Spiral (22 page)

Which meant the solution was:
Mutation.

Forgetting where he was, Ando let out a groan. The only answer he'd been able to come up with, as a result of logic, method, and trial and error, was this. It was a simple, clear answer, and it had to be right.

But still he had to hang his head. He knew the meaning of the English word "mutation"-that is, he knew what it meant in an evolutionary biological sense. But he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to take it in this context.

Just what the hell are you trying to say, Ryuji?
He didn't speak the question aloud. But even in his own head, Ando could hear his voice tremble with excitement at having decoded the message.

He went to the hall, found a pay phone, and dialed Miyashita's number. He doubted his friend would be in, given it was a Saturday evening in the middle of a three-day weekend, but lo and behold, Miyashita was at home with his family. Ando was able to tell him that he thought he'd deciphered the code.

Ando figured Miyashita was probably in his living/dining room; in fact, he could practically see Miyashita's wife and children getting ready for dinner. Miyashita himself was cupping a hand around the mouthpiece to keep out the background noise but was unable to keep his halcyon home life from filtering through.

"Good show! That's excellent. What did it say?"

Miyashita had a loud voice to begin with, and with his hand cupped around the mouthpiece it rang even louder in Ando's ears.

"Well, it wasn't a sentence. It was just a single word."

"Okay, so it was only one word. What was it?"

"Mutation."

"Mutation?" Miyashita repeated the word several times, as if trying it on for size.

"Do you have any idea what it might mean?" Ando asked.

"I don't know. How about you? Any ideas?"

"Not an inkling."

"Listen. Why don't you come over?"

Miyashita lived in a tasteful condo in North Terao, in Tsurumi Ward in Yokohama. Ando would have to take the train to Shinagawa and transfer to the Keihin Express Line, but he'd be able to get there in less than an hour.

"Alright, I guess."

"Call me when you get to the station. I know a good bar near the station where we can knock one back and talk it over."

Miyashita's kindergarten-age daughter seemed to have guessed he was planning to go out. She clung to his waist and whined, "Stay home, Daddy!" Out of respect for Ando, Miyashita clapped his hand over the receiver and scolded her. Ando could hear him wandering around the house with the phone, trying to get away from her. Ando felt guilty, even though it hadn't been his idea to go out in the first place. At the same time, he felt an ineffable sense of loss and envy.

"We can do it another time if you want."

But Miyashita wouldn't hear of it. "No way. I want to hear all the details. Anyway, give me a call from the station, and I'll be right there."

He hung up, not waiting for Ando's reply. With a sigh of despair, Ando left the library and headed for the subway station, the harmonious sounds of his friend's household still echoing in his ears.

Ando hadn't taken the Keihin Express Line since visiting Mai's apartment eight days before. From somewhere near Kita Shinagawa Station the train ran on elevated tracks. He found himself looking down on houses and the neon signs. At six on a late-November evening it was already nearly pitch-dark. Turning his gaze toward the harbor he saw the Yashio high-rise apartments straddling the canal, their lit and unlit windows forming a checkerboard pattern. A surprising number of the windows were dark for a weekend evening. Ando found himself trying to find words in the patterns of light and dark; he'd had codes too much on the brain lately. On one among the forest of buildings he thought he saw the phonetic syllable
ko
- child?-but of course it meant nothing.

Mutation, mutation.

He kept muttering the word under his breath as he stared into the distance. He hoped that maybe the more he intoned it the clearer Ryuji's intent would become.

In the distance he heard a foghorn. The train slid into a station and stayed there; an announcement said they were waiting for an express to pass. Ando was on the last carriage. He stuck his head out the door to see the name of the station. Sure enough, this was where Mai lived. From the train he could see the street outside the station, lined with shops, and he started looking for Mai's apartment, relying on his eight-day-old memories. He remembered that when he'd stood in her room and looked out the window, he'd seen the Keihin Express station at right about eye level. He could see people waiting on the platform, which meant that he should be able to see her apartment from here.

But he couldn't see very well from inside the train, so he got off. He walked down to the end of the platform and stuck his head out over the fence. The shopping street stretched east at a right angle to the train tracks. Less than a few hundred feet away, he saw a seven-story apartment building he recognized.

Abruptly, he heard the sound of the express approaching from the direction of Shinagawa. Once it had passed, the local Ando was riding would shut its doors and continue on toward Kawasaki. Ando hurriedly looked for her window. He knew she lived in room 303, and that was the third window from the right. By now the express had passed, and the bell was ringing to announce the departure of the local. Ando looked at his watch. It was just past six. Miyashita would be eating dinner with his family right now. Ando was reluctant to arrive too early and disturb their precious family time. He figured he was about thirty minutes earlier than he wanted to be, so he decided to take the next train down. He let the local leave without him.

The third floor windows were more or less level with the platform where he was standing. He looked carefully at each of them in turn, but there was no light in any of them.

So she's not there after all.

It had been a faint hope, easily dashed. Then, just as he was about to look away, his gaze was arrested by a band of pale blue light emanating from the third window from the right. He squinted, wondering if he was imagining it, but there it was, fluttering like a bluish-white flag. It glowed so faintly, flickering in and out of view, that he would have missed it if he hadn't been looking so carefully. He leaned even farther forward, but it was too far away. He couldn't quite make it out.

He wanted to go back to her apartment. It should only take twenty minutes or so, which would put him right on schedule for the next train. Without hesitating another minute, he went through the ticket gate and out into the street below.

It was only when he was standing directly below her window, looking up at it, that he was able to figure out the strange light. Her window was open, and her white lace curtain had been blown outside the window, where it was dancing in the breeze, and the neon sign of a car-rental agency across the street was reflecting off the pure white of the lace. Sometimes the primary colors shining on the white cloth showed up like fluorescent paint, which explained the pale blue tinge that was just barely visible from the station. Still, there was a lot about the scene that didn't sit right with Ando. The window had been open and the curtain half closed when he visited eight days ago, but he could distinctly remember closing the window and pulling the curtain to the side before he left. He knew he hadn't left that window open. But there was something that bothered him even more. There was no wind to speak of on this early-winter evening. And yet the curtain had been blown beyond the railing until it was nearly horizontal. Where was that current of air coming from? He couldn't hear any wind. The leaves of the trees lining the street weren't moving. And yet, just above those motionless branches, the curtain danced. The scene was eerily off-kilter. But none of the passersby so much as glanced upward; nobody seemed to notice the odd phenomenon.

The only explanation Ando could think of was a mechanical one. Perhaps a powerful fan was blowing in the room, creating an artificial current flowing outward. But why? His curiosity was aroused.

He went around to the lobby. The only way he'd be able to find out would be to confront that room again.

The superintendent seemed to have the day off. The curtain was drawn at the counter of his office. The whole building felt quiet, with no signs anybody was about.

He took the elevator to the third floor and then walked toward room 303. The closer he got, the smaller and slower his steps became. His instincts were telling him to turn back, but he just had to know. The door to the outside hallway was open, and beyond it he could see a spiral staircase for emergency use.
If something happens, maybe I shouldn 't use the elevator. Maybe I should just run down the stairs…
Without knowing what exactly he was afraid of, Ando found himself planning an escape route.

He came to the door marked 303. Below the doorbell was a red sticker on which was written TAKANO. Everything was just as before. Ando went to ring the bell, but then thought better of it. Checking to see that the hall was deserted, he put his ear to the door. He couldn't detect a sound, certainly not the motor of an electric fan. He wondered if the lace curtain was still waving outside the window at this very moment. From what he heard beyond the door, he had a hard time believing it was.

"Mai."

Instead of ringing the bell, he called her name, gently, and knocked. No answer.

Mai watched the video,
he reminded himself. And she, or someone, had taped over it, only two days before Ando's visit. The fifth day of her disappearance. Who had done it, and why?

Suddenly, Ando could feel again on his skin the strange atmosphere of the room, like the inside of a body. The water at the bottom of the tub, the dripping, the feeling of something brushing against his Achilles tendon.

Ando backed away from the door. In any case, all four copies of that demon video had been wiped from the face of the earth. The crisis was over. No doubt Mai's body would be found soon. No amount of screwing around here was going to bring him any closer to turning things around, Ando told himself as he started back toward the elevator. He was eager to get out of this place again, even at the expense of leaving without an explanation. He wasn't sure why, but he seemed to feel like this every time he came here.

He pushed the elevator call button. While he waited, he kept repeating to himself,
mutation, mutation.
He wanted to keep his mind on something else, anything. The elevator was taking forever.

From the hallway to his right he heard a resounding snap as a dead-bolt clicked. Ando's body stiffened. Instead of spinning completely around to look, he turned his head just far enough to see out of the corner of his eye. He saw the door to room 303 open slowly outward. He could see the red sticker: there was no doubt which door it was. Unconsciously, Ando pressed the elevator button again and again. The elevator was spending an agonizingly long time on the ground floor.

Seeing a figure emerge from the doorway, Ando braced himself. It was a woman in a summery green one-piece dress. She took a key from her handbag and locked the door, her face visible to Ando in profile. Ando studied the face. She was wearing sunglasses, but even so, it was clear to him that it wasn't Mai. It was someone else. There was no reason for him to be afraid, but his body was running far ahead of his mind at this point.

The elevator doors opened and Ando slipped inside. He went to push CLOSE but accidentally pushed OPEN instead. Finally, a few beats late, the doors started to close. Then, at the last second, a white hand insinuated itself into the crack between the doors, which reacted by springing wide open again. The woman was standing there. Her sunglasses hid any expression her eyes might have had, but Ando could see that she was around twenty-five, with perfectly regular features. With one hand against the edge of the doors, she stepped smoothly onto the elevator and pressed the close button, and then the one for the ground floor. Ando inched nervously backwards until his back and elbows were pressed against the elevator wall and he was standing on tiptoe. From that position, he stared at this strange woman, this woman who had come out of apartment 303, and directed a single question at her from behind:

Who are you?

An odd smell, different from the scent of perfume, tickled his nose, and he made a face and held his breath. What could it be? It smelled like it contained iron, like blood. The woman's hair reached down to the middle of her back, and her hand on the wall was so white it was almost transparent. A closer look revealed that the nail on her index finger was split. Her sleeveless dress was much too light for the season. She had to be freezing. On her legs she wore no stockings, and on her feet just a pair of pumps. He could see purplish bruises on her legs. This shocked him, but he didn't know why. As hard as he tried, he couldn't stifle the trembling that welled up from deep within him.

Shut up in that tiny box of an elevator alone with that woman, time seemed to drag for Ando. Finally they arrived at the ground floor, and Ando held his breath until the door opened. The woman walked straight across the lobby and disappeared into the street outside.