otanda swung by at eight-forty. He was wearing a perfectly ordinary gray V-neck sweater over a perfectly ordinary blue button-down shirt with — you got it — perfectly ordinary cotton slacks. And still he looked striking. Extraordinarily so.

He was curious about my digs, so I invited him in.

"Nice," he said with a shy smile. Such a sweet smile, it made you feel like offering to let him stay for a week.

"Takes me back," he said, as if to himself. "Reminds me of the place I used to have — before I hit it big." From anyone else, the comment would have been an unbearable snub, but from him it was a compliment, straightforward and pure.

I offered Gotanda a big cushion and got out my fold-away low table from the closet. Then I brought us black beer with my spinach-and-whitefish concoction and put on the Schubert again.

"Fantastic!"

"Really? How about something else?"

"I'd love it, but I don't want you to have to go to the trouble."

"No trouble at all. I can whip something up quick and easy. Nothing too fancy, though."

"Can I watch?" "Sure," I said.

Scallions tossed with salt-plum. Wakame seaweed and shrimp vinaigrette. Wasabi preserves and grated daikon with sliced fish mousse. Slivered potatoes in olive oil and garlic with minced salami. Homemade cucumber pickles. Yesterday's hijiki seaweed plus tofu garnished with heaps of ginger.

"Amazing," sighed Gotanda. "You're a genius."

"Very kind of you to say so, but I assure you, it's real simple. Just throwing together stuff I have around."

"Sheer genius. I could never do it."

"Well, thank you, but I could never imitate a dentist."

"Aaa —," he said, dismissing my return of compliment. "You know, would you mind if we didn't go out tonight? This stuff is great."

"Fine by me."

So we drank and ate. When the beer ran out, we switched to Cutty Sark. We listened to Sly and the Family Stone, the Doors and Stones, Pink Floyd. We listened to the Beach Boys' Surf's Up. It was a sixties kind of night. The Loving Spoonful, Three Dog Night. Any self-respecting alien transponding in from Sirius would have thought himself caught in a time warp.

No alien showed, but from ten o'clock it did start to rain. Softly, quietly, barely audible on the eaves. Almost silent as the dead.

As the night wore on, we stopped putting on music. My apartment didn't have the thick walls of Gotanda's condominium, and loud noise after eleven asked for complaints. With the music off, the whisper of the rain underscored the tone of our conversation. The police hadn't made much headway on Mei's case, I lamented. No, they haven't, Gotanda sighed. He'd been checking the newspapers and magazines too.

I opened a second bottle of Cutty Sark, and for the first round we toasted Mei.

"The cops have narrowed their investigations down to prostitution rings," I went on, "so they must have gotten a hold somewhere. I'm worried that'll lead them to you."

"There's a chance," said Gotanda, knitting his eyebrows slightly. "But it's probably okay. I was a little nervous, so I asked the folks at my agency about it. Whether that club's as tight-lipped as they claim. And you know what? Seems the club has a lot of political connections, some pretty big names apparently. So even if the club did spill to the police, they wouldn't be able to go sniffing too far. They couldn't lay a hand on anybody. And for that matter, my agency has a bit of clout too. Some of the bigger stars have very close friends in high places. Sometimes in not-so-nice places. So either way, the cops don't have a lot of room to maneuver. And because I'm a money tree for the agency, they don't want anything to happen to me. I'm a major investment. They don't want to see my value plummet. True, if you'd mentioned my name to the cops, my ass would've been hauled in for sure. All the political connections in Ginza couldn't have kept that from happening. But no fear of that now. The rest is a power play, one system against another."

"It's a dirty world," I said.

"Isn't it, though," said Gotanda. "Dirty to the core."

"Two votes, dirty."

"Say what?"

"Two votes for dirty, motion adopted."

He nodded, then smiled sadly. "Two votes for dirty. No one can be bothered to think about a murder victim. Everyone's busy looking out for Number One," he said. "Myself included."

I went into the kitchen to replenish the ice, bringing out crackers and cheese.

"I want to ask you a favor," I said, sitting down. "Could you call up the organization and ask them something for me?"

He pinched his earlobe. "What do you want to know? Anything to do with this case is out of the question. They'd never crack."

"Completely unrelated. I want to know about a call girl I met in Honolulu. I've heard a girl overseas could be arranged through the club."

"Who told you that?"

"Someone with no name. I'm willing to bet that the organization this guy was talking about is the same club we're talking about. Because you got to be rich and famous to join. Neither of which I begin to approach, or so I was told."

Gotanda smiled. "Yeah, I think I may have heard about a service like that. One phone call does the trick. I haven't had the pleasure, but it's probably the same setup. So, what about that hooker in Honolulu?"

"I just want to know if the club has a Southeast Asian woman named June working for them."

Gotanda thought about this, but didn't ask anything more. He jotted down the name in his datebook.

"June what?"

"Gimme a break. She's a call girl," I said. "It's just June."

"Got it. I'll ring the place up tomorrow."

"Thanks. I owe you," I said.

"Forget it. After what you've done for me, this is a pittance." He winked and gave me a thumbs-up. "You go to Hawaii alone, by the way?"

"Who goes to Hawaii alone? I went with a girl. She's only thirteen, though."

"You slept with a thirteen-year-old girl?"

"What do you think I am? The kid doesn't even wear a bra yet."

"Then why'd you go with her?"

"To teach her table manners, interpret the mysteries of the sex drive, bad-mouth Boy George, go see E.T. You know, the usual."

Gotanda gave me a long look. Then he skewed his lips into a smile. "You really are a little odd, you know?"

Now everyone seemed to think so. Motion passed by unanimous vote.

Gotanda drank some whiskey and nibbled on a cracker. "I saw my ex-wife a couple of times while you were away," he said. "We're getting along pretty well. Strange to say, but sleeping with your ex-wife can be fun." "I guess."

"Why don't you try seeing your ex-wife?" "No way. She's about to get married. Didn't I tell you?" He shook his head. "Didn't know. Well, too bad." "No, it's better this way," I said and I meant it. "But what about your ex?"

He shook his head again. "It's hopeless. No other way to put it. Hopeless. A dead end. You know, we make better love than we ever have. We don't have to say a word. We understand each other. It's better than when we were married. We love each other, if you want to know. But it can't go on forever like this, meeting in love hotels. I wish we didn't have to hide, but if her family finds out, they'll make my life miserable. As if they haven't already. If it's between me or them, she'll pick them every time. I lose whichever way I turn?God, the things I would give for a normal life with her." Gotanda swirled the ice in his glass, around and around. "Funny isn't it? I can get almost anything I want. Except the one thing I want the most."

"That's how it is," I said. "But I never could get everything I wanted, so I can't really talk."

"No, you've got it wrong," said Gotanda. "You never wanted things to begin with. For instance, would you ever want a Maserati or a condo in Azabu?"

"Well, if somebody forced them on me,?But I guess I can live without them. My little apartment and my trusty Subaru satisfy me all right. Well, maybe satisfy is an overstatement. But they suit me all right, they're easy to manage, they're not dissatisfying anyway. But who knows? Maybe there'll come a time when I need those things."

"No, you're wrong again. That's not what need is. This stuff isn't natural. It's manufactured. Take that place where I live. A roof over your head is the point, not what fancy part of town it's in. But the idiots at the agency say — Itabashi or Kameido or Nakano Toritsukasei? No status. You big star, you live Azabu. The next thing I know, they've stuck me in that ridiculous condo. What bullshit! What the hell is so great about Azabu? A bunch of rip-off restaurants run by fashion designers and that eyesore called Tokyo Tower and all those crazed women wandering around all night. The same thing with the goddamn Maserati. Who the hell drives a Maserati in Tokyo? It's such bullshit! Subaru or Bluebird or Corona? Nope. Big star no get caught dead in anything but Maserati. The only saving grace of that car is that it's not new; they got it off some enka singer."

He poured some whiskey over melted ice, took a sip, frowned.

"That's my world. Azabu, European sports car, first-class. Stupid, meaningless, idiotic bullshit. How did all this?this?this total nonsense get started? Well, it's very, very simple. You just repeat the message and repeat the message and repeat the message. You pound that baby in. Until everybody believes it. Like a mantra. Azabu, BMW, Rolex, Azabu, BMW, Rolex, Azabu, BMW, Rolex, Azabu,...

"That's how you get those poor suckers who actually believe the bullshit. But if they believe that, they're exactly like everybody else. They're blind; they got zero imagination. I'm fed up with it. I'm fed up with this life they have me living. I'm their life-size dress-up doll. Sewed together with loans and mortgages. But who wants to hear this grief? After all, I live in a jet-stream condo in Azabu, I drive a Maserati, I have this Patek Philippe watch — a step up from Rolex, don't you know? And I can sleep with a high-class call girl anytime I feel like it. I'm the envy of the whole goddamn town. I want you to know I didn't ask for any of it. But the worst thing is — boy, this must be getting boring — as long as I keep living like this, I can't get what I really want."

"Like, for instance, love?" I said.

"Yeah, like, for instance, love. And tranquillity. And a healthy family. And a simple life," he ran down the list. Then he placed both hands together before his face. "Look at me, I had a world of possibilities, I had opportunities. But now I'm a puppet. I can get almost any woman I want. Yet the one woman I really want?

Gotanda was getting good and drunk. It didn't show on him, but he sure was letting it all hang out. Which I could appreciate, absolutely, this urge to drink himself silly. We'd been going for almost four hours like this. Gotanda asked if he should get out of here, but I told him I wasn't doing anything special, same as always.

"Sorry to force myself on you," he said. "I don't have anyone else to talk to, to tell you the truth. If I told someone that deep down I'm a Subaru man, they'd think I was stark raving mad, they'd cart me off to a shrink. Of course, it's in fashion, you know, going to a shrink. Amazing bullshit. A show-business shrink is like a vomit clean-up specialist." He closed his eyes. "Seems like I came here just to bitch." "You've said 'bullshit' at least twenty times." "Have I?"

"Go ahead, blow it off, if that's what you want." "No, enough of this. I'm sorry to make you listen to this garbage. It's just that I'm surrounded by all this steaming shit. Makes me want to puke." "Then go ahead and puke."

"Idiots all around me," Gotanda practically spat out the words. "Bloodsuckers, fat, ugly bloodsuckers, slopping their fat asses around, feeding off the hopes and dreams of decent people. I tell myself it'd be a waste of good energy strangling them."

"Yeah, using a baseball bat would be better. Strangling takes too long."

"You're right," said Gotanda. "But strangling makes the point clearer. Instant death is too good. Why waste kindness on them?"

"Ah, the voice of reason."

"Honestly —," he went on, ignoring my irony, then broke off with a sigh and brought his hands together in front of his face again. "I feel so much better." "Well, now that we've settled that, how about some o-chazuke?"

"O-chazuke? You're kidding. I'd love some o-chazuke."

I boiled water for tea, tossed together some crumbled nori and salt-plum and wasabi horseradish, topped two bowls of rice with the mixture, and poured tea over each. O-chazuke. Yum.

"From where I sit, seems to me you don't have a bad life," Gotanda said.

I lay back against the wall and listened to the rain. "Some parts, sure. I'm not unhappy. But I'm like you. I feel like something's missing. I'm living a normal life, I suppose. I'm dancing. I know the steps, and I'm dancing. It's all right. But socially speaking, I've got nothing. I'm thirty-four, I'm not married, I don't have a regular job, I live from day to day. I can't get a public housing loan. I'm not sleeping with anybody. What am I going to be like in thirty years?"

"You'll get by."

"Or else I won't," I said. "Who knows? Same as everyone."

"But with my life, I don't even have parts I enjoy."

"Maybe not, but you look like you're doing pretty well for yourself."

Gotanda shook his head. "Do people who're doing pretty well for themselves pour out such endless streams of grief? Do they come bother you and slosh all over you?"

"Sometimes they do," I said. "We're talking about people, not common denominators."

At one-thirty, Gotanda announced he was leaving.

"You can stay if you like. I've got an extra futon. I'll even make you breakfast," I said.

"No, really, but thanks for the offer. I'm sober now, so I might as well go home," he said. "But I've got a favor to ask first. I'm afraid you're going to think it's a little strange."

"Fire away." "Would you be willing to let me borrow the Subaru for a bit? I'll trade you the Maserati for it. The Maserati is so flashy, I can't go anywhere in peace, especially when I'm trying to see my ex-wife."

"Borrow the Subaru for as long as you like," I said. "But to be honest, I don't know about taking on the Maserati. I keep my heap in a parking lot, so it could easily get banged up at night. And if I dent it or something, I'll never be able to pay for it."

"Don't worry about it. I don't. If anything happens, the agency will take care of it. That baby's insured up the tail pipe. Drive the thing into the sea if you feel like. Honest. They'll only buy me a Ferrari next. There's a porno writer who's got one he wants to sell." "A Ferrari?" I said limply.

"I know what you're thinking," he laughed. "But you can just shelve it. It's hard for you to understand, but in this debauched world of mine, you can't survive with good taste. Because a person with good taste is a twisted, poor person, a sap without money. You get sympathy, but no one thinks better of you."

So Gotanda drove off in my Subaru, and I pulled his Maserati into the lot. A superaggressive machine. All response and power. The slightest pressure on the accelerator and it practically left the ground.

"Easy baby, you don't have to try so hard," I said with an affectionate pat on the dashboard. But the Maserati wasn't listening to the likes of me. Cars know their class too.