“Well, I’m not a quitter,” she said, leveling her eyes at her father. “Don’t know where I got that from, though.”
Somehow it was always like this with them. Usually it started during dinner and gave her a good excuse to cut her visit short, but tonight they were off to an early start. She might be home a lot sooner than expected.
Her father returned the gaze. He gave her a sad shake of his head, then drained his drink.
“Well, you must be hungry. Let me finish getting dinner ready and we’ll eat.”
They moved into the kitchen, where her father turned on the burner on the tonjiru soup and slid a fillet of halibut into the stove’s fish rack. She filled their rice bowls with clumps of steaming white rice from the rice cooker. Next, she poured herself another drink, filling her father’s glass as well.
“Well, I almost hate to ask,” her father said once they sat down, “but how are things at work?”
“It’s … complicated.”
She then recounted the matter with Arekusuandaa and how it had led to her promotion of sorts to the serial killer case. As she spoke, she removed the backbone running the length of the flat, filleted fish. Halibut contained lots of tiny, prickly bones that could jab you if you weren’t careful. She found it a suitable choice for their dinner.
“Jesus Christ, you got him burned alive,” her father said sadly when she finished. He hadn’t even touched his food while she was talking.
“I didn’t do it! It was Vasili, he … he did it somehow.”
“But you knew you were potentially putting him in harm’s way, yes?”
Mei started to protest, then stopped.
“Either way. Now you’re being punished by being put on this serial killer case,” her father said, almost more to himself. “This isn’t good, this isn’t good at all.”
“I don’t know, could be a chance to prove myself. If I can solve this case—”
“Can you? Do you even know how to run a case like this, with a team under your command?”
“I … I’ll figure it out.”
The kitchen wasn’t particularly warm, but Mei could feel herself growing heated.
“And what about the media? Huh? What are you going to tell the press when they start asking questions you don’t like, or getting in the way? Are you going to be able to restrain that temper of yours?”
Her father was getting wound up. Mei’s first response was to give it back as good as she got, but she held back. Instead, she just sat there quietly as he got more animated.
“How about your superiors? Huh? Ever think that maybe your biggest obstacle would come from them setting you up for failure? Or withholding evidence to try to take your case? Can you handle that?”
He was standing up and practically shouting at her now, but she just gritted her teeth and stayed quiet.
“And what happens,” her father said, deflating like a balloon as the anger suddenly left him and he sank back down into his seat, “when the killer comes for you? Are you going to be able to handle that?”
Mei was taken aback by the sudden change in her father.
“Because you’re all I have left now. All that’s left of your mother.”
Still shocked, Mei wanted to comfort him, to tell him it would be alright. But the words stuck in her throat like fish bones. She was left without an answer to his question.
They sat there in silence, their meals largely untouched.
When Kazuhiko awoke, he had no idea where he was. All he knew was that he was tied to a chair somewhere dark. His head pounded and his saliva felt like glue in his dry mouth. The pungent aroma of urine wafting off his damp, scuffed jeans told him that he had pissed himself again.
He didn’t seem to be hurt, except for the vicious pounding in his head. But anymore, he woke up with a pounding headache more often than not. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw a small amount of light filtering into the room from a vent.
He seemed to be in a storage room of some sort. There were stacks of boxes printed with Japanese kanji full of shochu or sake bottles or something. Other boxes contained bags of potato crisps, nuts, and other snacks.
Kazuhiko moaned quietly to himself, afraid he was going to start crying. He had done it again, and he was too drunk to even remember what “it” was.
He heard the door creak open. Suddenly all was agony as the lights flicked on, piercing his skull with blinding white light. He flinched hard, trying to bury his face against his chest.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
“Who’s there?” Kazuhiko asked.
“It’s me, your good friend ‘Fuckface.’ Remember?”
He did not.
“From last night? I asked you to leave those women alone when you were slobbering all over them. You tried to brain me with a beer glass. Any of this ring a bell for you?”
Not really. He moaned again, louder this time. “Oh, I’m sorry. I get drunk sometimes, and—”
“Yeah, no shit you do. You gave my new barman a black eye and broke maybe a dozen glasses and ashtrays. Plus, there’s the matter of your sizable bill …”
Kazuhiko started panicking. He didn’t have the money for the bill, let alone whatever damages he might have caused. He began whimpering.
“Is there any way I can repay you? I don’t have much money.”
“Yeah, your wallet already told me that. That’s why you’re here.”
“Oh God … you’re not going to—”
“What? Kill you? Fuck you? I could have done both already, if I wanted. No, I’ve got other plans for you, my friend.”
Kazuhiko’s eyes had adjusted enough that he could see a little better, but the hangover combined with the shame wouldn’t let him look up at his interlocutor directly.
“Is there any way I can repay you?”
“It just so happens there is. You can do the exact same thing again. But this time at a location of my choosing.”
Kazuhiko still didn’t want to look the other man in the face, but he forced himself to glance up. Through the haze of the white light blinding him, all he could see was a shark’s grin gleaming back.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Goddammit, where is it coming from?” Mei asked, peering up at the network of pipes that formed the ceiling.
“Just leave it,” Kentaro said. “I don’t have much time this morning, so if we can begin the meeting …”
“Alright,” Mei said. She walked over towards the whiteboard against one wall, facing the table. “But I’m going to find that leak.”
Kentaro checked his watch.
“Let’s get started. I’ve done what reading I can. Now I need you to help me and Detective Kentaro catch up the rest of the way. So, where are we with this case?”
She stood in front of her assembled task force beside an evidence board of her own making. She stared at each of them in turn, with no response forthcoming.
“Okay, I’ll be more specific,” Mei said, knowing that wasn’t the problem. “What were the last leads that Suga had you chasing down?”
“Well, you may just want to start from scratch,” Watanabe said. “I’m not convinced that he had us going in the right direction.”
“And why is that?”
“Well …,” Watanabe said, evidently not wanting to be the bearer of bad news. “Have you heard the death cult rumors?”
“I’m not interested in the media reporting on this—”
“Because he started them,” Watanabe said.
“Guy was crazy,” Ina chimed in from a near-horizontal reclining position in his chair. “He was more interested in chasing headlines than chasing the killer.”
“Yeah, we looked into the connection but didn’t find much there,” Kato said.
“Well, there was a doomsday cult linked to a string of families murdered last year,” Kentaro said. “So the idea could have some merit.”
“Yeah, but that was an isolated group. One that was caught,” Watanabe said. “Besides, when we check
ed into it, we didn’t see anything like what Suga was claiming. We think he …”
“Go on,” Mei said.
“We think the evidence was a little thin for his claims. He said that cult insignia were found near the bodies. But those tags are all over the city.”
“Yeah, man was a notorious media whore, after all,” Kato said.
Mei shot him a sour look.
“Pardon me, media hound.”
“Has any of the information on the victims pointed to a connection?” Kentaro asked.
The three of them shook their heads and muttered that it had not.
“Well, what about a link with organized crime?” Mei asked. “Has that possibility been raised?”
No response, aside from some shifting in chairs.
“No? Because our last victim, Tetsuo, has known links to organized crime in the form of Vasili Loginovski’s organization and the broader Kaisha. He was reputed to have been working as an intermediary for the construction industry. The first victim was presumed to be a street-level pusher, while the second has all the telltale signs of a visa tourist hostess-slash-prostitute. As for Suga, who else but someone of Vasili’s position would dare touch a cop and dream of getting away with it?”
“I’m not buying it,” Kato said. Ina shook his head.
“It’s possible, but not likely,” Watanabe said. “The Kaisha’s always been careful about getting rid of bodies. They don’t just dump them out in the open.”
“Maybe they’re getting careless,” Mei said. “They’ve been above the law for so long, maybe they’re starting to think we can’t touch them.”
More muttering and shaking of heads. Mei was starting to form her suspicions about who was on the take here already, and it wasn’t looking good. At least she had Kentaro as an ally.
“It’s certainly worth looking into,” Kentaro said. “But it can’t be the central focus of the case. I agree, it’s not like them, but anything is possible. For now, I think we work with the evidence available to us. How long until we get the DNA analysis and morgue report back from the factory murder?”
“Suzuki said he’d have the morgue report done today. The blood and DNA tests will take a week or two, even with them fast-tracking it.”
“Alright, what about witnesses at the scene?” Kentaro asked.
“We tried but couldn’t find any,” Watanabe said. “The people living on Tsukishima and the other reclaimeds are mostly homeless drifters. They disappear like smoke in the fog when police come around asking questions.”
“So where does that leave us?” Mei asked.
There was no response.
“Gentlemen! Glad you could make it!”
Satoshi’s voice echoed throughout the dirty garage. The three men on folding chairs arranged in a semicircle in one corner looked up. Satoshi walked over and set down the plastic convenience store bags loaded with cheap beer, shochu, mixers, and snacks.
“Good to see you again!” Johnny said, cracking open a can of Asahi Dry and holding it aloft. The contents fizzed over the top and splattered onto a grease stain on the floor. “Thought you had outgrown your old friends.”
“Never.” Satoshi cracked his own beer. “Cheers!”
“Cheers!” Pura and Takeshi said, slamming their beers together.
“You got a seat for me?” Satoshi asked, looking around.
“There’s a step stool over there that’ll probably hold you if you open it up. We’re out of folding chairs.”
“And here I sprang for actual beer instead of happoshu,” Satoshi muttered as he fetched the stool. “So why’d you have us come all the way out here to meet?”
“I don’t know, you’re the one that called us,” Takeshi said.
“No, I mean, why did you ask to meet here in … whatever the fuck this is?”
“Because we’re on duty tonight,” Johnny said. “We’ve been working night shift security for this construction outfit for a while.”
“So, shouldn’t you be outside guarding the construction equipment?” Satoshi asked.
“You’re not my supervisor,” Takeshi said.
“Yeah, we’re probably also not supposed to drink on the job. But since nobody ever comes to check on us, I’d say we’re safe. It’s a pretty cushy gig.”
“What about you, what’s your story these days?” Satoshi asked Pura. “Feel like I haven’t seen any of you in ages.”
“Working as a chef at an izakaya. Nothing too fancy, but not one of the chains either. And the three of us still hang out—you’re the one that dropped off the face of the earth.”
Satoshi sighed and sipped his beer. It was true. Johnny and Takeshi used to work with Satoshi and Masa for Taichi, way back in the day. Pura had never taken the Path himself, but used to freelance every now and then to supplement his bartending and cooking gigs. They had been tight back in the day.
But when Taichi’s crew had disbanded, Satoshi and Masa had been taken in by Osammy while Johnny and Takeshi had gone to work for a different crew. Eventually Satoshi had found himself out of their orbit.
Looking at them now, they seemed to be almost exactly the same as he remembered. Fat, goateed Pura, the lovable fuckup that you couldn’t help but love, despite all his fuckups. Tall, gangly Takeshi, with a sarcastic smirk permanently painted on his eminently punchable face. And Johnny (or Jae-yoon) Lee, a good-natured Korean who had been born and raised in Japan.
“Well, it’s good seeing your ugly faces again,” Satoshi said, raising his beer to them.
“Yeah, you too, I guess,” Takeshi said with a shrug.
This prompted laughter and a wanking motion from Satoshi.
“You still running with Tengu’s crew?”
“More or less. But The Rock keeps pulling me off for these special missions of his.”
“Hmm, sounds like he might be grooming you for upper management,” Takeshi said.
“Yeah, could be. I don’t know what that guy’s thinking half the time.”
“What about your old buddy Masa? You still see him much?” Pura asked. Ever the guileless one.
Satoshi stiffened but then realized that there was no way they could know about his assignment.
“Haven’t been in touch with him lately. He was working under Vasili for a while after Osammy’s crew dissolved. But he sort of went off the deep end.”
“Sounds about right,” Johnny said. “He was always a scary motherfucker.”
Murmurs of agreement greeted that comment.
“Yeah, I heard he blinded a guy in a club with a broken bottle. I wouldn’t want to tangle with him.”
“This new breed, man, they’re fucking terrifying. No respect for anything,” Johnny said, shaking his head.
“Kids these days, it’s not like it was in the old days,” said Takeshi, who Satoshi figured at no older than twenty-seven.
“Here we fucking go,” Pura said. He tore into a bag of pizza-flavored potato chips and settled in.
“Because those guys had class! Those old-school yakuza were some stand-up guys!”
“Hear, hear!”
“Yeah, like Okazawaya. That guy was a pillar of his community. Used to lend people money to keep their homes when developers tried to force them out. You don’t see that kind of chivalry much anymore.”
“Or how about … who’s that guy that stole all those Demron coats from the government and gave them out?”
“The Rubber Baron!” Satoshi and Pura said simultaneously.
“Such a stupid nickname!” Johnny cackled from his corner. “Demron’s not even rubber.”
“Now there was a hero,” Takeshi said. “Stole all these coats that the government wasn’t using and made them available to the people. Even ran that website where he would post radiation readings from his own Geiger counters from around the city since the government’s figures were bullshit.”
“Legend. The man was a legend.”
“Alright, well, are we gonna fucking talk about the past all night, or work on
our own legacies some?” Takeshi asked. “What is this job you wanted to talk about, Satoshi?”
“Could be a pretty sweet payday for us, if you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty. I’m talking upwards of five hundred million yen if we get the whole score, split four ways.”
Pura whistled. “Wow, with that kind of cash, Johnny could almost pay someone enough to fuck him.”
“Fuck you, fat man,” Johnny said with a smile as he rubbed his hands together. “But why bring a score like this to us? Why not handle it through your regular crew?”
“Tengu doesn’t need to know about this. Thing is, I kind of need the money. Either I pay Vasili a shitton of money that I don’t have, or I have to do this other job. And it’s one I really don’t want to do.”
“Must be pretty bad if you’re scared to do it. What are we talking here?”
“I don’t want to get into it. I don’t even want to think about it. And I won’t have to. Because I’m going to get the money to pay Vasili back and make you guys rich in the process.”
“So what do we need for this job?” Johnny asked.
Satoshi looked over in the corner of the garage. There he saw the short, squat, boxy front of a truck’s cab attached to a flatbed trailer. The flatbed was empty, save for a large crane from which a heavy metal chain drooped down to pool on the bed below in a rusty heap.
“Think you can get another one of those? We’re going to need two.”
The other three exchanged a glance with one another. Then Johnny smiled and began rubbing his hands together.
“I like where this is heading already!”
“Hold on, what’s the target?” Takeshi asked.
“Sometime between one and three in the morning on April twenty-third, this coming Thursday, an armored vehicle will transport about five hundred million yen in old banknotes from the Bank of Japan’s Head Office in Tokyo to its Banknotes Operation Center in Toda City. But it’s never going to get there, because we’re going to intercept it along Route 5.”
The Drowning City (Tokyo Noir Book 1) Page 11
