nother blazing afternoon. Mitsuyoshi Satake stood looking out through the blinds, arms folded across his chest. From his secondfloor window, the city outside seemed to be divided between the places brilliantly lit by the midsummer sun and those sunk in shadow. The leaves on the trees lining the road seemed to glow, the area beneath them just a smear of black. The figures of people hurrying along looked luminous, trailing dark shadows. The white lines of the crosswalk warped in the heat, and Satake flinched at the sight of them, remembering the unpleasant feeling of one's shoes sinking into the hot asphalt.

Just in front of him loomed the cluster of skyscrapers near the west exit to Shinjuku Station. The vertical strips of cloudless blue sky between the towers were almost too bright to look at, and he closed his eyes; but the image lingered on his retinas. He closed the blinds and turned away, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. The apartment was just two small rooms floored with old tatami mats and divided by faded sliding doors. The airconditioner was turned up high, and in the middle of one room a large TV flickered in the gloom. There was almost no other furniture. A small kitchen opened off the entrance hall, but since Satake never used it, there were no pans or dishes. All told, it seemed an austere dwelling for a man who dressed the way Satake did.

In fact, while he was at home, Satake's appearance matched his apartment: a white shirt over grey pants worn through at the knees. This was his preferred way of dressing. But whenever he went out, he was obliged to think about how he looked to the rest of the world, and so found himself playing the role of Mitsuyoshi Satake, club owner.

Rolling up his sleeves, he washed his hands and face in the lukewarm water from the faucet, then dried off with a towel and sat down in front of the TV, folding his legs under him. The dubbed version of an old American movie flickered across the screen, but his eyes wandered away and he sat in a daze, running his hands through his close-cropped hair. He didn't really want to watch anything; he just wanted to bathe in the meaningless artificial light.

Satake hated summer. It wasn't the heat that bothered him so much as the various signs of the season in the back streets of the city that brought back memories with them. It was during summer vacation in his second year of high school that he'd hit his father hard enough to break his jaw, and then left home. That event, which had changed his life forever, had taken place in a room just like this one, in August, with the air-conditioner groaning just as it was doing now.

Engulfed in the hot stench of the city, he found that the boundary between his inner and outer selves seemed to dissolve. The fetid air seeped in through his pores and soiled what was inside, while his simmering emotions leaked out of his body into the streets. In Tokyo, in summer, he felt threatened by the city, so it had always seemed better to avoid the whole season as much as possible, avoid the waves of withering heat that swept through the streets.

The return of this feeling was always a sign that the rainy season had ended and summer had started in earnest. To chase it out of his apartment, he stood up and went into the other room, where he opened the window and, before the fumes and noise could get in, pulled out the storm shutters and slammed them shut. As they slid into place, the interior fell into darkness and Satake sank on to the discoloured tatami with a sense of relief. The room contained a dresser and a neatly folded futon. The corners of the futon were perfect angles, almost as if a schoolboy's triangle had been inserted in them, and the whole place brought to mind a prison cell - except, of course, for the television. In prison, Satake had suffered not only from memories of the woman he had killed but from the small, airless space in which he was confined. When he got out, he had avoided moving into a large concrete apartment block where he would have felt hemmed in, opting instead for this drafty old wooden building. For much the same reason, the television, his link to the outside world, stayed on all day.

He went back and sat in front of it now, in the formal posture that had been required in jail. There were no storm shutters on the windows in this room, so the sunlight continued to filter through the blinds. He muted the volume, leaving only the rumble of cars outside on Yamate Avenue and the hum of the air-conditioner. Lighting a cigarette, he peered through the smoke at the screen without really knowing what he was watching. A talk show had just started, and the host, looking serious, was using a flip chart to illustrate his topic. Satake gathered that it was a special programme devoted to a police case that was getting a lot of attention - something about a dismembered body that had been discovered last week in a park out in the suburbs. Having no interest in the subject, he folded his arms around his head to shield himself from the world outside. But just then the cell phone lying next to him began to ring, as if it had realised what he was doing. He hesitated, half resenting this other outside link, but finally spoke into the receiver.

'Satake,' he said, his voice low and gruff. He was reluctant to speak to anyone today, with the heat threatening to stir up his carefully suppressed memories; but he also felt a need for some distraction. This restless, ambivalent mood left him irritated; it was like his feelings about the city in summer - he hated the sweltering streets, but he knew he could never live anywhere else.

'Honey, it's me,' said a voice. The call was from Anna. Satake glanced at the Rolex on his wrist: exactly 1.00 p.m. About time they should be starting their rounds. He paused for a moment, wondering whether he should stay home on such a blistering day.

'What's up?' he asked at last. 'The beauty shop?'

'No, it's too hot. I was wondering if we could go to the pool instead.'

'The pool? Now?'

'Yes. Come with me!' The scent of chlorine and suntan oil came back to him - not the sort of summer memories he was avoiding, but he would still have preferred to say no.

'It's a bit late, isn't it? Wouldn't it be better to go on your day off?'

'But it's so crowded on Sunday. Can't we go today? Anna wants to swim!'

'Okay, okay. We'll go,' Satake said, suddenly decisive. He hung up and lit another cigarette, squinting at the muted TV. On the screen was the tense face of a woman who must have been the victim's wife. She was wearing a faded T-shirt and jeans. Her hair was pulled back in a simple bun, and she wore almost no makeup. Satake studied the face. Realising that she was much better looking than he would have expected, he switched almost automatically to his professional mode, appraising the woman with an expert's eye. She was in her early thirties, he concluded, but with a little work on the make-up the face would still find buyers. What struck him most about her, however, was how calm she seemed despite the fact that her husband had been murdered. A caption scrolled across the bottom of the screen: 'The wife of murder victim Kenji Yamamoto'; but the name meant nothing to him. He'd long since forgotten that he had kicked a man named Yamamoto out of his club that night and beaten him on the stairs. At the moment, he was much more concerned about the boiling summer afternoon that awaited him and a vague sense of foreboding it gave him. If he'd had this sort of premonition on that other day years ago, perhaps he might have escaped, might never have met that woman, and his life would have been different. Today, the same misgivings were stirring, but he had no idea why.

Ten minutes later, he was hurrying toward the parking lot where he kept his car. Through his sunglasses, the highway in the distance shimmered like a mirage. His skin, accustomed to the cool, dark apartment, began to sweat at the first assault from the heat and intense sunlight. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand as he stood waiting for his car to appear from the parking-lot elevator. As soon as he had closed the door, he turned on the air-conditioning, but he could still feel the heat in the leather-covered steering wheel.

Satake was used to Anna's random demands. One day she wanted him to take her shopping; the next, he had to find her a new hairdresser, or a new vet. She constantly had him chasing around the city, but he understood that it was her way of testing his affections. He smiled to himself as he guided the car through the traffic, amused by this beautiful, whimsical child.

When he rang the bell on the intercom, the door opened almost immediately, as if she'd been waiting for him. She was wearing a yellow hat with a wide brim and a matching yellow sundress. She pursed her lips in mock displeasure as she fumbled with the straps on her black enamel sandals.

'What took you so long?'

'I can't help it if you come up with these hare-brained schemes all of a sudden,' Satake said, swinging open the door. He caught a whiff of the distinctive smell of Anna's apartment, a mixture of canine and cosmetics. 'Where do you want to go?' he asked.

'To the pool, of course!' she cried, rushing out of the place. She ran to the railing, leaned out as far as she could, and stared up at the sky, as if reassuring herself that the day was still blazing hot. She could barely contain her excitement at the prospect of the outing, and seemed completely oblivious to Satake's darker mood.

'But which pool? The Keio Plaza? The New Otani?'

'Hotels cost a fortune,' she said. Even when she was spending Satake's money, Anna tended to avoid unnecessary extravagance.

'Where then?' he said, setting off toward the elevator.

'The city pool's fine,' she said. '¥400 for both of us.'

There was no denying that the city pool was cheap, but it was also noisy and crowded. Still, if that's what she wanted, it was fine with him. All he wanted to do was survive the heat; if he could please Anna at the same time, all the better.

***

The pool was swarming with elementary-school groups and young couples. A row of trees lined the top part of the gently terraced poolside, and Satake waited in the shade until Anna emerged from the changing room in her bright red swimsuit.

'Honey!' she called, waving. He studied her body as she ran toward him. It was perfect, except perhaps for the fact that her skin seemed too white for a swimming pool. The breasts and hips were firm and high, the legs long. There was just enough flesh on the thighs, and yet the overall effect was sleek. 'Aren't you going to swim?' she said, taking a deep breath, as if to smell the chlorine.

'I'll watch you from here.'

'Why?' she said, tugging on his arm. 'Come on, get in!'

'You go ahead. Don't be too long - we can only stay an hour or so.'

'Is that all?'

'We've been through that. You've got to leave time for the hairdresser.' Anna made an irritated gesture but then seemed to think better of it and ran off toward the pool. On the way down the terrace, she picked up a beach ball and began playing catch with a group of little girls. Satake smiled. She was such a sweet thing. All he really needed was to be with her, to take care of her. He couldn't deny that she was a comfort to him. Still, she wasn't able to quiet the hum of the past that the sudden onset of summer had set up in his head. He closed his eyes behind his sunglasses.

When he opened them, Anna was no longer playing by the pool. He found her a moment later, waving her long white arms at him from the middle of the wide expanse of blue water, lost in a sea of splashing, shouting children. Satisfied that he had seen her, she began swimming down the pool, practising her awkward crawl. Satake watched as a young man followed her and struck up a conversation underneath the diving board. He closed his eyes again.

A few minutes later, she was standing next to him, dripping wet. She twisted her thick black hair over her head. Satake noticed that the young man was watching them. He wore a pony-tail and one earring.

'You're being watched,' he said.

'He was talking to me in the pool.'

'Who is he?'

'He says he's in a band.' She sounded blase, but turned her head slightly to gauge Satake's reaction. Satake gazed at the drops of water sliding down her arms and legs, savouring her youth, her beauty.

'Go swim with him. You've still got some time.'

'Why would I want to?' she said, giving him a disappointed look.

'He was hitting on you, wasn't he?'

'You won't mind?'

'Not as long as you show up for work.'

'Oh,' she said. It was as though a bubble of innocence had burst. Throwing aside her towel, she ran back to where the man was lying by the pool. As he sat up to greet her, obviously delighted, he turned to look at Satake in disbelief.

Anna was quiet on the way home from the pool.

'I'll drop you off at the hairdresser's,' he told her.

'But you don't need to pick me up,' she said.

'Why?'

'I'll get a cab.'

'Fine. I'll take a shower and look in at the club.' After letting her out at her usual spot, he pulled on to Yamate Avenue. The sun was low, shining right in his eyes. The sunset in summer always reminded Satake of something, a memory so intense it made him wince. Back in the heat of his room, he stared at the shadows of the Shinjuku towers beginning to stretch across the street outside his window. That feeling, the uncontrollable irritation, was returning again.

***

When he made his entrance at Mika that evening, all the hostesses turned toward the door in their standard greeting. For a moment, their faces held the plastic smiles reserved for the clientele, but when they realised who it was, their smiles faded. Satake looked around the empty room.

'What the hell's going on? This the slack season?' he said to Chin, the floor manager, who was standing at his shoulder. 'It's still early,' said Chin, quickly rolling down his sleeves.

Satake, who was strict about his employees' appearance, noticed that his bow-tie was crooked and his black pants wrinkled. 'You're a mess,' he said, pulling roughly on the tie.

'Sorry,' Chin muttered, wandering off. Sensing that Satake was in a lousy mood, Reika, the manager, hurried over from the kitchen. She was wearing a black dress with a string of pearls - as if she were going to a funeral, he noted sourly.

'Satake-san, good evening. I'm afraid things are a bit slow, what with the heat and all.'

'What do you mean, a bit slow? Have you been making calls? I just don't believe you can't drum up any business at all!' His eyes swept the room again before settling on the vases. 'And get some new flowers!' he shouted.

In general, Satake kept a low profile in his own clubs; but tonight was different. The way he scowled sent Chin scooting over to the nearest vase of badly wilted mauve bellflowers. The hostesses looked back and forth nervously between Satake and the vase.

'A number of regulars said they'll be in later,' Reika said, trying to soothe him.

'You can't run a business like that, waiting like some fucking princess for people to show up. Get out on the street and drag them in!'

'I was just going to do that,' Reika said, laughing amiably, but she made no move to go, obviously reluctant to face the heat outside. Holding in his anger, Satake looked around again. He'd had a feeling that something was missing - and now realised what it was.

'Where's Anna?' he asked.

'She called to say she'd be taking the night off.'

'Did she say why?'

'She said she'd got too much sun at the pool and wasn't feeling well.'

'Okay,' he muttered. 'I'll be back later.'

The relief was apparent on her face. Satake noticed that the whole place seemed to relax as he walked out the door, still struggling to control his rage.

Outside, he was instantly engulfed in the sweltering air of Kabuki-cho. Though the sun had set, the heat and humidity lingered, as though the whole city were in a steam bath; the heat was trapped inside, as if building under the skin of a grimy, middle-aged man with clogged pores. Satake let out a groan as he climbed the stairs to the next floor, a bit more slowly than usual. Things had got slack at Mika, and he would have to do something about it.

When he opened the door to Playground, Kunimatsu headed over to greet him. Satake was relieved to see a number of businessmen around the tables.

'You're early this evening,' Kunimatsu said, glancing down at Satake's clothes. Realising that patches of sweat were showing on his silver-grey jacket, he slipped it off, but the black silk shirt underneath was soaked through and clung to the lines of muscle on his chest. 'Is it hot in here?' Kunimatsu asked him uneasily as he picked up the jacket.

'No, it's fine,' said Satake, taking out his cigarettes. A young dealer who was practising at an empty table before going on duty looked up at them. Satake noticed the hint of a sneer that crept into his expression when he saw the limp jacket. 'What's the new guy's name?' he asked Kunimatsu.

'Yanagi.'

'Tell him to watch himself in front of the customers. Nobody wants to see a dealer pulling faces like that.'

'I'll tell him,' Kunimatsu murmured, backing away as if to distance himself from his unusually bad mood. Satake stood and finished his cigarette. Almost before he'd stubbed it out, one of the bunnies came over to change the ashtray, and he lit another.

The staff seemed to be watching him nervously, paying more attention to him than to the customers; and somehow, though it was his own club, for the first time he felt very out of place. 'Can I bother you for a minute?' said Kunimatsu, coming back over.

'What's up?'

'There's something I wanted to show you.' Satake followed his manager's tall, tuxedo-clad form to a small room at the back of the club that served as his office. 'A customer left this,' he said, taking a grey suit coat from the locker. Satake noticed the silver jacket he'd just removed on another hanger. 'I was wondering what we should do with it.'

'No one's claimed it?' Satake asked, taking the coat. It was lightweight wool, obviously cheap.

'Look at this,' said Kunimatsu, pointing at a label sewn into the pocket. 'Yamamoto' had been machine embroidered in yellow thread.

'Yamamoto?'

'Don't you remember? The guy you chased off at the beginning of last week.'

'Oh, him,' said Satake, recalling the man who had been bothering Anna.

'He hasn't been back to get it. What should we do?'

'Throw it out.'

'You don't think he'll be around at some point looking for it?'

'He's not coming back,' said Satake. 'And if he does show up, just tell him we never saw it.'

'I'll do that,' said Kunimatsu with a small nod. He seemed to have something more he wanted to say, but thought better of it. After discussing the recent receipts for a few minutes, Satake left the office. Kunimatsu hurried after him, still trying to humour him. A couple of flashy young women, apparently hostesses from the neighbourhood, had come to gamble. The sight of their artificially tanned skin made Satake think of his own top girl. 'I'm going to check up on Anna,' he said. 'I'll be back later.'

Kunimatsu bowed politely, but Satake couldn't help noticing the way he relaxed as he saw him out the door. At moments like these, when he saw how nervous his employees seemed to be around him, he wondered whether they had somehow found out about his past.

He had been a model of self-control, had worked so hard to keep his dark side sealed away. But he knew that even a hint of what he'd done would terrify other people. Still, only he and the woman herself knew the truth about what had happened, and no one else could understand what he'd been up to. It had been Satake's misfortune to taste the forbidden fruit when he was twenty-six, and he'd been cut off from the normal world ever since.

***

Something seemed odd when he got to Anna's apartment. There was no answer when he rang the intercom. He was just taking out his cell phone to call her number when a voice finally came crackling from the speaker.

'Who is it?'

'It's me,' Satake said.

'Honey?'

'Are you okay? I want to see you for a second.'

'Okay,' she muttered. He could hear her unchaining the door funny, he thought, she never used the chain. 'I'm sorry I didn't show up for work,' she said once the door was open. She was wearing shorts aiid a T-shirt and looking a bit pale. Satake glanced down at the floor of the entrance hall. A pair of fashionable sneakers lay next to Anna's shoes.

'The guy from the pool?' he asked. Her eyes followed Satake's to the shoes and she blushed. 'I don't mind if you fool around, but you can't let it get in the way of work. And no love affairs.'

She shrank back and stared at him, as if in shock.

'You mean you don't care?'

'Not particularly,' he said. In an instant, her eyes filled with tears. Satake noticed, but it seemed more of a nuisance than anything else. She was sweet, even apart from her value at the club, but for him she was just a fancy pet he liked to spoil. Like the skin that covered their bodies, his relationship with her was all on the surface. 'Just don't play hookey on me anymore,' he told her.

As she turned without a word and went back inside, it occurred to him that this little fling and his reaction to it might give her ideas about moving to another club. He closed the door behind him as gently as he could. On the way back, he wondered to himself why everything seemed to be going wrong today. He felt edgy, volatile, as if the seal to his past had somehow been broken. He willed himself to keep his memories locked away.

***

He decided to skip another visit to Mika and headed straight up to Playground.

'How is she?' Kunimatsu asked, opening the door for him. 'I heard she took the night off.'

'It's nothing serious. I'm sure she'll be back at work tomorrow.'

'That's good. And I understand things have picked up downstairs since you stopped in earlier.'

'Glad to hear it,' said Satake, feeling slightly relieved. He did another quick check of the customers in the club: fifteen in all, half businessmen and the others connected with Shinjuku's night life. Of these, half were regulars at the club. Not a bad crowd, all told. Satake pronounced himself satisfied. Now he only needed to figure out what to do about the little crisis over Anna. It wouldn't do to have her moving to another club because of a silly thing like this.

It was just as he'd regained his composure and settled down to think through this problem that the door opened and two new customers walked in. They were ordinary enough - middle-aged men in short-sleeved shirts - and Satake almost had the feeling that he'd seen them somewhere before, though he couldn't have said where. Company men? Shop owners? But they looked around inquisitively, their eyes sharper than the average player's. Satake, who could usually size up a customer at a glance, was at a loss.

'Welcome, gentlemen,' Kunimatsu called out, walking over to greet them. He showed them to a table and, at their request, began explaining the game and the house rules. When he'd finished, one of the two men reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a black leather notebook.

'We're from the Metropolitan Police Department,' he said, holding up his ID. 'I'd like to ask you all to remain where you are. We want to talk to the manager.' A hush fell over the club, and Kunimatsu glanced sheepishly at Satake.

So was this the premonition he'd had since morning? Of course they looked familiar - like every other cop he'd ever seen. He picked up a chip lying on the table and crushed it between his fingers to keep from laughing out loud.