Year of the Demon fb-2

by Steve Bein

  That was a strange phrase, one she’d learned as a schoolgirl in the States. There was no equivalent slang in Japanese, though there were plenty of sayings about losing face and saving face. Ironically enough, not putting her face on was the very thing that could cause her to lose face. But this morning there was a more pressing concern when it came to losing face: she’d made no progress on the Joko Daishi case. Her late night reading had been interesting, to be sure, but it hadn’t actually given her any leads. Joko Daishi was an enigma, his lieutenant Akahata was off the leash, and their hexamine was nowhere to be found.

  Sakakibara walked into the room, his characteristic long strides clopping like horse’s hooves on the linoleum tile. Everyone snapped to attention, including Mariko, who had to do a little more snapping than average, since she’d been slouching in her chair, ready to nod off. “At ease,” Sakakibara said, and Mariko redeposited herself in her seat in the back row.

  Her LT took his customary place behind his lectern, rapped a couple of manila folders on it to straighten their contents, and said, “All right, people, let’s get down to—what the hell, Frodo? Did someone exhume you this morning?”

  “Late night, sir.”

  “Where’s your partner?”

  “Maybe in the grave next to mine, sir. Haven’t seen him yet today.”

  Sakakibara ran his fingers through his stiff, wire-brush hair. “Oh, I can’t wait for this status report. What the hell, why don’t we start with you, and we’ll just get the embarrassment over with?”

  Mariko swallowed. “Not much to report, sir—”

  “Except that our investigation is rolling right along,” said Han. He pushed through the door in midbow and made repeated apologetic bows on his way to the seat next to Mariko’s. Walking while bowing while sitting was a tricky bit of choreography, and it made him look a little like a limping chicken.

  “Well, if it isn’t the late Detective Han. Sit your ass down.”

  Han immediately abandoned his course toward Mariko and zipped into the nearest empty seat. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Well? Status report. Out with it.”

  Han nodded, his floppy hair catching a little luff with each rise and fall. “Followed up on that supplier from that raid the other night. Remember him? Akahata? He’s the one the Kamaguchi boys tuned up. Easy to see why. Dude’s as crazy as they come, wrapped up in some weird-ass cult. So I did some background research on him. He’s a sanitation worker for JR, which—well, correct me if I’m wrong, Mariko—I’m thinking probably jibes pretty well with the whack-job cultist angle. Menial position, probably wants to feel like part of something larger than himself, wouldn’t even have to be a hundred percent sane to hold down the job, neh?”

  He looked across the room at Mariko, who nodded and said, “Agreed.” She didn’t like Han’s tone. He was going somewhere with this, and Mariko had a sneaking suspicion where.

  “Anyway,” Han said, “he lawyered up yesterday—or the cult sent its lawyer, anyway—and we thought he was out of pocket for good. But last night I caught a lucky break: one of my CIs fingered the guy. He’s holed up in a place in Kamakura, and right now he’s got no idea that we’re on him.”

  Mariko deliberately averted her gaze, looking at the floor lest she accidentally make eye contact with her lieutenant or her partner. Sakakibara would see guilt in her face, and Han would see a bitterness that would rapidly reach a boil. She knew exactly why Han “caught a lucky break.” He’d broken the law. He must have tailed Akahata and his lawyer, Hamaya Jiro, from the hospital, even though Hamaya had made it perfectly clear that doing so was illegal. Akahata wasn’t officially a suspect. His only direct connection to a crime at this point was as the victim of a host of assault and battery charges. Mariko had considered tailing him anyway, because just like Han, she’d known Akahata was their best lead, and letting him disappear would douse what glimmers of hope they had in their investigation. But unlike Han, Mariko hadn’t followed him. Now it made her angry just to be in the same room with him.

  “Hell of a catch,” said Sakakibara, his tone suspicious. Mariko didn’t know what to hope for. Did the LT know the same background information Mariko knew? If so, the whole unit was about to see Sakakibara slam Han on his back, grab him by the throat, and show him who was leading the pack around here and whose rules they were going to follow. Sakakibara might have been a prick, but he was good police, and he hated seeing perps slip away because one of his officers took liberties with search and seizure.

  But if that happened, questions would come Mariko’s way. She’d have no choice but to answer them honestly, and that would sink Han’s career. Up until ten seconds ago, Mariko had trusted Han implicitly, unwaveringly. He didn’t deserve a torpedo from his own partner.

  “You got anything on this guy that’ll stick?” said Sakakibara. Mariko tried to read his tone and couldn’t. Was it a commanding officer’s legitimate question at a morning roll call or was he trying to trick Han into setting himself up for the kill? How much did Sakakibara know about their investigation?

  “Still working on that, sir,” said Han. “Obviously we’ve got him at the packing company, and somebody over there is guilty of felony possession. All that speed has to belong to someone.”

  “Akahata?”

  “Right now everything we’ve got on him is circumstantial, but we think we’ll find more. Oshiro figures we can connect him to a string of hexamine buys. We’re thinking MDA.”

  That got an approving nod from the LT. “Nice. Both of you, well done. Keep me posted.”

  And then the meeting went on. Kamaguchi Hanzo’s packing company was front and center, and most of the updates had to do with the raid and its various follow-up investigations. Mariko listened to none of them. She kept her gaze studiously on the windows, preferring the sun’s glare to glaring at her partner.

  But she could only avoid him for so long. Soon enough the meeting adjourned, the troops filed out, and Mariko was left alone in the room with Han. “So,” he said, “you want to get a donut or a coffee or something? I didn’t eat breakfast.”

  “Eat shit,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “You tailed him? What’s wrong with you?”

  Han looked hurt. “Hey, it’s not like that.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe this. You just so happened to hear from a CI who just so happened to, what, park his car across the street from Akahata?”

  Han shrugged and smiled. “Actually, that’s pretty close to it.”

  “And then for no particular reason your CI calls and says, ‘Hey, is this guy a person of interest for you, by any chance?’ Because I’m sure that happens all the time, Han. Perps who slip through the system suddenly get ID’ed even when no evidence points us back in their direction.”

  Now Han looked sincerely wounded, and embarrassed besides. “Mariko, will you keep it down? Let me explain—”

  Mariko pushed him away. “I trusted you.”

  “And you’re right to. I swear to you, Mariko, I didn’t tail him.”

  It came as a splash of cold water in the face of her burning resentment. He was telling the truth. Mariko prided herself on knowing when people were lying, and Han wasn’t. That fact wasn’t enough to calm her, but it was enough to make her sit back down. “You’ve got ten seconds. Start talking.”

  Han sighed, relieved. “What’s the last thing I told you before I walked out of Akahata’s hospital room?”

  “I think you told the lawyer to go fuck himself.”

  “Okay, before that.”

  “I don’t know. Something about how Hamaya was aiding and abetting a criminal and you weren’t going to stand for it.”

  “Right.”

  “So you tailed him? Knowing we didn’t have probable cause? Knowing it was illegal?”

  Han sighed again. “For us. It’s illegal for us to follow him. But not for one of my CIs. And I’ve got loads of them. Plenty of them want me to owe them a favor. So I made a couple of calls
and I watched Hamaya and his client fly off into the wind. Just like you did. Only I got a phone call a few hours later.”

  “Han—”

  “What? What laws did I break? What regs? An ordinary citizen followed another one. That’s not illegal. Hell, if I’d hired a private eye, it would have been a cliché.”

  Mariko sank back into her chair, heavy with frustration and fatigue. She pressed her palms to her eyes and let her head sag until it hit the top of the backrest. “Do you really want to try explaining the difference between violating civil rights and violating civil rights by proxy?”

  “If it helps, I told my guy to stay well away. Keys in the ignition, doors locked, ready to drive off if anything looked fishy. All I wanted was eyes on the target.”

  “I don’t know, Han.”

  “Think of it like hiring a private investigator. I just did it cheaper than that. And a little faster. And if it was a PI, I wouldn’t have had to promise to look the other way on a possession charge or two.”

  Mariko burst out of her chair, ready to deck him. “Damn it, Han—”

  “Joking! Just joking!” Han hopped back and landed in a wrestler’s crouch, hands up high to defend against a sudden swing. “Sorry. Maybe not the best comic timing there.”

  Mariko gave serious thought to kicking him in the crotch. Then she thought better of it. It wouldn’t hurt enough. She pulled the stun gun off her belt. “You know, I’m pretty sure I could neuter you with this thing.”

  Han took an extra step back. “Sorry. Very sorry. I swear.” He relaxed his defensive posture, pulled one of the chairs around, and sat opposite Mariko. “So, you know, seriously, are we cool?”

  “Han, I don’t know. I don’t like you cutting it so close to the edge.”

  “This is narcotics, not beat cop stuff. We work with dirty people. Sometimes we need them to dime each other out, and we have to get out of their way and let them do it.”

  “And sometimes we need to put them on their way to doing it?”

  “Now and then, yeah, we do. Mariko, I know where the lines are. I might get close to them sometimes, but I promise you, I’m never going to cross them. Not while we’re partners. Okay?”

  Mariko looked at the floor and took a moment to think. Then, with a weary sigh, she looked back at Han. “Fine. But the coffee and donuts are on you.”

  “Extra coffee in your case. You look like you could use it.”

  30

  Mariko insisted on doing the driving, needing to feel at least that much control over how things were going. She had to admit that if Han hadn’t strayed so close to the edge, they’d have no leads at all. Kamaguchi Hanzo had already given her everything he knew. National Health Insurance had an address on Akahata, but until Mariko could charge him with something, there was nothing she could do with it. The same went for the address and phone number on Hamaya Jiro’s business card: there would be no wiretaps and no stakeouts without probable cause. If it weren’t for Han’s CI, they’d have nothing.

  “Tell me again about this CI of yours?”

  “Name’s Shino,” Han said around a mouthful of danish. “Weird kid. Totally obsessed with basketball.”

  “What’s weird about that?”

  “He’s not even your height. The kid couldn’t palm this coffee cup. But man, he sure likes wearing those jerseys. When you meet him, don’t call him Shino. Call him Shaq. Or LeBron. He’ll love you for that.”

  Mariko laughed and shook her head. Her world was full of nicknames. Kamaguchi Hanzo was the Bulldog. Shino was LeBron. Han’s real name wasn’t even Han. It was Watanabe, but four or five years ago Sakakibara saw his floppy hair and long sideburns and called him Han Solo, and everyone had called him Han ever since. Mariko assumed she’d be wearing the Frodo badge for at least that long.

  She found it strange how important naming a thing could be. It was illegal for her to keep tabs on the house Shino was staking out for them, but she was well within her rights to check up on a CI and make sure he was okay. Han seemed to look at his decision to deploy Shino the same way: perfectly fine if you called it this, against regulations if you called it that, clearly illegal if you called it some other thing.

  She didn’t like the thought of Shino sitting out there exposed, so she decided to shave some time off their drive by running code. There was no getting to him quickly; as ever, half of the drivers never noticed the lights and siren, and even if they had, the text from Shino said he was all the way out in Kamakura.

  “Call him,” Mariko said. “Make sure he’s all right.”

  “He said he’d call if—”

  Mariko shot him a look that other women might have reserved for a cheating husband who asked for a lift to his floozy’s apartment.

  “Right,” he said. “I’ll just go ahead and make that call, then.”

  “Good idea.”

  Shino didn’t respond to calls or texts. Mariko had half a mind to ask Kamakura PD to send a squad up to check on him, but by the time she got patched through to them and explained her request, she’d almost be at her exit, and from there she’d probably reach her destination before they did. She kept the lights running hot all the way there.

  The there wasn’t what she was expecting. They reached a ritzy neighborhood on a quiet street running the length of a ridge that overlooked Kamakura. In the gaps between houses Mariko could see the ocean, glinting in the morning sun. Some of these backyards would give an overlook on the Great Buddha. The bare fact that they had backyards meant that these people made more money than Mariko would ever see in her lifetime. The hot tubs in this neighborhood were bigger than her kitchen.

  “Are you sure this is the place?” she said.

  “You want see the same text I showed you a minute ago? He’s got to be right around—oh, got him. The shitbox.”

  Mariko looked where Han was pointing, and sure enough, there was a beat-to-hell Toyota Cressida parked along the curb. There was a maxim in police work: shitheads drive shithead cars. Given the choice of two vehicles that were having trouble staying between the lines, you pulled over the beater. That was where a highway patrolman was going to make his lucky drug bust, and that was where a narc was going to put his GPS tracker.

  “Hey, LeBron,” Han said, getting out of the squad to approach the vehicle, “you were supposed to stay awake, buddy.”

  Mariko pulled up on the opposite side of the Cressida. It was empty. “Han, what the hell?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe he got out to take a piss or something.”

  “Where? Look around you.” It was a sunny morning on a beautiful lane bordered by flower gardens, manicured lawns, and trees trimmed by professional gardeners. There was no sign of a public restroom, a Porta Potty, or Han’s CI.

  “You said he’d be okay. You said you told him to stay away from danger.”

  “I did. Come on, help me look for him.”

  Canvassing the area houses went quickly. Han rang the doorbells while Mariko circumnavigated the premises, checking windows. It was on the tenth house that she found something suspicious. “Han, did you say this kid likes basketball?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there’s a guy in this basement wearing a Lakers jersey.”

  Mariko knocked on the back door, waited all of two seconds, then kicked it in. With Han she cleared the place room by room until they found the way downstairs. The guy in the yellow jersey lay facedown at the foot of the stairs. His skin was bright red, almost as if he’d been sunburned. He was small, just as Han had described Shino, and he wasn’t moving.

  Something about the redness of his skin stirred deep in Mariko’s memory, but she didn’t have time to go fishing for it. She waited only long enough for Han to check Shino’s pulse. “Dead,” Han said, and he and Mariko moved swiftly through the house, clearing it room by room. If the kid’s killer was still on the premises, their first duty was to find him.

  The house was weird as hell. Every room said cult, though not a single aspect
of it matched what Mariko imagined they’d be getting into. A cult that pushed ice on its members to “liberate” them conjured images of a meth den in her mind, but this was no sunless, stinking fleapit. If anything, it was too clean, not like a hastily wiped-down crime scene but like an iPod fresh out of the box. Not a speck of dust to be found. OCD clean. Cult clean.

  The basement was huge, a wide, open space of white walls and soft white light. Round cushions stacked in the corner were probably for meditation. Judging by the stack and the floor space, thirty people could sit in seiza down here. Posters adorned the walls: charts of what looked like yoga poses, an arcane calendar based on planetary cycles, paintings of demons and prints of demon statues. Han took pictures of everything with his phone.

  The rooms on the ground floor looked like they belonged to another building entirely. Cute, quaint, lots of floral prints; Mariko’s grandmother could have decorated them. They had a model home sort of feel, more to be seen than to be lived in. And the second floor felt completely different again, as if the whole house were schizophrenic—or, more likely, as if the house was a cult headquarters whose owners intended it to seem perfectly normal to anyone peering in through a window. The master bedroom was clearly well used, designed to serve as part-time opium den, part-time sex dungeon. The paraphernalia amassed there suggested orgy-level participation in both activities. The doors fit so well to their frames that Mariko could feel the air pressure shift when Han opened the door to the master bathroom. The room was sealed as if to remain airtight, or perhaps to contain some other gas used in the orgies.

  Another bedroom housed a blown-up photo of a good-looking, middle-aged man with long, windblown hair, standing on a seaside cliff and performing yoga or tai chi or something in between. The photo was framed, and below it was an altar with candles surrounding a wide, shallow bowl full of odds and ends: coins, marbles, eights of hearts from a bunch of different decks of cards, a folded pocket schedule of the Yomiuri Giants season, car keys stripped from their key rings. Of particular interest to the narc’s eye were the ten or twelve little vials of heroin.