The Golden City Read online

  * * *

  Although there was no lock on the cubicle door, Hollis surrendered to his exhaustion and slept. When he opened his eyes, it was ten o’clock in the morning, but the café’s artificial environment was unchanged. The main room was still cool and quiet, the customers suspended within its perpetual twilight.

  Sharks glided through a turquoise sea created by the computer’s screen saver. The cubicle’s TV set was still switched on, but the sound could only be heard with a pair of earphones. Hollis watched as a perky young woman presented the news. Snow was falling on the northern coast of Honsh_ island. There was a car bomb explosion in the Middle East and a coup in an African country. Looking like animatronic figures at an amusement park, the American President and the Japanese Prime Minister shook hands.

  The image on the monitor changed and Hollis saw black-and-white photographs of himself running down the third floor hallway of the love hotel. The news program cut to shots of ambulances carrying the dead bodies away from the hotel while reporters and TV cameramen stood behind a police barrier. A multiple killing like this was unusual in Japan, and it was getting a great deal of media attention. A blurred close-up of his face appeared on the monitor as a phone number flashed on the screen.

  Hollis stood up on the chair and peered over the top of his cubicle. The pierced woman who had welcomed him to the café had vanished, replaced by a young Japanese man with bleached hair. Hollis put on his sunglasses, slipped out the café and headed for the subway. He felt as if all the surveillance cameras in the city were photographing his passage down the sidewalk.

  Kotani had mentioned that one of his former students, a man named Hoshi Hirano, might be dancing in Yoyogi-kően, the enormous public park in East Tokyo. Hollis got off the subway at Harajuku Station and took the pedestrian bridge across the tracks. It was getting colder, and flakes of snow began to drift down from the gray sky. Near the entrance to the park, he encountered some of the zokus—the tribes that filled the park every Sunday afternoon.

  There was a group of teenage girls dressed in black with white face paint and a line of fake blood dribbling from one corner of their lips. The snowflakes swirled around them, clinging to their teased hair. This zoku gathered near the end of the bridge, ignoring the girls who wore pink satin skirts with petticoats, white knee socks and a white lace doily tied to their heads with a bow.

  Hollis entered the park looking for a rock-and-roll group. Every few hundred yards, he encountered a new tribe gathering at a prearranged meeting place. There was a zoku of young men on skateboards and another group riding trick bicycles. One zoku was comprised of teenagers who had smudged soot on their mouths and eyes as if they were wandering zombies.

  Loud music came from the southern edge of the park. A black van with huge speakers mounted on the top was playing military marching music, guarded by a group of nationalists wearing dark green paramilitary uniforms. These fierce young men stood at parade rest with their hands held behind their backs. They watched as their leader—an older man with a shaved head—screamed insults and shook his fist at eight men dancing in unison to “Rock Around the Clock.”

  The dancers were dressed like the 1950’s Elvis—the rockabilly Elvis, the Elvis of rebellion and dream. Each of the dancers wore motorcycle boots, tight black jeans and motorcycle jackets with silver studs and chains. But the most elaborate part of their costume was their hair; it was greased and brushed up high from their foreheads into an elaborate pompadour. The leader of the group was only five feet tall, but the boots and the hair and the padded shoulders of his jacket made him appear larger.

  The nationalist sound van played a military chorus, and the Elvises countered that with a recording of “Blue Suede Shoes.” No distraction from the outside world appeared to disturb their 1950s version of cool. Finally, the nationalists gave up and drove away in their black van. Triumphant, the Elvises danced to “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” and then they were finished for the day. Hollis approached the oldest dancer and asked if he knew a man named Hoshi. Speaking in Japanese, the man pointed to their leader—the little man with the padded jacket who just stuffed his CDs into an athletic bag.

  Hollis hurried after the man. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Hoshi Hirano?”

  The little man stopped walking and flipped back his hair. “I used to be called that, but I changed my named to Billy Hirano. It’s got more style. Don’t you think?”

  “I’m a friend of Akihido Kotani.”

  “Yes. My sensei.” Billy shook his head sadly. “Do you know he was killed last night at a love hotel in Shibuya? I saw it on the television news ”

  As his voice trailed off, Billy’s face showed surprise—but no fear. Taking out a small pink comb, he touched up the ducktail near the back of his neck. “The police say he was killed by black gaijin. Someone like you.”

  Hollis removed his sunglasses so Billy could see his face. “I swear to you that I didn’t kill your teacher. Did he ever tell you about his friend, Sparrow? I’m just like that, only I’m from the United States.”

  “You’re a Harlequin? Is that so? So where’s your sword, man?”

  Hollis unzipped his jacket and quickly showed the handgun held in his waistband. “It’s difficult to carry a sword in public. I have a more modern weapon.”

  “You’re either a Harlequin or you’re crazy. That’s twenty years of hard time if the police find you carrying that.” Billy rocked back and forth on the heels of his motorcycle boots. “So what’s your name?”

  “Hollis.”

  “And what are you doing in Japan? There aren’t any Travelers here. The Tabula killed them all.”

  “I need to go up to Northern Japan and find an Itako.”

  “An Itako? You mean one of those crazy women who talks to the dead?”

  “Can you help me, Billy? I need a translator. I’ll pay for everything. All expenses.”

  “Going north will take two or three days.” Billy considered the idea for a few seconds as a greasy lock of hair fell over his eyes. “I guess I could handle it ” He took out his comb and repaired his hairdo. “Talking to the dead could be very cool.”

  “The police are looking for me.”

  “I understand. You’re way too foreign, too—”

  “Black?”

  “You got it, man. That just adds to the problem.”

  While Hollis waited in the park, Billy walked across the street to a drug store and returned with a cane and some supplies in a paper back. “Put this on,” he said, and handed Hollis a surgical mask. “Japanese people wear these masks when they’re sick so they won’t spread germs. Okay, now put on your sunglasses.” He nodded. “Good.”

  “What about the cane?”

  “Slip a pebble in your right shoe and start limping.” Billy reached into the bag and pulled out a small oxygen bottle in a nylon sling. “I’m going to be your nurse—which means I’ll carry this around and help you walk.”

  “You think this is going to work?”

  “It’s bad luck to stare at sick people in Japan. If you look like you’re going to die, they’ll turn away.”

  They went straight to Shinjuku station and bought tickets for the next bullet train north to Hachinohe. Billy knew exactly where to line up and what to say to the clerk. As he led Hollis through the sprawling station, Billy explained that he designed the packaging for the Japanese DVDs of Hollywood movies.

  “Have you ever been to the States?” Hollis asked.

  “Not really,” Billy said. “But I’m cool with that.” He seemed to prefer his idealized vision of America over the real thing.

  They boarded the train a minute before it left the station and found their reserved seats. When people walked down the aisle, they seemed surprised to find a sick black man sitting next to a Japanese Elvis.

  “Can you change your hair?” Hollis asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I look sick, but everyone is staring at you.”

  “This hair is maximum cool,” Billy said and took out a mirror to check his pompadour.

  “Maybe it was—in 1955.”


  “I’ve been attacked on the street because of this hair. My brother won’t talk to me because of this hair. This hair has coolness because I say so.”

  After a whispered argument, Billy finally agreed to replace his leather jacket with a nylon shell. He slipped on earphones and bobbed his head up and down as Hollis watched the train escape from the city. The big apartment buildings disappeared and they passed strips of farmland bordered by ordered rows of pine trees. In Tokyo, the crows were always solitary, but the birds gathered together in the countryside. Crows perched on the power lines and on top of the enormous green cages used as driving ranges by Japanese golfers. Crows clustered in the stumble of frozen rice fields; the bullet train roared past them and they rose up in the sky like points of darkness.

  It was night when they reached Hachinohe—a transit town sprawled between two hills. The only things that appeared to hold the community together were the telephone lines and power cables that ran from one side of the street to another. Snow began to fall when they left the station. Snowflakes piled up on the slanted roofs and balconies of the flimsy looking three-story buildings. Snow clung to Billy’s hair as they checked into a traditional Japanese inn. The inn’s owner had just installed new tatami mats; when Hollis lay down on the floor he smelled the yellowish-green reeds. It reminded him of cut grass and summer and those moments when he had been happy. He prayed to Vicki and, after awhile, was able to sleep.

  * * *

  The next morning Billy left the inn and made two furrows through the slush with his motorcycle boots. He returned an hour later and told Hollis that the man who shoveled snow at the train station knew all about the Itako. A few years ago, she had moved north to Mutsu, a sea town on the peninsula that jutted out into Tsugaru Straits.

  “And how far away is that?”

  “Ninety minutes on the local train.”

  “Is she still there?”

  “Nobody knows, man. He said the Itako lives in the ‘dead place.’” Billy rolled his eyes. “So I guess we know what to look for.”

  An hour later, Hollis found himself riding in a two-car train that was about as large as a cross-town bus in New York City. Steel wheels clicked and clattered as they passed though bare volcanic mountains. Fog. White snow on black rocks. And then the train entered a tunnel that plunged them into darkness. When they emerged, the ocean was about fifty feet away. The train cars shook slightly—like pack animals glad to be finished with such a cold journey—and they rolled into a small train station built next to Mutsu’s harbor.

  It was cold and windy on the station platform. Rubbing his hands together, Billy hurried off to find a taxi driver. He returned five minutes later with a shy young man who was trying to grow a beard.

  “He says he’s a part-time driver.”

  “That means he’s going to get lost.”

  Billy laughed. “We’re always getting lost in Japan, but this driver knows how to find the dead place. It’s where this company built a pesticide factory. After they killed every tree in the area, they transferred the business to China.”

  The three of them squeezed into a mud-splattered Toyota and drove away past a row of fast-food outlets. At the edge of the town, a pachinko parlor with a huge neon tower stood out against the overcast sky. The young driver turned onto a gravel road, and they entered the dead area around the abandoned pesticide plant. Although the ground was covered with snow, Hollis could see that all the trees had died. A few brown spruces remained standing as if too weary to fall.

  There were a dozen homes in the area, and they stopped at each one so that Billy could ask about the Itako. “Japan is like this weird party where everybody has to be polite,” he explained. “People will lie and make up directions so they won’t lose face.”

  For more than an hour, they wandered through a maze of country roads. Coming down a low hill, the Toyota skidded across a patch of an ice and slammed into a snow bank. Everyone got out of the car, and Billy started yelling at the driver.

  A prefabricated home with aluminum siding was about thirty feet away. Hollis watched as an old woman wearing a black parka and red rubber boots came out of the house and hiked down a gravel driveway. The woman walked in a slow, solid way through the slush as if it would take a bolt of lightning to knock her over. Her face was strong and her eyes focused as she examined the three intruders who had blundered into her world.

  When she reached the car, she put her hands on her hips and began asking questions. Billy tried to answer with some rock and roll swagger, but his confidence quickly melted away. When the old woman had finished her interrogation, she turned away and climbed back up the driveway to her house. Billy stood in the middle of the road staring at the toes of his motorcycle boots.

  “What’s the problem with the old lady?” Hollis asked. “Are we on her property?”

  “That’s the Itako. She says she’s been waiting for you.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Maybe it’s a story or maybe it’s true. All I know is that we got to follow her into the house.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “It’s just like you want. She talks to the dead.”

  * * *

  The two men entered the foyer of the house and took off their jackets and shoes. The Itako had disappeared, but a door was open to the living room where an old man sat on a western-style couch and watched a karaoke show on television. He turned his head slightly—showing no surprise or curiosity—and pointed to the left.

  Billy led them down a hallway. He slid back a thick-paper door and entered a room with a lace curtains covering the only window. There were a few floor pillows on the tatami mat, but the only real furniture in the room was a low wood table that had been turned into altar. The table was covered with cat statues. A few of the smaller cats were carved from wood or jade, but most were ceramic souvenirs with painted-on whiskers. All the cats stared at a bowl containing three shriveled up oranges and a martini glass filled with polished stones.

  Hollis sat down on one of the floor cushions and tried to figure out what to do. He had traveled thousands of miles to find this place. Three men had been killed, the Tabula were looking for him, and here he was sitting in a house with a crazy old lady who collected ceramic cats.

  The Itako came back in the room wearing a short white cotton jacket with Japanese symbols printed on it. She extended her hand, said something in Japanese, and Billy Hirano gave her five thousand yen. The Itako counted the money like a peasant who had just sold a pig and slipped the currency beneath one of the cats. Then she bustled around the room lighting candles and incense.

  When the candles were burning, the old woman knelt and opened up a polished wooden box. She took out an elaborate necklace and carefully draped it around her neck. The necklace was a dark rawhide strand that held old coins with holes in the middle, yellowed bear claws and a few twisted pieces of wood. She stared at Hollis for a few seconds and spoke in Japanese.

  Billy translated. “She wants to know what you’re looking for.”

  “This is ridiculous. I can’t believe Sparrow actually talked to this woman. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Don’t make her angry, Hollis. An Itako is very powerful.”

  “As far as I can see, she’s just an old lady with a lot of souvenir kitty cats.”

  “Do what she says,” Billy pleaded. “Tell her what you want.”

  Hollis turned to the Itako and spoke in English. “A friend of mine has died. I want to talk to her.”

  Billy translated the request. The Itako nodded calmly, as if someone had just asked her for directions back to the train station. She reached into the box, took out a long strand of stone prayer beads, and held a fistful of the beads in both hands. Closing her eyes, she rubbed the beads together as she began to chant a Buddhist sutra.

  It felt like the cats on the altar were staring at him with mischievous smiles on their little white faces. The Itako looked old and tired, and a few times she seemed to lose her way through the long recital of prayers. Suddenly, she stopped chanting an
d her chin slumped down to her breast. Seconds later, her head snapped back up and her entire body became rigid. A convulsive force passed through her body and the prayer beads fell onto the mat. The Itako sucked air into her lungs and, when she exhaled, a sound emerged from her slack mouth.

  At first, it was nothing but nonsense syllables, and then a mix of Japanese and English words. It felt as if someone were moving a tuner, scanning through different radio stations. More words. A garbled phrase here and there.

  “Hollis.”

  It was her voice. Vicki’s voice. But he couldn’t believe that was possible.

  “Hollis?”

  “I—I missed you so much, Vicki. And maybe I’m just hearing your voice in my mind. This can’t be real.”

  A long silence. The Itako’s body shivered and her eyes rolled upward.

  “The first time we made love was in the loft in Chinatown. Maya and Gabriel had gone somewhere and we were finally alone. You placed the mattress on the floor. Afterward, we lay together for a long time. It was so cold in the room that steam came off our bodies and melted into the air.”

  Hollis felt as if he had cracked open and was falling apart. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “Gone. But here.”

  “I’m so lost, Vicki. So goddamn lost. I don’t know where I’m going.”

  “You’re on the right path, but you still can’t see it. If you remember who you are, you’ll know what to do.”

  “I can’t forgive the people who killed you.”

  “Know this, my love Believe this, my love the Light survives.”

  The Itako breathed out one last time, and collapsed onto the floor as if the life force had been ripped from her body.