The Name of the Game Is a Kidnapping

by Keigo Higashino

  I took the TV remote in my hand and turned it on. The wide screen depicted a basketball match. I started changing the channel. A Nissei Automobile commercial played during an interlude in a sports program. It was for a sports car called the CPT. A popular female celebrity coolly drove through grasslands. Not a particularly well-made ad, it probably hadn’t been checked in advance by Katsutoshi Katsuragi.

  I faced the computer and connected to the internet. I used a search engine and tried looking up a website for the CPT. Sure enough, there were fans who had barged ahead and made a page. I went to one of them and peeked at its contents. The title of it was “CPT Owners Club.” First, a red CPT appeared at the top of the screen. It was an amateurish photo, most likely of the ride of the page’s creator. “A place where people who love the CPT can exchange info and relax. Please feel free to look around,” it said. The pages listed were “Latest Updates,” “Maintenance,” “My CPT Photos,” and “Bulletin Board.” What a great age, where anyone could transmit information. I clicked on “Bulletin Board.” Without delay, the posts appeared as follows:

  Looking forward to it (hummingbunny)

  Hello everyone. I told you all before, but a CPT will finally be coming to my house. I’m already imagining the feeling of hurtling down the highway and I haven’t been able to sleep for days. After I take my first ride, I’ll report back immediately. Hopefully I won’t get into an accident. (lol)

  Weird noise (sparkleprincess)

  I’ve been driving a CPT for two years now. Lately, I’ve been worried about the thermometer being high. I’m afraid of it overheating. Is anyone else having the same experience?

  RE: Weird noise (streetracersamurai)

  sparkleprincess, my beloved car has been showing similar symptoms. It seems that the CPT’s physique (?) puts pressure on the radiator. But it’s never overheated. If you’re worried, you could try getting it inspected (sucky advice, I know).

  The people, who had been given a toy called the internet, were dribbling their infantile, sickly sweet sentences as usual. But exactly the same types might be spewing savage and nefarious words elsewhere. They were best left alone.

  I saved the URL and, for the time being, disconnected.

  I pulled the ransom letter from earlier up on the desktop. After looking at it for a while, I continued it as follows:

  If you intend to comply with the transaction, access the URL below and use Juri’s name on the bulletin board to state your intent. Upon confirmation, you will receive a response.

  Site name: CPT Owners Club

  URL: http://www…

  “How’s that?” I turned around and looked at Juri.

  After reading it over several times, she nodded her head up and down. “I see. It won’t make anyone suspicious, and you’ll be able to confirm their intent.”

  “Kidnappers in the past often used newspapers. They’d demand a classified in one of the major dailies, with copy like ‘So-and-so: Problem solved, come home asap.’ But with that, you have to wait until the next day. By using an internet bulletin, we can obtain confirmation immediately, and more than anything, it’s cheaper for the victim. It’s become a convenient world.”

  I turned on the printer and tried printing.

  “Wait a second,” Juri said, placing her hand on my shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  “I have just one request for the ransom letter.”

  “A complaint, miss?”

  “I’m not satisfied with the ‘your dear daughter’ part. Write my name properly. Say ‘Juri.’”

  I read the wording over again. Then I shook my head. “We can’t. If it’s ‘Juri’ then it feels slack. Why not ‘your dear daughter’?”

  “I’m not their dear daughter,” she insisted, facing down.

  “I’ll say this again, but the kidnappers don’t know about your upbringing. They think of you as the Katsuragis’ precious girl. I don’t think it’d be unnatural for them to put it that way. In fact, calling you ‘Juri’ would be odd.”

  “Anyway, I don’t want it like that.”

  I sighed. “Then how about ‘your daughter’? That’d be fine, yes?”

  But she wouldn’t nod. “I’m Juri. Juri Katsuragi. I’m not really their daughter.”

  “What a pain…” The girl was giving me a headache. “Fine. Then it’ll be ‘Juri Katsuragi.’ I won’t add ‘Miss.’ No honorifics. Agreed? That’s the most I’ll compromise.”

  Juri nodded slowly. “Agreed.”

  I shrugged my shoulders, then tapped on the keyboard and modified the text. Damn if I understood how girls her age felt.

  I read through the ransom letter again, and verifying that there were no typos, I printed it out. After checking the ink quality, I handed it to Juri.

  “You’re sending this with an actual fax machine? Not your computer’s fax modem?”

  “Just in case. I don’t want them specifying my computer due to the document format. Also, in my experience, faxing a document of this length takes no time at all. If something happens, the line can be killed quick, too.”

  With a pair of scissors, I carefully cut off the margins in order not to eat up extra transmission time. Then I sliced the sheet into eight pieces at random.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Well, just watch.”

  Pulling out cellophane tape, I reassembled the pieces in a haphazard order with some facing the wrong way. I set the patchwork in the fax next to the computer.

  “You’re sending it from here?” Juri asked in a surprised voice. “Won’t they trace it?”

  “I made it into this patchwork so they won’t. Even if police are waiting at the Katsuragi household, they won’t know what it is at first, right? Once they put together the jigsaw puzzle and realize it’s a ransom letter, the phone will have hung up.” I looked right at Juri. “My contract for this phone withholds the caller ID, so as long as I don’t press 186 beforehand, the number doesn’t show up on the other side. Now then, let’s have you dial. You’re going to send this fax yourself.”

  “Why are you having me send it?”

  “I want you to be aware you’re complicit in this crime. You said you’d go along with my plan, but once you actually have to commit to it yourself, you might balk. I can’t have you saying you changed your mind after I’ve sent the ransom letter.”

  There, I pointed at the fax.

  Juri bit her lower lip. She glared at me. I just sat on my chair and looked back at her. My own way of doing things was to secure an out even if I was attempting something risky.

  Juri exhaled. “I have something that I want to do before sending the fax.”

  “Are you going to take a shower and cool your head?”

  “I want to go to my house.”

  “A-ha.” I made a disappointed face. “Are you missing home after getting this far? In that case, it can’t be helped.” I took the ransom letter out from where it was set in the fax and made to tear it apart and throw it away.

  “Wait, it’s not that. It’s not that I want to go home. I just want to see it from outside.”

  “Same difference, you’re balking. If you’re like that, we can’t win this game.”

  “I told you it’s not like that. You just don’t get it.” Losing her patience, Juri shook both her hands. “I don’t intend to run away from this game. I want revenge on that family, too. What I want to check is whether Papa is in the house. Because if you send that fax when he isn’t, then it’s meaningless. Like I told you, the fax machine is in his study, and no one can touch it without permission.”

  “Hunh.” I returned the ransom letter back to the fax’s top. “But it’s not like your dad wouldn’t ever come home. He would sooner or later and notice the fax.”

  “But I don’t like not knowing when that’ll be. Until I know Papa’s read the ransom letter, I won’t be able to calm down and sleep.”

  I put my index finger in my ear and scratched inside. I understood how she felt. “You wouldn’
t know whether he’s home just by looking from outside, though.”

  “I’ll check the garage. If he’s home, his car will be there.”

  “I see.” I could only agree. “Is the fax combined with the phone? Or is it—”

  “Its own line. One digit different from the phone.”

  “When a fax is sent, is there a ring?”

  Juri shook her head. “There shouldn’t be.”

  “Then even if Mr. Katsuragi is home, he might not read the ransom letter until tomorrow morning. He’d be asleep at this hour.”

  “I want to check that, too. It’s been more than twenty-four hours since I left home, right? I want to see with my own eyes if they’re still going on with their daily lives like nothing happened.”

  “If the house’s lights are all completely on, then everyone’s worried, you feel moved, and you bail?” I asked in my best sarcastic voice.

  “I don’t think I’d ever, so I want to go see. Plus, it can’t be bad for the plan, either, to see how the house is before dispatching the ransom letter.”

  “What’s so good about it?”

  “We’d be able to check if the police are on standby.”

  I laughed. “You think they parked some patrol cars in front of the house?”

  “If there are detectives, wouldn’t the house have lights on at least?”

  “That’s…” I couldn’t say there wasn’t some truth to it. “But it’s dangerous. The police would definitely notice a suspicious car parking nearby. And your house has security cameras, too. If we get caught by those, then it’s all for nothing.”

  “We can just go past the front. That wouldn’t be suspicious.”

  I growled and folded my arms. I looked her in the face again. “What if I said no?”

  “Then”—she shrugged her shoulders—“it can’t be helped. Do things your way. But I won’t send the fax.”

  “Point taken.”

  I stood up and went to the window. I opened the curtain a little and gazed down at the nighttime city.

  Push or relent? If Juri was having second thoughts, I should probably abort this game. But to judge from her expression reflected in the glass, she didn’t seem scared. The girl had a devil-may-care attitude from the start, and it had been decisive in my coming up with this game.

  I turned back to her. “We need a disguise.”

  “A disguise?”

  “We won’t risk the one-in-a-million chance of them noticing you in the car.”

  She seemed to take my meaning and nodded with a smile.

  About forty minutes later, Juri and I were in a taxi. I didn’t use my own car because I was afraid of leaving any evidence on the cameras.

  En route, we conversed just to the extent that it wouldn’t seem unnatural. Our topics were soccer, TV dramas. We couldn’t come across to the driver as a suspicious couple. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to take any interest in us. Juri wore a jean jacket over a sweatshirt. They were both very puffy, but more than enough young people dressed weirder. I was wearing a leather jacket. To the driver, we were probably a dumb couple idly amusing ourselves in the middle of the night.

  The cab entered the Denenchofu residential area. Juri gave detailed directions in my stead. As the Katsuragi residence approached, sweat sprung on my palms.

  Finally, we saw the mansion ahead of us, on the right. But it wasn’t like we could have the car slow down.

  “Keeping going straight like this, please,” Juri told the driver. She put the hood of the sweatshirt over her head. She also pulled together the front of her jean jacket and drew her chin in to bury her face.

  Without losing speed, the car went by the Katsuragi estate on the gate side. In that short amount of time, we focused our eyes to observe the state of the house.

  After we’d passed it, Juri and I faced each other. She gave a slight nod, so I did too. It seemed that all the lights in the mansion were off.

  At a random spot, we got out of the taxi, walked a little, and then flagged another. On the way back, we were both silent.

  Having returned to my condo, we faced each other again by the fax machine.

  “Either way, the lights in your house were all off,” I said. “What about the car?”

  “It looked like Papa’s was there. If I didn’t see wrong, that is.”

  “In other words, Katsutoshi Katsuragi is home. He’s asleep in that house, then. While we’re at it, there didn’t seem to be any police for now.” I looked at the fax. “If we’re sending the ransom letter, this is the best time to do it.”

  “Can’t it wait ’til morning?”

  “With a new day, the situation will change. And you’ll feel anxious again. Now’s the time to send it. If we’re wasting this opportunity, the game is off.”

  Juri was looking at the ransom letter, thinking. I glanced at the clock on the wall. I intended to give her ten minutes. Giving her more time to decide was useless.

  Five minutes into the continued silence, she raised her face. “Got it. I’m sending it.”

  “You can’t take it back.”

  “You better not get cold feet, yourself.”

  “Want another toast? A pledge over a drink.”

  Juri shook her head and stepped in front of the fax machine. Checking that the letter was set and the status was on-hook, she reached her fingertips toward the number buttons.

  6

  After spending several hours not knowing whether I was asleep or awake, I got up from the sofa. Like usual, I did my calisthenics, pushups, and sit-ups. As I was sprawled on the floor, trying to catch my breath, Juri’s face appeared above me. “Good morning.”

  “You’re up early. Or could you not sleep?”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Just wait. I’ll make something now.” I got up and went to the kitchen.

  The morning menu I decided on was toast, boiled eggs, and vegetable juice. Putting on coffee was a bother.

  Nibbling on toast, I started up the computer and checked my email. There were just two. Both of them were trivial messages. Because the automobile park had been scrapped, they were trying to get rid of me as though I were a has-been. I couldn’t let that happen. I would make a comeback no matter what.

  Sensing eyes on me, I turned around to Juri staring at the computer screen. I asked her what she wanted.

  “I wonder if Papa saw it,” she said haltingly.

  “Do you want to check?”

  “Yeah.”

  I double-clicked the browser icon at the top of the computer. I accessed the CPT Owners Club URL and checked out the bulletin board.

  Since the time I’d gone there the night before, there were two new entries. Neither of them seemed like a message from Katsutoshi Katsuragi.

  “There’s still no reply,” I said, closing the browser window.

  “Maybe he hasn’t seen it?”

  “I doubt that. If he keeps a fax machine in his study at home, he’s making the assumption that someone will contact him in an emergency. After he wakes up, he’d normally go check if something’s come in first thing. He must be staring at the ransom letter right now thinking of what to do.” I looked at the clock. It had just passed eight o’clock.

  I left the computer and washed down the rest of the toast and boiled egg with vegetable juice.

  “Let me predict what your father will do from here on. First, he’ll contact the police. He’s a man with quite some status, so he probably knows one or two people with a close police connection. I’d say an expert kidnapping investigator from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department would arrive at their house within an hour. In that time, your father will call his office to tell them that he won’t be coming in today due to personal business. Furthermore, he’ll warn them not to call him at his home unless it’s really urgent. He’ll call the help and tell her she doesn’t have to come in today, and order his wife and other daughter not to leave the premises. Well, something like that.”

  “What about contacting the bank?”r />
  “Are you talking about the ransom? Not yet. That’s after he’s talked to the police. And this is Katsutoshi Katsuragi. He already knows exactly how to prepare a sum like three hundred million yen. He’s probably at no loss for a helpful face at the bank.”

  I went to the bathroom, took a quick shower, and while shaving, thought of what to do going forward. For now, Katsutoshi Katsuragi would probably post on the web page. There was no mistaking his reply would pertain to the deal, but I didn’t think it would end there. He’d give conditions. I want to confirm my daughter is safe, and stuff like that. How would I respond to that?

  When I got back to the room after brushing my teeth, Juri was sitting on the sofa watching TV. It seemed to be a news program.

  “Are you going to work?” she asked.

  “Believe it or not, I have a day job.”

  “What should I do in the meantime?”

  “I want to say do what you like, but if you do, I’d be in trouble. First, don’t leave this room. That’s the most important thing. If someone calls over the intercom, ignore it. Don’t make or answer any phone calls. Keep those promises, and you can do whatever you want here.”

  “I’ll get hungry.”

  “There’s pilaf in the freezer and there’s prepackaged and canned food in the cupboards. Sorry, but make do with that for today. You can drink the wine and beer, but don’t go overboard. It’d be a bother if you got drunk and did something weird.”

  “I can’t go to the convenience store either?”

  “Just think of what we’re trying to do. It’s not plain hide-and-seek.” I put up my index finger. “Correction. It’s not what we’re trying to do anymore. It’s what we’re doing. The game’s already begun. We’ve crossed the line.”

  Juri gave back a sharp look as though to say, I know that. We were good as long as she could make such a face.

  I left the condo and got on the subway like usual. I looked at my reflection in the glass and was satisfied. No matter how you looked at it, it was the face of a man going to work. I didn’t see someone perpetrating a kidnapping and blackmailing a family. In what kind of world did a kidnapper head to work in an Armani suit?