A young woman was singing the blues. A fair-skinned lass in a black dress, only in her twenties, but the timbre of her voice was as full and rich as it was relaxed and unforced. When she sang the blues it swept the regulars away to a different place.
As if a youngster like that could sing!
And yet the songs of this “youngster” impressed professional singers to tears, while tough-skinned veteran performers grieved in private knowing they’d never be her equal.
That was the power of the blues. It was said of this girl on stage that the blues had chosen her.
The applause swelled as the reverberations of the final stanza drifted through the dimly-lit room. Not a single boorish catcall or cheer.
“Man, she’s got a set of pipes!” The man spoke passionately, rubbing his palms together. He took a deep breath and exhaled. “What do you think, Doctor? Good as any out there. Word is, she’s been singing here for five years, absorbing the mood of this city into her music. I gotta say, this is one helluva town.”
He looked for a sign of agreement from his guest seated across the table. He received none.
“I guess if the good Doctor wanted something better, he could manufacture a perfect pair of vocal cords himself.” His intention was to enliven the mood, but he paled as soon as he spoke, hearing the mocking tone in his words.
“Perhaps we shall listen to something else for the time being.”
A voice like deep water spilling over polished gems. A voice that made the two scantily-clad hostesses on either side of him catch their breath.
Had the voice belonged to a statue, then its sculptor must have given up his soul to carve something so beautiful. A corner of his white cape was draped over his right hand, which contained all the powers of the demon world. It was said that he could cure any disease with nothing more than a rusty knife.
A physical beauty that caused, from a single glance, a paralyzing sense of emptiness akin to death. That was why he was called “Doctor Mephisto.”
The Demon Physician.
“What do you mean by that, Doctor? You don’t want to listen to the blues anymore?”
“I’m not really sure myself,” the Doctor answered this time.
“Huh,” the man responded in confusion. His attention turned to the brandy snifter sitting in front of Mephisto. “Hey, what’s going on?” he shouted. “His glass isn’t topped off!”
The hostesses flanking the Doctor normally would have attended to the task. Neither of them moved a muscle. As soon as they’d sat down next to the electrifyingly attractive doctor, the two had fallen under the spell of his indescribable unearthly presence.
“That’s fine,” Mephisto said softly. “Drinking isn’t my forte.”
“Oh, come on,” the man said, waving his hand dismissively.
Three empty bottles of cognac were lined up on the table. The best spirits from the outside world. They were rare as hen’s teeth in Demon City, costing a good five hundred thousand yen apiece. Mephisto’s handiwork, downing what he’d been offered.
Marveling to himself, the man produced a new bottle. “Bottoms up, Doctor.”
Mephisto didn’t refuse. He raised the empty glass to receive the smoky golden liquid, and then downed it in a single gulp. Without taking a breath or wiping his mouth. Not leaving a single drop behind. Almost as if the alcohol had sprung into his mouth of its own accord.
“That’s one hollow leg you have,” the man said with honest admiration. “Your cheeks aren’t even flushed. Incredible! Doctor, I’m telling you, when the time for hospital expansion comes, just give me a shout. I may not look it, but I can get my hands on unlisted properties that never show up on the market.”
He wasn’t lying. A real estate broker who’d made Shinjuku his home turf, his Kabuki-cho offices had a hand stirring every pot in the ward, from the grubbiest shack to the coveted ruins of the Self-Defense Forces buildings.
His wife had been stricken by a malignant tumor. After his personal doctor and shamans declared her condition hopeless and threw in the towel, he’d brought her to Mephisto’s hospital. Mephisto cured her in ten seconds. The little party he was throwing tonight was his way of expressing his gratitude.
“Say, Doctor, girls aren’t your thing?”
The man cast a quick glance at the cordon of women surrounding them. The best nightclub in Kabuki-cho, stocked with the prettiest women money could buy, and none of them were getting the job done. Tell one to pour a drink, and it’d go all over the table. Crack a joke, and they’d just sit there and stare into space.
The man had kept his temper in check only because he knew they were acting that way because of Mephisto.
Maybe they were intimidated by his looks, or some other obstacle prevented them from getting up close and friendly. As much as he needled, pushed and shoved, they wouldn’t press any closer. But they didn’t stand up and walk away either. They just sat and stared at him like beings possessed. It made the man shiver.
“You like women?” Mephisto asked.
“Of course!” From his wife down to a college coed, the man had four lovers.
“To me, everyone is the same. I feel that way especially after an operation.”
“You do have a point there.”
“If the insides are the same, all that’s left to choose from is the outward appearance. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“When there is no need to willingly choose that which is ugly, then this is what remains.”
Mephisto lightly stroked his cheek with his left forefinger. When he did it, it didn’t seem off-putting at all. No one would disagree with his assessment.
“That means that—guy or girl—you’re fine with them as long as they’re pretty? Not to be crude, but you’re saying you play for both teams?”
The man flashed a smile, then froze. The eyes of the women flanking Mephisto rolled back. The taut unearthly aura flowing around Mephisto suddenly snapped.
“D-Doctor—”
The room fell silent. The man’s eyes focused on Mephisto’s face, which shone with a brilliant white light in the darkened room.
“Pretty?” he probed. “Has the human race devised a more miserable standard of description? Are you incapable of imagining the existence of a beauty that you yourself remain unaware of? Have you not ever felt that way? Such stale adjectives are suited only for those who know nothing of vistas that the stunted human brain cannot fathom.”
From far away, applause beat against the man’s eardrums. The singer was mounting the stage again.
“Nevertheless, the female sex is undeniably an object of enormous fascination. You could even call it an imperative—from a doctor’s perspective.”
Mephisto gracefully opened his arms and wrapped them around the hostesses at either side. At the same time, as if escaping the ghostly spell, the dazed expression on the man’s face returned to normal. But his eyes still stared.
Mephisto’s fingers slowly crawled across a white shoulder. Ahh! the woman gasped.
“Fair skin, a generous distribution of fat, internal organs in good health—nevertheless, unawares, without lifting a finger, they will rot away beneath spotted, aging skin—the epitome of transience.”
Mephisto’s hand reached the woman’s breast that was pushing out of the top of her dress, a dress slit far up the thigh. The man gaped as Mephisto’s fingers sank into the soft, white flesh without denting or creasing the skin, like a craftsman driving in a nail.
“What a waste,” said Mephisto with complete sincerity. “An utter waste. Mothers who have reared their children and women who will never give birth—to them, what good are these but to tempt men? They need simply say the word and—gone. And given in exchange, a meaningful and purposeful life worth living.”
“A bit over the top, aren’t you, Doc? They’re just boobs.”
The mood in the nightclub abruptly changed. A noisy rustle rose from one end to the other.
“What’s that voice saying?”
“No, what’s that sound?”
The audience commotion drew the man’s attention toward the stage. Mephisto stared intently at his glass. A small, strange tragedy was about to be born.
The singer pressed her hands against her throat. Gasping, unable to breathe, the air squeaked out of her lungs in an asthmatic scream. She writhed, her mouth open, a hoarse cry drawn out of her body like a thin thread. Finally the sound welled up and spilled out.
Zaa— Zaa— Zaa— Zaa—
The sound caused more confusion than terror. A sound nobody had ever heard before.
Zaa— Zaa— Zaa— Zaa—
The sound of onrushing water.
From the lips of this blues singer, said to be second in talent only to Shinobu Kaze, poured a sparkling sweet sound, like a melody played on a koto. A gorgeous timbre. A sad song. And an expression of unmitigated joy.
The audience forgot the extraordinary sight of the bewitched performer and sank into a collective trance.
“Come,” said a man’s voice.
And in that instant, the singer cried out.
A silver shaft as wide as her mouth sprang from her throat and smashed into the audience, scattering screaming patrons and sending a shower of splinters flying in all directions.
A column of bone-chilling cold water.
The white shadow made its way like a phantom through the fleeing customers. Everybody knew the exquisite young man cloaked in the pure white cape, but the purpose of the brandy snifter peeking out from the seams of the cloak was a mystery.
The singer bent backward, and then pitched forward. The water arced forth from the depths of the sea and channeled through her throat. It didn’t touch the floor.
Doctor Mephisto stood directly in front of the onrushing waters.
The night’s incident was destined to become one more curious case in the medical files of the Demon Physician. Even before that, the story would take on a life of its own, another chapter in “the legend of Doctor Mephisto.”
Every drop of water gushing from the singer’s lips was sucked into the glass Mephisto held in his hand.