Fuminori Nakamura - Evil and the Mask

His eyes darkened.

“It’s like you’re a different person. Like you’re always thinking deeply about things. You even look quite different — maybe it’s your new haircut. You’re not working at the moment, are you? But still living in a place like this, going out all the time. What are you up to?”

“None of your business.”

“That’s true, it’s none of my business. And I’m pretty busy. There’s this guy we’ve got our eye on. He slipped up. We think he might be JL.”

“What?” I asked without thinking.

“Curious, are you? People like you generally don’t seem interested in groups like that. Well, it looks like this JL guy is somewhere in Setagaya here in Tokyo. While I’m here I might as well ask, have you seen this guy anywhere?”

He showed me a picture, a grainy photo, probably taken from a security camera on the street. The man was wearing a cap and a down jacket, and seemed to be in a hurry. Narrow eyes, a protruding jaw. I didn’t recognize him.

“Never seen him before.”

“I didn’t think so. I’ve been after this JL from the start. Me, I think it’s fate. What do you reckon? Don’t you think they’re likely to have some connection to Rahmla, that cult who took over that power plant and killed themselves? One man who joined the occupation was tied to one of those big financial outfits. That really got me interested. Still, JL may turn out to be just a bunch of stupid tricksters, so I guess I shouldn’t get my hopes up.”

I looked at the ground so I wouldn’t have to face him. My heart was beating painfully and my temples throbbed.

“Both your case and the JL case were stalled for a long time, but JL finally began to move. That’s why I won’t be able to see you for a while.”

He looked at me.

“In fact, maybe we’ll never meet again. And since this could be the last time I’ve got to say this. Please pay a visit to Sae’s grave.”

“What’s that got to do with you?”

“Maybe nothing. But I’m thinking that the way you are now, you might just do it. I get the feeling that I might run into you in front of her headstone on the anniversary of her death. I don’t know what’s happened to you. Well, see you.”

And he walked off. I went inside, watching his broad, retreating back out of the corner of my eye. When I crossed the tiny foyer and turned the corner, a man in a black coat was standing in front of the elevators. He was about fifty, with short hair and slightly hunched shoulders. He looked a bit like the guy driving the car — but I thought he’d gone. I ignored him and went to push the button, but suddenly he grabbed my wrist.

He was staring right at me. I looked straight ahead, tried again for the button, with his hand still gripping my arm, but he tensed his muscles and I couldn’t move. The lobby was chilly.

“You must be Mikihiko’s dick,” I said, but he didn’t crack a smile.

“A message.”

The hand holding my wrist was lukewarm.

“In the next two or three days, contact Kaori Kuki.”

I still didn’t look at him, but I couldn’t move my arm.

“If you don’t, his orders are that we do it ourselves. That’d be a pain in the ass. Get it? So do what he says. Get the girl hooked and then take her to him.”

The elevator beside us opened and a woman with dyed brown hair came out, but he still didn’t let go, seeming completely indifferent to her presence.

“You get in touch with her first and show us that you can do it. Before we take over.”

He took a bag from his jacket pocket.

“This stuff is top grade. Don’t waste it. If you want you can use a bit for yourself.”

He stuffed the packet into my pocket, turned and walked away.

I OPENED THE front door, went to the bathroom and flushed the powder in the bag down the toilet. When I went into the living room, Kyoko was watching a movie in the dark again. On the screen a couple was arguing bitterly in the middle of a street. The woman was crying and advancing on the man. Kyoko welcomed me home in a soft voice. I tried to answer her, but my words wouldn’t come out clearly.

“You look exhausted,” she said.

“Yeah.”

I tossed my coat aside and collapsed on the couch.

“Some letters came for you. I put them on that box.”

“Thanks.”

I sipped a glass of stale water that was sitting nearby.

“You get a lot of mail, don’t you? Watch shops, clothes shops, hotels. But the addresses are all in the same handwriting.”

“Did you open them?”

“No. Though I was really tempted.”

I laughed.

“Things might turn a bit dangerous,” I said. “It would be better if you didn’t see me for a while.”

She looked at me open-mouthed. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s a bummer. I’ve got nowhere to go.”

On the TV the woman, still shouting, knifed the man at an intersection. His blood formed a pool in the middle of the road. Strangely, the guy who’d been stabbed was watching the scene from the window of an apartment a long way off.

“What about your own place?”

“Well, I’ve got one, but …”

I stood up shakily.

“How much do you owe?”

“It’s okay.”

“No, you can tell me.”

“About eight hundred thousand.”

I opened the white closet and took a million yen from the briefcase inside.

“Here, take this.”

“Huh? No, I couldn’t.”

“Go on, take it.”

“Why are you giving me this?”

She looked at me. And it was actually a bit weird for me to be handing her so much cash.

“It wasn’t my money in the first place, and I don’t need it. I was planning to give it all away in the end anyway.”

“But still …”

She lowered her eyes.

“Plus I had sex with you,” I said.

“You pay this much for sex?”

“Sex is much more valuable than you think.”

I knew that what I was saying was kind of funny.

“All right then. I’ll pay you back one day.”

“That’s okay.”

“I insist. I’ll pay it back.”

On the screen the guy watching himself being stabbed had turned into an old man. Walking with a cane, he made his way slowly towards the intersection where his double had been attacked by the woman all those years ago, but just before he reached it he thrust a knife into his own stomach, as if he’d been possessed by something. As the withered trees lining the road looked on silently, the elderly man in the coat crouched down on the cobbled crossing. He looked resigned. Red blood stained the surface of the street again, like some kind of symbol.

“Anyway, it would be best if we didn’t see each other for a while.”

“Are you in that much shit?”

“Yeah, well, just in case.”

The TV suddenly went dark. Or maybe it had been off for some time.

“I don’t know how to say this, but are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” I grinned briefly. “When I think about my personality, my life so far, my future, somehow I get the feeling there’s only one destination for me.”

“Destination?”

Suddenly I remembered the bottle of cyanide. There was still some left.

“Yeah. In the end I think that getting tangled up in things, that’s what life is all about. Even if you think you’re following your own wishes and desires, those wishes and desires are formed by your entanglements. See what I mean?”

“Maybe.”

“I guess I’ve only worked that out since I got my face changed.”

She moved closer, took the cigarette from between my fingers and took a puff.

“Hey, you want to …?”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, it’s not that. I want to.”

She started undoing her buttons.

“But that too,” I said. “Maybe your DNA and character and environment are just reacting to my randomly altered appearance. You’re getting tangled up.”