The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4) (20 page)

Takeo’s kitchen renovation was halfway finished. He’d kept some old, charming elements—the weathered cork flooring and a huge kitchen
tansu
that held blue-and-white dishes. But I noticed a new gas range with a full-size oven, and saw the space left for a German dishwasher. It was a cook’s kitchen, and ordinarily I would have looked around it with pleasure, but I was unhappily surprised to see that he was not alone.

Takeo was leaning on the counter, having what looked like a very emotional conversation with a young woman. She had her back to me: a slim, golden back that was bare except for the ribbon straps of a halter. A sleek black pageboy ended at the nape of her neck. I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined it was pretty. All of a sudden, I wished that I hadn’t come straight out of the shower with half-dry hair and a thigh-length T-shirt.

“You’ve got to get her out!” the woman said. “Father will flip if he finds out that she’s here.”

I recognized the voice as that of Takeo’s twin sister, Natsumi. So Takeo didn’t have a secret girlfriend. I should have been relieved, but the problem was that Natsumi and I didn’t get along. She was threatened by the idea of her brother getting serious with anyone, I guessed, because of how it would impact on her power within the family. Not that Takeo had ever asked me to marry him, but she’d brought up that topic with me a few months ago.

“I’m already disinherited. What could be worse than that?” Takeo said angrily over the sound of rushing water at the sink.

“I don’t want to run the school,” Natsumi whined in a tone that made her sound eight, not twenty-eight. “You could get your position back so easily if you’d just make up with him. This isn’t the way to do it.”

“Wasabi, please.”

I was thinking about ducking out, but it was too late. Natsumi had turned around in the direction of the refrigerator to get the ingredient her brother wanted, and she’d spotted me in the doorway.

“How long have you been standing there?” she demanded.

I regarded Natsumi, who was so well put together that she always made me feel unkempt. That day Natsumi was sporting finely plucked eyebrows and bright scarlet lipstick that gave her the look of a 1950s film star. Below her tiny halter top, she wore a pair of striped bicycle shorts. Her thighs were the width of my forearms. Natsumi had always been thin, but now she was verging on anorexic.

“I’ve just come in,” I said. “The part I overheard is that you want me to go home.”

Takeo almost dropped his bamboo strainer full of noodles. In fact, he had to lunge to catch some soba in his hand before it reached the floor.

“Don’t worry,” Takeo said after he had slid the noodles into a bowl. “My sister’s not going to ruin our time here. I have at least as much bad evidence about her behavior as she has about mine.”

I grew up without siblings, something about which I’d complained to my parents all throughout my childhood. But as an adult, I’d changed my mind. Arguments between blood relations seemed so much sharper and nastier than those between unrelated people. I felt myself begin to sweat just watching the brother and sister who had once been together in the womb face off like enemies.

“I’m staying here for a few days. I’ve a friend coming in tonight. I need privacy!” Natsumi sat down on a bamboo stool, crossing her slim legs.

“You’re not even supposed to be in Japan.” Takeo was vigorously mixing the noodles with sauce. “You’re supposed to be having meetings with the flower supplier in Singapore.”

“I cannot experience the harsh sun of Singapore with pale skin. I need a few days here to work up a base so that I don’t burn while there.”

“You’re saying you postponed a meeting based on vanity?” Takeo asked.

I was thinking that Natsumi’s tan plan meant that she would probably be on the beach that afternoon while I hoped to chat up gangsters. Great. I could only imagine her charging into the situation to embarrass me. I opened the fridge and picked up a bottle of Evian. I was still carrying around my painkilling tablet to wash down with a cool drink.

“That’s my personal water bottle!” Natsumi objected.

“Sorry.” I put it back and went to the new stainless-steel sink to start filling a glass.

“Why should you apologize?” Takeo turned from me to his sister. “She’s the rude one. Not you.”

I tried to see things from Natsumi’s vantage. What if I were the daughter of the house and had come home to spend a few quiet days, only to run smack into a girl whose personality bothered me? It would be depressing, all right.

“If she stays, there are certain conditions,” Natsumi grumbled to her brother.

‘I’m here. You can tell me the conditions,” I said.

“I need to sleep in the peach-colored room that’s closest to the bathroom in the hall. There are no other finished rooms, so you’ll probably want to check into a hotel.”

“No matter. I’m staying in your brother’s room.” I smiled, trumping her at her game.

“You can’t do that! Not in our mother’s house!” Natsumi screeched.

“Our
house,” Takeo corrected. “Where is your friend going to sleep tonight?”

“I was going to put him in the green room
–”

Takeo shook his head. “I don’t believe that. Besides, you know it’s
my
room.”

“You’re ruining my weekend here. You make it even worse by not believing what I say.” Natsumi looked on the verge of tears.

I felt a little bad for Natsumi, so I said, “Let’s start over, shall we? Hi. Would you like to eat lunch with us?”

“Soy makes me retain water. I brought my own health food
,
which I’ll eat later. I’m going to be in my room. If anyone calls, bring me the telephone.” Natsumi grabbed her bottle of mineral water and swung out of the kitchen.

“I’m sorry about her,” Takeo said when we sat down at last to eat the chilled noodles. The soy sauce dressing had the surprise addition of ground peanuts and tasted delicious; I couldn’t get enough of it.

“I’ve been trying to think about what your sister’s going through,” I said. “I’m sure that I’ve just spoiled what she was hoping would be her private time.”

“I sometimes wonder whether Natsumi would have been different if our mother had lived. She had no kind or gentle women taking care of her, you know.”

Takeo’s mother had died when he and Natsumi were very young. They’d grown up in a Tokyo penthouse surrounded by sycophantic servants, with a father who was frequently absent. When Takeo and I had met, I’d realized how deeply he still felt the loss of his mother. Natsumi and I hadn’t gotten along from the start, so I didn’t know how she felt about not having a mother. But I imagined that she too must have sadness.

“Who knows?” I said, spearing some more noodles in the delicious sauce. “Natsumi is a very feminine woman, but the way that she makes her feelings about things so clear–isn’t that more typical of male behavior in Japan? Maybe she learned that behavior from your father. Or you.”

Takeo had been picking at his food, and he put his chopsticks down. “I hope not from me. I mean, I’m all in favor of free expression, but it shouldn’t hurt others.”

“Is that the reason why you didn’t confront your father about the orchids from Singapore?” I asked. “Did you think it would hurt his feelings?”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s just—I know him so well. There’s no point in fighting for anything when he’s in charge.” Takeo took a swallow of cold barley tea. “Renovating this house has been a great pleasure for me. I dream sometimes of hiding out here for the rest of my life. I don’t know if you’d be interested in that, though.”

I flushed, and it wasn’t from the wasabi paste hitting my nose. Was Takeo getting serious? If so, there was something I still needed to clear up: the missing Valium.

“There’s something I want to ask you. I can’t find something that I packed. I wondered if you’d seen it.”

“What is it?” Takeo asked matter-of-factly.

“A container of Valium tablets.”

A look of horror crossed his face. “Rei, I had no idea you were on tranquilizers. Is life that difficult?”

“No,” I said. “The doctor at St. Luke’s prescribed them as a muscle relaxant. I didn’t take any yet, but I did have them in my backpack, and I noticed now that they’re gone.”

Takeo shook his head. “I unpacked your luggage because I wanted you to feel settled, but I didn’t go into your backpack. I hate to think that my sister did.”

I felt relieved, though. “If she starts acting very relaxed and kind to me, we’ll know she took it. And that won’t be so bad.”

“The thought of her on drugs is truly frightening!” Takeo said. “But I can’t sit around here waiting and wondering. What do you think about going to the beach and finding a gangster? Somehow that seems less dangerous.”

“All right. Let’s go,” I said, sounding more cheerful than I felt.

Taking off my sunglasses, I placed them on the round table in front of me to discreetly check my reflection. My MAC lipstick had a subtle sheen, my bruise was well covered by makeup, and my hair was perfectly slicked back with Takeo’s Super Hard Gel. I was wearing my trusty sports bikini because I’d heard that gangsters liked foreign brands. The Speedo emblem was on both top and bottom—you couldn’t miss it. The emblems were about the only extraordinary things I had going for me, since my bosom was as small as a typical Japanese woman’s, and my waist and hips were a fraction thicker.

Takeo, who was wearing stylish black bathing trunks with a decidedly ratty Greenpeace T-shirt, was seated about thirty feet away at the bar, sipping occasionally at a banana milk shake as he worked on a written translation of the
Showa Story
comic. His bird-watching binoculars were at his side, so he could make periodic checks to see if his sister was on the beach.

To make myself look casually decadent, I had ordered something that looked like a tequila sunrise but had no alcohol. It tasted like the strawberry lip gloss I used to wear in junior high school. Actually, it was junior high all over again: I was completely awkward, hiding behind a status brand, trying to act bolder than I was. Why had I thought that I could make contact with the next table over, where two curly-permed men were deep into conversation, smoking their way through a pack of Mild Sevens? The men had glanced up when I’d seated myself, then looked away without interest. That made me decide for sure that they were my prey. I’d even glanced over at Takeo, who had raised his eyebrows, which I took to mean that I’d made a likely gangster identification.

Engage in a normal conversation,
I reminded myself.
Think about how casually the conversation started last time with Rika’s friends.
But Rika had introduced us, and Japanese society ran on introductions.

I caught sight of Takeo out of the corner of my eye. He was motioning for me to put on my sunglasses. I remembered that back at the house, he’d said I should try to come off like a gangster’s little sister. It was hard enough to know what to do because I wasn’t a sister to anyone.

I put on the sunglasses and searched my backpack for something to catch their attention. I was carrying the
Mars Girl
comic book that I’d been given at Dayo Publishing. I spread it out in front of me and pretended to read. I giggled aloud, trying to make them look up, but they didn’t. This went on for about ten minutes. At this rate, they were liable to leave before I got my courage up to deliver an opening line.

A particularly harsh trail of smoke was making its way to my nostrils. How I longed to move. I jumped up and went to the bar to order another mocktail.

“I can’t do it,” I whispered to Takeo without looking at him.

“It’s a shame,” he whispered back. “I asked the bartender about those two, and he told me not to bother them. I think that means they’re exactly what you think.”

I nodded miserably and took my drink back to the table. As I moved, I ran over the various possibilities. I could employ the spilled-drink trick, but since they were dressed head to toe in Nike warm-up clothing, that gimmick might make them angry. I could ask for a cigarette, but I’d embarrass myself coughing to death. All I knew how to do were the good-girl things, the polite introductions that every student of Japanese learned.

Hmmm,
I thought. Maybe I had something there.

I sat down, aligning my legs so that no one could see how thick my thighs were from running. I looked directly at the man sitting closest to me and called out.

“It’s been a long time!” When the two men regarded me blankly, I said, “You’re Tanaka-san’s friends. I’m Reiko!” I had started to say my real name, then added a suffix for a little bit of safety.

“Tanaka-san knows you?” one of the men grunted.

“Certainly. We’re very close.” I beamed. Everyone in Japan knew a Tanaka-san. Tanaka was one of the most common family names.

The two men exchanged glances. I could read, clear as the drinks specials on the billboard, that they were in an etiquette conundrum. The men had to acknowledge me as a friend of Tanaka-san’s, because if Tanaka-san heard that they’d been unfriendly to me, he might let them know. The man closest to me, who had been sipping a beer, had a tattoo of a dragon on his biceps. Dragon Man. The other man had a prominent gold tooth.

“Um, good to see you again,” Dragon Man said. “What’s that pink thing you’re drinking? Wouldn’t you rather have a beer?”

This was a good step, sharing drinks. I was almost in. I turned to watch the men signal the bartender for another glass, and in that movement I saw Takeo slam a hand over his own drink. He was worried they might put something in my drink.

Trying to be cautious yet decadent-seeming, I said, ‘I’m more of a hard-liquor girl. Could I invite you guys for a tequila sunrise?”

They exchanged glances. Had I said something that could be misconstrued?

“You’re not Japanese, are you?” Gold Tooth asked in an almost kindly manner.

“Of course I’m Japanese, but I have spent some years in the States—didn’t Tanaka-san tell you?”

“No,” Dragon Man said, exchanging another significant glance with his friend.

“It’s a little bit hard for me here,” I said. “I can’t get a regular job.”
Just like you,
I added silently.

“So what do you do?” Gold Tooth looked at my body and smiled. I got the message—he was hinting that I was a bar hostess, or worse.

“I do a little of this and that,” I said. “I also am trying to educate myself about Japan. Do you read
manga
?” I held up my comic book.

“I did when I was a kid. But our work is pretty hard. We don’t have time to read anything during the day. When we’re free, it’s better to relax at the beach, feasting our eyes on the waves and pretty women.” Gold Tooth grinned.

“People have said that there’s a lot of hidden symbolism in the simple cartoons.” I felt my pulse race a little faster, and I opened the comic book to a page that showed the front of Mars Girl’s tunic, which bore the symbol of Mars that had been on Nicky’s forehead. “The planet Mars, for example. I heard a TV reporter say that it’s a symbol of a business family.”

“You must be from Mars! I’m going to take a crap.” Dragon Man stood up and stalked off.

Gold Tooth beamed at me. “Now, where were we?”

“I feel a little embarrassed. Did I say something that made your friend angry?”

“We aren’t used to girls talking to us. You look like you’d fit better with that guy at the bar. He’s reading a comic book, too.”

I looked over my shoulder, feigning surprise at the sight of Takeo. “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t know about the, um, business aspect of things.”

“No, heh heh heh!” Gold Tooth’s hand grasped my thigh firmly. I looked down and saw that he had an intact pinky, although it did bear a diamond-studded ring. “I shall tell you some stories.”

I wondered if Takeo could see what was happening from his vantage point at the bar. No, because there was a plaid tablecloth that hung low enough to mask things. My impulse was to slap the man’s hand away, but that would kill the conversation. I let the hand stay.

I raised my eyebrows at man. “So, what do you think? Off the record, of course.”

“You listen to records? CDs also?”

I guessed that my Western metaphor just didn’t translate. “I’ll keep it a secret.”

“Of course. We’ll keep everything that happens between us very, very private. Let’s go,
neh?
I’ll pay your drinks bill.”

Things were going from bad to worse much faster than I’d imagined, thanks to my euphemistic language. But I couldn’t stop now. I would have to use euphemism to get me out of a tight situation.

“Ojisan,”
I said to him, deliberately using the term that meant “grandfather,” even though he was probably only twenty years older than I, “Please. I come to you only with a question about business, a question to which you may not even have the answer.”

“You want to talk business.” His smile faded. “Ah, that’s why Tanaka-san sent you. You’re trying to get in, aren’t you? I know girls these days are trying all kinds of things.”

“No, I come on my own. I want to know if this symbol is known in your business.”

He laughed gently. “Of course not. We have a symbol that fits our work much better than some planet, or is it a pancake?”

“I’m afraid… I’m afraid I don’t know your symbol.”

“But it’s Tanaka-san’s business. He’s our supervisor.” Finally Gold Tooth looked a little suspicious.

“Why don’t you draw it for me?” I pulled out a pen that I’d stashed in my tight-fitting bikini top.

Gold Tooth goggled at that move, but it must have worked because he set pen to napkin immediately. He made a simple drawing of a cat holding a kitten between her teeth.

“That looks like… the symbol for a well-known package delivery service.”

“That’s right! We deliver packages six days a week. Today is our day off.”

I stared at him. “You mean… package delivery is your line of work?”

“It’s a tough job, eh?” He laughed.

“You work for a regular company, then.”

“Of course! We make good money. In fact, my friend and I have a rental house just down the beach. I’d like to show you.”

“No, thank you. I’m a little bit busy,” I said, giving his hand a little pat before I removed it. Where his hand had gripped me, a thin film of sweat remained. I wanted to cleanse myself.

“Why so cold?” Gold Tooth demanded.

“Um, would you believe me if I confessed this was a case of mistaken identity?”

“Sure. Reiko-san, I will be on the beach all day if you change your mind about taking a little rest with me. You are too confused. You do not know what is good for you.”

“Well, like I said, I’ve got to take a quick dip before leaving.
Sayonara!”
I went back to my table and placed a thousand-yen note under my empty glass. Then, trying to look casual, I headed straight for the ocean. The sand was hot, so I ran to the water, thinking over and over again what an idiot I was to mistake deliverymen for criminals.

I walked into the water with pleasure; Hayama’s bay was much warmer than the Pacific I’d grown up with, as well as much calmer. There was no lifeguard here, nor were there any buoys marking off a safe swimming area. It was too placid for all that. Wasn’t Lake Hayama the nickname foreigners gave it?

I splashed myself once I reached thigh level and could wash off Gold Tooth’s lascivious handprints. I stretched onto my side and side-stroked into deeper water, then flipped onto my back. From time to time, a wave would come and I would ride it. This was as far as I wanted to go when it came to surfing.

I wondered if Takeo would join me. He had worn swimming trunks. Maybe he was staying back because he didn’t want Gold Tooth and his colleague to know that we were connected. After all, he was not close enough to have heard Gold Tooth confess to being a deliveryman.

Ha. Takeo had talked up the beach as being ridden with gangsters; probably they were all just deliverymen and stereo salesmen, working-class guys trying to look good. I’d been such a fool to descend on those two men. I was only glad that Takeo’s sister hadn’t been around to witness the humiliating scene.

My ankle was tangled in a thick frond of seaweed. When a few kicks didn’t release it, I bobbed up to the surface to tread water and see if I could untangle myself. But my relaxed movement did no good. The hold on my ankle tightened. My body sank under the water.