“There, that’s why amateurs are no good. The front desk opens at nine. The new shift comes on at eight, and by eight-thirty the old shift has all gone home, so how are you going to get there in time?”
“What time is it now?”
“Two minutes after eight.”
“Damn.”
“See, I told you: ‘It takes a thief …’ Registration fee is seven hundred eighty yen. That’s an agreed charge so I can’t mark it down for you, but let’s see, if everything goes all right I can hold the total cost, including a small remuneration for the other party, down to twenty-five hundred yen.” (It appears that I’ve gotten unnecessarily hung up on this scene in front of the phone booth, which in terms of the investigation of myself is not all that important. And if use of the first person here offends, it’s fine with me if this part is rewritten in the third person. Actually, the tapes I received from the horse start here. It makes no sense to me why already, at this point, before I had even introduced myself to anyone in the hospital, they should have been keeping tabs on me with hidden microphones. The only conclusion I can draw is that my wife’s disappearance must have been planned all along. I mean to confront the horse with this point tomorrow morning.)
The woman’s store was the seventh one down, on the same side of the street as the phone booth. Half the store was taken up by the show window, where various sample wares reading “Get Well Soon,” “Congratulations on Your Recovery,” and the like were displayed with their price tags. The rolled-up mat leaning against the wall by the sliding door was probably there to keep out the afternoon sun. The inside of the store was dark; behind a counter partitioning off one side was a bald little man with a beard.
“Here’s a customer!” the woman called over briskly to the beard. ‘‘Take care of the fee, will you?” With a wink at the man, she disappeared into a back room behind a door half-covered with a large swimsuit calendar.
The beard brought out a piece of paper from under the counter and invited the man to be seated.
“Looks like another hot one, doesn’t it?”
“How much was it again?”
“Seven hundred, and uh, eighty….”
The beard put the hundred-yen coins in a portable cash-box, and tossed the remaining ten-yen coins into the mouth of a beckoning-cat figurine about thirty centimeters tall. He stamped a rubber seal on a token receipt, and handed it over. Then, sliding his hips forward, he slouched back in his chair and gazed out absently at the street with eyes like empty holes. Holding his hands to his chest, fingertips touching, he began rapidly moving his fingers. Suddenly, between two fingers appeared a ten-yen coin. It spun around and split in two. Immediately the two joined back into one, only to divide then into three. The changes were swift, his fingerwork so skillful that it was impossible to say whether he had succeeded in making one coin look like three, or three like one.
“You’re too good to be an amateur.”
“I’m not. I’m professional, but nowadays magic tricks are all the rage. Nobody cares about sleight of hand any more.”
“Are they different, then, magic tricks and sleight of hand?”
“Sleight of hand is an art, but magic tricks are just a gimmick.” The coins disappeared from between his fingers. “Tell me, have you got venereal disease?”
“Why?”
“People who don’t like to say what they’re here for almost always have V.D.”
“I’m not sick.”
An expectant stir went through the rows of cherry trees, as though a rare breeze might soon appear. At the store across the street, the voice over the portable microphone went up in volume.
For clothes to rent, come to Sakura Supply! Fit, color, style, we have it all at Sakura Supply. Womens clothing includes one free accessory. Sakura Supply takes pride in its large inventory, experience and reliability. Reasonable deposits. Half-price to any licensed driver. Seeing is believing! Come to Sakura. Supply for clothes to rent …
“That’s right—I’ve got to rent some clothes!”
The man started up from his seat. His attention concentrated on finding his wife, he had forgotten all about the vital need for a change of clothes for her.
“A take-out, eh?”
The beard punched his right fist into his left palm like a conspirator.
“Take-out?”
Instead of explaining, the beard brought out a big album on top of the counter and began rattling on at great speed.
“Age, size, favorite color … oh, more or less will do. If you know her approximate height, then you can get by with ‘free’ size, unlike with men’s clothes.”
“She’s about one hundred sixty centimeters, and she’s about standard build, I guess.”
The beard thumbed quickly through the album pages. A thin-legged model wearing a sleeveless dress smiled, puckering up pink lips. The dress was of some light material, loosely pleated from the top down, with a belt tied around the waist to give a full, baggy effect. If the shade of beige had not been bright and cheerful, the design might have seemed a trifle archaic.
“How about something along these lines? You can adjust the length with the belt, and it folds up small enough to fit in your pocket. We always recommend it for take-outs. And while you’re at it, how about a ring, a necklace, or a pair of sunglasses? Just one little touch like that makes rented clothes look so natural they seem like your own.”
The woman returned from the back room, where she had been haggling over the phone with the night guard; evidently he had been about to go home. It had been nip-and-tuck, but finally she had negotiated an agreement. Her fee, including a deposit on the clothes, came to 15,500 yen. That left only 1,230 yen in the man’s wallet. While they settled the bill, the beard wrapped up the dress. With a little effort it fit inside the man’s pocket, just as advertised. They were supposed to have included some sort of free accessory, but he was hurried outside without a chance to look and see what it was.
To get to the night entrance, she told him, turn left by the front gate and follow along the wall for about three hundred meters. She gave him simple instructions for speaking to the guard, then ran her fingers up his side while she hurried him off in a suggestive whisper.
“Run along now, and if there’s ever anything else, just give me a call, any time.”
The man ran off under the arching cherry branches. He was positive that even now, if he tried, he could still do a hundred meters in less than thirteen seconds.
There was an open space at a break in the wall, and a sloping concrete driveway with ridges to prevent skidding. The door he sought lay beyond. A cylindrical object sticking out at an angle beside the red door light was doubtless that TV surveillance camera. Following instructions, he pushed the black button just below the red ambulance button, and a voice came out over the intercom. He gave his receipt number from the Mano Agency, and the door opened. Must be a remote-control automatic door. Empty, gray space stuck against his face like cold, wet paper.
As his eyes became accustomed to the light, the drab gray color turned into a pure white waiting room. The room was not very large, presumably because it was used only for emergency cases; a bed on wheels took up almost one quarter of the space. The floor was tiled, as in operating rooms, and the lights on the ceiling overhead were movable. It might have been designed to double as an emergency treatment room if needed. Across from the. emergency entrance was the reception desk, and directly on its right were two doors. The farther one was stainless steel. The wall at right angles to it was occupied entirely by the wide doors of a freight elevator. Except for the stainless-steel door, everything was white, including the frame around the reception desk window and even the curtain pulled across the other side of the glass.
The man shrank before so much whiteness. The impersonality of the color had the violent effect of freezing all emotion. It seemed as though his wife had slipped even farther away.
The curtain moved. The glass window slid sideways half the width of one pa
ne, and the pasty face of an old man appeared, eyes upturned. At his blank, languid expression, the man’s hopes fell again.
There was no need to introduce himself, however. The guard seemed to know all about his purpose in coming. That was a good sign; it was proof that his wife had been there. A sudden relaxation of the joints in his body made him realize how intense the worry and strain had been.
The payoff from the Mano Agency must have done its work; once the old codger opened his mouth he was surprisingly talkative. Doubtless he had seemed languid before only because he had been busy thinking. He had a habit of moistening his upper lip as he spoke. In the brief glimpses thus afforded, the tip of his tongue appeared unnaturally red. Maybe the age spots around his cheekbones and the white hair made him seem older than he really was.
Anyway, he talked too much. What the devil was he going on and on for, when all the man needed to know was where his wife was? It was like purposely stirring sediment into a jar to muddy the water. Anxiety rose up in him again.
(The counter is at 68; after the exchange with the woman from the Mano Agency in front of the public telephone, the hidden microphone was shut off for a while, and starts up again around here. The mike and recording technique are both different from before, and as a result there is a considerable change in sound quality.
Of the scenes beginning at 68, those explaining how she refused to be examined and went off to the outpatient waiting room to look for a ten-yen coin have already been covered in detail in the guard’s statement above—counter number 206—so I will omit them here. Next I will try to organize the data concerning my wife’s mysterious vanishing act, relying mainly on the guard’s explanation. In part, I have made some additions based on inference and on knowledge acquired later.)
The guard was thrown into confusion. If the man had not come around asking questions, he could very likely have gone on pretending that nothing had ever happened.
At 8:18, when he received the inquiry from the Mano Agency, the guard had just returned to his room, having completed the eight o’clock transfer to the next shift. The change of shift usually took place in certain steps, as follows. First he would look in the mirror and comb his hair, counting the number of hairs that fell out, and straighten the collar of his uniform; a guard’s uniform consists of a white jacket with black trim on the collar, so when the collar is twisted it is especially noticeable. Then he would make sure that his bunch of keys was in order, and leave by the door opposite the emergency exit, going down a narrow corridor to the outpatient waiting room.
The waiting room was large and spacious, as big as a tennis court. Viewed from the front entrance, the pharmacy and cashier were on the right, with various reception windows lined up on the left. Straight ahead was a five-meter-wide opening, leading to examining rooms and doctors’ offices, that was shut off by steel fire doors. The pharmacy counter was equipped with an electrical signboard to announce the numbers of prescriptions ready to be picked up. Four rows of nine benches facing that board were the room’s main fixtures, occupying the better part of its space. Built into the lower left-hand corner of the fire doors was a small, waist-high door, from beyond which could be heard the voices of cleaning women on the day shift as roll was called.
At eight o’clock a buzzer would go off, sounding the five-minute warning. Taking a quick look around the waiting room, the guard would then unlock the small door. His replacement on the day shift would duck down and walk through. The new man’s uniform, a white jacket with black trim on the collar, was identical to that of the night guard. The two men would exchange perfunctory greetings. The night guard would hand over the bunch of keys. If there were any incidents to report, he would do so either orally or in written form.
About that time, the pharmacists and office workers would start reporting to work one by one. They, however, would come down directly from the second floor, where the employees’ lockers were located (since the building was constructed on a hill, the employees’ entrance was on the second floor, too), using a stairway that connected to the work area. Therefore, even after the areas behind the reception windows were bustling with activity, the waiting room itself remained silent. The two men would take a turn together around the room. It was a mere ritual, with no further meaning; that done, the change of shift was accomplished. The day guard would proceed to unlock the visitors’ lavatory and the utility closet, and signal through the small doorway. Then the five cleaning women would pour in, chattering loudly and cheerfully among themselves, and the new day would be under way. The day guard would head for his room by the front entrance, and the night guard would be free to leave.
But on this particular morning, things had been a little different. There was that female patient brought in by ambulance. When he stopped to think about it, nearly four hours had gone by; it was a long time since she had gone into the outpatient waiting room to look for a ten-yen coin. No one had come for her. He had an uneasy feeling; it was an irritating sensation, like a smoldering ashtray. Yet for some reason he refrained from going to check up on her. No sense in worrying over nothing, he told himself; probably she got tired while looking for a coin, and dozed off on one of the benches when she sat down to rest. Before the next shift came on, it would be a good idea to find her a change of clothes so that she could leave by the side entrance. It should be possible to negotiate with some agency and have them take care of it on a pay-later basis.
In the end, however, the thing he feared most had actually come to pass: the woman had vanished into thin air. Since the entire room could be seen at a glance, it was pointless to search, but for form’s sake he peered diligently in every corner, behind pillars, in hollows in the walls, and under all the benches. Knowing it was useless, he tried all the doors leading into the waiting room from the pharmacy, the cashier’s office, and the reception areas. All were securely locked from the inside.
Well, now he was stuck with a messy problem. How could he ever report this to the satisfaction of the day guard? During the night the outpatient waiting room turned into a cul-de-sac, the hall leading to the emergency entrance its one and only outlet. It was a veritable “sealed room,” of the kind so popular in mystery novels. Of course, the guard had made his own deductions already—even this sealed room was not completely without a loophole. But she couldn’t have done it alone; someone must have helped her. The doors were all constructed in such a way that from the inside they opened with a mere turn of the knob, although from the waiting room they opened only with a key.
Who could possibly have done such a thing? He was not without some idea, but the trouble was, it amounted to nothing but suspicion. And even if his surmise were correct, the fellow was dangerous. Any attempt to incriminate him would only get himself into hot water. Still and all, he could not just report the woman’s disappearance as an ordinary fact. It was deliberately inviting them to assume that he had been asleep on the job. The only thing to do, then, was to act as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.
The guard made up his mind. He decided to say nothing at all about the woman.
No sooner had he settled on this course of action, however, than he learned from the Mano Agency of the man’s arrival. Worse luck. No need to ask what his business was. It had to be about that woman. He would have preferred not to see him but if he refused, that would only send the fellow automatically over into the province of the day guard, which would be even worse. That would expose the fact that he had lied in his report. Failure to report dutifully was a serious offense. Why should he lose his job over someone else’s affairs? Anyway, there seemed to be no choice but to go ahead and see him. Besides, if this guy was dumb enough to let his wife get stolen in the first place, maybe he could still fast-talk his way out of it somehow.
(Below is a copy of the last line in the emergency reception ledger.)
“Isn’t this the one you’re looking for?”
The guard spoke in a gravelly voice, not surprising for someone just coming off
the night shift, as he slid the hardbound register book across the counter. On the last line of the page it lay opened to was a half-completed entry with two red-ink lines drawn through in evident sign of cancellation.
“Well, the age matches, and the time of arrival seems about right.”
“Then I can’t be much help. As you can plainly see, the name and address are blank. She wasn’t ever formally admitted.”
“But she hasn’t come back. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? If you’ll just tell me where to look, I’ll go try to find her myself.”
“The only place to look is right here, I’m afraid.”
“Here?”
Faint waves of tension showed in the man’s posture and gaze. The guard gave an uncomfortable half-smile. His two false front teeth were unnaturally white.
“What I mean is, if she isn’t here then there’s no point in looking anyplace else, that’s all.”
“Is she here?”
“See for yourself.”
The guard moved aside to give the man a clear view. Inside was a simple room about three and a half meters square, with shallow shelves and a desk. There was no space where anybody could have hidden.
“But she can’t have gone outside again dressed like that.”
“No, not dressed like that.”
“Should I report it to the police?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you. That’s only going to make matters worse. Any woman thirty-one years old is big enough to take care of herself, and then some. If you raise a fuss, you’re only going to make a spectacle of yourself.”
“But you can’t expect me to believe a story like that, as if a rabbit had just vanished inside a hat….”
“Every trick has some kind of gimmick, that’s for sure.”
“Where does that elevator go?”
The man’s quick eyes brought the rear elevator within range of action. The guard was just as fast. Lunging out the door, he blocked the man’s way and looked him critically up and down.