.

me to do that?”

      Ryuji looked vaguely relieved. He put his arm around Asakawa’s shoulders and pulled Asakawa’s face close. He put his mouth to Asakawa’s ear and said, “You seem like you can keep a secret, like I can trust you. So I’ll tell you. As a matter of fact, at five o’clock this morning, I raped a woman.”

      Asakawa was shocked speechless. The story was that at dawn that morning, around five, Ryuji had sneaked into the apartment of a college girl living alone and attacked her. As he left he threatened her that if she called the cops he wouldn’t take it lying down, and then he came straight to school. As a result he was worried that the police might be at his house right about now, and so he’d asked Asakawa to call for him to check.

      After that, Asakawa and Ryuji began to talk fairly often. Naturally, Asakawa never told anyone about Ryuji’s crime. The following year Ryuji had come in third in the shot-put in the area high-school track and field meet, and the year after that he’d entered the medical program at Fukuzawa University. Asakawa spent that year studying to retake the entrance exam for the school of his choice, having failed the first time. The second time he succeeded, and was accepted into the literature department of a well-known university.

      Asakawa knew what he really wanted. In truth, he wanted Ryuji to watch the video. Ryuji’s knowledge and experience wouldn’t be of much use to Asakawa if they were based only on what Asakawa was able to verbalize about the video. On the other hand, he saw that it was ethically wrong to get someone else wrapped up in this just to save his own skin. He was conflicted, but he knew if he had to weigh the two options which way the scale would tip. He wanted to maximize his own chances of survival, no question. But, still … He suddenly found himself wondering, like he always did, just why he was friends with this guy. His ten years of reporting for the newspaper had allowed him to meet countless people. But he and Ryuji could just call each other up anytime to go have a drink—Ryuji was the only one Asakawa had that kind of relationship with. Was it because they happened to have been classmates? No, he had plenty of other classmates. There was something in the depths of his heart that resonated with Ryuji’s eccentricity. At that thought, Asakawa began to feel like he didn’t really understand himself.

      “Hey, hey. Let’s get a move on. You’ve only got six days left, right?” Ryuji grabbed Asakawa’s upper arm and squeezed it. His grip was strong. “Hurry up and show me that video. Think how lonely I’ll be if you bite the dust because we dawdled.”

      Rhythmically squeezing Asakawa’s arm with one hand, Ryuji jabbed his fork into his untouched cheesecake, shoveled it into his mouth and began to chew noisily. Ryuji had the habit of chewing with his mouth open. Asakawa felt himself beginning to feel sick at the sight of the food mixing with saliva and dissolving before his eyes. His angular features, his squat build, his bad habits. Now, while still munching away on his cheesecake, he fished more ice out of the glass with his hand and started crunching it, making even more noise.

      That’s when Asakawa realized that he had no one else he could rely on but this guy.

      It’s an evil spirit I’m dealing with, an unknown quantity. Nobody normal could deal with it. There’s probably nobody but Ryuji who could watch that video and not bat an eye. Set a thief to catch a thief. There’s no way around it. What do I care if Ryuji ends up dead? Someone who says he wants to watch the extinction of mankind doesn’t deserve to live a long life.

      That was how Asakawa rationalized getting someone else wrapped up in this.

2

      The two men headed for Asakawa’s place in a taxi. If the streets weren’t crowded it took less than twenty minutes to get from Roppongi to Kita Shinagawa. All they could see in the mirror was the driver’s forehead. He maintained a resolute silence, one hand on the wheel, and didn’t try to start up a conversation with his passengers. Come to think of it, this whole thing had started with a talkative cabby. If he hadn’t caught a taxi that time he wouldn’t have been caught up in this whole horrific mess, Asakawa thought as he recalled the events of a fortnight ago. He regretted not having bought a subway ticket and making all those transfers anyway, no matter how much of a pain in the neck they were.

      “Can we make a copy of the video at your place?” asked Ryuji. Asakawa had two video decks because of his work. One was a machine he’d bought when they had first started to catch on, and it wasn’t functioning as well as it could, but it did at least make copies with no problem.

      “Yeah, sure.”

      “Okay, in that case I want you to make me a copy as soon as possible. I want to take my time and study it at my place.”

      He’s got the guts, thought Asakawa. And in his present state of mind, Asakawa found his words encouraging.

      They decided to get out of the cab at Gotenzan Hills and walk from there. It was 8:50. There was still the possibility that his wife and kid would be awake at this hour. Shizu always gave Yoko a bath at a little before nine, and then put her to bed. She’d lie down beside the baby to help her get to sleep, and in the process would fall asleep herself. And once she went to sleep, nothing was going to get Shizu out of bed. In an effort to maximize time talking alone with her husband, Shizu used to leave messages on the table saying, “wake me up.” So when he got home from work, Asakawa would follow her instructions, thinking she really meant to get up, and try to shake his wife awake. But she wouldn’t wake up. He would try harder, but she would just wave her hands around her head like she was shooing a fly, frowning and making annoyed sounds. She was half awake, but the will to go back to sleep was much stronger than Asakawa was, and he eventually had to cut his losses and retreat. Eventually, note or no, Asakawa stopped trying to wake her up, and then she stopped leaving notes. By now, nine o’clock had become Shizu ’n’ Yoko’s inviolate sleepytime. On a night like this, though, it was actually more convenient that way.

      Shizu hated Ryuji. Asakawa thought this was an eminently reasonable attitude, so he never even asked her why. I’m begging you, don’t bring him into our home anymore. Asakawa still remembered the repugnance on his wife’s face when she said that. But most of all, he couldn’t play this video in front of Shizu and Yoko.

      The house was dark and still, and the fragrance of hot bath water and soap wafted even out to the entry hall. Evidently mommy and baby had just now gone to bed, towels under their wet hair. Asakawa put his ear to the bedroom door to make sure they were asleep, and then showed Ryuji into the dining room.

      “So the baby’s gone night-night?” Ryuji asked with an air of disappointment.

      “Shhh,” said Asakawa, putting a finger to his lips. Shizu wasn’t going to wake up from something like that, but then again he couldn’t swear she wouldn’t sense that something was different from usual and come out after all.

      Asakawa connected the output jacks of one of the video decks to the input jacks of the other, and then inserted the video. Before pressing play, he looked at Ryuji as if to say, do you really want to do this?

      “What’s wrong? Hurry up and play it,” urged Ryuji, without taking his eyes off the screen. Asakawa pressed the remote into Ryuji’s hand and then stood up and went to the window. He didn’t feel like seeing it again. Really he should watch it over and over, analyzing it cool-headedly, but he couldn’t seem to find the will to chase this thing any further. He just wanted to run away. Nothing more. Asakawa went out onto the balcony and smoked a cigarette. He’d promised his wife when Yoko was born that he wouldn’t smoke inside the apartment, and he’d never broken that promise. Although they’d been married for a full three years, he and his wife had a relatively good relationship. He couldn’t go against his wife’s wishes, not after she’d given him darling Yoko.

      Standing on the balcony, he peered into the room: through the frosted glass, the image on the screen was flickering. The fear quotient was different watching it here, surrounded by three people on the sixth floor of a downtown apartment building, compared to watching it alone at Villa Log Cabin. But even if Ryuji watched it under the same conditions,