The Salaryman's Wife (34 page)

“Wait a minute.” I needed to hold on to the idea that was beginning to emerge. Why hadn’t I seen it before?

“What are you looking at?” Waka-san came out from behind his cauldron of
oden
and looked over my shoulder. “A letter from America?”

“This letter is addressed in care of the post office in Kawasaki.”

“Sure. There’s a private post office box number right there.”

I had gone to Kawasaki looking for a house when the post office was what I’d needed to find all along. The post office, which was probably harboring more mail for Setsuko, the last vital clue to her past.

“I didn’t know people in Japan even used post office boxes.”

“It’s unusual,” Mr. Waka nodded. “However, many people use the post office for their savings accounts—same rates as the bank and right in the neighborhood!”

“I bank at Sanwa,” I said absently. “I’ve got to go there now—it closes at noon—”

“You’re going to Sanwa Bank?”

“No, the post office!”

“What about your fax?” Mr. Waka asked.

“Could you put it through for me? I’ll pay you when I get back.”

“But this is an international telephone number! I can only fax domestically.” He sucked the air between his teeth, the quintessential can’t-do it gesture.

“What?” I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Please. Can’t you re-set the fax? I’ll pay anything.”

“If I reprogram this, it will be so much trouble—”

“Waka-san, when everything works out the
Yomiuri
will be interviewing
you
.”

I put the pages in the proper order with a short note that included my telephone number.
I hope I’m not ruining your life
, I wrote and signed my name.

As I hurried through the tidy gray streets of Kawasaki, I thought about how the post office was a perfectly logical place for Setsuko to conduct her private mail liaison. It was a convenient stop on the way from Hayama to Tokyo, yet devoid of any chance of running into the neighbors. And she’d kept it for years, shielding her father from the knowledge she’d moved to a very pricey neighborhood.

I’d affixed my wig ahead of time, and riding the bus to the post office, my shiny tresses received a few approving glances. I hoped people would believe a
woman my age was likely to have her own mailbox. Post Office Barbie, I thought.

I roamed the post office briefly before I saw the steel block of mailboxes with combination locks. When I located box 63992, I began twisting the dial. It didn’t work. I tried the combination six times before breaking down and taking the code out of my handbag to look at it again. Was there some trick in Japan? Weren’t all combinations right-left-right, the way every gym locker in my lifetime had worked?

Other customers were beginning to watch my struggle, so I gave up and went as innocently as I could to the main desk. I took a number and waited my turn with the others. It was a quarter to twelve when I was called up front.

“Excuse me, but I’m having some trouble getting into my post office box.” I threw up my hands as if that were the silliest thing in the world.

“Box number?” The clerk wearing a trainee button pulled a metal box with index cards from under the counter. Uncomputerized, as much of Japan still was.

“Six-three-nine-nine-two,” I said.

The woman rummaged for a minute, came up with a card, and read it with a sober expression. “Mrs. Ozawa, your box is closed because the last two months’ rent was not paid.”

“I’m sorry, I was away,” I said, which was true enough. “What do I owe you?”

“Eight-thousand yen.”

I winced at the figure and dug fruitlessly into my bag for cash. Why hadn’t I stopped at my bank first?

“I’m sorry, I don’t have that much money with me.” And even if the Japanese post office accepted charge cards, mine said Rei Shimura.

The clerk looked surprisingly sympathetic. “If you like, we could start automatic deductions from your savings account. That way you won’t have this problem again.”

“My savings account?” I asked, feeling slightly giddy. “What a great idea!”

“I can fill out the application for you now—”

She scribbled on a form laden with
kanji
and pushed it toward me. As I took out a pen she made a command that stopped me cold.

“You must use your
hanko
.”

I would have looked for Setsuko Nakamura’s name seal in her house if I had known what was coming. As it was, I’d have to bluff and use my own. If I could somehow manage to blur the seal, it might go unnoticed.

I took out my seal and plunged it into the plush ink pad set on the counter. Then I stamped where she indicated, applying more pressure than needed. What I’d made looked like a Rorschach blot; it was pretty hard to make out that it said anything. To my relief the clerk just filed it and gave me a receipt. I stared down at the paper, reading Setsuko’s remaining account balance: 3.2 million yen. Here was the result of all those traded-back dresses, safe from her husband’s hands.

“We’ll take the interior lock off the mailbox, and on Monday you can use it again. In the meantime, here’s a claim slip for your mail. Go to counter number five.”

I obeyed her, noting that it was now five minutes to noon and almost everyone was gone. There were two customers waiting ahead of me in line when the public address system began playing “Auld Lang Syne.” The clerk slapped a closed sign on the counter, and the smattering of customers dispersed. I went straight up to the counter.

“I’m sorry, maybe
okyaku-sama
didn’t hear we are closed.” Even though the male clerk was referring to me as an honorable customer, his tone was decidedly starchy.

“I cannot leave until I pick up my mail.” I placed the claim slip in front of him.

“This section is closed,” he repeated.

I didn’t move until he finally shrugged and walked off with my slip. He came back with a slim packet of letters. “Next time, come before the last minute, please.”

I thanked him profusely with a toss of my plastic mane and hurried out the post office, scanning the envelopes. Two were addressed in Japanese and one was in English, from a Miami law firm called Mulroney, Simms, and Schweiger.

I wanted to read the English letter fast. I ran across the intersection just as the pedestrian crossing music had stopped and charged into a Mosburger shop where I sat down at the counter. In the midst of teen-agers munching odorous hamburgers, I slit open the envelope and pulled out a crisp sheet of paper dated December 20.

I jammed the letter back into its envelope, cursing myself for all the work that could have been spared had I gotten to the post office faster. I found a pay phone and inserted a telephone card which just had four units left. I wouldn’t have time for a long conversation with Hugh.

An answering machine came on in an English woman’s cool tones. I would have thought it a wrong number, but for the fact I recognized the voice as Winnie Clancy’s. Had she moved in to take care of Hugh? I left a brief message and told him I’d call from home.

“It’s me,” I said when Mr. Waka appeared to look
straight through me after I walked into Family Mart thirty-five minutes later.

“Your hair—” his eyes bugged out.

“It’s a wig.” I flipped the long hair back over my shoulders.

“You look more Japanese now.” From the way he pressed his lips together, I could tell it wasn’t something he approved of. “I’m tired of your running in and out. Won’t you stay for a cup of
oden
?”

The pot looked even murkier than usual. “I’m on a New Year’s diet, so I better take a couple of rice-balls. Did the fax go through?”

“Yes, but if you waste away, you won’t be able to hold up those fancy dresses. Do you miss your American food? How about a
hotto doggu
?”

“No thanks, I don’t eat meat,” I said, unwrapping the sweet tofu and rice snack.

“It’s no good, not healthy. In Japan, we believe in eating thirty different foods every single day! Meat, fish, rice, pickles, soy beans—”

“I’ve got to hurry. But I’ve a feeling that the next time you see me I’ll be in a better mood,” I promised, discarding the plastic wrappers in his waste-basket.

“Come back then,
neh
? And stay out of the tabloids,” Waka-san called after me.

It was two in the afternoon when I arrived home, midnight in Miami. I would call and leave a message on the law firm’s answering machine.

Opening the unlocked door to my apartment, I looked toward my answering machine and saw the message light was on. Hurriedly kicking off my shoes, I started to trip and reached out a hand to steady myself on a tall lantern. My hand went through
sh
ji
paper, taking the lantern down with me. I moaned, feeling as bad about the ruined antique as the pain shooting through my knee.

“Careful.”

I looked up and saw Marcelle Chapman in her familiar zebra coat.

“Oh! Richard must have let you in,” I said, thinking how strange it was for her to be looking down on me like this.

“No, he went out an hour ago. But Mariko’s here.”

I followed Mrs. Chapman’s gaze to my futon. Mariko was lying in a fetal position, her wrists and ankles bound with electrical tape. She did not move.

“It didn’t have to happen. If it wasn’t for your meddling, I would have been out of here weeks ago.” Mrs. Chapman’s voice broke.

“Is she dead?” I whispered, panic rising.

Mariko twisted around so I could see her face. Her mouth was taped, but her eyes blazed.

“I’m not dating Joe Roncolotta, I promise,” I said wildly. “Neither is Mariko. None of us mean you any harm—I think we should all sit down and talk calmly.”

“It’s bath-time, but you have no bath in this apartment. I forgot that detail.” She pursed her lips.

The bath
. I suddenly realized this visit had nothing to do with Joe Roncolotta.

“Because there’s no bath, I think the two of you will have to jump.”

“Jump?” I repeated dumbly.

“Things have been going pretty bad for you lately, haven’t they?” Mrs. Chapman stepped over my prone body, keeping one foot on each side. “You’re having trouble at work. The gangsters have a contract out on you. Your boyfriend’s going to prison for life.”

“He’s not!”

“Not going to jail? Well, I suppose you could save him if it turns out you did all the killing.”

“Nobody knows about you,” I said, thinking fast. “Why don’t you just leave while you have a chance to get out of the country? No one suspects you.”

“You’re a liar, Rei Shimura.” She drew out my name
in an exaggerated accent that must have sounded Japanese to her. “It’s the Japanese half of you.”

“What’s making you act this way? You’re a caring person. You helped me from the beginning.” It was a risk to continue talking. If I irritated her, she might gag me like Mariko. Without a mouth, I would be a little less human, more like a corpse. Easier to kill.

Instead of answering me, Mrs. Chapman went to the answering machine and pressed play. As I struggled to rise, her Reebok connected with my jaw. I curtailed my groan so I could hear the recording.

“Rei, this is Rod Evans. I’m relieved to tell you that handwriting is nowhere near my dad’s. You gave me a hell of a scare.” He paused. “I may have a lead for you, though. The postmark on the envelope made me think of Rob Smith, a guy who served with my dad in Japan. Mr. Smith left a girlfriend and daughter there and always felt bad about it. He tried to provide for them by sending money and all. I know because my dad told me, kind of a warning when I was headed to Nam, but that’s another story. Smith was a Texas rancher, real high profile. He couldn’t acknowledge the Japanese girl and keep the business. The wife he married turned out to be mean as pig shit. He always said—” The machine beeped, cutting the rest of the message off.

Mrs. Chapman pressed erase with a black-gloved finger.

“Your passport said Smith, not Chapman.” I remembered how, at her urging, I’d explained away the glaring discrepancy to Captain Okuhara. I’d saved her, when she could have been caught.

I looked up at her, waiting. A time would come
for me to move. My right leg hurt but I was pretty sure it would work for me, given the opportunity.

“For heaven’s sake, I came to talk to that Nakamura woman, to put some sense in her head!” Mrs. Chapman exploded. “I even brought my checkbook.”

“What did you want her to do?” I asked.

“To stop. To get the hell out of our lives, now that Bobby’s dead.” Pain flashed across her face. “The two of them carrying on with post office boxes in different cities, different states—you’d think they were having an affair or something. It wasn’t until after the cancer took him that I figured out what had been happening to Binnie’s money.”

“Whose money?”

“My granddaughter’s. Every dollar Bob spent on Setsuko was one he stole from her inheritance.”

“That must have made you pretty upset,” I said, attempting to soothe her.

“Setsuko found out he died through a detective or lawyer or somebody. She was going to make a claim on the estate. I sent her a note saying we needed to talk things over, just the two of us. She called me on the telephone and told me not until after the holidays. Like she was in control. I asked about her plans and she let it slip where she was headed. With just five hotels to call, she was pretty easy to find.” Mrs. Chapman smiled tightly.

“Why didn’t you just meet her in Tokyo?” I asked.

“I needed to see what kind of a personality I was up against and I got a load of her, all right. At dinner
that night, she was whispering about me in that fool language with the innkeeper.”

“They just didn’t like foreigners! I could have told you that it wasn’t personal.” In hindsight, my own worries about how I’d been treated seemed very petty.

“Aren’t you Miss Know-It-All?” Mrs. Chapman kicked me again, this time close to my eye. I held my hand on my throbbing cheekbone and listened to Mariko struggling on the bed, her body rolling against the quilt.

“I decided to talk to her when I had the advantage,” Mrs. Chapman continued. “I went into the bathroom, fixing the door so no one would disturb us. She was shocked to see me. Then she laughed and told me she had a fancy lawyer set up to beat the hell out of me. You can imagine who I thought it was.”

“Hugh,” I said.

“I hung around afterwards to see what he would do. I concluded nothing. It was you who turned out to be the snoop.”

“How did you kill her?”

“I didn’t mean to. She was standing up in the bath, skinny and shameless, like she was going to walk out on our conversation. I hit her with a bath cover. She fell down and I grabbed her feet. Her head stayed under. It just took a minute.”

“The pearls. Did you plant them in Hugh’s room?” I had to know.

“I confused his room with the young Japanese assistant’s, but the necklace wound up in the right place anyway. God moves in mysterious ways.”

“You’re a woman of faith.” I faked a smile at her.
“I think it’s time for a prayer. Maybe if we pray together we can see a way through this thing—get some help for you—”

Mariko gave me a scathing look, so I stopped.

“Get up.” Mrs. Chapman kicked at me again, and I pulled myself awkwardly to my knees and stood up. The telephone was near, but I didn’t dare move toward it because she had my chef’s knife in her right hand.

“About Mariko,” I continued, talking loudly in the hopes someone would hear. “You knew she worked at the bank and also at Marimba. It must have been tough because you couldn’t identity her.”

“That’s right. When you dropped the hint she was staying at your apartment, I had to bide my time till you and the little blond boy left her alone.” Mrs. Chapman was behind me now, binding my wrists with the thick tape. Just as she started to tighten the tape, I kicked backwards. Her knee rammed me in the buttocks and I found myself sailing through the air, falling against Mariko and the edge of the futon with a painful thud.

“I can’t stand your Japanese face, you know that? It reminds me of her. Even after she’s dead, you haunt me—”

I rolled over on my back and kicked at Mrs. Chapman, who towered over me once more.

“Who would believe this is a suicide with my hands tied?’” I asked, imagining
yakuza
would be the first thing Hugh and Tom would think about, that all attention would focus in that direction while Marcia Smith slipped out of the country.

“Good point. I’ll untie them.”

“Why did you kill Mrs. Yogetsu?” Soon I would run out of ways to delay her.

“I used an interpreter to call there earlier in December to make sure the Nakamuras were staying at the inn. Even though my name wasn’t mentioned, I think the innkeeper guessed I was behind the telephone call. When Joe Roncolotta dropped you off after dinner, I saw her. I followed her back to the train station. I saw a train coming, the perfect solution.”

As she talked, I could hear something strange going on in the stairwell, a heavy, irregular rhythm. Someone or something was out there.
Yakuza
henchmen? I positively longed for them. I shot a glance at Mariko. Her eyes flickered.

“I want you to get up now. Nice and easy,” Mrs. Chapman ordered.

“I’m not doing anything to Mariko.” My confidence in being saved was waning because the person in the stairwell seemed to have stopped on the second landing.

“I don’t care. Just get up.”

I did and was marched over to my kitchen table, where she brought the knife to my wrists and began sawing at the tape with which she had bound me.

“Time to write a note about how sorry you are to have to do this, but it’s time for you to leave the life.”

“It’s time for me to leave the life? No one would believe I’d write that. It’s so overblown and maudlin!” I didn’t know where the words were coming from, but I had to keep talking.

She stopped unhitching my hands. “I was giving you a few extra minutes. A favor in exchange for what
you’ve done for me. If you’d rather just jump, we’ll go straight to the window.”

She pushed me to the side window and slammed it open with one easy move of her left hand. Cold air tinged with gasoline and rotting vegetables blasted my face. The trash heap was ten feet to the right of my window. If I were a magician, I could waft myself toward it and land safely atop the garbage bags. Otherwise it was four stories to concrete.

“I won’t jump. You’ll have to throw me out.” I turned to face her, making calculations. Even though she was taller and heavier than me, it was unlikely she was spry enough to lift me. All she’d carried off so far was hitting Setsuko over the head and shoving Mrs. Yogetsu before a train. She’d certainly not be able to pick up a body and throw it. But it turned out she had something else in mind.

“Good-bye, Rei.” Her face was tranquil as she began moving the knife in a straight path toward my throat. I rushed at her, causing her to overshoot her mark, the knife slicing through fine cotton and glancing off my collarbone. I felt the cut but was seized by adrenaline as I slid under her arm and toward the door.

“You fool.” She slammed her body into mine, and we both landed on the floor.

The telephone began ringing. I lunged for the receiver as Mrs. Chapman’s knife nicked my biceps, drawing a beaded line of blood. Then there was a loud cracking sound, and I knew she had gotten me on the head, the place she should have gone for in the beginning.

Things went black for a second. Then, Mrs.
Chapman emitted a yowl that told me I was still alive. The telephone continued to beep. I crawled toward it and knocked the receiver down to the floor with my shoulder.

“Who is it?” I said, disoriented because of the bizarre scene unfolding before me. Mrs. Chapman lay on her back like a beached whale, a long sword touching her throat. I squinted and realized the sword was really a metal crutch. The crutch was connected to Hugh Glendinning, looking very much like a Celtic hero on his last breath. He had only one crutch left for support and was leaning dangerously to one side.

“Easy, now,” Hugh said to Mrs. Chapman, and then to me, “That’s blood on my shirt, darling. Something tells me this is the last time I’ll lend you anything good.”

I didn’t reply, concentrating on the faraway voice on the telephone.

“Hallo, this is Winnie Clancy. May I speak to Hugh, please?”

“I think he’s—indisposed.” This was no fantasy world if Winnie was calling, I thought with a catch of joy.

“Fast worker, aren’t you?” Winnie said in her clipped accent.

“Mrs. Clancy, would you do me a favor?”

“What?” She sounded exasperated.

“Call 110,” I said with a bit of swagger and my best American accent. “Tell them to come to three-fourteen-nine Nihonzutsumi, apartment 4B. Come over yourself if you want to see Hugh. But call the cops first, if you want his Scottish ass alive.”