Grotesque (62 page)

“I’m not proud. I just don’t know what else to show you.”

3 9 0

G R O T E S Q U E

I really didn’t know. Somehow I couldn’t articulate how my school-age goals, my current pride, and the firm that should have been the source of my identity had something in common with her missing breast. But it did seem that the thing we are most proud of and the thing we are most ashamed.of are but the front and back of the same coin. They torture and thrill all at once.

The Marlboro Hag lit a cigarette. A man was heading in our direction.

He had on a gray suit, white shirt, and black shoes. Looked like an office worker from the sticks. Even his eyebrows were droopy.

“Let’s make a wager,” I said. “The one who can get that man to buy her gets to stand here.”

“Fine, but he’s one of my regulars.”

The Marlboro Hag smiled like she had gotten the best of me.

“Hey!” the man called out to her. No one ever came by this way, so any woman waiting there was an easy buy. It was stupid. But even so it looked like the Marlboro Hag had a surprising number of regulars.

That’s why I was determined to win her spot.

“Mr. Eguchi,” the Marlboro Hag called to the man.

“How’re you doing tonight?” The man called Eguchi looked at me without smiling. Determined not to lose, I propositioned him.

“Want to fool around?”

“Who’s this?”

“A new kid. I didn’t have the heart to chase her away,” the Marlboro Hag answered, as she straightened her wig.

“Mr. Eguchi, how about it?” I went on.

Eguchi knitted his droopy eyebrows and thought it over. He looked like he was in his late fifties. The Marlboro Hag thought she had the contest sewn up. She laughed and said, “She really is pushy.”

“I’ll give you a discount,” I blurted out, without even thinking.

Eguchi responded immediately. “In that case, I’ll buy you.”

The Marlboro Hag picked up her shoulder bag and frowned.

“You’re really a cold bastard, Eguchi. She doesn’t have what I have, you know.”

“Well, a change does everybody good now and then.”

I felt triumphant. I handed the Hag the carton of cigarettes. She took it with a look of resignation, but then a smile washed over her face. This annoyed me.

“What’s so funny?”

3 9 i

N A T S U O K I R I NO

“Oh, nothing. But you’ll see, sooner or later,” she mumbled to herself.

Well, you should know; it’s time for you to retire, you old bitch, I grumbled in my heart. Ha! I won!

“Feel free to stay here until I get back,” I said cavalierly, as I linked my arm in Eguchi s. His arm was thick for his age and muscular.

“That place’ll be good. It’s cheap.”

Eguchi pointed to the hotel where I’d gone earlier with Arai. It was the cheapest love hotel in the area. It seemed Eguchi knew his way around.

“How long have you been standing on corners?”

“Since tonight. I’ve taken over the Marlboro Hag’s turf, so I hope to keep your patronage.”

“Well, you work fast. What’s your name?”

“Yuri.”

We continued to chat as we stepped into the tiny elevator. Eguchi’s eyes were full of curiosity as he looked at me. Eguchi, Yoshizaki, Arai—

they were all the same. And now they were my regulars. I felt my mood grow buoyant, realizing I was doing pretty well in the business.

We went in the same room Arai and I had used. It had just been a few days ago, but I ran the water in the bath as if I’d never been there before and took out two glasses. Then I pulled a bottle of beer out of the minibar and opened it. Eguchi sat on the bed and watched what I was doing.

He looked displeased.

“Don’t bother with that now. Help me with my clothes.”

“Yes, sir, right away.”

I looked at Eguchi in surprise. He was angry and his face had turned red. I wondered if he was going to be a difficult customer. What if he were dangerous? I tried to remember the names of the men who had been listed in the hotel agency as troublemakers.

“Hurry up!” Eguchi shouted. I helped him out of his suit jacket, still reeling in shock. I wasn’t used to doing it, and I didn’t do a very good job.

The smell of his cheap pomade was sickening. I folded his threadbare shirt and trousers on a hanger and hung them up. Once he was down to his baggy undershirt and his yellowed briefs, he pointed down at his feet.

“Hey, you forgot my socks!”

“Oh, sorry.”

When I’d pulled off his socks, Eguchi stood there in his underwear 3 9 2

G R O T E S Q U E

with his arms crossed and his legs spread apart like he was the frigging King of Siam.

“Well, get a move on!”

When I looked up at him to see what it was he wanted, he slapped me hard on my cheek. Instinctively I tried to defend myself.

“Don’t be so violent!”

“Shut up, bitch, and get your clothes off. I want you naked and standing on the bed.”

He was a sadist. Was he into some kind of sick game? Just my luck to pick a sicko for a customer, I thought. I trembled as I took my clothes off.

When I was completely naked I climbed up on the bed and stood there, terrified. When Eguchi barked his command, I thought my ears were deceiving me.

“Let me see you shit.”

• 5 •

DECEMBER 2

SHIBUYA: YY, ¥40,000

SHIBUYA: HOMELESS GUY(?) ¥8,000

Once I started standing in front of the Jizo statue, I was happy. Of course there were times when the cook at the restaurant across the way would throw water at me or passersby would hurl insults, but the sensation of actually making my way through the world on my own, with my own body, was something I never got to experience at my day job. And I was thrilled to be able to bank all the money I earned and not have someone else skimming off my profits. This, I believed, was precisely what it meant to be in business. No doubt about it, the Marlboro Hag had enjoyed it so much, she hadn’t wanted to quit.

I really hadn’t expected the old bag to relinquish her turf so readily.

3 9 3

N A T S U O K I R I NO

After I left Eguchi that night I headed straight back to the Jizo statue.

Eguchi had been such a disgusting sadist, I was certain the Marlboro Hag had tricked me into going off with him.

“What a pervert!” I exclaimed when I saw her. She was squatting down on the roadside like a child and drawing something with a rock.

The sound the rock made dragging over the asphalt was like fingernails on a blackboard. She looked up when she heard me and laughed.

“So did ya do it?”

“I did, and I imagine I won’t be permitted back in that hotel anytime soon!”

“Well, you’re braver than I am,” she said, as she got to her feet. “If you want my turf, you can have it.” It all seemed a little too easy.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’ve had enough. I can’t keep up with Eguchi’s demands. I think this means it’s time for me to retire.”

The next night the Marlboro Hag was not to be found in front of the Jizo statue. Such a smooth exit and such a stunning debut. It was all so laughable.

But even so, working the corner all night long was hard, and I was always exhausted the next day at the firm. The upshot was that I hardly did any real work. About all I did was clip interesting articles from the economics newspapers. I figured I could give them to Yoshizaki. Since I didn’t have to pay for the photocopies, I copied all the articles and compiled them into scrapbooks. Soon I had enough to fill three notebooks.

Other than that I wrote seductive letters, birthday cards, and other such notes, all the while pretending to be hard at work on my reports. Moreover, I made a habit of slipping out of the research office and taking naps in the empty conference room just as before. And since my own desk was covered in mountains of papers, I ate my lunch in the ladies’ restroom.

People in the office began to avoid me more and more. Once while I was in the elevator I overheard a woman whisper behind me, “I hear she’s known as the office ghost.” But I really didn’t care what anyone else thought of me. I was only real at night. The hope of achieving a balance was now just a farce.

One day in December after I had met Yoshizaki and had holed up with him in a hotel, I was walking back to my spot in front of the Jizo statue when I pulled my wallet out of my shoulder bag and gave it an appraising squeeze. I was content. Yoshizaki gave me ¥30,000 each time 3 9 4

G R O T E S Q U E

we met, but tonight, after I gave him the scrapbook full of clippings that I had made him as a present, he gave me an extra ¥10,000. With a reaction like that, I was determined to continue clipping articles for him.

That’s when I noticed that a man was already standing in front of the Jizo.

“Hey, girlie.”

He was wearing black pleated pants with a white bomber jacket. A lion was embroidered in gold thread on the front of the jacket. His hair was close-cropped. I picked up the pace, thinking I had a customer.

“Were you waiting for me?” I asked cheerily. “Want to fool around?”

“Fool around? With you?”

The man laughed derisively and ran his hands through his short hair.

“I don’t charge that much.”

“Just hold up a minute. You don’t know who I am, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

The man thrust both hands into his pants pockets causing the front of his pants to swell up like a paper lantern.

“I’m with the Shoto Organization that runs these parts. You’re new, aren’t you? We got word down at the office that there was a new girl in front of the Jizo, so I came by to check it out. How long have you been here?”

Once I realized he was a member of a yakuza gang who had come to extort money from me, I put up my guard and took a few steps back. But his whole demeanor and his manner of speech were surprisingly gentle.

“I’ve been here for two months. I took over from the Marlboro Hag.”

“That old lady? She’s dead, you know.”

“No kidding? How’d she die?”

“I guess she was sick, wasn’t she. It got so bad that she couldn’t even stand here.”

The man answered brusquely as if it were clearly no concern of his.

“But that’s yesterday’s news. What’s more important is for you to think about counting on my organization for protection. It’s dangerous out here for a woman alone. Why just the other day a hotel call girl was roughed up bad by her customer. He smashed her skull in. You look the wrong way at some of these fellows and they go ballistic. It’s too dangerous for a woman without protection.”

“Thanks, but I’m fine.”

I clutched my bag, worried about my money, and shook my head.

3 9 5

N A T S U O K I R I NO

“You think that now because you haven’t seen what I’ve seen. But it just takes one bad customer and then it’s too late. My organization will look out for you. And it’ll only cost you fifty thousand yen a month.

Cheap, don’t you think?”

Fifty thousand yen? He had to be kidding! There was no way I’d agree to that.

“I’m very sorry, but I don’t make enough to cover your fee. I can’t afford to pay fifty thousand yen.”

The yakuza looked me square in the face. I could tell he was trying to size me up, so I held his gaze. That made him laugh.

“All right then. Let’s just see how it goes. I’ll let you think it over. But you’ll be hearing from me again.”

“Got it.”

The yakuza headed down the street toward Shinsen Station. I knew he’d be back. There had to be some way I could get out of this, I thought to myself, running my tongue over my lips. It shouldn’t have surprised me that the yakuza would try to horn in on someone working alone. I assumed they were testing me. I pulled my notebook out and in the darkness tried to add up the money I’d made over the last two months. It came to about ¥50,000 a month. I certainly didn’t want to see all that going to the yakuza. I was reluctant because I was still only halfway to meeting my goal of a hundred million yen.

“Hey, you! Are you in business or what?”

I was so engrossed in adding up my income that I failed to notice the man standing right in front of me. For a minute I thought the yakuza had come back with his buddies, and I looked around suspiciously. But the man standing in front of me was clearly a homeless person. He was around fifty with a blackish coat over a pair of gray uniform-type pants.

He held two grimy-looking cloth bags and was pulling a rickety shopping cart.

“I’m in business.” I hastily stashed my notebook in my bag.

“What happened to the old lady who used to be here?”

“She died. She was sick.”

The homeless man gasped. “You’re kidding! I miss coming by one time and then she’s dead, just like that? She was a nice lady too. Real land.”

“Mister, were you one of the Marlboro Hag’s customers? If so, I can take care of you.”

3 9 6

G R O T E S Q U E

“Really?”

“You’re homeless, aren’t you?”

The clothes the man was wearing were not as filthy as the stuff he was carting around. The man flinched when he heard my question and hung his head,

“Yeah. So what?”

“I don’t mind.”

Homeless or not, a customer was a customer. I nodded to him again in agreement and started to make arrangements. The man let out a sigh of relief and surveyed the area around him.

“The thing is, I don’t have any money for a hotel, so the old lady would do me in an empty lot by the station.”

An empty lot? This was a bit much, but if we could just get it over without a fuss I figured it wouldn’t be too bad. So long as money changes hands, who cares where it happens?

“How much will you pay?”

“About eight thousand.”

“How much did you pay the old woman?”

“Sometimes three thousand, sometimes five. But you’re young. I’d feel bad if I didn’t pay a bit more.”

It was nice to hear someone call me young. I held up eight fingers, my spirits boosted.

“Okay, then. Eight it is.”

We headed off toward Shinsen Station side by side. When we got to a level spot overlooking the station, about halfway up the hillside, there was an open lot. It looked like it had been cleared for a new building.