ick North had been doing the shopping on a Monday evening in Hakone and had just stepped out from the supermarket with a bag of groceries under his arm when a truck came barreling down the road and slammed into him. The truck driver confessed that he didn't know what possessed him to gun full-speed ahead in such poor road visibility. And Dick himself had made a telling slip. He'd looked to his left, but was one or two breaths behind in checking his right. A common mistake among people who have lived overseas for any length of time and have just returned to Japan. You haven't gotten used to cars driving on the left-hand side yet. In most cases, you come away with chills, but sometimes it's worse. The truck sent Dick sailing into the opposite lane, where he was battered again by an oncoming van. He died instantly.

When I heard the news, the first thing that came to mind was going shopping with Dick at a probably similar supermarket in Makaha. How knowledgeably he selected his purchases, how he examined the fruit and vegetables and unembarrassedly tossed a box of Tampax into the shopping cart. Poor bastard. Unlucky to the last. Arm blown off in Vietnam when the guy next to him stepped on a mine. Running around morning to night putting out Ame's smoldering cigarettes. Now dead on the asphalt holding onto a load of groceries.

His funeral saw him returned to his rightful family, his wife and child. Neither Ame nor Yuki nor I attended.

I borrowed the Subaru back from Gotanda and drove Yuki to Hakone that Tuesday afternoon. It was at Yuki's urging. "Mama can't get by on her own. Sure, there's the maid, but she's too old to do anything and she goes home at night. We can't leave Mama alone up there."

"Yeah, it's probably good for you to spend some time with your mother," I said.

Yuki was flipping through the road atlas. "Hey, you remember I said bad things about him?"

"Who? Dick North?"

"Yeah."

"You called him a goon," I said.

Yuki stowed the book in the door pocket, rested her elbow on the window, and turned her gaze to the scenery ahead. "But you know," she said, "he wasn't so bad. He was nice to me. He spent time telling me how to surf and all. Even without that arm, he was a lot more alive than most people with two arms. Plus, he took good care of Mama."

"I know."

"But I said nasty things about him."

"You couldn't help yourself," I said. "It's not your fault."

She looked straight ahead the whole way. She didn't turn to look at me. The breeze blowing in through the window ruffled her bangs.

"It's sad, but I think he was that sort of person," I said. "A nice guy, maybe even worthy of respect. But he got treated like some kind of fancy trash basket. People were always dumping on him. Maybe he was born with that tendency. Mediocrity's like a spot on a shirt — it never comes off."

"It's unfair." "As a rule, life is unfair," I said.

"Yeah, but I think I did say some awful things."

"To Dick?"

"Yeah."

I pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road and turned off the ignition.

"That's just stupid, that kind of thinking," I said, nailing her with my eyes. "Instead of regretting what you did, you could have treated him decently from the beginning. You could've tried to be fair. But you didn't. You don't even have the right to be sorry."

Yuki looked at me, shocked and hurt. "Maybe I'm being too hard on you. But listen, I don't care what other people do. I don't want to hear that sort of talk from you. You shouldn't say things like that lightly, as if saying them is going to solve anything. They don't stick. You think you feel sorry about Dick, but I don't believe you really do. If I were Dick, I wouldn't want your easy regret. I wouldn't want people saying, 'Oh, I acted horribly.' It's not a question of manners; it's a question of fairness. That's something you have to learn."

Yuki couldn't respond. She pressed her fingers to her temples and quietly closed her eyes. She almost seemed to have dozed off, but for the slight flutter of her eyelashes, the trembling of her lips. Crying inside, without sobs or tears. Was I expecting too much of a thirteen-year-old girl? Who was I to be so self-righteous? Still, whether or not she was thirteen, whether or not I was an exemplary human being, you can't let everything slide. Stupidity is stupidity. I won't put up with it.

Yuki didn't move. I reached out and touched her arm.

"It's okay," I said. "I'm very narrow-minded. No, to be fair, you've done the best that can be expected."

A single tear trailed down her cheek and fell on her lap. That was all. Beautiful and noble.

"So what can I do now?" she spoke up a minute later.

"Nothing," I said. "Just think about what comes before words. You owe that to the dead. As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself. Is that too much to ask?"

"A little," she said, trying to smile.

"Well, of course it is," I said, trying to smile too. "I doubt that this makes sense to most people. But I think I'm right. People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. Personally, I don't buy it."

Yuki leaned against the car door.

"But that's real hard, isn't it?" she said.

"Real hard," I said. "But it's worth trying for. Look at Boy George: Even a fat gay kid who can't sing can become a star."

"Okay," she smiled, "but why are you always getting on Boy George's case? I bet you must really like him, deep down."

"Let me think about that one," I said.

Yuki's mother's house was in a large resort-housing tract. There was a big gate, with a pool and a coffee house adjacent. There was even a stop-and-shop minimart filled with junk food. No place someone like Dick North would have bought groceries at. Me either. As the road twisted and turned up the grade, my friendly Subaru began to gasp.

Halfway up the hill was Ame's house, too big for just a mother and daughter. I stopped the car and carried Yuki's bags up the steps to the side of the stone embankment. Down the slope, between the ranks of cedars, you could make out the ocean by Odawara. The air was hazy, the sea dull under the leaden glaze of spring.

Ame paced the large, sunny living room, lit cigarette in hand. A big crystal ashtray was overflowing with bent and crushed Salem butts, the entire tabletop dusted with ashes. She tossed her latest butt into the ashtray and came over to greet Yuki, mussing her hair. She wore a chemical-spotted oversized sweatshirt and faded jeans. Her hair was uncombed, eyes bleary.

"It's been terrible," said Ame. "Why do these horrible things always happen?"

I expressed my condolences and inquired about the details of yesterday's accident. It was all so sudden, she told me, she felt out of control, confused, uncertain. "And of course the maid came down with a fever today and won't be in. Now of all times, a fever! I'm going crazy. The police come, Dick's wife calls, I don't know what they expect of me." "What did Dick's wife have to say?" "I couldn't make it out," she said. "She just cried. And when she wasn't crying, she mumbled so I could barely understand what she was saying. And me, in this position, what was I supposed to say??What was I supposed to say?" I shook my head.

"I told her I'd send along Dick's things as soon as I could, but then the woman was crying even more. It was hopeless." She let out a big sigh and collapsed into the sofa. I asked her if she wanted anything to drink, and she asked for coffee. For good measure, I also cleared away the ashtray and cocoa-caked mugs, and wiped off the table. While I waited for the water to boil, I tidied up the kitchen. Dick North had kept a neat pantry, but already it was a mess. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, cocoa had been dribbled across the stainless steel cooktop, knives lay here and there smeared with cheese and who-knows-what, the lid of the sugar container was nowhere in sight.

Poor bastard, I thought as I made a strong pot of coffee. He tried so hard to bring order to this place. Now in the space of one day, it was gone. Just like that. People leave traces of themselves where they feel most comfortable, most worthwhile. With Dick, that place was the kitchen. But even that tenuous presence was on its way out. Poor bastard.

I carried in the coffee and found Ame and Yuki sitting on the sofa. Ame's head rested on her daughter's shoulder. She looked drugged and drained. Yuki seemed ill at ease. How odd they appeared together — so different from when they were apart — how doubly unapproachable.

Ame accepted the coffee with both hands and drank it slowly, preciously. The slightest glow came to her eyes.

"You want anything to drink?" I asked Yuki.

She shook her head with no expression whatsoever.

"Has everything been taken care of?" I asked Ame. "The business about the accident, legal matters, and all that?"

"Done. The actual procedure wasn't so difficult. It was a perfectly common accident. A policeman came to the house to tell me the news, and that was it. I told them to contact Dick's wife, and she handled everything. I mean, I had no legal or even professional relationship with Dick. Then the wife called here. She hardly said a word, she just cried. She didn't even scream, nothing."

A perfectly common accident.

Another three weeks and Ame wouldn't remember there ever was someone in her life named Dick North. Ame was the forgetful type, and, unfortunately, Dick was forgettable.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.

"Well, yes. Dick's belongings," she muttered. "I told you I was going to return them to her, didn't I?"

"Yes."

"Well, last night I put his things in order. His manuscripts and typewriter and books and clothes — they all fit in one suitcase. There wasn't that much stuff. Just one suitcase full. I hate to ask, but could you deliver it to his wife?"

"Sure. Where does the family live?"

"I don't know exactly. Somewhere in Gotokuji, I know. Could you find out for me?"

Yuki showed me the study where Dick's things were. Upstairs, a long, narrow garret at the end of the hall, what had originally been the maid's room. It was pleasant enough, and naturally Dick had kept everything in immaculate order. On the desk were arranged five precision-sharpened pencils and an eraser, an unqualified still life. A calendar on the wall had been annotated with meticulous handwriting.

Yuki leaned in the doorway and scanned the interior in silence. All you could hear were the birds outside. I recalled the cottage in Makaha. It had been just as quiet, and there had been birds too.

The tag on the suitcase, also in Dick's hand, had his name and address. I lugged it downstairs. With his books and papers, it was much heavier than it looked. The weight yet another reminder of the fate of Dick North.

"There's not much here to eat," said Ame. "Dick went out to do the shopping and then all this happened."

"Don't worry. I'll go to the store," I said.

I checked the contents of the refrigerator to see what she did have. Then I drove down to town, to the supermarket where Dick had spent the last moments of his life, and purchased four or five days' worth of provisions.

I put away the groceries, and Ame thanked me. I felt like I was merely finishing up the task that Dick had left undone.

The two women saw me off from atop the stone embankment. The same as in Makaha, only this time nobody was waving. That had been Dick's role. The two stood there, not moving, gazing down on me. An almost mythological scene, like an icon. I heaved the gray suitcase into the backseat and slid behind the wheel. Mother and daughter were still standing there when I turned the curve and headed out of their sight. The sun was starting to sink into an orange sea. How would they spend the night? I wondered.

That one-armed skeleton in the eerie gloom of the room in Honolulu, it was now clear, was Dick North. So, who could the other five be? Let's say my old friend, the Rat, for one. Dead several years now, in Hokkaido.

Then Mei, for another.

That left three. Three more.

What was Kiki doing there? Why did she want to show me these six deaths?

I made it down to Odawara and got on the Tokyo-Nagoya Expressway. Exiting at Sangenjaya, I navigated my way into the suburbs of Setagaya by map and found Dick North's house. An ordinary two-story suburban home, very small. The door and windows and mailbox and entry light — everything seemed to be in miniature. A mongrel on a chain patrolled the front door. There were lights on inside the house, the sound of voices. Dick's wake was in progress. At least he had somewhere to come home to.

I took the suitcase out of the car and hauled it to the front door. I rang the doorbell and a middle-aged man appeared. I explained that I'd brought Dick's things; my expression said I didn't know any more than that. The man looked at the name tag and grasped the situation immediately.

"Very much obliged," said the man, stiff but cordial.

And so, with no more resolve than before, I returned to my Shibuya apartment.

Three more, I thought.

In the scheme of things, what possible meaning was there to Dick North's death?

Alone in my room, I mulled it over a whiskey. It happened so suddenly, how could there have been meaning? All these blank spots in the puzzle and this piece didn't fit anywhere. Flip it over, turn it sideways, still no good. Did the piece belong somewhere else entirely?

Even if Dick's death had no meaning in itself, a major change of circumstances seemed inevitable. And not for the better either, my intuition told me. Dick North was a man of good intentions. In his own way, he had held things together. But now that he was gone, things were going to change, things were going to get harder.

For instance?

For instance, I didn't care for Yuki's blank expression whenever she was with Ame. Nor did I like Ame's dull, spaced-out stare when she was with Yuki. There was something bad there. I liked Yuki. She was a good kid. Smart, maybe a little stubborn at times, but sensitive underneath it all. And I had nothing against Ame, really. She was attractive, full of vision, defenseless. But put the two of them together and the combination was devastating.

There was an energy that mounted with the two females together.

Dick North had been the buffer after Makimura. But now that he was gone, I was the only one left to deal with them.

For instance —

I rang up Yumiyoshi a few times. She was as cool as ever, although I may have detected a hint of pleasure in her voice. Apparently I wasn't too much of a nuisance. She was working every day, going to her swim club twice a week, dating occasionally. The previous Sunday, she told me, a guy had taken her for a drive to a lake.

"He's just a friend. An old classmate, now working in Sapporo. That's all."

I didn't mind, I said. Drive or hike or like, I didn't need to know. What really got to me was her swim club.

"But anyway, I just wanted to tell you," said Yumiyoshi. "I hate to hide things."

"I don't mind," I repeated. "All I care about is that I get up to Sapporo to see you again. You can go out with anybody you like. That's got nothing to do with us. You've been in my thoughts. Like I said before, I feel a bond between us."

Once again, she asked me what I meant. And again, my heart was in my words, but the explanation made no sense. Typical me. A moderate silence ensued. A neutral-to-slightly-positive silence. True, silence is still silence, except when you think about it too much.

Gotanda looked tired whenever I saw him. He'd been squeezing trysts with his ex-wife into an already tight work schedule.

"All I know is, I can't keep this up forever," he said, sighing deeply. "I'm not cut out for this living on the fringes. I'm a homebody. That's why I'm so run-down. I'm overextended, burned out."

"You ought to go to Hawaii for a break," I said. "Just the two of you."

"Wouldn't I love to," he said, smiling weakly. "Maybe for five days, lying on the beach, doing nothing. Even three days would be terrific."

That evening I'd gone to his condo in Azabu, sat on his chic sofa with a drink in my hand, and watched a compilation tape of the antacid commercials he'd appeared in. The first time I'd ever seen them.

Four office building elevators without walls or doors are rising and falling at high speeds like pistons. Gotanda is in a dark suit, briefcase in hand, every inch the elite businessman. He's hopping back and forth from elevator to elevator, conferring with his boss in one, making a date with a pretty young secretary in another, picking up papers here, rushing to dispatch them there. Two elevators away a telephone is ringing. All this jumping back and forth between speeding elevators is no easy trick, but Gotanda isn't losing his cool mask. He looks more and more serious.

VOICE OVER

Everyday stress builds up in your stomach. Give the business to your busy-ness with a gentle remedy...

I laughed. "That was fun." "I think so too," he said. "Idiotic but fun. All commercials are nonsense, but this one is well shot. It's a damn sight better than most of my feature films, I'm sorry to say. Ad people have no qualms about spending on details, and the sets and those special effects cost a lot. It's not a bad concept either."

"And it's practically autobiographical." "You said it," he laughed. "Boy, does my stomach get stressed out. But let me tell you, that stuff doesn't do a damn thing. They gave me a dozen packs to try, and it's a wonder how little it works."

"You really do move, though," I said, rewinding the tape by remote control to watch the commercial again. "You're a regular Buster Keaton. You might have found your calling."

A smile floated across Gotanda's lips. "I'd be interested. I like comedy. There's something to be said when a straight man like me can bring out the humor of a routine like that. You try to live straight in this crazy, crooked, mixed-up world — that's what's funny. You know what I mean?" "I do, I do," I said.

"You don't even have to do anything especially funny. You just act normal. That alone looks strange and funny. Acting like that interests me. That type of actor simply doesn't exist in Japan today. People always overact when it comes to comedy. What I want to do is the reverse. Not act." He took a sip of his drink and looked up at the ceiling. "But no one brings me roles like that. The only roles they ever, ever bring into my agency are doctors or teachers or lawyers. You've heard me go on about this before, and let me tell you, I'm bored, bored, bored, bored. I'd like to turn them down, but I'm in no position to reject anything, and my stomach takes a beating."

Gotanda's first antacid commercial had been so well received, he'd made a number of sequels. The pattern was always the same. If he wasn't jumping back and forth between trains and buses and planes with split-second timing, he was scaling a skyscraper with papers under his arms or tightrope-walking between offices. Through it all, Gotanda kept a perfect deadpan.

"At first the director told me to look tired. Like I was about to keel over from exhaustion. But I told him, no, that it'd come off better if I just played it straight. Of course, they're all idiots, they didn't go for it at all. But I didn't give in. I don't do these commercials for fun, but I was sure about the right way to do it. I insisted. So they shot it two ways and everyone liked mine much more. And then, of course, the commercial was a success, so the director took all the credit. He even won some kind of prize for it. Not that I care. What eats me is how they all act so big, as if they thought the whole thing up. The ones with no imagination are always the quickest to justify themselves."

Gotanda switched off the video and put on a Bill Evans record.

"All these idiots think they're so sharp, they got me dancing on their pinheads. Go here, go there. Do this, do that. Drive this car, go out with that woman. It's a bad movie of a bad life. How long can it last?"

"Maybe you ought to just toss it and start again from scratch. If anyone could do it, you could. Leave your agency, and take your time paying back what you owe."

"Don't think I haven't thought about it. If I was on my own, that's what I'd do. Go back to square one, and join some theater group. I wouldn't mind, believe me. But if I did, my ex-wife would drop me, just like that. She grew up under pressure — star-system pressure — and she needs people around her who feel that pressure too. If the atmosphere drops, she can't breathe. So if I want to be with her, I haven't got a choice," said Gotanda, with a smile of resignation. "Let's talk about something else. I could go on until morning and still not get anywhere."

And so he brought up Kiki.

It was because of Kiki that Gotanda and I had become friends, yet he'd hardly heard a word out of my mouth about her. Did I find it hard to talk about her? If so, he wouldn't insist.

No, I told him, not at all.

I told him that Kiki and I got together entirely by chance and that we were living together soon after that. She burrowed into my life so unobtrusively, I could hardly believe she hadn't always been there. "I didn't notice how extraordinary it was at the time. But when I thought it over later, the whole scenario seemed completely unreal. And when I put it into words, it sounds silly. Which is why I haven't told anyone about it."

I took a drink, swirling the ice in my glass.

"In those days, Kiki was working as an ear model, and I'd seen these photos of her ears and, well, I got obsessed, to put it mildly. Her ear was going to appear in this ad — I forget what for — and my job was to write the copy. I was given these three photos, these three enormous close-ups of her ears, close enough to see the baby fuzz, and I tacked them up on my wall. I started gazing at these ears, day in and day out. At first I was fishing for some kind of inspiration, some kind of catchphrase, but then the ears became a part of my life. Even after I finished the job, I kept the photos up. They were incredible — they were perfectly formed, bewitching. The dream image of an ear. You'd have to see the real thing, though. They were?

"Yeah, you did mention something about her ears."

"I had this total fixation. So I made these calls and found out who she was and I finally got ahold of her and she agreed to see me. The first day we met, we were at a restaurant and she personally showed me her ears. Personally, I mean, not professionally, and they were even more amazing than in the photograph. They were exquisite! Fantastic! When she exposed her ears professionally — that is, when she modeled them — she blocked them, she said. So they were gorgeous but they were different from her ears when she showed them. And when she did, it was like the entire world underwent a transformation. I know that sounds ludicrous, but I don't know how else to put it."

Gotanda considered seriously what I'd said. "What do you mean by her 'blocking' her ears?"

"Severing her ears from her consciousness."

"Oh."

"She pulled the plug on her ears."

"Uh-huh."

"Sounds crazy, but it's true."

"Oh, I believe you. I'm honestly trying to understand. Really, no kidding."

I eased back into the sofa and looked at a painting on the wall.

"Her ears had special power. They were like some great whirlpool of fate sucking me in. And they could lead people to the right place."

Gotanda pondered my words again. "And," he said, "did Kiki lead you anywhere? To some 'right place'?"

I nodded, but didn't say more about it. Too long and involved to explain.

"Now," I said, "she's trying to lead me somewhere again. I can sense it, very strongly. For the last few months, I've had this nagging feeling. And little by little I've been reeling in the line. It's a very fine line. It got snagged a couple of times, but it's gotten me this far. It's brought me in contact with a lot of different people. You, for instance. You're one of the central figures in this drama. Still, I can't get a grip on what's going on. Two people I knew have died recently. One was Mei. The other was a one-armed poet. I don't know what's going on, but I know something is."

The ice in the bucket had all but melted, so Gotanda fetched a new batch from the kitchen to freshen both our drinks.

"So you see, I'm stuck too," I picked up again. "Just like you."

"No, there you're wrong. You and I are not alike," Gotanda said. "I'm in love with one woman. And it's a dead-end kind of love. But not you. Maybe you're confused and wandering in a maze, but compared with this emotional morass I've gotten myself dragged into, you're much, much better off. You're being guided somewhere. You've got hope. There's possibility of a way out. But not for me, not at all. That's the big difference between us."

Well, maybe, maybe so. "Whatever. I've been clinging to this line from Kiki. That's all I can do for now. She's been sending these signals, these messages. So I spend my time trying to stay tuned in."

"Do you think," Gotanda started cautiously, "that there's a possibility Kiki's been killed?" "Like Mei?"

"Uh-huh. I mean, she disappeared so suddenly. When I heard Mei was murdered, right away I thought about Kiki. Like maybe the same thing happened to her. I didn't want to say it before."

And yet I'd seen her, in downtown Honolulu, in the dim dusk light. I'd actually seen her. And Yuki knew it.

"Just something that crossed my mind. I didn't mean anything by it," Gotanda said.

"Sure, the possibility exists. But she's still sending me messages. Loud and clear."

Gotanda crossed his arms for a few minutes, pensive. He looked so exhausted, I thought he might nod off. Night was stealing into the room, enveloping his trim physique in fluid shadow.

I swirled the ice around in my glass again and took a sip. That was when I noticed a third presence in the room. Someone else was here besides Gotanda and myself. I sensed body heat, breathing, odor. Yet it wasn't human. I froze. I glanced quickly around the room, but I saw nothing. There was only the feeling of something. Something solid, but invisible. I breathed deeply. I strained to hear.

It waited, crouching, holding its breath. Then it was gone. I eased up and took another sip.

A minute or two later Gotanda opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Sorry. Seems we're making a depressing evening of it," he said.

"That's because, basically speaking, we're both depressing people," I said.

Gotanda laughed, but offered no further comment.