Piercing (5 page)

The knife and the ice pick he’d buy at separate supermarkets in the suburbs. Preferably on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, when they were at their busiest. Did he need to do a dry run - order up a woman from a different S&M club one time before the big night, to acquaint himself with the procedure? The experience might prove useful, but there was also a slight possibility of danger. What if the first woman and the one to be sacrificed happened to be friends, for example? A long shot, maybe, but why risk it? After all, if any sort of trouble were to occur as a result of his not being familiar with S&M play, he could simply abort.

He had skipped dinner but didn’t feel the least bit hungry, and was wondering why when the telephone rang. It was room service, checking to make sure he didn’t want his bedcovers turned down in spite of the DO NOT DISTURB sign on his door. He said he was working and would take care of the bedding himself; to which the clerk replied, in the most courteous tones, that bed service was available around the clock and he should feel free to request it at any time. Kawashima found himself thanking the man for his kindness, and meaning it. It felt as if even people in no way involved in his mission were cheering him on.

Turning back to his notebook, he wrote:
In addition to a simple disguise, a bit of misdirection might help
. For the hotel workers he’d interact with, maybe something basic like noisily chewing a stick of gum. Speaking with a Kansai accent, coughing frequently, limping slightly - but nothing that might prove counter-productive by leaving too distinct an impression. He’d better think this out carefully. The misdirection was an important point, and not to be ignored when it came to the final stages of the ritual either. He still hadn’t decided upon a cause of death. The most orthodox method would be to strangle her. Strangling held little appeal for him; but if it came to that, he’d prefer to use a wire of thin stainless steel. Cutting her wrists or throat would be a problem in terms of the volume of blood splattered, but on the other hand a gory crime scene would help with the misdirection by pointing the police towards drug addicts or amphetamine users or the mentally ill. He could reinforce that by leaving a note with some sort of incoherent message. According to a magazine article he’d read concerning an actual incident, you could count on such communications employing words like God, Divine Will, radio waves, control, orders, commands, Heaven. He’d combine some of these into a short note.
I must do as They command
, or,
as the radio transmissions command
.
Behold His Divine Will
, or,
God spoke to me
, or,
I dare not disobey my orders
, or,
I have opened wide the portals of Heaven
. One of these, or some combination, would do. He could use the stationery and pen provided by the hotel. Again, no particular need to write with his left hand or otherwise disguise his writing. Just wad the note up and leave it lying in a corner of the room.

It might be a good idea to collect racing forms left behind on the train - horse-racing, bike-racing, boat-racing - and plant them in the room. Especially if he could find some from Osaka or Kobe, or a flyer advertising a loan shark or something there, and used a Kansai accent when registering. He had no time to actually make a trip to the Kansai district, but when he bought his bag at Tokyo Station or Haneda Airport he could keep an eye out for such artefacts discarded by travellers. When it came to misdirection, however, it was important to pay attention to even the smallest details. Were it to become clear that deception had been involved, the police would immediately start looking for someone rational and cunning rather than mad or desperate.

He’d choose one of the hotels in West Shinjuku, where it wasn’t unusual for guests to arrive on foot rather than by taxi. The Park Hyatt, the Century Hyatt, the Washington, the Hilton, the Keio Plaza - he’d make a reservation at each of them under a different name. Then, as soon as possible, he’d go check them all out. The one with the busiest front desk and the worst service would suit him best.
Poor service
, he wrote,
means less attention focused on guests
.

He laid down the pencil and looked at his watch. It was past eleven. Yoko would be going to bed soon. He thought about calling her again but decided that twice in one day might seem unnatural. He still wasn’t hungry. The little refrigerator was stocked with whisky and beer, and he felt so satisfied with the work he’d done that he decided to allow himself a drink. He took a mini-bottle of cheap domestic whisky from the refrigerator, poured it into a glass and had a sip. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

He read over his seven pages of notes, making a few small additions, then put the notebook in his briefcase and spun the dials on the combination lock. He opened the curtains and looked at Tokyo Tower, whose lights were off now, and as he took another sip of whisky he was aware of the heat in his throat and stomach radiating waves of sexual desire through his body. After the second glass he decided not to drink any more, fearing that he might give in to the temptation to call an S&M club and have a woman sent over.

He hadn’t yet decided how old the victim should be. The idea of someone in her late thirties appealed to him, but he somehow felt it would be more satisfying to plunge the ice pick into a firm, smooth young belly this time, rather than one that was soft and sagging. A young woman, yes, with resilient, snow-white skin.

As soon as Kawashima made up his mind on this point, he began to ache with desire for an older woman. The whisky-fuelled revelation that the victim should be young, after the excitement of writing out all those notes, had left him helpless with lust. Rationalising that unless he did something about it he’d never get any sleep, which would only hinder his ability to begin preparations tomorrow, he leafed through the sex guide and dialled a place that advertised
Erotic Massage by Mature Ladies
.

‘Good evening. Essence Clinic.’

It was a man’s voice.

‘I’m at a hotel in the city. Is it too late to ask for a massage?’

He’d never called a place like this before and was surprised at how calm he managed to sound.

‘Which hotel, sir?’

‘The Akasaka Prince.’

‘Thank you. If I may ask your room number, we’ll ring you right back to confirm.’

About ten seconds after he hung up, the phone rang.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting.’ The man had an odd way of intoning his words. ‘We have a thirty-eight-year-old widow who is available immediately.’

The voice was tranquil and mechanical and gave no sense of the person producing it. It was impossible even to imagine what the man’s face looked like. Kawashima didn’t answer right away, and the voice continued.

‘If you wouldn’t mind waiting another hour or so, however, we can send a lady in her early forties.’

‘No. Send the one who can come right now, please.’

‘The basic massage is 7,000 yen, and the erotic version is 17,000. Which would you prefer?’

It sounded as if the man were holding a baby as he talked. Or sitting at someone’s deathbed - Kawashima pictured a shrivelled, comatose old man hooked up to an IV drip.

‘Erotic.’

‘She’ll be at your room in approximately half an hour. Of course we ask you to supply her with taxi fare both ways.’

Before hanging up, Kawashima ventured to ask if they got many young men requesting these older women. ‘Quite a few,’ the smooth voice said, and replaced the receiver so quietly that he scarcely heard the click.

What if it turned out to be
her
? It had been just ten years now, so she’d be forty-eight. The voice had said the woman was a decade younger than that, but it’s not unusual for women in the sex trade to lie about their age. In fact, at the strip clubs where she was working back then, she’d told people she was twenty-eight. How many men could really distinguish ten years one way or the other, after all? If it did turn out to be her, though, what should he say? Would there still be a small round scar, or would it have healed completely by now? They’d spoken very little after she was released from the hospital, but he clearly remembered her mentioning how complicated and time-consuming the treatment was for an ice-pick wound. ‘An unbelievable pain in the ass,’ to use her exact words. Well, he wasn’t holding any grudges. If it turned out to be her, all he needed to say was
Long time no see.
And maybe ask about the scar.

He decided to allow himself a little more whisky. After all, his urge to call an S&M club had vanished now that the thirty-eight-year-old was on her way. He opened the third minature bottle and poured it into his glass, his mind replaying the smooth voice’s last words:
Quite a few
. Beyond the window-pane, veiled with condensation, was the glittering expanse of late-night Tokyo. From up here, the people on the street looked like moving dots. He’d recently watched a daytime talk show with the theme:
Young men who can love only women their mothers’ age
. A psychologist in a bow-tie had expounded that ‘it’s a perversion of sorts, certainly, an elaboration of the so-called Peter Pan syndrome, and though the symptoms are distinct the pathology is basically the same as that of young men who sexually molest little girls; neither type has the ability to make or maintain normal, healthy relationships.’ In other words, men who were attracted to much older women were sick and abnormal. If I accomplish my mission, Kawashima thought to himself, I’ll go after that psychologist next, for talking such absolute shit.

The boys in the Home had rarely spoken to one another. He’d roomed with Taku-chan for two years, but it was only shortly before he was released from the place that they’d had conversations of any length. And not even then had they discussed anything very personal.

Kawashima tried to picture the boys in the Home, to see them with his twenty-nine-year-old eyes. The playroom, its sandbox filled with white sand, all the different dolls and stuffed animals and puppets, the model tanks and cars and toy telephones, the building blocks, the little trampoline, the painting supplies, the children. He managed to envision the entire scene quite vividly: it was as if his adult self were actually standing there, watching the kids. Every imaginable trait that would make an adult despise a child could be found in someone in that room. A hundred out of a hundred grown-ups, being in close quarters with one of these children, would end up with a single thought:
What an insufferable little monster!

These kids wouldn’t say hello or answer when you spoke to them. Call to a boy repeatedly and he’d turn and stare you down, saying something like, ‘Shut up, asshole, I heard you the first time.’ Reprimand another and he’d go feral, throwing things and breaking toys and trying to bite your hand. Many of them ate like animals, even snatching food away from others. There were some who’d curl up in a corner, staring blankly into space only to explode into tears if anyone came near, and others as obsequious as slaves or dogs, anxiously peering up into the attendants’ faces and awaiting orders. There were little girls who would snuggle up to any grown man and try to guide his hand inside their underwear, and there were kids who compulsively bit their own arms. Kids who would suddenly start twitching and banging their heads against a wall, not even stopping when the blood ran down their faces. Kids who waddled around oblivious to the stinking load in their own pants. Watching children like this, it was all too easy to see why their parents beat them. It was only natural to hate such kids, to ignore them and shower only your
other
children with love. Who wouldn’t?

But of course that wasn’t the way it really worked. Such behaviours weren’t the
reasons
parents abused children but the
results
of abuse.
Children are powerless
, Kawashima muttered to himself. The tears rolling down his cheeks took him by surprise, and he finished the glass of whisky in one gulp. No matter how viciously they’re beaten, children were powerless to do anything about it. Even if Mother hit them with a shoehorn or the hose of a vacuum cleaner or the handle of a kitchen knife, or strangled them or poured boiling water on them, they couldn’t escape her; they couldn’t even truly despise her. Children would struggle desperately to feel love for their parents. Rather than hate a parent, in fact, they’d choose to hate themselves. Love and violence became so intertwined for them that when they grew up and got into relationships, only hysteria could set their hearts at ease. Kindness, gentleness - anything along those lines just caused tension, since there was no telling when it would turn to overt hostility. Better to cut right to the chase by constantly eliciting disgust and anger. The asshole with the bow-tie had referred to victims of that sort of upbringing as perverts and wrote them off as pathological.

Focusing alternately on his own reflection in the bedewed window and the nightscape of Tokyo at his feet, Kawashima began to think of himself as a representative. A representative of all the children who’d become insignificant dots in that dark diorama; a martyr armed with only an ice pick, facing down the enemy hordes. Flushed with a sense of omnipotence, he summoned up the faces of the children in the Home one by one and told them:
Just wait and see
. His lips grazed the window-pane, and several drops of water ran down the glass like little bugs scattering.
I’ll kill them all for you
, Kawashima muttered again and again.

6

‘YOU REMIND ME OF somebody,’ the masseuse said. ‘I can’t remember the name, but some actor. Do you know who I mean?’

She was a big-boned woman who talked a lot. She looked so little like the woman he’d stabbed ten years ago that Kawashima couldn’t suppress a wry smile when he first saw her. She wore slacks of a thin, glittery material, a gaudy sweater, and a silver fox half-coat. Kawashima had, as a matter of fact, been told that he looked like certain actors or singers before. But he was sure his resemblance to any celebrity was too tenuous to be fatal, especially if he changed his hairstyle and wore glasses. He offered the woman something to drink. She asked for a glass of beer, and he got one for her and another for himself. Sipping at his beer, Kawashima asked her if it wasn’t dangerous, going to the hotel rooms of men she’d never met.