are amazing.”
Hearing himself praised like this, Ishihara began making a clucking sound in his throat. It was a sort of hiccupping spasm of the esophageal muscles that sounded like coot, coot, and was a harbinger of the burst of idiotic laughter that arrived a moment later. Nobue joined in. Strangely enough, the other customers and the waitress began laughing as well. Perhaps they instinctively knew that laughter was the only possible defense against the horror unfolding before them.
The only one who didn’t laugh was the junior college girl herself. Nor did it seem to occur to her to wonder if all this mirth was at her own expense. She silently went about the business of demolishing her chocolate parfait.
Thanks to the efforts of Kato, who’d been closest to Sugioka, it didn’t take long for them to discover the Midori Society. Each day for a week, Kato staked out the grave of Yanagimoto Midori, the woman Sugioka had killed. It was located in a vast public cemetery in Hachioji, near Kato’s family home. He endured three rainy days and then three cloudy and muggy ones, during which time he completely cleared four new Game Boy titles, and on the sunny seventh day he suddenly detected a pungent smell of perfume. He saved the game he was playing and ducked down behind the gravestone he’d chosen to spy from, so nervous that he began laughing in a way that he alone was capable of, opening the mouth in the normal position of laughter but forcing the air exclusively through the nose. Nobue and Sugiyama and others had on occasion tried to imitate this laugh, but none had succeeded. The sound it produced was wet and high-pitched, like the cry of some amphibious creature, but fortunately it didn’t carry.
All the Midoris were wearing suits and, possessed of the knowledge that fragrances tend to dissipate more quickly on sunny days, none of them had skimped when applying their various brands of perfume to various parts of their bodies—hair, earlobes, nape of neck, shoulders, armpits, breasts, elbows, heels, ankles. One of them had even daubed Poison on her private parts. Iwata Midori had always wanted to try this. She had long cherished the memory of a scene from a very bad novel in which a married woman had perfumed her pubes before setting out for a secret rendezvous. The married woman’s lover in the novel, she remembered, had ignited with shameless desire when he inhaled the perfume mixed with the scent of her juices. But what was the likelihood that Iwata Midori, already in her late thirties, would ever have a chance to experience something like that? She had asked herself this question many times but never found an answer—or any likelihood whatsoever—so she’d made up her mind to try it today before visiting the cemetery. As long as I’m with my friends , she told herself, it’s safe to be a little adventurous .
Kato put on his earphones to eavesdrop on the Midoris’ conversation via the tiny cordless microphone he’d hidden in the gravel in front of the grave. Along with the crunch, crunch of Oba-san shoes came a lone voice. Tomiyama Midori’s opening line put an end to Kato’s nasal giggling.
“Nagii! You have been avenged!”
At the party that night, Nobue announced that they would refrain from karaoke, and no one objected.
“Something huge has happened.”
Having said this much, he laughed idiotically for several moments, clamping both hands over his mouth, and then asked Kato to report his findings. Kato executed his high-degree-of-difficulty giggle before speaking. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing, and spoke in an odd voice reminiscent of newscasters on public TV.
“As you are all aware, it appears that the police and the media have given up any hope of finding Sugioka’s murderer. What we need most is accurate information. Please look at the materials before you, which contain data I obtained with the assistance of my Kenwood portable recorder. At the upper left-hand
Hearing himself praised like this, Ishihara began making a clucking sound in his throat. It was a sort of hiccupping spasm of the esophageal muscles that sounded like coot, coot, and was a harbinger of the burst of idiotic laughter that arrived a moment later. Nobue joined in. Strangely enough, the other customers and the waitress began laughing as well. Perhaps they instinctively knew that laughter was the only possible defense against the horror unfolding before them.
The only one who didn’t laugh was the junior college girl herself. Nor did it seem to occur to her to wonder if all this mirth was at her own expense. She silently went about the business of demolishing her chocolate parfait.
Thanks to the efforts of Kato, who’d been closest to Sugioka, it didn’t take long for them to discover the Midori Society. Each day for a week, Kato staked out the grave of Yanagimoto Midori, the woman Sugioka had killed. It was located in a vast public cemetery in Hachioji, near Kato’s family home. He endured three rainy days and then three cloudy and muggy ones, during which time he completely cleared four new Game Boy titles, and on the sunny seventh day he suddenly detected a pungent smell of perfume. He saved the game he was playing and ducked down behind the gravestone he’d chosen to spy from, so nervous that he began laughing in a way that he alone was capable of, opening the mouth in the normal position of laughter but forcing the air exclusively through the nose. Nobue and Sugiyama and others had on occasion tried to imitate this laugh, but none had succeeded. The sound it produced was wet and high-pitched, like the cry of some amphibious creature, but fortunately it didn’t carry.
All the Midoris were wearing suits and, possessed of the knowledge that fragrances tend to dissipate more quickly on sunny days, none of them had skimped when applying their various brands of perfume to various parts of their bodies—hair, earlobes, nape of neck, shoulders, armpits, breasts, elbows, heels, ankles. One of them had even daubed Poison on her private parts. Iwata Midori had always wanted to try this. She had long cherished the memory of a scene from a very bad novel in which a married woman had perfumed her pubes before setting out for a secret rendezvous. The married woman’s lover in the novel, she remembered, had ignited with shameless desire when he inhaled the perfume mixed with the scent of her juices. But what was the likelihood that Iwata Midori, already in her late thirties, would ever have a chance to experience something like that? She had asked herself this question many times but never found an answer—or any likelihood whatsoever—so she’d made up her mind to try it today before visiting the cemetery. As long as I’m with my friends , she told herself, it’s safe to be a little adventurous .
Kato put on his earphones to eavesdrop on the Midoris’ conversation via the tiny cordless microphone he’d hidden in the gravel in front of the grave. Along with the crunch, crunch of Oba-san shoes came a lone voice. Tomiyama Midori’s opening line put an end to Kato’s nasal giggling.
“Nagii! You have been avenged!”
At the party that night, Nobue announced that they would refrain from karaoke, and no one objected.
“Something huge has happened.”
Having said this much, he laughed idiotically for several moments, clamping both hands over his mouth, and then asked Kato to report his findings. Kato executed his high-degree-of-difficulty giggle before speaking. He wasn’t used to this sort of thing, and spoke in an odd voice reminiscent of newscasters on public TV.
“As you are all aware, it appears that the police and the media have given up any hope of finding Sugioka’s murderer. What we need most is accurate information. Please look at the materials before you, which contain data I obtained with the assistance of my Kenwood portable recorder. At the upper left-hand
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