The older man strode over to the open stool next to Ishibashi and sat down. Ishibashi looked up briefly, and morosely returned to staring at his beer. When the older man caught the bartender’s attention, he ordered a Johnnie Walker Black Label, an expensive drink in Tokyo. When the drink was served, he sipped it and smacked his lips in appreciation. Then he started talking to Ishibashi. “Do you come here often?”
Ishibashi looked offended that his solitude had been disturbed, but politeness forced him to answer. “Pretty often.”
Given a wedge, the older man continued, “Are you a student?”
“Waseda,” Ishibashi said, naming an expensive private university.
“Waseda!” the older man said. “My brother went to Waseda. I’m a great admirer of your school.” The man gave Ishibashi a toothy grin, revealing a row of badly aligned teeth highlighted by a prominent gold front tooth.
Ishibashi gave the rumpled man next to him a surprised look. The thought of any relative of this disheveled character going to Waseda seemed to startle him. Before Ishibashi could say anything, the man offered, “Let me buy you a drink.”
“No, thank you. That’s very nice of you, but you don’t have to buy me a drink.”
“Nonsense!” the older man insisted. He waved at the bartender, who came over to the end of the bar. “Bring my young friend a drink,” the older man said. “Do you like Johnnie Walker or Chivas?” he asked Ishibashi.
Nonplussed, Ishibashi said, “Johnnie Walker is fine, thank you, but you don’t have to buy me a drink.”
“Nothing is too good for a Waseda student,” the older man said. “You’re the future hope of our country.”
Ishibashi waved his hand as if to brush off both the compliment and the drink, but the bartender was already pouring. Sighing, he picked up the drink and poured it down. Johnnie Walker Black, which was far above his drinking budget, did taste good. Before he could finish the first drink, the weird fellow next to him was already waving for another round.
A few hours later, the older man was checking into one of Tokyo’s many love motels. In a land famed for its scarcity of space and privacy, love motels exist to provide amorous couples with both, at any time of the day or night. No desk clerk handled the check-in, because all transactions at this motel were handled discreetly by credit card and computer, with no humans to interfere with anonymity and secrecy.
The man inserted a recently stolen credit card into the check-in machine, and a video monitor flashed a polite greeting in kanji on its screen and directed him to room 116 with a little map. A magnetically encoded key was extended from a slot, and as he took the key, an admonition appeared on the screen reminding him to return the key when he was done because the room was being charged to the credit card by the hour.
The man returned briefly to the underground parking lot that served the motel. He looked around to assure himself that he was still alone before he opened the door to his Toyota. Sleeping soundly on the back seat was Ishibashi, drunk and snoring loudly. The man reached into the back of the car and took out a small bag. Then he rousted the sleeping student and helped him out of the car. With the drunk Ishibashi leaning against his shoulder and weaving unsteadily, the man and the youth made their way to room 116.
The magnetic key unlatched the door and they entered the room. The windowless room contained a bed covered with a garish red cover, a television, two doors along one wall, and an enormous mirror mounted on another wall to reflect any activity on the bed. The man dumped Ishibashi on the bed and chained the door behind them.
Placing the bag on the floor he walked over to the doors on the opposite wall and opened one. It was a toilet. He closed the door and opened the second door. It was a Japanese-style bathroom with a large heart-shaped tub. The room had a drain in the tile floor, low-set faucets on the wall, and two small stools. He took one of the stools out of the bathroom and positioned it by the bed.
He then perched on the edge of the bed and looked at the youth for a few moments, contemplating his next actions. While he sat there he noticed the sounds of a couple in the next room coming through the too-thin walls. They were moaning and groaning and occasionally the woman was shouting terms of endearment in both Japanese and French. He couldn’t decide if it was an office lady who thought speaking French during love-making was sexy, or a hooker who was entertaining a visiting French tourist. Either way, the woman speaking French during sex seemed to symbolize everything he hated about what Japan had become. Her voice spoiled what he had come for.
He turned on the TV, twisting the sound knob savagely to maximum volume. Before the picture came on there was a notice on the screen that the television would be an extra charge to the credit card. When the notice disappeared, the screen dissolved into a soft-core Japanese porno film showing a scene with a young girl running naked on a beach. Because Japanese censors don’t allow frontal nudity, a blue dot floated on the screen to cover her crotch. He wasn’t interested in the girl, but he was grateful that the booming music that accompanied the girl’s capering on the beach drowned out the sounds from the next room.
He turned his attention to his bag and unzipped the top. He took a length of rope from the bag. He placed the bathroom stool directly under the light fixture in the room’s ceiling and stood on the stool. Reaching up, he was able to tie the rope around the fixture. He stepped off the stool and went over to Ishibashi. The young man had fallen into a drunken stupor again, and a line of drool was dripping down his face.
The older man roused Ishibashi and got him off the bed. He led him over to the stool and tried to hoist the drunken youth onto the stool.
“What’re you doing?” the young man asked.
“Just cooperate for a moment,” the older man said.
“Cooperate?”
“Don’t you want to end your troubles? I have a way for you to do it.”
“What do you know about my troubles?” the youth mumbled.
“I know all about them and I’ve decided to help you out of them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain in a minute. For now, just cooperate and stand on the stool.”
The youth was clearly puzzled, but in his drunken state he couldn’t fathom what was happening and docilely did as he was asked to.
“What are you doing?” Ishibashi protested as the older man tied the rope around his neck. As the young man raised his hands to his neck to remove the rope, the older man quickly kicked the stool away.
When Ishibashi’s weight hit the rope, the light fixture gave way and partially pulled out of the ceiling. This was a development the older man had not planned for. He had expected Ishibashi’s neck to snap, but instead, with the failed light fixture absorbing some of the shock, Ishibashi was hanging from the rope by his neck with his feet barely brushing the floor.
Tremendous pain shot through the young man’s body, sobering him up as the rope jerked at his neck, crushing his windpipe. In the large mirror Ishibashi could see himself dangling from the rope with the half-pulled-out light fixture above. His toes skimmed the floor, but he wasn’t low enough to relieve the pressure on his neck by standing on his tiptoes. He reached out to the older man standing next to him, trying to grab him for support. The older man stepped back.
Ishibashi clawed at the rope and tried to pull himself up to release the pain and tension from his neck. He was partially successful and tried to croak out a yell for help. From his crushed larynx a hoarse sound emerged and the effort caused him even more pain. Hanging from his neck and hands, Ishibashi tried to ignore the new pain and continued to shout. His feeble shouting made no impression on the older man or the couple in the next room. Even if the couple could be distracted from their passion, the loud sound of the television drowned out Ishibashi’s weakening croaks for help.