Cajun Justice

by James Patterson

  “Is Bonnie a diabetic?” Aito asked.

  “No,” Cain said forcefully. “She was drugged. That would be the only way for someone to take her.” He looked around the living room for more clues. “Help me find her phone.”

  The three of them searched the entire apartment, which was easy given its small size. But they could not find Bonnie’s phone.

  Cain turned to Tanaka. “Call your father. Have him get down here and start processing this scene.”

  “He’s at my grandparents’ farm near Yokota. It’s his day off.”

  “I don’t give a damn if it’s Chinese New Year. We’ve got a kidnapped American! Tell him to start rolling some detectives this way. Have them bring a K9 and a fingerprint-dusting kit.”

  Half an hour later, two local patrol officers arrived. They appeared to be in their midforties and smelled of cigarettes. They were breathing heavily from the three flights of stairs.

  Cain looked at Tanaka. “Where are the detectives?”

  “This is procedure, Cain. The patrol officers come first to investigate and take a report. Then they make a determination about whether a detective needs to respond.”

  “Anyone with half a brain can see that a detective needs to be summoned!” Cain said with great frustration.

  “This is how things are done in Japan,” Aito replied, trying to calm Cain down.

  “I’ll play their bureaucratic game, but just for a few moments. Time is of the essence in these types of cases. If we don’t find Bonnie within twenty-four hours, she’s likely gone forever.”

  The uniformed officers spoke with Tanaka in Japanese.

  “Cain, they want to know how you entered the apartment.”

  “What does that matter?”

  “They want to know if an intruder had to break open the door.”

  “No. Tell them about how I used my credit card to open the door.”

  Tanaka inhaled through his teeth. “I don’t think that is such a good idea. Technically, we were breaking and entering. That’s a crime here.”

  “What?” Cain asked incredulously. “For Christ’s sake! I’m her twin brother!” Cain’s mood switched from defensive to offensive. “When they find Bonnie, they can ask her if she wants to press charges against me. Okay?”

  “This is not like America. Japan has very many rules. There is no gray here. Only black and white.”

  “Then tell them the door was unlocked.” He pointed his finger at Tanaka’s chest. “Do whatever you have to do to get them to investigate this!”

  Tanaka turned to the police and conversed with them in Japanese for several minutes.

  The uniformed officers walked around the apartment. They opened the refrigerator and kitchen cabinets and looked through the bedroom and bathroom.

  “They want to know how many people live here.”

  “Just Bonnie.”

  Tanaka translated. The two officers spoke with each other in Japanese for a bit and then turned to Tanaka.

  “They said they do not have enough evidence to call a detective,” Tanaka told Cain. “They said you can file a report at the station if you want, but missing persons only get assigned to a detective after twenty-four hours, or under suspicious circumstances.”

  “I’m telling them that these are suspicious circumstances. Have them listen to my voicemail. Or have ’em take a closer look at this.” Cain raised the empty syringe into the air.

  Tanaka pulled Cain aside. “Drugs are very taboo in Japan. If they think she is a drug user, they will not look for her.”

  Cain felt his blood boiling when one of the officers pointed to an Angel Cloud brochure on the table. The officer said in broken English, “Westerners come and go there. It is normal. Very safe here. Maybe vacation with customer. We will talk with the neighbors.”

  Cain stormed toward the door. “I’m not dealing with these Keystone Cops any longer.”

  Tanaka followed Cain to the door. “Where are you going?”

  “To get some answers.”

  “Take Aito-san. He can translate for you.”

  “Where I’m going, I don’t need a translator!”

  Part Three

  “In der Nott frisst der Teufel Fliegen”

  Chapter 56

  The black Toyota Crown rolled to a stop. With his white-gloved hand, the driver pointed toward the massive ten-story concrete building that took up an entire city block in Tokyo. The taxi driver understood my poor Japanese after all, Cain thought.

  Cain handed the driver two one-thousand-yen bills, which more than covered the fare, and opened the rear passenger door. He folded out of the sedan and looked upon the embassy’s black wrought-iron gates. Yep, it’s undeniably the American embassy. It’s the most fortified building in the entire neighborhood. Half a dozen uniformed police officers were patrolling on foot behind waist-high concrete barriers. Beyond the gate’s walls, a lone American flag blew lightly in the wind.

  “Sumimasen,” the driver said as he ran around the front of the car to hand Cain his change. Tipping was not customary in Japan, and it often made Japanese people feel uncomfortable. “Sumimasen,” he repeated as he handed Cain his change on a small plate. The driver seemed relieved when Cain took it.

  Cain tossed the yennies, as he called the Japanese coins, into his pocket and marched through the crosswalk to approach the heavily guarded compound. The Department of State crest was bolted to the bars of the gate. The American eagle, with its wings outstretched, was clutching arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other. Cain read the sign: E PLURIBUS UNUM. “Out of many, one,” he said softly to himself. It’s time to call in the backup. He felt confident that the embassy would be able to light a fire under the Tokyo police.

  Cain approached the security hut and punched the push-button intercom. “I’m an American citizen. I’d like to speak to the regional security officer,” Cain said to one of the guards behind bulletproof glass that was at least two inches thick.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, but it’s very important. Tell the duty agent that it’s an emergency and that I’m a Secret Service agent. I need to discuss a kidnapping with him.”

  “Do you have any identification?”

  Cain pushed his passport through a narrow opening in the partition.

  The guard thumbed through a folder of names and numbers. He picked up a landline and punched a series of keys. The call lasted less than a minute, and Cain couldn’t hear the conversation. The guard pushed the intercom button and instructed Cain to empty his pockets and walk through the metal detector. It was like going through airport security, although Cain didn’t have to remove his boots. A different security guard escorted him up the hill to the main entrance of the embassy.

  “Please sit here,” he said. “Mr. Rose will meet you here as soon as he arrives.”

  “Mr. Rose?” Cain asked.

  “The deputy regional security officer. He’s the duty officer.”

  Cain glanced at his watch. “When will he be here?”

  “I don’t know the exact time, but he has been notified.”

  “Please tell him to hurry. This is a level-one priority.”

  The guard nodded, but Cain understood that the duty agent would arrive whenever he felt like it.

  The guard directed Cain to sit in a chair in the lobby while he waited for Mr. Rose to arrive. But Cain couldn’t sit still. He paced back and forth across the marble floor. “Mountains exist for you to climb, not for you to carry,” he repeated to himself. He tried breathing exercises he had learned at the retreat. He continued inhaling air as many times as possible to stretch his lungs, and then he exhaled as slowly as he could without passing out. The monks had said that lungs are like rubber bands: they need to be stretched.

  Cain quit pacing when the man he took to be Mr. Rose approached him about an hour later.

  “Oh.” Mr. Rose sighed and paused at the sight of Cain. “I recognize you from the Japan Times. You’re a former Secret Se
rvice agent.”

  “I need your help.”

  “You sound just like a Secret Service agent.” Mr. Rose chuckled. “They are always needing the RSO’s help. What happened? You and your partner stiff a prostitute again, but this time in Japan?” Mr. Rose smirked.

  “I’m gonna let that go, thanks to some recent Zen training I’ve been undergoing.”

  “Well, I appreciate your restraint,” Mr. Rose replied with dry humor. He led Cain into his office and they sat down at the desk. “What’s so important that made you tell the guard that it’s a level-one priority?”

  “My sister’s been kidnapped.”

  “Have you told the local police?”

  “Yes. They weren’t interested.”

  “A gaijin getting kidnapped in Japan is big news. Why weren’t they interested?”

  “She worked at the Angel Cloud—”

  “So, I was right. This story does involve a prostitute.”

  Cain’s face flushed red. “My sister is not a prostitute. And if you say that again, your diplomatic immunity is not gonna help with your newfound hospital bills.”

  “Relax, man. I didn’t mean anything by it. Just thought it might ease the tension.”

  “Let’s not,” Cain replied.

  “Japan’s a safe country—one of the safest. I’m sure there is a misunderstanding, and we’ll find your sister.”

  “Everyone touts how safe this place is, but when I tried to report a genuine violent crime, the police didn’t give a damn. They just cited policy and procedures.” Cain’s voice started to rise. “They’re more concerned with appearances than with substance.”

  “I sympathize with you. I really do. The Japanese take perfection and bureaucracy to a level I’ve never seen before. Investigations here can take years.”

  “I’ve got hours, not years! I can’t even get the police to start an investigation.”

  “I feel your pain. It’s frustrating for me, too. Trust me. That’s why I’m just biding my time here, and then, inshallah, I’ll be back in the Middle East. That’s where the real action is.”

  “The action is right here, in your backyard! But nobody is doing anything about it. The yakuza kidnapped my sister because I got into a fight with three of them at the Angel Cloud.”

  “Well, now this story is making a little more sense to me. The Japanese police, well, they’re scared of the yakuza. Their congress implemented tough laws recently, yet when a yakuza warehouse was raided, they found pictures on the wall of police officers with their families. It was a loud message to stay clear, or else the yakuza would come after their families.”

  “There are over nine million people in Tokyo. I need some help here. There’s no way I can find Bonnie by myself—even if she is a blond-haired gaijin.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “One of the guys I fought at the Angel Cloud was named Watanabe.”

  “Watanabe?” Mr. Rose scoffed. “That’s like Smith in America. I’m sorry, I can’t help you, sir. I wish I could. I’d love taking some American justice and shoving it down the yakuza’s throat. But my hands are tied up in the political and diplomatic sensitivity of being strategic guests in Japan. You know: with China and North Korea just next door.” Mr. Rose opened his desk drawer and grabbed a stack of business cards. He flipped through them. “Here’s the card of an American reporter. He comes by often to interview me and get information off the record. Not that I give information off the record.”

  “I don’t need a reporter,” said Cain. “They just sensationalize everything. What I need is someone who knows the yakuza organization, their safe houses, their command structure, even their clubhouses.”

  “Just take the card. Maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t.”

  Cain plucked the card from Mr. Rose’s fingertips.

  “He’s a pain in the ass, but very hungry. Works all the time, and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Someday we’ll be seeing him on CNN.”

  Cain glanced down at the card. “‘Champ Albright the Third,’” he said aloud. I recognize that name. It’s the Stars and Stripes reporter Bonnie mentioned before. This is a sign, he thought. For a brief moment, he felt hopeful—as though fate was helping him.

  “If I worked here,” Cain said with disgust, “there’s no way I’d turn away helping an American.” Cain pocketed the business card. “I’ll show myself to the door.”

  “I’ll have to escort you out. This is a secure building.”

  Cain stood to leave.

  “Just remember,” Mr. Rose said, moving from behind his cherrywood desk. “This is Japan. They have strict rules. They will not tolerate a rogue gaijin disrupting those rules. They will kick you out of this country so fast and never let you back in. Never. Their collective memory goes back thousands of years.”

  “I have no intention of being back in the news. Been there, done that. But I can’t promise you those who took Bonnie won’t be.”

  A worried look came upon Mr. Rose’s face. “What do you plan on doing?”

  “Cajun justice, Mr. Rose. Cajun justice!”

  Chapter 57

  Cain was furious when he left the embassy. The lone American flag that had blown in the wind had been taken down for the night. Cain walked down a street he didn’t recognize, passing the Spanish embassy on his way toward Roppongi. Compared with the fortified American embassy compound, the Spanish embassy looked more like a modest office building. Outside its gates was a framed poster highlighting a Picasso painting depicting a bullfight. The bright, multicolored artistry popped out among the otherwise gray and dull neighborhood. I bet they would have done more to help one of their countrymen. Political and diplomatic sensitivity, my ass!

  Cain pulled out the Angel Cloud brochure he’d taken from Bonnie’s apartment. He studied the map and found the entrance to the bar. It was in a crowded area known for its late-night activities, but it was relatively quiet that night.

  He opened the door and ascended the stairs. He climbed faster and faster as he neared the top. A muscular Japanese man in a white tuxedo stopped Cain at the top.

  “You are not welcome here,” the bouncer said.

  “I’m just looking for Bonnie—my sister.”

  “She is not here. She quit.”

  “Okay,” Cain said as he raised his hands chest level. “I don’t want trouble.” He scanned the room. “She asked me to grab her purse. She said she left it in her locker.”

  “The purse is not here,” the bouncer said gruffly.

  Cain looked past the surly bouncer and saw Sabrina across the lounge, sitting at a table with some other hostess girls.

  “Time to go.” The bouncer put his hand on Cain’s shoulder.

  “Easy, Road House,” Cain warned. “I’m leaving.”

  The bouncer escorted him down the stairs and outside. As Cain stood on the sidewalk, he looked around. Normally, he stood out in Japan because of his height and build, but this popular nightlife area was frequented by Westerners. A few strolled by, presumably on their way to various eateries and bars.

  Cain walked into the Lawson convenience store across the street from the Angel Cloud. The book section was crowded with about seven Japanese men ranging in age from twenty to sixty; they were standing in the aisle and reading manga. American cops would love this setup, Cain thought. Coffee, doughnuts, and pedophiles all in one convenient place.

  Cain grabbed a copy of the Japan Times and headed to the register. Checkout was taking a while because the customer in front of him was paying her monthly electric bill. The cashier took the money and then had to stamp the bills and receipts several times with an official rubber stamp. Cain felt his patience wearing thin. All that Zen training and I’m about to blow my lid.

  While waiting, Cain could smell a corn dog resting in the heating container. It suddenly hit him that he was starving. I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast with Umi.

  When Cain finally reached the counter, he said in a mix of Japanese and Engl
ish, “Ichi corn dog, kudesei.” He lifted his newspaper in the air. “Ichi Japan Times.”

  “Hai,” the young Japanese cashier said with a friendly smile. “One American dog. One Japan Times.” She then gestured at the cash register, which displayed a price of three hundred yen.

  Cain dug into his pocket and retrieved the yennies he still had from the taxi ride.

  “Mustard and ketchup?” the cashier asked, holding up a small plastic package that contained both condiments.

  “Hai. Arigato,” Cain said. He took his purchases and grabbed a seat by the window. He removed the corn dog’s paper packaging and placed the dog on top of it. He grabbed the combo condiment and slathered it on the corn dog. He gobbled it up and read the paper while surveilling the entrance to the Angel Cloud.

  Eventually, he saw the tall, slim, black-haired Romanian leave the Angel Cloud and start walking northbound. He crumpled all his trash together and tossed it in a bin as he hurried out the door to catch up with the Eastern European hostess.

  “Sabrina!” he said. “It’s me—your favorite customer.”

  “I can’t talk to you. You will get me in trouble.”

  “I don’t want any trouble for you. I need your help. Please. For Bonnie.”

  “Too many eyes are watching us in this neighborhood.”

  “I’ll meet you anywhere.”

  She continued walking northbound, with Cain one pace behind her. “Meet me here, at Yoyogi Park, in thirty minutes,” she said.

  “Make it fifteen.”

  “What if I’m followed?” she asked nervously.

  “I will worry about that. You just please be there, Sabrina.”

  “I have to worry,” she said, clearly scared. “Or they might take me, too!”

  “Give me a cigarette,” he instructed. “If you see me smoking, that means you were followed and to just keep on walking past. Okay?”