The Gate of Sorrows (25 page)

Kotaro could see a laptop in the bag. Another surprise. It was unusual to see people this age carrying laptops. In that case, it might not be surprising that he knew right away what Kumar did.

“Mishima.”

Kotaro glanced up. The man was taking pills with water from the Thermos.

“Painkiller. It takes about ten minutes to kick in.” He put the sheet of pills back in the bag. “When that happens, my brain will start working better. Until then, I want to hear your story. Tell me about this Morinaga.”

“He’s an engineering major, third year. A very serious guy. He’s planning to go straight to graduate school.”

The man nodded and held the Thermos out. “Water? It’s hot.”

Kotaro must’ve looked like he needed some. He was very tempted. The cold was starting to get to him.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks anyway.”

The man put the Thermos back in the bag. “As far as I know,” he said, “Morinaga was looking for an old man who disappeared.”

How does he know all this?

“When did you see Kenji?” Kotaro asked. “Where—”

“Not yet. My ten minutes aren’t up yet. Sorry, brain’s still off.”

He was like a teacher correcting a slow student. In the beam of light, his pale face and muscular voice suddenly reminded Kotaro of the PTA chairman from his grade school days. The man was the president of a local construction firm and more impressive-looking than the principal. He always had a stern expression when he talked.

The man shoved a driver’s license at the tip of Kotaro’s nose.

“This is me.”

Kotaro took the license and shined the light on it. Shigenori Tsuzuki. The man in the picture was trimmer than the one in front of him.

“I live in the neighborhood.”

Kotaro nodded. The address was in Wakaba.

“See the DOB? I’m sixty-three. I could be your grandfather. Show some respect.”

I think I’ve been doing that.

“It’s spinal stenosis.”

“What?”

“Not arthritis, not a disc problem. No other health issues. If I have to, I can go at it with you again before the night’s over. Unless you want to kiss that wall all over again, tell me how you found this place—fast. I handle security for the district association,” he added, seeing Kotaro’s look of confusion.

Do district associations have security people this aggressive?

“See, I’m an ex-cop. I even worked at MPD headquarters for a while.”

Kotaro could believe it. Now he knew why this man was so intimidating. His old PTA chairman couldn’t hold a candle to this guy.

“Maybe you believe me, maybe you don’t, but I’ll tell you something: I’ve dealt with armed robbers and murderers and arsonists longer than you’ve been alive. Know what they all have in common?”

Kotaro said nothing. He just shook his head.

“They lie. I know how to handle liars. If you lie to me, I’ll know. Understand?”

Kotaro nodded. “Yes, I understand. But I’m not lying. It’s just a really strange story.”

Shigenori Tsuzuki, ex-detective, gave Kotaro a skeptical look through narrowed eyelids.

“First I want to show you something.” Kotaro pulled his backpack closer and brought out his laptop. He pulled off his gloves, booted up, clicked on the photo of Mana’s sketch and turned the screen toward Shigenori.

His face was lit by the ghostly light from the screen. He seemed surprised, then dumbfounded.

“I think this picture and the gargoyle up on the roof here are connected,” Kotaro said.

Shigenori’s eyes were glued to the screen. “Who drew this?”

Interest mingled with astonishment. Kotaro suddenly relaxed. He didn’t know why, but this man and he were pursuing the same riddle.

He told Shigenori everything that had happened, in chronological order—from Kenji asking him to act as insurance until his first sighting, earlier today, of the tea caddy building, including every person he’d met and every rumor he’d heard. Partway through his account he started shivering and wrapped his arms around himself. The hand warmers he’d brought along weren’t good for more than temporary relief from the cold.

When he finished, Shigenori brought out the Thermos again. This time Kotaro accepted the steaming water gratefully. His hands were shaking so much that he almost dropped the cup.

“So Cart Man isn’t the only missing person.” Shigenori said pensively. “That’s what people in the neighborhood called Kozaburo Ino.”

The heat of the water spread pleasantly in Kotaro’s stomach. “Kenji said the police wouldn’t do anything in a case like this.”

“He was probably right,” Shigenori said with a touch of remorse. He was sitting more comfortably now. Maybe the painkiller was finally working.

“So after all this, you didn’t visit the FM station? Or Kadoma Coffee?”

“My boss told me to stop looking for Kenji.”

“He has good judgment. Too much digging could complicate things once the real investigation starts. You could even end up as a suspect.”

Kotaro shrugged, trying to look nonchalant.

“You found your way here with nothing but this picture for a clue.” Shigenori stared at the laptop screen. “You’ve got a good nose.”

That sounds like praise.

“Okay, let me show
you
something interesting. Climb up that ladder and take a look around the roof.”

Kotaro looked up at the hatch in the ceiling.

“When you let the hatch down, don’t shut it tight. If you shut it all the way, you’ll make a lot of noise getting it open again.” That would explain why it was so freezing cold. “Be quiet and be careful. There’s a lot of light from the buildings and neon. You won’t need the flashlight.”

Kotaro stood up. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together before picking his gloves off the floor and putting them back on. He took a firm grip on the ladder rail, climbed up and lifted the hatch. It was lighter than he expected. It looked like you could put a dent in it with your fist, but the latch was strong.

He raised his head quietly above the level of the roof.

“The gargoyle is to your left,” Shigenori called from below. Kotaro shifted his gaze left.

The lights of West Shinjuku fell dimly across the roof of the building. The air stabbed icily into his nostrils, making his eyes water.

There was no statue. Kotaro held the hatch open with one hand and scanned the whole roof. It was definitely gone. There was nothing to be seen anywhere on that round platform.

“It’s gone. But what’s all that stuff spread across the roof?

“Pieces of the statue.”

“Did someone smash it?”

Kotaro started to climb up, but Shigenori tugged on his jeans. “Get down here.”

He lowered the hatch, climbed halfway down the ladder and jumped to the floor. “I just saw that statue a few hours ago. I even took pictures.”

“I believe it. In the daytime it’s right where it’s supposed to be.”

“When was it shattered?”

“I’m not sure. When I was here last year, before Christmas, the fragments were already there.”

Now it was Kotaro’s turn to furrow his brow.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Shigenori used the same expression that Kenji had. “Truly curious. The original statue was smashed to pieces somehow. The statue you saw is the replacement. In the daytime, anyway. After dark it has a habit of disappearing. Tonight’s no different. I got here less than an hour ago and it was already gone. I didn’t think it would make its move so soon.”

A monster from the sky. It descended to this building, wings spread. And at night, using its wings again, it moved about the city.

“I thought about this and came up with a logical explanation,” Kotaro said, “but now and then I step back and look at it, and it makes me laugh. I mean, a statue that flies around? It’s total BS.”

Shigenori stared at him. “I agree with you. Completely. Here’s what I know.”

When the ex-detective got to the end of his account, Kotaro was thoroughly chilled. “I need to find a restroom.”

“No toilets here.”

“I know. I’ll be right back.”

Kotaro picked up the flashlight and trotted downstairs. At first his legs were so numb from the cold that he almost stumbled.

He’d seen a coffee chain outlet on the way. Luckily, it was still open.
That’s Shinjuku for you.
He ordered two coffees, paid with loose change, and headed for the restroom.

He hadn’t left the tea caddy building just to answer nature’s call. He wanted to think. The ex-detective was intimidating, but he had a reassuring aura. His words were convincing. But would it be wise to trust him?

Maybe we’re both crazy.
That was a possibility.
But I don’t see how we could be.

Even alone, with time to think, surrounded by the city in all its mundane reality, it didn’t seem possible that they were sharing a hallucination.

He left the shop with the coffees in a paper bag and retraced his steps to the front of the tea caddy building. He took a moment to stand on the other side of the street and look up at it. For some reason it looked brighter from a distance. The closer he got to the foot of the building, the thicker the darkness became.

When he got back to the fourth floor, Shigenori was on the ladder, peering out the hatch. He heard Kotaro’s footsteps, lowered the latch and clambered down. “No change.”

Shigenori sat cross-legged on the cardboard and chuckled. “Feel better? Get a chance to cool off?” He’d known what Kotaro was thinking.

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“I know how you feel. I was regretting it myself, spilling all that information to a kid.”

Kotaro was silent a moment before he pointed out, “Maybe we both needed someone to talk to about this.”

“You’re probably right.” Shigenori chuckled wryly. Kotaro felt suddenly relieved.

“Mr. Tsuzuki? At the very least, I think both of us have done the right thing so far.”

“Maybe. We’ll find out. Coffee, huh? How much?”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m not letting someone young enough to be my grandson buy me coffee.” Shigenori accepted the cup happily.

“When you’re on stakeout, don’t you try to avoid too much fluid?”

“Not me. I have a huge bladder. That’s what happens to most cops.” The light steam and aroma from their cups spread out into the freezing air.

“Why don’t we just sit on the roof?”

“There’s no place to hide. Whatever we can see will see us too.”

“Maybe we could hide under some of this cardboard.”

“We’d stick out like a sore thumb. If that gargoyle, or someone pretending to be a gargoyle, sees us, that’s the end of the stakeout.”

“Why don’t you ask somebody in the neighborhood to let you set up a telescope in the window? That way you wouldn’t run the risk of being seen. Or attacked.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself, then?”

“I don’t have connections. You live around here.”

“I don’t want to get other people involved.” Shigenori’s tone was brusque. Kotaro felt a stab of regret. Shigenori had told him about the elderly woman who’d ended up in the hospital after he asked her to get involved.

“That woman—in your local association—”

“Mrs. Chigusa?”

“How’s she doing? Why don’t you call the head of the association and find out?”

Shigenori pressed a button on his watch. The face lit up. It was past 11:30. “He went to bed a long time ago. Old people turn in early.”

“I hope she’s okay.”

“You’ve got a phone too, don’t you?”

Kotaro showed him.

“I thought young people all had smartphones now.”

“Somehow I never get around to getting one.”

Kotaro was one of the few people at Kumar, or on campus, who still used a simple flip phone, though it did offer limited web access. A lot of people thought this was fairly strange.

“Anyway, I can do whatever I want with the laptop.”

“That’s what real net jockeys do, or so I hear. Okay, let’s synchronize our watches. We’ll take turns checking the roof every half hour.”

“Once an hour for each of us, then. Until six?”

“Yeah. No alarm.”

“Naturally. Set for vibe.”

Shigenori watched carefully as Kotaro set his alert. “Set it for me,” he said awkwardly, handing him his phone.

“Sure.” He couldn’t help chuckling. He set Shigenori’s alert. “So I guess we just wait.”

“That’s what stakeouts are like.”

“If I don’t talk, I’m going to freeze to death. Do you mind?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Of course. Could I get a spot on the cardboard too?”

Shigenori made a show of grunting with effort as he moved over. Kotaro’s buttocks were almost numb from the cold, hard floor. He sat on the cardboard and rubbed himself all over, trying to warm up.

“There’s a lot of stuff I wanted to ask you about. I need a professional opinion.” His voice was shaking from the cold. “Let’s see … okay, first off, what do you think of those homeless people going missing? Isn’t it a stretch to connect those disappearances with Kozaburo Ino?”

“A do-gooder, huh? Is Morinaga like you?” Shigenori’s voice was calm and impervious to the cold. His breath was white in the air.

“Am I a do-gooder?”

“You haven’t noticed?”

No one had ever called him that before. True, Kazumi sometimes complained that her older brother was an acute pain.

“When did you get addicted to the Internet?”

“I don’t like it that much, really. A graduate of my high school invited me to take the job.”

“You seem pretty involved with it.”

“It turned out to be interesting.”

“Is that what Morinaga thought?”

“Probably, yes.”

“I see. So it’s fun playing detective.” Shigenori sounded a bit sarcastic, but Kotaro forged ahead.

“Kenji told me when he was a child, his father’s company went bankrupt. The whole family had to skip town in the middle of the night to get away from their creditors. The experience made it impossible for him to ignore the poor and defenseless. He told me he thought it was sad that people were vanishing and nobody was even looking for them.”

Shigenori was silent a moment before grunting in agreement. He uncrossed his arms and rubbed his hands together, blowing into them.