“If the media get wind of the search request, they’ll be all over this.”
“I don’t know how the police are going to respond, but Fuka-Eri is the girl of the moment, not just some teenage runaway. Keeping this out of the public eye will likely be impossible.”
That might have been exactly what Professor Ebisuno was hoping for, Tengo thought: to cause a sensation using Fuka-Eri as bait, exploit it to clarify the relationship of Sakigake to Fuka-Eri’s parents, and learn the couple’s whereabouts. If so, then the Professor’s plan was working as he had imagined it would. But had the Professor fully grasped how dangerous this might prove to be? He certainly should have: Professor Ebisuno was not a thoughtless person. Indeed, deep thinking was exactly what he did for a living. And besides, there seemed to be a number of important facts surrounding Fuka-Eri’s situation of which Tengo was unaware, as though he were trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle without having been given all the pieces. A wise person would have avoided getting involved from the beginning.
“Do you have any idea where she might be, Tengo?” Komatsu asked.
“Not at the moment.”
“No?” Komatsu said with a perceptible note of fatigue in his voice. He was not a man who often let such human failings show. “Sorry I woke you in the middle of the night.”
To hear words of apology coming from Komatsu’s mouth was also a rare occurrence.
“That’s okay,” Tengo said. “Given the situation.”
“You know, Tengo, if I had my way I would have preferred not to involve you in these real-world complications. Your only job was to do the writing, and you carried that off splendidly. But things never work out as smoothly as we want them to. And, as I said to you once before, we’re all shooting the rapids—”
“In the same boat,” Tengo mechanically finished the sentence.
“Exactly.”
“But come to think of it,” Tengo added, “won’t Air Chrysalis just sell all the more if Fuka-Eri’s disappearance becomes news?”
“It’s selling enough already,” Komatsu said with a note of resignation. “We don’t need any more publicity. The only thing a scandal will net us is trouble. What we ought to be thinking about is a nice, quiet spot to land in.”
“A spot to land in,” Tengo said.
Komatsu made a sound as though he were swallowing some imaginary thing. Then he lightly cleared his throat. “Well, let’s have a nice, long talk about that over dinner sometime. After this mess gets cleaned up. Good night, Tengo. You ought to get a good night’s rest.”
Komatsu hung up. As if he had just had a curse laid on him, Tengo could no longer sleep. He felt tired, but he couldn’t get to sleep.
What was this “You ought to get a good night’s rest” business? He thought about doing some work at the kitchen table, but he wasn’t in the mood. He took a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, poured some into a glass, and drank it straight in small sips.
Maybe Fuka-Eri had been kidnapped by Sakigake. It seemed entirely plausible to Tengo. A bunch of them had staked out her Shinano-machi condo, forced her into a car, and taken her away. It was by no means impossible, if they had chosen the right moment and acted quickly. Maybe Fuka-Eri had already sensed their presence when she said she had better not go back to the condo.
Both the Little People and air chrysalises actually existed, Fuka-Eri had told Tengo. She had met the Little People in the Sakigake commune when she was being punished for having carelessly let the blind goat die, and she had made an air chrysalis with them for several nights running. As a result, something of great significance had happened to her. She had put the events into a story, and Tengo had refashioned the story into a finished piece of fiction. In other words, he had transformed it into a commodity, and that commodity was (to borrow Komatsu’s expression) selling like hotcakes. This in turn might be distressing to Sakigake. The stories of the Little People and the air chrysalis might be major secrets that must not be divulged to the outside world. And so, to prevent any further leaks, they had kidnapped Fuka-Eri and shut her up. They had resorted to force, even if it meant risking the possibility that her disappearance might arouse public suspicion.
This was, of course, nothing more than Tengo’s hypothesis. He had no evidence he could offer, no way he could prove it. Even if he told people, “The Little People and air chrysalises actually exist,” who could possibly take him seriously? First of all, Tengo himself did not know what it meant to say that such things “actually exist.”
Another possibility was that Fuka-Eri had become sick of all the hype surrounding her bestseller and had gone into hiding. This was entirely conceivable, of course. It was all but impossible to predict what she would do, but assuming she went into hiding, she would probably have left some kind of message for Professor Ebisuno and his daughter, Azami. There would have been no reason for her to worry them.
It was easy for Tengo to imagine, however, that Fuka-Eri might be in great danger if she had actually been abducted by Sakigake. Just as there had been no word from her parents, all word of Fuka-Eri might be lost. Even if the relationship between Fuka-Eri and Sakigake were revealed (which would not take a very long time), and this gave rise to a media scandal, it would all be for nothing if the police refused to get involved on the grounds that there was “no physical evidence that she was abducted.” She might remain locked up somewhere inside the high-walled religious commune. Had Professor Ebisuno concocted a plan that included such a worst-case scenario?
Tengo wanted to call Professor Ebisuno and ask him all these questions, but it was already past midnight, and he could only wait until tomorrow.
The next morning Tengo dialed the number he was given to call Professor Ebisuno’s house, but the call did not go through. All he got was the recorded message, “The number you have dialed is not presently in service. Please check the number and dial again.” He tried again several times, but always with the same results. He guessed that they had changed phone numbers after Fuka-Eri’s debut, due to an onslaught of calls requesting interviews.
Nothing unusual happened during the following week. Air Chrysalis went on selling in the same high numbers, coming out again at the top of the national bestseller list. No one contacted Tengo during the week. He tried phoning Komatsu at his office a few times, but he was always out (which was not unusual). Tengo left a message with the editorial office for Komatsu to call, but no call came (which was also not unusual). He read the newspaper every day, but he found no report that a search request had been filed for Fuka-Eri. Could Professor Ebisuno have decided not to file one? Perhaps he had filed a request but the police had not publicized it so as to search for her in secret, or they had not taken it seriously, treating it as just another case of a runaway teenager.
As always, Tengo taught mathematics at the cram school three days a week, continued writing his novel on other days, and spent Friday afternoon having intense sex with his girlfriend when she visited his apartment. But he could not focus. He spent day after day feeling uneasy and muddled, like someone who has mistakenly swallowed a thick swatch of cloud. He began losing his appetite. He would wake up at odd times in the middle of the night, unable to get back to sleep. Then he would think about Fuka-Eri. Where was she now? What was she doing? Whom was she with? What was happening to her? He imagined a variety of situations, all of them, with minor variations, deeply pessimistic. In the scenes he imagined, she was always wearing her thin, tight-fitting sweater that showed off the lovely shape of her breasts. The image made him gasp for breath and only added to his agitation.
It was on the Thursday of the sixth week after Air Chrysalis became a permanent fixture on the bestseller list that Fuka-Eri finally got in touch with him.
CHAPTER 23
Aomame
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING
Aomame and Ayumi were the perfect pair to host intimate but fully erotic all-night sex feasts. Ayumi was petite and cheerful, comfortable with strangers, and talkative. She
brought a positive attitude to just about any situation once she had made up her mind to do so. She also had a healthy sense of humor. By contrast, Aomame, slim and muscular, tended to be rather expressionless and reserved, and she found it hard to be witty with a man she was meeting for the first time. In her speech there was a subtle note of cynicism and even hostility, and in her eyes an equally subtle gleam of intolerance. Still, when she felt like it, Aomame gave off a cool aura that naturally attracted men. It was like the sweet, sexually stimulating fragrance that animals or insects give off when necessary. This was not something that could be learned through conscious effort. It was probably inborn. But no—she might well have acquired the fragrance for some reason at a certain stage of life. In any case, this aura subtly aroused not only her sexual partners but also Ayumi, adding color and a positive warmth to their evenings.
Whenever they encountered suitable men, first Ayumi approached them with her natural cheer. Then Aomame would join them at an appropriate moment, creating a unique atmosphere that was part operetta, part film noir. Once things got to that point, the rest was simple. They would move to an appropriate place and (as Ayumi bluntly put it) “fuck like mad.” The hardest thing was finding suitable partners. Preferably, they should be two men together—clean, and reasonably good-looking. They had to be at least somewhat intellectual, but too much so could be a problem: boring conversation could turn the evening sterile. They also had to look like men who had money to spend. Obviously, the men paid for the drinks and the hotel rooms.
When they tried to hold a nice little sex feast near the end of June, however (in what would turn out to be their last team activity), they simply could not find suitable men. They put a lot of time into it, changing venues several times, always with the same results. In spite of the fact that it was the last Friday of the month, all the clubs they tried, from Roppongi to Akasaka, were shockingly quiet, almost deserted, giving them no real choice. Maybe it had something to do with the heavy clouds that hung in the sky, as if the whole of Tokyo were in mourning for someone.
“It doesn’t look good today,” Aomame said. “Maybe we should give up.” It was already ten thirty.
Ayumi reluctantly agreed. “I’ve never seen such a dead Friday night. And here I’m wearing my sexy purple underwear!”
“So go home and get carried away with yourself in the mirror.”
“Not even I have the guts to do that in the police dorm bathroom!”
“Anyhow, let’s just forget it. We’ll have a nice, quiet drink, then head home and go to bed.”
“That may be the best thing,” Ayumi said. Then, as if she had suddenly recalled something, she added, “Say, let’s have a bite to eat before we go home. I’ve got an extra thirty thousand yen in my purse.”
Aomame frowned. “Extra? How come? You’re always complaining how little they pay you.”
Ayumi scratched the side of her nose. “Actually, the last time, the guy gave me thirty thousand yen. He called it ‘taxi fare’ and handed it to me when we said good-bye. You know, the time we did it with those real estate guys.”
“And you just took it?” Aomame asked, shocked.
“Maybe he thought we were semi-pros,” Ayumi said with a chuckle. “I bet it never crossed his mind he was dealing with a cop and a martial arts instructor. Anyhow, what’s the difference? I’m sure he makes tons of money in real estate—more than he knows what to do with. I kept it separate, figured I’d spend it with you on a nice meal or something. I mean, money like that you don’t want to use on just regular expenses.”
Aomame did not tell Ayumi how she felt about this. To have taken money for casual sex with a man she didn’t know—she could hardly comprehend the fact that such a thing had occurred. She felt as if she were looking at a twisted image of herself in a warped mirror. Ethically, which was better—taking money for killing men or taking money for having sex with men?
“Tell me,” Ayumi asked Aomame uneasily, “does the idea of taking money from a man bother you?”
Aomame shook her head. “It doesn’t bother me so much as make me feel a little mystified. But what about you? I would have expected a female cop to feel reluctant to do anything like prostitution.”
“Not at all,” Ayumi insisted cheerfully. “I have no problem with that. You know, a prostitute is somebody who agrees on a price and gets her money before having sex. The first rule is ‘Pay me before you take your pants off.’ She couldn’t make a living if guys told her, ‘Gee, I don’t have any money’ after it was all over. But when there’s no prior negotiation of a price, and afterward the guy gives you a little something for ‘taxi fare,’ it’s just an expression of gratitude. That’s different from professional prostitution. There’s a clear distinction between the two.”
What Ayumi had to say made a certain kind of sense.
The men that Aomame and Ayumi had chosen the last time were in their late thirties or early forties. Both had full heads of hair, but Aomame was willing to compromise on that point. They said they were with a company that dealt in real estate, but judging from their Hugo Boss suits and Missoni Uomo neckties, they were not just ordinary employees of giant conglomerates like Mitsubishi or Mitsui, whose employees were bound by finicky rules, tradition, and endless meetings, but rather they worked for a more aggressive, flexible company with a cool, foreign-sounding name, a place that looked for individual talent and richly rewarded success. One of the men carried keys to a brand-new Alfa Romeo. Tokyo was short on office space, they said. The economy had recovered from the oil shocks and was showing signs of heating up again. Capital was growing ever more fluid, and soon it would be impossible to meet the need for space no matter how many new high-rise buildings they put up.
“Sounds like real estate is where the money is,” Aomame said to Ayumi.
“That’s true,” Ayumi said. “If you have anything extra lying around, you ought to invest it in real estate. Huge amounts of money are just pouring into Tokyo, which is only so big. Land prices are bound to soar. Buy now, and there’s no way you can lose. It’s like betting on horses when you know you hold the winning ticket. Unfortunately, low-ranking public employees like me don’t have anything to spare. But how about you, Aomame? Do you do any investing?”
Aomame shook her head. “I don’t trust anything but cash.”
Ayumi laughed out loud. “You have the mind of a criminal!”
“The thing to do is keep your cash in your mattress so in a jam, you can grab it and escape out the window.”
“That’s it!” Ayumi said, snapping her fingers. “Like in The Getaway. The Steve McQueen movie. A wad of bills and a shotgun. I love that kind of stuff.”
“More than being on the side that enforces the law?”
“Personally, yes,” Ayumi said with a smile. “I’m more drawn to outlaws. They’re a whole lot more exciting than riding around in a mini patrol car and handing out parking tickets. That’s what I like about you.”
“Do I look like an outlaw?”
Ayumi nodded. “How should I put it? I don’t know, you just have that atmosphere about you, though maybe not like a Faye Dunaway holding a machine gun.”
“I don’t need a machine gun,” Aomame said.
“About that religious commune we were talking about last time, Sakigake …,” Ayumi said.
The two were sharing a light meal and a bottle of Chianti at a small, late-night Italian restaurant in Iikura, a quiet neighborhood. Aomame was having a salad with strips of raw tuna, while Ayumi had ordered a plate of gnocchi with basil sauce.
“Uh-huh,” Aomame said.
“You got me interested, so I did a little searching on my own. And the more I looked, the fishier it began to smell. Sakigake calls itself a religion, and it even has official certification, but it’s totally lacking any religious substance. Doctrine-wise, it’s kind of deconstructionist or something, just a jumble of images of religion thrown together. They’ve added some new-age spiritualism, fashionable academicism, a return to
nature, anticapitalism, occultism, and stuff, but that’s all: it has a bunch of flavors, but no substantial core. Or maybe that’s what it’s all about: this religion’s substance is its lack of substance. In McLuhanesque terms, the medium is the message. Some people might find that cool.”
“McLuhanesque?”
“Hey, look, even I read a book now and then,” Ayumi protested. “McLuhan was ahead of his time. He was so popular for a while that people tend not to take him seriously, but what he had to say was right.”
“In other words, the package itself is the contents. Is that it?”
“Exactly. The characteristics of the package determine the nature of the contents, not the other way around.”
Aomame considered this for a moment and said, “The core of Sakigake as a religion is unclear, but that has nothing to do with why people are drawn to it, you mean?”
Ayumi nodded. “I wouldn’t say it’s amazing how many people join Sakigake, but the numbers are by no means small. And the more people who join, the more money they put together. Obviously. So, then, what is it about this religion that attracts so many people? If you ask me, it’s primarily that it doesn’t smell like a religion. It’s very clean and intellectual, and it looks systematic. That’s what attracts young professionals. It stimulates their intellectual curiosity. It provides a sense of achievement they can’t get in the real world—something tangible and personal. And these intellectual believers, like an elite officers’ corps, form the powerful brains of the organization.
“Plus,” Ayumi continued, “their ‘Leader’ seems to have a good deal of charisma. People idolize him. His very presence, you might say, functions like a doctrinal core. It’s close in origin to primitive religion. Even early Christianity was more or less like that at first. But this guy never comes out in the open. Nobody knows what he looks like, or his name, or how old he is. The religion has a governing council that supposedly runs everything, but another person heads the council and acts as the public face of the religion in official events, though I don’t think he’s any more than a figurehead. The one who is at the center of the system seems to be this mysterious ‘Leader’ person.”