The Hunter (12 page)

Well, bully for you.

"When we had time off together, he used to take me fishing."

Takizawa a fisherman? Who knew a man like him had any hobbies? Takako nodded slowly, trying to show interest as this fellow spoke warmly of Takizawa. How happy Takizawa seemed when they went fishing together, the different places they had gone, the kinds of fish they had caught. To Takako it was all a bore. She hated fishing. With all her working hours spent fishing for suspects in the murky waters of the city, she had no desire to spend her days off doing any kind of fishing.

"Taki was a lot thinner back then, and he had a lot more hair. Now that I think about it, he looks older."

It's more of a surprise to me to think he was ever young. I don't know, though
—
no matter how thin he was and how much hair he had on his head, his personality was the same, I bet. Rotten.

Her conversation partner, who hadn't bothered to introduce himself but who obviously knew who she was, drew a long breath. "Well, in the end— maybe Taki didn't want to have me for a partner."

"Why do you say that? You were fishing buddies."

The young detective seemed to hesitate, unsure whether to continue.

"You mean ... it would bring up some memories?" She looked probingly at the young detective.

His gaze wavered indecisively. She sighed a little, deliberately. This was bait. The man muttered, "You could say so." Drunk fish were so easy to catch.

"Sure, it would bring up memories. Back then his wife was still living with him, and I was single, so I went over to their place all the time and she made me things to eat."

Faintly flushed, eyes a little glazed, he said this half-nostalgically. He was off his guard. It took little effort for Takako to act casual. Mustn't let the fish know he's been hooked. Fully conscious of Takizawa, although he was now out of her line of sight, she murmured, "Ah yes, his wife."

"I kind of took it personally, in a way. Sometimes I think it could happen to me—anytime my own wife might up and leave."

"Not as easily as that, surely."

"You never know. Taki's wife was a good woman. Not the kind in a million years who would take a lover and leave the family."

For a second she felt her chest constrict. The young detective swallowed the last of the sake in his cup and got up and went to look for more. Takako watched him go off and then glanced around to see if their conversation might have been overheard by anyone. Takizawa was off at a distance, engrossed in conversation.

His plastic cup filled, the young detective came back her way, passed her, and joined in a group of detectives deep in discussion, having forgotten he was in the middle of a conversation with her. After all, fresh drink, fresh people to talk to. Now was Takako's chance. She stood up without calling attention to herself, swiftly picked up her things, and said goodbye to the few she encountered on her way out. There was still time, barely, to make the last train.

Well, so that's it. That's what happens to a man whose wife leaves him.

Riding on the crowded train home, Takako's thoughts kept turning in the same direction. She felt she had finally begun to understand the reason for Takizawa's rigidity and hostility.

Well, who wouldn't leave a man like him? He probably never gave his family a thought, except to throw his weight around. Until now she had thought of his unseen wife with contempt, but now she felt like applauding her. Way to go. Take that, you loser. She wanted to feel that way, but her mind was cold and numb. She felt herself sliding into depression.

I
wish I'd never asked.

It wasn't like she was dying to find out about his private life. Who cared what he did? Baloney. No way were they two of a kind. She
chose
to divorce her husband, of her own free will. His wife put an end to a bad situation. That was what she thought, and yet her spirits sank lower and lower.

I'm not a loser. I didn't get dumped.

She hadn't been able to take the jealousy. The husband she trusted and the woman who'd been an acquaintance of hers—one several notches below her, nobody she'd paid any real attention to: when she found out they were seeing each other, she tried to tell herself to stay calm, give him some space, trust him. But when she confronted him, he averted his eyes with a hangdog look, never looked her straight in the eyes again, never tried to patch up their relationship. Her trust vanished, never to return. The only thing left was for her to keep the wounds from infecting her life.

She didn't want the jealousy to tear her apart, and she didn't want to get into a mud-slinging contest. If the affair blew over, she didn't think she could love him again. He'd shown his true colors, slept with a woman like
that;
he wasn't the man she had thought he was. She couldn't bear being cast as the hysterical, jealous wife in another tawdry drama about adultery. So
she
drew the curtains and brought it to an end. She had been betrayed, but not dumped.

"What are you lookin' so sad about?"

All of a sudden, someone was whispering in her ear. Startled, she spun around, almost bumping into the face of a stranger pressed up close.

Who did this punk think he was?!

About twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She hoped desperately he wasn't one of her colleagues, but didn't think she had ever seen him before. The collar of his black cashmere coat was turned up, and he had a smooth white face, his hair combed back. Manager of a little shop somewhere, maybe. He certainly didn't have the aura of a cop, which was a relief. Takako studied the guy, who smiled amiably, as if Takako was someone he hadn't seen in ten years. He leaned in yet closer. The scent of hair gel, coupled with the alcohol on his breath, was nauseating.

"If something's bothering you, you can tell me about it."

She could have stopped it right then with a sharp "Don't be ridiculous." But a strange wave of nostalgia was washing over her. How long had it been since she felt someone's breath in her ear?

Was this how Teruo Hara seduced his women, whispering to them like this? For women tired in mind and body, that whisper must have been an oasis in the desert. They hadn't asked for much, those women. Just a moment's respite, perhaps. Teruo Hara had been a kind of savior.

"Come on, tell me about it."

Good grief. Did she look like those other women? Lonely? Needy? As if she needed someone—
anyone
—to lean on?

The man's arm was around her waist now. She pressed his hand back gently, then easily twisted it back behind him. He frowned, taken aback by the maneuver and her strength, but he drew his face down to hers again with an unperturbed half-smile. People around them probably thought they were together.

"If you want, I'll take you home."

The next station was announced as the train began to slow down. This was Takako's stop.

"I get off here."

"Then I get off here, too."

Takako looked at the man with distaste. "You really want to talk to me that much? What about?"

The man smirked. "Anything you want."

Takako sighed, smiled as sweetly as she could, and placed a hand on the man's chest. She lifted her face to his and whispered, "All right, then." As the man relaxed, she grabbed his collar, then swiftly jammed her hand into his Adam's apple, and squeezed until he started to gurgle. She looked him straight in the eye, their faces so close together it was hard to focus.

"Here's an idea—how about going to the police box in front of the station? It's warm there, and if you want, I can even arrange for you to spend the night. In fact, why don't you go on ahead and wait for me there?"

Just then the train doors opened. Takako let go of the man's collar, turned around, and got off.

Here, even the nightfall was orderly. The high-rise buildings, arranged with ample space between them in a display of smart contemporary architecture, were hushed and deserted; yet every other attraction of this manmade district—the groves of trees laid out at regular intervals to relieve the overall grayness, the boardwalk designed to impart warmth to people's hearts by reminding them that this little amusement area was made to face the sea, nature's gateway even if with stagnant water—was beautifully lit up. The illumination breathed life into the scenery, however false the breath. It was the sparkle of imitation diamonds falling on drab warehouses. It was a section of the city lacking life, where the flow of time was cut off from reality.

For a while Kazuki Horikawa stood between two tall buildings with the collar of his coat turned up and his hands thrust into his pockets, feeling the wind. It was past midnight, and the monorail between Hamamatsu-cho and Haneda had stopped running long before. The only way to get out of this manmade town was to walk to Shinagawa, or take a taxi. He couldn't quite make up his mind. His judgment was clouded by drink, and he was feeling a touch sentimental, not like his usual self.

He sighed, and his white cloud of breath was instantly swept away by the wind. He was reminded of what it used to be like to smoke. Standing here late at night, being buffeted by a dirty wind, if he had a cigarette in his mouth, that would complete the picture. Whatever happened to his old Zippo lighter anyway—the one he couldn't leave home without? Had he thrown it away? Given it to someone? It was a gift from an old girlfriend.

Somebody's wife by now, for sure.

Less and less like his normal self. Why tonight of all nights did he remember her? Was it because he couldn't think of even one woman he could go see? Had he gotten old without noticing? He wasn't a kid anymore. He couldn't go on frittering his life away like there was no tomorrow.

Taking a deep breath, Horikawa finally began to walk. He had no destination in mind. He simply wanted to be out in this cold wind a bit longer. He was getting more sentimental by the minute, and even if he woke up tomorrow morning feeling lousy, tonight he felt like doing some serious drinking, giving himself over completely to the blues.

It was the section chief's casual remark that had set him off tonight.

You weren't hired yesterday, you really know the ropes.

The comment had not particularly shocked him. He was surprised he could get excited over the remark of an insignificant man like that. He had always thought that giving your heart and soul to your job was the height of stupidity; stay cool, stay detached, call it quits when you can—that was good enough. But it seemed that all along he had been slowly transforming himself into a dreary workaholic. Without knowing it, he was staying late at the office alone, putting in hated overtime, and loathing himself more and more, until he took to drinking in hotel bars, alone. That was the story tonight.

I've turned myself into a common, pathetic stuffed shirt.

He used to laugh that the life of a salaryman was not for him—never imagined he would end up putting on a suit and tie every day and walking to work carrying a goddamn briefcase.

Looking up, he saw not stars but the winking red lights on the roofs of the high-rises. This was his daily scenery, this deadly section of town that he walked through without noticing on his way to the monorail station. It had the carefully planned perfection of a movie set as well as the dingy dust behind papier-mache props.

Darkness spread before him. If he walked straight ahead and across the bridge, he would come to the Tokyo University of Fisheries. The darkness would grow yet denser. Could any part of the downtown area be this deserted, this black? If he was going to walk to Shinagawa, he would have to retrace his steps and turn right. And yet his feet kept on going straight ahead. He wondered how long it would take him to get to Hamamatsu-cho.

The wind felt good. However stagnant, the sea was the sea, the shore the shore. Damn it all, he wanted to see the unspoiled sea.

I'm not a workaholic. I hate workaholics.

He wanted to think of nothing but good times. No matter if people called him a kid or looked down on him for it, if life wasn't fun, it wasn't worth anything. That was his motto.

Suddenly Horikawa felt someone's eyes on his back. He stopped and turned slowly around, but there was no one. Of course not. The only people around here at this time of night were travelers on their way in or out of Haneda, and couples who used the night for romance. Either way, they wouldn't be out walking, they'd be snuggled in their hotel rooms.

No other reason to be on this reclaimed land at night; it's boring as hell.

Slowly he walked on, swinging his briefcase. He wanted to go home to bed, but at the same time he wanted to do something else, something to bring relief. Home to bed? That sounded real fuddy-duddy. Relief? Nowadays he didn't know where to start. No, not true. Anyplace would do once he got in the mood.

Suddenly, again, he got the queasy feeling that he was being watched. Once again he stopped, and this time he turned around warily. Nothing met his eyes but streets where the dry wind blew. Thanks to the overhead expressway, this area was dimly lit in the daytime, but now, because of the greater darkness of the perimeter, it was rather pale. The trees were trembling, either from the wind or from vibrations of the cars on the expressway. A taxi came speeding toward him with its vacancy light on. Before he could even think about hailing it, the cab was past him, only its red taillights in view. That option gone, once again Horikawa decided he had been imagining things. Nobody was around. The street was dead.

Like a huge stone coffin.

For some reason, this thought came to mind. The place wasn't squalid, it wasn't neat; it wasn't plastic, it wasn't organic; it wasn't old, it wasn't young; it wasn't pulsing, it wasn't still. It had no color and no rhythm.

No hopes or dreams either, as far as that goes.

Tonight was certainly the night for juvenile thoughts. Well, no harm in that, Horikawa thought, walking on again. If he were a young girl, he'd think twice about walking in a place like this. Dark streets at night, lechers on trains—these were the stuff the women at work always talked about.

Women, huh? Women.

They were different creatures. He used to yearn for them; lately they seemed more like a bother. His mother wanted him to settle down and get married, was trying to set up a meeting with a prospective bride.

An arranged marriage!

Actually, might not be such a bad idea. There were two kinds of women: the kind that made a good wife, and the kind that made a good lover. As long as you didn't get the two mixed up, you couldn't really go wrong.

Finally it dawned on him that he had no idea how far the Hamamatsu-cho station was. It was crazy to go to the station anyway; the trains would've stopped running before he got there. Take a taxi, get to Azabu. That's when he heard it:
skritch, skritch.
Instantly he was overcome by a feeling akin to fear.
There
is
someone behind me!
Before he could turn around, he found himself down on the pavement. His briefcase went flying. His knees were in pain, his palms were scraped, his jaw bloodied. His pulse was racing.

What the—

His ears were ringing. His face was on the sidewalk. He was pinned down. He tried to think. Suddenly he felt hot breath in one ear, got a whiff of something. It was the smell of ...
an animal!
Too quick for him to know what was happening, a dull pain shot through his neck. He felt something warm and moist, teeth clamping down on his neck. A sickening sound echoed in Horikawa's head. It grew and grew, louder and louder....

Until Horikawa lost consciousness. So that when his body was yanked over and he was ravished by the throat, it was as if it were happening to someone else. His body limp, the roar of his bloodstream echoed deep within his being. Horikawa felt nothing. This was mortal pain, so his oblivion was merciful. He never knew the searing pain, the biting into his flesh, the hot breath, the wetness, the sticky sounds, the coppery smell of blood, and then the odd prickling sensation, as living tissue was exposed to the cold wind. With a soft swoosh, warm blood spurted from his steaming throat. Had Horikawa's spirit been able to escape his body and look down on it, he would surely have averted his eyes and screamed.

His eyes stayed wide open, as if registering the carnage. Did his brain, still bearing a trace of life, process the two tiny round pupils in pools of pale green that were the creature's eyes? As its mouth dripped blood, the beast finished its grisly work, and detected the scent of death. Having ceased to feel anything, Horikawa's brain registered no fear and shut down without a flicker, never discerning his passage. His heart still beat, erratically, then more slowly, before vanishing into a flat line.

Horikawa's eyes were mere glass marbles now, open, seeing nothing. In the space of less than a minute, this unwillingly dedicated salaryman, who had just begun to contemplate taking his mother's advice and entering into an arranged marriage, had become a ragged corpse.

The blood continued to flow, gradually tapering off, puddling around the body, but in the darkness it was not evident. Overhead the traffic on the expressway continued without cease; now and again a taxi or truck would take the coastal road, but sidewalk shrubbery kept the body out of view. As earlier, Horikawa was left behind, alone, in this manmade environment. That he had been left behind for good was one more thing he did not know.