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new equipment. There was a
silver flashlight, batteries still in the package, a hacksaw with
an orange handle, black rubber gloves, scissors, tape, and a clear
bag filled with numerous cans of chemicals.
    “This must belong to the police or
volunteers who search for the bodies,” Ben said. “See the scissors
and the saw?”
    “But what are the chemicals used for?” Neil
said.
    Nobody had an answer to that.
    John Scott grabbed the flashlight and
batteries.
    “John!” Mel reprimanded. “What are you
doing?”
    “It will come in handy.”
    “You can’t take it.”
    “Why not? Someone obviously left it
here.”
    “They might be coming back for it.”
    “I’ll return it on the way out
tomorrow.”
    “I think you should leave it.”
    “Do you have a flashlight?”
    “Yes, I do.”
    “Anyone else?”
    “I have one,” Neil said.
    “That’s it? Two for seven people?” John
Scott glanced at each of us in turn. “Is anyone else against a
third flashlight? It’s going to be pitch black out here later.”
    Put that way, nobody objected.
     
     
     
    Somehow a pebble
had snuck into my left shoe, annoying me to no end. I wasn’t
wearing hiking boots like the others. My feet were size thirteen—a
size that was nearly impossible to find in Japan, even in a city as
large as Tokyo. Consequently, I hadn’t been able to buy proper
boots for this trip and instead wore the pair of tattered Reebok
trainers I’d brought with me from the States.
    John Scott, now chatting up Nina ten feet
ahead of me, lit a cigarette. He blew the smoke back over his
shoulder.
    I noticed his shoes for the first time:
eighteen-hole Doc Martins, black leather, yellow laces. Like his
leather jacket, I didn’t know what to make of them.
    Had he planned on wearing them to climb
Fuji? Or did he have something else in his big military-issued
rucksack?
    “What were you guys talking about earlier?”
I asked Mel.
    “Who?”
    I didn’t reply. She knew who.
    She said, “He was telling me stories about
Okinawa. He said it’s a great place. We should visit there
sometime.”
    “Where’s he staying in Tokyo?”
    “A love hotel actually.”
    “Ha. Whereabouts?” Love hotels were
neon-garish places where you rent a room either for a three-hour
rest or for the entire night. You select the room from a panel of
buttons and settle the bill via a pneumatic tube or pair of
mysterious hands behind a pane of frosted glass. Mel and I had
stayed in a bunch of them over the years for kicks, and the rooms
had featured rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke systems, hot
tubs, and vending machines selling everything from beer to S&M
gear to women’s panties, previously worn.
    “That one in Shibuya we stayed in. Remember,
on that small, windy street?”
    “Yeah, I remember.” I think the area was
called Love Hotel Hill. Our room had no windows for the same reason
casinos don’t. “There are a bunch of hotels there. He stayed in the
same one we did?”
    “I recommended it.”
    I frowned. “How long have you known he was
coming to Tokyo?”
    “A couple days before he arrived.”
    “Is that when you invited him to climb
Fuji?”
    “I told him we were climbing it, yes. He
said he’d climbed it before and had other plans. But then he texted
me last night and said his plans had fallen through.”
    I stared ahead. John Scott took another drag
of his cigarette, blew the smoke back at us.
    “What do you think about his jacket?” I
asked.
    “What about it?”
    “A leather jacket like that? To climb a
mountain?”
    “He wasn’t planning on climbing. I just said
that. I guess it’s the only jacket he brought with him.”
    Fair enough, I thought. But I still wanted
to get a dig in. I didn’t like this relationship Mel had with him.
Maybe I was overreacting. I don’t know. Something just didn’t sit
right.
    “Where’s he from?” I asked.
    “Why all this interest?”
    “I’m jealous.”
    “St. Helena. I told you we went to