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  A few minutes later, she was standing next to him, dripping wet. She twisted her thick black hair over her head. Satake noticed that the young man was watching them. He wore a pony-tail and one earring.

  'You're being watched,' he said.

  'He was talking to me in the pool.'

  'Who is he?'

  'He says he's in a band.' She sounded blase, but turned her head

  slightly to gauge Satake's reaction. Satake gazed at the drops of water sliding down her arms and legs, savouring her youth, her beauty.

  'Go swim with him. You've still got some time.'

  'Why would I want to?' she said, giving him a disappointed look.

  'He was hitting on you, wasn't he?'

  'You won't mind?'

  'Not as long as you show up for work.'

  'Oh,' she said. It was as though a bubble of innocence had burst. Throwing aside her towel, she ran back to where the man was lying by the pool. As he sat up to greet her, obviously delighted, he turned to look at Satake in disbelief.

  Anna was quiet on the way home from the pool.

  'I'll drop you off at the hairdresser's,' he told her.

  'But you don't need to pick me up,' she said.

  'Why?'

  'I'll get a cab.'

  'Fine. I'll take a shower and look in at the club.' After letting her out at her usual spot, he pulled on to Yamate Avenue. The sun was low, shining right in his eyes. The sunset in summer always reminded Satake of something, a memory so intense it made him wince. Back in the heat of his room, he stared at the shadows of the Shinjuku towers beginning to stretch across the street outside his window. That feeling, the uncontrollable irritation, was returning again.

  -

  When he made his entrance at Mika that evening, all the hostesses turned toward the door in their standard greeting. For a moment, their faces held the plastic smiles reserved for the clientele, but when they realised who it was, their smiles faded. Satake looked around the empty room.

  'What the hell's going on? This the slack season?' he said to Chin, the floor manager, who was standing at his shoulder. 'It's still early,' said Chin, quickly rolling down his sleeves.

  Satake, who was strict about his employees' appearance, noticed that his bow-tie was crooked and his black pants wrinkled. 'You're a mess,' he said, pulling roughly on the tie.

  'Sorry,' Chin muttered, wandering off. Sensing that Satake was in a lousy mood, Reika, the manager, hurried over from the kitchen. She was wearing a black dress with a string of pearls - as if she were going to a funeral, he noted sourly.

  'Satake-san, good evening. I'm afraid things are a bit slow, what with the heat and all.'

  'What do you mean, a bit slow? Have you been making calls? I just don't believe you can't drum up any business at all!' His eyes swept the room again before settling on the vases. 'And get some new flowers!' he shouted.

  In general, Satake kept a low profile in his own clubs; but tonight was different. The way he scowled sent Chin scooting over to the nearest vase of badly wilted mauve bellflowers. The hostesses looked back and forth nervously between Satake and the vase.

  'A number of regulars said they'll be in later,' Reika said, trying to soothe him.

  'You can't run a business like that, waiting like some fucking princess for people to show up. Get out on the street and drag them in!'

  'I was just going to do that,' Reika said, laughing amiably, but she made no move to go, obviously reluctant to face the heat outside. Holding in his anger, Satake looked around again. He'd had a feeling that something was missing - and now realised what it was.

  'Where's Anna?' he asked.

  'She called to say she'd be taking the night off.'

  'Did she say why?'

  'She said she'd got too much sun at the pool and wasn't feeling well.'

  'Okay,' he muttered. 'I'll be back later.'

  The relief was apparent on her face. Satake noticed that the whole place seemed to relax as he walked out the door, still struggling to control his rage.

  Outside, he was instantly engulfed in the sweltering air of Kabuki-cho. Though the sun had set, the heat and humidity lingered, as though the whole city were in a steam bath; the heat was trapped inside, as if building under the skin of a grimy, middle-aged man with clogged pores. Satake let out a groan as he climbed the stairs to the next floor, a bit more slowly than usual. Things had got slack at Mika, and he would have to do something about it.

  When he opened the door to Playground, Kunimatsu headed over to greet him. Satake was relieved to see a number of businessmen around the tables.

  'You're early this evening,' Kunimatsu said, glancing down at Satake's clothes. Realising that patches of sweat were showing on his silver-grey jacket, he slipped it off, but the black silk shirt underneath was soaked through and clung to the lines of muscle on his chest. 'Is it hot in here?' Kunimatsu asked him uneasily as he picked up the jacket.

  'No, it's fine,' said Satake, taking out his cigarettes. A young dealer who was practising at an empty table before going on duty looked up at them. Satake noticed the hint of a sneer that crept into his expression when he saw the limp jacket. 'What's the new guy's name?' he asked Kunimatsu.

  'Yanagi.'

  'Tell him to watch himself in front of the customers. Nobody wants to see a dealer pulling faces like that.'

  'I'll tell him,' Kunimatsu murmured, backing away as if to distance himself from his unusually bad mood. Satake stood and finished his cigarette. Almost before he'd stubbed it out, one of the bunnies came over to change the ashtray, and he lit another.

  The staff seemed to be watching him nervously, paying more attention to him than to the customers; and somehow, though it was his own club, for the first time he felt very out of place. 'Can I bother you for a minute?' said Kunimatsu, coming back over.

  'What's up?'

  'There's something I wanted to show you.' Satake followed his manager's tall, tuxedo-clad form to a small room at the back of the club that served as his office. 'A customer left this,' he said, taking a grey suit coat from the locker. Satake noticed the silver jacket he'd just removed on another hanger. 'I was wondering what we should do with it.'

  'No one's claimed it?' Satake asked, taking the coat. It was lightweight wool, obviously cheap.

  'Look at this,' said Kunimatsu, pointing at a label sewn into the pocket. 'Yamamoto' had been machine embroidered in yellow thread.

  'Yamamoto?'

  'Don't you remember? The guy you chased off at the beginning of last week.'

  'Oh, him,' said Satake, recalling the man who had been bothering Anna.

  'He hasn't been back to get it. What should we do?'

  'Throw it out.'

  'You don't think he'll be around at some point looking for it?'

  'He's not coming back,' said Satake. 'And if he does show up, just tell him we never saw it.'

  'I'll do that,' said Kunimatsu with a small nod. He seemed to have something more he wanted to say, but thought better of it. After discussing the recent receipts for a few minutes, Satake left the office. Kunimatsu hurried after him, still trying to humour him. A couple of flashy young women, apparently hostesses from the neighbourhood, had come to gamble. The sight of their artificially tanned skin made Satake think of his own top girl. 'I'm going to check up on Anna,' he said. 'I'll be back later.'

  Kunimatsu bowed politely, but Satake couldn't help noticing the way he relaxed as he saw him out the door. At moments like these, when he saw how nervous his employees seemed to be around him, he wondered whether they had somehow found out about his past.

  He had been a model of self-control, had worked so hard to keep his dark side sealed away. But he knew that even a hint of what he'd done would terrify other people. Still, only he and the woman herself knew the truth about what had happened, and no one else could understand what he'd been up to. It had been Satake's misfortune to taste the forbidden fruit when he was twenty-six, and he'd been cut off from the normal world ever since.