At Shinjuku Station he took the Chuo line and headed for Kanda. Once the train started, he thrust his head out of the window, letting the rushing air drive the beer fumes out of his head. But as the train gathered speed, he found that the buffeting slipstream deadened his thinking. The palace moat, glittering in the summer night, flashed before his eyes; he just took in the lovers and others in gaily lit boats bobbing on the waters. Even after the sight was long gone, the white shirt and matching blouse of one such couple lingered in his eyes.
The Turkish bathhouse, Alibaba, lay about five minutes’ walk from Kanda Station. Indeed, Shinji could see its garish, red neon sign from the train as it drew into the platform. However, getting to it was much more difficult than he had anticipated. He had to walk down a narrow alleyway crowded with cabarets, cheap bars, and low-class eating houses. Passing one such establishment, which specialized in skewered chicken, he had to wade through the heavy white smoke that flowed down from its extractor grill. He felt trapped. And rather than the smell of oil, he began to sense the scent of sexual desire and immorality. There was also a row of small textile wholesalers, all of whom had closed and pulled down their shutters long since, leaving the approach to the Turkish bath in pitch darkness. Alibaba stood immediately next to a public bathhouse; what a contrast, Shinji thought, between the physical cleanliness of the one and the moral pollution of the other. For, although he had never been inside such an establishment, he was well aware that they were no more than the thinnest of veils for prostitution.
The entrance was flanked by potted palms and rubber plants. Passing them, he came into the tiled outer hall, which was hidden from the inside by a wall covered in maroon and gold satin damask.
Within, the lights were low and faintly red. The red carpet had such a deep pile that it absorbed his footsteps, giving him a sense of secrecy. There was a table with a couch and several soft armchairs to one side of the lobby, where sat several men who had nominated girls and were waiting for them to be free. They were mostly reading magazines or watching TV listlessly; although there were several open bottles of beer on the table, nobody seemed to be drinking much.
He sat down, and a male attendant immediately approached him.
“Do you have anyone in particular you want to see?”
“Yes. Miss Yasue.” This was the girl who, according to the detective’s report, was favored by Seiji Tanikawa. “Miss Yasue, if I remember aright. You do have such a girl here?”
“Certainly, sir. Please wait for a few minutes,” said the attendant with fawning politeness. “May I get you a drink in the meantime—compliments of the house, of course.”
Shinji ordered a whiskey, and the attendant withdrew.
According to the detective’s report, Seiji Tanikawa frequented this establishment on Mondays and Fridays—the days when he had no night work. Normally, it appeared, he came here between seven and nine—the slack period.
He noticed that the lobby was permeated by a strange, heavy odor. It was, he decided, the smell of men who were about to unload their sexual desire.
Time crawled by. Occasionally a customer sitting by the table would get up and disappear within in answer to the attendant’s summons. But they were always replaced by new arrivals from outside, some of them drunk. Sometimes a woman in sandals, wearing a red-and-white-striped wrapper over her Turkish bath girl’s uniform of a red-striped brassiere and scanty pants, would emerge and see her customer off with a gay voice. Had Seiji Tanikawa gone home already, or was he still within?
As this thought crossed Shinji’s mind, the curtain parted and out stepped Tanikawa. Shinji recognized him, down to the lean body, from photographs provided by the detectives. His skinny figure was emphasized by the black polo-necked sweater that he was wearing tonight. He was followed closely by a diminutive girl—obviously Yasue Terada. Tanikawa walked straight past Shinji, displaying his sunken cheeks and haggard profile.
Yasue saw him off at the entrance, tapping his bony shoulder with familiarity. Tanikawa merely shrugged his shoulders and left without a word. For a man to visit this place twice a week…, Shinji, whose private life was as clean as a sheet of blank paper, thought. He watched Tanikawa’s retreating figure until it vanished from his view, convinced that in it he could sense a shadow of weakness; this man’s feet were sinking into the swamp of vice.
Yasue made her way back in, but was stopped by the attendant, who whispered something to her. She came over to Shinji, but when she saw his face she was taken aback.
“You are Mr. …” she started, but could not finish the sentence.
“It’s me—Yamada, remember?” Shinji lied fluently. “I came once before—some time ago.”
“Oh yes, of course, Mr. Yamada,” she replied cheerfully, conducting him out of the lobby. These girls, he reflected, had congress with so many men each day, maybe over a hundred a month, so there was no question of remembering the face or name of a customer who had only come once some time ago.
Following her, he gazed at the sensuous nape of her neck and felt moved to erotic expectations. “Will you take a steam bath first?” she asked. What an extraordinary question, Shinji thought at first, and then reflected that some customers might be shy whilst others probably only did come here for the steam bath. He decided to play the role of someone who was shy or unromantic and opted for the bath. She led him to the cubicle, but instead of undressing, he killed time with questions.
“That customer you just had—his name is Seiji Tanikawa, isn’t it?”
She was raising the lid of the steam chest, but she turned sharply toward him, a suspicious look on her face.
“Do you know him, then?”
“Well, it certainly looks like him, anyway. A bit embarrassing, bumping into him in a place like this.”
“He’s a regular of mine. Works for a film company, he says.”
“Does he come here often?”
“Twice a week.”
“He must be pretty well-off, then.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he makes money playing the stock market. Some of our customers come every day, you know. Maybe they’re addicted to steam baths.”
“I would say that that customer was more addicted to you.”
She laughed and was not displeased. “Not really. He had another girl before me, but she left, so he switched to me. I came here to work just when the other girl quit, so he was handed over to me. A sheer fluke.”
“I have heard a lot of people quit this job. Is it true?”
“Well, yes, I suppose you could say that in this business we have a high metabolism. As soon as a new place opens, everyone tries to join it for a better guarantee. People move a lot; I’ve been here six months, which makes me an old hand.”
“Oh. Well, as Tanikawa is older than you, he must have been coming here for quite some time, I expect. When did he start, do you know?”
“Pretty recently, from what he has told me. He says he only came here once before meeting me, and that was a mere two days before, too. He says he went back to see the same girl again, but she had quit, so he switched to me. But men are full of stories, so I don’t know.”
“And when did you start work here?”
Again, the woman became cautious. In place of her merry chatter, she spoke somberly.
“You are investigating something, aren’t you? Are you police, by any chance?”