Zen Attitude (12 page)

Angus was sitting at the bar, and when he saw us, he gave an exaggerated wave. “Dad and Mum. Thanks for coming.” He had a little bit of blood running from his puffed-up lip. Someone had hit him.

The bouncer who had been guarding him stepped aside slightly and addressed Hugh. “The bastard who tried to run out on his tab is related to you?”

“I’m here to settle the bill, nothing else,” Hugh replied. His grip on my hand had tightened painfully. He was making an effort to control himself.

“He’s lucky Kozo knows you. I’d have sent him through the wall if he hadn’t stopped me.”

“And then you’d be facing a lawsuit,” Hugh said tersely. “Your job’s done. Why don’t you leave?”

“Hugh-san, my apology.” Kozo ran up to us and bowed, an incongruous vision of old Japanese etiquette in a strobe-lit jungle. “I am certain your brother did not understand our prices. . . .”

“A bunch of people swarmed around me and started ordering drinks. I assumed everyone was in for himself, but it didn’t turn out that way.”

“What happened to your Japanese friends?” I asked. The young women had been well dressed; I was sure they had money.

“Who? Oh, you mean those chicks from the train. They went home hours ago, said they didn’t like the vibe.”

“Kozo, what’s the damage?” Hugh asked.

“Eleven thousand yen.”

“I’ll throw in an extra tenner for the trouble caused to you and any other inconvenienced members of the staff. Excepting, of course, the bastard who hit my brother.”

There was some rumbling from the bouncer, but following a sharp glance from Kozo, he went back to the door.

“So, you want a drink?” Angus asked Hugh in a slurred voice.

The show of wrath I expected never appeared. Instead, my lover sighed and said, “Very much so. Let’s go to the flat.”

All Hugh said to Angus on the way home was that he should put an ice pack on his eye if he wanted to look remotely decent for the party. He said nothing about the debt or how Angus had managed to get himself in such a stupid situation.

“This town is too much—a thousand yen for Budweiser! That’s eight dollars U.S. It was fifty cents a beer in Thailand. I should have stayed there. Within a week I’ll be skint,” Angus complained from the backseat.

“None of that, brother. I’m glad you came.” Hugh elbowed me in the ribs, encouraging me to say something. “And as for not having enough money, I’ll lend you my cash card so you won’t be in an emergency situation again.”

“A cash card would be brilliant. What’s the code? Could you give it to me now?”

“How long are you staying?” I asked Angus without turning to look at him.

“As long as I’m having fun!”

“Maybe you could get a job.” His diction was so poor he couldn’t teach English conversation, and he didn’t speak enough Japanese to wait tables. But beneath the grime, he had Glendinning good looks. I had it suddenly. “You could model! I have a friend at a good agency, and I bet that Hugh’s lawyer Mr. Ota could set up a work visa for you.”

“I’m hardly the fly guy type,” Angus snickered.

“Don’t worry about his working, Rei,” Hugh said with unusual sharpness. “Like all men, Angus will have the rest of his life to worry about earning. I’ll take care of him for the time being.”

Like all men.
Were Hugh’s words merely sexist, or more of a direct jab at me? Even though I was self-employed, he paid most of the household bills. Feeling both furious and ashamed, I started pulling on my door handle to get out the minute Hugh parked the Windom in its garage space.

“Hang on.” Hugh pushed a lever on the door on his side, releasing the lock.

“Neato,” Angus said. “The two of you can play all night, but will you let me go?”

“No. You’re going to like this, Rei. I’ve figured something out!” Hugh took me by the shoulders and kissed me, the last thing I expected.

“If you’re going to snog, I’m leaving,” Angus said, jumping out. I watched him go to the building entrance and get in using the key I’d given him. Now we were alone.

“Rei, don’t you see? This could have happened at Ueno Park. Young Elvis—Jun Kuroi, I mean—power-locked the doors, which meant, to him, that Sakai couldn’t get out. But while he was left alone in the car, Sakai figured things out. He only had to move the lever on the driver’s side to unlock the car.”

“And Nao Sakai let the killer in?”

“Maybe. This puts new light on the situation, doesn’t it? I’ll ring Mr. Ota tomorrow.” Sounding satisfied, Hugh flipped the lock so I could open my door.

“Why do you care?” I asked. “Two days ago you said Jun was a fiendish killer.”

“Not in those words, and I’ve been reading about him in the papers. It turns out he’s just twenty, Angus’s age. I guess the big brother in me is kicking in.”

“Or gone into overdrive!” The comparison of my friend to his spoiled brother rankled.

Hugh sighed. “Not having siblings of your own, I don’t expect you to understand. All I ask is that you refrain from trying to discipline my brother.”

I was glad that Hugh was going to urge Mr. Ota to help Jun, but I felt pretty injured that he thought I’d been trying to boss Angus around. I replayed how I might have handled the situation better as I lay trying to go to sleep, but didn’t get much rest. Awake at 5:30
A
.
M
., I watched the sky outside the window lighten. I imagined the feeling of cool morning air on my skin. Suddenly I had to get out.

I dressed quickly in the shorts I’d rinsed out the night before, plus a fresh undershirt from Hugh’s drawer. In the entryway I put on my sneakers and grabbed my Sony Walkman off the coffee table. My Echo and the Bunnymen tape had been replaced with Nine Inch Nails. I didn’t want to spend time looking for the right tape, so I went out. When I started moving, I found that the gloomy, industrial beat matched my mood.

The sun was rising over Roppongi—fortunately for me, because the sidewalk was still littered with beer cans, discarded paper fliers, and take-out food wrappers, the detritus of a Friday night. The longer I lived in the neighborhood, the more I disliked its status as the city’s nightlife center. When Hugh had first leased his apartment, the area had been known for classy international restaurants and discos, but now you couldn’t walk two blocks without seeing an “image club” where men paid for the chance to undress faux schoolgirls. These days, the slogan emblazoned on the overpass at Roppongi Crossing—H
IGH
T
OUCH
T
OWN
—could be read as a nasty double entendre.

After a dreadful sprint to beat the traffic lined up at the crossing, I slowed down on the other side of Gaien Higashi-dori and fell into a meditative state. Tonight was my big cocktail party. At six o’clock the hordes would descend. I would greet them all by name while supervising the caterers and trying to sell my wares.
“How are you?”
I imagined people asking. I couldn’t tell them how bad things were.

Approaching Nogizaka Station, I had to dodge early commuters. Most of Japan worked at least a half day on Saturday; I thought about the Middle Eastern man who had lent me the telephone card in Ueno. Maybe he slept there at night. If I could find him, I might learn something that could help Jun. Glad for an excuse to stop running, I reached into my shorts pocket for change and headed down the subway stairs.

To my disappointment, Ueno Park was deserted except for foreign backpackers sleeping on benches and a group of senior citizens performing
tai chi
exercises. My antiques-dealing friend Mr. Ishida was in their midst; I waved, but he didn’t break his pose.

I wasn’t going to find the man in the park, so I decided to head into Ameyoko Alley to buy a cup of coffee. Since it was now past 7
A
.
M
., a few places had their doors open. I wandered awhile, looking for the cheapest menu, when I was startled by one called Old Tehran that was decorated with a red and green flag.

Inside, four dark-haired, foreign men sat at a vinyl-covered table. In front of each was a super-tiny coffee cup. A thick, almost chocolatey aroma wafted toward me, and I felt my stomach growl.

I didn’t remember much about the man who had helped me except for his scar. I made a slight bow to the group and began speaking in slow Japanese.

“Telephone cards? I don’t know what you mean. I’m just here having breakfast.” A lean young man in his early twenties ran his hand through his short, curly hair and looked at me. I could swear he was the man who had offered me ten cards for two thousand yen, but I didn’t have the nerve to say that.

“This man was very helpful to me, do you understand? He lent me his telephone card, and it’s still got forty units on it.” I fished the card out of my pocket and stretched it out, a slim piece of plastic decorated with two cuddling kittens.

The young man took the card in hand and looked it over quickly. “It’s a new card, not recycled. I can tell from where it’s been punched along the side.”

“Good. I just want to give it back to the right man.”

“Everyone carries telephone cards. How do you expect us to know who had this one?” one of his companions grumbled. “And how do we know you’re not police?”

“They aren’t forced to carry ID like this.” I offered my alien registration card, and as it passed from one work-weathered hand to another, the thought flashed through me that I might not get it back. Legitimate registration cards allowed you to work, and were coveted by those the government would rather keep out. Maybe someone’s wife or girlfriend would wind up with my card. Where was the shop’s proprietor, anyway? In the two minutes I’d been in the brightly lit café, I was getting spooked.

“So you are also a foreigner? Your name is Japanese.” The oldest man in the group cocked his head and looked at me more closely.

“Yes, I’m from the States,” I said, keeping my eyes on my card.

“Which part? My brother has a Persian restaurant in New York, Upper East Side.”

“I don’t know New York. I’m from San Francisco.” This elicited some discussion among the crowd, none of which I understood. My registration card traveled back though the rough hands and was placed in my palm.

“The telephone card—you say someone lent it to you? On which night?” someone else asked.

“Last Wednesday night,” I answered.

“The night of the killing. It was bad for all of us. Hassan was kicked around by a fascist policeman.”

The wide blue curtain that had obscured the cafe kitchen from view moved, and a voice said in English, “I remember her.”

The scar-faced man emerged wearing a clean white apron over a short-sleeved shirt and blue jeans.

“My name is Rei Shimura. Are you Hassan?” I asked with a tremendous rush of guilt.

“No, I am called Mohsen. It was not necessary for you to return my card, but thank you anyway.”

“I needed to call the police. I never expected them to hassle any of you. I wish I’d gone in the other direction. . . . I’m sorry.”

“Where else could you have gone?” Mohsen asked wryly. “That street had no exit. Everyone who comes and goes must pass the park.”

“Do you recall seeing anyone walking that way before I did?”

“Sure. But no one who looked dangerous.”

“Would you tell me what they looked like, anyway? This is worth a lot to me.” I lowered my voice, although there was no escaping the attention of the men at the table.

“What are you going to give? Five thousand yen, what I earn washing coffee cups twelve hours a day?” He laughed bitterly.

“I don’t mean to offend you—”

“There is no secret! I had nothing to do with it!” Mohsen sounded exasperated.

“My friend is in trouble. I need to know who you saw for his sake.”

He hesitated, then said, “I saw an older man I recognized from the neighborhood because he spits at me. There were three children, all in school uniform. There was also a Japanese woman. She was odd—she wore a bright
kimono
and an old-fashioned hairstyle like the performers in the music groups that walk around sometimes.”

“Chindonya,”
I said, thinking of the traveling band I’d seen on Thursday. “Did the woman have a mole?”

“There was no pet with her.”

“I mean a black birthmark. On the lady’s nose.” I pointed to mine for emphasis.

“Who could tell? Her face was covered with white makeup. That’s why I could not tell the age.”

The costume made complete sense; in this old section of Tokyo, whoever had worn it could pass as someone working in a tourist shop or restaurant or even, as Mohsen suggested, a musician.

“That’s interesting information. I wish I could do something for you,” I said to Mohsen.

“Why? You have returned my card. Your mission is complete.”

Something about his excellent English and his manners made me hesitate. “You are from Iran? What kind of job did you have there?”

“I studied accounting. After university I had hoped to work for a firm in Tehran, but our economy was very bad. There were no jobs, so I came here.”

He came to sweat through life as a 3K worker, enduring insults and spitting from locals. It wasn’t fair. “Mohsen, how late do you work tonight?”

“The café closes at seven. Why?”

“I’m having a party. There will be a number of businessmen, Japanese and foreign. Maybe . . .”

“You think they may decide they like me and offer to sponsor me for the work visa? You really are a crazy girl.”

I shrugged. “There are no guarantees. If worse comes to worst, you’ll have a nice
sashimi
dinner.”

We were teetering on the edge of something, our roles as legal and illegal foreigners transcended. Having talked with Mohsen and his group, I would never again automatically use my hands to give the X of refusal when approached. I would listen to them, as they had listened to me.

“Sashimi.
I’ve never had it.” Mohsen sounded thoughtful.

“You either love it or hate it!” I said, knowing now that he’d come.

There are only so many ways to carve an ice fish. I said as much to Miss Wada, who was still tinkering with the tail of the frosty centerpiece at six o’clock. The concierge had telephoned that the first wave of guests was on its way up, and I was on the sofa, drinking my first glass of wine and trying to forget an argument with Hugh.