Tokyo Enigma

by Sam Waite

  Not everyone in Shibuya looked like they were on their way to audition for a boy band or a costume-play club. The coffee shop customers were dressed for office work. The only thing unusual was that about seventy percent were women. Yuri and the investigator with her were both dressed in black pullovers and black slacks. Maybe Protect Agency had a dress code that Morimoto hadn't heard about.

  Yuri introduced Ken Nozaka. He half rose and extended his hand, good grip. Not that I was attracted, but objectively, I'd have to say he was prettier than Yuri, skinnier nose anyway. Not a bad choice for someone to chat up a model.

  "What'd we find out?" I asked Yuri, but Nozaka answered for himself.

  "Where would you like to begin?" He spoke as though he'd stayed up all night practicing the elocution on that sentence. It was precise, but unnatural. I gave him another scan. He was lean but built solid. His nails were filed and his hair was neat, except for a few strands that fell across his forehead. He had probably counted them out and sprayed them into place. The imperfection that imparted perfect balance, like pouring a tablespoon of yin into two cups of yang. Nature didn't like purity.

  Me neither. Besides he was sitting too close to Yuri.

  "Did she know Dorian?"

  "Unfortunately, I could not find out. When I asked her too much about Miss Hosoi, she almost didn't answer."

  I was pretty sure he meant to say that she didn't answer most of the questions. Nozaka's dicey syntax made Mr. Perfection a little more likeable, but not by much.

  "Did she say why she didn't want to talk about Hosoi?"

  "No, she looked afraid, and—" He glanced at Yuri as though he was asking for permission to talk.

  She didn't respond.

  I did. "And?"

  "Yuri-san asked me to try to make a deal, so I offered to pay the model for sex. She said okay. I think she expected it."

  "How much?"

  Yuri nudged Nozaka's shoulder and leered at me. "You interested?"

  "If I have to explain every question, this could be a long day." I bit into the bagel, chewy overly processed batter, and flushed it down with trendy coffee that wouldn't know chicory from chives. As far as my stomach was concerned it was already a long day.

  "Just trying to help," she said.

  "How much?" I asked again.

  "At first she wanted fifty-thousand yen, but she agreed to thirty-five thousand. I turned on a little charm, and she came down in price, you know."

  "Not really. How long had she known Hosoi?"

  "She met her at Foxx Starr soon after Hosoi-san arrived in Tokyo. It was seven or eight months ago."

  "Just a minute." I did some math on a napkin. "Hosoi said Maho had eleven million yen in bank accounts. Even at fifty-thousand yen a pop, so to speak, that would take about two hundred and twenty tricks. Then there were living expenses."

  Nozaka shook his head. "It's hard to say. I don't think she was so professional. I think it was only sometimes for extra money. It is just my feeling."

  Yuri nodded in agreement. "Anyway, I doubt many johns would pay that much. If you want to know the economics though, we need to find out exactly what Foxx Starr does. If it only handles modeling and the girls do a little free-lance on the side, then I expect Nozaka-san is right. Once in a while, they pick up enough extra to keep themselves in Dior and Hermes accessories."

  "And if the agency's mostly a front for prostitution?"

  "Then they might get steady customers, but you have to figure the agency would get about half."

  I had nothing more to ask Nozaka. I thanked him, and he got up to leave.

  Yuri, however, had a final question. "So did you?"

  Mr. Charm smiled. "Of course not."

  Only his expense accountant manager would know for sure.

  Yuri called a real estate agent and asked about vacancies in the building where Hosoi had lived. She gave the number of Hosoi's unit and said she had heard it was available. The agent checked. The apartment had been vacated last week, but it wasn't ready to show. Yuri said she needed to find a place quickly and didn't mind seeing it before it was cleaned. The building was about a ten-minute uphill walk from Harajuku station in an area thick with trees. The entry was as Spartan as a warehouse and the elevators were built to carry freight. Most of the rooms had corporate nameplates on the doors. There was a wide hall with rooms on either side like a hotel.

  There didn't seem to be much to recommend the place until we saw inside the apartment. It had three spacious rooms. A balcony big enough for lawn furniture looked out over a sprawling park called Meiji Jingu. It cost a hundred ninety thousand yen a month, which was about the entire salary of a convenience store worker her age.

  Yuri started looking into cabinets and under counters. The agent explained again that the place had not been cleaned. Yuri said she was just checking the carpentry. The agent crinkled her forehead and started blinking like a butterfly on the wing. I asked her to show me the balcony. It had a nice view of lots of nice trees and nice houses and a really nice sky. She listened to me say "nice" for maybe four minutes, before her demeanor went from puzzled to vexed. She figured she'd been had, but couldn't figure out why.

  Yuri was looking in a cabinet under the bathroom sink when we came back in. She banged her head on the bottom of the sink, said "ouch" and "thanks," and we left.

  "Look what I found." Yuri held out her hand as we strolled on a nicely paved sidewalk. She dangled a plastic bull about as big as my thumb tip from a thin ribbon that ran through a loop on its back. For whatever reason, Yuri acted like she had an air-bubble of excitement inside her that she was struggling to hold back like a belch at a tea party. We'd only come to get an idea of Hosoi's living style and expenses, but for a bonus we got a plastic bull. Olé.

  "I might know where this came from." The toy was black and shaped with the powerful shoulders and narrow hindquarters of a fighting bull. Its horns were stuck through the basic mold so you could rotate them up and down.

  "Spain?" I threw a straight-line slow up the middle of home plate.

  "Originally." She ignored me. "There's a Spanish restaurant in Aoyama. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from here. I've been there a few times."

  "So?"

  "So, they serve a wine called Sangre del Toro, blood of the bull. The bottles have these babies attached." She wiggled our friend from its wee ribbon.

  "It's a long shot, but I'm impressed Señorita Taen. Shall we go?"

  "Vamanos, Señor Sanchez. Tengo hambre."

  "I'm very impressed."

  There was no convenient subway, so we walked. Most of the stretch was along a broad boulevard. The first major intersection had a condom specialty store called "Condomania" on the corner. Farther along were myriad curio shops and tearooms. Retail outlets ranged from high-rise malls to mom and pop cafes that were mostly on side streets just off the main drag.

  The restaurant, El Castellano, was a two-room niche on the second floor of a ramshackle building. It seated maybe twenty people and had been around a good while. The walls were white. Customers' graffiti in Spanish, Japanese and English filled in the spaces between old photographs of soccer teams and corrida posters. Mementos were stacked randomly like odd tools in the workroom of an eccentric inventor. Yuri and I got there as the last of the lunch crowd was clearing out.

  The proprietor looked to be in his early sixties, had a modest paunch and wore black trousers, a white shirt and a red cummerbund. He treated his customers like houseguests.

  "I'll start with fried sardines," I said.

  He clicked his tongue. "You don't like garlic?"

  "Garlic's fine."

  "Then you should have the sardines sautéed in garlic and butter, not fried." He made circles with his thumbs and forefingers, held his hands palms up. "They are so much better."

  I looked at Yuri. She smiled. She'd been here before.

  "All right."

  We also ordered grilled lamb and paella. I was scanning the menu for something else, but he sto
pped me.

  "That's enough. If you want more when you finish. You can order something else, but it's quite a lot here."

  The proprietor was an artisan first and a businessman second, but he was good at both roles.

  "Something to drink?"

  Yuri showed him the plastic bull. "Sangre del Toro."

  She had a photo of Hosoi in her shoulder bag and took it out. It was a long shot, but at least we weren't wasting time. We had to eat somewhere.

  The proprietor returned with the wine and sardines along with a baguette that we hadn't ordered, but which apparently he'd decided we needed.

  "Smells great," I said by way of small talk. "I'm Mick Sanchez and this is Yuri Taen."

  His manner became formal, and he bowed his head slightly. "Con mucho gusto, me llamo Miguel Herrera."

  It must have been the "Sanchez" part of my name. I might have done better in Spanish with Mr. Herrera, but I didn't think Yuri went much beyond "I'm hungry," so I kept to English.

  "We'd like to ask you about someone who might have been a customer, if you don't mind."

  The arch in Mr. Herrera's left eyebrow indicated that I had raised a delicate topic, but he didn't say no.

  Yuri showed him Hosoi's photo. "Have you seen this person?"

  "Of course."

  I flashed a smile at Yuri.

  "I live in Japan. I read newspapers and watch television. Everyone has seen her."

  "I mean, do you remember if she was ever a customer here." Yuri wasn't going down that easily.

  Neither was Mr. Herrera. "Perhaps we could know more about each other first."

  He didn't take the opportunity to describe his first pair of long trousers, so Yuri and I produced our business cards. I explained what we were doing and said that we had good reason to suspect Dorian might not be the one who had murdered Maho.

  Herrera had a daughter, and he was a champion of justice. If what I said was true, he might be able to help. He told us that Maho had been in several times, usually with women friends, but the first time he'd remembered seeing her she'd come with a man. It was a few months ago.

  "That's an impressive memory you have Mr. Herrera. Would you mind a game?"

  I asked Yuri to turn her face away and then asked Herrera to describe her. He aced it, down to a small scar on the side of her chin, to a crooked smile when she raised the right side of her lips and lowered the left, to a pair of beauty marks one about half the size of the other at the corner of her left eye. I was sorry I had asked. There was an almost embarrassing intimacy in the details of his description. Yuri didn't seem to mind though.

  "The beauty marks are quite arresting. You have lovely eyes." Herrera said when Yuri turned back around.

  "Quite arresting," the man said. This sixty-something polyglot restaurateur was speaking in his maybe fifth or sixth language and had Yuri on the verge of a blush. I hadn't noticed her "beauty marks." If I had, and if I'd thought to say anything about them, I probably would have come up with, "nice moles."

  Herrera turned to me. "Did I pass?"

  "Sorry." I was just being a twit. "Was Charles Dorian the man she was with? I expect you've seen his picture on television too."

  "The man was Japanese. Since I've decided to talk you, why don't I tell the story, as I remember it, of course, and you can ask questions when I finish?"

  I nodded.

  "First, I have a talent for recalling people. It helps in my business, you see. I know the names and favorite dishes, and favorite soccer teams for that matter, of more than a hundred repeat customers. My memory becomes even sharper when I see a beautiful woman."

  He stopped long enough to smile at Yuri, who grinned back like a loopy schoolgirl who'd just gotten an A plus from her pet teacher.

  "They weren't chatting as you would expect if they had been dating. Their conversation was more businesslike, too intense to be casual. I might not have noticed or remembered so well if what happened next had not occurred. I was just passing the table when the man lay down a thick envelop. Miss Hosoi opened it and counted out a large number of ten-thousand yen notes."

  He paused.

  "Is that it?" I asked.

  Herrera held up one finger. The sound of a bell from the kitchen had indicated the roast lamb was ready. "No, the man asked for a ryoshusho, a receipt for reimbursement from his company or for tax purposes. I made it out to Kamio Investigators, which piqued my interest all the more. And that, Señor Sanchez, is it. Un momento."

  He went to fetch the grilled lamb. When he returned, I was dipping a pinch of baguette in the sardines' butter sauce.

  "I see you like the garlic." Mr. Herrera stood by the table with his hands clasped in front of him and beamed as though I'd just agreed to be godfather to his first-born grandchild.

  "Nicely segued. Garlic is a much better topic."

  With a simple gesture, he had dispelled thoughts of homicide and the events that had led to it. They weren't welcomed among the savor of fish and spice and wine. Grand as they were, they were only complements to the homey ambience. It evoked a far-removed time and place in which the greatest aggravation of a young woman like Hosoi might have been fending off suitors recruited by well-intentioned matchmakers.

  Even Yuri put the case aside while we ate. "What was Laredo like? All I know is that song about a cowboy getting shot."

  "That was before my time. There's a lot of money floating around the city from Mexico trade, oil and gas, and ranches, but it floats high above the heads of most. It's hot. Before air conditioning it was a whole different world. People would leave their windows open, so you knew your neighbors' troubles and joys. Roofs were built as cisterns to catch what little rain fell. Before Falcon Dam was built, the Rio Grande would sometimes run as low as a mud flat."

  "Except for the lack of water, it sounds a little like Japan."

  "How so?"

  "More communal. In winter families would sit around a kotatsu, a low table with a heating element on the bottom. People put their legs under a blanket draped across the tabletop. It got toasty and didn't use much electric power. Windows stayed open in summer, you hear what TV shows your neighbors watched and when they took their baths. That is if they had a bath. Otherwise they'd pack towels and soap and meet at the local sento."

  "How did you get to New Orleans and come by that accent?"

  "My father ran off when I was too young to remember. My mother sold box lunches in front of a train station. When I hit the terrible teens, I was too rowdy to handle. Her sister lived in New Orleans with her American husband. They agreed to take me in. I thought the way people talked was standard English, so that's what I learned and I'm stuck with it. After high school, they swung a loan for college, and I paid it back."

  El Castellano's food was scrumptious, and Herrera's servings were more than ample. When we finished, he saw us to the door and invited us to join his repeat clientele.

  Yuri's mental excursions to happy times past apparently had more to do with Herrera's charm than with mine. When we hit the street, she was back on the job.

  "Herrera said Maho had gone in with a man from Kamio Investigations."

  "Yes?"

  "You might know that private investigators in Japan are not so tightly regulated as they are in the States."

  "I've heard."

  "So, there are a lot of different standards depending on the company. Caveat emptor, so to speak. Some are more legitimate than others."

  "Okay."

  "My company is one of Japan's top five. We have nationwide branches. Kamio Investigations is in the top ten. They are also nationwide. The difference is—and I'm not particularly proud of this part of our business—but if you want to catch your spouse in flagrante delicto, you come to us. If you want to hire someone to seduce your spouse, so you can get an easy divorce, you go to Kamio Investigations."

  "That's an interesting difference."

  "Uh huh. Just a sec." Yuri called her agency. "We've got an address on Ito's residence." She winke
d.

  It was late in the afternoon by the time we found the neighborhood of Foxx Starr's boss lady. It was in an upscale area of Yokohama called Yamate, with homes built on a bluff, on lots like terraced gardens. Reinforced concrete shored the hillsides to protect against earthquakes and typhoons. The bluff overlooked Tokyo Bay where freighters and cruise boats lined the harbor. After a few stops to consult a map on her smart phone, Yuri found the house. It was three stories, surrounded by a high wall. A few electronic security devices were visible.

  "Okay Yuri, seat-of-the-pants appraisal."

  "What?"

  "How much is it worth?"

  "Hard to say. It's not exactly the best home on the hill, but I'd put it at a bit more than ichi oku yen."

  "In dollars?"

  "Round numbers, one million, but I'm not a real estate expert."

  "Even if you're a little off the mark, that's pretty good cash flow for a two-room modeling agency."

  "Maybe Ito has a rich uncle, or sugar daddy, and runs the agency as a hobby," Yuri said.

  "She keeps odd company for a dilettante—tattooed lady and Panther."

  "Pan—?"

  I flashed the palm of my hand. "Stop. Just a tough-looking guy and a receptionist with a give-a-rat's attitude."

  There were no taxis cruising the red-brick road, so we walked down toward the harbor alongside Motomachi Park where lay a patch of graves called Gaijin Bochi, Foreigners' Cemetery, dating back to the nineteenth century. One Henry Ernest Harrier had been buried on January two, eighteen ninety-eight at the age of twenty-eight. I nodded to Mr. Harrier and wondered about his short, adventurous life. We couldn't shake hands. We were on different sides of a well-tended, wrought iron fence that marked the boundary of foreign ghosts in their tombstone ghetto. Death imitates life.

  "You think your agency could handle some snoop 'n poop?" I asked.

  "'Seat-of-the-pants appraisal. Snoop'n poop.' Would it be a whole lot to ask for you to speak English?"

  "Surveillance."

  "Didn't anyone tell you?"