Cajun Justice

by James Patterson

  She thought for a second and then pulled a cigarette from her Chanel purse—no doubt a gift from one of her wealthy clients.

  Cain took the cigarette and reminded her, “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Da,” she replied in her native Romanian.

  Cain circled the park and sat on a bench. He watched closely the few people who were out and about, walking through the park. Some were businesspeople just cutting through to save time, and others were sweethearts enjoying a romantic walk.

  He looked at his watch—the dials emitted a soft glow. It’s been fifteen minutes. Where the hell is she? His legs started to shake with anxious energy. Another ten minutes passed. Just when he thought of getting up to go search for her, her silhouette appeared in the distance. She didn’t stick to the plan. Instead of walking toward Cain, she sat at a bench about fifty yards away.

  What the hell is she doing? he wondered. He continued his scan, and when he felt confident she had not been followed, he stood and walked toward her.

  “What the hell was that all about? You didn’t stick to our plan,” he said.

  “I got nervous,” she said. “I couldn’t remember our plan. I almost didn’t even come, so give me some credit!” She pulled out another cigarette from her purse.

  He pulled out a matchbox. “Natural wood is better than butane.” He struck the match. “Healthier, too.”

  She half laughed. “There’s a lot of things healthier than smoking, I suppose.”

  “Yeah,” Cain said. “Like doing the right thing. Where’s Bonnie?”

  “I don’t know. I swear.”

  “You gotta know something! You’re smart, and you’re observant. You haven’t survived in this business without being street-smart.”

  “They lured my friend Elena over here for a modeling job.” Sabrina took a long drag and slowly exhaled it toward the night sky. “Then they took her passport.”

  “Who? The same people who kidnapped Bonnie?”

  “They threatened to tell the police that she was prostituting and selling drugs in Japan.”

  “Bonnie? Or your friend Elena?”

  “Elena. She was so scared. She had no identity. And then one day she disappeared. I’m afraid that is what has happened to Bonnie.”

  “Why would they do that to Bonnie? She’s never hurt anyone.”

  “You shamed them. Saving face is everything here. You challenged them and fought three yakuza members in front of many prominent Japanese businessmen. They were always going to get their revenge.”

  “Why didn’t they come after me, then? Why did they go after Bonnie? She wasn’t involved.”

  “They’ll kill you, but they’ll use Bonnie. I’ve heard they will sell women to make money for their organization. You should have caught the next flight to America after the fight in the Angel Cloud.”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m going back to America without my sister. Who were those men I fought?”

  “I don’t know. I had never seen them before.”

  “You sure?”

  “Like I said, I’ve never seen them.”

  “One of them was named Watanabe,” he said. “Does that ring a bell?”

  She blew the smoke from her cigarette into the air. “I meet five guys a week who are named Watanabe.”

  “You don’t know anything about them?” Cain repeated, feeling as though he was back at the Secret Service, interrogating suspects.

  “I don’t know who they are, but I saw them leave that night in a Nissan Skyline.”

  Cain scoffed. “There’s gotta be hundreds of those in Tokyo—probably thousands.”

  “This one is easy to see. It’s orange and very loud. Like a race car.”

  “Oh, that’s good intel,” he said. As he looked at her pretty face and striking blue eyes, he realized it could have just as easily been Sabrina who was kidnapped. “If you’re so afraid of them, why are you helping me?”

  “I like Bonnie. She isn’t like us. She doesn’t need the money. She just enjoys meeting different people. She’s always very nice to us. She called me and asked if I would meet her at Starbucks the Saturday before I went on shift. I agreed, but she never showed up.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Sabrina began to tear up. “She seemed fine when I talked to her.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She just said that she’d enjoyed working with me and the other girls, but that she had to quit. She said it wasn’t safe for her to go back, especially after I had told her that the man with the bloody face had taken her purse that night.”

  Cain’s heart sank.

  “I wasn’t sure, but I thought Bonnie would be okay because—”

  “Because why?” Cain interrupted.

  “Because Bonnie was protected by the manager. She was American. She didn’t know about how they treated the Russian girls.”

  “But you’re not Russian,” Cain said.

  “Romanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian—they call us all Russians.”

  Cain handed Sabrina a piece of paper. “This is my number. Please call me if you ever see them back at the Angel Cloud. I can protect you.”

  She scoffed. “You can’t protect me from them.”

  “I can protect you. There was a time when I made my living protecting presidents and kings.”

  She took the paper and shoved it in her purse. She thanked him in her native Romanian: “Multumesc.”

  “Cu plăcere,” he replied. He turned around and started walking away.

  Before he disappeared into the darkness, Sabrina made one last quick request. “Please find her. Make those bastards pay—for Bonnie, and for Elena.”

  He looked back only briefly. “You can bet your life on it.”

  Chapter 58

  Cain hailed a taxi. He wanted to return to Bonnie’s apartment. Was there anything I missed? He kept asking himself this question and replaying her voicemail message. I shouldn’t have gone to that retreat, just as I shouldn’t have gone to Thailand.

  As Cain sat in the back of the taxi, he peered out the window. The high-rise buildings towered into the sky, some disappearing into the cloud cover. Bonnie could be anywhere, he worried. How am I going to find her in Japan when I couldn’t even find Claire and Christopher in Krabi? He lowered his head into his hand. He felt the onset of a migraine. He rubbed his temples to ease the pressure.

  When the taxi neared the apartment complex, Cain instructed the driver to stop right there and not go any closer to the main doors.

  “This is good. Right here. Here! Koko ni.” Cain didn’t want to be dropped off at the front doors because he wasn’t yet sure if they were being watched by the yakuza.

  Cain walked around the neighborhood and the building’s parking lot. He looked intently at all the cars and made sure that none harbored a lookout. Black was the most popular color in Japan. It didn’t matter the make or model—almost all the sedans were black. Some were silver, but none were the orange Nissan Skyline that Sabrina had described.

  Cain’s phone buzzed in his hand. It was a text message.

  IS EVERYTHING OKAY? Umiko wrote. IT’S REALLY LATE AND I HAVEN’T HEARD BACK FROM YOU.

  He called her. “Bonnie has been kidnapped.”

  “Are you sure? This is unbelievable!” Umiko said.

  “I’m trying to backtrack her steps. I’m at her apartment now. But I gotta be honest with you, Umi. I’m feeling overwhelmed right now. Everyone is right. I’m a gaijin—an outsider in this foreign place.” His voice started to crack. “It’s my fault. Now she has been taken. And I’m the only person Bonnie has looking for her.”

  “I will help you. I can go with you to the police station,” Umiko offered.

  Cain sighed. “That’s not going to do any good. I spoke with some officers earlier at Bonnie’s apartment. They were useless.”

  “That is why you need my help,” Umiko said with confidence. “I have lived my whole life in Japan. I understand Japanese procedu
res, and I also know how to get around them.”

  “I didn’t think navigating Japanese bureaucracy was even possible,” Cain said. “That’s how it feels around here, but maybe there’s hope. My crew chief used to say that an officer knows the rules, but a chief knows the exceptions to those rules. If you’re willing to help me, I’ll take it. I can use any help I can get right about now.”

  “I will meet you at Tokyo police headquarters in one hour.”

  “There’s a koban near Bonnie’s apartment. Wouldn’t that be quicker?”

  “Quicker is not always better.”

  “That’s a very Japanese thing to say.”

  “What can I say? I’m Japanese.”

  Cain let out a chuckle and realized it was the first time he had laughed since he shared breakfast with Umiko that very morning. But it seemed as though days had passed already.

  About an hour later, Umiko showed up carrying a Dunkin’ Donuts box. “I purchased these on my way here. They will help us. Japanese inspectors watch American police movies.”

  “And even if they don’t, everybody loves doughnuts.”

  “Hai, and I have chocolate, glazed, and some with cute sprinkles.” Umiko smiled.

  Tokyo’s metropolitan police headquarters was an enormous wedge-shaped building that ascended eighteen stories. It was the station responsible for overseeing more than forty thousand police officers. On the roof was a large red communications tower—undoubtedly for dispatching police and receiving 110 calls, the equivalent of America’s 911.

  About thirty civilians were lined up to speak with the officer on duty.

  “I’m sorry for this long line,” Umiko said.

  “Are you kidding? New Orleans has a fraction of the population Tokyo does, and their line would snake out the door, all the way into the French Quarter.”

  Umiko and Cain took their place in line. The line was orderly, and everyone waited patiently except for Cain. He continued glancing at his Omega Seamaster. “I just need to find that orange Skyline.”

  Cain had been observing the people in line. After about the fourth person had given money to the duty officer before leaving, Cain decided to say something.

  “Why is everyone paying the duty officer? What’s that all about?”

  “They are turning in money,” Umiko said.

  “What?”

  “Yes. They have found money, or someone’s wallet or umbrella. Most likely on the train. And they are turning it in.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I think over one million dollars in yen gets turned in to the lost and found every year.”

  “The hell with umbrellas. Someone needs to turn in Bonnie,” Cain exclaimed.

  At about that time, they reached the front of the line. “I will talk to the police officer,” Umiko said. “Please try to relax, and trust me.”

  It was as if Umiko was a different person. Instead of her normal appearance of stability, athleticism, and competence, she presented herself to the officer as very timid and shy.

  “Sumimasen,” she said, and quasi bowed several times. The rest of what she said was in Japanese, and Cain didn’t know what she was saying. At one point, she lifted the box of doughnuts into the air to show the officer. He smiled—perhaps for the first time during his shift that day.

  A few moments later, an inspector came to the lobby and requested that Umiko and Cain follow him back to the detective bureau. It was an open-bay area illuminated by bright fluorescent lights. They walked past at least fifty desks at which sat uniformed and plainclothes detectives clacking on typewriters and computers and answering ringing phones. All the desks, chairs, and telephones looked identical.

  The detective, who looked worn-out and had a loose tie around his neck, plopped himself down into his office chair and wheeled himself toward his desk. He picked up his Seven Stars cigarette from the ashtray where it had been resting. He inhaled and slowly blew out the smoke.

  I’m just one problem out of a thousand for this man, Cain thought. He’s not going to be helpful.

  Umiko spoke to him in Japanese and presented the doughnuts. The inspector accepted the box and thanked her but didn’t take a doughnut. Instead, he offered them to his colleagues nearby, who huddled around and picked their favorite flavors.

  “He wants to know if the parents have been notified.”

  “God, no. This would crush my parents. They would be heartbroken beyond repair. They didn’t even want Bonnie moving to Japan. And now she’s missing because of me! There’s no way I can tell my parents.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell him yes.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Otherwise, they won’t file the report until the family has been called.”

  Cain nodded.

  The exchange between the inspector and Umiko lasted an agonizing eighty-three minutes. Cain knew the exact time because he had nervously kept checking his watch—feeling as if he was wasting his time dealing with the Japanese police and their lengthy protocols. They appeared much more interested in administration than in actual investigation, but Cain trusted Umiko.

  When the inspector finished typing his forms and rubber-stamping them with his personal honko, he stood and bowed—first to Cain and then to Umiko.

  She returned the inspector’s bow. “Domo arigato gozaimashita.” She bowed a second time, this time even lower. “Domo arigato gozaimashita.”

  “What’s next?” Cain asked Umiko.

  “They have filed the report in their computer, and if a police officer finds Bonnie, they will call you. I also gave him my number.”

  “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to come here. This was a complete waste of time! I could have been out there looking for Bonnie.”

  She placed her hand on his elbow and guided him toward the exit. “We never came here only to file a police report. I came with you to overhear what the police were saying. And I think I have what you need.”

  “What do you mean?” Cain asked as the sliding doors opened automatically when the motion sensor detected their movement.

  “When I mentioned the orange Skyline to the inspector, I overheard another inspector say that it sounded like a yakuza member named Watanabe, who goes by the street name Hayabusa. That means ‘falcon’ in Japanese. I don’t know who he is, but he must be important for the police to know him by name. You have at least a more specific name now to investigate. Do you still have friends in the government back in America who can help you? The United States has files on everybody. WikiLeaks is proof of that.”

  Cain caught himself nodding yes with each second as he grew more confident. “Yes, I still have a contact in the Secret Service who owes me a favor—a big one!”

  “Have you eaten?” a worried Umiko asked.

  “Just an American dog a few hours ago, but I don’t have time to eat right now. Th—”

  “I know a noodle place nearby. My treat.”

  “I don’t have time to eat.”

  “You are not able to think clearly to help your sister. Please stop and eat. Do it so you can find Bonnie.”

  Cain paused before responding. “You’re right. You’re always right, Umi.”

  “You said yourself you are the only one looking for Bonnie. That means you must take care of your body and your mind first.”

  The restaurant reminded Cain of a Waffle House, but it served only drinks and soba, a broth with thick noodles. Umiko ordered for them.

  Cain sat but was frantic. “I’ve gone to Bonnie’s apartment. I didn’t see anything tangible there. I went to the embassy, then the Angel Cloud. They wouldn’t let me in. I’ve gotta find a way into the Angel Cloud, and I need to find out where—”

  “Cain-san, you are going to find your sister. But first you have to eat something. You look exhausted.” Umiko frowned.

  “My body is starving, Umi, but I can’t even think about that right now. My mind is racing. In the United States, there is only a small window of opportunity to fi
nd a missing person. It’s about twenty-four hours.”

  “You are going to find your sister. I can feel it. She is very lucky to have you in her life.”

  “I’m the lucky one. To have her as my sister and you helping me.”

  Umiko smiled and then poured some green tea into her cup and sipped it.

  Their food arrived, and both started eating.

  “Oh, this is spicy,” Cain said. “It’s very tasty.”

  “I told her that you wanted yours extra spicy since you are from Louisiana.”

  Cain smiled and continued devouring his meal. The broth and noodles, paired with tempura, cleared his head. “I’m too reliant on the trains and taxis here. I have to get a car. Do you know someone who can help me get a car? It can be anything.”

  “I don’t have a car, but I have a motorcycle I never use.”

  “That’s awesome! Where’s it at?”

  “My apartment.”

  Chapter 59

  “I’ve gotta make some calls,” Cain said. “I’ll just stay here in the lobby while you go upstairs.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Umiko said, and darted upstairs to her apartment to retrieve the keys to her bike.

  Cain pulled out his cell phone and paced back and forth in the lobby.

  “Tanaka, it’s Cain,” he blurted out before Tanaka could even answer with the standard “Mushi, mushi” greeting. “I’m calling because I need your help at the office.”

  “Yes. I will help you.” Tanaka answered as if he had been asleep and suddenly awakened.

  “I’m leaving you in charge of the team for the next few days. I don’t have time to fill you in with all the details right now, but I’m going to be chasing down some leads. I need you to cover for me at work.”

  “Hai. Of course. It would be my honor.”

  “Thank you, Tanaka-san. I appreciate it.”

  “Mr. Cain, I am very sorry about what happened to Bonnie. I feel very responsible.”

  “There’s no time for those feelings right now,” Cain said. “That’s not going to help us find Bonnie.”

  “You must be careful, Cain-san. You once told me that trouble finds you.”