The Drowning City (Tokyo Noir Book 1)

by J. Scott Matthews

  “What a humanitarian.”

  “And naturally, if someone is wanting to frame me, is in my best interest to stop them. Is not so hard to understand, no?”

  Mei scoffed. “Framing you? All the evidence points to you being the killer.”

  “Of course it does. That is what framing means. I am gentle man, soft like lamb. Everyone say so.” He looked over his shoulder at his assistants, who both nodded vigorously. Though the woman seemed to be suppressing a smile.

  “I could not hurt fly,” Vasili continued with a smile. After a beat, the smile vanished, replaced by a malevolent intensity. “But if I wanted someone to hurt fly for me, I could have it done quietly, professionally. Bam!” He smashed one massive hand down on the table hard enough to make the window rattle. “No more fly! No more problem! So why would I kill fly in obvious way? In unprofessional way?”

  Mei considered this. It was a point that had been gnawing at her. This wasn’t the usual style of killings from the Kaisha, but she had largely brushed over this in her haste.

  “So how do you see this … collaboration working?” she asked.

  “We share, like good friends do. I tell you what we know, you tell us what you know. We work together to put this murdering bastard away faster. Is less deal with devil and more … let’s say mutually beneficial collaboration.”

  “With the devil,” Mei added.

  “Sure, fine, whatever. What is your answer?”

  Mei didn’t reply right away. Her head was swirling, and she was being pulled apart down the center. There was no way she could deal with this scum. But if she didn’t …

  “Okay, let me try that again,” Vasili said.

  He was growing irritated, losing his patience.

  “I rephrase. We work together to catch killer faster, which is in both our interests. Is option one. Or you go to ghost town that used to be Fukushima, where you join hazard crews. Is option two.”

  Mei still said nothing.

  “I hear that since it catch fire it has burned for nearly four years straight now. Radiation so bad nothing survive long there. Everything gray, dead, lifeless. Of course, maybe you like it there. Maybe you thrive in that environment, I don’t know.”

  Mei swallowed hard and put her elbows on the table. She covered her mouth with her hands.

  “If I do this for you, it’s a onetime thing. We work together on this and this alone. Once we catch this bastard, I go right back to trying to put you away.”

  “Detective Kimura, I expect nothing less from you.” He leaned forward with one giant paw held out. “We have deal?”

  Mei had to swallow harder this time to dislodge the lump in her throat. She stuck out her own hand, which was quickly swallowed up by his.

  “We have deal,” she said sadly.

  “Oh, is not so bad. We can do good work together. Fight evil, save lives. Two heads are better than one, yes? Is saying.”

  “Sure. Another saying goes something like ‘People who fight monsters should be careful to not become one themselves.’”

  The woman smirked. “Close enough, I guess.”

  Vasili looked at Mei for a long while without speaking. Then he smiled.

  “So I am monster? Yes? You think I am criminal? Hmm? Want nothing more than to see me in jail, right? Well, you may get your wish, but be careful what you wish for. Maybe you think you know how world works. You think is good guys and bad guys, and you’re good and I’m bad. But real life … is more complicated. Shades of gray within shades of gray.”

  Mei scoffed, trying to look hard. “I never would have made a deal with the devil if I had known he was so fucking boring.”

  Vasili laughed. “That’s funny! You’re funny! Funny policewoman!” His smile died suddenly. “You can laugh, but I will say this: when you peer behind the curtain and see the machinery actually at work, it changes you. Because only thing worse than this machine running is if it were to grind to a halt.”

  And without another word, Vasili and his assistants departed. Mei was left Mei to puzzle over his cryptic comments, in the apartment that she no longer felt safe in.

  She honestly didn’t know if selling her soul to keep her job was the right choice, but she sincerely doubted it. She found herself wondering what her father would do in this situation. That just upset her more, because she knew even he would have walked away from this with his integrity intact. But not his daughter.

  No longer needing to act tough, Mei walked to her bedroom and looked out from the window. The bright lights of the city reflected off the tears that streamed silently down her cheeks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Got it!” Hino shouted.

  He was finally able to get a bullet to ricochet off the concrete below into the other truck’s tire. He knew he’d hit it because the outer tire instantly sagged as it deflated, then got sucked under the inner tire. This caused the truck to lurch away from them, giving his driver a chance to pull their vehicle to the right somewhat before the other vehicle recovered and slammed back into them.

  The driver stood on the brakes. And while they were still wedged between the two trucks, they seemed to have better contact with the road now. So when he jammed on the brakes, it sent their vehicle careening from side to side, pulling the other trucks with it.

  “Can you stop us?”

  “I’m trying!” the driver shouted.

  He began pumping the brakes, which caused the three large vehicles to shudder and shake back and forth. But somehow the other trucks still had them wedged up enough to keep them rushing forward like a runaway train.

  “What about just holding the brakes down?”

  “Here goes!”

  He slammed on the brakes. All three vehicles slowed down, but it wasn’t enough to stop them. Hino wondered just what the hell had they done to soup those trucks up enough to get such power. They were hauling a nine-ton armored vehicle between them like it was a plastic toy truck.

  “Can you take out another tire?”

  “I’ll try!” Just then something occurred to Hino. “Hey, Tomioka, how you holding up back there?”

  No answer.

  “Tomioka?”

  “Fuck!”

  “Hold it steady up there!” Satoshi shouted.

  “They got one of my tires! And I think … fuck, yeah, I’m leaking fluids here.”

  “What?” Johnny said.

  “Gas. My tank is draining fast. Make it quick!” Pura shouted.

  Moving as quickly as he could, Satoshi unhooked the bag of cash and lashed it in place on the truck bed with the bungee cords. He was just about to swing back to the armored vehicle when he saw Takeshi fumbling to clip himself into his own crane arm, which had a duffel bag hanging from it.

  “Hey, secure that b—”

  Satoshi never finished the sentence. What he saw took the words out of his mouth.

  Satoshi saw the next sequence of events through the filter of his altered perception, courtesy of the Dextro-MXE thudding through his veins. Each moment of it was seared into his brain as if in single-frame camera stills.

  Takeshi’s hands fumbling with the carabiner.

  Click.

  Takeshi’s chest arching out, as if pushed from behind.

  Click.

  Takeshi’s eyes widening in surprise as another slug caught him higher.

  Click.

  The force of the slugs pitching Takeshi’s body forward, while in the same moment the strap from his harness fell from his grip.

  Click.

  Takeshi’s eyes bulging outward in surprise and shock, as a third round slammed into the back of his neck. The bag burst on the pavement in an explosive flurry of paper money.

  Click.

  A red flower blooming out of Takeshi’s neck.

  Click.

  The crimson blossom flowering into thin strands of blood in the air. Takeshi’s body continuing its downward descent to the waiting pavement below.

  Click.

  Satoshi sc
reaming.

  When Takeshi’s body hit the pavement, it looked like it was torn backwards away from the speeding vehicles. Satoshi turned back around, pulling his sidearm from its holster as he swung back over to the hole in the armored vehicle.

  He tried to ignore the sounds of Takeshi’s body thudding against the pavement, the sounds of his bones breaking. He was still screaming, though by now it had turned into a roar of fury. Somehow, he could still hear Takeshi’s body over everything else.

  He saw the guard propped up in the back of the vehicle, his gun raised. Satoshi unleashed a volley of gunfire. The first two caught the guard high in his vest, and the third went by his left ear and hit the metal wall behind him. But the fourth went through his face mask, about where his eye would be. The inside of his clear face mask was suddenly coated red.

  “What’s going on? What happened?” came a shout over the headset.

  “Takeshi … they got … Takeshi,” was all he managed to say.

  “Oh fuck, man, no,” Johnny said.

  “Finish up and get out of there,” Pura said. “I’m leaking fast. Don’t know how long I have.”

  Just then the armored vehicle heaved to the right. Satoshi grabbed another one of the bags and made his way towards the back. The vehicle was lurching heavily now as the driver pumped the brakes repeatedly.

  “Satoshi, get out of there! They’re almost free!” Pura yelled.

  Moving as quickly as he could despite the unsteady motion of the vehicle, Satoshi hooked the bag to the crane, then lunged back for another. Now both Pura and Johnny were yelling at him over the headset. The vehicle was slowing considerably. He grabbed another bag and ran back to the exit. The armored vehicle’s tires were screeching on the pavement as it ground to a halt.

  Without clipping his harness in, Satoshi grabbed the hook at the end of the crane with his free arm and pushed off. A split second later, the armored vehicle worked its way loose from the trucks and came to a screeching stop. The crane hit its stopper and rebounded back, sending Satoshi and the bags of money back towards the vehicle.

  Satoshi missed hitting the now-electrified vehicle by inches, but one of the bags suspended from the hook touched it. It erupted into flame upon contact, sending flames arcing past Satoshi’s face. It took him a few tries before he was able to hook his foot around the trailer bed and pull himself back onto Pura’s truck.

  Back on the truck, Satoshi unhooked the flaming, burning bag of money and let it fall on the highway behind the vehicle. It fell to the ground, igniting the thin stream of gas leaking from under the truck. This sent a stream of fire racing down the highway in the direction they had come. He looked on as it went back past the armored vehicle that was now safely electrified. Satoshi watched it all the way until they pulled off the expressway to limp home in their battered trucks.

  Satoshi ripped off the headset and threw it down on the bed next to him. He put his head in his hands and began sobbing.

  “Rubber rounds?!” Johnny shouted. “What the fuck were you doing using rubber bullets?!”

  “I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

  “And instead you killed one person and got our friend killed in the process!”

  Satoshi didn’t answer; he just looked at the floor.

  “Did Takeshi know?”

  “Johnny,” Pura said from his corner.

  “No, did Takeshi know you were using nonlethal rounds? Did he get a say?”

  “No. He didn’t know.”

  Johnny just clenched his fists above his head and walked around as if he was debating whether to put them to use. After pacing around for a while, he finally collapsed into a chair, seemingly spent.

  “How much did we get?”

  Pura looked up from the table in the corner where they had the money laid out. He just shook his head. “Not much. Not much at all.”

  “What? We got two big bags!” Satoshi said.

  Pura held up a handful of raggedy bills. Some of them were too filthy to even register as banknotes. Others had been torn, ripped, mangled, or shredded beyond usability.

  “Fuck, man, look at this shit!” Johnny said.

  Pura nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say only about half of the bills are still spendable. And most of what we got were one-thousand-yen and five-thousand-yen notes. We made about enough to repair the damage done to the trucks and bury Takeshi.”

  Satoshi looked at the worthless money and felt his stomach sink. The sickening loss of his friend and the aftereffects of the Dextro-MXE combined to produce a feeling of intense nausea in him.

  “Fuck!” he screamed, pounding the table with a closed fist.

  He picked up a metal trash can and threw it against the wall. As it fell dented to the floor, he collapsed forward and screamed in anger and frustration.

  “Why? Huh? Why the fuck did that guard kill Takeshi to protect useless money? Huh? Why the fuck did I have to kill? For what?”

  Nobody had an answer.

  “Fucking senseless, is what it is.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When Mei awoke after a few hours of uneasy sleep, she felt sick to her stomach. Too bad, she told herself. Enough of this self-pitying bullshit. You’ve got work to do.

  Because she had a serial killer to catch before he killed again. Because she had to catch him while a gangster (who might be behind the killings himself) loomed over her shoulder. Because she had to do it under the watchful gaze of a senior superintendent who hated her, with a partner whose trust she had burned to the ground.

  Illegitimi non carborundum, she told herself. That was her new motto. And she better fucking live it if she hoped to catch this bastard.

  This brave new outlook of hers lasted the entirety of the train ride into Shibuya, right up until she approached the NPA building. The exact moment it disappeared was when she saw Endo standing on the front steps, talking to Kentaro. Kentaro nodded curtly and excused himself, leaving her with Endo.

  “So.”

  Endo said it as neither a question nor a statement. It sounded more like a challenge that hung in the air.

  “So.”

  “You’ve made your decision.”

  “I have. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Endo nodded. He smiled.

  “I did. Glad to have you on board.”

  “Hey! How’d it go? You rich yet?”

  Ryu’s smile dropped when he saw the expression on Satoshi’s face as he stood in the door.

  “Not exactly. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

  Ryu nodded and held the door open for him. Yellow light from the frosted glass windows streamed into the empty bar as the two men took a seat.

  “Oh fuck, man, oh fuck,” Ryu said when Satoshi finished his story. “And Takeshi, he didn’t … I mean, did he …?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  “Shit, man, sorry for the bad advice. I’ll go back to my contact and—”

  “That’s not necessary,” Satoshi said. “But I have another favor to ask.”

  “Anything.”

  “I need you to get a message out for me. To Masa.”

  “Hey, man, I don’t have a direct line to Masa or anything. I’ve seen him, I dunno, maybe twice in the last few months. He’s practically a ghost.”

  “Look, just get a message out there, okay? Whether it reaches him or not, that’s not on you.”

  “Alright, what’s the message?”

  “Just let it be known that I want to meet with him. A parlay. Tomorrow evening at five, at our usual spot.”

  “What spot?”

  “He’ll know what that means.”

  Ryu nodded. “Alright, I’ll do what I can. But I can’t guarantee nothing.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  Vasili sat in the back of his SUV, staring out the window at the city as the dark afternoon sky gave way to night.

  “What do you want to do about this sit-down with Chobei that Yoshii asked for?” Jun asked.

&
nbsp; Vasili looked out the window, then rubbed his brow. “It’s on, until further notice. As far as we know, he doesn’t know anything yet. Right?”

  “I’m almost positive it hasn’t leaked,” Kameko said. “We would have felt that earthquake if it struck.”

  “But is really no way to be sure, is there?”

  “No, not entirely.”

  Vasili rubbed his face with one hand, which came to rest over his mouth as he stared out the window.

  “Well, then, business as usual.”

  “But you could …” Jun trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  Jun turned around to look at his boss when they stopped at the next light. Vasili was disconcerted to see the look of concern on Jun’s face, where he was used to seeing only a stony calm. The crack in his assistant’s façade unnerved him slightly.

  “You could be walking into a trap.”

  “Eh, could be. But would be funny, if I got killed because of trap I set for someone else, right? Eh?”

  Jun and Kameko looked at one another in the front seat. Neither answered him.

  “Trust me, is very funny.”

  Hikaru was nearly falling out of his chair in the dive bar he used as the base for his operations. He was on hand to collect the take from his dealers, as they filtered in throughout the night to drop off their envelopes. Each one was stuffed with damp, grimy bills that had been exchanged in club bathrooms, under restaurant tables, and in back alleys for assorted pills and powders.

  Despite his drunkenness, it was not lost on him that much of this money was coming from the pills that his cousin Takemi had brought to him.

  He wanted to be anywhere but here right now, but he had to keep the money flowing. He had to collect the take so that he could give his cut to that Russian fuck. Just the cost of doing business. Without the syndicate’s muscle behind him, he would be on his own. Then he and his dealers would be pushed off their territory. Not that the protection afforded him had done anything for Takemi.