The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4)

“Sujata Massey takes readers on a thoughtful tour of contemporary Japanese youth culture in this accomplished murder mystery… Deftly sketching everyday life in parts of Tokyo rarely seen by tourists, Massey tells a series of overlapping stories about identity, the popular media and the hilarious frenzy of contemporary comic book culture.”
—
Publishers Weekly

“Rei is one of the most complex female protagonists around. She is Japanese, but she is also an American living in Japan, and this dichotomy gives her observations on Japanese culture a fascinating double edge.”
—
Booklist ‘Editor’s Choice’

“The real strength of the book is the portrayal of Rei’s continuing struggle to both accept and be accepted in her adopted home.”
—
The Denver Post

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright Sujata Massey 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address [email protected].

This book was originally published as a HarperCollins hardcover in May 2000 with Avon Books edition 2001. The author is grateful to HarperCollins Publishers for the return of full copyright in March 2012.

Cover and formatting: Sue Trowbridge, interbridge.com. Cover illustration © isaxar, iStockphoto.com.

I thank sincerely the friends who introduced me to Japanese animation and made writing this book a pleasure: J.D. Considine, of Baltimore, and Akemi Narita and her daughter, Aki, of Yokohama. I am also indebted to each eagle eye belonging to dear friends in my two local writers critique groups, as well as Susan Hofforth, Kerstin Trowbridge, Susanne Trowbridge, Manami Amanai, and Chris Belton, the Tokyo-based novelist and translator. To my current agent, Vicky Bijur, and my past agents, Ellen Geiger and Dave Barbor, at Curtis Brown, and past and present friends at HarperCollins, especially Helen Moore, Carolyn Marino, Betsy Areddy, Robin Stamm, and Gene Midlowski, thanks once again for your flexibility, kindness, and good ideas.

Much of this book was written while I was staying in India, and I benefited from the loving support of my relatives, especially the ones who were with me: Rekha Banerjee, Hemantika Puri, and Padmaben and A.V. Parikh. Also, thanks to the ones who kept things going at home: Claire and Karin Banerjee, Subir Banerjee and Manju Parikh, and Sam, Harriot, Alex, and Don Massey. I also am indebted to the staff at Parikh Steel Calcutta, especially Jawaharlal Joshi and Neelam Mishra, who let my muse run rampant on their computers. To my husband, Tony, who got me safely back into the United States: You are the best.

Rei Shimura: Japanese-American antiques maven moonlighting as a columnist

Alec Tampole: Australian-born entertainment editor at the Gaijin Times, Tokyo’s monthly magazine for foreigners

Rika Fuchida: Showa College student working as an entertainment-section intern at the
Gaijin Times

Mr. Sanno: Owner of the
Gaijin Times
and Sanno Advertising

Takeo Kayama: Temporarily unemployed flower- arranging teacher turned home renovator. He has a twin sister, Natsumi Kayama, and a father, Masanobu Kayama, who is headmaster of the Kayama School of Ikebana.

Kunio Takahashi: Amateur artist of the Showa Story comic strip

Marcellus: Senegalese immigrant who works as a hawker and dancer at Show a Boy nightclub.

Chiyo: Mama-san of Show a Boy

Nicky Larsen: Showa College student who falls in love with Japanese amateur animation and the dancing life

Seiko Hattori: Showa College student who shares Nicky’s passion for amateur animation

Lieutenant Hata: Rei’s confidant in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police

Hiroko Shima: Managing editor of the
Mars Girl
comic strip published by the mainstream publisher Dayo Comics

Manami Oida: Head artist for the
Mars Girl
comic strip

Tsutomu ‘Tom’ Shimura: Rei’s cousin, an emergency-room attending physician at St. Luke’s International Hospital

The Fish: A businessman who swims with the sharks

The Hedgehog: A rabid animation fan

Plus a colorful array of beauticians, journalists, animation fans, and others who dream of turning staid Tokyo into a more animated city.

“Is the pain killing you? Shall I stop?”

I shook my head because the pain had eased temporarily. Miss Kumiko sighed and stroked more sticky warmth over my inner thigh — a deceptively pleasant sensation. I knew that six more inches needed to be cleared. The aesthetician pressed a strip of cotton over my thigh, and I sucked in my breath as she began to pull.

“Oh!” I gasped as she yanked at least a hundred hairs from their follicles.

“Japanese women don’t like to cry out,” Miss Kumiko said brightly. “Not even when delivering babies. When my niece was born, my sister was silent. At moments of severe pain, she bit a handkerchief. Would you like a handkerchief?”

“No, thank you, and this is hardly childbirth. It’s a bikini wax!” Damn my American half for making the process necessary. If I’d been fully Japanese, I would have inherited the hairless gene. But I was a
hafu
or
hanbunjin
or
konketsujin
or whatever name Miss Kumiko secretly used for mixed-race people. It was my own stupid vanity that had brought me into Power Princess Spa before the start of the July beach season. I had one final business appointment that afternoon, and then a drive the next day to the beach. But first I had to get through the pain.

“Madam, it is not that I mind, but the manicurist in the next cubicle has problems,” Miss Kumiko whispered. “Surprise screams from customers can cause her to lose rhythm.”

“Maybe there’s a reason your customers scream,” I said.

“Jaa,
we are all done
!”
Miss Kumiko made a series of light slaps against my groin. This was kinkier than I’d expected, but then again, this was my first experience with waxing in Tokyo. I would live and learn.

I put on my skirt and limped out to the stylish black-and-white reception area.

“Rei Shimura?” The salon’s bleached-blond receptionist called me up to her stylish chrome desk.

“Yes?” I continued at my slow pace, thighs sticking together because of a few remnants of wax.

“We have two kinds of bikini wax, large and small,” she announced so clearly that some of the other customers in the waiting area looked up from their magazines. “When we spoke on the phone, we thought you were a typical Japanese, so we quoted you the price for a small wax. However, Miss Kumiko reports that you required the large wax. Therefore the fee is a bit higher: six thousand yen. Is that fine?”

The entire reception room seemed to be leaning close to hear my embarrassed answer.

“Fine,” I said glumly. An exchange rate of about 100 yen to the dollar made the price of hair removal about $60, more than twice the going rate in the United States. I paid up, thinking the only silver lining was that Miss Kumiko wouldn’t require a tip. This was Japan, where you never paid extra for good service. It was expected.

I walk this uneasy line between pleasure and pain—and understanding and confusion—almost daily. Four years ago, I emigrated from San Francisco to Tokyo to find a job working with Japanese antiques. Nobody would hire me, so I had to establish my own business. It’s been a struggle at times, but I’m proud to say that at last I’ve leaped over the poverty line. Miss Kumiko would not think of asking me to find her an antique chest, but plenty of older, wealthy Japanese have done that. Even in an economic downturn,  I’d had some very lucky breaks.

After I struggled out of the Power Princess Spa, I headed toward my latest lucky spot: the
Gaijin Times,
an English-language magazine aimed at foreigners living in Tokyo. Its editor-in-chief, an ambitious young woman journalist called Whitney Talbot, had hunted me down after she’d read my article on ceramics for a Japanese antiques magazine. Whitney had asked me to write similar articles with, as she put it, “an element of street sass.” I was apprehensive, but when she named a price for a monthly column, I decided I had to try. My first article was a guide to haggling for antiques at the weekend flea markets held at Tokyo’s Shinto shrines. It was supposed to be a do-it-yourself article, but my phone started ringing off the hook with insecure foreigners willing to pay me to haggle for them. It had become very good business.

I put away my quick rush of pride as I entered the narrow sliver of a building that was home to the Sanno Advertising Agency and the
Gaijin Times.
I rode the elevator up to the third-floor hall, where everything was painted a dull beige.

Throbbing music coming from speakers stationed on either side of the
Gaijin Times
office door was the first indicator that the magazine was striving to break free from a beige mold. Inside were chocolate-colored walls, chocolate brown tables, and a gray lump lying across the chocolate-and-strawberry print carpet.

I drew closer to the lump to identify it. Alec Tampole, an Australian who edited the magazine’s copious nightclub listings, was stretched out on the floor, arms angled out from his side in an A shape, his knees curled snugly against his chest.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hurrying over.

“I’m doing some Pilates exercises. I forgot you were coming in today, Rye.” He pushed his legs over his head in a move that looked like yoga

“My name is actually pronounced ‘
ray.’
 As in Sugar Ray,” I said, striving for a pop music reference that he would understand.

“Come closer so I can hear you over the music.” Alec slowly lowered his legs, grunting with exertion.

I stood as close to his ear as possible and shouted the correct pronunciation.

He laughed. “Right. Rye. Had an accident coming over?”

“No. What do you mean? Is something going on outside?”

“That’s not the kind of accident I’m talking about. What’s that gunk on your knickers?”

“You bastard!” I realized belatedly that the music maven had been angling himself for a perfect view up my skirt. I leaped away from him.

“Heh heh. Had a hot wax for a hot date, eh?” As he swung his hips over his head once again, I kicked his large, khaki-clad behind. His anguished yelp was music to my ears as I left the reception area, heading into the tiny warren of offices and my next assignment.