The Hunter (15 page)

"Oh yeah?"

"At any rate, I think it would be best to start there."

"You do, huh?"

Takizawa evidently had no intention of taking her seriously, no matter what she said. What in the world was wrong with him? Had something happened to him on his day off? Well, same here. But, hey, we leave our private lives at home; you don't drag your misery to the office, especially if you're going to work with me.

"You think the wolf escaped from a zoo?" he asked.

"Has there been a report of a missing wolf?"

"You got me there."

"But a wolf in a zoo wouldn't receive any special training, would it? To have carried out an attack like that—"

Takizawa stopped in his tracks. Takako walked on a little ways, then stopped and turned back. Takizawa was standing with an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

"You really think there's a wolf out there?" he said.

"It's possible," she hedged. "That's why we need to check it out."

"You do it on your own, then. I'm out. It's too wacky for me." Takizawa lit the cigarette, disgusted.

Takako took a deep breath. "Tell me why."

"Look, all I want is to go after the human dirt-bag. Leave dogs to the dog-catcher. I can't take a kiddie assignment like that seriously."

"But the wolf is key to the case! It's actually attacked and killed someone."

"Yeah, well, for all we know, that case has zilch to do with ours. What I want to do is go back to the scene of the fire and start asking some more questions. I know we missed something the first time around. There's gotta be something we didn't ask, didn't see."

"Then why didn't you request permission? All you had to do was tell the chief." Takako watched as Takizawa blew a lungful of smoke in her direction. The smoke dissipated in the winter wind.

"'Cause I got paired with you, honeybun. They thought I didn't have what it takes to grit my teeth and go back for another try."

Takako tightened her grip on the strap of her shoulder bag. "Are you positive about that?" she said in a tense, quiet voice. Today was shaping into another chilly, overcast day. As long as she was walking, she didn't feel the cold, but standing here in the wind like this, she felt the cold creeping up from her ankles. She'd had enough.
I
don't want to be paired with you either, buster.
"Maybe they just thought someone else should take a look from a fresh perspective."

Takizawa showed surprise at hearing this, but Takako plowed on without waiting for him to speak. "You find it supremely unpleasant to be paired with me, I know. I think I know why, too. But there's nothing I can do about the situation. I certainly don't think I've been given an easier job because I'm a woman."

"I'm sure you don't."

"If you want to continue the search around the crime scene, fine. You know your way around the area, and you were in on this case from the time the fire was first reported, so I know you want to catch whoever's responsible. But I'm going after the wolf. It's the job I was assigned to do. If you want nothing more to do with me, if you have no interest in pursuing the wolf, than I suggest you take it up with the chief. But today, I'm going to go after the wolf."

"How can you keep—"

"I apologize for being so blunt!" Having gotten that off her chest, Takako turned and started to walk away, purposely letting the heels of her shoes click loudly. Actually there was more that she could have said. But she felt a little better. She really had no intention of going up against Takizawa. He was the one who was out of line.

I'll track down the wolf myself. Hara's background and benzoyl peroxide have been dead ends. The wolf's the key, just watch.

Her insides were still seething with defiance and determination. She didn't want to lay eyes again on Takizawa's grouchy face or her sister's pleading face. Her supervisor said she basically hated people. She didn't think of it like that, but maybe he was right. What was there to like about people anyway? They were all selfish, wrapped up in themselves, didn't care about...

Today, when Takako exhaled, her breath actually came out frosty. Out here in Tachikawa, the temperature had to be a couple degrees colder than in the middle of the city. The cold air stung her eyes; suddenly she became aware of footsteps running up to her.

"At this hour, I bet no pet shops are open." It was Takizawa, whose scruffy figure had intruded into her field of vision.

"Well, department stores open at ten, and they all have pet shops."

Takako looked back at her partner, who had begun walking alongside her with a face curiously void of expression. His cigarette was almost down to the filter. With the usual ironic twist to his mouth, Takizawa mumbled, "After all, you and me are a team."

Right, left, right, left.
From the outside of Mayo Uehara's pink sneakers you couldn't tell they were wet inside. In fact, her socks and her feet felt like they were soaked in tepid water.

It reminded her of when she was in kindergarten and wet her pants. Ugh. Her mouth tightened, Mayo walked on, face down.
Right, left, right, left.
Her feet were moving, but if she just focused on her shoes, there was the illusion that the pavement was moving instead. This was a magic trick her mother taught her for times when she didn't feel like walking.

Mommy knew lots of magic.

But Mommy was never coming back again. "Come and see me any time," she had said, but Mayo had never been over. It made Daddy sad, and besides, she thought maybe she wasn't supposed to see Mommy anymore. But at times like this she wished she could. She wished Mommy could teach her some magic way to cheer herself up. She wanted Mommy to stroke her hair and braid it for her. To listen to her troubles and help her find a way out. Daddy said, "If you have a problem, tell your teacher." But Miss Yokota didn't like her. She thought so before, but today she was sure.

Today the other girls in class hid her sneakers. During lunch hour, they came up and invited her to play with them on the horizontal bar. Usually they never asked her to do anything with them. They would stand off at a distance and say stuff loudly like "I hate mayonnaise!" or "Mayonnaise is like white poo." Just because her name was Mayo. So when they invited her to play with them today, she was thrilled. She quickly ate her lunch and went with them to the cupboard where the outdoor shoes were kept. But her sneakers were gone. Then the girls all laughed and laughed and laughed: You idiot. Your sneakers are so dirty, they probably got thrown in the trash. You probably came to school barefoot.

Mayo searched for her sneakers, tears running down her face. Even after lunch period was over, she kept looking, by herself. Finally she found one sneaker stuck in the toilet in the farthest lavatory stall. She kept on hunting until she found the other one, this time in a toilet in the boys' lavatory on the second floor. Mayo went back to the classroom holding a sneaker in each hand, dripping toilet water.

As soon as she walked into the room, Miss Yokota scolded her sharply. "Where have you been? Didn't you hear the bell ring?"

Trembling, Mayo tried to tell her teacher about the sneakers. Her humiliation. Anger. Sadness. But for second-grader Mayo, organizing all of that into a form her teacher could understand was impossible. Finally, with a supreme effort, she managed to say where her sneakers were—and then everyone in the room burst into derisive laughter.

"Uehara went into the boys' room!?!"

"Ew! She smells like pee."

"She stuck her hand right down in the toilet!"

They all jeered at her, every last one of them. Hoping that Miss Yokota would stop them, Mayo looked up at her expectantly. But on Miss Yokota's mouth there was the trace of a smile. The teacher hated her. Even the teacher thought she was dirty. Miss Yokota wasn't her friend. She was on the side of all the other girls, all the bullies. Mayo felt terrible. So she walked out. She never wanted to go back to school again.

Right, left, right, left.
Mommy's magic trick still worked. Even after being jammed into the toilet, her sneakers glided smoothly over the pavement. If only she could keep on going till she got someplace far, far away. If only her sneakers would sprout wings and fly her up, up, and take her far, far away.

Would Miss Yokota call Daddy? Would Daddy be mean to her when he found out? Would he threaten to take her to Grandma's in Utsunomiya? Mayo didn't like Grandma in Utsunomiya. Grandma always said bad things about Mommy. But she said them about Daddy, too. She was Daddy's real mother, so how could she say bad things about him? Mayo couldn't understand. Grandma told her that both her mommy and her daddy were bad people. So Mayo, since she was their kid, figured she must be the worst kid ever. She should have never been born. So Mayo didn't want to go to Utsunomiya.

Right, left, right, left.
When she got home, she was going to draw. She was going to imagine a world where she wanted to be, and she was going to draw a picture of it. In the yard there was a pony and ducks and penguins. She wanted to play with a big shaggy dog. The house had big windows with pretty pink curtains. Ponies and ducks couldn't go in the house, but the dog could. The dog was her best friend, so Mommy and Daddy said it was okay. Everybody was smiling. Then Mayo got the idea to draw a baby, too! A cute little baby, a cute little baby brother. She would draw lots of flowers, because it was warm, and on the table she would draw a big pile of cookies, and in a little stream by the house she would draw little fishies. Mayo wanted to invite lots of friends to her world.

Today I'll think up a name for my dog.

Mayo's big, warm, friendly dog. A nice, smart dog, who would come up to her and lick her face. If anyone was mean to Mayo, her dog would teach them a lesson. Mayo wasn't afraid of the dog at all, but all the kids that bullied her would be scared stiff. He was big and strong, and always stuck up for her. She wanted a dog like that.

She started up the hill. When she had a library book, she read it as she climbed the hill. That made the same magic as staring at her sneakers. But today she had no book. So, dreading the long climb, she sighed. If she stopped going to school, she wouldn't have to climb this hill ever again. She wouldn't go back, that's all. Why should she? There was nothing fun about school.

Unless she came up with some kind of regimen—like stepping only on stones at the edge of the pavement, or making the distance from here to the telephone pole in twenty steps—she could never make it to the top. Today she decided to walk up in a zigzag. She would go back and forth between the telephone poles at either side of the road, walking diagonally. If she kept her mind focused on walking, she wouldn't be sad. She wouldn't cry, and she wouldn't think of Mommy or anyone else.

Ready, go.

There was hardly any traffic. Depending on the time of day there might be a few cars, but you never saw anyone walking here in the daytime. One boy from her class lived part-way up the hill, actually, but she hardly said anything to him. They never walked to or from school together. She knew what his mother looked like, but his mother had never called out to her.

Deciding which telephone pole she would walk toward, Mayo started off.
Right, left, right, left.
When she lifted her face, the telephone pole that had seemed so far away before loomed right in front of her. Mayo was surprised, and happy. It was like playing tag!

Reaching her first telephone pole, she changed direction and headed off toward the next. She passed several poles this way, when up ahead of her, she saw someone walking. Someone wearing a coat halfway between pink and orange, a dark skirt, black tights, and pulling a dark blue shopping cart. She had wavy brownish hair and was moving very, very slowly, like it was painful.
That lady doesn't know any magic.

Mayo stopped walking, gazed at the lady, then decided she'd copy the way the lady was walking, slowly, ploddingly, painfully. This was a stranger, and it might be someone she wouldn't like, so she stayed far behind. Just playing like this warmed Mayo's heart a little. It reminded her of walking with Mommy. But the lady was walking so slowly; Mayo had to fight the urge to run and catch up with her. She came to a thicket on the right, where the road leveled out a bit.

The lady got to the top of the hill and disappeared from Mayo's sight. Feeling suddenly lonely, Mayo walked faster. She had to get where she could see the other side of the hill; she didn't want to lose sight of the lady. When Mayo reached the top of the hill herself, she caught sight of the brown hair that was definitely the lady's. She was surprised to see how much the distance between them had shrunk. For some reason, she had the feeling she shouldn't get any closer. A cold wind was blowing at the top of the hill, drying the light sweat on Mayo's forehead. She had completely forgotten about her wet sneakers.

Mayo kept her eyes on the lady's back, allowing the distance between them to increase again, little by little. The lady seemed to be picking up speed, and now the distance between them was increasing faster than Mayo had figured on. If she wasn't careful, she might lose sight of her again. She started going straight forward—and that's when it happened. Something gray came leaping out of the thicket.

For a second, it stopped and looked at her. Mayo sort of gasped. It was a gray, dog-like creature. It was big, with standing-up ears and a long muzzle. There was black fur between its eyes and all around its forehead. From there to its big, black nose was a line of gray. The animal's eyes were small and shiny, and they stared straight at Mayo. Around the animal's neck was a ruffle of fur, and its body, which she first thought was gray, actually was kind of bluish. Around the long muzzle the fur was white, but everywhere else it was blue-gray, with a dull metallic sheen. The dog book Daddy gave her didn't have any dogs like this in it. Did the dog have a collar? She couldn't tell. But how beautiful it was! And how big! Its legs were really long. The dog stared at her and then, slowly, it blinked. In that instant, the creature that had seemed so magnificent, a canine king, became suddenly sweet and innocent.

Mayo wanted to run over and pet the dog. But before she could take a single step, the creature swung its head and walked away from her, as if it hadn't seen her. Mayo watched it go, fascinated by how it hung its head lower than its shoulders, how there was a black line along its back, how its long, bushy tail did not curl or stand up but stuck straight out behind. It stepped lightly, smoothly, fast, not bouncing along like an ordinary dog. Mayo stared at the creature, thinking it was sort of a dream.

The creature was going toward the lady with brown hair. Maybe it was the lady's dog. But the lady did not notice the dog any more than she had noticed Mayo. She continued to trudge along. The lady, the dog, and Mayo—the three of them not making a sound. But Mayo was still stopped in her tracks, and the creature was getting close to the lady. Mayo didn't want to be left behind.

Oh, what a beautiful, magnificent dog it was! At the moment that Mayo thought this, the creature leaped. Mayo had thought it was still a ways behind the lady, but in a single bound it landed right onto the lady's back. When it rose on its hind legs, just before it flew through the air, it was so tall that Mayo couldn't see the lady anymore. Then there was a
clank.
The lady's shopping cart toppled over. And in bewildered astonishment, Mayo dumbly watched everything that happened after that.

The lady put up no resistance. Even though a big creature like that had jumped up on her, she made no sound. The creature then crouched down by the lady's face and did something. The lady's body flopped around, and Mayo heard a crunching sound. Next, using its paws and nose, the creature rolled the lady over.

It didn't seem like the creature was playing. Mayo's knees suddenly begin to shake. She was scared. Something scary was happening before her eyes. It might have gone on for a very long time, or it might have been real fast. But the next thing she knew, the creature was looking back at her, one huge paw resting on the lady. It had something red in its mouth, and the fluffy fur around its neck, like a lion's mane only shorter, had red splatters. The lady with the brown hair was completely still.

"What did you do?" she murmured in a little voice. "You—"

Then the creature dropped what was in its mouth, bounded lightly over the lady's body, and ran. Even more nimbly and smoothly than before, like the wind. Its bushy tail swung back and forth, like a snow cloud come down to earth. It disappeared into the thicket without a sound.

Mayo could not be sure of what she had seen. From where she stood, she could see the lady lying and not moving. The legs that had been walking so very slowly were flung out at odd angles, like a broken doll's. Something warned her not to look, not to go near. Her heart pounded. The wonderful face of the animal when it gazed at her was burned into her memory. That was not a face that was mean. It was strong, and gentle, and dear. It had spoken to her: "This is our secret. Promise you won't tell." That was it, that must be it.

I didn't see anything. I don't know anything.

Saying the words to herself, Mayo turned toward the thicket the creature had disappeared into and nodded like they had a secret. It might be looking out at her from between the trees. Well, she'd promised. So now she did an about-face. Her legs were still shaking. But that surely was because her sneakers were wet. After all, she hadn't seen anything. She didn't know anything. Daddy said she lived in a dream world.
That's why the other kids make fun of you. You don't pay attention to what anybody says.
Maybe this was a dream, too. She hadn't heard any growling or howling. Or any other sounds. Just the
clank
when the lady's shopping cart fell over. But maybe that was her imagination, too.

A short way down this hill was a street branching off to the right. It was a narrow street, but it connected to another street, and even though it was a detour, it would take her home. Mayo decided to take the detour. When she got home, she would open her drawing book and draw a pretty, happy picture. A pony and some ducks and penguins in the yard—and a great big dog. Not one with shaggy fur, but silver, with big ears and a long face. A dog like that for sure was stronger than a regular white shaggy dog. It would watch over her. If anybody asked her about it, she would say she dreamed it. But nobody would ask. Daddy never looked at her pictures.