“You know, in a sense we were a perfect combination, the five of us. Like five fingers.” Ao raised his right hand and spread his thick fingers. “I still think that. The five of us all naturally made up for what was lacking in the others, and totally shared our better qualities. I doubt that sort of thing will ever happen again in our lives. It was a one-time occurrence. I have my own family now, and of course I love them. But truthfully, I don’t have the same spontaneous, pure feeling for them that I had for all of you back then.”

Tsukuru was silent. Ao crushed the empty paper bag into a ball and rolled it around in his large hand.

“Tsukuru, I believe you,” Ao said. “That you didn’t do anything to Shiro. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You’d never have done something like that.”

As Tsukuru was wondering how to respond, “Viva Las Vegas!” blared out on Ao’s cell phone again. He checked the caller’s name and stuffed the phone back in his pocket.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to get back to the office, back to hustling cars. Would you mind walking with me to the dealership?”

They walked down the street, side by side, not speaking for a while.

Tsukuru was the first to break the silence. “Tell me, why ‘Viva Las Vegas!’ as your ringtone?”

Ao chuckled. “Have you seen that movie?”

“A long time ago, on late-night TV. I didn’t watch the whole thing.”

“Kind of a silly movie, wasn’t it?”

Tsukuru gave a neutral smile.

“Three years ago I was invited, as the top salesman in Japan, to attend a conference in Las Vegas for U.S. Lexus dealers. More of a reward for my performance than a real conference. After meetings in the morning, it was gambling and drinking the rest of the day. ‘Viva Las Vegas!’ was like the city’s theme song—you heard it everywhere you went. When I hit it big at roulette, too, it was playing in the background. Since then that song’s been my lucky charm.”

“Makes sense.”

“And the song’s been surprisingly helpful in my business. Older customers are happy when we’re talking and they hear that ringtone. You’re still so young, they ask, so why do you like that old song? Kind of an icebreaker, I guess. ‘Viva Las Vegas!’ isn’t one of Elvis’s legendary songs, of course. There are songs that are a lot more famous. But there’s something about it—something unexpected that gets people to open up. They can’t help but smile. I don’t know why, but there it is. Have you ever been to Las Vegas?”

“No, never been,” Tsukuru said. “I’ve never been abroad, even once. But I’m thinking of going to Finland some time soon.”

Ao looked taken aback. As he walked along, he kept his eyes fixed on Tsukuru.

“Yeah, that might be nice. If I could, I’d like to go, too. I haven’t spoken with Kuro since her wedding. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this, but I used to like her.” Ao turned to face forward and took a few steps. “But I’ve got one and a half kids now, and a busy job. A mortgage and a dog I have to walk every day. I can’t see myself getting away to Finland. But if you see Kuro, tell her hello from me.”

“I will,” Tsukuru said. “Before I do that, though, I’m thinking of going to see Aka.”

“Ah,” Ao said. An ambiguous look came over his face. His facial muscles twitched in an odd way. “I haven’t seen him lately.”

“How come?”

“Do you know what kind of work he’s doing now?”

“Sort of,” Tsukuru replied.

“I guess I shouldn’t be going into it here. I don’t want to bias you before you see him. All I can say is that I’m not too fond of what he’s doing. Which is partly why I don’t see him very often. Unfortunately.”

Tsukuru was silent, keeping pace with Ao’s long strides.

“It’s not like I have doubts about him as a person. I have doubts about what he does. There’s a difference.” Ao sounded like he was convincing himself. “Maybe ‘doubts’ is the wrong word. I just don’t feel—comfortable with his way of thinking. Anyway, he’s become pretty famous in this town. He’s been on TV, in newspapers and magazines, as a real wheeler-dealer entrepreneur. He was featured in a women’s magazine as one of the ‘Most Successful Bachelors in Their Thirties.’ ”

“ ‘Most Successful Bachelors’?” Tsukuru said.

“I never saw that coming,” Ao said. “I would never have imagined him appearing in a women’s magazine.”

“Tell me—how did Shiro die?” Tsukuru said, changing the subject.

Ao came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street. He stood stock-still, like a statue. The people walking behind him nearly crashed into him. He stared straight at Tsukuru.

“Hold on a second. You honestly don’t know how she died?”

“How should I? Until last week I didn’t even know she was dead. Nobody told me.”

“Don’t you ever read the newspaper?”

“Sure, but I didn’t see anything about it. I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing the Tokyo papers didn’t give it much coverage.”

“Your family didn’t know anything?”

Tsukuru shook his head.

Ao, seemingly unnerved, faced forward again and resumed his quick pace. Tsukuru kept up with him. A moment later Ao spoke.

“After Shiro graduated from music college she taught piano for a while from her house. She moved out, finally, to Hamamatsu, and was living alone. About two years later she was found, strangled to death, in her apartment. Her mother had been worried because she hadn’t been able to reach Shiro. Her mother was the one who found her. She still hasn’t recovered from the shock. And they still haven’t arrested anyone.”

Tsukuru gasped. Strangled?

Ao went on. “Shiro’s body was discovered six years ago, on May 12th. By then we rarely got in touch with each other, so I don’t know what sort of life she led in Hamamatsu. I don’t even know why she moved there. When her mother found her, Shiro had already been dead for three days. She’d been lying on the kitchen floor for three days.

“I went to the funeral in Nagoya,” Ao continued, “and I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like a part of me had died, like I’d turned to stone. But like I said, by this time our group had pretty much split up. We were all adults, with different lives, so there really wasn’t much we could do about it. We weren’t naive high school students anymore. Still, it was sad to see what used to be so fundamental to our lives fade away, and disappear. We’d gone through such an exciting time together, and grown up together.”

When he inhaled, Tsukuru felt like his lungs were on fire. His tongue felt swollen, as if it were blocking his mouth.

“Viva Las Vegas!” rang out again on the cell phone, but Ao ignored it and kept walking. That out-of-place, cheery melody kept playing from his pocket, then stopped.

When they reached the entrance to the Lexus showroom, Ao held out a large hand to shake with Tsukuru. Ao had a strong grip. “I’m glad I could see you,” he said, looking Tsukuru in the eye. Looking people right in the eye when he talked, giving them a good, firm handshake. This hadn’t changed.

“I’m sorry to have bothered you when you’re so busy,” Tsukuru finally managed to say.

“No problem. I’d like to see you again, when I have more time. I feel like there’s so much more we should talk about. Make sure you get in touch the next time you’re in Nagoya.”

“I will. I’m sure we’ll see each other again before too long,” Tsukuru said. “Oh, one more thing. Do you remember a piano piece that Shiro used to play a lot? A quiet, five- or six-minute piece by Franz Liszt called ‘Le mal du pays’?”

Ao thought for a minute and shook his head. “If I heard the melody, maybe I’d remember. I can’t tell from the title. I don’t know much about classical music. Why do you ask?”

“I just happened to recall it,” Tsukuru said. “One last question: What in the world does the word ‘Lexus’ mean?”

Ao laughed. “People ask that a lot. Actually, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s a made-up word. An ad agency in New York came up with it at Toyota’s request. It sounds high class, expressive, and has a nice ring to it. What a strange world we live in. Some people plug away at building railroad stations, while others make tons of money cooking up sophisticated-sounding words.”