LITMIR.BIZ

      I didn’t mention my evening with the clerk in my report. Not that I could get my head entirely around the experience to make a coherent statement. My memory consisted of scraps around the fuzzy edges of reality. The only thing I recall with clarity was a name: Kuchi. My brain had managed to grasp that one bit of information.

      Five minutes before my appointment with Reiko, I finished my cup of coffee and paid my bill with only a quickly dismissed thought of adding it to my expense report. I walked out of the bright coffee shop into a morning that was white hot and bubbling with haze. Inside the Red Lantern Soapland, the cool, softly-lit lobby was scented with citrus. Reiko—a short woman with muscular arms and legs—greeted me. “How are you?”

      “I will be fine,” I said with a weak smile.

      Her room was painted a cheery yellow, a color that made me want to return as often as I could afford the fee of twenty five thousand yen. It was a color that made me melancholy yet feel alive. As I handed each piece of my clothing to her, she folded it with care and placed it in a plastic tub. While I sat in a robe in the tiled room, she ran bathwater warmed to the perfect temperature. When the tub was full, she slipped off my robe and then hers. She scooped a small bucket of water from the tub, splashed it over me, then lathered up a soapy film. Next she helped me onto my back and used each part of her slippery, smooth body on each part of mine. We talked of the weather, how our days were going, which politicians were worth voting for, how long the economic prosperity would last, the upcoming sumo tournament favorites. I both enjoyed and regretted that Reiko’s room in the Red Lantern Soapland was the only place of tenderness in my life.

      ▶

      After Rieko’s ministrations only a faint tiredness remained of my hangover, although I was still agitated and irritated by the investigation. Of course, that meant I was irritated with me. By investigating the applicant instead of the missing son, I was going down the wrong, although more alluring, path. In the limited time I had been on the case, I arrived at the opinion that the son lacked a regular pattern of activity. As a freelancer, he could pick and choose assignments according to his needs or pleasure. As evidence of this lifestyle, his apartment neighbors could not recall whether they had seen him recently. Furthermore, the art director’s belief he was dead supported my hypothesis that the son was hiding out of fear, consistent with missing a scheduled appearance at his mother’s home. If I was accurate in my assessment, it would be very difficult to find him. So rather than pursue him, I continued to look into his mother’s background.

      This reasoning brought me to the Kuchi fortunetellers’ gated complex of three large houses constructed in the traditional manner using weathered wood, beige plaster, glazed roof tiles, and eaves extending over the verandas. Between the houses was a garden that would inspire poets.

      I pushed the entry bell and after a moment was buzzed inside. As I walked up the stone path toward what looked like a tea house, the dread returned. Deeply embedded in my subconscious, only its vague, tilting effect on my mental stability could be felt, but it was enough to produce disequilibrium. The feeling could have been partly due to my unsure footing in the realm I was entering. In fact, I had little reason to be at the complex, and was there only because of a fraud complaint by a camera store owner, his wariness of “others,” and a single name given to me by a screwy clerk who should be dead considering the way he smoked and drank. Three tenuous clues. No, less than tenuous, they were practically imaginary.

      Inside the tea house, a dainty structure compared to the sprawling complex of homes, a young woman was seated behind an austere desk. She was dressed in a kimono and had the helpful yet serious air of a corporate receptionist. She looking neither puzzled nor concerned by my appearance, as unscheduled as it was. When I was a few steps away, she glanced at the appointment book open on the desk.

      “May I help you?” she asked in a highly professional yet challenging tone.

      “Yes, please,” I said in a plaintive voice, slumped with the weight of an imagined tragedy. “I was recommended by a friend. You see, I need to contact a person.” I gave her a sad frown. “A deceased person.”

      “Do you have an appointment?” she asked crisply, her lips pressed together in a pout.

      “I am sorry, no.” I smiled a little, trying to soften the situation and the receptionist. “I know I should have called, but I’m at a real loss, at my wit’s end. I was hoping to see someone right away.”

      “I’m sorry too. But we can help you only by appointment.” The receptionist stared at me with her cool gaze, sizing me up for a report to her superiors.

      I closed my eyes and slumped forward with my head in my hands as if I was about to start sobbing.

      “Please, take a seat,” she said, likely concerned that I was going to make a fuss. Clearly, she would not like a fuss.

      The receptionist disappeared through a side door. I sat in a plush, velvet-covered Chinese-style chair against the wall, placed for the view of a hanging scroll. The scene painted in black and gray wash showed a ghostly figure emerging from a bamboo forest. I thought of getting up and perusing the appointment book, for what reason I wasn’t sure. Perhaps there would be a name I’d recognize, connected to the current case or not. It would also be good to know who was accepting appointments, not just the clients requesting them. Just as I was about to get up, the receptionist returned with a woman dressed in a business suit of skirt and blouse and jacket. As had the receptionist, the woman sized me up. I gave her a grim expression, like a patient about to get a diagnosis of bad news.

      “I’m Kuchi,” she said, using only her family name. “I’m sorry, I can’t see you right now, nor can any of the others. We are booked well into the future.”

      “It’s good to know your future,” I said. “Being that you are fortunetellers.”

      She smiled for a moment at my little joke. “However, if you come with me, we can chat for a minute or two to see if we would be able help you.”

      We walked into a side conference room. Other than a simple table with four chairs, there was nothing else in the room except for portraits on the wall. One photo was of the Kuchi woman I was with. The others, all women, seven in all, bore a distinguishable similarity with each other—a rounded face with protruding cheekbones, high forehead, although the similarity was somewhat attenuated from the oldest, sepia-toned photo to the latest one of clear, sharp full color. A matriarchal society of fortunetellers, severe in their discipline, defined by strength of traditions and limitations as much as opportunity.

      None of them was Mizuno Rie.

      “Who is the deceased person?” she asked me pointedly, forgoing any preliminaries. Undoubtedly she was already suspicious of me.

      “His name is Mizuno Ren,” I said.

      After a tiny inhaled breath and a barely-visible rising of her eyebrows, she turned slightly toward the door. I looked that way and noticed a man standing outside the room, his posture as rigid as a sentry’s. Instead of a uniform, however, he was dressed in an expensive-looking suit. His impassive expression did not reveal his purpose and I couldn’t tell if he was within earshot of our conversation.

      “Mizuno

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