Dance Dance Dance

«Don't worry. I'll go to the store,» I said.

I checked the contents of the refrigerator to see what she did have. Then I drove down to town, to the supermarket where Dick had spent the last moments of his life, and pur­chased four or five days' worth of provisions.

I put away the groceries, and Ame thanked me. I felt like I was merely finishing up the task that Dick had left undone.

The two women saw me off from atop the stone embank­ment. The same as in Makaha, only this time nobody was waving. That had been Dick's role. The two stood there, not moving, gazing down on me. An almost mythological scene, like an icon. I heaved the gray suitcase into the backseat and slid behind the wheel. Mother and daughter were still stand­ing there when I turned the curve and headed out of their sight. The sun was starting to sink into an orange sea. How would they spend the night? I wondered.

That one-armed skeleton in the eerie gloom of the room in Honolulu, it was now clear, was Dick North. So, who could the other five be?

Let's say my old friend, the Rat, for one. Dead several years now, in Hokkaido.

Then Mei, for another.

That left three. Three more.

What was Kiki doing there? Why did she want to show me these six deaths?

I made it down to Odawara and got on the Tokyo-Nagoya Expressway. Exiting at Sangenjaya, I navigated my way into the suburbs of Setagaya by map and found Dick North's house. An ordinary two-story suburban home, very small. The door and windows and mailbox and entry light— everything seemed to be in miniature. A mongrel on a chain patrolled the front door. There were lights on inside the house, the sound of voices. Dick's wake was in progress. At least he had somewhere to come home to.

I took the suitcase out of the car and hauled it to the front door. I rang the doorbell and a middle-aged man appeared. I explained that I'd brought Dick's things; my expression said I didn't know any more than that. The man looked at the name tag and grasped the situation immediately.

«Very much obliged,» said the man, stiff but cordial.

And so, with no more resolve than before, I returned to my Shibuya apartment.

Three more, I thought.

In the scheme of things, what possible meaning was there to Dick North's death?

Alone in my room, I mulled it over a whiskey. It hap­pened so suddenly, how could there have been meaning? All these blank spots in the puzzle and this piece didn't fit any­where. Flip it over, turn it sideways, still no good. Did the piece belong somewhere else entirely?

Even if Dick's death had no meaning in itself, a major change of circumstances seemed inevitable. And not for the better either, my intuition told me. Dick North was a man of good intentions. In his own way, he had held things together.

But now that he was gone, things were going to change, things were going to get harder.

For instance?

For instance, I didn't care for Yuki's blank expression whenever she was with Ame. Nor did I like Ame's dull, spaced-out stare when she was with Yuki. There was some­thing bad there. I liked Yuki. She was a good kid. Smart, maybe a little stubborn at times, but sensitive underneath it all. And I had nothing against Ame, really. She was attrac­tive, full of vision, defenseless. But put the two of them together and the combination was devastating.

There was an energy that mounted with the two females together.

Dick North had been the buffer after Makimura. But now that he was gone, I was the only one left to deal with them.

For instance—

I rang up Yumiyoshi a few times. She was as cool as ever, although I may have detected a hint of pleasure in her voice. Apparently I wasn't too much of a nuisance. She was work­ing every day, going to her swim club twice a week, dating occasionally. The previous Sunday, she told me, a guy had taken her for a drive to a lake.

«He's just a friend. An old classmate, now working in Sapporo. That's all.»

I didn't mind, I said. Drive or hike or like, I didn't need to know. What really got to me was her swim club.

«But anyway, I just wanted to tell you,» said Yumiyoshi. «I hate to hide things.»

«I don't mind,» I repeated. «All I care about is that I get up to Sapporo to see you again. You can go out with any­body you like. That's got nothing to do with us. You've been in my thoughts. Like I said before, I feel a bond between us.»

Once again, she asked me what I meant. And again, my heart was in my words, but the explanation made no sense. Typical me.

A moderate silence ensued. A neutral-to-slightly-positive silence. True, silence is still silence, except when you think about it too much.

Gotanda looked tired whenever I saw him. He'd been squeezing trysts with his ex-wife into an already tight work schedule.

«All I know is, I can't keep this up forever,» he said, sigh­ing deeply. «I'm not cut out for this living on the fringes. I'm a homebody. That's why I'm so run-down. I'm over­extended, burned out.»

«You ought to go to Hawaii for a break,» I said. «Just the two of you.»

«Wouldn't I love to,» he said, smiling weakly. «Maybe for five days, lying on the beach, doing nothing. Even three days would be terrific.»

That evening I'd gone to his condo in Azabu, sat on his chic sofa with a drink in my hand, and watched a compila­tion tape of the antacid commercials he'd appeared in. The first time I'd ever seen them.

Four office building elevators without walls or doors are rising and falling at high speeds like pistons. Gotanda is in a dark suit, briefcase in hand, every inch the elite businessman. He's hopping back and forth from elevator to elevator, con­ferring with his boss in one, making a date with a pretty young secretary in another, picking up papers here, rushing to dispatch them there. Two elevators away a telephone is ringing. All this jumping back and forth between speeding elevators is no easy trick, but Gotanda isn't losing his cool mask. He looks more and more serious.

VOICE OVER

Everyday stress builds up in your stomach. Give the busi­ness to your busy-ness with a gentle remedy....

I laughed. «That was fun.»

«I think so too,» he said. «Idiotic but fun. All commer­cials are nonsense, but this one is well shot. It's a damn sight better than most of my feature films, I'm sorry to say. Ad people have no qualms about spending on details, and the sets and those special effects cost a lot. It's not a bad concept either.»

«And it's practically autobiographical.» «You said it,» he laughed. «Boy, does my stomach get stressed out. But let me tell you, that stuff doesn't do a damn thing. They gave me a dozen packs to try, and it's a wonder how little it works.»

«You really do move, though,» I said, rewinding the tape by remote control to watch the commercial again. «You're a regular Buster Keaton. You might have found your calling.»

A smile floated across Gotanda's lips. «I'd be interested. I like comedy. There's something to be said when a straight man like me can bring out the humor of a routine like that. You try to live straight in this crazy, crooked, mixed-up world—that's what's funny. You know what I mean?» «I do, I do,» I said.

«You don't even have to do anything especially funny. You just act normal. That alone looks strange and funny. Acting like that interests me. That type of actor simply doesn't exist in Japan today. People always overact when it comes to comedy. What I want to do is the reverse. Not act.» He took a sip of his drink and looked up at the ceiling. «But no one brings me roles like that. The only roles they ever, ever bring into my agency are doctors or teachers or lawyers. You've heard me go on about this before, and let me tell you, I'm bored, bored, bored, bored. I'd like to turn them down, but I'm in no position to reject anything, and my stomach takes a beating.»

Gotanda's first antacid commercial had been so well received, he'd made a number of sequels. The pattern was always the same. If he wasn't jumping back and forth between trains and buses and planes with split-second