Chapter 9

And I was with Akemi and some friends of hers at an event, a concert about to happen, and I walked away to look for the gate to our seats and passed two policeman there to watch over the scene and heard one say to the other, “I tell you if I was in one of those countries, China, Japan, Vietnam, I think I’d go crazy.” He shook his head and so did his partner, agreeing, and I understood his meaning, that there were so many attractive women there, specially attractive ones. The idea had come to him, to them- they’d probably been talking about it before I came into earshot- from the view of Akemi and friends standing in the near distance among the concert-goers arriving, walking this way and that. And it was ironic- that word again- because the person responsible for Akemi’s disappearance was a cop.

Immigration cop took her into custody.

I saw an old friend at the event among the audience gathering before it, guy I used to work with married to a woman from Hong Kong, a knockout, as it happened, and a very likable person. She and I got along well independent of my friendship with Tim, her husband. I hadn’t seen them in a while and didn’t know if I should approach and introduce myself. Things hadn’t ended exactly well with us, with Tim and me, anyway. There’d been a misunderstanding. They stood with their son- I didn’t know they’d had one, knew they wanted one- all three facing my direction but not seeing me in the milling crowd. And Sue (her English name) still looked good. She’d now dyed her hair honey-colored, sunny light hue, and those great cheekbones were prominent as ever, rounded, giving her face a sort of exaggerated heart-like shape, stocky athletic body good for sex and child-bearing, not really my type but objectively speaking gorgeous. Her skin glowed. Her eyes were luminous dark, above those high cheeks.