by Steve Bein
“Huh.” After a few strides, he added, “Good point. But so what?”
“So times have changed and all that. This generation is so different, blah blah blah.”
“Still not following you.”
They’d almost reached the girls, so Mariko slowed to a walk and lowered her voice. “When we were kids, you and I weren’t tethered to a cell phone. We still talked to our friends instead of texting them. And we didn’t have a camera in our pocket every second of every day.”
Now the cartoon lightbulb lit up over Han’s head. “Good call! Let’s do this.”
Mariko didn’t need to fill in the rest. As they closed the last few meters, she wondered whether it was possible to boil down a teenager’s incessant need to take frivolous pictures into some kind of mathematical formula. Oshiro’s Postulate: for every student added to the group, the likelihood that one of them was taking a photo of another one multiplied exponentially, until at critical mass it was a metaphysical certainty that every one of them had been photographed by every other one of them from every possible angle. Mariko had no idea what they did with all the pictures, but she knew the sheer data storage required must have been driving up cell phone prices for years.
“Hello, ladies.” Mariko flashed her badge as she reached the group. Han stood back and let her do the talking. “I wonder if you’d be willing to help us out,” she said. “There was a crime committed in this area and I’m guessing one of you may have inadvertently caught the suspect in the act. Would it bother you if I clicked through some of your pictures?”
Had the girls been of Mariko’s generation, one of them might have been savvy enough to know Mariko needed a warrant. But these girls were raised on Facebook and Twitter. They had no sense of privacy, nor even any sense that privacy was desirable. Their lives were open to the world. They were perfectly happy to let a couple of cops shuffle through their photo albums, and even to watch over Mariko’s and Han’s shoulders, giggling and reminiscing as the pictures flashed by.
In the end they captured three usable images. All three were pixelated and indistinct, mere slivers caught between the girls posing in the foreground. But there she was: the woman in white. In one image she stood in front of a storefront wall. In the next, captured on the same phone just a few seconds after the first one, the wall was there but she was gone. The third, taken by a different girl at almost the same time, was the mother lode: a gap in the wall, or rather a panel that looked like a wall but was actually a door, open just wide enough for the woman in white to slip through.
15
“So what now?” asked Han.
“Now I go kick the door down and get some answers.”
Han winced. They’d hardly gotten out of earshot of those high school girls. Mariko managed two steps toward the secret door before Han clapped a hand on her shoulder and spun her back around. “Come on, Mariko. Anyone paranoid enough to create this Blind Spot of yours has got to be paranoid enough to monitor their own front door, neh? Don’t you think there’s going to be a security camera somewhere?”
“Fine by me,” Mariko said with a shrug. “Let them come out and try to stop me. These people pissed me off, Han. Let one of them throw a punch and see what happens.”
He steepled his hands plaintively in front of his chest, as if he were praying to her. “A quick reconnaissance run first, okay? Just for me? We’ll pretend we’re a couple shopping for sex toys.”
“You’re gross.”
“Okay, chastity belts, then. Just walk with me, nice and slow like we’re window-shopping. We’ll get a good look at the door before you tear off and boot it down.”
Mariko closed her eyes and sighed. It wasn’t a bad idea. She wanted it to be, but it wasn’t. “Fine. One pass. Then I’m going in there, and goddamn it, I’m going to find someone to interrogate.”
She offered her elbow to Han and he took it gently. Together they took a casual stroll, stopping occasionally to study the lewd posters plastered here and there. They pointedly took no interest in the secret door they’d discovered. The side streets of Kabuki-cho were so narrow that even though Mariko and Han tried to keep their distance, they still passed close enough to their target that she could see where the paint was peeling on the doorframe.
Smack in the middle of the Blind Spot was a strip club—one of dozens in this district. Strictly speaking, it only needed one sign out front, but it had fifteen or twenty instead, all of them in bright primary colors. Crammed amid all the Japanese were the few inevitable phrases of mangled English. WELCOME FOREIGNER BEST COMFORT CORNER was Mariko’s favorite. Anywhere else in the city, this place would have stuck out like a mouse turd in a rice bowl, but in Kabuki-cho it was just another peacock displaying its plumage.
“Where is it?” Han whispered.
Mariko couldn’t spot the secret door either. Or rather, she knew she was looking at it; she just couldn’t see how it could be a door.
The front wall of the strip club was a series of painted white panels, each one the width of an average door but half again as tall. Photos of the club’s dancers clung to the panels like wet leaves on a car hood. In most of the pictures the women wore little more than they wore on stage. In a few, the dancer wore nothing but little pink hearts digitally imposed over her bits. The middle panel, indistinguishable from the others, was the one that had swiveled open to admit the woman in white.
“No handle,” Han said, just loud enough to be heard over the metallic clamor of the pachinko parlor across the road from their target.
“No hinges,” said Mariko, and just like that they were past the target and continuing down the narrow street.
“I don’t get it,” Han said. “She must have hit that door at a pretty good clip. How did she open it?”
“Maybe an electronic key? Something that works automatically on proximity?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Han, “but you have to wonder where she’s keeping it.”
“Good point.” Mariko had forgotten: the woman in white was wearing mostly stolen clothing when she’d fled. The only thing she was wearing that really seemed to belong to her was the see-through mini-dress. “So what, then? How did she open the door?”
“The bouncer, maybe? He could have a hidden switch.”
Mariko risked one last glance at the undetectable door, and at the ordinary door a few meters away, where the club’s bouncer would sit. Today it was closed; no one went to a strip club at eight thirty on a Saturday morning.
“I don’t know,” she said. “One thing is for sure: this is where you get off the bus.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you’re on duty and I’m not, and what I’m going to do next violates about a dozen general orders.”
Han tightened his grip a little on her elbow. “You can’t be serious. You’re still thinking of going in there?”
“Hell, no. I’m done thinking about it. I’m going in there as soon as I can get rid of you.”
“Mariko, you know there’s no way in hell I’m letting you walk in there alone. We’re partners.”
“I know. But you just got your ass hauled in front of a review board for ethics infractions. It’s a miracle that you still have a badge. If you think I’m going to let you commit more infractions by tagging along with me, you’re nuts.”
“Mariko—”
“No, Han. My career is fucked. Yours doesn’t have to be.”
Han stopped walking, and since he still had Mariko by the arm, he stopped her too. “Listen, I’ve been reading those old notebooks of yours and I’ve got this theory cooking. If I’m right about it, you’re being set up.”
“Hm.” Usually Mariko and Han thought alike, but this time she couldn’t see where he was heading. “Okay, you lost me. Explain.”
Han bounced nervously on the balls of his feet, probably unaware that he was doing it. “All right, here we go. Remind me, how did you know the old guy who wrote all the notes?”
“‘Old guy’? Really?”
“Sorry. Professor Yamada. How did you know him?”
“He was my kenjutsu sensei.”
“Right. And you got that sword of yours from him, neh?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d he get it from?”
“Huh.” Mariko frowned, biting softly on her lower lip. “You know, I don’t think he ever told me.”
“Is it possible he got it by chance?”
Mariko had to think about that one too. “Yes and no,” she said at last. “With swords like these, you stop using the word ‘coincidence.’ But you may be onto something. I don’t think Yamada-sensei could ever afford to buy an Inazuma. He was a college professor, and before that he was just an officer in the army. Not the kinds of jobs that pay well enough to buy historical artifacts.”
“See, that’s what I thought. I don’t think that ninja woman was trying to beat you to death with that mask. I think she was trying to give it to you.”
“You think?” She pointed at her bruises and stitches.
“Hear me out, okay? I’ve been studying your sensei’s journals. He mentions another Inazuma sword called Beautiful Singer. Have you heard of it?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Just hearing the name was enough to make Mariko wince. She still had scars on her stomach and back where that sword ran her through.
“There’s another called Streaming Dawn. Heard of that one?”
“No,” she said, but suddenly she was all ears. A fourth Inazuma blade. She’d encountered three of them already—more than anyone else alive, in all probability—but she’d always wondered how many more were out there.
“Your sensei says he finds no record of either of these ever having been sold. They’re named in a will here or there, or taken as trophies after combat, but in every case he says there were strange circumstances around the death of the previous owner. Guys losing duels they should have won. Master swordsmen suddenly going nuts on the battlefield. Stuff like that.”
Mariko had no trouble believing that. Yamada-sensei had shared with her the grisly history of Beautiful Singer. Even if he hadn’t, she’d witnessed firsthand how it could twist the mind of whoever was holding it. She wondered if this Streaming Dawn bore a similar curse. “Keep going,” she said.
“All right, remember how you said that mask of yours is tuned to your sword? Well, it never gets sold either. Yamada makes a specific note of that. He says the Wind places it where it needs to be.”
“Okay. So what’s your point?”
Han was bouncing like a piston now, urgent and agitated. “I think there’s a ninja Secret Santa out there, and I think he’s setting you up.”
Mariko wanted to grab him by the shoulders and plant him firmly on the pavement. She wanted to send him on his way and get down to business, but some nameless intuition stayed her hand. She’d only seen him this nervous when they were getting ready to raid a meth lab or close the deal on a yakuza sting. He was legitimately scared for her.
So she gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Let’s say you’re right. How is this setup supposed to work?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that you’re now the proud owner of a mask that’s worth more than either of us is going to make this year, and a sword that’s worth more money than we’ll make in our entire career. So either they accidentally fell into your hands or that’s exactly what the ninja Secret Santa wants you to think.”
“I think you just like saying ‘ninja Secret Santa.’”
“Okay, fine. Guilty as charged. But you know I’m right, neh? You weren’t lucky that woman didn’t kill you. That fight was choreographed.”
Mariko was too stunned to speak. Han’s logic was solid, but his conclusion hardly seemed possible. At the time, Mariko had been dead certain she was fighting for her life. Could the whole thing have been staged?
Yes. She had to admit it was possible. In fact, right from the beginning she’d had the sense that someone had arranged for her to cross paths with the ninja woman. But it had never occurred to her that her assailant had been the one to do the arranging. If so, then not only had she kicked Mariko’s ass, but she’d chosen precisely how much to kick, and how much to let Mariko kick back. And she’d done it without Mariko ever noticing.
No. No one could be that skilled. Yet Mariko had no alternate explanation.
“See what I mean?” Han said it as if he’d read her mind. “Someone is setting you up, Mariko. I don’t know why, but I know they might be waiting for you on the other side of that door if you decide to kick it down.”
Then at least I’ll get some answers, Mariko thought. But to Han she said, “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I need to think this through.”
“Bullshit.” Han jabbed a finger at her like an umpire calling a strike. “You’re bullshitting me. You’re going to wait until I turn my back, and then you’re going to rush in there guns blazing.”
“No, I’m—”
“No, you’re not, are you? You don’t have any guns to blaze with. Your service weapon is locked up at headquarters.”
Mariko had never seen him like this. All his witticisms were gone. What remained was a sense of urgency that bordered on anger. “Han, I can’t get a warrant to go in there. I can only show probable cause if I reveal all the work I’ve done tracking that woman to this spot, and if I do that … well, this isn’t a narco case, is it? As soon as Captain Kusama gets wind of it, he’ll take a hatchet to whatever remains of my career.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Sit back and watch you walk into a trap?”
“We don’t know it’s a trap. We don’t know anything about it.”
“And that’s a good thing?” He peeled back his jacket to reveal the Nambu M60 holstered under his left arm. “At least take a fucking gun with you.”
“I can’t. Not yours, anyway. If I have to use it, it’s registered to you—”
“And that violates regs. Okay, so case closed, neh? You don’t have a weapon and I’m not letting you go in there unarmed. I’m coming with you and that’s that.”
Mariko gave him a sad smile. “It’s not. I’ve got the day off and you need to report for duty in about an hour and a half. So as much as I love you for wanting to join me on this career-ending caper, all I have to do is sit and have a cup of tea and wait for you to go to work.”
Han fumed and steamed, muttering a litany of unintelligible curses. At last he said, “All right, then go do it. Right now, before I change my mind. At least this way I can stand outside and listen for enough reasonable suspicion to justify coming in after you. Do me a favor—hell, do both of us a favor: scream loud when they try to kill you.”
16
Mariko took a deep breath to quell the butterflies in her stomach. Then she palmed her Pikachu and went back to the strip club.
For her first four years on the force she’d carried a Cheetah stun baton. It had never been ideal for plainclothes work; it was too long, too hard to conceal under a jacket, and the 850,000 volts it boasted four years ago were downright anemic by today’s standards. She’d made the compromise because of the baton’s greater striking power. For her first four years on the job, she’d never felt strong enough to hit a perp and really make it sting. But thanks to her departed sensei, Yamada, she felt stronger now, more confident. The big guys didn’t intimidate her as much anymore.
The first time Han saw her new stun gun, he joked that she’d traded a Cheetah for a Pikachu. He wasn’t far wrong: two and a half million volts of whup-ass packed into a little black box the size of a pack of cigarettes. Unfortunately, once Sakakibara overheard the joke, she was stuck carrying “the Pikachu” forever after. Somehow, somewhere along the way, someone had managed to stick shiny prismatic Pikachu stickers all over it when Mariko wasn’t looking. She suspected Han.
On closer inspection, the invisible door wasn’t quite invisible. Mariko still couldn’t find hinges or handles, but she could see the tiny seam running the perimeter of the door. It looked like the wall panel
had been painted over but the paint had cracked. Mariko guessed it was supposed to look like that.
Not surprisingly, pushing and prodding did nothing. She tried the front door instead, which was perfectly ordinary: a heavy pane of plate glass seated in a steel frame, with a little plastic box to slide a key card through to unlock the door. Mariko wondered what would happen if she zapped the lock with her Pikachu, and whether two and a half million volts would act as a master key or fuse the lock shut permanently.
In the end she didn’t need to find out. The door opened at her touch. Weird, she thought. Tokyo wasn’t exactly a den of thieves—the city saw as many burglaries in a year as New York saw in a day—but still, leaving the front door unlocked was asking for trouble. The whole thing felt wrong. In fact, it felt like she was being set up, just as Han suspected. But she went inside anyway.
On the outside the strip club was two stories of nothing but brightly colored signage. Inside it was just the opposite: a dark and cavernous expanse, lit only by the green glow of the emergency exit lights far off in the corners. The stink of stale cigarette smoke suffused the furniture, the carpeting, the very paint on the walls. A stage dominated the floor space, of course, dotted with stripper poles and surrounded by chairs. There was a bar in one corner, a flight of stairs in the other. The stairs led to a room overlooking the whole first floor and walled in by floor-to-ceiling one-way mirrors. The VIP lounge, Mariko guessed, but she didn’t bother checking. The only detail she cared about was the secret door.
There was no trace of it. If it had led to this room, it would have opened up right under the stairs, but instead Mariko saw only a blank wall.
“No,” she said to herself. She wouldn’t allow the trail to go cold. Not here, not after she’d come so far.
It stood to reason that the door wouldn’t open into this room. Secret doors were for secret places, not the decidedly un-secret main floor of a strip joint. So where did it go, then? There had to be a hidden space inside the wall. But how could she get to it?
She couldn’t. Not from here. The whole point of that hidden space was to stay sequestered from the public areas of the club. So if there was no access on this floor, the only place left for it to go was up or down.
