by Sam Waite
"Anyone else?" I asked.
Sayoko chewed the edge of her thumb.
"The more we know, the safer you'll be. The safer everyone will be. Dorian did not kill Hosoi-san. Help us find who did."
"What if..." Sayoko kept her hand against her mouth. "Can you really protect a person?"
"Who?"
"There's a man, younger than me. Can you protect him?" Sayoko's eyes challenged mine.
I looked at Yuri for backup. She didn't respond.
"I'll do whatever I can. I can't promise I won't fail. I guess he's on his own now. Can you be sure he won't be safer with us?"
"Would you do what Maho-san did?"
I didn't think I was going to like the follow-up to her question. I was right.
"Would you die to protect him?"
How should I know? I'd played the odds of physical risk lots of times, but I'd always had a number to count my odds that was not a zero. I was never a witness, but I'd read of troops who had covered grenades with their bodies to save comrades. "Greater love hath no man," or was it something else that motivated them?
"I said I'd do whatever I can. I won't know what that is until it happens."
"That sounds like..." Yuri struggled for a translation. "Aimai, it sounds like you're giving yourself a lot of leeway."
There were a few people I held myself accountable to, but Sayoko wasn't on the short list. "If she wants guarantees, tell her she got born into the wrong universe. What did she mean about Maho protecting this guy?"
"She helped him with money. He had trouble over a loan. "
"What's that got to do with her death?"
Not much as it turned out. Sayoko believed that Maho had eventually gotten into trouble over money, because she had been sharing too much of it with our young man. Loose connection. When I asked his name and how to contact him, she was evasive. I persisted. She pressed her arms against her sides, folded her hands in her lap and stared at them a little too long.
Long enough for me to figure a couple of things out.
"Did you and he... I mean, did it begin before or after Maho-san was killed?"
"Before."
"And she still gave him money?"
"She didn't know."
In four or five thousand years of recorded history, the highest evolution of human relations that I could see were poker buddies. At least you knew who the cheats were.
Yuri stepped in and tried gentle persuasion with Sayoko. Eventually, we got the guy's name, Jun Eguchi. She also promised to introduce us. By time we got that settled. I was starved. Yuri checked with Morimoto and Nozaka and ordered sandwiches. It looked like a long night. They were still loading video.
When they finished, I grabbed one of the computers and ran a fast-forward to our confrontation with Yamazaki. It was interesting to see the expression he wore right when he had figured out the ruse. Otherwise, all we got were tired eyes and stiff necks, even though everyone helped out. Even Sayoko was hunched over one of the monitors.
Around ten o'clock, I'd had as much as I could handle. I tapped Sayoko on the shoulder and asked her to follow me. We went into the lobby. The basic Japanese skills I'd learned in the military had been coming back. They still didn't go far, but they'd have to do.
"Tsukaremashita ka?"
"Hai." She rolled her head and rubbed the back of her neck to show just how tired she was. "But I feel better than after...," she tried English and stalled.
"After seeing the apartment," I said. "You need a good rest. I'm staying in a nice hotel with a big bed and bath. You can take my room tonight, if you would like."
At first she frowned, then clicked, smiled and held out her hand for the key. "To omotta. Yuri-san to..." She touched one fist to her heart.
"Yeah, thanks."
It wasn't necessary to suggest calling it a night. When we got back to the work area, they were already shutting down the computers. Yuri offered me a ride back to the hotel.
"I asked Sayoko to spend the night in my room. She said okay." My idea of comic entendre. I thought I might get a rise out of Yuri, if only for a second. I didn't.
"Watch after her. I'm exhausted."
I stopped stone still.
Yuri kept walking. She didn't even turn around. She just put her hand over her shoulder palm up and curled her index finger.
Chapter 16
If the concierge was curious about my showing up at the hotel to pick up Sayoko, he didn't let it show. He just said "good morning" like he was pleased to see an old friend. Sayoko looked relaxed.
"Sleep well?"
"Yes, I wouldn't mind staying here again."
Wouldn't mind that myself. I'd have to give Abe a forwarding phone number to Yuri's place.
Sayoko had set up a meeting for the next day with Jun Eguchi in Jiyugaoka, a little village of craft shops and oddball restaurants. We met in one built with post and beam construction, thick wood planks and Japanese fare. I liked the place.
Eguchi was a third-year college student, about five-eight, skinny, with an average-looking face. He drank beer and talked freely. His parents had refused to buy him a motorcycle, so he had borrowed money from a loan shark, apparently without any idea of how to pay it back. He met Maho, and she bailed him out, end of story.
He was a link in events in which two people had died and Yuri and I had been injured and threatened with weapons. He wasn't the cause of that, but still I had wanted to hear something else. Maybe that Maho had given money to an underground radical, an impassioned young man railing at the Mandarins who had let Japan rot on the vine for decades, so they could keep their perks.
Or that he was a starving poet.
Or at least a rebel rocker who needed a new Gibson.
I wasn't looking for meaning, just a little more symmetry than a boy who had bilked a girl for a bike.
"Did Maho ever say anything about a video?" Yuri said in Japanese.
He wagged his head and slumped further down in his seat.
"Did she leave anything with you for safekeeping? A small box or package?"
"Iya, video nan te shiranai."
"Not just a video, anything at all," I said, and refilled his beer glass as Yuri translated.
He cocked his head and scratched behind his ear. Then he reached into his jean's pocket and pulled out a key ring.
"She asked him to keep that, but didn't say why or what it was to," Yuri translated.
The transfer of that property was as anticlimactic as the man himself. He slipped the key off the ring anchored by a plastic Budweiser logo and laid it on the table.
"Thanks," I said. "I guess we can go now."
Sayoko held back and said she wanted to stay.
Yuri looked uneasy, but she couldn't watch over her indefinitely. We all exchanged mobile phone numbers along with assurances to check in with one another daily.
Yuri and I headed back to her office.
"I don't understand," I said as much to myself as to Yuri.
"What?"
"The attraction to that boy, Maho, Sayoko. He acts like he couldn't make through the day without a guidebook."
"Who were you expecting, Erroll Flynn?"
Yuri had a way of throwing zingers out of left field. "He's dead."
"Yeah, but he was gorgeous before he got that way. I'm not a good person to ask. Eguchi's not my type, and the 'P' in my job title stands for private investigator, not psychologist."
"Right, but..."
"I'm a woman?"
"In spades."
"Not enough of a qualification, but I'll give it a shot. Do you know bosei honno?"
"No."
"It means maternal instinct. Bosei honno o kusuguru otoko is a man who is attractive because he tickles the maternal instinct of a woman. How do you say that in English?"
"You just did. I expect we have the phenomenon, but as far as I know, we don't have a name for it."
"Anyway, maybe that's it. Maybe there was a little rivalry between Maho and Sayoko. You shoul
d have asked her."
I didn't really care, except for the symmetry. What I did care about was the key. It was the original. The manufacturer would be easy to identify, and it had a serial number stamped on it. It was just a matter of time before we found whatever lock it fit.
Yuri figured a day, two at the most. "With any luck at all."
Luck is a two-face.
I wasn't expecting a call, so I had my mobile phone buried in a coat pocket and the ring set low. Barely heard it. Figured it must be Abe Granger.
"Sanchez-san?"
Not Abe.
"This is Kuroda."
"The cop who gave Yuri Taen a hard time."
"Forget that. Can you meet me tonight?"
"What time?"
"About eight o'clock. There is a club called the Crocodile between Shibuya and Harajuku."
"All right, I'll be there. Okay if I bring Taen-san."
"I look forward to seeing you alone."
I see.
When Yuri and I got back to Protect Agency, she looked the place up and printed out a map for me. Then she went to work on identifying the key.
I went to my hotel to type up a progress report for Abe. Actually, it was more of an event report. Things were happening but not much progress.
Yuri had advised me to give myself an hour to get to the Crocodile. I didn't have her confidence, so I left at six-thirty. It was easier than I had expected. The place was on a main street and had a conspicuous sign in front of a walk-down entrance to a cellar. It was a "live house," which means they had "nama bands." Nama means "raw" as in fish or "draft" as in beer. With bands, it means "in the flesh." I didn't want to think about the word associations.
There was a long bar that had a bulge at one end, a few rows of narrowly spaced tables and a pool table with a vinyl cover and benches around it. The owner wasn't particular about his decorations. A life-sized plastic reptile was secured to the ceiling, but it was an alligator, round snout, not a narrow-snout crocodile. A Texas Swing band was playing "Rose of San Antonio" and Kuroda was at the bar drinking an Asahi Dry beer out of a longneck bottle. No matter where in the world you were from, Japan had something to make you feel at home.
He waved me over. "How's the music?"
"Excellent." It was an eight-piece mini orchestra complete with strings, brass, woodwind and percussion. If I'd closed my eyes, I'd have thought I was in Austin. "The only problem is the vocalist. His voice is too pretty, no Bob Wills twang."
"I'm glad you like it."
The band had a good decibel level. We could hear each other talk. Even so, I don't think Kuroda understood much of what I said past "excellent," but that was enough. I ordered a beer and we clicked longnecks.
The singer looked like he was in his late fifties, about the same age as most of the customers. I'd liked to have interviewed that crowd to find out if they were here for the music or just regulars. I also wanted to know what was going on with Kuroda. I didn't want to be blunt, so I drank half the beer before I popped the question.
"What are we doing here, Kuroda-san?"
He looked offended.
"You're from Texas, right?"
"Yeah."
"Relax. Lay back, Luckenbach." He laughed at his own joke.
Either Kuroda was experimenting with Dr. Jekyll drugs, or the Metro PD was so short-staffed, he had to do the bad cop, good cop routine by himself. Whatever his motivation, he'd certainly done his homework. I didn't think he listened to a lot of Texas classic on his off time. Things might not have been what they seemed, but there was no point in letting paranoia spoil a good time. I ordered another longneck and chatted with Kuroda. The only foreigner in the band was the double-bass player. During a break, he stopped at the bar, and we started talking. He said the group was mostly studio musicians, solid pros who could play anything from Bach to blues. They liked to kick back once in a while.
"Laid back," I smiled at Kuroda and pointed to the bass player. Then I pointed to the floor, "Luckenbach."
The bass player switched to Japanese and left me tying to follow his conversation with Kuroda. After he went back for the second set, I told Kuroda that it sounded like the guy had been born here.
"He was. Maybe you should get to know him. He's not so dangerous as your other friends."
"I don't have friends."
"Yamazaki?"
It looked like Kuroda was finally ready to tell me why we were here.
"In the park with Taen-san and Mr. Allworth. What was it you gave to him?" Kuroda asked.
"Nothing."
"But you did."
"Nothing you'd be interested in. It was a canvas satchel with a deck of cards inside." Kuroda scowled. I didn't give him time for a follow-up. "It's the truth. Have you been having me followed?"
"No. Why did you give Yamazaki cards?"
"To..." Find out who planted the bugs in Lance Allworth's office. "To confuse him."
"If you're hiding information that I should know, it could be difficult for you later."
"Same as anywhere. You haven't had me followed?"
"I already said no."
Does that mean the bugs in Lance Allworth's office belonged to the police? How else would they have known?
"Yamazaki's not my friend, Kuroda-san. Is he yours? Are you confirming his report on me?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm looking for—"
"Justice, I know." I asked the bartender for my check. "Thanks for the invitation, good band."
"You don't trust me do you, Sanchez-san?" Kuroda-the-good-cop was smiling.
I didn't answer.
"In the park, you had two men taking videos. There was a bench about twenty meters from the statue where you met Yamazaki. It was to your right. One man was sitting on it. He was reading a newspaper. Did you notice him?"
"No."
"Check your video." Kuroda raised his beer. "See you around."
Chapter 17
It was late, and I was tired. On the way to my hotel, I tried to figure out Kuroda. I didn't have much success. Maybe it was a cultural matter, and he was having similar problems with me. He was probably having even more trouble with Yuri, a Japanese woman half-reared in the U.S and with a stronger will than a Missouri mule.
I ran through some scenarios to try to see through the haze. The only one that made sense was my first conclusion: the Metro PD had planted the bugs in Lance's office. That by itself might make sense. What didn't make sense was why a message dropped on the MPD had brought out Yamazaki. I fluffed up my pillow. A good night's sleep, a few dreams to sort out events of the day, and things would be clear in the morning. Right?
Right.
I woke up as confused as ever. I had coffee and a bite-sized waffle for breakfast and was out the door before my friendly concierge had reported for duty. I opted for a taxi to avoid the rush-hour train and arrived at Protect Agency even before Mr. Look-Busy Morimoto got in. I was eager to check our video for Kuroda's man on the bench. By now, I was on speaking terms with the receptionist, so I asked her if I could use one of the computers that we had loaded the video onto. I assured her I could identify the machine that I needed and that I could operate it without assistance.
She sympathized but said my problem was taihen, a conveniently slippery word that can mean either "grievous" or "great," and which Japanese use to describe anything from a hard day at the office to a spouse's death. She said things would certainly be better if everyone was as diligent as I was and came to work early.
My problem evolved into our problem. She deeply regretted the situation we found ourselves in, but she was convinced that any attempts to resolve the issue on our own would be hopeless. Shikata ga nai, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that we could do.
I was about to try to console her for causing problems, when Morimoto showed up.
The receptionist looked genuinely pleased to see him. At that point, I realized we actually had shared problems. I had needed a computer, and she had needed to think of increasingly
polite ways to tell me to get out of her face.
Hurrah, Morimoto.
I told him what Kuroda had said about the man on the bench. He didn't seem excited at the news, but he did break out one of the computers for me. I found a sequence of video that showed the bench. Bad angle, the newspaper he was reading covered his face. Yuri came in as I locked onto the next sequence showing the bench. The newspaper was lower. We could see his face from the mouth up. I stopped on the best shot and blew it up. Yuri and I both agreed that we were looking at the secretary from the FTC.
Like the dealer said, all bets are off.
"I'd figured the MPD had planted the bugs. New option, the FTC commissioner or his secretary hired a snoop like me." I was just thinking out loud, but Yuri must have thought I'd launched a trial balloon.
She shot it down. "In that case, how did Kuroda know when to show up?"
"How did any of them know? Why did Kuroda tip us off? He wants us to cooperate. What do you think about going along with him?"
"I don't like him, and I can't see why he'd help us."
"He helped ID the secretary?"
"You bait the line and when a fish bites, you set the hook."
"I'm not a fish." The notion chaffed.
"You might look like one to Kuroda. Maybe he thinks we have whatever Ito and her goons are looking for."
I'd feel a lot better if we did. "How are things going with the key?"
Yuri pressed her palms together in front of her lips and blew air through her fingers. "I left an order with our staff to trace it, but it was misplaced."
"You lost the key?" I was ready to dismantle her office like Sayoko's apartment.
"No, just the order. It was considered routine. I've sent another one."
"Let's get the key now, and keep it with us until we find out what it opens."
Yuri disappeared into the labyrinth of cubicles.
I started counting minutes.
I'd got to twelve and twenty-two seconds when she came back holding the prize between her thumb and index finger. "There's a man we work with on things like this."
"Lead the way."
The locksmith's shop was a kiosk, next to a shoe-repair stall, in what looked like a war-era department store. The proprietor had a gold front tooth and grinned like a snake-oil salesman. I felt like I was turning over a pearl to a caliche peddler, just another lump of carbonate.
