Blue Light Yokohama

by Nicolas Obregon

  Kei, with a scared smile, does not expect the punch in the mouth. He drops to one knee, tears forming in his eyes. He grips his jaw, blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Coward.” He slurs the words, watching Kosuke run away. It hurts to speak but he says it anyway.

  “Our glories float between earth and heaven like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun!”

  He laughs, his mouth dripping thick blood.

  “You’re a fucking coward, Iwata!”

  Kei picks up the record and launches it at Kosuke’s distant figure.

  “You won’t ever outrun that!”

  This will always be our world.

  CHAPTER 25: A HUNDRED HEARTS WOULD BE TOO FEW

  IWATA STEPPED OFF THE PLANE and looked up. Japan was warmer than he had left it last week but the sky was still gray and uneasy. Passing through the airport, he half-expected to feel a hand on his shoulder, but he cleared immigration without incident.

  Hatanaka was waiting in the parking lot, arms folded. He had dyed his hair black. Out of uniform he just looked like an impatient kid waiting for his father.

  “You have the file?”

  Hatanaka handed over a folded newspaper, the file inside.

  “Good man, walk with me.”

  “Am I going to lose my job by helping you, Inspector?”

  “You’re young, you’ll bounce back. Now the file, give me the upshot.”

  “So Ikuo Uno was mostly low level—gambling in the main, though he had tentative links to yakuza. His file runs for over five years but he never came close to an arrest.”

  “Who was his handler?”

  “Akashi, senior homicide. The dead guy. You know him?”

  Iwata shook his head, his smile cynical.

  “Yes and no.”

  “Well, I looked into him. There’s not much on his suicide online, nothing particularly expansive. Just the one news article. The honorable Inspector Akashi jumps to his death from Rainbow Bridge—a man who fought for justice all his life but who was sadly overcome by depression after his divorce blah blah blah. I printed the article, it’s in the file.”

  Iwata got into his car, tossed the file on the dashboard, and wound down the window.

  “Hatanaka, I need something else from you.”

  “Look, about that. My CO is starting to notice the amount of time I’m spending off my caseload. This is beginning to be a problem for me.”

  Iwata waved this away.

  “Do you want to be standing outside doors for the next ten years or do you want to do police work? Listen, you take my laundry from time to time and I’ll help you out with a recommendation. A recommendation from a lead homicide investigator is worth something in this world. Now, write this down.”

  Hatanaka sighed and took out his phone.

  “Go on.”

  “Coco La Croix—that’s the 2Chan username of a drug dealer.”

  “Coco…?”

  “La Croix. I need you to find out who he is and where he is. What time do you finish your shift tonight?”

  “Nine.”

  “All right, when you finish up, I need you to get eyes on him and tell me where he goes. He’ll be heading to a club in Dogenzaka tonight. Got that?”

  Iwata started up the engine.

  “Now that’s how a car should sound.”

  * * *

  Iwata parked the car behind 6082 Misakimachi Moroiso and got out. The sound of waves and changing winds conspired with the ugly cries of cormorants. The sky was slate over Sagami Bay.

  Crooked trees hung over the black bluffs.

  It was early afternoon but there was no one in sight. The police tape crossing the door was gone. It looked like any other empty house. The door was boarded up but Iwata forced it open without difficulty. He flicked the light switch but there was no longer any need for power in this house. He took out his flashlight and crisscrossed the gloomy hallway. Nothing moved but thick motes. Upstairs, the bedroom had been cleaned, though there was still a faint darkness in the carpet from where Mrs. Ohba’s life had been ripped from her.

  Iwata heard soft ticking and looked to the bedside table. Turning the gold watch over, he found an engraving on the bottom of the case cover:

  A HUNDRED HEARTS WOULD BE TOO FEW

  TO CARRY ALL MY LOVE FOR YOU

  Iwata took out the photograph he’d taken from Jennifer Fong’s bedroom and held it next to Mr. Ohba’s gold watch. The gold watch in the image had an identical sapphire face. It was unmistakably the same as the one in the palm of his hand.

  “I’ve got you,” Iwata whispered.

  He looked again at the time stamp in the photo—1996.

  Fumbling out his notebook, Iwata rushed into the hallway. With a shaking hand he re-examined the holiday snaps on the wall. None of the dates matched the time stamp in the photograph of Jennifer, her father, and Mr. Ohba’s gold watch.

  “Come on, come on, come on.”

  He scanned through the dates he’d written down in his notebook. The first Ohba holiday was Okinawa in 1973. The last was Hawaii in 2008. Iwata had recorded them as they appeared on the wall, in no particular order. Now he rewrote the dates, this time in chronological order.

  “One year is missing.”

  1996.

  He hurried back into the bedroom and bulldozed his way through cabinets and boxes. He found only dust and orphaned mementos. He moved on to the little office where he’d argued with Shindo. He began to rip open drawers, thrashing through papers.

  “Come on!”

  Under the desk, he found storage boxes marked with date cards. He shunted the others out of the way and tore off the lid to the box marked 1995–2000. It was full of dark green photo albums. Iwata pulled out 1996 and sat cross-legged like a frenzied birthday boy. The label read:

  NAGASAKI / GOTO ISLANDS

  Iwata breathlessly flipped it open. Each photograph was carefully marked by location:

  The Nagasaki Peace Park

  The Dutch Slope

  The Atomic Bomb Museum

  Spectacles Bridge

  The Nagasaki Prefectural Art Museum

  The Oura Catholic Church

  The Kurosaki Catholic Church

  The Michimori Shrine

  And there, the album ended.

  At the back, there was a small brown envelope. Inside, more photographs. They had no locations marked on them.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ohba boarding a small aircraft.

  Mrs. Ohba giving a thumbs-up as she looked through the window.

  Mr. Ohba asleep, his mouth open.

  Some kind of national park with high cliffs and volcanic cinder-cone formations.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ohba boarding a ropeway.

  The Ohbas posing outside the cable car itself, both of them slightly tanned.

  The next photo was almost identical to the one he had taken from Jennifer’s room. This one instead framed Mr. Ohba and some of Jennifer’s hair.

  Iwata saw now that they were not in any room, but aboard a cable car—a cable car somewhere in the Nagasaki Prefecture. He flipped on to the next photograph and his breath caught.

  “Oh my God.”

  They were all there. The Ohbas. Jennifer and her father. A younger Tsunemasa Kaneshiro. Hideo Akashi in his late twenties. The dead, all standing together.

  “I’ve got you,” Iwata whispered it. “You son of a bitch, I’ve got you.”

  Now Iwata saw others in the photographs he did not recognize. Akashi’s girlfriend or maybe wife.

  A little girl around ten years old.

  And a woman by herself—she was sitting down, alone, wearing filthy, unseasonal clothes and staring down at the floor. The last photograph was just a beautiful panorama of the islands, the ocean glittering pink in a sunset.

  Iwata bundled together the photos and ran for the door.

  Outside, a storm had picked up, its mind finally made up.

  He tossed the brown envelope onto the passenger seat, took out the detachable turret l
ight from the boot and fixed it to the roof. The Isuzu picked up speed as the siren screamed louder. He took out his phone and dialed.

  “Come on, come on, come on.”

  Shindo finally answered.

  “Iwata?”

  “Hideo Akashi, was he married?”

  “What?”

  “There’s no time, Shindo. Was he married or not?”

  “Yeah. Once. I mean she left him, remarried, guy by the name of Tachibana I think, but—”

  “Did she have freckles? About five-three?”

  “Yes, what’s this—”

  “Shindo, I need you to listen to me and answer my questions. If you don’t, more people will die. Now, Akashi’s wife—is she alive?”

  “Yumi? She’s alive. But you need to tell me what this is about.”

  “Shindo, I know how he’s choosing them. And I know where he’s going to strike next.”

  Iwata shot through a red light, hurtling on to the expressway, streaking blue in his wake.

  “How?”

  “For some reason this all comes down to a ropeway in 1996 somewhere in Nagasaki. I don’t know why yet, but you need to get round-the-clock police protection on that woman, and it needs to be now. If you don’t, he’s going to tear her apart and anyone else around her. There are also two other people in danger, though I’ve yet to identify them.”

  Shindo sighed shakily.

  “Iwata—”

  “I know what you’re going to say, but I also know I’m right.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “I’ll have my resignation letter delivered to you with roses.”

  There was a long silence.

  “If I do this, you’re going to have to tell me what you know.”

  “Mina Fong’s sister, Jennifer, was murdered by the Black Sun Killer. Her death predates any of our victims. Not only that, I’m certain that Black Sun killed Mina as well.”

  “Mina Fong…?”

  “It was nothing more than a diversion, Shindo. A smoke screen.”

  “Kid, you don’t have a case anymore. You can’t keep on interfering—”

  “Actually…” Iwata smashed the horn as he overtook an SUV. “… I do. As of ten minutes ago.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If Mina Fong is another Black Sun victim, it means the investigation into her murder is erroneous, and it also happens to exculpate Masaharu Ezawa in my case—you just have to see the CCTV footage from her apartment for that to be obvious.”

  “Fuck me, Iwata—”

  “As you said yourself, it’s my conduct that’s under review, not my case management. Until my disciplinary, procedure dictates my case should be reopened and that I should reassume its command. Procedure dictates, Shindo.”

  Iwata pictured the old cop staring out of his viewless window as he mulled it over.

  “Your disciplinary is under a week away, you realize?”

  “I realize.”

  Shindo laughed.

  “Fucking Geronimo, right, kid?”

  “Shindo, there’s no time for this.”

  “Okay. Okay. I’ll get the protection over at Akashi’s ex-wife’s place. I’ll send you her address now. But look, I can’t give you manpower—you’re stained here, Iwata. Nobody will work with you. You’ll just have to do what you can in the time you have, and do it by yourself.”

  “That’s all anyone ever can do, boss.”

  “All right, you’re back online.”

  Iwata hung up and accelerated harder.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Ikuo Uno file Hatanaka had given him. There was a faded sticker on the front:

  LEAD INVESTIGATOR—HIDEO AKASHI

  Iwata chewed his lips in thought.

  You were Homicide—why handle such a low-level grunt?

  And if Ikuo Uno was your informant, you must have known someone was using his money after his death. Yet you didn’t stop it …

  He remembered Akashi smiling in the elevator, an empty charade.

  Iwata was thinking too fast. He was driving too fast. But none of it was fast enough.

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  He swerved hard to overtake a truck, and the file on the dashboard fell open. The article on Hideo Akashi’s suicide peeped out. The photograph was an old one—perhaps from his police graduation. His hair was cropped short, his smile a half-curl, his skin tanned.

  You’re hiding something. Did the Black Sun Killer have something on you?

  Akashi smiled up at Iwata.

  The siren wailed and wailed.

  Looking into the dead man’s eyes, a cold realization stabbed Iwata deep in the gut.

  * * *

  North of Haneda Airport, sitting opposite central Tokyo, lay the island of Odaiba. It was home to Yumi Tachibana and her husband Yoshi. In the summer, they had picnics on the beach. In the winter, they would sit in coffee shops overlooking the bay and they would read—Yoshi usually went for Scandinavian crime, while Yumi preferred short stories. On Monday mornings they would complain about having to commute to the “mainland.” They loved the island’s wide, tree-lined streets. Odaiba had a sparseness that did not feel like Tokyo. Parking spaces could be found without great difficulty, kindergartens had reasonable waiting lists, and dog walkers greeted one another on corners. The baby was due in a few short weeks. The names were picked out long ago. Yumi and Yoshi Tachibana were happy.

  * * *

  Kosuke Iwata’s blue turret light was streaking over Rainbow Bridge, toward Odaiba. It was after 6 P.M. and the sun had already set. The yakatabune boats were out as usual, dyeing the bin-liner black water neon pink. Iwata saw Daikanransha Ferris wheel change colors in the distance, wedged between warehouse-sized arcades. The Yurikamome Line monorail shuttled past in the opposite direction on the lower deck of the bridge. He looked back at the city, its red lights warning off low-flying aircraft. Tokyo was incapable of darkness.

  Two minutes clear of Rainbow Bridge, Iwata saw the police line. A troop of TMPD officers were covering the entrance to Green Gardens Community. A wave of elation filled him.

  “Shindo, you old bastard, you did it!”

  Iwata parked and scanned the scene. A huddle of residents talked among themselves, excited and irritated in equal measure. He saw a prohibitively high fence, CCTV cameras, and on-site security. It wasn’t an easy breach before the police, let alone now.

  Would the Black Sun still come?

  Iwata knew the answer.

  He looked up and down the street, hoping for tall men. There were one or two. Iwata searched their faces, looking for anger. He registered only curiosity. In this street light, it was hard to tell.

  Iwata began to wonder if this had been a mistake.

  What if the killer had been driven underground? He would resurface, almost certainly, but when?

  A month? A year? A decade?

  Iwata’s phone began to ring.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Hatanaka.”

  “Hit me.”

  “Coco La Croix’s real name is Masanao Maeda. He’s a chemistry student, among other things. Organizes underground parties, sells acid, ecstasy, some legal highs. Oh, and he runs his own fashion Web site too.”

  “Well done, kid. Where are you?”

  “University of Tokyo, following him now. He’s going for the subway, I think. I’ll call you when I get out.”

  Iwata hung up and got out of his car. Approaching the gates, he showed his ID to the officers, drawing looks from the crowd as he passed through. Yumi Tachibana’s house was a few hundred meters away. It was an angular structure with cream walls, brown shutters, and a small garage. More policemen guarded the front door. Iwata held up his ID again and it was checked off a short list.

  He stepped into a long hallway with modern art lining the walls.

  He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

  Iwata followed quiet voices upstairs into an open-plan livi
ng room and kitchen with dark slate floors and clean, geometric lines. There was an L–shaped sofa and a glass dining table. In the corners of the room, there were large pots of bamboo and palm. Yumi and Yoshi Tachibana sat at the table drinking tea. They were sitting next to each other, looking into space. It reminded Iwata of the couple in Hopper’s Nighthawks.

  They stood as Iwata appeared at the top of the stairs.

  Yumi was heavily pregnant. She was older than in the photograph, of course, but Iwata knew her frame and the freckles at once. Yoshi was a tall man with a slim face, a beard to disguise it, and a nervous smile.

  Iwata bowed.

  “Inspector Iwata, I’m handling this case.”

  Yumi’s face was pale, her exhaustion obvious.

  “Shindo told us you’re one of his best.” Yumi gestured for him to sit.

  “I see. Well, I hope I can live up to his kind words.”

  “What is this about exactly, Inspector? Nobody has explained a thing.”

  “It’s my job to stop this … individual getting to you.”

  “Individual. And what does the individual want with us?”

  “We’re still trying to establish that.”

  Yumi snorted.

  “You must have some idea.”

  “Yes. It seems there may be some kind of grudge against you.”

  Yoshi cleared his throat. He too was pale, his eyes fearful.

  “Inspector, we don’t understand. We’re good people, we don’t get involved in … whatever this is meant to be.”

  Iwata nodded.

  “I can imagine this is a horrible shock for you both. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to be patient. I can’t reveal too much. Many things aren’t yet clear.”

  Yumi sipped her tea and smiled bitterly.

  “That much is obvious.”

  Noting the tension, Yoshi Tachibana pointed toward the kitchen area.

  “Would you like some tea, Inspector?”

  “Please.”

  He went over to the sleek kitchen and boiled the water. He gripped the counter as he waited. Iwata imagined it must have been a preposterous situation for this simple man. The idea that someone would want to come into this space, a space he had worked for all his life, with the intention of destroying his family. Tachibana returned with an expensive stone cup and Iwata thanked him.