Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season

by J. Scott Matthews

Vasili snorted at that. Drake looked confused, so Chieko filled him in.

  “Atsushi Tomonaga, or Aces, as he was called, was one of the best gamblers around. He excelled at Texas hold’em, but he played and won at everything from baccarat to mah-jongg.”

  “Ballsiest player you ever saw,” Vasili added.

  “That’s why he won,” Chieko said, looking at Drake. “He wasn’t afraid to take chances. He was the same way in his business dealings, always taking chances, doubling down when they succeeded and backing off when they didn’t. A good lesson in there for you.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Good lad,” Vasili said. “Now give us a minute, Drake, I want to talk to my lieutenant.”

  Drake got up without a word and left the room.

  “He seems solid.”

  “He’s a brick house.”

  “I meant dependable.”

  “That too.”

  “Good. I wanted to ask if you are having any problems lately. Anyone getting in the way of your business?”

  “Well, not at the moment.”

  Vasili cocked an eyebrow at that.

  “Haven’t had anything out of the ordinary. The occasional stickup kids trying to take down a game, or the occasional scandalmonger trying to score pictures of celebrities leaving a sex party. The usual.”

  “Alright. Just asking. I’ve been seeing some strange stuff lately. Is making me paranoid. I must be jumping at shadows.”

  “Well, in that case, I almost hate to mention this, but …”

  “What?”

  “Well, Governor Etchi attended one of our recent swinger parties with some of his Genyoto pals. He was complaining about how gambling was illegal, how we shouldn’t be putting on games, and on and on. Then he hinted that maybe we should be paying for his discretion in the matter.”

  “That greasy fuck is trying to shake us down?”

  “I don’t know. He was drunk at the time. Nothing has come of it, but I’m keeping an eye on the situation.”

  “Do that. Have you heard anything else through your contacts?”

  “About what?”

  “Anything suspicious. About me, about the Kaisha …”

  “Not that I can recall. Why?”

  “Probably nothing. But lately I’ve been getting bad feeling. Like someone is after me.”

  “You mean like the cops? Or the rival gangs outside of Tokyo pushing in? Or the other bosses within the syndicate who would kill their own mothers for your territory? Or—”

  “Okay, point is taken. But no, something else.” Vasili shook his head. “Never mind. Is just bad feeling.”

  It had been a long and trying day. Vasili stood at the wall-to-ceiling window at his office, staring out. He checked his watch to see it was six thirty. Fuck it, he was going to knock off for the day. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken off work so early. But sometimes you just had to treat yourself.

  At least, that’s what he thought until Jun walked in with his phone to one ear. He had a pained look on his face.

  “What?” Vasili mouthed.

  “It’s Arinaga from out in Chiba,” Jun said as he hung up the phone.

  “Eh, jog my memory.”

  “He’s our watcher overseeing the construction site for the Kanto Engineering job.”

  “And how’s it going?”

  “It’s not. He said some guys made off with a lot of their materials and equipment. And unless they get them back soon, it’s going to cause significant delays.”

  Vasili’s blood boiled. “Who would be stupid enough to steal from me? I want these men found, and I want them—”

  “He knows who they are. They left a business card. It was Matsuo’s guys.”

  “Fuck. Get the car.”

  So much for his early night.

  They tracked Matsuo to the restaurant he was eating at. It was a run-down izakaya, all wood and tatami mats with half the menu written in marker on pieces of yellowing paper hung on the walls. Such places weren’t that common in Tokyo, but much easier to find in the surrounding regions. Especially run-down industrial hellscapes like Chiba. Vasili almost felt sorry that Matsuo had to live like this. Almost.

  Vasili and Jun found them sitting on tatami mats around a low table laden with beer steins and greasy food. Matsuo was already drunk, given the red glow of his chubby face.

  “Eh, so this is what passes for fine dining out here, I take it?” Vasili said as they approached. He stood looming over Matsuo and the other seated men.

  “Vasili! How are you? Care to join us?” Matsuo asked.

  “Why, so you can eat off my plate?”

  “Plenty to go around for everyone.”

  “Then what’s this I hear about your men stealing from me?”

  “It’s not stealing when you just take what’s owed. You haven’t paid me yet, so I took my payment another way.”

  “Considering that we’re on same team, I would have appreciated a heads-up before you go siphoning supplies from my site. This is going to cost me.”

  “So you order some more supplies, give your guys a few days off. No big deal.”

  “You know what ‘time is of the essence’ clause is? You must, because you have your fat little fingers in many construction pies. It means my company can be sued if it doesn’t finish construction on time. I’m told we were right on schedule. We won’t be after a delay of several days.”

  Matsuo’s face hardened and his smile faded.

  “You were late paying me. Now we’re square. Until next month, at least.”

  “That’s not how we do things in—”

  “Well, that’s how we do things here in my territory. You want to operate in Chiba? Fine. But pay me what’s due. Show me the respect I’m entitled to.”

  “Then show me some respect and return those supplies. I will send payment tonight. But I cannot risk that kind of liability.”

  “Too late. This month is paid.”

  Vasili just shook his head. He wasn’t used to being on the receiving end.

  “What’s the matter, Vasili?” Matsuo pressed. “You having cash-flow problems?”

  He was.

  “Of course not. Just a lot on my plate right now. And on top of it all, now I need to have sit-down with my boss and some asshole who is shaking me down.”

  Vasili turned and stormed out, followed closely by Jun. They weren’t even out the door before he heard chortling from Matsuo and his men.

  “Well, that was the perfect end to perfect day,” Vasili said.

  He was sitting in the backseat of the SUV as Jun drove them home. Jun looked in the rearview mirror and nodded his condolences.

  “When do I have some—”

  “Sorry,” Jun said, pulling out his phone and answering it.

  A tense-sounding conversation followed. Vasili tried to follow from the one side he could hear. It did not sound encouraging.

  “Don’t tell me today just got better,” Vasili said when Jun hung up.

  “Oh, no, it didn’t. That was Kameko. We lost another shipment.”

  “Another explosion?”

  “Yeah, this time the package was still on the tanker. It’s all over the news.”

  “Fuck.”

  “It gets worse. Early coverage is calling it a terrorist attack.”

  Wrenches being thrown in the machine from all sides. Sometimes he wondered how he had kept it chugging along this long.

  Chapter Ten

  Satoshi got off his motorcycle and locked it in front of the Tsukiji Honganji Temple. He was hoping that the proximity to such a holy place would deter thieves. He figured it was a long shot. But then, wasn’t that what faith was all about?

  At least it was safer than locking it up on the island of Tsukishima itself. It was almost guaranteed to get stolen there. He walked down Meiji Street and crossed the bridge to the island. Tsukishima, while small for an island, was still a large area for one man to cover on foot. He decided to start down by the factories on the far
side, where the murder had taken place.

  As Satoshi walked, he passed through what looked like a night market of sorts. There were food carts and lean-to structures serving alcohol. People gathered around in groups, eating from steaming bowls and drinking sake from chipped mugs or paper cups. Children with dirty faces ran through the crowds, playing and chasing dogs.

  When he looked up at the abandoned apartment buildings that loomed above, he could see candlelight in some of the windows. No matter how many times the police threw people off the islands, they just kept coming back. Most of them didn’t have anywhere else to go. They must have figured that the city would swallow them whole long before the crumbling ground beneath them did.

  He eventually made it to the factories lining the far shore. Some of these had flickering lights in them as well, with the sounds of people’s voices wafting out of broken windows. Others were completely dark, with no signs of life at all. It was at one of these factories that Satoshi found the fraying yellow police tape blocking off a door that had been left ajar. He took out a flashlight and pushed his way inside.

  The corner by the door looked like a red paint can had exploded. He had a quick look around but didn’t think he would be clever enough to spot something the police had missed. So he pushed deeper into the building. He found plenty of scattered trash, but little else. Coming to the end of the building, he saw a staircase leading upstairs, which he climbed. Up top, he walked through the largely empty room. The only thing he found aside from some abandoned shelving units was a nest of a sleeping bag and several blankets in one corner of the room, along with an electric torch and some other camping gear.

  The other side of the room across from this had a large hole where the floorboards had rotted away. He noticed that this offered a view of the crime scene when viewed from the proper angle. Meaning that whoever was living here just might have seen something. Of course, if someone had been watching and gotten caught, that might explain the gratuitous amount of blood at the scene.

  Satoshi was leaving the factory when he heard a shrill, nasal voice call out to him from somewhere in the dark.

  “Ne! Ne, ne, ne! You’re not supposed to go in there, mister! They told us to stay out!”

  “Shut up, Rika, he’s one of them!” said a boy from nearby.

  “He doesn’t look like one of them, though!”

  Satoshi looked over to see a young girl of maybe eight wearing a hat with a pair of floppy rabbit ears. She grinned a lopsided grin that appeared larger than her face, with snot trickling from one nostril. Next to her stood a boy a few years older, who glared at Satoshi suspiciously. When Satoshi walked towards them, the boy stepped in front of the girl in a protective manner.

  Satoshi held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “Who told you not to go in there?”

  “The other guys. Yakuza or something.”

  “Rika! Shut up!”

  “It’s okay, I’m not with those guys. I’m just trying to find a friend of mine.”

  The boy just glowered, so Satoshi tried a different tack.

  “Hey, I’m hungry, are you two hungry? Think if I got us some dinner, you’d let me ask a few questions?”

  The boy’s face softened, while the girl began jumping up and down and clapping. Satoshi tried again once they were seated at a long table in one of the tents. The children were a lot more cooperative with steaming bowls of ramen and a plate of dumplings in front of them.

  “Hey, you’re not going to have any ramen?” Rika asked.

  “I’ll have some dumplings. Not as hungry as I thought.” Satoshi turned towards the boy, whose name was Dai. “So who told you to stay out of the factories?”

  “I dunno, some gangsters. It’s not all the factories, but they kicked everyone out of a few.”

  “What are they doing in them?”

  “Bam! Bam! Bam!” the girl said, using her finger as a gun to execute imaginary people in front of her.

  “You don’t know that, Rika. Don’t tell stories.”

  “Yuh-huh!” she insisted. “Old man Ebina told me! He saw them doing it!”

  “You know what they’re doing there?” Satoshi asked Dai.

  “I dunno. I hear things, but I can’t say for sure. Some say they’ve been dealing in them. Others say they’re killing people. There’s a rumor that the serial killer has been using them.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Sure, it’s possible.”

  “Looks like someone was maybe sleeping upstairs in the factory I was in. You know who that might be?”

  “That’s ol’ Ebina! He’s not afraid of anyone!” Rika said. “Said he saw the murder that took place in there!”

  “Did he, now?” Satoshi asked. “Any idea where I can find him?”

  “He comes and goes,” Dai said. “He stays on the mainland some nights. Calls that his summer home.”

  “I see. Alright, I’ll ask around. One last question,” Satoshi said, pulling up a photo of Masa on his phone. “Have you seen this man around at all? Maybe with the yakuza guys?”

  Dai shook his head, while Rika nodded hers vigorously.

  “Yeah! I’ve seen him around a few times. He’s always getting into fights with people. He your friend?”

  “Not exactly. He’s a bad man, so you stay away from him. But he wasn’t with the guys using the factories?”

  “Nope!” She shook her head for emphasis, her bunny ears flopping back and forth.

  “And no one else either?”

  “Well … he was with one guy. Nervous guy, looked like a rat.”

  “Ozu?”

  Satoshi said this aloud, but more to himself than the girl. Nervous and rat-faced was a description that fit their old coworker Ozu to a T.

  “If you say so. That guy,” she said, pointing to the photo, “he was talking about going back home.”

  “And did he say where that was?”

  “In Yotsuya.”

  Yotsuya? Satoshi had just been there visiting his mother recently. Did this mean that Masa was back at his family’s old apartment? Hard to imagine, considering how much evil memories of his father and his rough upbringing still plagued him. Still. If there was a chance that Masa was in the old neighborhood for some reason, Satoshi had to follow up.

  “Alright, thanks, kids.” Satoshi stood up. He dug through his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. He peeled off a few thousand yen, which he slid towards Dai. “In case you get hungry later.”

  “Thanks,” Dai said.

  “I hope you find your friend!” Rika shouted after him.

  “He’s not my friend!” Satoshi said over his shoulder.

  As if it mattered.

  Luckily, Satoshi’s bike was still there when he got back to the mainland. Good thing too, because he was due to meet Hisoka for one of their increasingly rare date nights. He caught up to her right as she was finishing her shift, and they ducked into an izakaya near her hospital.

  “Oh, and there was this other guy, Shidehara. Brilliant yakuza boss who prided himself on his management style. So much, in fact, that he wrote a book on business management with lessons from his years of experience.”

  “What, like trade secrets?”

  “Some, yeah. You can still find copies of it in Kinokuniya. It looks like any other book on management principles, except it’s got this gangster on the front with a subtitle like ‘Double profits with proven yakuza management tricks’ or some shit.”

  “I can’t believe the Kaisha would let him get away with that.”

  “Oh, they didn’t. His own men force-fed him his own book before shooting him.”

  “Damnit, Satoshi, I thought you said you were going to keep it light tonight.”

  “What? It’s … kinda funny.”

  “Murdering him by making him choke on his own book?”

  “Well, maybe not ‘ha-ha’ funny. But there’s a certain poetic justice to it.”

  Hisoka just shook her head. Their waiter came by with a plate of sashimi
and the daikon salad they had ordered.

  “Did you order sashimi?” Hisoka asked.

  “Yeah, I know how much you like it.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t eat it while I’m pregnant!”

  “Why not?”

  “Parasites, mercury, radiation …”

  “Well, you’ve got to toughen the kid up at some point,” Satoshi said, grabbing a slice of fatty salmon with his chopsticks. “I mean, they’re already four months old. You can’t coddle the kid forever.”

  Hisoka gave a sarcastic smile as she picked up some of the salad with her chopsticks.

  “Sorry.”

  “See, you’d know that if you bothered to come to any of the birthing classes.”

  “I know, I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance so far. I’ll make the next one for sure.”

  “Well, hurry up. The kid will be here soon. Oh! Speaking of which, I was thinking we should go on a trip before that.”

  “You want to go traveling now?”

  “Why not? We won’t have another chance for a while. And besides, I’ve never been outside Japan like you have.”

  “Well, I’ve only been to Hong Kong and Shanghai. And both times were for business. So I wasn’t really sightseeing, more like … well, you know.”

  “So let’s take a trip! I want to lie on a beach somewhere, maybe see the sun for a change.”

  Satoshi thought for a moment. “Suppose I could take some time … but probably not for a month or two.”

  “Great! I went ahead and looked around some.” She pulled out a stack of printouts and started leafing through them. “Okay, how about Bali?”

  “Sure, but most of the beaches are gone now. It’s still got mountains, in case you want to hike.”

  “I do … but after I give birth. Then you get to carry the kid.”

  “I see you’ve given this some thought.”

  “Uh-huh.” She flipped through the pages. “What about Hawaii? You can speak English.”

  “Same deal. Not many beaches, and the ones they have are crowded.”

  “Thailand? We could see some temples, some historical sites. You know, get some cul-cha like the fancy people.”

  Satoshi smiled. “We are fancy people. But it’s not really safe there now with the civil war.”