t was late in August when Satake was released, after the typhoons had passed and the autumn winds had begun to blow. As he slowly made his way up the stairs, he found the landing littered with fliers for massage parlours and escort services, and he bent over to pick them up, crumpled them in a ball, and stuffed them in the pocket of his black jacket. It was a sign of neglect that would have been unthinkable when Mika and Playground were doing business. With two of its most prosperous tenants closed, the whole building seemed to be going downhill.

Sensing that someone was watching, he looked up. The bartender at the other club on the second floor was keeping a nervous eye on him from up there. Satake knew the man had testified that he'd had a fight with Yamamoto. He stared back, his hand still shoved in his pocket, and the man quickly shut the purple glass door. He was probably shocked Satake had got out so soon. Aware that the guy must still be watching him through the door, he climbed the last few steps and stood looking at the sign for Mika. For once, its cord was neatly wound and it had been pushed back in the corner. On the door was a notice: 'Closed for Remodelling.'

Satake had been arrested on charges of operating an unlicensed gambling establishment and soliciting for prostitution. In the end, only the gambling charge had been made to stick, and when no hard evidence turned up to support the theory that he was involved in the Yamamoto murder, they had been forced to release him. Knowing how bull headed the police could be, Satake felt lucky to have got away, but there was no denying that the price had been high. The little kingdom he had built up from nothing over the last ten years lay in ruins; and worst of all, his past had been revealed and he had lost the trust of everyone around him. With his past exposed, it would be almost impossible now to go back to his old life.

Trying not to let it get him down, Satake climbed the stairs to the third floor. He had arranged to meet Kunimatsu at what had once been Playground; the club, which had been his prize possession, was already gone. The heavy, expensive door he'd had installed was still there, but the space was now occupied by a mahjong parlour called 'East Wind.' He opened the door carefully, conscious that what had once been his had passed into other hands. Inside, Kunimatsu sat alone, waiting for him.

'Satake-san,' he said, looking up from the one lighted mahjong table in the room. He was smiling, but he seemed to have lost weight and there were dark smudges under his eyes, perhaps because of the spotlight overhead.

'Long time no see,' Satake said, as his manager rose to his feet. 'And it hasn't been much fun for you, I'm afraid.'

'You back at the tiles?' Satake asked, remembering that when he'd first met Kunimatsu, he'd been working at a mahjong place in the Ginza. At the time, Kunimatsu, still in his twenties, spent his days hustling games and running errands for the management. Satake had been amused to see how this ordinary-looking youth was transformed into a seasoned gambler every time he sat down at a mahjong table. He'd been impressed by the depth of his experience in the business, despite his age, and when Satake had opened the casino, he had immediately recruited him as his manager.

'This game's had it,' said Kunimatsu, dusting talc on to the tiles with a practised hand. 'Kids these days learn it online.' There were six tables in the room, apparently rented from a local dealer, but with the exception of the one where Kunimatsu was sitting, they were all covered by white shrouds that reminded Satake of a wake. He nodded. Looking around the room, he remembered where the large baccarat table had been, where the customers had stood waiting for a slot to open - all just a month ago but long gone now. 'Anyway, it looks like I'll be out of a job again,' Kunimatsu laughed, putting the lid on the can of talc. Satake noticed that there were wrinkles now around his eyes.

'What do you mean?' he asked.

'This place is closing up already. They're opening a karaoke bar instead.'

'I guess that's the only way to make a buck these days.' There had been a karaoke machine at Mika, but Satake had never liked using it himself.

'Things are bad all over,' said Kunimatsu.

'We did well enough with baccarat.'

Kunimatsu nodded, a sad smile playing around his mouth. 'You've lost some weight,' he said, looking at Satake more carefully under the light. As he did this, Satake could see a hint of apprehension in his eyes. Like everyone else, he knew that Satake had killed a woman in the past and that he was somehow connected with the Yamamoto business. The world had turned suddenly cold. His creditors were recalling his loans, and he would have trouble from now on finding space to rent for any business venture. Why should Kunimatsu be any different from the rest of them? It infuriated him to think that no one would ever trust him again, but when he spoke, his voice was calm and measured.

'You think so?' he said. 'I didn't get much sleep in there.' In fact, he had barely slept the entire month.

'I can imagine. It must have been rough.' The police had let Kunimatsu go after questioning him on the gambling charge, but he'd been called back several more times about the murder, and he seemed to have some idea how things had gone for Satake.

'I'm sorry you got pulled into it,' Satake said.

'Not to worry. I had a crash course in the judicial system though I guess I'm getting a bit old for school.' While he talked, Kunimatsu's fingers worked the tiles with a hustler's delicate touch, aligning them with a satisfying clatter and then turning them up one by one. Satake lit a cigarette and watched him in silence for a moment. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, savouring its effects after a month of forced abstinence. Satake had few vices. This was his great indulgence. 'I have to admit,' said Kunimatsu, glancing at him, 'it was a bit of a shock to hear what happened to Yamamoto.'

'I guess that's how you end up when you go poking your nose where it doesn't belong.'

'Like you said, "the card shark got bitten"/ said Kunimatsu, laughing again.

'And I was right.'

'About Yamamoto?'

'No, he laughed, 'about me.' Kunimatsu nodded, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking. He probably half-believed that Satake had killed Yamamoto; and if he hadn't gone running for cover, it was only because, unlike the hostesses, he had nowhere else to earn a living.

'It's a shame about Mika, though. There wasn't another club in Kabuki-cho that made money like that.'

'Not much I can do about it now,' said Satake. While he was locked up, he'd told the manager to put everyone on an extended 'summer vacation'; but almost all the employees had been Chinese, with nothing more than student visas, and they'd all gone elsewhere rather than risk getting involved with the police. Reika, the manager who reportedly had ties with the Chinese gangs, was the first to go, heading home to Taiwan at least for the time being. Chin, the floor manager, had apparently moved on to another club, but Satake had no idea where. Anna, who had long been pursued by headhunters from rival clubs, must have found other work as well; and the rest of the girls had either gone home, if they had visa problems, or had signed on at other clubs. What else could you expect in a place like Kabuki-cho? When business was booming, they came buzzing around like bees to a flower, but at the slightest sign of trouble, they were gone. And he could imagine that the news about his past had sent them packing with greater than usual haste.

'Will you be starting over?' Kunimatsu asked. Satake looked up at the ceiling. The chandeliers he had picked out himself were still there, though they were dark now. 'Is there a "New Mika" in our future?' his manager said, staring at his hands which were coated with talc.

'No. I've decided to sell the place, furniture and all.' Kunimatsu looked up at him, clearly surprised.

'That's too bad. Can I ask why?'

'There's something I have to do.'

'What's that?' said Kunimatsu, dusting the powder from his long fingers on to the tiles. 'Whatever it is, I'd like to help.' Without answering, Satake reached back and slowly began to rub his neck. He was having trouble working out the kinks from the sleepless nights in the cell, and if he ignored them they developed into a vicious migraine. 'So what is it?' Kunimatsu sounded impatient.

'I'm going to find out who really killed Yamamoto.'

'Sounds like fun,' Kunimatsu laughed, thinking he was joking. 'Like playing detective.'

'I'm serious,' Satake said, his hands still kneading his neck.

'But what are you going to do if you find him?'

'I'll figure that out when the time comes,' he murmured. He had already given some thought to the question, but he would keep his plans to himself. 'When the time comes,' he repeated.

'You have somebody in mind?' Kunimatsu asked, eyeing Satake nervously.

'At the moment, I'm betting on the wife.'

'The wife?' He looked surprised.

'But you can't tell anyone.'

'Of course.' Kunimatsu looked quickly away, as if he'd just caught a glimpse of the darkness in Satake's heart.

***

Satake left the club and wandered out to the main street. The late summer days were still brutally hot, but the nights had grown cool, and he appreciated the change as he made his way to a nearby building. It was brand new and cheaply built, all glass and steel; and according to the gaudy signs out front, it housed a collection of small clubs. He checked the name of the bar, 'Mato', on the directory and pressed the button in the elevator. As he opened the black door, the manager, dressed in black himself, came hurrying over.

'Good evening,' he said. But when he got closer he stopped, eyes wide. It was Chin.

'I see you landed on your feet,' Satake said. Chin smiled respectfully, but his expression was less obsequious now.

'Satake-san, it's a pleasure to see you. Are you here as a guest?'

'What else?' he said, smiling bitterly.

'And did you have a particular girl in mind?'

'I heard that Anna ended up here as well.' Chin glanced toward the back of the room and Satake's eyes followed. The place was smaller than Mika, but the Chinese decor and rosewood furniture were nice enough.

'I'll call her for you,' said Chin. 'But she's changed her name.'

'To what?'

'She's "Meiran" now.' The name sounded flat and ordinary to Satake's ears. The lady in charge, a Japanese woman in a kimono who knew Satake, looked up in surprise as he was led through the club.

'Satake-san,' she said. 'What a pleasure. Have things settled down at your place?'

'You might say that,' he told her.

'I understand Reika-san is still in Taiwan.'

'Could be. I haven't heard from her.'

'I suppose there could be some unpleasantness if she came back,' the woman said. Satake sensed she was referring to his own supposed connections with the Chinese mafia, but he decided to ignore the remark.

'I wouldn't know,' he said.

'Well, it's all been a terrible shame,' she said, looking uneasy, as if she'd realised she had offended him. He smiled vaguely, beginning to weary of the constant suspicions. A good-looking woman who might have been Anna was seated toward the back of the club, but from behind he couldn't be sure.

The table that Chin led him to was poorly situated, in the middle of the place, even though the preferred seats at the rear were mostly empty. The customers were taking turns at the karaoke machine, and after each performance, the hostesses would automatically applaud, like a troop of trained animals. Recoiling from the noise, Satake worked his way further along the couch. A young woman, whose only qualification seemed to be her youth, appeared at the table and began to chatter at him in broken Japanese, an artificial smile plastered on her face. Satake sat quietly downing glasses of cold oolong tea.

'When is Anna... I mean Meiran... going to be free?' he asked after a while, at which the girl abruptly stood up and moved to another table. From then on, he sat by himself, eventually nodding off in the comfort of a familiar environment. He was probably asleep for no more than a few minutes, but to-Satake it felt like hours. There was no chance of his finding any real peace now, but these moments of rest were an escape, a chance for his body to relax.

He caught a whiff of perfume and opened his eyes to find Anna seated across from him. Her deeply tanned skin was set off by a white silk pants suit.

'Good evening, Satake-san,' she said. It had always been 'honey' before.

'How are you?' he asked.

'Quite well, thanks.' She smiled as she answered, but Satake could feel the wall that had gone up between them.

'That's some tan,' he said.

'I was at the pool every day.' She was quiet for a moment, perhaps remembering that it had all begun with their trip to the pool. Her hands seemed to move automatically, making two weak drinks from the bottle of Scotch they had brought without a word from him. She set one in front of him, though she knew he didn't drink.

'How are they treating you here?' he asked, studying her face.

'Well enough. I was top girl this week; the Customers at Mika have all been coming around.'

'I'm glad to hear it.'

'And I've moved.'

'Where?'

'To Ikebukuro.' She didn't offer the address, and an awkward silence fell between them.

'Why did you kill that woman?' she asked suddenly. Taken by surprise, he stared into her brilliant eyes.

'I don't really know myself,' he said.

'Did you hate her?'

'No, it wasn't that.' In point of fact, she'd been an intelligent, rather impressive woman. But he felt it was useless trying to explain to someone as young as Anna that usually hatred was an emotion arising out of the desire to be accepted by another person, and it didn't apply in this case.

'How old was she?' Anna said.

'I'm not sure. In her mid-thirties, probably.'

'What was her name?'

'I don't remember any more.' He'd often heard it mentioned at the trial, but it was an ordinary one that had long since slipped his mind. He had no need for a symbol like a name when the woman's face and voice were sealed inside him.

'Didn't you care for her? Were you her lover?'

'No, I met her for the first time that night.'

'Then how could you have killed her like that?' she pressed. 'Reika-san told me what you did, how you tortured her beforehand. If you didn't love her - or hate her - how could you have done something like that?' Hearing the intensity in her voice, the people at neighbouring tables turned to look, then quickly looked away again, unnerved perhaps by what they'd heard of her question.

'I don't know,' he murmured. 'I really don't.'

'You were always so nice to me. Was Anna just taking her place?'

'No,' Satake said.

'But honey,' she said, 'how can there be two of you? The one who killed that woman, and the other one who's so good to me.' In her agitation, she'd reverted to calling him 'honey'. He opened his mouth to answer but she interrupted: 'I was just a pet to you, something to spoil. You had me dolled up, like a fancy poodle, so that you could sell me to your customers. That's how you got your kicks, turning me into your best product. If I hadn't let you, would you have killed me like you did that woman?'

'Of course not,' Satake said, taking out another cigarette and lighting it himself, which she would never have let him do before. 'You're beautiful. She was...' At a loss for the right word, he fell silent. She waited, watching him, but he couldn't go on.

'You say I'm beautiful, but the truth is, that's all I am to you. When I first heard what you'd done to that woman, I felt sorry for her. But I think maybe I'm just as sad. Do you know why, honey? Because you can't even hate me enough to do what you did to her. If you cared enough to do that, at least I'd know you felt something. But you don't, you can't. If you could, I don't think I'd mind dying. Once you killed her, you had nothing left for me but making me look nice. But nice is dull, and Anna's been unhappy. Anna's the really sad one, did you know that, honey?' Tears had welled up in her eyes, and as she finished speaking they ran down past her pretty nose and dropped on to the table. The people around them were staring now, and the lady in charge was watching with a worried expression.

'I won't bother you again,' Satake said. 'You get back to work and forget about all this.' Anna said nothing as he rose and paid the bill. Chin followed him to the door with a polite smile, but no one else came to see him off. Fair enough, he thought. This was no longer his world.

The day that detective had first questioned him, he'd realised that the woman who'd died was still clinging to him, despite the seventeen years that had passed. And now he was resigned to facing her, to exposing the memories he'd kept tightly sealed away, like prying loose the soft meat inside a cracked shell.

***

It had been a long time since he'd been alone in his own apartment; nearly four weeks, to be precise. As he opened the door, he was greeted by the musty smell of a room shut up too long in the summer heat. He also heard voices, and he hurried inside after slipping out of his shoes. A pale light was flickering in the darkness - the television had been left on. He had apparently forgotten to turn it off as he'd wandered out into that miserable, scorching day to meet Anna. And whoever had come to search the place later hadn't bothered to turn it off for him. He smiled bitterly, settling down in front of the set. The news was just ending.

Now that the summer was winding down, the buzzing in his head had begun to subside. He rose and went to open the window. The noise and fumes from Yamate Avenue rose to meet him, but the cool night air flowed in, replacing the stale air in the apartment. The lights of the skyscrapers shone starkly against the black sky. He was all right now, he told himself, filling his lungs with the dirty city air. There was just one more thing he had to do.

He opened the closet where he stuffed old newspapers before throwing them out. The newsprint was damp with humidity and beginning to yellow, but he flipped through the pages in search of articles about the Koganei Park murder. When he found something, he laid the paper out on the floor and took notes on a small pad. Once he was done, he sat back and smoked a cigarette as he went over what he'd written.

Then he got up off the floor and turned off the TV. He was ready to go out, go wandering through the back streets of the city. There was nothing to hang on to now, nothing to lose. He had crossed a deep river and the bridge had collapsed behind him. There was no way back. He felt an exhilaration that he hadn't known for years, not since his twenties when he'd been a gang boss's gofer. There was something oddly similar about this feeling of wandering without a destination and the realisation that there was no going back. Both promised a kind of liberation, he thought, smiling to himself.