too much? Maybe he wanted to murder her outside the batting center.
“It’s out of the question, Frank.”
“Well, suit yourself,” he said and hung up abruptly.
I took a sip of my cappuccino before giving Jun a recap of the conversation. I had to be careful to reconstruct it accurately. What Frank had said, particularly the part about changing hotels, was full of contradictions, so I knew I’d have to put everything in the right order or it wouldn’t make any sense at all. I wanted to explain it to her properly. She was the only one besides me who knew how freaky he was.
When I was done, she said: “How suspicious can you get! Why don’t you go to the police?”
“And tell them what?”
Jun sighed. The cappuccino was cold, and all the froth was gone, leaving it a light brown color like muddy water.
“That’s true. You can hardly say you know who murdered the schoolgirl and the homeless man but don’t have any proof. . . . And obviously you can’t just tell them you know this gaijin named Frank who’s a liar and a weirdo, but . . . How about telephoning them instead of going in person?”
“I don’t know where the bastard is, and I’m sure his name isn’t Frank, either—it’s all lies. The cops couldn’t find him if they wanted to. Now that I think about it he may not even have stayed in that hotel last night. I never actually escorted him to his room, or even saw him get his key at the front desk, and I never called him there.”
“I wonder why he wanted to meet me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kenji, just don’t show up tonight.”
“I thought about that, but . . . He hasn’t paid me yet, and—”
“Who cares about the money?”
“Yeah. The truth is it’s not the money, it’s that I’m sure he knows where I live and there’s no telling what he’ll do. I’m afraid of him, Jun, that’s the honest truth, okay? I’m scared shitless of Frank. I think maybe he wanted me to bring you so he could, you know, find out how much I’d told you about him.”
I wasn’t about to say “kill you.”
A woman and her little boy and girl came into the shop. The woman was in her thirties, I’d say, the kids in elementary school. They were having a good time deciding which kind of cake they wanted. The kids were well behaved but gleeful, full of life. The mother was wearing a tasteful suit under a tasteful coat, and her interaction with the waitress was natural and courteous. When Jun turned to look their way, her eyes met the little girl’s, and the little girl beamed at her. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have looked on this sort of scene with cynicism, if not loathing. I’m not so innocent. I know what malevolence is about, which is why I thought I was able to judge that Frank was a dangerous man. Malevolence is born of negative feelings like loneliness and sadness and anger. It comes from an emptiness inside you that feels as if it’s been carved out with a knife, an emptiness you’re left with when something very important has been taken away from you. I can’t say I sensed a particularly cruel or sadistic tendency in Frank, or even that he fit my image of a murderer. But what I did sense was an emptiness like a black hole inside him, and there was no predicting what might emerge from a place like that. I’m sure we’ve all experienced really malevolent feelings once or twice in our lives, the desire to kill somebody, say. But there’s always a braking mechanism somewhere along the line that stops us. The malevolence is turned back, and it sinks down to the bottom of the emptiness it emerged from and lies there, forgotten, only to leak out in other ways—a passion for work, for example. Frank wasn’t like that. I didn’t know if he was a murderer, but I knew he had a bottomless void inside him. And that void was what made him lie. I’ve been there. Compared to where Frank was at, it may have been like a Hello Kitty version, but I’ve been there.
“Call me
“It’s out of the question, Frank.”
“Well, suit yourself,” he said and hung up abruptly.
I took a sip of my cappuccino before giving Jun a recap of the conversation. I had to be careful to reconstruct it accurately. What Frank had said, particularly the part about changing hotels, was full of contradictions, so I knew I’d have to put everything in the right order or it wouldn’t make any sense at all. I wanted to explain it to her properly. She was the only one besides me who knew how freaky he was.
When I was done, she said: “How suspicious can you get! Why don’t you go to the police?”
“And tell them what?”
Jun sighed. The cappuccino was cold, and all the froth was gone, leaving it a light brown color like muddy water.
“That’s true. You can hardly say you know who murdered the schoolgirl and the homeless man but don’t have any proof. . . . And obviously you can’t just tell them you know this gaijin named Frank who’s a liar and a weirdo, but . . . How about telephoning them instead of going in person?”
“I don’t know where the bastard is, and I’m sure his name isn’t Frank, either—it’s all lies. The cops couldn’t find him if they wanted to. Now that I think about it he may not even have stayed in that hotel last night. I never actually escorted him to his room, or even saw him get his key at the front desk, and I never called him there.”
“I wonder why he wanted to meet me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kenji, just don’t show up tonight.”
“I thought about that, but . . . He hasn’t paid me yet, and—”
“Who cares about the money?”
“Yeah. The truth is it’s not the money, it’s that I’m sure he knows where I live and there’s no telling what he’ll do. I’m afraid of him, Jun, that’s the honest truth, okay? I’m scared shitless of Frank. I think maybe he wanted me to bring you so he could, you know, find out how much I’d told you about him.”
I wasn’t about to say “kill you.”
A woman and her little boy and girl came into the shop. The woman was in her thirties, I’d say, the kids in elementary school. They were having a good time deciding which kind of cake they wanted. The kids were well behaved but gleeful, full of life. The mother was wearing a tasteful suit under a tasteful coat, and her interaction with the waitress was natural and courteous. When Jun turned to look their way, her eyes met the little girl’s, and the little girl beamed at her. There was a time, not so long ago, when I would have looked on this sort of scene with cynicism, if not loathing. I’m not so innocent. I know what malevolence is about, which is why I thought I was able to judge that Frank was a dangerous man. Malevolence is born of negative feelings like loneliness and sadness and anger. It comes from an emptiness inside you that feels as if it’s been carved out with a knife, an emptiness you’re left with when something very important has been taken away from you. I can’t say I sensed a particularly cruel or sadistic tendency in Frank, or even that he fit my image of a murderer. But what I did sense was an emptiness like a black hole inside him, and there was no predicting what might emerge from a place like that. I’m sure we’ve all experienced really malevolent feelings once or twice in our lives, the desire to kill somebody, say. But there’s always a braking mechanism somewhere along the line that stops us. The malevolence is turned back, and it sinks down to the bottom of the emptiness it emerged from and lies there, forgotten, only to leak out in other ways—a passion for work, for example. Frank wasn’t like that. I didn’t know if he was a murderer, but I knew he had a bottomless void inside him. And that void was what made him lie. I’ve been there. Compared to where Frank was at, it may have been like a Hello Kitty version, but I’ve been there.
“Call me
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