The Salaryman's Wife(60)

“The innkeeper?” If it’s about the torn shji paper, I’m willing to pay.”

“It’s not. Mrs. Yogetsu died in the ambulance this evening, following a fall at eleven o’clock at your neighborhood train station, Minami-Senju.”

I sucked in my breath as Okuhara continued. The engineer had been pulling into the station’s south-bound platform and observed a middle-aged woman waiting alone on the platform. Then, from out of the shadows, another person ran up and shoved her onto the track. The engineer, aiming to stop at a prefixed point at the far end of the track, couldn’t help running over Mrs. Yogetsu. By the time the train stopped and doors opened, the person who pushed her was gone.

“You can’t blame this on Hugh.”

“Certainly not. He’s spent this evening pacing his cell, complaining that we should return his laptop computer! Shimura-san, the reason I’m calling is in regard to your role in this incident.”

“My role? I don’t understand.”

“The handbag belonging to the deceased was crushed flat. However, we found a paper inside with your address and telephone number.”

“Oh, no.” I remembered my last call to the inn. Mr. Yogetsu had said his wife wanted to talk with me, and I’d hung up fast.

“When did you return home from work this evening? Is there someone who can verify your presence?”

“I went out again.” I stammered out something about dinner at Trader Vic’s, glad that Joe had paraded me and Mrs. Chapman before so many people. He’d insisted on sending us home in a taxi; the driver would remember us. Still, for Joe to be hassled by a police captain would be a pretty dismal follow-up to the event. “Please wait to call my companion until the morning, I’m sure he’s sleeping now—”

“Wait to call until you’ve prepared him, you mean? I need the name now, so I can put the English-speaking officer in Tokyo on it.”

After Captain Okuhara hung up on me, I sat for a few seconds, trying to absorb things. Ironically, I needn’t have hurried from Shiroyama; it seemed death had followed me. Now I could only rack my brain over what Mrs. Yogetsu had wanted to say to me.

Mr. Yogetsu might know. I dialed Minshuku Yogetsu, rehearsing what I’d ask. A policeman answered, so I hung up.

The telephone rang again and Richard groaned in protest from the other side of the wall. I picked up, expecting Okuhara again. What I heard was my name spoken through sniffles. It took a few tries before I could figure out that it was Mariko Ozawa. She apparently had decided to make use of the business card I’d given her.

“Rei-san? I need you,” she whimpered.

“What is it?” I asked with foreboding.

“It’s somebody—somebody’s trying to kill me.”

“What?” I repeated, drawing the covers around me. The temperature in the room seemed to have plummeted.

“Someone grabbed me outside the bar. He put a small sack or something over my head and started choking me. If it wasn’t for the bar’s bouncer coming out, I would have been dead.”

My mind whirled with possibilities, but I forced myself to calm down and ask where she was. She told me Narita, a city northeast of Tokyo known chiefly for its airport.

“Are you planning to fly somewhere?” I asked.

“Yes. That’s why I called, to see if you could lend me your passport and some money.”

“Mariko, we look nothing like each other, and people holding American passports usually speak English. And as for money, I doubt I even make half of what you do!”

“I know, but you seem like the kind of person who saves.”

“Pitifully little. Tell me where you’re staying tonight.” I had a terrible vision of her leaning up against a telephone outside a lonely, closed-up train station.

“Violet Venus.”

“Where?”

“It’s a love hotel. I’m here because it’s cheap and you don’t have to give your name.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.” I drew the receiver under the covers with me to preserve what warmth remained.

“At eight o’clock, I stepped out of the club to get a liter of cream for the white Russians.” It took me a second to realize she was talking about drinks, not people. “Someone was waiting behind the backdoor. I stepped out, and he grabbed me and wrapped something white around my head. I swung back to hit him in the balls, and he started choking me.” A long, shuddering sob. “Then our bouncer opened the back door. The guy threw me on the ground and was gone.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

“He was behind me, I told you!”