After the quake blind willow, sleeping woman dance dance dance

CHAPTER 28 
Ushikawa 
AND A PART OF HIS SOUL 
The fluorescent light on the ceiling shone down on Ushikawa’s body. The heat was 
turned off, and a window was open, so the room was as freezing as an icehouse. 
Several conference tables had been shoved together in the center of the room, and on 
top of them, Ushikawa lay faceup. He had on winter long johns, and an old blanket 
was thrown on top of him. Under the blanket, his stomach was swollen, like an anthill 
in a field. A small piece of cloth covered his questioning, opened eyes—eyes that no 
one had been able to close. His lips were slightly parted, lips from which no breath or 
words would ever slip out again. The crown of his head was flatter, and more 
enigmatic-looking, than it had been while he was alive. Thick, black, frizzy hair—
reminiscent of pubic hair—shabbily surrounded that crown. 
Buzzcut had on a navy-blue down jacket, while Ponytail was wearing a brown 
suede rancher’s coat with a fur-trimmed collar. Both were slightly ill-fitting, as if they 
had hurriedly grabbed them from a limited supply of clothing that happened to be on 
hand. They were indoors, but their breath was white in the cold. The three of them 
were the sole occupants of the room. Buzzcut, Ponytail, and Ushikawa. There were 
three aluminum-sash windows on one wall, near the ceiling, and one of them was 
wide open to help keep the temperature down. Other than the tables with the body, 
there was no other furniture. It was an entirely bland, no-nonsense room. Placed there, 
even a corpse—even Ushikawa’s—looked like a colorless, utilitarian object. 
No one was talking. The room was utterly devoid of sound. Buzzcut had a lot to 
ponder, and Ponytail never spoke anyway. Buzzcut was lost in thought, pacing back 
and forth in front of the table that held Ushikawa’s body. Except for the moment 
when he reached the wall and had to turn around, his pace never slackened. His 
leather shoes were totally silent as they trod upon the cheap, light yellow-green 
carpeting. As usual, Ponytail staked out a spot near the door and stood there, 
motionless, legs slightly apart, back straight, staring off at an invisible point in space. 
He didn’t seem tired or cold, not at all. The only evidence that he was still among the 
living was an occasional rapid burst of blinks, and the measured white breath that left 
his mouth. 
Earlier that day, a number of people had gathered in that freezing room to discuss the 
situation. One of Sakigake’s high-ranking members had been on a trip and it had 
taken a day to get everyone together. The meeting was secret, and they spoke in 

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hushed tones so no one outside could hear. All this time, Ushikawa’s corpse had lain 
there on the table, like a sample at an industrial machinery convention. Rigor mortis 
had set in on the corpse, and it would be another three days before that broke and the 
body was pliable again. Everyone shot the occasional quick glance at the body as they 
discussed several practical matters. 
While they were discussing things there was no sense—even when the talk turned 
to the deceased—that they were paying respects to him or feeling regret for his 
passing. The stiff, stocky corpse simply reminded them of certain lessons, and 
reconfirmed a few reflections on life. Nothing more. Once time has passed, it can’t be 
taken back. If death brings about any resolution, it’s one that only applies to the 
deceased. Those sorts of lessons, those sorts of reflections. 
What should they do with Ushikawa’s body? They knew the answer before they 
began. Ushikawa had died of unnatural causes, and if he were discovered, the police 
would launch an all-out investigation that would inevitably uncover his connection 
with Sakigake. They couldn’t risk that. As soon as the rigor mortis was gone, they 
would secretly transport the corpse to the industrial-sized incinerator on the grounds 
of their compound and dispose of it. Soon it would become nothing but black smoke 
and white ash. The smoke would be absorbed into the sky, the ash would be spread on 
the fields as fertilizer for the vegetables. They had performed the same operation a 
number of times, under Buzzcut’s supervision. Leader’s body had been too big, so 
they had “handled” it by using a chain saw to cut it into pieces. There was no need to 
do so this time, for Ushikawa was nowhere near as big. Buzzcut was grateful for that. 
He didn’t like any operations that got too gory. Whether it was dealing with the living 
or the dead, he preferred not to see any blood. 
His superior asked Buzzcut some questions. Who could have killed Ushikawa? 
And what was Ushikawa doing in that rented apartment in Koenji, anyway? As head 
of security, Buzzcut had to respond, though he really didn’t know the answers. 
Before dawn on Tuesday he had gotten the call from that mysterious man (who 
was, of course, Tamaru) and learned that Ushikawa’s body was in the apartment. 
Their conversation was at once practical and indirect. As soon as he hung up, Buzzcut 
immediately put out a call to a couple of followers in Tokyo. They changed into work 
uniforms, pretending to be movers, and headed out to the apartment in a Toyota 
HiAce van. Before they went inside, they made sure it wasn’t a trap. They parked the 
van and one of them scouted out the surroundings for anything suspicious. They 
needed to be very cautious. The police might be lying in wait, ready to arrest them as 
soon as they set foot in the place, something they had to avoid at all costs. 
They had brought along a container, the kind used in moving, and somehow were 
able to stuff the already-stiff body inside. Then they shouldered it out of the building 
and into the bed of the van. It was late at night, and cold, so fortunately there was no 
one else around. It took some time to comb through the apartment to make sure no 
telling evidence was left behind. Using flashlights, they searched every square inch, 
but they found nothing incriminating, just food, a small electric space heater, a 
sleeping bag, and a few other basic necessities. The garbage can was mainly full of 
empty cans and plastic bottles. It appeared that Ushikawa had been holed up there 
doing surveillance. Buzzcut’s sharp eye noted the indentations in the tatami near the 
window that indicated the presence of a camera tripod, though there was no camera 

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and there were no photographs. The person who had taken Ushikawa’s life must have 
also taken the camera away, along with the film. Since Ushikawa was dressed only in 
his underwear, he must have been attacked while asleep. The attacker must have 
silently slipped inside the apartment. It looked like Ushikawa had suffered horribly, 
for his underwear was completely saturated with urine. 
Buzzcut and Ponytail were the only ones in the van when they transported the body 
to Yamanashi. The other two stayed behind in Tokyo to handle anything that might 
come up. Ponytail drove the entire way. The HiAce left the Metropolitan Expressway, 
got onto the Chuo Highway, and headed west. It was still dark out and the expressway 
was nearly deserted, but they kept their speed under the limit. If the police stopped 
them now it would be all over. Their license plates—both front and rear—were stolen, 
and the container in back contained a dead body. There would be no way to talk their 
way out of that situation. The two of them were silent for the entire trip. 
When they arrived at the compound at dawn, a Sakigake doctor examined 
Ushikawa’s body and confirmed that he had died of suffocation. There were no signs 
of strangulation around the neck, however. The doctor guessed that a bag or 
something that didn’t leave any evidence must have been placed over the victim’s 
head. There were no marks, either, to indicate that the victim’s hands and feet had 
been tied. He didn’t appear to have been beaten or tortured. His expression didn’t 
show any signs of agony. If you had to describe his expression, you would say it was 
one of pure confusion, as if he had been asking a question he knew wouldn’t be 
answered. It was obvious that he had been murdered, but the corpse was remarkably 
untouched, which the doctor found odd. Whoever had killed him may have massaged 
his features after his death, to give him a calmer, more natural expression. 
“Whoever did this was a real professional,” Buzzcut explained to his superior. 
“There are no marks on him at all. He probably never had a chance to even scream. It 
happened in the middle of the night, and if he had yelled out in pain, everyone in the 
building would have heard him. This is the work of a professional hit man.”