From Ikebukuro, Hiroshi took the Yurakucho Line toward Edogawabashi Station. He wondered if Takamatsu knew how to find Nozaki. He probably did and would go find him. And not answer his phone until he did. He should have insisted on going with him.
The dull yellow lights of the passing stations cast a balance of light and dark into the train car, making him drowsy and roused, a bad combination. Usually, a train ride, even a short one, cleared his head. But with this case, his head was full of nothing. He needed two monitors for his brain.
Where would a father go if he were taking his kids out of Japan? He’d slip out wherever he could. Private transports were rarely searched, rarely recorded. Several scam artists he’d tracked had escaped that way after ripping off elderly pensioners, leaving Hiroshi with plenty of evidence and nowhere to pin it.
Even public transportation like the ferry from Shimonoseki to Busan, Okinawa to Taiwan, or Osaka to Shanghai, was easy to sneak through. The Maritime offices might not contact Tokyo with the passport information until Patrick and his daughters were long gone.
Still, that was better than Nozaki finding them.
The train stopped at Edogawabashi and Hiroshi got out to walk the rest of the way to Kagurazaka in the cold, quiet, empty streets.
Wandering toward Ayana’s apartment—their apartment—the lanes meandered up and down slopes steep enough to require circular indentations in the concrete for traction. Even with strong gripping shoes, it was sometimes too slippery to walk in the rain.
He walked past the more expensive grocery with better produce, past Ayana’s favorite bread shop where light at the back signaled the baker already at work on the morning’s breads and pastries. The liquor store with the best selection of wine had its display cases and signs pulled tight against the front wall.
He headed past the ultramodern shrine Ayana didn’t like. Every time he and Ayana walked by, they had the same pointless argument about the design, an argument whose real meaning he had yet to untangle. He didn’t really want to, though. He hoped he’d have the same argument with her forever.
When he got to Kagurazaka Dori, he stopped to watch two cats skitter down a narrow lane of cobblestone steps. Old wooden walls lined each side, but the cats scurried into a break he could barely see. The yowling of the neighborhood cats sometimes woke him in the night, but they owned the night streets. The shadowed passages and dark hideaways were theirs alone.
He trudged down the street and up the stairs to their apartment building and took the elevator. Inside, he toed off his shoes and called, “Tadaima!” in a soft voice in case Ayana was asleep.
“O-kaeri nasai!”
His only complaint about Ayana was she didn’t use the traditional “I’m home” and “Welcome home” greetings. For that matter, she didn’t say “Ittekimasu” or “Itterashai” when one of them left. To Hiroshi, it felt like living alone, like living in the silence of his parents’ home.
When Hiroshi complained, Ayana laughed, surprised at his seriousness about something so trivial and traditional. But she promised to do that if it made him happy, and she had. Hiroshi sometimes said it twice just to hear her answer again.
Ayana was on the sofa in sweatpants and a wraparound shawl. Crumpled printouts spread around her, two laptops angled open on either side, and an empty glass of wine rested on the coffee table, or wine table, as Ayana called it.
Hiroshi tossed his coat over the chair by the kitchen island and headed to the refrigerator. He took out the jug of filtered water and got a glass.
Ayana held out her cheek toward him. “I said ‘Tadaima,’ but what do I get? No kiss?”
“You’ll just criticize me for drinking.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Just water.” Hiroshi held the water up as evidence and leaned down for a kiss.
“Working on my wedding speech.” She tried to smile but grimaced, frustrated.
Hiroshi sipped the water. “How was work?”
“This new boss is a complete asshole.”
“You said that.”
“He wants to redo our entire system. Some of the librarians said they were thinking of quitting.”
“That bad?” Hiroshi looked at her.
Ayana bit her lip. “Yes, it is that bad. He’s clueless.”
“Why was he put in charge of things? Why not you?”
“He’s a man, I guess. And the rumor is he only worked at prefectural libraries. He was pushed out of each one after a couple of years. I don’t know what connections he had to get transferred to the National Archives. He must have been kicked out of every other place.”
“Demoted upwards? Why not demote him to some solitary project?”
Ayana picked up her glass of wine, swirled the last drop, and bent back to finish it off. “Eww, sour.”
Hiroshi wanted to leap on her lovely neck and tickle her until she screamed. Instead, he said, “I’m sorry you have to suffer.”
“Not as sorry as I am. As all of us are. We promised not to talk about it at the wedding.”
“When’s the wedding again?”
She stared at him. “I told you. Tomorrow. Today, I guess. It’s after midnight.”
Hiroshi nodded like he remembered. He had already told Sakaguchi he needed time off, but he couldn’t remember the time or place. Maybe she’d sent it to him. He’d search his messages.
“I bought you a new white tie.” Ayana didn’t look up from the pages she was working on. Or re-re-working.
“What was wrong with the old one?”
“The dry cleaner couldn’t get the stain out.”
“What stain?”
Ayana scoffed. “My point exactly.”
“I don’t think I even used that tie. I can’t remember the last time I went to a wedding.” Hiroshi took the jug of filtered water back to the fridge.
“Can you listen to my speech?”
Hiroshi sighed. “Can I take a shower first? I’ve been running, and I mean, literally running, all day.”
“Like through streets and up stairs and things?” Ayana looked amused.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Lots of streets. All of them dead ends.” He was too tired to be indignant at her lack of sympathy.
“But can you listen to my speech after you shower? I can’t tell if it’s any good or not.”
“What do you have so far?”
“About how she was a great student, a reliable worker, always on time, knows the archives inside and out…”
“You’re supposed to entertain people, liven up the proceedings, not recite her CV. Did you put in any jokes?”
Ayana wrinkled up her face, leaned back on the sofa, recrossed her legs, and growled.
“Put in something funny.”
“Like what?”
“Like something funny at the archives.”
“Nothing funny ever happens there.”
“Well, put in something funny she said.”
“She’s an archive librarian. She’s the most serious person I know.” Ayana bit her pencil, typed something into her laptop. “She called twice tonight. I had to talk her out of canceling the whole thing.”
“It’s already paid for. It’d be a headache to reschedule—”
“That’s what I told her. She used the virus as an excuse the first time, and the second time claimed her husband wanted to cancel, but wouldn’t admit it.”
“That’s just nerves. They’re already legally married at the city office, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but they’ve only half moved in together. Everyone’s nervous about next steps like that.”
“Were you?”
“Now we’re back to the marriage discussion?”
“Were you?”
Ayana stared at him. “You mean when I got married, or when you moved in?”
Hiroshi regretted starting this conversation again. He was too tired to get into it. Maybe if he stayed silent like Ayana did sometimes, it would pass.
“I wasn’t nervous at my wedding. Or when I divorced the creep. But I was nervous when you moved in. Very.”
“And now?”
“Now… what?”
“Are you still nervous?”
“Not about us, but when you’re at work. Or you don’t answer. Or you come home drunk. I get worried. I mean, the things you tell me I’m sure are not the whole of it.”
“Mostly, I work in my office.”
“But not today.”
“Not today. Why are you using two laptops?”
“You said you had two in your office. You were right. It works wonders.” She set them both down and stretched her back and neck. “I shouldn’t have done kendo tonight. I needed a workout, but someone whacked my shoulder.”
“You need new pads.”
“I need new shoulders.”
“My shoulders need a shower.” Hiroshi pointed toward the shower, and Ayana made a girlish face and turned back to her wedding speech.
After the shower, Hiroshi pulled on shorts and a T-shirt and flopped backwards on the bed for a minute before he went to help Ayana with her speech.
When his cellphone rang, Hiroshi looked around for it, confused, and for Ayana, even more confused. She wasn’t there, only his cellphone was. Sometime in the night, Ayana must have thrown a blanket over him and went to sleep on the sofa.
Moving the phone from ear to ear as he sat on the edge of the bed, he tried to get his brain focused on what Sakaguchi was explaining to him from the morning meeting, which he’d missed again, and what they had found on the case, and how Ishii had to go on ahead without him. Sakaguchi never got angry, but it sounded similar.
Dressing while he listened, he was half-ready by the time he hung up. He couldn’t believe he’d slept in again. At least he’d slept. There was a lot to do, to catch up on. He texted Takamatsu, but there was no reply.
He went out to the living-kitchen-dining room. It was small, but perfect. Why was he even asking Ayana about money and about marriage? Everything was fine as it was.
There was no sign of Ayana other than fresh coffee and a Danish wrapped in a napkin.
After burning his tongue drinking too fast, he ate the Danish in big quick bites as he sent Ayana a text message apologizing for not helping with the speech.
He slipped on his jacket and shoes at the genkan and checked he had everything.
He had to hurry.