Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

“I’m warning you,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Stupid?”

“Why are you carrying that so carefully?”

He was still looking at my pack.

“Why, are you chicken?”

“Just so you know, even though you can only see one of me, I’m not the only one watching you.”

I stared straight at him. There was no way I was going to look around, let him call the play. I thought back to what I’d seen on the way here. Apart from the homeless guys, there had been a number of people, male and female, laughing in a friendly fashion in front of the convenience store on the other side of the fence. There were also two cars parked on the street directly behind me.

“Would you like to see what I’ve got in here?” I taunted.

A dusty, gritty wind started to blow. He began to speak, then fell silent and looked away.

“Okay,” I said, “there’s lots of things I want to ask you, but first, tell me what you’re after. You must have had some reason for phoning me. What was it?”

He stayed quiet, head bowed.

“I asked you what it was. If you’re not going to answer, I’m leaving.”

“Before I tell you,” he said after a long pause, “who are you?”

I noticed for the first time that his skin was abnormally pale. He had a white wristband on his left arm and two hoop earrings. I chose my words carefully.

“You called me here, and you’re asking me who I am? The first thing you said on the phone, you called me Fumihiro Kuki. Then you said that if I didn’t come you’d hurt Kaori. In other words, you tried to threaten this Fumihiro by bringing up the name of this Kaori woman. And then someone different turns up. Am I close? So what are you after? Money? You’ve worked out that I’ve been checking up on Kaori. If you tell me what you know, I’m happy to pay you, if that’s what you want. Who is Fumihiro? Kaori’s brother?”

He didn’t move, just kept looking at the ground. His expression didn’t change, but he seemed to be thinking.

“What do you want? Money?”

“Yeah,” he spat. “Money.”

“What’s your name?”

“That’s not important.”

“Okay then, we’re done talking. I don’t talk to people I don’t know. You can’t use Kaori to intimidate me. If you need money, try someone else.”

I stood up.

“I told you I wasn’t the only one watching you,” he said.

“So they’re going to attack me? In a public place like this? You’re dumber than I thought.”

“My name is Ito.”

I looked at him, shocked. My heart started to beat faster.

“And your first name?”

“Last name’s enough.”

An idea struck me.

“Okay … are you from a family of cancers?”

He looked me full in the face.

“I get it,” I continued. “So that’s how it is. And maybe you’re JL, is that right? In that case …”

“How do you know that? What is this?”

He leapt to his feet, mouth open. I sat down again and tried to gather my thoughts. This place was starting to get to me. I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves.

“If you are,” I went on, “then I see how you know about Kaori and Fumihiro. I lied before. I know Fumihiro Kuki too. I’m a … Let’s just say I know him.”

“You know him? Where is he?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Suicide. There was this woman he was obsessed with. I was intrigued, so I thought I’d check her out.”

He sank onto the bench again.

“So he’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Idiot,” he shouted.

I was taken aback by his sudden outburst, but I kept a poker face.

“That’s so lame. If he was going to die he could at least have blown up his house first. Loser.”

His face had turned slightly red. I watched him, continuing to pick my words carefully.

“So I know some stuff about the Kuki family. That’s if Fumihiro was telling the truth. I know the story of the cancer line too, that branch of the clan. This one guy was a soldier, and when he got married he took his wife’s surname, Ito. He was killed when that cult took over the nuclear power plant, but according to Fumihiro he might already have had a son. It’s a common name, but seeing how you know so much about the Kukis, it all fits.”

“And what makes you think I’m in JL?”

“When I heard the line ‘Happiness is a fortress’ in the statement claiming responsibility for the attacks, I remembered hearing Fumihiro say it. It’s not exactly a popular expression. I did some research on it later and found that even though it’s peculiar, JL sometimes use it in their communiqués. That’s when I thought that maybe someone connected to the Kukis is in JL. And if I’m right, it’s not hard to guess that they’re from that separate cancer line. When I thought about what you were probably after, it was easy to put two and two together. The press is always trying to work out who funds JL. In other words, you knew Fumihiro was rich and you were using Kaori to try and blackmail him. And with a bit of luck you thought you could get him to join you. Am I right? Fumihiro was a cancer too. He can’t have had much of a life. What’s more, for the pranks you’re pulling, you’ve got to the stage where you need funds. You need a backer. Isn’t that how it is?”

The rain started again fitfully. We sat side by side on the bench, a bit apart, looking straight ahead. Two homeless guys were arguing over the water fountain. In their hands they were both holding battered teakettles.

“If I tell you what I know, will you really give me money?”

“That depends what you say. Tell me about Kaori as well.”

He took a deep breath and turned to face me.

“You’re nuts. I still don’t exactly get why you were checking up on Kaori, but it’s, I don’t know, creepy. Going to the trouble of hiring a PI to investigate her, even looking into the family background. But just for that reason maybe there’s still a chance. Perhaps we can talk about that. Just a bit, though.”

“Still a chance?”

“We’ll discuss it later.”

The homeless men were still quarreling. Ito took a swig from his bottle.

“Like you say, I’m what the Kukis call a cancer. From that side of the family. You know that much already, so there’s no point hiding it. Like you said, my father was a leader of the Rahmla cult, that bunch of morons who committed suicide. But that’s not important.”

The rain grew heavier.

“So it’s true that I’m in JL. For various reasons, we need money just now. Really urgently. I’ve had my eye on the Kukis, the main line of the family who we’ve hated for years. Ever since I was little I’ve often gone to peek at their mansion. Not out of envy. Out of hatred.”

He fiddled with his wristband.

“There were two kids there, about the same age. They looked happy. Fumihiro and the one you’ve been watching, Kaori. They seemed close. Sometimes one of the housemaids who knew my circumstances, what’s her name, she would slip me a bit of money or some sweets. I asked her. She told me that Kaori was adopted and that Fumihiro was Shozo Kuki’s son, not his grandson. That rang a bell. The old man was following the custom of the cancers. That got me interested. From time to time I’d go to spy on Fumihiro, but then my situation changed and I couldn’t leave the house for a while. The next time I saw him he was in high school. It was amazing. He was like a different person.”

I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but was careful not to let it show.

“He’d shrunk, and he looked like an invalid. Really ugly. Did you notice that too? He was the spitting image of the old man. Something bad has happened to him, I thought. Actually, maybe I should have talked to him then. Both of us being cancers, maybe we’d have found we had something in common.”