Tokyo Kill

by Barry Lancet

  Everything about the strongman was memorable. Girth, scowl, fists.

  His eyes traced a chain that ran from a handcuff around the bedrail to its companion at my wrist. “Popular as usual, I see.”

  I wiped the water from my face. “Misunderstanding,” I said.

  “Welcome to the club.” He nodded at my injuries. “Who did this?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t know exactly.”

  “You got an idea?”

  “Always have an idea.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Enough.”

  The yaki stared at the wraps around my head and chest. At the feed in my arm.

  “Three or more,” he said.

  “Three it was.”

  TNT hooked a finger in the collar of my hospital gown and lifted the flimsy cloth, exposing a large welt that blackened most of my collarbone.

  “What they use?’

  “Shinai.”

  A spark of interest flared in his eyes. “Kendo swords? Those bamboo play sticks can crack bones.”

  “They tell me I got a fractured rib somewhere, but it could have been worse.”

  “You see faces?”

  I shook my head incrementally. I knew there’d be pain if I moved it more. “Nylon masks under kendo helmets. No faces. No names.”

  “Not for long,” he said. “Give me an address.”

  “Leave it alone.”

  “You sure?”

  The yaki owed me big-time, but the offer sprang in equal measure because of his very nature. He was one of the few men I knew who was born to fight. Fully unleashed, he was a killing machine. In his earlier days he’d been a rising boxer on the Asian heavyweight circuit, but because he was born into the “undesirables,” or burakumin, an outcaste group originally despised for handling such “impure” jobs as undertaker or tanner but now just despised, his career had been short-circuited while he was still too young to know any better. I could let him loose on the dojo and he’d crack heads until he found the men who’d assaulted me, but I wanted Yoji’s killers alive.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  The light in his eyes dimmed. “Staff here see us talking, they know enough to give us time. But hospital security is gonna swing around soon enough, so you got something to ask?”

  “I need to know about the Triads. Whatever you can tell me.”

  “Whatever covers a lot of ground.”

  “Won’t know what I need until I hear it.”

  TNT shook his head. It was large and square and both ears were cauliflowered. “That ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Okay, related to the home invasions.”

  He studied me. The silence between us lengthened. His eyes were flinty black dots now. There was a darkness in them you couldn’t penetrate and didn’t want to look at too closely. After his fists, they were his most unnerving attribute.

  “All you need to know about the Triads is you wanna stay away from them.”

  I shrugged. “Can’t do that. I’m working on a murder case that probably involves them.”

  “Which one?”

  “Two days ago. A salaryman named Miura.”

  “Kabukicho killing. What’s he mean to you?”

  “His father is my client.”

  “Was the son?”

  “No.”

  “Then drop it.”

  “Can’t.”

  The yaki stared at me. “You got a soft heart, Brodie. Gonna get you killed one day.”

  I said nothing.

  Eyeballing me for another beat, the oversize enforcer said, “Can’t give you details of the business without the boss’s say-so.”

  “Don’t need close up and personal.”

  “Good. ’Cause you ain’t gonna get it.”

  I said, “Find me a line on the Triads who did the home invasions or Kabukicho.”

  He blinked once. “Can’t help ya.”

  “Why not?”

  “All the big Chinese gangs here are connected. Some with us.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means killing Japanese families is not smart business. We don’t like it. They don’t do it.”

  “Chinese gangs did it before.”

  “That was then. Some Triads were stomped on. It stopped.”

  Over the last three decades, Triads have become increasingly entwined with the Japanese mafia groups. The Chinese gangs’ weapon of choice was any long blade. Long, glittering, chopping instruments were preferred. Machetes, cleavers, large knives. But they weren’t particular. Steel in all forms worked for them. There was something repulsive to most people about sharpened blades—and something terrifying.

  “So the Triads didn’t do it?’

  He scowled. “Not ours. Probably no other gangs neither.”

  I pursed my lips. “No one will know it came from you.”

  “You’re dunking your head in the wrong shithole.”

  “You didn’t see Kabukicho.”

  He scoffed. “Know more about it than the cops.”

  “How can you be so sure it’s not Triads?”

  “Because if they did it, they’d want you to know.”

  “Me?”

  He gave me an impatient look. “You been banged up the head bad, Brodie. Not you. Whoever they wanted to know. Your client for one.”

  He had a point.

  “Problem is that leaves me with nothing.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  I told him about the beating. Yoji’s face. His legs and arm broken, the other one hacked off. The gag. All of it.

  The yaki cracked his fingers. “You know what they were after?”

  “No.”

  He frowned. “How many hacks?”

  “I don’t know. Five, six, ten. A lot.”

  TNT scowled. He looked away, thinking. He looked back at me. “Okay, maybe you got Triads. Maybe. Ones they send to do the killings are dumber than rice cakes. When they cap a guy, they never do him quick. And they’re sloppy with the chops. Always a lot of blood. Part is for show to put in the scare. The other part is ’cause they’re garden-slug dumb.”

  “So you can get me something, then?”

  The big man was annoyed. “I’ll ask around, but it still don’t mean it’s them.”

  “Never hurts to cover all the bases.”

  His eyes became slits. “You don’t listen good, Brodie. You stick your nose in Triad business, they might just take it off. For practice.”

  DAY 4

  BESIEGED

  CHAPTER 23

  WHILE I slept, the ax was falling.

  A nurse had put me under again. I tossed and turned, and yet I woke the next day rested and feeling much less like a whipping post.

  Rie Hoshino arrived after lunch. During my comatose hours on either side of TNT’s visit, a number of people had dropped by, including Noda and Hamada, our go-to man on the Triads. The pair left a note saying that they would return when I was awake but in the meantime would press on with the case, a counterintuitive but correct move in our little world. The family friend with whom I’d left Jenny as I headed blithely off to the kendo club two days ago also paid a visit.

  Hoshino was back in uniform. A look of concern battled the professional demeanor the Tokyo MPD expected her to maintain. The job won out.

  “Are you all right?” she asked a little too formally for my taste.

  “Battered and bruised but recovering with the speed of the ever agile.”

  The quip earned a disapproving headshake. “What happened last night? The owner lodged a complaint against you for breaking into his dojo.”

  Nakamura-sensei. I wondered if he’d led the attack or directed it from afar. Calling fighters back to the dojo after someone spotted me.

  “Three men attacked me with bamboo swords.”

  “Three?” she said, the facade cracking.

  “Two of them are regretting their decision. The third one is off gloating somewhere.”

  I gave her a condensed ver
sion of the confrontation, after which she said, “My God. People have died from unchecked blows of a shinai without body gear.”

  “Well, none died last night.”

  Which is when she dropped the first bombshell. “But did they consider the fallout? Criminal charges are pending.”

  “You’re joking? After beating me senseless?”

  She studied me with the skepticism of her profession. “First, you broke in. Second, you took a swing at the policemen on the scene.”

  “I didn’t swing at any uniform. I was bleeding out in some alley, unconscious most of the time. What I do remember is being kicked after the cops arrived.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Brodie. I’m no pushover, and I don’t care if you are Kato’s friend.”

  “Which is as it should be. Off the record, I climbed into an open window to search Yoji’s locker.”

  “How did the window get open?”

  That made it official: she wasn’t an easy mark.

  “I unlatched it earlier.”

  Hoshino had taken notes as I related the events. Now she set down another line.

  I eyed her notebook sourly. “Since you’re keeping score, the cop who drop-kicked me into unconsciousness was named Kondo. He trained with Nakamura.”

  She added a final notation and snapped her book shut, a knitted brow joining a seemingly permanent grimace. “Brodie, you’re on the hook for a B and E.”

  “I told you in confidence. Anyone else asks, I’ll plead the fifth.”

  “Wrong country, wrong answer.”

  I was silent.

  Hoshino’s face softened a notch. “Inspector Kato suspects that the report is missing some details.”

  “Glad to hear it. Yoji studied at the dojo for years. Maybe he made enemies. Maybe he griped about his father’s ‘delusions’ regarding the home invasions and someone took advantage of the information to kill Yoji and make it look like Triads.”

  Hoshino considered the idea. “Or maybe it was Triads.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or it’s about the Sengai and the treasure and cutting Yoji out of the deal.”

  “Also possible.”

  “So, more motives, more suspects, fewer answers.”

  “The floodgates have opened.”

  Hoshino produced a small steel key and released the metalwear around my wrist.

  I rubbed the chafed skin. “Be nice if you led with that.”

  She shook her head. “I needed to hear your side. And there’s a catch. You’ll have to hand over your passport. A compromise Kato made until the kendo mishap is cleared up.”

  “Come on. Jenny starts school in San Francisco right after the Kyoto trip.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “That’s some compromise.”

  Hoshino dangled the handcuffs in front of me. “It’s better than recuperating in a jail cell. Which, by the way, could still happen. In a flash.”

  I blew out a loud breath in frustration. “The MPD’s looking at this all wrong. I struck a nerve. Unraveling that is what’s next.”

  * * *

  Against the strongly worded objection of the doctor in attendance, I checked myself out of the hospital and accepted Hoshino’s offer of a ride home. In the car, she was polite but distant.

  I turned stiffly in my seat. “Have you got some makeup with you?”

  “Of course. But I don’t use much on the job.”

  As at our first meeting, Hoshino’s cosmetic touches were understated yet expert. She wasn’t interested in impressing anyone with her feminine wiles. But neither was she working at being one of the boys.

  “It’s not for you,” I said. “I’m in need of a makeover after I wash up.”

  “What about your precious ‘unraveling’?”

  I smiled. “Beauty before head-bashing.”

  CHAPTER 24

  UNDER the hot downpour of a much-welcomed shower, my injuries throbbed anew but I gritted my teeth and let the spray massage the soreness. Welts and bruises had bloomed wherever the swords had connected. The good news was, all the moving parts still moved.

  I emerged a new man. After toweling dry, I swallowed some of the prescribed meds, then slapped on adhesive pads. As I was brushing the grime from my teeth, my cell phone buzzed. I rinsed hurriedly and answered with a garbled hello.

  “Heard you got out,” Noda said. “What the hell happened last night?”

  I relayed the story again, and with Hoshino out of earshot mentioned my haul: the key, the temple charms, and the photos. He was most interested in the key.

  “What kind of key?”

  “Common house key.”

  He exhaled impatiently. “No such thing. Bring it in,” he said, and disconnected.

  I slid into a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, then headed downstairs. Hoshino had settled on the couch in the family room.

  She looked up. “Feel better?”

  “Much.”

  “Good. After you pick up your daughter, you should come back here and rest like the doctor advised.”

  “Can’t do that. Every day on my back makes it that much easier for Yoji’s killers to slip away.”

  “You overrate your stamina.”

  “You don’t know that yet.”

  One of the MPD’s finest reddened noticeably.

  Into the silence I said, “I’m ready to go as soon as you perform your magic.”

  She put out her hand. “Passport first.”

  “You know what I said about feeling better? I take it back.”

  She frowned. “I don’t want to take your passport, but I have no choice, so please don’t make this harder.”

  In the face of a nearly flawless argument, I retrieved the travel document in question.

  “Thank you,” Hoshino said, slipping the blue booklet into her purse. Then she fished out a petite compact and covered the bruises on my forehead, spillover from the two head strikes. A critical eyebrow rose as she inspected her work. “That ought to fool your intended audience, if no one else.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Otherwise I’m in deep trouble.”

  Hoshino laughed. “Time to go.”

  She’d agreed to take me to Jenny. A minute from our destination her official cell went off.

  Peering at the display, her brow furrowed. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

  Instead of pushing the intercom function, she coasted to a stop at the side of the road and removed the phone from its cradle. I gazed out the passenger window, offering her the illusion of privacy.

  Hoshino listened—and turned a shade of pale evident even in her reflection.

  “I understand. He’s not to come,” she repeated with a meaningful glance in my direction. She kept her ear to the phone for another moment, hung up, and dropped a second bombshell:

  “There’s been a new killing. Somebody named Doi. Another man from Miura’s old unit.”

  CHAPTER 25

  THE second I strolled into the vast kitchen, Jenny ran up and buried her face in my stomach. Coming up for air, she launched happily into a tale about her stay. About the sweets she’d eaten, the anime figurines she’d received as gifts, and the neighborhood girls she’d played with. Next, she pressed me about joining the soccer club at school, which started next week in San Francisco.

  “Did you sign the papers yet, Daddy? Coach Nancy says I need them before I can kick the ball.”

  Jenny had light brown skin, straight black hair, and a gap-toothed smile. At six years old, with her front baby teeth gone and the new ones not yet arrived, she was at an in-between stage I found disarming and utterly captivating.

  “Sorry, I haven’t had time to read them,” I said. “But I will.”

  Enrolling her on the soccer team was no simple matter. The school had presented me with a four-page “rule book” and a two-page release form. Joining involved supplying your child with the proper equipment, drinks, and a snack for every
game, as well as volunteering for various duties throughout the season. As a single father with two businesses barely scraping by, I had little free time and a burgeoning respect for soccer moms.

  “The season’s starting soon,” my daughter said.

  “I know, I know.”

  I was in way over my head.

  Mariko, family friend and babysitter, stepped up to say hello. She was the seventy-one-year-old private cook for a wealthy local family, old friends of my father’s, which is how we originally met. She moved freely between her employer’s mansion and the cottage out back where she and her butler-husband lived. After one glance at my face, Mariko’s smile faded and she turned away, finding work in a far corner of the kitchen, but not before a look of concern flashed across her features.

  Jenny tugged at my arm. “And when can we do the stuff together like you promised?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said hastily, an answer I’d regret for a long time to come.

  * * *

  The third bombshell fell at Miura’s. The last man standing under his command was in residence.

  “Happened yesterday while you were, uh, indisposed,” the Brodie Security man on duty told me in a low voice meant only for my ears. “There’s a memo on your desk. Both Doi-san and Inoki-san came here.”

  “Both?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I figured Miura-san could use the company, and to have them all under one roof seemed a good idea. Then Doi-san insisted on sneaking back to his place after nightfall to pick up a change of clothes and feed his goldfish. He wouldn’t be talked out of it. Wouldn’t let me send someone. And since he wasn’t a client, I could only advise.”

  I shook my head sadly. I’d seen this type of brain slip before. There was probably a medical term for the condition. If not, there ought to be. Simply put, hiding out made people stupid. Their thinking regressed, and after they lived with a looming threat for a time, it seemed—suddenly—less alarming. They believed they could handle it. Or they rationalized the situation and figured things weren’t as dangerous as they originally thought. Or their grasp on the fragility of their own mortality lessened and they felt, if not invincible, then at least incredulous that someone would actually want to harm them.