It got to a point when Satoshi realized she would never be whole again. This was when he was in high school, when he’d come home to find a third eviction notice on the door. He’d told his mother, but if it registered in the brain behind her glassy eyes, he couldn’t tell. He’d left home that night with his baby sister crying in the next room, and hadn’t come back for two nights.
When he had creeped back, he’d had a black eye, raw knuckles, and enough crumpled, dirty bills to pay their rent. It was nearly four in the morning, but she had been awake, waiting for him in the same chair she sat in now. He’d handed her the money without saying a word and gone to bed, so tired he’d slept right through her sobbing in the next room.
He’d quit school soon after. He had to—he had a family to support. And the only way to do it was by walking the Path. He’d never looked back, couldn’t afford to. Since then, his mother never asked where the money came from, and he never told her. But she knew.
“Even with cancer, some people can live for years with treatment. Why bother with the meds if you’re just going to sabotage yourself?”
“I’ve already got a life sentence. Let me at least enjoy some small pleasures as I die.” Another exhalation. “But how are you doing?”
“Not great, actually. Something I wanted to ask you, something work-related—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” his mother said, cutting him off immediately.
“It’s personal, too. It’s about Masa.”
“What about him?”
“They want me to find him and … turn him in.”
“To the police?”
“To the authorities, yes.”
Satoshi didn’t like lying to his mother. He felt satisfied that this phrasing was close enough to the truth that it didn’t technically count as a lie.
“You would do that to your old friend?”
“I don’t know. I might not have a choice in the matter.”
“But you were so close. We could hardly have a meal as a family without him tagging along.”
Satoshi didn’t respond.
“I almost grew fond of the insolent little shit,” his mother said with a rueful smile that faded as her eyes came into focus on Satoshi. “What do they want him for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what he did, yet you’re going to turn him in? You’re going to side against your friend?”
“I … I might not have a choice. He … they have all the power here.”
“You’re worried about the police? You’ve spent more of your life on the Path than off it. Now you’re just going to turn on one of your brothers like that? Isn’t solidarity one of your core principles, or whatever?”
Satoshi was taken aback. She had never before acknowledged what he did. What he was. It took him a moment to respond.
“I didn’t know you cared so much for the Path’s code.”
“I don’t care about any of that nonsense. That bullshit gangster chivalry is probably what did your father in. I just know that Masa always worshipped you, idolized you, even. You kept him safe, remember?”
“He’s changed, Ma. He can be violent, dangerous. We don’t see each other much anymore.”
“And now that he’s not close, you’re going to cut him loose, eh?” She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray in front of her. “Doesn’t sound like you, Satoshi. Maybe he changed, but you’re practically brothers. What kind of man walks away from that bond? What kind of man did I raise?”
You didn’t raise me, you abandoned me to raise myself. It’s part of the reason I’m where I am now.
As much as he wanted to spit invective at his mother, he found that he couldn’t. Something stopped him from saying what he was really thinking.
“One without a whole lot of options,” is all he said instead.
Satoshi left his mother’s place a little while later. He began walking through the old neighborhood, less out of a feeling of nostalgia, and more from pure aimlessness as he considered his options.
And while he didn’t find Masa himself, he saw traces of him everywhere. It was like images had been seared into the landmarks that dotted their past, like shadows left from a flashbulb. The convenience store where they used to spend hours reading manga books because they were too poor to actually buy them. The back alleys they would lead customers down to furtively swap cash for product. The abandoned lofts where Masa would hole up for weeks at a time when his dad was on a bender. At each spot, Satoshi could still make out traces of the kids they had been. The memories lingered in the air as if they were almost tangible.
At one point, Satoshi walked by a playground that looked familiar. It took him a few moments to realize why, and when he did, the scene began playing out in front of him.
He saw a young boy duck into the park and begin tearing through it, three older boys close on his heels. They caught him right inside the entrance. The boy being chased put up a brief struggle, throwing loopy haymakers and a few weak jabs that either failed to connect or didn’t do much when they did. He was soon overwhelmed. The others surrounded him and began whaling on him, their fists make flat packing noises as they rained down on his body, face, and upturned hands. The only other sounds were the grunted protests from the boy being beaten and the cruel taunts of his tormentors.
Then a glass bottle shot down out of a nearby tree, as if thrown straight down with great force. At that, the four boys stopped, turned, and looked at the tree. Satoshi looked too, as he watched himself jump down out of it.
He regarded the vision of his former self there as he stood looking at the other boys. Satoshi saw a tall, gaunt scarecrow of a boy. Even as he watched the others, he still had a faraway look in his eyes. His face was bruised, with one eye blackened. There was a trail of blood down his white shirt.
Young Satoshi took a last drag on the joint he had been smoking up in the tree and flicked it away. He never took his eyes off the others.
“Fuck off,” was all he said.
“Fuck you, Satoshi,” one of the boys on top said. “What’s it to you?”
Satoshi took a step closer. “Up.”
The boys exchanged a glance but stood up. The one they had been beating on scooted away but didn’t get up.
“Good. Now fuck off.”
“Why don’t you fucking—”
That was as far as the ringleader got before Satoshi drove a fist into his gut that knocked the wind out of him and brought him to his knees. Then he brought an elbow down on his forehead that split the skin open above one eye. The other two stared in mute horror at the blood gushing from their howling leader. One backed away, the other charged Satoshi. Satoshi laid him out with a perfectly timed hook that sent the boy sprawling. He turned to the third.
“Pick them up. And fuck. Off.”
They did as they were told, turning back occasionally as they hobbled towards the park’s exit. Satoshi glanced back down at the boy on the ground and walked over to him. The boy held a hand out.
“Thanks for that. They—”
Satoshi roughly dragged the small boy to his feet. Then he pushed him hard in the chest, nearly sending him sprawling again.
“Hit me.”
“What? I—”
Satoshi pushed him again.
“Hit me!”
The boy’s face crumpled, and he looked like he was going to cry. He sniffled a few times as he tried backing away. Satoshi stayed on him. Finally, backed up against a tree, the boy threw a sloppy roundhouse in the direction of Satoshi’s head. Satoshi caught the boy’s balled fist in his hand and held it.
“With your leg.”
“What?”
“Punch with your leg. That’s how you get power. Like this.”
Satoshi went up on the ball of his right foot, which he tilted out at a ninety-degree angle. He threw a punch slowly, pointing at his knee, which he dropped forward as he followed through with the punch. He did it again, this time showing him how to r
otate the shoulder. Then again, faster. Then again at full speed. He held up the palm of his hand.
“You do it. Like I showed you. None of this haymaker shit.”
The boy tried it. His first few missed or glanced off Satoshi’s hand. Satoshi corrected his form. The next few glanced off his hand too, until he landed one with power.
“Good. Keep your guard up with your other hand like this. A hook is the same principle. Drop the knee and pivot on your foot, but with more of an upper-body twist …”
Satoshi stood there watching his younger self as he drilled the other boy around the playground until finally they were both exhausted and sat swinging slowly on the swings.
“What were they after you for?” Satoshi asked the boy.
“I don’t know. They’re always picking on me.”
“You didn’t do anything to them? It’s not the first time I’ve seen you take a beating.”
“I didn’t do anything to them. I don’t do anything to my dad, either, but he still beats me.” The boy sniffled. “What about you? What happened to you?” he said, motioning towards Satoshi’s bloody shirt and bruised face.
“One of my customers turned violent. Tried to take my stash.”
“Did he?”
“Almost. Junkies’ll turn on you sometimes, if you’re not careful.”
“You deal?”
“Yeah. Have to. I’m Satoshi, by the way.”
“My name’s Masa.”
Satoshi watched the two of them as they sat swinging idly on the swing set. He remembered the feeling of pity mixed with sadness he felt for the boy back then. It was what had led him to say yes when Masa asked to meet up again later, which soon turned into a friendship between the two.
Now, Satoshi shook his head to clear it and moved on. He really needed to cut back on the Dextro-MXE. It was making him see things that weren’t there anymore.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time Mei made it up to her fifth-floor apartment, her respirator mask was fogged up. Her arms were aching from the heavy case files she had dragged home through the crush of the subway. She awkwardly fumbled with her keys while holding the papers up to let herself into her tiny apartment.
About to lose her case files, she hurried over the faux-hardwood floors to dump them onto her kitchen table. She reached for a bottle of gin that was on the shelf. But even though it was Friday night and her body demanded a drink, she couldn’t let herself have one just yet. She took out the coffee instead.
She had already canceled her plans to meet up with Akiko and her other friends. They didn’t even sound surprised anymore when she canceled on them. While her coffee brewed, she quickly microwaved a packaged dinner from the refrigerator and ate. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and from what she had gleaned so far, she knew she didn’t want to be eating as she read the case file. Her meal finished, she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
A perfectly shit ending to an absolutely horrible week, she thought as she opened the folder.
Victim number one: Hiroshi Sato; twenty-nine years old. Little information had been dug up on him, but if he had been working a legitimate job, he’d hid it well. Presumed to be a low-level street dealer whose last known residence was a tiny apartment in Kawasaki City.
Cause of death was strangulation, with bruising indicative of a wire garrote and ligature wounds around the wrists indicating that he had been restrained prior to strangulation. His eyes, lungs, liver, and gallbladder had been removed. This mutilation had been performed after death, judging from the relative lack of blood loss. The body had been found in a construction site for a new aboveground rail line in a corner of Yoyogi Park on April eighth, during a photo-op staged by the governor’s office.
This had clearly been carefully planned and executed for maximum exposure, and it had worked like a charm. Not only had the governor essentially declared war on the killer, but the story had been front-page news for four days straight. Everyone knew about it, and everyone was afraid.
Victim number two: Alyona Petrov; twenty-four years old. Arrived in Tokyo from Russia on a three-month tourist visa, which she had overstayed by roughly one month. No luck so far in finding out where she had been staying. Efforts were still being made to contact her next of kin.
Like the first victim, death was by strangulation, though in her case her windpipe had been crushed. She had had sexual intercourse several hours before her death, but no signs of assault. Similar ligature wounds indicated that she had been bound. Her gallbladder, kidneys, lungs, liver, and heart had been removed. What was left of her had been unceremoniously dumped in a crumpled heap in the backstreets several blocks from Shibuya Station.
Victim number three: Detective Takeshi Suga; forty-four years old. Former lead investigator in the serial killer case, and (according to colleagues) a consummate and devoted media whore. This one was most likely provocation, showing the police just what the killer was capable of. Or it might have been done in retaliation for Suga’s frequent grandstanding about the case to the media and his assurances that justice would be swift. Either way, the discovery of his body had unleashed a storm of media coverage and crippling public fear.
His body had the same ligature wounds, indicating that he had been bound before being killed. He also had the same internal organs removed as the second victim, though in this case, the lack of bruising around the neck and extensive blood loss indicated that his heart had still been beating when he had been sliced open. The only drug found in his system was ibuprofen, indicating that his was not a painless death under anesthesia. No, this was meant to send a message.
Victim number four: Tetsuo Kobayashi; thirty-nine years old. Prominent labor union leader in the construction industry, suspected of having ties to organized crime (this caught Mei’s attention).
Found in an abandoned factory on Tsukishima Island. He had been strangled like the others, and the body had been eviscerated. But according to the ME’s initial estimate, the internal organs had been left intact. Strong possibility that another victim or two had been killed and removed from the scene, or that a fight had occurred and the killer had been badly wounded.
Next she read through the coverage of the case thus far—not because she thought it would contain any additional details, but to familiarize herself with what the press was saying. If she would have to run press conferences on this case (an idea that made her skin crawl), she wanted to know the narratives and angles the press was pushing.
Her job as a police officer had made her wary of the media, but even she was surprised by how they were reporting the case. Once a pattern had been established and some of the grislier details had been released, the reporting had taken on a distinctly tabloid feel. Headlines blared about death cults targeting victims for dark rituals, while others screamed about a lone psycho mutilating corpses for their own twisted reasons. Mei quickly grew tired of the coverage and dumped the papers in the recycle bin.
When she finally finished for the night, Mei felt somewhat queasy. For all her studying, she had learned more about what had happened to the bodies of these people than she had learned about who they were before. Not that it mattered, she supposed, but on some level she didn’t like the idea of breaking them down merely to hunks of meat with evidence in, on, and around them.
But then, that’s the job, she thought as she reached for that bottle of gin.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After his social visit on his mother, Satoshi made some calls and then hopped in a cab down to the dockside area of Minato Ward. He got out several blocks from his destination and walked the rest of the way, just in case anyone was keeping track. There he met a man who was waiting in the office behind a warehouse. The man flicked a set of keys his way.
“White van, second on the left. Have it back by first shift Monday morning,” he said, getting to his feet.
“It’s already loaded?”
“Yup, three hundred pounds of the stuff.”
Sa
toshi nodded and walked on by. He heaved himself up into the driver’s seat and checked that his cargo was all there. Then he took out his phone and dialed the Toymaker.
“Yeah, it’s Satoshi. Where are you tonight? … What office number? … Okay, on my way.”
He put the van in gear and drove off. Before long, he arrived at a nondescript office building and pulled off down a back alley behind his destination. He saw the Toymaker’s assistant emerge from the shadows, barring his path.
The Toymaker was a former 3-D printing specialist and fabricator now under permanent contract with Vasili to produce his crews’ weaponry. Not many people knew his actual name, as he usually insisted on being called Professor. He would commandeer an office of Vasili’s legit businesses and use it as his laboratory for the night. This method had initially been suggested by the Toymaker himself, owing to his crippling paranoia about pretty much everything.
This itinerant fly-by-night operation was largely believed to be the cause of an explosion that had taken out the copier room and most of the break room at one of Vasili’s lending operations. For his part, the Toymaker vehemently denied all involvement, despite the story his singed eyebrows told.
He worked with a crew of one: a big black guy named Jeremy. How those two had gotten hooked up was a mystery to Satoshi, but he never saw one without the other close by. And judging by the Toymaker’s interesting use of language of late, it seemed like the two of them had struck up a friendship. Because while the Toymaker still talked like a college professor, he sprinkled it with liberal doses of street slang.
As Satoshi maneuvered the van down the tight alley, Jeremy guided him in, holding up a hand to stop when he was in far enough.
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