THE PHONE rang a few minutes after Kenji died. Sam’s heart jumped. After searching the neighborhood, he’d gone to the police. They’d ordered him to go home and wait by the telephone. Manny and Helen had continued the search, calling in frequently, hoping to hear May had turned up.
He picked up the phone. It was May’s aunt. Just after ten in the morning, she was already drunk. She hurled incoherent, long-distance abuse. Sam held the phone away from his ear and waited until she ran out of breath.
“May has disappeared,” he said.
“I know that, you bastard,” she shouted. “The cops were here at the crack of dawn looking for her. They accused us of doing something to the kid. What the fuck’s wrong with you? We’re her relatives for Christ’s sake.”
The police had asked if anyone had a grudge against him. Aside from Nakazono, the aunt and uncle had been the only other possibility. Sam didn’t see any need to apologize but he wanted to get off the phone.
“Yeah, OK. Sorry for the inconvenience. I gotta go, May might try to call.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath, if I were you,” she snarled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, buddy. Just ‘cause I ain’t got your precious little sister don’t mean I don’t know where she is. You get my drift?”
“Where is she?”
Drunk and petulant. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“If you’ve hurt her I promise I will—”
“Calm down, she’s OK, and if you want her back you better do exactly what I say. You listening?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, you get your ass down here. I got the transfer papers all drawn up. You sign that fucking building over to me and I hand over the kid. It’s as simple as pie.”
“All right, I’ll catch the first plane and—”
“And no more cops. You call the cops again and you’ll never see that brat again, I promise.”
Weekend travelers had jammed up all domestic flights. Sam didn’t touch down on Shikoku until a little after two. He rented a Nissan at the airport and drove into the city. The air conditioning controls were too cryptic to understand. Sweat ran off his face as he steered along ever-narrowing streets into the oldest section of Kochi. The shop was difficult to find and parking impossible.
A grandfather fanned himself on the balcony of a sagging wooden house. He chuckled as the stranger abandoned the car in a no-parking zone. “They might tow you away,” he warned.
Sam looked up and smiled. “It ain’t mine.”
The old man laughed. “That’s the spirit.”
It took thirty minutes to track down the shop. It was tucked in an alley so narrow his shoulders brushed the sides of the ramshackle wooden shops and houses. Rickety balconies blocked the sun. They hung at weird angles, like afterthoughts tacked on by men unfamiliar with tools.
The alley was crowded with women in bright, stained polyester. They squatted in the shade of their men’s handiwork and did laundry in wide tin buckets. Little girls watched their mothers obediently; their brothers tried to slip away.
Dark eyes tracked his progress, murmurs of surprise floated out from open windows. He slowly weaved his way between the women. Three small boys began to bray and poke each other as he approached. They pointed fingers and exclaimed, “Gaijin! Gaijin da!” The biggest loudest child dropped a clear plastic bag on the ground. The goldfish inside died of shock.
Sam rubbed dust off a small blue and white number plate. The address was correct but the shop appeared deserted. He peered through a window lettered with faded gold characters. The shop sold general merchandise—many things of little value and less interest. Shelves always in shadow and gloom were crammed with old-fashioned toys and stale candy. Off-brand cans of tuna and okra rusted and waited for the next most desperate shopper.
He rapped on the glass and slid open the door. A small brown rat backed out of a burlap bag of grain on the highest shelf. It stared down at Sam with cherry eyes, twitched its whiskers, and burrowed back into the bag. A dented ice cream freezer hummed near the door. He walked toward the back of the shop, his footsteps lifting dust into the air. It smelled centuries old and clung to the sweat on his face and arms. Claws skittered in the shadows and something ran over his boots. He fell back, knocking a jar of mayonnaise off a shelf. It shattered on the concrete floor with a loud pop.
Sam turned to leave, intending to find a telephone. He heard noises overhead. Footsteps, voices growing louder and finally the creak of rusty hinges. A shaft of light spilled into the shop. He stood transfixed, like a deer frightened on a nighttime highway.
His heart banged against his ribs. He looked up amazed and speechless. May’s aunt was hanging upside down from the ceiling. Her mouth and nose were inverted, her gray hair dangled dirty and free.
“Awww, it’s not a robber, you fool,” she shouted. “It’s the brat’s brother.” She pierced him with a pair of upside-down eyes. “You used the wrong door, dummy.”
The outline of a trapdoor came into focus. Sam shook his head and demanded to see May.
“Shit,” she muttered. A rope ladder with wooden rungs clattered through the hole in the ceiling. It grazed Sam’s head as he jumped to the side.
“Watch out,” she laughed.
The trapdoor led into a squalid kitchen. Black iron pots and pans hung from hooks over a sink jammed with dishes left to mold. Sam followed her into the parlor. It was a six-mat tatami room. A 29-inch television set was the centerpiece. Purple and white zabuton cushions lay beneath a low wooden table. An ancient black fan buzzed in the corner. Clogged with dust, it did little to cool the room. Sliding paper-and-wood shoji opened on a narrow balcony.
“Turn that off,” the old lady snapped.
Her husband was hunched behind the table watching a ball game between the Carp and the Dragons. He wore a formal black kimono, apparently to mark the solemnity of the occasion. Clean and starched, it only drew attention to a ring of dirt around his neck and a fiery boil erupting in the corner of his forehead. He petulantly zapped the TV, climbed to his feet and bowed. While he mumbled a greeting, his wife clucked about, kicking fat comic books and beer cans into corners.
Sam smiled. Though kidnappers and extortionists, the aunt and uncle were still captives of obligation. A guest was a guest. Muttering in the incomprehensible Kochi dialect, she yanked a spare zabuton from beneath a pile of dirty laundry and skimmed it across the tatami.
“Clean off the table,” she ordered, and disappeared into the kitchen.
The uncle looked at the table uncertainly. It was covered with leavings from lunch—mismatched dishes, beer bottles, rice bowls and a TV guide. His eyes were watery from too much beer and the acidic stench of a nearby squat toilet. He shrugged, swept his arm over the table and knocked everything to the tatami. The TV guide refused to budge. It lay glued to the table in a puddle of spilled beer. The old man grinned at Sam, unpeeled it page by page and tossed it over the balcony to the alley below.
May’s aunt returned with a tray. Badgering her husband into a kimono had sapped all her strength. Her own kimono lay on a pile of futons in the bedroom. She’d struggled for twenty minutes to tie the obi and had given up.
Sam stepped out on the balcony and watched as she bent to set a teapot and cups on the table. Her black lace slip fell away to expose small wrinkled breasts; her bald spot seemed more pronounced than ever.
“Sit,” she commanded, pointing at a zabuton by her side. Sam knelt on the cushion and waited impatiently as she poured the tea. He considered violence. While it could speed up negotiations, it could just as easily set off a chain of events he couldn’t control.
He sipped his tea and wished she’d served beer. There must be plenty of it around. The room was terribly hot. An old-fashioned thermometer hung on the wall. The mercury hovered above 100 degrees. He wiped at sweat pouring off his face and watched the uncle crawl across the tatami and retrieve a sheaf of papers from a low bureau. He placed it on the table and bowed from the waist.
The aunt wasn’t as polite. She poked him in the ribs with her elbow and growled, “Sign it or you ain’t ever gonna see that kid again.”
The document had been drawn up by a local attorney and seemed to have all the stamps and seals in the proper places. He flipped it back on the table. “This is worthless. You know that, don’t you?”
“I told you, I told you,” the uncle whined.
“Shut up. It ain’t worthless. The lawyer said it’s legal, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but—”
Sam let the pair squabble until he tired of their voices. He held up his hand. “Wait. Let’s try to be reasonable. That contract is only legal as long as I don’t contest it. If I do, the courts will declare it invalid. No judge is going to hold me to a contract signed under duress. That’s a guarantee.”
“Duress? What duress,” the aunt objected. “I served you tea, didn’t I?”
“Kidnapping is usually considered duress.”
“She’s my niece—”
“And it’s also a serious crime. You both could go to jail.”
The old man squirmed. “Jail?”
“However,” Sam said, “I think we can reach an agreement. I’ll give you three million yen if you return May to me today and relinquish all further claims to my property.”
“I don’t know...” The uncle hesitated and fumbled for a cigarette.
Sam pushed a pink disposable lighter across the table. “How about it, uncle? That’ll buy a lot of sushi and beer.”
“OK, sounds good to me.”
The aunt exploded. “Not OK! Not OK!” She jumped to her feet. “Never! I’ll let that brat rot first.”
Sam turned and stared. She was hopping from one foot to the other. Neither seemed able to support her weight.
“Arrgh,” she howled, both feet fast asleep. She jerked across the floor and fell flat on her ass.
The old man laughed and slapped his thighs in pleasure. Sam shook his head in pure wonderment. He wished Helen had come with him. She’d have enjoyed this. The sight of his wife was too much for the uncle. He coughed, he drooled, he fell over on his side.
Sam got to his feet. “That’s enough. I’ve been more than patient with you crazy assholes.” He picked the old woman up by an ankle and carried her upside down into the kitchen. Her screaming threatened to shatter dishes in the sink as he lowered her head-first through the trapdoor. “Tell me where my sister is or I let go.”
“Do something,” she screamed at her husband.
The uncle stopped laughing, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and crossed the room. He squatted next to the trapdoor and looked over the side.
“I’m going to count to three and then drop her,” Sam warned.
“Do you think it’ll kill her?” the old man asked wistfully. He stood and pulled a beer from the refrigerator. “Is it far enough? I mean she’ll land on her head but—”
May’s aunt kicked and screamed. “I’m gonna rip your lungs out, you old bastard. I’m gonna make you miserable for the rest of your fucking life.”
“Shit,” he muttered, taking a swig on a can of Sapporo. “I guess I can’t take the chance.” The can clattered to the floor and he disappeared back into the parlor.
Sam was trying to think of a new plan when he returned. He had a gun in his hand. It was a fat black Nambu revolver, a relic favored by the Imperial Army during the Pacific War. He looked depressed. “I guess the three-million-yen deal ain’t ever gonna work. I gotta live with her every day. You got no idea what it’s like.”
“All right, fine,” Sam whispered. “Just put the gun down. I’ll sign your paper.”
“Shoot him, shoot him,” May’s aunt shrieked, still dangling from Sam’s fist. “Kill him and we get everything. Do it. Do it, now!”
Her husband nodded. At least it would shut her up. He didn’t much care what happened after that.
“Wait, you idiot! Get me out of here first.”
Too late. He closed his eyes, pointed the pistol at Sam’s chest and pulled the trigger.
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