Dance Dance Dance

23

The two detectives came back into the room to find me still lost in the mildew. They both stood. «You can go home now,» Fisherman told me, expres­sionless. «Thanks for your cooperation.»

«No more questions. You're done,» Bookish added his comments.

«Circumstances have changed,» Fisherman said. «We can't keep you here any longer. You're free to go. Thank you again.»

I got up from my chair and pulled on my jacket, which reeked of cigarette smoke. I didn't have a clue what had hap­pened, but I was happy to get the hell out of there. Bookish accompanied me to the entrance.

«Listen, we knew you were clean last night,» he said. «We got the results from the coroner and the lab. You were clean. Absolutely clean. But you're hiding something. You're biting your tongue. You're not so hard to read. That's why we figured we'd hold you, until you spit it out. You know who that woman is. You just don't want to tell us. For some reason. You know, that's not playing ball. We're not going to forget that.»

«Forgive me, but I don't know what you're talking about,» I said.

«We might call you in again,» he said, digging into his cuticle with a matchstick. «And if we do, you can be sure we'll work you over good. We'll be so on top of things that lawyer of yours won't be able to do a damn thing.»

«Lawyer?» I asked, all innocence.

But by then he'd disappeared into the building. I grabbed a taxi back home.

I ran a bath and took a nice, long soak. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, shaved. I couldn't get rid of the smoke on me. What a hole that place was!

Refreshed, I boiled some cauliflower, which I ate along with a beer. I put on Arthur Prysock backed by the Count Basie Orchestra. An unabashedly gorgeous record. Bought sixteen years before. Once upon a time.

After that I slept. Just enough sleep to say I'd been some­where and back, maybe thirty minutes. When I woke up, it was one in the afternoon. Still time in the day. I packed my gear, threw it into the Subaru, and drove to the Sendagaya Pool. After an hour's swim I was almost feeling human again. And I was hungry.

I called Yuki. When I reported that I'd been released, she gave me a cool that's nice. As for food, she'd eaten only two cream puffs all day, sticking to her junk-ridden regimen. If I came over now, though, she'd be ready and waiting, and probably pleased.

I tooled the Subaru through the outer gardens of Meiji Shrine, down the tree-lined avenue before the art museum, and turned at Aoyama-Itchome for Nogi Shrine. Every day was getting more and more like spring. During the two days I'd spent inside the Akasaka police station, the breeze had become more placid, the leaves greener, the sunlight fuller and softer. Even the noises of the city sounded as pleasant as Art Farmer's fliigelhorn. All was right with the world and I was hungry. The pressure lodged behind my temples had magically vanished.

Yuki was wearing a David Bowie sweatshirt under a brown leather jacket. Her canvas shoulder bag was a patchwork of Stray Cats and Steely Dan and Culture Club but­tons. Strange combination, but who was I to say?

«Have fun with the cops?» asked Yuki.

«Just awful,» I said. «Ranks up there with Boy George's singing.»

«Oh,» she remarked, unimpressed with my cleverness.

«Remind me to buy you an Elvis button for your collec­tion,» I said, pointing at her bag.

«What a nerd,» she said. Such a rich vocabulary.

We went to a restaurant where we each had a roast beef sandwich on whole wheat and a salad. I made her drink a glass of wholesome milk too. I skipped the milk for myself, got coffee instead. The meat was tender and alive with horseradish. Very satisfying. This was a meal.

«Well then, where to from here?» I asked Yuki.

«Tsujido,» she said without hesitation.

«Okay by me,» I said. «To Tsujido we shall go. But what's there to see in Tsujido?»

«Papa lives there,» said Yuki. «He says he wants to meet you.»

«Me?»

«Yeah, you. Don't worry, he's not such a bad guy.»

I sipped my second cup of coffee. «You know, I never said he was a bad guy. Anyway, why would he want to meet me? You told him about me?»

«Sure. I phoned him and told him how you'd helped me get back from Hokkaido and how you got picked up by the cops and might never come out. So Papa had one of his lawyer friends make inquiries about you. He's got all kinds Of connections. He's real practical that way.»

«I see,» I said. «So that's what it was.»

«He can be handy sometimes.»

«I'll say.»

«Papa said that the police had no right to hold you there like that. If you didn't want to stay there, you were free to go. Legally, that is.»

«I knew that myself,» I said.

«Why didn't you just go home then? Just up and say, I'm going. Sayonara.»

«That's a difficult question,» I said after some moments' thought. «Maybe I was punishing myself.»

«Not normal,» she said, propping up her chin.

It was late in the afternoon and the roads to Tsujido were empty. Yuki had brought a bagful of tapes with her. A com­plete travel selection, from Bob Marley's «Exodus» to Styx's «Mister Roboto.» Some were interesting, some not. Which was pretty much all you could say about the scenery on the way. It all sped past. Yuki sank into her seat silently listening to the music. She tried on the pair of sunglasses I'd left on the dashboard, and at one point she lit up a Virginia Slim. I concentrated on driving. Methodically shifting gears, eyes fixed on the road ahead, carefully checking each traffic sign.

I was jealous of Yuki. Here she was, thirteen years old, and everything, including misery, looked, if not wonderful, at least new. Music and places and people. So different from me. True, I'd been in her place before, but the world was a simpler place then. You got what you worked for, words meant something, things had beauty. But I wasn't happy. I was an impossible kid at an impossible age. I wanted to be alone, felt good being alone, but never had the chance. I was locked in these two frames, home and school. I had this crush on a girl, which I didn't know what to do about. I didn't know what love meant. I was awkward and intro­verted. I wanted to rebel against my teachers and parents, but I didn't know how. Whatever I did, I bungled. I was the exact opposite of Gotanda.

Even so, there were times that I saw freshness and beauty. I could smell the air, and I really loved rock 'n' roll. Tears were warm, and girls were beautiful, like dreams. I liked movie theaters, the darkness and intimacy, and I liked the deep, sad summer nights.

«Hey,» I said to Yuki. «Could you tell about that man in the sheepskin? Where did you meet him? And how did you know I'd met him too?»

She looked at me, placing the sunglasses back on the dashboard, then shrugged. «Okay, but first, will you answer something for me?»

«I guess so,» I agreed.

Yuki hummed along with a hangover-heavy Phil Collins song for a moment, then picked up the sunglasses again and played with them. «Do you remember what you said after we got back from Hokkaido? That I was the prettiest girl you ever dated?»

«Uh-huh.»

«Did you mean that? Or were you just trying to make me like you? Tell me honestly.»

«Honestly, it's the truth,» I said.

«How many girls have you dated, up to now?»

«I haven't counted.»

«Two hundred?»

«Oh, come on,» I laughed. «I'm not that kind of a guy. I may play the field, but my field's not that big. I'd say fifteen, max.»

«That few?»

I nodded. This gave her something to puzzle over.

«Fifteen, huh?»

«Around there,» I said. «Twenty on the outside.» «Twenty, huh?» sighed a disappointed Yuki. «But out of all of them, I'm the prettiest?»

«Yes, you are the prettiest,» I said.

«You never liked the beautiful type?» she asked, lighting up her second Virginia Slim. I spotted a policeman at the intersection ahead, grabbed the cigarette out of her hand, and flung it out the window.

«I dated some pretty girls,» I went on. «But none of them was as pretty as you. I mean that. You probably will take this wrong, but you're pretty in a different way. Nothing like most girls. But please, no smoking in the car, okay? You'll stink it up. And I don't want cops poking their nose in.

Besides, don't you know that girls who smoke too much when they're young get irregular periods?»

«Gimme a break,» she cried.

«Now tell me about the guy in the sheepskin,» I said.

«The Sheep Man?»

«How do you know that was his name?»

«You said it over the phone. The Sheep Man.»

«Did I?»

«Uh-huh.»

We were stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change. Traffic, as we neared Tsujido, had picked up, and the light had to change twice before we could move on.

«So about the Sheep Man. Where did you see him?»

Yuki shrugged. «I never saw him. He just came into my head, when I saw you,» she said, winding a strand of her fine straight hair around her finger. «I just had this feeling. About a guy dressed in a sheepskin. Like a hunch. Whenever I ran into you at the hotel, I had this . . . feeling. So I brought it up. That was it.»

I tried to make sense of that. I had to think, had to wrack my brains.

«What do you mean by like a hunch?» I pressed her. «You mean you didn't really see him? Or you only caught a glimpse of him?»

«I don't know how to put it,» she said. «It wasn't like I saw him with my own eyes. It was more this feeling that someone had seen him, even though he was invisible. I couldn't see anything, but inside, the feeling I had had a kind of shape. Not a definite shape. Something like a shape. If I had to show it to someone, they probably wouldn't know what it was. It could only make sense to me. I'm not explaining this very well. Am I coming through at all?»

«Vaguely.»

Yuki raised her eyebrows and nibbled at the frame of my sunglasses.

«Let me go over this again,» I tried. «You sensed some­thing in me, some kind of feeling, or ideation—»

«Ideation?»

«A very strong thought. And it was attached to me and you visualized it, like you do in a dream. You mean some­thing like that?»

«Yeah, something kind of like that. A strong thought, but not only that. There was some thing behind it. Something powerful. Like energy that was creating the thinking. I could just feel that it was out there. They were like vibes that I could see. But not like a dream. Like an empty dream. That's it, an empty dream. Nobody's there, so you don't see any­body. You know, like when you turn the contrast on the TV real low and the brightness way up. You can't see a thing. But there's an image in the picture, and if you squint real hard, you can feel what the image is. You know what I mean?»

«Uh-huh.»

«Anyway, I could sort of see this man in a sheepskin. He didn't seem evil or anything like that. Maybe he wasn't even a man. But the thing is, he wasn't bad. I don't know how to put it. You can't see it, but it's like a heat rubbing, you know it's something, like a form without a shape.» She clicked her tongue. «Sorry, awful explanation.»

«You're explaining just fine.»

«Really?»

«Really,» I said.

We continued our drive along the sea. Beside a pine grove, I pulled the car over and suggested we go for a short walk. The afternoon was pleasant, hardly any wind, the surf gentle. Just a rippling sheet of tiny waves drawing in toward shore. Perfect peaceful periodicity. The surfers had all given up and were sitting around on the beach in their wet suits, smoking. The white smoke trail from burning trash rose nearly straight up into the blue, and off to the left drifted the island of Enoshima, faint and miragelike. A large black dog trotted across the breakers from right to left. In the distance fishing boats dotted the deeper waters, while noiseless white clouds of sea gulls swirled above them. Spring had come even to the sea.

Yuki and I strolled the path along the shore, passing jog­gers and high school girls on bicycles going the other way. We ambled in the direction of Fujisawa, then we sat down on the sand and looked out to sea.

«Do you often have experiences like that?» I asked.

«Sometimes,» said Yuki. «Rarely, actually. I get these feel­ings from very few people. And I try to avoid them if I can. If I get a feeling, I try not to think about it, I try to close it off. That way I don't have to feel it so deep. It's like if you close your eyes, you don't have to see what's in front of you. You know something's there, like with a scary part in the movies, but you don't have to see it if you shut your eyes and keep them shut until the scary part is over.»

«But why should you close yourself up?»

«Because it's horrible to see it,» she said. «When I was small, I didn't close up. At school, if I felt something, I just came right out and told everybody about it. But then, it made everyone sick. If someone was going to get hurt, I'd say, so-and-so is going to get hurt, and sure enough, she would. That happened over and over again, until everyone started treating me like a weird spook. That's what they called me. 'Spook.' That was the kind of reputation I had. It was terrible. So ever since then, I decided not to say any­thing. And now if I feel like I'm going to feel anything, I just close myself up.»

«But with me you didn't close up.»

She shrugged. «It was an accident. There wasn't any warning. Really, suddenly, the image just popped up. The very first time I saw you. I was listening to music . . . Duran Duran or David Bowie or somebody . . . and I wasn't on guard. I was relaxed. That's why I like music.»

«Then you're kind of clairvoyant?» I asked. «Like when, say, you knew beforehand that a classmate was going to get hurt.»

«Maybe. But kind of different. When something's going to happen, there's this atmosphere that gives me the feeling it's going to happen. I know it sounds funny, for instance, with someone who's going to get injured on the high bar, there's this carelessness or this overconfidence that's in the air, almost like waves. People who are sensitive can pick up these waves. They're like pockets in the air, maybe even solid pockets in the air. You can tell that there's danger. That's when those empty dreams pop up. And when they do ... Well, that's what they are. They aren't like premonitions. They're more unfocused. But they appear and I can see them but I'm not talking about them anymore. I don't want peo­ple calling me a spook. I just keep my mouth shut. I might see that that person over there is maybe going to get burned. And maybe he does get burned. But he can't blame me. Isn't that horrible? I hate myself for it. That's why I close up. If I close myself, I don't hate myself.»

She scooped up sand and sifted it through her fingers.

«Is there really a Sheep Man?» she asked.

«Yes, there really is,» I said. «There's a place in that hotel where he lives. A whole other hotel in that hotel. You can't see it most of the time. But it's there. That's where the Sheep Man lives, and all sorts of things connect to me through there. The Sheep Man is kind of like my caretaker, kind of like a switchboard operator. If he weren't around, I wouldn't be able to connect anymore.»

«Huh? Connect?»

«Yeah, when I'm in search of something, when I want to connect, he's the one who does it.»

«I don't get it.»

I scooped up some sand and let it run through my fingers too.

«I still don't really understand it myself. But that's how the Sheep Man explained it to me.»

«You mean, the Sheep Man's been there from way back?»

«Uh-huh, for ages. Since I was a kid. But I didn't realize he had the form of the Sheep Man until not so long ago.

Why is he around? I don't know. Maybe I needed him. Maybe because as you get older, things fall apart, so some­thing needs to help hold things together. Put the brakes a lit­tle on entropy, you know. But how do I know? The more I think about it, the stranger it seems. Stupid even.»

«You ever tell anybody else about it?»

«No. If I did, who would believe me? Who would under­stand what the hell I was talking about? And anyway, I can't explain it very well. You're the first person I've told.»

«I've never talked to anybody about this thing I have either. Mama and Papa know about it a little, but we never discussed it or anything. After what happened in school, I just clamped up about it.»

«Well, I guess I'm glad we had this talk,» I said.

«Welcome to the Spook Club,» said Yuki.

«I haven't gone to school since last summer vacation,» Yuki told me as we strolled back to the car. «It's not because I don't like to study. I just hate the place. I can't stand it. It makes me sick, physically sick. I was puking every day and every time I puked, they'd gang up on me some more. Even the teachers were picking on me.»

«Why would anyone want to pick on someone as pretty as you?»

«Kids just like to pick on other kids. And if your parents are famous, it can be even worse. Sometimes they treat you special, but with me, they treat me like trash. Anyway, I have trouble getting along with people to begin with. I'm always tense because I might have to close myself up any moment, you know. So I developed this nervous twitch, which makes me look like a duck, and they tease me about that. Kids can be really mean. You wouldn't believe how mean ...»

«It's all right,» I said, grabbing for Yuki's hand and hold­ing it. «Forget about them. If you don't feel like going to school, don't. Don't force yourself. School can be a real nightmare. I know. You have these brown-nosing idiots for classmates and these teachers who act like they own the world. Eighty percent of them are deadbeats or sadists, or both. Plus all those ridiculous rules. The whole system's designed to crush you, and so the goodie-goodies with no imagination get good grades. I bet that hasn't changed a bit.»

«Was it like that for you too?»

«Of course. I could talk a blue streak about how idiotic school is.»

«But junior high school is compulsory.»

«That's for other people to worry about, not you. It's not compulsory to go someplace where you're miserable. Not at all. You have rights too, you know.»

«And then what do I do after that? Is it always going to be like this?»

«Things sure seemed that way when I was thirteen,» I said. «But that's not how it happens. Things can work out. And if they don't, well, you can deal with that when the time comes. Get a little older, you'll fall in love. You'll buy brassieres. The whole way you look at the world will change.»

«Boy, are you a dolt!» she turned to me and shook her head in disbelief. «For your information, thirteen-year-old girls already wear bras. You're half a century behind, I swear!»

«I'm only thirty-four,» I reminded her.

«Fifty years,» said Yuki. «Time flies when you're a dolt.»

And at that, she walked to the car ahead of me.