CHAPTER 23: PLAYING CHESS IN THE DARK
On Tsing Ma Bridge, Iwata stopped his rental car and signed up to 2Chan using his phone’s Web browser. After a tedious period searching through dining and nightlife pages, he finally found a post from Coco La Croix:
The unbelievable talent of DJ Mothra playing @ secret venue 03/07/11—set begins at 00:00. See you there! C
Iwata wrote the following:
My friend Charlie can’t say enough good things about Mothra! Can I get a head’s up on that venue? Flying over from Hong Kong especially!
He got out of the car and stood on the hard shoulder, looking out over the ocean. Inchoate clouds moved quickly, their dark shadows blanketing the green hills below. Small lobster boats chugged out to sea.
On a whim, he took out his phone and dialed Sakai’s number.
“Iwata?”
“Hello, Sakai.”
“I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you again.”
“I have to tell you something.”
“Iwata, if it’s about the case file you stole from me, I don’t even—”
“The Black Sun Killer murdered Mina Fong.”
She fell silent.
“Now I know what you’ll say, the Black Sun’s trademarks aren’t there. But I’m sure of it, Sakai. He also killed Fong’s sister, Jennifer. I have her autopsy report. He took the heart.”
“But why risk that? Mina is so high profile, it would bring so much attention and—”
“Exactly. Don’t you see? The stalker, the dog, the movie star. It all makes one hell of a diversion.”
Logic fought with the truth. A beat. Then a moment of realization.
“… Oh my God.” Her voice was soft. “He murdered the Kaneshiros less than twenty-four hours later.”
“Meanwhile, half the TMPD are on the other side of Tokyo, rummaging through Mina Fong’s underwear drawer.”
“Holy shit, Mina Fong was a diversion.”
Iwata checked his watch.
“I’ve got to go, Sakai. My time here is running out.”
“Time where? Hang on—”
“Forget it. Everything you said about me was right. I just thought you should know.”
Iwata hung up and dialed Hatanaka’s number.
“Iwata?”
“How’s my favorite Boy Scout?” He found himself smiling.
“I found your man, Inspector. Ikuo Uno. Strange name. It’s the only one that flags up on our system.”
Iwata gripped the railing of the bridge and breathed deeply before asking.
“So, where do I find him?”
“You don’t. He’s dead. Gas leak in his apartment some years back. After that, his bank accounts were cleared and his credit cards were used abroad—South America, Hong Kong, all over Japan … It has to be your guy, right? Using a dead man’s ID?”
Iwata mulled this over, shaking his head. He was playing chess in the dark.
“Hatanaka, I’m going to be landing at Haneda in twenty-four hours. Meet me in the car park with Ikuo Uno’s file.”
“Uh, okay. Should I wear a hat or something?”
“Funny. Now which hotel did Ikuo Uno stay in?”
“He didn’t. The tourism board was kind enough to go through records for the entire city and found zip. But they did make it clear that their records didn’t include boat rental accommodation.”
“Boat rentals…” Iwata slapped his forehead. “Of course.”
“I made a list and got through to all but three of the rental companies listed on the tourism board’s database. None of them had ever heard the name Ikuo Uno. The three I couldn’t get through to were Seahorse Charters, HK Fun Yachting, and Ruby Rentals. You got that?”
“Hatanaka, you’re a damn hero.”
* * *
South of Silverstrand, on a green limb facing Shelter Island, Iwata stopped outside Ruby Rentals Ltd. Seven boats of varying size were moored to a rotting jetty. The office was a single concrete cube with a broken window and missing letters.
“Can I help you?” The accent was American; Kentucky, Iwata guessed.
A tall white man with red stubble and sunburned skin stood outside the office. His Hawaiian shirt was open, and rivulets of sweat snaked down his large, freckled belly. Iwata held up his police ID but didn’t bother pointing out that it carried the legal authority of a video rental card in this city.
“Maybe you can. I’m investigating a homicide and I have a few questions. Could I trouble you for a minute, sir?”
The man spat out a mouthful of chewing tobacco and pointed toward the office. Inside, it was dim and stank of sweat. Maps and charts covered all available wall space. A laptop was transmitting an American football game, while a tin of tobacco lay open on the desk.
“I’m Inspector Iwata.”
“Boyd Botner.”
The man grunted toward one of the plastic chairs across from his bureau and stuffed another pinch of tobacco inside his cheek.
“I’m looking for a customer who may have rented a boat of yours a few years ago. Do you do long-term rental here?”
“One of the few in town that does.”
“What’s your limit?”
“Seven-day limit. Practically all the other joints just do twenty-four hours.”
“Can the customer then renew?”
“Officially, no.”
“I need you to search your records for a man called Ikuo Uno. Japanese.”
Botner sighed and went into a back room. He returned several minutes later holding a crinkled sheet of paper.
“This is him. Spent three weeks on the Midnight Viv and paid in cash. Last person to rent her, back in ’05. She’s not exactly a popular model. That’s his signature right there.”
The Ruby Rentals letterhead was red and cheap. The signature at the bottom of the page was a large, spiraling sprawl in black.
“This man, did he ask specifically for the Midnight Viv?”
“Don’t recall, friend. But I did tell him she was a bit of a handful—sixty-nine feet of temperamental. He didn’t seem to give a shit.”
“What did he look like?”
“Big guy, shaved head, built like a minder.”
“Did he take anyone on board with him?”
“I didn’t see anyone. We don’t keep passenger logs here. So long as the boat ain’t broken when it gets here, I don’t ask questions.”
“Did you notice anything strange about the vessel after he returned it?”
“Yeah, actually. I remember thinking how squeaky clean it was. Most rentals come back looking like they’ve sailed through a shit storm. But your guy had washed every nook. I guess that makes sense now—you’re Homicide, huh?”
His grin was missing a tooth.
“Mind if I take a look?”
“Mi casa es su casa. She’s the Bermuda-rigged ketch, the fat one on the end. Just do me a favor, don’t take too long? I want to head off soon, and there’s one coming in off the books.”
“One what?”
“A typhoon. Just my fucking luck—cops and storms on the same day.”
Outside, the sea was sullen. Foamy waves smashed against the jetty leaving blinking eyes on the dead wood. In the distance, loons dive-bombed for prey. Iwata smelled the sour air as he walked to the end of the jetty. It was a warm day, but he shivered with sickness.
The Midnight Viv came into view. Iwata could tell, despite her graceful lines, she was no spring chicken. She swayed alone, almost imperceptibly, in the soft wind.
“Fishing?”
Iwata turned to see an old, sea-weathered man crouching between crates and old rope. He held a fishing rod between his legs and a roll-up between his gray lips. His eyes did not leave the waves.
“I’m a police inspector,” Iwata replied. “Do you live here?”
“Nobody lives here.”
The old man said nothing more. Iwata climbed the narrow steps to the Midnight Viv and pictured Jennifer Fong doing the same. He saw her, wearing a summer dress, excited for her adventure.
I love the ocean. It’s the only thing I’ll miss next year.
Feeling nauseated, Iwata went belowdeck. It was clean, if a little dusty, and unremarkable: a banquette, a sink, a fixed table, a kitchenette, a toilet compartment, a small television, maps on the walls, and old shelves crammed with even older romance novels.
Did you tell her the boat was yours? Feed her a line about the open sea?
Iwata pictured Jennifer floating alone on the darkness of the ocean, human flotsam.
Did she wear a summer dress? Did she wear a summer dress for you?
Iwata sat on a small berth and it creaked under his weight.
She was your first. Why did you want her? Why was she special? Did she lie here with you? Did you want her? Did she want you back?
Iwata pulled back the blankets and found only a musty mattress beneath. He smelled nothing on it. The autopsy, if it could be believed, listed no genital injury.
You weren’t there for her body—just her heart.
Iwata peered at the wall around the mattress and looked for stains but found nothing.
It was too cramped in here, wasn’t it?
He climbed back on deck and looked up at the sun. It shone in snatches then hid behind clouds.
Of course, you did it up here. Out in the open. With no possibility of a witness.
Did you lay her down on this deck? Was the promise a picnic?
You brought food and drink—laced with LSD.
Did she think you were going to kiss her?
Where did you hide the knife?
Did she close her eyes for it?
Yes, she closed her eyes for your kiss.
And you pushed off the straps of her dress.
And she lay beneath you.
Shivering in the warmth, on the vast nothing of the sea.
You kissed her.
And as you kissed her, you cut her.
You cut her very deeply to open her.
You severed her major arteries in one swipe.
And you pushed your hand inside her.
And before she realized that this was not a kiss, you were reaching up for her heart.
And you felt it at your fingertips like a creature in its hole.
And you ripped it out to the light.
You held it over her, raining her own blood down on her.
Did she look? Did she see her own heart as it beat out, alone and uncovered?
Did she have time to realize, then, that you were not a man at all?
And when you threw her into the void, did you stay to watch her sink?
Iwata vomited over the side of the boat.
When he finished, he fell back against the mast. The wind shifted and dappled shadow fell across him. Iwata looked up and noticed it: a chink of sun streaming through the sail.
High up.
Strange.
With great difficulty, he began climbing the aft mast, his limbs trembling. He paused several times on the rungs to catch his breath. Ten meters up, Iwata reached what he had seen. It was level with his face, an arm’s length away—a tear in the sailcloth.
“What…?”
The wind shushed him, as if he were saying too much.
Iwata reached as far as he could, the rip in the fabric tickling his fingertips.
He forced himself another centimeter.
Another.
The wind picked up.
Iwata’s balance was gone.
His grip was gone.
A desperate clutch and Iwata was falling, his hand full of ripping sailcloth.
The impact was painful and it took Iwata a minute to regain full consciousness, but the destroyed Dacron sailcloth had taken most of the momentum out of the fall. Wheezing, he forced himself to stand and looked up at the torn sail.
Backlit by the sunset, fluttering in the wind, was a huge, jagged sun.
Beyond it, a storm was coming in.
* * *
It was 10 P.M. Iwata had a blanket draped around his shoulders and a takeout box of half-eaten dry noodles on the coffee table. Outside, the storm was raging. There was nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, so he played the CCTV video once more. He watched Akashi talking to Mina Fong from the elevator again. The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds.
Iwata watched it again.
And again.
He watched the silent sequence play out over and over as he sipped cold almond tea.
What the hell is wrong here, Akashi?
Iwata stood up with the blanket around his shoulders and from the home bar poured himself a whiskey, which he drank with decongestants. The burn made him cough but he felt better for it.
On the coffee table, his phone buzzed.
There was a reply on 2Chan from Coco La Croix.
Hong Kong Fan, you won’t be disappointed! Venue = highest point in Dogenzaka. See you on the dance floor. Look for the top hat. CLC.
Iwata raised a toast.
“To new friends.”
He closed his eyes and drank. Warmth unfurled in his chest like a waking bird. Outside, the sea churned. Only the faintest city lights twinkled in the black.
Iwata, you ever think that some of those cities are good and some are bad?
* * *
In Iwata’s dream he was walking down the jetty, a sense of dread deep within him. The jetty stretched out interminably, over a calm, gray sea. The Midnight Viv was too small. On the deck, a figure was standing with its back to Iwata. Its skin was very dark, billowing in the wind as if it were stitched. The figure’s neck was very thin—funnel-like. Its belly was grotesquely huge. It seemed to be panting.
The old fisherman called out.
“Don’t get on boat, Inspector.”
“I need to talk to that man.”
The fisherman looked up from the waves, his eyes milky.
“It not man.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ngo gwai.” Hungry ghost. The fisherman shook his head. “You should leave this place. Go before it see you.”
“But I can’t. I know who it is.”
Iwata started up the stairs to the boat and drew his gun.
The dark figure began to turn around.