Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [24]
“If that’s all it is, it doesn’t do us any good.”
“Anyway, it’s only for this week. Putting out thirty thousand yen a week doesn’t last very long with the average family.”
“But she’s a real beauty, apparently … that client of yours.”
“Unfortunately the so-called brother’s always hanging around … a pretty ominous fellow.”
“Oh yes, the brother. I wonder if some sort of word hasn’t come in from the data section we contacted a while back.”
“I saw it. There was something fishy, so I had his record investigated.”
“Well?”
“I tentatively established that there is a brother with such a name. But no picture of him was attached to the papers, and I still can’t prove entirely that it’s not some double.”
After I had blurted it out, I was sorry. But it was too late. The balloon at once leaned forward, his chair creaking, and with penetrating eyes he scanned my face in silence.
“A double … hmm … If she’s having a double take the brother’s name, that’s really something. Does it mean that your client’s a slippery one too?”
“Ah. It’s possible, I suppose, for a variety of reasons.”
“Whatever made you suspect that?”
“Rather than motives, it’s a weakness of motives … or a vagueness of them …”
“The motives are obvious,” he interrupted suddenly in a sharp voice. “Doesn’t the disappearance of the client’s husband constitute a motive?”
“Yes, indeed it does.”
“Listen. I think you understand. In our work, you don’t invade the privacy of the client. You don’t stick your nose in business you can’t write in your report. If you can’t observe the rules you had better wash your hands right now … and change your profession to priest or extortioner.”
I had come close to starting in on the business of the matchbox. The single piece of evidence I could verify with my eyes, touch with my hands. A single lens by which I could substantiate, bring to a point of focus, the numberless hypotheses. Among the infinite projections, which produced something resembling actuality, only those that were photographed on the matchbox were my unique, three-dimensional color picture. If only I could get just two or three words of testimony from her … if only I could … But what would be the use? I would mock myself and flagellate myself for doing such a thing. I knew before I heard it what the chief’s answer would be: the investigation of the brother’s record was precisely the invasion of privacy he was talking about. The point was probably well taken.
THIS MORNING, in the parking lot in front of the Camellia coffee house, he—my client’s brother—had actually been ingeniously evasive with me. He had cleverly urged me to take care, for I had been close to overlooking the No Entrance sign.
Certainly, only the area where I was licensed was the hunting ground indicated by my client. Since one motive the client had placed out of bounds for the investigation, as was clearly set forth in the application, was the one connected with his—her husband’s—disappearance, I would pursue him in all events, successful or not, and there was no need to question why I should be doing so. In the meantime, even though my client might begrudge me information or force conflicting information on me, I must not worry about it.
You knew that all the time. You were not about to be enlightened by the chief. Supposing that the client was using us to cover up her own crime, even so it was our business to keep the line clear and we had no right to refuse her.
For example, the brother’s clever explanation about our much too accidental encounter in the parking lot saved me from giving up my role as investigator and at the same time, from another angle, strengthened my suspicions. If the husband was so conversant with car repair and equipment, then there was the possibility of his having something to do with a ring of car thieves. That was brought to my mind by a newspaper article I had recently read about the arrest of a gang of crooks that had been operating on a large scale.
No, it had to be something a lot more run-of-the-mill. He was working on the scratches on a car in