies.”

“Yes. Above the mask, what did you see? What about his eyes? The condition of his skin? Clothing, shoes? Any tattoos?”

I sat back in the chair
,
but no memory came. “I don’t know. To tell the truth, I was trying to stay away from him because I didn’t want to get any germs. The eyes are a big blank. I can’t even honestly tell you if they were Western or East Asian. His clothing must have just been—normal. I would have remembered if it was a very nice business suit, or a construction worker’s pantaloons and boots.”

“Age?”

“His thick hair makes me think he was under fifty, although he could have been wearing a wig to create that impression. He was walking slowly up the stairs, which you’d think meant he was older, except of course he was waiting for me.”

Tom took away my empty cup of tea. “So what kind of people are you running around with now?”

I rolled my eyes. “Men who work as strippers by night and dress themselves as animation heroines by day. I’m writing a story for the
Gaijin Times
.”

“That sounds different from your recent column on the Heiwajima Antiques Fair.”

I shrugged. “The magazine is going through changes, so is my antiques business. I need to write the story to keep my bank account from going under.”

“Forget about the money. Your life is worth more than a few thousand yen.”

It was more than a few thousand yen that Mr. Sanno was offering to me. It was a chance for partial redemption. Nicky had died, perhaps because of me. I owed it to him to find out who had done it.

“I’ll ask if your doctor will recommend that you stay a few days in the hospital. Your condition is excellent, but I don’t think you should go home without company. I’m not going to bother asking you to come to our house, because you ran away the last time you stayed, and my mother was so upset.”

That had been a year and a half before. I smiled at the memory. “This time, I know how to take care of myself. I want to go home now.”

“I’m so sorry, Rei, but I’m on duty. I can’t escort you. There must be someone else who can do it.” He looked toward Seiko.

Seiko said in a quavering voice, “I have afternoon duty at the copy shop. I think that I am already half an hour late, and my father will be angry. I’m so sorry that I can’t take you, Rei.”

“It’s all right,” I said with relief. “I’ll get back to thinking about whom I can ask to come for me. Richard would have been great, but he’s in Canada right now.”

“But there is medicine for you,” Tom interrupted. “The first dose of Valium.”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “That stuff killed Marilyn Monroe! I’m not going to take it.”

“You don’t have to take anything strong.” Tom raised an eyebrow. “If ibuprofen is enough, just take that.”

“The tablets I take for my runner’s knee? I don’t even need to buy it. I’ve got plenty at home.”

“If it’s all right, Rei-san, I’ll take my leave,” Seiko said. “I will call you to check how you’re feeling.”

“Thank you so much, Seiko.” I bowed toward her and Tom, and then made my way to the restroom.

When I came back, Tom was not where I’d left him. I walked around and went back into the emergency room, where I found him in consultation with a nurse. I had taken a lot of his time, I realized, feeling guilty. The emergency room chief didn’t need to personally oversee my treatment, but I imagined he was doing it because he was my relative.

When I found Tom, he snapped his fingers at me and said, “What about having Takeo Kayama pick you up?”

“He probably can’t come. He’s forty kilometers away, painting the interior of his family’s country house.”

“Good, that means he’ll be able to receive this phone call. What’s the number?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Very well, then. I’m going to have to call my mother for help.”

“Please don’t,” I begged. “Oh, I’ve got an idea. Call this number.” I opened my backpack, which I’d left in the hospital’s lounge area, and fished out the Show a Boy leaflet I’d been carrying around for almost a week. “The handwritten number on the back belongs to a friend of mine named Marcellus. This time of day, he’s probably home.”

***

I had closed my eyes for what seemed like just a few minutes, and then I heard Marcellus’s voice. So Tom had called him, and he’d arrived.

“I’m very glad you called on me, Monsieur Dr. Tom-san,” Marcellus murmured. He was using all manner of titles in an effort to be polite. From between my lashes, I could see that he was dressed in one of his flashy nylon athletic suits, the ones that had tear-away sides to the pants. They were done up neatly now; one would never dream that this was a sexy dance costume.

“It’s so kind of you to make time in your schedule to help my cousin. She’s so… well, accident-prone,” Tom said, sounding a bit stilted. “I just need someone to escort her to her apartment, and then, um, tell the neighbors to look out for her. I’m happy to provide the taxi fare, because I don’t think she should take the subway right now.”

“But are you sure she’s ready to be released? She’s unconscious!” Marcellus whispered.

I guess that I looked that way, lying back in one of the waiting room’s lounge chairs with my face turned away from the crowd—I was tired of being looked at. I turned to face Marcellus, opened my eyes, and announced, “I’m fine, and it was very nice of you to come. I hope I am not interfering with your work schedule?”

“Three o’clock. Actually, I’m going to take you quickly to your place, speak to the neighbors, and then go to my place of employment. I’m scheduled to start there in an hour.”

“Are you sure that’s enough time? I hate to inconvenience you,” Tom said.

“Not at all. Miss Shimura is a good friend indeed, and I take it as a compliment that she called on me for assistance.” Marcellus was exuding all of the charm he could muster, and I could see Tom relaxing. He hailed a taxi for us and waved good-bye until we were out of sight, standard Japanese good manners. I settled back in the car and sighed. My nightmare was over.

Marcellus stroked my hand. “What misery you’ve been through! Do you think it’s related to what happened to Nicky?”

“Yes. That’s why I wanted to see you. And frankly, I think we should skip the stop at my apartment and go straight to Show a Boy. I want to show Chiyo that I’m not scared, given there’s a chance she could be involved in things.”

“You’re still thinking she’s behind Nicky’s death?”

“All I can think about right now is who’s after me. This creepy Australian editor from the
Gaijin Times,
Alec Tampole, threatened me just before I went out today, and Rika, the magazine intern who’s helping with my story, doesn’t seem to like me much, either. I also wonder about Seiko. What a coincidence that she happened to be on the scene when I got hurt. I was relieved that she couldn’t take me home from the hospital, because… who really knows?”