The Gate of Sorrows (16 page)

Commercial buildings had security guards. Condominiums had building supervisors. Shigenori used his security rep cover story, but came up empty here too. When he asked a building supervisor if there had been complaints by residents about suspicious events, he got an earful. Why was the district association running around digging into stuff like that?

He missed having his police incident notebook. When he pulled it out, somehow it always commanded respect. At the same time, he realized that he missed the notebook more than he missed his old job.

He walked on, stopping now and then to rest his leg. At the end of his second circuit, someone called him by name. A woman in an apron was bowing from the front door of a florist on the first floor of a condominium. Shigenori recognized her from the party: Mrs. Yamada. She was one of the rotating subdistrict reps.

“Thanks for coming the other day,” she said.

Shigenori returned the bow. “I had a very nice time.”

“On your way somewhere?”

“No, just taking a walk.”

“Maybe you’re looking for that old man and his cart?”

Shigenori was surprised by this direct question. “The one who lives in Hyakunin?”

Mrs. Yamada nodded. “They say he’s been missing quite a while.”

“Someone claiming to be a relative was asking after him at the party.”

“Yes, I heard about it afterward.”

“Do you know this Mr. Ino?”

Mrs. Yamada glanced around furtively and took a step closer. “The thing is, we have to separate all of our recyclable garbage. It’s a city rule. The old man used to come around like clockwork and pick it up from us. It was his only source of income, and, well, I don’t think he was doing any harm.”

It made sense. Florists take many deliveries every day. They would have a lot of cardboard boxes, and having someone take them off their hands more often than the regular trash collection would be convenient. Although he lived alone, Kozaburo’s trash-collecting efforts created ties with the community.

“He lives like a pauper, but some people say he’s really quite wealthy,” Mrs. Yamada added.

“Is that so?”

“Maybe some shady person was stalking him.”

The possibility had occurred to Shigenori. In fact, it was all too possible.

“But you could see he was growing weaker recently. Somehow you had to feel sorry for him.” She touched her temple. “He talked to himself constantly. He was seeing and saying strange things. My husband was worried about him too. ‘That man shouldn’t be living alone,’ he said.”

“Strange things? What sort of things?”

“You know, like he was dreaming or something. He was strangely excited. ‘Mrs. Yamada’—he tells me—‘early this morning a giant bird, like some kind of monster, swooped right over my head and flew away.’ ”

Shigenori’s heart thumped once, hard.

She smiled. “He used to go around to condos and apartment houses before the garbage truck came and grab the trash he was looking for. He had to be up early to collect as much as he could. He was already on the streets before dawn, sometimes starting in the middle of the night.

“I’m not surprised he thought he saw something. In the dark a person can see all kinds of things. At the beginning of last spring, I think it was, he was running around telling people he saw the ghost of a little girl at that intersection up the street, right where there was a hit-and-run.”

A ghost could be a trick of vision, or an overactive imagination. Maybe a hallucination. What about a giant monster bird?

“When did he tell you about the bird?” Shigenori asked.

“Wait—you’re not serious, are you?”

“Of course not. It’s just that there might a little bit of a coincidence.”

Mrs. Yamada scrutinized Shigenori warily.

“When was it? Could you recall the date?”

“Well … early December. Yes. There was something like a typhoon, do you remember? I saw him the next morning.

“As soon as the weather clears, here comes Mr. Ino pulling his cart. He told me once that the day after a storm is a good time to pick up things that blow into the street. He said he made good money then.”

Shigenori took his notebook out of his bag. He didn’t keep a diary, but he never failed to note the weather each day. It was a habit from his days as a detective.

“The typhoon arrived at four in the afternoon. It was stormy all night.”

The storm had died down around five in the morning. The sky suddenly cleared and the temperature rose, typical for a typhoon.

Mrs. Yamada, early this morning a giant bird, like some kind of monster, swooped right over my head and flew away!

On the morning of the fifth, as soon as the weather cleared, Kozaburo Ino had gone out with his cart, not waiting for December’s late sunrise, and seen—what? Whatever it was, it had made enough of an impression for him to collar the florist and tell her about it.

And the same day, he’d vanished. At least that was what the young man calling himself Morinaga had said when he interrupted the New Year’s party.

“Mrs. Yamada, did you notice when Mr. Ino stopped coming by?”

“No. It’s not like he came every day. I thought he might’ve changed his route. I found out from someone at the party that he’d disappeared.”

Shigenori had to determine when Kozaburo had gone missing and under what circumstances. He thanked Mrs. Yamada quickly and walked on.

Shigeru had told Kenji to find his friend the liquor-store owner. Shigenori had listened and remembered them. He had no trouble finding the store. It was small and somewhat fancy, on the first floor of a small condominium building.

The owner was young, probably thirty or so. The shop seemed to have a history; there was a row of framed sepia-toned portrait photos on the wall behind the register. Shigenori asked about them and learned that the owner’s family had been running the shop for four generations. As soon as he mentioned Shigeru’s name, the owner was ready to share any information he had.

“Yes, a young man named Morinaga was here. A university student.”

“Did he say that’s what he was?”

“He seemed very nervous, which made me a little suspicious. You never know these days. I asked for proof. He showed me his student ID. He said he was related to Ino through his maternal grandfather.”

That’s got to be a lie, Shigenori thought.
But at least he’s using his real name. Have to give him credit for that.

“What sort of questions did he ask?”

“Lots. Problem was, I don’t know much about that old man. I didn’t even know his name. I see him go by now and then with his cart, that’s all.”

“So you didn’t give him any of your trash for recycling?”

“It’s against city regulations.” Strictly speaking, he was right. “Morinaga was asking about Asahi House. He was pretty nosy, actually. Wanted to know what kind of person the landlord was, what kind of people lived there, that sort of thing.”

“What kind of place is it? I hear the landlord doesn’t live in the neighborhood.”

“No, but he’s a reputable person. Sort of a philanthropist. The tenants are all old people living alone, with nowhere else to go. The rent is practically free. It’s the zoning laws. Even if they tear the place down, the owner won’t be able to build anything there anyway.”

“Yes, I hear the building dates back to the occupation.”

“By the way, that student told me he heard from the radio that the old man was missing.”

“It was on the radio?” Shigenori was startled.

“We have a little local FM station. I listen to it sometimes myself. He told me someone was appealing for information about where the old man might be.”

“Do you know where I can find it?”

“No need to go there. Just look at the website. They keep a log of the announcements.”

The owner obligingly pulled up the station website on the laptop behind the register. There was a chronological list of requests for music and on-air announcements. Shigenori backtracked through the list until he found it. The appeal for information about Ino’s whereabouts came from Yasushi Kadoma, the owner of a local coffee shop.

“Is this shop nearby?”

“Go out, turn right, then left at the first corner. Straight on from there, second corner on the right.”

Shigenori had already overextended himself. His leg was beyond the pain and tingling stage; it was almost completely numb. It was difficult even to lift his foot off the ground. Leaning heavily on his cane, he trudged unsteadily until he could see the sign for Kadoma Coffee. By then he was drenched in cold sweat.

But he hit the jackpot. The owner was nattily turned out with a small mustache, slicked-back hair, and a red vest that was fashionable in some bygone era. Shigenori took a seat inside. After he’d caught his breath, the owner told him his story.

“The morning of the fifth—it was still dark—Kozaburo told me he was sure he’d seen a birdlike monster. A huge, black bird, this big”—Kadoma spread his arms wide—“flew over his head.”

As soon as the weather cleared before dawn on December 5, Kozaburo Ino had left his apartment to collect trash for recycling. Along his route, he stopped at the florist, told Mrs. Yamada he’d seen a huge bird, and then presented himself at Kadoma Coffee at six thirty, as he did every day.

Kozaburo was a regular customer. The shop opened at seven, but perhaps because he knew other customers would be put off by his appearance—and because being gawked at was unpleasant for him as well—he showed up every morning before business hours and took a wrapped breakfast home. He’d never eaten inside the shop.

Kadoma agreed that the old man seemed strangely excited that morning. “He said he’d seen something fantastic. He could hardly wait to tell me about it.”

Like the florist, he had noticed Kozaburo acting increasingly oddly of late, and he hadn’t paid much attention to this latest episode. Kozaburo had been wearing several layers of clothing against the cold, but they were damp from the wind and rain. Concerned that the old man might catch cold, Kadoma had given him a towel and invited him to sit by the kerosene stove. Kozaburo did not go into the shop. Though he looked cold, he was excited.

“ ‘I saw such a strange thing early this morning,’ he told me. ‘Today will be a good day. I might strike it rich.’ And off he went with his cart. I wished him luck, the way I always do.”

And that was the last time he had seen the old man. “When he didn’t come for his breakfast on the sixth, I thought he must be laid up with a cold. But …”

A bit past two that afternoon, a local salaryman who was a regular at the shop told him Kozaburo’s cart was parked in an empty lot not far away. Surprised, Kadoma closed the shop and went to investigate. It was indeed Kozaburo’s cart, piled high with cardboard, empty cans and old newspapers.

“At first I thought the police might’ve picked him up. But they would’ve impounded the cart. They wouldn’t just leave it next to an intersection.”

At the time, Kadoma had not known where Kozaburo lived. The old man had told him only that he had an apartment in central Shinjuku and lived alone. “I wasn’t convinced, to be honest. I suspected he might be homeless.”

There was nowhere to begin a search. The lot where the cart was found was hardly bigger than a postage stamp. There was no fence around it; it was full of trash and detritus. If the old man had wanted to leave his cart unattended for a few minutes, it was the perfect spot. “But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened.”

Kozaburo depended on his cart. It was how he earned his livelihood. He never would have left it unattended for more than a short time.

“Then I remembered I could put a message out on the local station. If he was being cared for somewhere, or was in the hospital, I was sure someone would hear the message and contact me.”

Shigenori had to agree that the coffee shop owner’s approach was more efficient than a search with no leads.

“I said I hadn’t seen him since the morning of the fifth, and asked people to contact me if they had any news. About three days later, his next-door neighbor at the apartment house got in touch with me. She told me he hadn’t come home. But it was true—he did have a place to live.

“His neighbor heard my message on the radio and started to worry, so she went out onto her balcony and looked through his windows. It’s a first-floor apartment. The curtains were wide open. She could see right into the room.”

The room was almost bare of furniture. There was a bed, a TV, and a small table with a few dishes. It looked undisturbed. The door and windows were securely locked.

“That was all she could tell me. I’d run into a wall. Nothing further happened until close to New Year, when that young man came around asking questions. When was it … I’d just put away the Christmas tree, so it must have been the twenty-sixth or seventh. He told me he’d seen my message on the station website. He was very interested in Kozaburo, but unfortunately all he had for me were questions, not answers.

“I told him what I knew. There was nothing else I could do. He told me he’d ask around the neighborhood and visit Asahi House.”

Kenji’s actions seemed natural enough. First he visited the coffee shop, then the surrounding neighborhood and Asahi House. He probably hadn’t learned anything, so he kept asking around. On January 4 he saw the notice for the party in Ida and rushed there to see if he could get more information. He probably wanted to find the landlord to get into Kozaburo’s room. He’d need permission for that.

Kadoma did have one piece of interesting information about Kenji.

“He told me his name was Narita. Said he was Kozaburo’s grand-nephew on his mother’s side. I didn’t ask for proof.”

Why did he start using his real name? His cover story was probably blown when he was canvassing the neighborhood for information. After that he had decided he’d better stick to the truth. It was the kind of blunder only amateurs make.

Who is this guy?
Shigenori was puzzled.

Was he really a relative of Kozaburo? That didn’t seem likely. He’d started his search too long after Kozaburo went missing, for one thing, and his approach was scattershot. When Kadoma urged “Narita” to file a missing-persons report, the young man suddenly became flustered and insisted that the police never made much effort to investigate such reports.