After that, I walked around the neighborhood on the edge of the prefecture where I had decided to shoot the gun, and scoped out the area from various angles. In front of the supermarket there was a wide road, and beside it there was a small restaurant and a convenience store; it would be extremely conspicuous to do anything around there. As I followed along a street that the woman often took, I looked for a more out-of-sight place, and the best spot where I could conceal myself. In the midst of it, I got annoyed, and on a sudden impulse I almost headed straight for her apartment to shoot her dead right then and there, but of course I didn’t do that. I chain-smoked cigarettes as I walked, and reassured myself that there was really only one place to do it. It was the site of a demolished restaurant. Not quite demolished yet, the structure still remained; they were probably about to begin work on it, there was dirty white sheeting stretched over iron scaffolding, and the only thing visible from what was enclosed within was part of the top of the roof. The woman had passed by here many times. Nobody would see the shooting if it happened here, and it seemed like I could then make my escape by taking the street in front of the building, heading in the opposite direction from where she came. I looked at the construction placard, checking to make sure that this spot was indeed part of Saitama prefecture and not Tokyo. However, the start date of the construction was five days from now. I was totally stunned — the moment I saw this, I felt a dull and heavy jolt to my heart. A voice inside my head said, There’s no time. I felt weak in the knees, and I was sweating. The woman passed along this street between eight and nine o’clock in the evening; I thought for a minute about whether they would be doing construction in the dark. I didn’t have to think long — once they started construction, I figured the odds were good that there would be people around at any given hour. Not surprisingly, the details of the work procedure were not posted, and to inquire about them was too risky. Posted on the placard was the name of the real estate company that held the title, and the name of someone along with a bunch of numbers I didn’t understand, and lettering for a condominium’s construction. I was flustered but I felt like I had no choice. I considered the deadline of five days — the only time to do it was Tuesday, four days from now — Thursday would be too late. Realizing that next Tuesday I was going to kill someone, I attempted to reflect on why this was something I needed to do, but my mind felt weary, so I gave up. I decided to begin my preparations.
If that woman were dead, I thought, not that it mattered, but maybe that kid would be able to have a decent life. His father probably wasn’t around, so he would end up with a relative, or in an orphanage, but in any case, I figured, wouldn’t it be a hell of a lot better than to go on being beaten by that half-crazed woman? Just like it had worked out for me, that kid might be able to have a better life. He wouldn’t have to pluck the claws off crawfish anymore, and he could take regular baths. They might even be able to fix his squint, and he would no longer be forced to imagine sexual scenes inappropriate for a child. With these thoughts passing through my mind, as if to justify myself, I forced a smile to cross my lips.
15
Keisuke brought Nakanishi over to my apartment. But they soon left, chatting for only a few minutes. I talked to them as usual, they seemed normal too, but after giving the excuse that they had to get to their part-time jobs, they had left right away. I thought something seemed weird, but since I wanted to be alone, it was just as well. I had the feeling that Keisuke was trying to talk to me about something, but it might have just been in my head. He was smiling the entire time, and as he left he said we should go out drinking soon.
I took out the gun and polished it carefully. There were rare occasions when when I looked at the gun and it frightened me. During one of those moments, I was completely startled to get a call from Yuko Yoshikawa. “Would you come meet me at the coffee shop in front of the station?” she asked me. I ended up just going straight there. My eyes darted restlessly at my surroundings, I felt like I was searching for something as I walked along, and halfway there, I felt nauseous for some reason. I figured it must have been from smoking too many cigarettes. Yuko was inside the coffee shop, drinking a black tea. She took one look at my face and said, “What’s the matter?” I responded, “Nothing, really,” thinking I must have looked drawn and haggard. She was silent for a moment, still staring at me.
A young couple sat at the table next to us; the girl was doing all the talking. Last night she had been at a Denny’s until really late, hanging out with friends, she saw a guy she was friends with in junior high, it really brought back memories. The guy DJ’ed at a club in Ikebukuro every Saturday night, and tonight was Saturday, so they should go together, she kept nagging the guy sitting in front of her. The guy replied noncommittally, eyeing the passing waitress in her short skirt with her dyed brown hair, on her way to take my order. I asked for a coffee and lit a cigarette, looking at Yuko across from me. The guy next to me, angry with the girl, said, “It’s just a bullshit act!” The girl was like, “That’s not true!” She went on and on, he had been in New York, he came back to Japan after the terrorist attacks.
“Hey, listen — I want you to be honest with me,” Yuko said, looking me straight in the eyes. “Right, I mean, well. You were just kidding around, weren’t you? With me, I mean. Because I couldn’t believe it, that you would do something like that. Seriously, because I half-thought you were messing with me, you know — I want you to tell me, if you were. So. Care to explain? I’m the kind of person who likes for things to be clear.”
As she said this Yuko’s eyes were still fixed on mine. She went on.
“You know, that was really awful, what you did. Honestly, I mean — are you listening to me? Don’t you have anything to say? That you hate me now, or you changed your mind — whatever you have to say, just tell me.”
For whatever reason, I felt an uncontrollable urge to tell her what I was about to do. It seemed absurd, but if I had had the gun with me, I think I might have laid it on the table right then. But if I were to tell her, I didn’t think she would understand, and anyway, it wasn’t the kind of thing that I could even explain to myself very well. And if I did tell her, she would probably decide that I was crazy, and try to stop me, and when she couldn’t, then I bet she would report it to the police. And that would create a serious problem for me. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of problem, but I knew it would be bad. And maybe I really was crazy. Just then, inexplicably, I felt as though I wanted to burst into tears, and though I hadn’t cried in many years, overcome with that emotion, I actually choked up. Obviously, I was not about to cry in a place like this. What I did, instead, was say to Yuko simply, “It’s no big deal.” But even I wasn’t sure what wasn’t such a big deal.