The Gate of Sorrows (58 page)

“What are you talking about? I didn’t threaten you.”

“You sure did. You said things would change.”

Makoto sounded almost lighthearted. He and Kotaro were partners in crime, though he wasn’t sure just what the crime had been. He felt somehow as though things were back to normal. Kotaro was Kotaro, not Mishima, and he was Makoto again.

“Kotaro? Something’s different about you.”

They reached the second-floor landing. Kotaro turned and closed his right eye.

Makoto’s giant towered over them almost protectively. It thrust its huge head slowly toward Kotaro. He could sense it examining him with curiosity and a kind of interest. It was buzzing even louder than before—the buzzing of insects bloated near to bursting with poison.

Friend
 …

The black giant was Makoto’s past. It was his Shadow. Now it was Kotaro’s confederate. Now they were in the same business.

Fine. Whatever it takes to catch that monster.

The next morning, half past nine. Kotaro was staring at the steel shutters over the front of Katsura Florist.

Opening time: now.

The florist occupied the first floor of a newish-looking, three-story building on a one-way street not far from Blossom School. The second and third floors would be where the owner, Kosuke Nakasono, and his family lived. The balcony and widows were profusely decorated with flower boxes and planters.

Other than the flower shop, the neighborhood was purely residential. Many of the houses had space for gardens. It was a prosperous-looking area. Katsura Florist probably did good business.

The street was in an elementary school zone. The children were in class and the street was quiet and empty. A misty, dew-like rain sluiced down from an overcast sky. Kotaro’s hair was beaded with moisture.

He used the camcorder he’d brought from home to shoot the white van in the parking space to the left of the building. He checked to make sure the license plate was clear. He moved to the side of the van and took another photo. This time he captured the lettering on the side:
KATSURA FLORIST— YOUR GOOD NEIGHBOR
.

A metal stairway ran down the outside of the building from the second-floor entry to the parking space. A mailbox labeled
NAKASONO
was bolted to the foot of the railing. A little bicycle with training wheels and a larger one with cargo baskets fore and aft were parked in the lee of the building.

A man with a trademark smile, living with his family in a chic house in a chic neighborhood.

Why him?

The night before, after he’d gotten home, Kotaro had noticed Shigenori’s mail.

Tomakomai was not the work of the Serial Amputator. It was a one-off. The local police will make arrests soon. There’s nothing for us to do on this one.

The copycat killing of Ayuko Yamashina, complete with a cooked-up statement from the killer, wasn’t the work of the Serial Amputator either. Could the other three killings—in Akita, Mishima, and Totsuka—be laid at his feet? And was Kosuke Nakasono that person?

Kotaro had seen blood gushing from Makoto’s laptop—the blood of more than one victim.

The door on the second floor opened. A man in jeans and a white T-shirt, a denim apron and long rubber boots, started down the stairs. His hair was cropped close to the skull, much shorter than in the photo on the website.

Nakasono was dangling a key holder between the fingers of his right hand. Kotaro thought he might be heading for the van, but he walked past it and around to the front of the shop, where he unlocked the shutters and started rolling them up.

Without hesitation, Kotaro closed his right eye.

The hardworking florist was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Kotaro saw that the interior of the shop was filled with a red-black vapor. The vapor looked moist and solid, like a rain cloud, almost solid enough to grab.

Engulfed in these clouds billowing out of the shop was a humanoid figure with two heads planted on a grotesquely wide shoulder girdle. The creature was bringing out planters and buckets and putting them on the sidewalk.

Each head had mere dimples where the eyes would be, and a projecting bump of a nose. Kotaro was astonished to see that the right head seemed to notice him, while the left was facing the opposite direction. The creature’s translucent skin was redder than the vapor, and its heads and body contained scores of black whorls that coiled and uncoiled restlessly, becoming more distinct as they moved closer to the surface of the skin and disappearing as they sank deeper inside. The whorls merged and separated, waxing thicker and thinner, distending the skin as they moved.

The creature had arms and legs, but instead of fingers, each hand had a dozen or more slender appendages like tentacles that busily extended, contracted and intertwined. The legs seemed to function like those of a human, but as the creature moved about, they sometimes changed grotesquely, with the knee flexing in the wrong direction, like the rear legs of a goat. Whenever they did, the feet morphed momentarily into hooves.

The creature also had a tail that dangled awkwardly almost to the ground, but the way it swung as the creature moved about was not quite like a tail. Kotaro peered at it, baffled, before realizing suddenly that he had the appendage on the wrong side.

It was a penis.

The creature was Kosuke Nakasono’s word body, the repository of his experiences and memories. His true form. Kotaro closed his eyes and turned away. He took a deep breath and fought the urge to vomit.

The effigy outside the restroom in Totsuka and the tarlike slime stuck to the door of Blossom School came from the same source. The creature he was looking at had excreted them. It was just as Galla had said.

There was no time to lose. He had to stop this man before he committed another atrocity.

Kotaro turned and strode resolutely across the street. Nakasono was lining up planters and buckets of flowers in front of the shop. Water flowed over the pavement at his feet.

He turned just as Kotaro was almost on top of him. Their eyes met from a pace or two away. He took a step back, almost bending backward.

“Whoa, sorry …”

His tanned face was flushed with vitality. He had a firm, deep voice. The friendly, cheerful flower specialist. Katsura Florist, Your Good Neighbor.

Kotaro’s voice wouldn’t come. Nakasono looked at him with wide-eyed surprise.

“Um, is there something I can do for you?”

Someone watching them would’ve thought Kotaro was the strange one. He’d been loitering outside the shop since long before it opened, shivering in the summer heat. Now his face was pale as he fought the urge to vomit. Nakasono eyed him with concern.

“Are you feeling all right, sir? You don’t look well.”

Nakasono was a professional. He treated everyone as a customer, even “sir”-ing this young college kid.

What did you say to Saeko Komiya? What words did you use to lure her into your van? “I’m the gardener at Blossom School. Are you picking up your child? I’m on the way there myself. I’d be happy to take you.”

And what did he say to her just before he killed her?

“Sir? Are you all right?”

Kotaro struggled to answer. It cost him a tremendous effort of will to find his voice, as though he had to draw it up a pipe drilled deep into the bed of an undersea trench.

“Are you Kosuke Nakasono?”

The man’s eyes flickered in bewilderment. The whites of his eyes were pure. “Yes, that’s right.”

“You’re the gardener for Blossom School. I saw it on their website.”

Nakasono’s expression relaxed instantly. It reminded Kotaro of the red-haired guy at the gas station. The corners of his eyes crinkled in friendly welcome.

“Thanks for your patronage! Yes, Katsura Florist is the designated garden expert for Blossom School. Let’s see, you don’t have a child there, do you sir? You’re a little too young.”

“My … sister. Her kid goes there.”

“Is that so? It’s a very nice school, isn’t it? Your sister must feel safe with her child in their care.”

Kotaro had worked out a script for this encounter. He had an older sister. Her son went to Blossom School. She was impressed by the well-tended planters in the yard. She’d mentioned them to Kotaro. Now he needed flowers to mark an important occasion, and wanted Katsura Florist to handle it. He needed them delivered at nine tonight to a certain location—

But the carefully prepared script had flown right out of his head. All he could think of was how to make this man squirm. He wanted to wipe that phony smile off his face.

“I know what you did.”

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.

Kotaro came closer and lowered his voice. “I know all about you, Kosuke Nakasono.”

The smile hardened into a mask.

“You killed Saeko Komiya. I know you did. I’ve got proof.”

Nakasono’s eyes twitched deep in the smiling mask. His pupils flashed for just an instant.

“Wha … what are you talking about?”

“You wouldn’t want your wife and kid to find out.” Kotaro lowered his voice to a whisper and rolled his eyes toward the second floor. “We’d better discuss this somewhere in private. Of course, if you refuse, it’s fine by me. I’ll just show the police what I’ve got.”

Nakasono’s nostrils started to tremble. The mask was beginning to crack.

“I’m not … I don’t know … what …”

“Before I see the police, I’m going to upload proof of what you did to the web. Even if the cops don’t believe me, the rest of the world will come after you.”

Nakasono laughed. The sound was like air escaping from a balloon. “Hey, k-kid, kid. I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You deny it? Suit yourself. I was just trying to give you a chance.”

“A chance? To do what?”

“To run.”

The two men stood facing each other. Looking at Nakasono’s healthy, tanned mask, Kotaro couldn’t help wondering which head was looking at him now. Did it have some kind of expression? Were the black whorls moving faster?

Nakasono lowered his voice. “Why should I run away?”

“You killed someone. When they arrest you, you’re not going to talk your way out of it. You know that.”

Nakasono’s jaw moved as though he was chewing something. Maybe he was biting back words he’d thought better of.

“You don’t want to lose your wife and child, do you?”

More chewing motions, and the trembling nostrils.

“You’ve got a nice situation here. Nice house, nice business. If they send you to prison, you lose everything. You’ll get life at least. By the time they parole you, you’ll be so old you can barely walk. Or maybe they’ll just hang you.” Kotaro snorted dismissively. “You’ve been busy for a while, haven’t you? Japan has jury trials now. Kill more than once and you could get death, especially when the crimes are cruel and perverted. You sure fit the profile.”

Nakasono wiped his face with a thick hand, the hand of a working man. His fingers were long. He was starting to sweat. His left hand came down over his mouth and paused there. He was wearing a wedding band.

“I am …”

The mask crumbled. Kotaro almost thought he could hear it cracking. Good and evil, reality and obsession in equal measure, sealed tight behind the mask of a friendly, fortyish man. Now the mask was bursting open.

This is what hides the two-headed monster. That’s the real Kosuke Nakasono. But they’re not just behind that face, they’re mixed up in his head. This guy is deeply disturbed. He’s got two people inside him.

The other head turned to face Kotaro. It gripped the mast from inside and tore it away.

“Whatcha got? Mmm? Come on, punk. Whatcha got?”

Somewhere behind the threatening tone was a peal of derision, like a sound of a triangle ringing faintly amid a clamoring orchestra.

“You think I’m going to stand around here and tell you?” Kotaro stood his ground and chuckled, returning the derision. “Let’s meet tonight. We’ll discuss this. Take our time.”

“Is this about money? Is that what you want?”

“Sure, money is good. But what I really want is a full confession, straight from your mouth.”

Nakasono’s lips contorted in a scowl. Kotaro was struck by how genuine it looked. The smiling face of Your Good Neighbor was definitely a mask. It was probably the only thing his wife had ever seen. It was such a good mask that it could hardly be distinguished from the real thing, but it was bogus.

“My confession? What the hell good would
that
do you?”

“It goes straight to the net. I’m gonna scoop the world.”

Nakasono didn’t seem to know much about the Internet. He rolled his eyes, baffled. “You’ll get yourself arrested if you do that.”

“What makes you think people will know it’s me?”

They faced each other silently. Kotaro’s smile was fixed. It was his turn to wear the mask. Standing here looking at Nakasono’s real face, he was afraid to show him what his own looked like.

“Tonight. At nine.” Kotaro jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “In the parking lot, around the corner to the right.” He had already scoped it out. It was open to the street, with a high fence on three sides. “Wait for me under the sign on the east side.”

“Why should I do what you say?”

“Oh, you will. You don’t have a choice. We both know that.”

We’re done here. Tonight Galla will take you to the place of judgment.