Tokyo Zangyo

by Michael Pronko

  Takamatsu snickered. “Now you see why I can’t stand the guy.”

  “You think the chief knows something we don’t?”

  “If he does, it’ll be the first time.” Takamatsu turned toward the train station. “Let’s get something to eat. I’ll tell Sakaguchi to meet us.”

  “He shouldn’t be out walking around on his knee.”

  Takamatsu said, “He shouldn’t be cooped up in the office. He’s been working since three in the morning.”

  Hiroshi followed Takamatsu through the maze of small, casual drinking places that meandered toward Kichijoji Station. Each place fit a row of seats along a bar with a small kitchen and prep counter. Takamatsu always took the smallest streets when he could, and he seemed to know them all over Tokyo. Hiroshi ducked under the overhead signs and cross-braces.

  They took the Chuo Line to Asagaya Station. Outside the station, Takamatsu headed into another maze of alleys with standing bars and yakitori shops. The shops were so narrow they seemed to have been split off from one another, as if walls were chucked down dividing them into halves and halves again.

  “Why do you always take the most circuitous route through the smallest streets?” Hiroshi yelled up to Takamatsu.

  Without turning around, Takamatsu pulled to a stop in front of the entryway of a four-story concrete building, the largest on the street, but divvied up into a dozen smaller shops. Takamatsu looked at Hiroshi. “Because these small yokocho streets remind me of my youth. Anything wrong with that?”

  Hiroshi sighed and followed him into a small elevator.

  On the third floor, they got out and ducked under a huge sugidama cedar ball suspended from the ceiling. Inside, the wait staff called out, “Irasshaimase!” Hiroshi toed off his shoes. A long row of refrigerated cases filled with 1.8-liter isshobin sake bottles glowed under the display lights.

  “One from every prefecture,” Takamatsu said. “And then some.”

  The restaurant was still prepping for the first wave of diners, but Takamatsu’s smooth, chatty manner made it hard to keep them waiting until opening time. The detectives put their shoes in the wooden shoebox, took the hand-carved key, and followed a waitress to a floor table at the back.

  “I don’t think Sakaguchi can sit on the tatami with his knee,” Hiroshi said. “I don’t want to have to help him up.”

  Takamatsu aha-ed and asked the waitress for another seat. She led them to a table with an in-floor drop that let everyone’s legs hang below.

  The waitress came back with steaming oshibori towels. Hiroshi dumped his face into the soothing warmth and felt instantly better. He folded the white towel neatly on the wood table. The walls of the izakaya were covered with the names of sake brands brushed on washi paper. The names read like poetry across the dark-wood walls, the sake names drawn from classic literature, Buddhist concepts, and clever plays-on-words.

  The waitress left the day’s specials on a whiteboard propped beside their table. Takamatsu ordered beer and perused the board.

  When the two mugs of cold beer arrived, they clinked glasses and drank deeply.

  Takamatsu pulled his cigarettes out. “The bucho’s wife seemed like a wild girl in her time, not some ryosai kenbo.”

  “No woman lives up to that ‘good wife and wise mother’ ideal. You’re way out of date.” Hiroshi drank another slug of beer.

  Takamatsu pulled the ashtray over and lit a cigarette. “Yeah, but the next time you talk to them, tell them what great wives and mothers they are. They’ll be flattered.”

  “The idea of women has changed. The idea of motherhood, too.”

  “Changed to what? Drinking in the morning?” Takamatsu laughed and held his beer mug out for another toast. “That’s what we need you for, bring in all this fresh understanding of the new Japanese society.”

  “I thought it was my English and accounting skills.”

  “That was just a ruse.” Takamatsu laughed and swallowed the last of his beer.

  Hiroshi leaned back, feeling light-headed. He hadn’t eaten anything since the croissant and apple before dawn.

  Takamatsu waved the waitress over, eyed the handwritten specials menu and reeled off a list of dishes. She made a few suggestions, which Takamatsu took, and wrote everything down on small slips of paper she tucked inside the top pocket of her happi coat.

  “Nice way with a pen and paper, that girl,” Takamatsu said.

  She came back with two white ceramic cups, chilled, and an arm’s-length bottle of sake which she hoisted with one hand and upturned with her thumb over the top. “Daiginjo from Niigata.” She thumbed off the top and poured out two perfect cups, stopping just when the sake reached the rim and leaving the bottle for them to study the label.

  Hiroshi leaned over to sip, eyeing the blue circles at the bottom of the cup shimmering through the translucent liquid. Takamatsu brought the cup to his lips with steady hands, not spilling a drop. They gave each other a silent toast.

  The waitress brought small bowls with little white shrimp, two slices of tofu, and a sprig of steamed green vegetable. Hiroshi tucked quickly into the appetizers. A plate of sashimi arrived in a round blue-green bowl. Atop a bed of ice, the red, white, and silver flesh of the fish and shellfish glistened. Dark-green shiso leaves, a mound of daikon, a plug of wasabi, and yellow kogiku flowers rounded out the spread.

  Hiroshi poured soy sauce into dipping plates, mixed in wasabi and hovered his chopsticks, deciding which to go for first. The fish melted on his tongue, so fresh, he hardly needed to chew.

  Takamatsu, showing no sign of hunger or fatigue, took another swallow of sake and leaned against the backrest. “She knew it was coming.”

  “Who knew what was coming?” Hiroshi asked.

  “She didn’t seem surprised or upset at her husband’s death.”

  “The HR guy, Nakata, had already told her. And she was drunk.”

  “I wonder why she didn’t take his money and leave him long ago?” Takamatsu mused, finally taking a bite of the sashimi.

  “Money, the kids. The usual.”

  “What did the girl’s mother tell you?”

  “She took me to the roof.” Hiroshi washed another sliver of sashimi down with more daiginjo. She hadn’t said much. He should have pressed her for more details.

  “Did she cry?”

  “A little. Mostly she stared off at the horizon.”

  “Tears of revenge? Or tears of relief?” Takamatsu asked.

  “Just tears.” The sake was making him contemplate the ineffectual flow of the day. “We’ll have to talk to the girl Suzuna and Mayu’s other friends. And the father and the boyfriend.”

  “I send you out alone for once and you bring us more people to interview.”

  “Maybe the wire cutters will turn up.”

  “With fingerprints. That would be nice to get a suicide wrap on this and get back to other cases.” Takamatsu waved the waitress over for another round of sake. “That they’re missing is either sloppy police work or perhaps the killer’s attention to detail.”

  “Or maybe the security camera footage will solve this and we won’t have to interview everyone in the company.” Hiroshi could feel the sake sinking in. He needed to eat more.

  Takamatsu tapped his cigarette pack on the table. “Those companies are like cults. Everyone devotes their entire existence to the place. They won’t open up even if we talk to them for hours.”

  The front door opened and the wait-staff hustled over to welcome Sakaguchi. He leaned against the wall to take off his shoes. He couldn’t bend over to pick them up, so one of the waiters put them in the wooden shoebox for him and gave him the key. Hiroshi switched to Takamatsu’s side, so Sakaguchi would have more room.

  Sakaguchi eased himself onto the bench and ordered another plate of sashimi and more sake. “This damn knee. The brace barely fits around my leg. If I wrap it myself it takes an hour. And comes loose. If only I had my old sumo stable manager here, he’d wrap it perfectly.”

  The
waitress brought out fresh cups and hoisted a new bottle of sake for all three of them. The bottle cradled in both hands, she poured them out perfectly to the lip of the cup.

  They toasted.

  The second sashimi plate arrived and Sakaguchi ordered fried fish.

  Takamatsu said, “What did you find back in the safe confines of headquarters?”

  “You first. I didn’t eat all day.” Sakaguchi plucked up his chopsticks.

  Hiroshi explained everything they found, which was not much at all.

  “What about this Onizuka?” Sakaguchi asked.

  Hiroshi sighed. “Onizuka was unlikable, even his family said that. Enemies add up in the corporate world, Takamatsu just reminded me.”

  “How unlikable?” Sakaguchi asked.

  Takamatsu shrugged. “I’m usually for murder, but this could be suicide. Seems like a mid-life, mid-career thing, pressures of his position, money problems, a bad affair, maybe he screwed something up at work. For someone who has built a career on pride and position, it doesn’t take much to make leaping seem a solution.”

  “He could be making amends for the girl, Mayu, he bullied into suicide,” Hiroshi said.

  Takamatsu laughed. “A salaryman with a conscience? The only regret inside the corporate world is when profits don’t go up.”

  Sakaguchi ate as he listened. “All this doesn’t sound like much.”

  Hiroshi frowned. “Why is the chief insisting on us wrapping this up? He canceled my appointments.”

  “I heard from Akiko.” Sakaguchi took another gulp. “The chief called me two dozen times about this today.”

  Takamatsu lit a cigarette and shook his head in disgust. “Same as always, some bureaucrat called him and laid on that old-boy-network pressure.”

  Sakaguchi put down his chopsticks. “Onizuka had a blood alcohol level of zero point three eight.”

  “That’s coma level,” Takamatsu said. “He would hardly have been conscious, much less able to walk up the stairs or cut the fence.” Takamatsu put out his cigarette and rolled up his cuffs.

  “What about the camera footage?” Hiroshi asked.

  Sakaguchi set down his chopsticks. “There was nothing on any of the cameras.”

  The waitress set down a plate of grilled saba, flayed, the skin bubbling brown. She also set down a plate of hirame karaage, deep-fried flounder in golden bite-size pieces, and two plates of vegetable tempura stacked in a neat pyramid.

  Takamatsu said, “Are you sharing any of that?”

  “I ordered one tempura for you two,” Sakaguchi said.

  Takamatsu called the waitress over and ordered another grilled saba. Sakaguchi could finish one of the plump oily fish on his own, and the flounder too.

  Hiroshi said, “How could there be nothing on video?”

  Sakaguchi poured soy sauce on the grated daikon and stirred the dipping sauce for the tempura. “The tech guys said there were flashes of bright light, then black, and back to normal. They said the equipment was out of date, the backup faulty. But forty-two minutes showed nothing. Then the video worked normally again.”

  Hiroshi said, “But between the parking lot and the roof there were a lot of security cameras. It’s not easy to get to the roof and back without being caught on one of them.”

  Sakaguchi said, “All those blanks were maybe just glitches.”

  “Or maybe not.” Takamatsu hummed, holding his cup in the air. “Camera dysfunction is rarely that well-timed.”

  “You’d have to know where they were,” Hiroshi said. “Or work efficiently.”

  “The tech guys said they’d slow it down, enhance it and check again. The chief came down and yelled at them about it. Twice,” Sakaguchi growled.

  “Anything from the autopsy?” Takamatsu asked.

  Sakaguchi finished chewing before he answered. “By the time I got to the examination room, most of him had dripped into the collection buckets under the table.”

  Hiroshi set his chopsticks down.

  The waitress brought another bottle of sake. “This is from the owner. He said you are always welcome here.”

  Takamatsu smiled. “See, the perks of right livelihood.”

  “Now, you’re a Buddhist?”

  Takamatsu ignored him and joked with the waitress.

  She hoisted the bottle and poured three full cups. They bowed their thanks and toasted again.

  Hiroshi said, “We should talk to the lawyer who handled the mother’s lawsuit against the company.”

  Takamatsu smiled and waved his cigarette. “See, that’s the fresh thinking we want from you. Interview everyone.”

  Sakaguchi said, “You’re both going to Senden tomorrow. I had Akiko call and make an appointment. They were expecting you today.”

  “We should have gone.” Hiroshi hummed and frowned.

  “Better to let them reflect on their corporate sins until tomorrow.” Takamatsu raised his glass again for a quick toast.

  Hiroshi nodded. “Onizuka wouldn’t have harassed only one woman over the years.”

  Sakaguchi nodded agreement as he chomped into another large bite of fish.

  Takamatsu said, “And we need to go over his finances, don’t we? Money is at the bottom of every crime, Hiroshi keeps telling me.”

  Hiroshi took another drink of sake. “You’ve been secretly listening to me?”

  Chapter 6

  At the door of his apartment, Hiroshi fumbled with his key, wondering what his own blood alcohol level was. At the izakaya, Takamatsu and Sakaguchi kept ordering food and sake, and Hiroshi followed along. He lost count of the cups of sake and took a taxi home.

  When he got the door open he stepped inside, and the door slammed shut faster than he wanted.

  “O-kaeri-nasai,” Ayana mumbled.

  “Tadaima,” Hiroshi shouted, trying his best to sound sober.

  He bumped against the wall as he peeled off his shoes and walked into the living room with as much balance as he could muster.

  Ayana sat up from the sofa rubbing her face.

  “Were you sleeping?” Hiroshi asked. He pulled off his coat and tossed it on a chair. “Is the reshelving all finished?”

  “Reshelving the archives is never going to finish. Every day, there’s some lost manuscript box, some numbering problem. Today, everyone was too exhausted to do more. We went out to that big French bistro.”

  “Did you have steak frites?”

  “I did actually. And so did most of the others. We ate like we hadn’t eaten all day.”

  “Like a sumo wrestler.”

  “Is that polite?” Ayana rolled over on her elbow.

  “Well, the only sumo wrestler I know is Sakaguchi. And Sugamo. And both of them eat a lot. Don’t know what to tell you.” Hiroshi went to the sofa and squeezed Ayana’s legs so she’d curl them back and he could sit beside her. He leaned in for a kiss.

  “Are you drunk?” Ayana asked, recoiling.

  “No,” he said. “Are you?”

  “I had a couple glasses of wine. What did you have?”

  “Sake.”

  “How much?”

  “Lost count.”

  Ayana pushed him aside and stood up. “You smell drunk.”

  Hiroshi flopped down where she’d been and rolled onto his back.

  “Don’t fall asleep there.” Ayana walked to the kitchen and took the water filter pitcher out of the fridge. She poured a big glass and brought it to Hiroshi.

  Hiroshi sat up and drained the glass in one go.

  “Where did you go drinking?”

  “An izakaya in Asagaya that Takamatsu knows. He knows places all over the city, wherever we are. We were talking about the case.”

  “Seems like you always have to lubricate yourselves pretty well to discuss the case. How do you get anything done sober all day?”

  Hiroshi sighed and signaled for another glass of water.

  Ayana poured another. “What time did you leave this morning?” she asked.

  “Before sunr
ise.”

  “And you didn’t eat all day?”

  “That’s why the sake hit me.”

  “It wasn’t the number of glasses?”

  “That, too.”

  Ayana took the glass from Hiroshi, watching him.

  He drank the water, as he had the sake, dutifully. “Big guy in a huge ad agency dove off his company building. Turned to mush.”

  Ayana sat down on the edge of the sofa with the pitcher and glass. “I thought you were working on cryptocurrency? Nice, clean online numbers in your office?”

  “Chief yanked me off of that. He’s a fucking asshole.” Hiroshi used the English.

  “You’ve said that before. Which ad agency?”

  “Media company, they’re now called. Senden Central, Infinity, whatever.”

  “They’re the biggest.”

  “You remember the girl who killed herself and her mother sued the company?”

  Ayana nodded and poured more water.

  “That’s him.”

  “Him?”

  “The guy who harassed and overworked her until she killed herself.”

  “So, he got what he deserved.” Ayana went back to the kitchen and refilled the water pitcher and put it in the fridge.

  “Nobody deserves a fall from a twenty-story building.” Hiroshi pulled his legs around and sat up. “I still can’t figure out why that girl wouldn’t just quit. Why wouldn’t she just leave?”

  Ayana looked at Hiroshi. “Harassment isn’t that kind of thing.”

  “Not what kind of thing?”

  “If you quit, you’re out of a good job for the rest of your life. You’ll never get hired at a big company again. Then it’s the single life and hakken temp work forever after. Or treadmill part-time service jobs. Or marriage to someone who’s no longer a regular worker, too, because you can’t marry too far up the hierarchy. Or—”

  “But you chose marriage.” Hiroshi hummed with drunken insight and wobbled to his feet, stretching.

  Ayana leaned back. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s why you got married. To avoid a worse fate.”

  “That was part of it.” Ayana stood staring at Hiroshi for a minute before she said anything more. “After university, I took a job at the export company bank, Marutobi Corporation. I was following expectations. A big company means success. I’d made it. You know the equation.”