Tojima had told him that 4 P.M. would be the moment of truth.
“I’ll phone you when everything’s ready. Use the Yamabe Shoten’s minitruck. I’ve cleared it with them so it won’t be a problem. When you get to the hut where Hasunuma lives, you’ll find a cardboard box containing you-know-what outside the front door. Take it in with you, then do everything as we discussed.”
Tojima didn’t tell Namiki who would be delivering the cardboard box to the hut.
Despite his anxiety, Namiki went to work in the restaurant kitchen at Namiki-ya, as if it were a normal day.
The phone rang a little before two. It was Tojima.
Masumura had called. He had successfully slipped some sleeping medication into the beer can Hasunuma was drinking from. Hasunuma had already been looking very sleepy when he left the hut. He should be out cold for the next two or three hours, provided no one woke him.
Masumura went on to add something.
“Niikura wants to be there when you interrogate Hasunuma.”
“Niikura?”
“I can understand how the guy feels. I told him to talk to you directly. He’ll be waiting in the Yamabe Shoten parking lot. If you don’t want him there with you, just tell him no.”
“Okay.”
Namiki saw no reason to rebuff Niikura. If he was honest with himself, it would be good to have someone to consult if things went somehow awry.
Namiki’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch. Any minute now, I’ll have to make my decision and go through with what I decide, he thought.
But something unexpected got in the way. The restaurant was about to close for the afternoon, when a customer, who’d been shut up in the restroom for a long time, finally staggered out. She looked limp and was complaining about a stomachache.
They couldn’t just ignore her. Machiko didn’t have a driver’s license. Namiki had no choice; he’d have to take the woman to the hospital.
After dropping her off at the emergency room, Namiki called Tojima to explain what was going on.
“Everything’s ready and I was about to call you. God, why did this have to happen today of all days?” The disappointment in Tojima’s voice was palpable.
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You don’t need to apologize. It’s okay. I’ll work something out. We’ll get another crack at the guy. I’ll contact the others.” Namiki was heartened by Tojima’s adaptability.
But once he got off the phone, all the strength seemed to drain out of his body. He could barely think straight. When Machiko arrived at the hospital, he was just standing around in the waiting room in a daze. When he explained the situation to her, the expression on her face was one of mingled disappointment and relief. Namiki realized that she’d been afraid of what he might do.
It turned out that there was nothing seriously wrong with their customer. She came out and apologized to them both for the trouble she had caused them. Since she was well enough to make her own way home, they parted just outside the hospital.
That should have been the end of it all. Nothing’s going to happen today, he was thinking — until he got a phone call from Tojima that plunged him into confusion.
“Things have taken an unexpected turn. I’ll call you tonight with the details. I’ll be dropping in at the restaurant a bit later. I want you to make out like nothing’s happened.”
“What has happened?” Namiki asked.
“Haven’t the time to go into it,” Tojima said. The phone went dead.
At five thirty, Namiki opened the restaurant just the same as usual. The regular customers started showing up. Tojima came in with the Niikuras. Tojima’s behavior was the same as usual. Thinking back on it later, Namiki could only marvel at his friend’s acting skills. He didn’t get a good look at the faces of the Niikuras. Had he done so, he might have detected something out of the ordinary there.
Namiki heard the news of Hasunuma’s death via one of the members of Team Kikuno. He glanced at Tojima, and their eyes locked just for an instant.
This, he realized, was the “unexpected turn of events.”
Tojima called him later that night. “Who did it?” Namiki asked.
“Well, I didn’t do it. Nor did Tomoya Takagaki. So, go figure.”
“Was it Niikura?”
“It was,” Tojima replied.
43
Shusaku Tojima called me one week before the parade. “There’s something I want to discuss with you, Mr. Niikura,” he said. He went on to tell me that Hasunuma was back in Kikuno and had even shown up at Namiki-ya. I was incredulous.
Tojima drove me to have a look at the hut where Hasunuma was living.
Then he made a proposal — something completely unexpected — to me at a diner nearby.
“We’ve got a plan to punish Kanichi Hasunuma and we’d like you to lend a hand,” he said. That was when I discovered that the plan had originated with Yutaro Namiki.
I was taken aback. On the one hand, I loathed Hasunuma enough to want to kill him; on the other, I had never imagined actually doing it. I knew that if I did the police would swing into action. There’s no such thing as the perfect crime — a crime that’s undetectable.
I wondered if Namiki was willing to get arrested. Was he prepared to shoulder all the blame himself, even if some of us helped him?
Apparently not. “I won’t let my dear childhood friend go to jail,” Tojima told me. “We can find a way to deliver a hammerblow to Hasunuma without anyone getting arrested.”
Was it possible to do both those things? I had my doubts, but I changed my mind after Tojima explained the ingenious method they were planning to use. Locking Hasunuma in his room and terrorizing him with liquid nitrogen until he told the truth struck me as startlingly original. In terms of the penal code, Tojima said it would count as “aggravated assault with intent to cause bodily harm.” The idea, however, was that Hasunuma wouldn’t file a complaint, meaning that no one would get arrested.
What Tojima asked me to do was to hide the container of liquid nitrogen inside one of the Team Kikuno treasure chests. To be honest, it was a bit of a letdown. I was hoping to be assigned a more important role. Still, I agreed on the spot.
I didn’t breathe a word about the plan to my wife, Rumi. Knowing that her husband was going to do something borderline criminal would have upset her. She is not the most robust person, either mentally or physically. And I didn’t want to burden her with an important secret, either.
As the big day came closer, I was increasingly on edge. Just imagining what Hasunuma would say was exciting.
Eventually, I realized that I needed to be there myself. I wanted to see Hasunuma suffer.
I decided to ask Tojima if that would be okay. He said he would propose it to Yutaro on the day based on his assessment of the situation.
Come the day of the parade, Rumi and I left our house a little after midday. We watched most of the parade, bumping into people we knew from time to time, then headed over to say hello to Maya Miyazawa before Team Kikuno got started. I had to confirm a few details about the music with her, but Tojima had also advised me that I needed to establish my alibi, just in case.
After chatting with Miyazawa, I told Rumi that I’d just got an urgent text from a colleague and told her to go and watch the parade by herself for a while. I let her get a certain distance away, then hurried toward the municipal sports ground. A Tojima-ya Foods minivan was parked in one of the nearby streets with Mr. Tojima sitting in the driver’s seat. When he saw me, he got out of the van and unloaded a trolley and a large cardboard box from the van’s flatbed. He handed me a parade staff jacket.