Tokyo Vice

by Jake Adelstein

  “I don’t understand it. Why do the Japanese police allow this? They know it is happening, but they think that women who come to Japan are all prostitutes. I thought I would go to the police when I went back home, but I’m worried about my family.

  “This Russian woman, Karina, went on one of the tours I was on in November. She was bad-tempered, always fought with customers. One night she disappeared. Viktor told us she had pretended to have stomach pains so they took her to the hospital on the island and she ran away. No one believed him. I saw her tiptoeing out of the room where she was spending the night, and she definitely didn’t look like she was running off. When she didn’t come back, I looked in her room; there was no trace of her, but by the bed there was blood and it looked like someone had tried to clean it up. You could smell the detergent. I got so frightened. I couldn’t ask anybody. Asking is dangerous. I couldn’t even say anything to the other women. There was a guy on board who was in the Japanese mafia. The day after Karina disappeared, he had a deep cut on his face. Maybe she resisted and he killed her. That’s what I think. Maybe it was just a coincidence. That’s what I want to think.

  “They gave me a little extra money at the end. I think it was hush money. Probably, when everyone went home, they just wanted to forget this horrible experience.

  “There’s no point in going to the Japanese police to complain. Even if I told the local police in Poland, they’d just call me a whore.

  “I don’t want to be with a man anymore. I don’t even want to be with anyone. That’s how I feel now. I’m just … filthy. Not even a woman. Not anything.”

  Veronika talked for a long time. I scrawled notes while she did. What she had to say was not too different from what I’d heard elsewhere. Different motives for coming to Japan, different details, but the same fundamental horror story.

  I wanted to go after Viktor first but needed to get his number.

  To do so, I spent an evening at Dispario buying drinks for Kiki, the craziest Israeli girl I’d ever met. She was so tan that she looked like a cinnamon Pop-Tart, and her hairdo was an honest-to-god Afro. She was Viktor’s ex-girlfriend.

  I tried to charm her into giving me Viktor’s number but she’d either been warned or was naturally wary, maybe both. I wasn’t getting very far and was running out of money. Two hours and 20,000 yen ($200) into the evening, Kiki was very drunk but still not talking. Well, she was talking but not about anything I wanted to hear. She could barely sit up. I propped her up and started massaging her shoulders.

  “You give a great massage! Where did you learn that?”

  “Swedish Massage School. Class of ’85.”

  She laughed. “You’re such a liar! Don’t stop.”

  I massaged her neck, moved on to her hands for another few minutes, and then tried to close the deal. “Kiki, I have to get home,” I said.

  She put her head in my lap and looked up at me. “Don’t go.”

  “I have reports to write up. If you call me after work, I’ll come meet you and I’ll give you a full body massage. Without any funny stuff.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Full body? Okay, you’re on.”

  At three in the morning, she rang, raging drunk, demanding the massage. I made my way back to Dispario, and we walked to a love hotel. As soon as we got into the room, she stripped off her clothes, jumped on the bed, exhaled, and said, “I am so tired. Massage me!”

  So I did. For about twenty minutes, which was just enough to relax her but not enough to let her fall asleep. A good massage is not supposed to result in sexual arousal, but I wasn’t giving her a good massage. I wanted her aroused. It worked.

  She turned over and grabbed her breasts. “You’re doing me so good, you can fuck me.”

  “I can’t fuck you. I have things on my mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Viktor’s telephone number.”

  “You want the fucking number? Why do you want the fucking number?”

  “He owes me money.”

  This seemed to make sense to her. She grimaced and spat out the number. I quickly wrote it down.

  “Now you can fuck me,” she said.

  “I’m not charging you for the massage, but I would have to charge you for the happy ending.”

  She sat up and stared at me. “What?”

  “I said I’m not going to fuck you, but I can get you off. That’s out of bounds of the normal massage, though. I’ll have to charge you.”

  At that she laughed, then reached over to her dress tossed on the chair, pulled out a wad of 10,000-yen bills, and threw them at me.

  “Here’s your money, greedy boy. Now get me off. I want to come.”

  I have long fingers, a gift from birth. I fingered her to orgasm.

  And then she was out like a light. I tucked her in, folded her clothes, and scooped up the money. I might have considered having sex with her under other circumstances. If I hadn’t gotten the number and I thought it would have gotten me the number, I would have done it. I considered that for a second and was a little surprised. I probably would have felt guilty about it, but I would have done it.

  Anyway, I had what I wanted, and I was happy. I decided that I would head back to the apartment and see Beni and Sunao before I went to work. Maybe we could eat breakfast together. I caught a taxi and told the driver to take me home. Well, I thought I told him to take me home, but instead I asked him to drive me to TMPD headquarters. It was only when I pulled up in front that it hit me—wrong place—and by then I didn’t feel like getting back in the cab.

  Well, it felt more like home than home did these days. On the bright side, I knew I wouldn’t wake anyone up. I took the elevator to the press club, got my clothes out of my locker, took a shower, and crashed in the tatami room in the back of the club. I was almost glad I’d made the mistake.

  I had Slick’s number from reporting on Lucie Blackman. But before I interviewed him, I wanted him to dig his own grave. I got one of the bar girls at Dispario to call him. This is a transcript of the tape:

  “Hi. Is this Slick?”

  “This is Slick speaking.”

  “My name is Cindy Semenara. I’m looking for a job as a hostess or an escort, and a friend told me you would be a good person to talk to.”

  “If you want to interview, come to interview. Where are you from?”

  “I’m from Canada.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where should I have an interview with you?”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m in Roppongi. What kind of jobs do you have available?”

  “I’m in Roppongi too. How about seven or eight o’clock?”

  “I’m not really sure what kinds of jobs are available.”

  “How about a club or something? A nightclub.”

  “Well, I was wondering if you have any hostess jobs?”

  “Yeah, sure. Hostess job, sure. Maybe you can work in bar. If you want interview, come to interview.”

  “I’d really like to know what kind of club.”

  “Gentlemen’s club. My club. No problem. Very near. My club is eleven years old. It’s really cool. How did you get my telephone number?”

  “My friend Anna used to work at your club, or maybe it was someone else’s club. She told me to call Viktor too. But I don’t have a proper visa. I just have a tourist visa. Is that okay?”

  “No problem. I will take care of everything. No problem.”

  “I have experience as an escort in Canada.”

  “I have that job too.”

  “That’s what I’m really looking for.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Near the ANA Hotel.”

  “Do you know the Almond Café? Can you come there?”

  “I also heard that there was a cruise job in the Maldives. I wouldn’t mind something like that.”

  “Let’s meet, and we discuss. How about one hour from now?”

  “What is the pay? How much do I get paid?”

&
nbsp; “Which job?”

  “How about for the escorting?”

  “If you are good, I think one and a half million yen [$15,000] a month.”

  “Is it hand jobs or blow jobs or—”

  “Everything, everything.”

  “Do I get to keep all my wages? Or do you take a commission?”

  “We discuss later.”

  “I just want to get an idea.”

  “If you are really excellent, you can make two to three million yen [$20,000 to $30,000] a month. It is possible.”

  “Do you supply housing?”

  “I have a new product coming. A new bar.”

  “Can you give me housing? I live in a really small place right now.”

  “We have housing. We give you housing.”

  “Can I get an entertainer’s visa or working visa?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It sounds pretty good so far. Is it really okay to work on a tourist visa?”

  “No problem. No problem.”

  “Is prostitution legal here?”

  “[Laughs] I don’t want to speak on phone. We meet, and we discuss. When you come to Almond Café, call me and I come. Within one hour.”

  To some extent, my face was already known in Roppongi. Slick probably wouldn’t remember me, but just to be sure I gave the tape to Matchie, a junior reporter, and asked him to interview Slick for the article. I didn’t think Matchie would be in any danger. I don’t mind danger myself, I just thought that this was the best strategy. But Matchie lacked vigor. With what he brought back, the article would be dead in the water. I threw discretion to the wind, and for the follow-up I went with Matchie to see Slick.

  We met at Club Katy: nice Art Deco interior, black marble tables, view of Tokyo Tower. Since the time he’d spoken to Matchie, Slick had thought out his story, refined it. He was actually charming in his laid-back way. I expected evil incarnate; I got Goebbels instead.

  “Viktor only takes their passports to make them live to their promises,” he started off.

  His English was a little off, but you got the picture. Then, switching to Japanese, he admitted to, once or twice, having held on to a passport for a few days after receiving it from Viktor, an acquaintance he said he had known for eight years. “All the girls were told from the start that they would be working at a sex parlor when they came to Japan. As for Veronika,2* they were the conditions laid out for her, but she refused to work as she promised. She was never deceived.”

  Yes, he and his cohorts recruited girls via the Internet, even on www.jobsinjapan.com, and through an underground network sent them to Japan. “I had an agent in Germany ask me to find jobs for women who were willing to work as prostitutes,” he said casually.

  He didn’t seem on the defensive at all. He was talking to me, but he wasn’t addressing me. He was trying to convince Matchie, his countryman, that he was just a misunderstood businessman, that the whole situation had been misrepresented.

  “Viktor’s version of events is totally different,” I interjected, not entirely truthfully. “He says you’re the heavy. He says you’re the one who lies to the girls and takes their money. Call him if you don’t believe me—here’s his number.” I handed him my cell phone; Viktor’s number was displayed.

  That threw him off balance. He cursed under his breath. He pulled on his ponytail and flared his nostrils. “Viktor is a fucking liar,” he finally said in British-accented English, gritting his teeth.

  He decided to talk. By the time he was done, we had enough for the article. We had him admitting to stealing the passports, to occasional coercion, to being a pimp to foreign women, and to breaking Japanese laws.

  The article ran in the morning edition of the paper on February 8, 2004. The reaction around the Yomiuri was good, in a way, and I was jazzed. Naively, I expected something would happen—maybe even justice.

  What the hell was I thinking? Did I really believe that the TMPD would swoop down on Slick and Viktor, close their operations, and liberate the women?

  Slim, the near-retirement-age detective in charge of the newly formed Organized Crime Control Division 1, which dealt mostly with illegal marriages and illegal immigration schemes, called me. He’d read the story, and he wanted to talk.

  Excited, I gathered my files, my data, my notes, my telephone numbers, and got to Slim’s office by ten in the morning.

  He was very cordial. “Good work, Jake. A very interesting article.”

  “Thank you,” I said, pleased with myself. “So, are you going after those jerks?”

  “I’d like to. Do you think you can get one of the women to come forward and talk to me?”

  “I think I can. But you’ll protect her, right?”

  “No, I’m afraid we’ll have to arrest her for working illegally on a tourist visa and deport her. But with her testimony we can bust the two guys for violations of the immigration laws and maybe some others. We can shut down their business that way.”

  I wasn’t liking the sound of this. “Why do you have to arrest the woman? Who’s going to come forward only to go to jail?”

  “Well, it’s the law. We have to enforce the laws.”

  I rifled through my files and pulled out a directive from the National Police Agency. “Look,” I said, “it says here that all police in Japan are to make serious efforts to close down human trafficking operations and take care of the victims of such perpetrators.”

  He snorted. “Jake, that is pure NPA bullshit. It’s divorced from reality. There’s no way we can ignore someone working here illegally and give them shelter, even if they are victims. There are no criteria for identifying human trafficking victims. That’s why it’s impossible to build a case against the traffickers. The victims are classified as illegal workers and forcibly repatriated. There are no witnesses, and therefore no cases can be built. If we did not arrest one of the women deceived into working for those people, that would be negligence of duty.”

  Potentially I could save a whole crew of women from being exploited, but I’d have to rat out my sources, including Helena. I’d have to sacrifice them. I couldn’t do it. Angry and depressed, I gave him Viktor’s and Slick’s numbers and gathered up my things, readying to split the joint.

  Slim leaned forward and very quietly said to me, “I realize that you find this state of affairs appalling. So do I. It is like slavery. However, since it is prostitution, it’s not really in our jurisdiction. I can only handle it in terms of illegal immigration or as a violation of the labor laws for foreigners, depending on what kind of visa these women have. Human trafficking falls into a gray zone. I suggest you talk to the chief of vice.”

  I went to see the head of the vice squad. He had a copy of my article on his desk. He was a short fellow with curly hair, square frameless glasses, and a booming voice. I always thought of him as Curly.

  “Adelstein, nice work. You should be a cop.”

  “Thanks. What do you think? Are you going to bust these guys?”

  He sucked air through his teeth, making the sssa sound that older Japanese men often make when asked a perplexing question that they don’t want to answer. “It kind of seems like an immigration thing. Did you talk to O.C. Control Division 1?”

  “They said if it’s prostitution, it’s your beat.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  Curly picked up my article and read it over.

  “Jake, we cover a lot of ground on the vice squad. Drugs, guns, pachinko, licensing legitimate sex shops, busting illegitimate ones, things like that. It’s obvious that whether coerced or not, we’ve got a prostitution operation going on here. Are any of the girls teenagers?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Okay, that makes it hard for the child protection squad to take the case. Just asking.”

  “Your point being?”

  “Well, tell me what you have, and we can try and work it as a violation of the prostitution laws case, but it’ll take time and the penalties
are a slap on the wrist for the accused, even if we get a conviction.”

  “Okay.”

  “And here’s the other thing … the prostitutes—they’re all foreigners, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we don’t have many officers in our section who can handle foreign languages. So that means we’ll have to ask the Criminal Investigative Division’s International Crime Unit for backup. Frankly, they’re not eager to help out on a low-level prostitution bust.”

  “So you’re saying you can’t do anything.”

  “No, I’m saying it’s going to take a lot of time. Logistically. There are budget issues. People issues. Language issues.”

  “Well, I can give you what I have.”

  “I’ll take it. I may not be able to do anything with it.”

  “There’s clearly criminal activity going on.”

  “There’s clearly criminal activity going on all over the fucking place. We only have the manpower to make a few token arrests and keep people in line. We’ll do it. It’s just not a simple case for us to handle.”

  And that was that.

  For the first time, I was very disillusioned with the cops. I know that they can only enforce laws that exist, but I wanted them to do something anyway.

  Viktor continued to bring in women. Slick continued to make money. A couple of clubs dropped their services after the article. Some people stayed away from the Maldives trips, but nothing really changed. Helena was not happy with me. I was not happy with me. I was so mad and frustrated that I took everything I had on the whole debacle and gave it to a State Department contact at the U.S. Embassy. I figured at the very least that it might be good cannon fodder for the annual white paper on human trafficking.

  I made sure the article was translated into English properly, and I was happy to see that it spread across the Internet fairly rapidly. I heard that Viktor began to have trouble recruiting women.