Tokyo Zangyo

by Michael Pronko

  The sun had started to angle in the windows and reflect off the surface of the table, making Hiroshi squint. “Who should I talk to at Senden?”

  “Upper management is controlling and conservative. The young hires are well trained, and pliant. My impression was middle management were the ones who wanted to do things in the gray zone. But you won’t get much out of them. They’re too loyal.”

  Hiroshi leaned back and looked out the window at the building across the street. It looked about the same as the office where they sat, endless desks and rooms and overhead lighting.

  Hiroshi’s uncle pulled a packet of black Sobranie cigarettes out of his pocket. “I’m trying to cut down, but let’s continue this in the smoking lounge.”

  “I’ve got to go. I should have called ahead,” Hiroshi said.

  “You don’t need to call ahead. Even after two years.” His uncle put the pack back in his pocket. “I think your cousin would like to see you. She had a baby, you know?”

  “I got the birth announcement,” Hiroshi said. “I meant to send something.”

  “You and she were always close when you were kids. You remember playing together?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I don’t even know where you’re living.”

  “Kagurazaka. I moved in with my old college girlfriend, the one I left when you sent me to Boston. We got back together.”

  “You’re never going to forgive me for that, but it made you who you are. If you didn’t get outside the Japanese system, you weren’t going to have an easy time. And if you didn’t come back, well, you’d have just become American. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I wanted to study history.”

  “You’re living it, aren’t you?” his uncle said.

  Hiroshi remembered his father ending half-critical, half-ironic comments with, “Aren’t you?” in just the same tone of voice.

  “I’ll stop by and see the baby. She still living in Jiyugaoka?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Here’s her phone number.” His uncle put his cellphone on the table for Hiroshi.

  Hiroshi leaned forward and took a photo of the number.

  “What’s your address? I’ll send you a case of wine.” His uncle took his phone and got ready to copy the info.

  “I haven’t gotten into the Japanese gift-giving cycle. I can never remember—”

  “One of my clients pays in good wine, investment grade, and there’s too much to finish. You don’t like wine? Everyone likes wine.”

  “All right.” Hiroshi pushed his cellphone across the table with his address showing.

  His uncle took a photo of the address and saved it in his phone. “And if you’re going after Senden, you better go hard. They know everything and everyone. And they’d do anything to keep expanding what they have.”

  Chapter 19

  From his uncle’s office, Hiroshi walked back to Kanda Station, thinking his uncle looked more like his father than the last time he saw him. His uncle and his cousin were his only close relatives, so it wouldn’t hurt to visit. He would take Ayana with him and buy a baby present of some kind.

  Near the station, he went into a convenience store and got a bottle of tea and two onigiri rice balls. He stood outside, chewing the rice wrapped in nori with a smoked fish slice tucked inside as slowly as a novice monk. He washed it down with tea and felt the lingering low from the alcohol dissipate.

  Sugamo pulled to the curb under the overhead train tracks. Hiroshi got in the back. Takamatsu looked back, smirking. “Ready for our appointment?”

  “I hope Akiko can get a reimbursement. Or I’m out sixty thousand yen,” Hiroshi said. “Plus we have to pay for the hotel.”

  “Be glad we won’t be paying for any extras. That’d double the price.” Takamatsu chuckled. “Straight is a lot cheaper. Must be all the equipment.”

  “Did Mayu’s father say anything new?” Hiroshi asked.

  Takamatsu said, “Same as last night. I’m starting to believe him. And that makes me doubt him all the more.”

  Sugamo looked at Hiroshi. “The chief said don’t be late. Four sharp. Or I’m responsible.”

  Takamatsu lit a cigarette and Hiroshi closed his eyes for the crosstown drive.

  Two streets away from Shibuya Station, there was nowhere nearby for Sugamo to park. It was almost easier to keep driving than to look for an underground parking lot.

  Hiroshi and Takamatsu got out to walk through the canyon of buildings that had sprung up as part of one of the biggest urban renewal projects in Tokyo—the new Shibuya. Just-built, over-designed buildings towered over the lively area that once wore a more human face. With the taller, sleeker buildings, it was more crowded with people than ever.

  The detectives turned into a stylish hotel whose lobby access was a long, glass-sided elevator direct to the third floor. The lobby was empty and smelled new. They headed past the check-in counter to the elevators and rode up to the tenth floor. In the narrow low-lit hallway, the cleaning crew had to pull a linen cart aside so they could sidle past.

  Hiroshi checked the room number and knocked on the door.

  “Enter, slave!” a woman’s voice called from inside.

  The door handle clicked and Hiroshi went in first.

  Inside stood a tall woman in knee-high boots and a leather body suit. She smacked the floor with a whip. A large silver zipper stretched from the middle of her breasts down to and under her groin. “I’m Mistress Emi and you are in for an hour of pain and pleasure. Kneel, slave.” She snapped the whip again.

  Hiroshi muttered, “Konnichiwa.” Hiroshi wasn’t sure if “good afternoon” was the right way to greet a dominatrix, but he had to say something. He stared at the whip. Her arm was covered in a full-sleeve black koi tattoo that seemed to swim as she rolled up the whip. The elaborate curls of her dyed-blonde hair bounced as the moved.

  Mistress Emi noticed Takamatsu, and in a less commanding voice, said, “You booked for one. Is he watching or participating? The rate is different.”

  Takamatsu pushed Hiroshi forward and Mistress Emi backed into the room.

  Hiroshi pulled out his badge. “We’re detectives.”

  “There’s no discount.” Mistress Emi curled the whip up and reached for the riding crop on the bed.

  “We just want to talk. About one of your clients,” Hiroshi said.

  Mistress Emi said, “I assure all my clients ultimate pain, pleasure, and privacy.”

  “The client we want to ask about won’t mind. He’s dead,” Hiroshi said.

  Emi sat down on the bedcover, pulled her half-face mask off and crossed her legs. A red, orange and indigo dragon circled her left thigh, a blue peacock covered her right. Hiroshi didn’t know much about tattoos, but these were marvelous. She looked up at Hiroshi with a question on her face.

  Takamatsu moved to the other side of the bed, at an angle, watching her carefully.

  Hiroshi showed her a photo of Onizuka.

  Mistress Emi stared at it with a blank face, then looked away, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Her body deflated, and she crossed the dragon over the peacock and sank into the bed biting her lip.

  “He fell from the roof of his office building. Twenty stories,” Hiroshi said.

  Takamatsu started scrolling through his cellphone and said, “You want to see the photos on the ground?”

  She shook her head in tight refusal. “No.”

  “You don’t watch the news?”

  Mistress Emi shook her head.

  “So, you didn’t know about Onizuka?”

  She shook her head and looked out the window, still shaking her head.

  Hiroshi wondered if this was more stagecraft, or whether she really didn’t know. “What’s your real name?”

  “Emi Yoshida. My ID’s in there.” She nodded at a large black sports bag from which the tips of bondage gear poked.

  Hiroshi pulled a chair over and sat down. He could check her ID later.

  Emi zipped off one leather boot and drop
ped it on the floor, unzipped the other and dropped it. She pulled her legs up on the bed and reached behind her for a pillow which she dropped in her lap. She pulled out a hair tie and put her long hair in a neat ponytail. With the pillow and ponytail, she looked smaller, and girlish.

  “Could you tell us where you were that night? Sunday night, Monday morning.” Hiroshi asked.

  Emi reached for her cellphone from inside her sports bag. Her long fingernails glittered with nail art diamonds. “I had two appointments that night.”

  “What time with Onizuka?” Takamatsu asked.

  “Neither were with him.”

  “We’ll need to check that. Send the names here.” He held out his phone with his address.

  She glanced at Hiroshi’s email address and sent the two names. The back of her phone was engraved with a dominatrix in a police-style cap.

  “When was the last time you, um, met him?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Not for a while.”

  “A while?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “How often did you meet?”

  “He was a regular customer.” Emi pulled her legs tighter and kneaded the pillow.

  “Once a week? Twice a month?”

  “Once or twice a month. More at holidays. Sometimes he called out of the blue.”

  “Did you meet him at this hotel?”

  “At a special BDSM love hotel on the other side of the station. They have a lot of gear there for rent. Saves me carrying everything around.” Emi pointed at her heavy-looking sports bag.

  “What’s the name of the place?”

  “Hotel Hard Hello. HHH.”

  “What kind of place is it?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Clean and reliable. And discreet.”

  “How long did you know Onizuka?”

  Emi pushed on the pillow in her lap. “He’s one of my oldest customers, from when I started five years ago.”

  “What did he, um, like?” Hiroshi asked.

  Emi pulled the pillow, rocking slightly. “Privacy is how I keep my prices high, along with practiced technique and a strong storyline.”

  “We can take you in to the station as an accessory, if you like?” Takamatsu said.

  Emi turned and smiled at Takamatsu. “I’d rather not. I know too many people there.”

  Takamatsu chuckled.

  Emi frowned and twisted the pillow. “Onizuka liked all forms of humiliation. He was OK with a high level of pain.”

  “What kind of humiliation?”

  “I could try things out on him. Practice for other clients.” Emi’s phone rang, but she ignored it.

  “And what about actual intercourse?” Takamatsu asked.

  Emi nodded. “That was not always on his list, before or after, but unlike most of my clients who are wet leaves, he was vital once he got started. His body was tight, strong, kind of wiry.”

  “How much did he spend?” Hiroshi asked.

  “He liked throwing money away. Liked it more than sex sometimes. Whatever I added on to his charge, he paid. He did the math in his head. Always made me laugh. I have to use the calculator on my phone.”

  “What did he pay for most? Anything special?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Is that important?”

  “That’s why I asked.”

  Emi looked at both of them and shrugged. “He liked anal, but almost all of them do. He also liked sounding. That always brought the bill up.”

  “What’s sounding?” Hiroshi asked.

  Emi dug in her bag and pulled out a long silver-colored rod with a handle like a wine opener and a small smooth bulb at the end.

  Hiroshi cleared his throat.

  Emi smiled. “You never saw this before? It goes up the urethra, tickles everything inside. One of his favorites.”

  Hiroshi cleared his throat again. “How did he pay?”

  “Cash.” She dropped the toys back into her bag and stood up, shorter without her heels. “He said our sessions were like therapy. Sometimes my other clients say that too, but not every time like Onizuka.” She stared at Hiroshi and glanced at Takamatsu. “Is he really dead?”

  Hiroshi said, “Killed by the impact of the fall.”

  “Twenty stories down,” Takamatsu said.

  Emi went to the window. “He had this psychodrama in his head that kept pushing him forward.”

  A knock came at the door and a man’s voice shouted, “Emi?”

  Takamatsu took a step toward the door, his hand on his retractable baton.

  Emi said, “That’s C3PO. Could you let him in, detective? And be careful.”

  Takamatsu pulled out his friction lock baton, walked to the door and pulled it open.

  A tall guy with broad shoulders in a black leather jacket, vest, and black jeans rushed in and squared off with Takamatsu.

  Emi yelled out, “It’s OK, C3PO, these are detectives.”

  Everyone looked at each other for a minute. Hiroshi wondered about his nickname, but the Star Wars tattoos across the tops of both hands and halfway up his neck were sufficient explanation. He looked Asian, or half-Asian, but not Japanese.

  Emi explained. “If something doesn’t go right, I call and he comes. There were two of you so I pressed the button. He got here a bit slow today.” She frowned at him and he pulled the door closed and stood there with his arms folded.

  Takamatsu put his baton away.

  Hiroshi said, “Is your clientele primarily company executives? I don’t see them as being much trouble.”

  “It’s hard to tell when they call out at peak moments whether what they say is true or not. High-ranked schools, big companies, pretty wives, big apartments, kids, the whole escalator life. It’s made them passive. They’ll accept almost anything.”

  “Is that why Onizuka drank so much?”

  “Probably. They all do. But he could hold his liquor, never got sick, never cried.”

  “What did Onizuka shout in the middle of things?” Takamatsu asked.

  “In the middle of it, he would say anything and everything.” Emi shook her head. “I can’t believe he’s dead. How could that happen?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Hiroshi said. “What did he say?”

  “He shouted all kinds of things. Shouting is half the point. About his job, women, work, colleagues, anything really. To be honest, I never pay that much attention. Most of them lead boring lives. The only thing they do outside the norm is with me.”

  Hiroshi wondered how that worked, how it fitted into the balance sheet in their minds.

  “Onizuka was more handsome than most, and when he was done, he always had something interesting to say about books, foreign countries, politics. He liked to take me to dinner and to the horse races. He always won. He was a very lucky gambler.” Emi sat down on the bed and cocked her head. “He liked to call me different names, not just Emi. I’d whack his ass a few times to get him warmed up and then he’d pick a name, Tomoko or Rio, Haruka or Kaho.”

  “What name did he choose most often?”

  “That was a bit confusing, because it was also his safe name—‘Mayu.’”

  Hiroshi looked at Takamatsu.

  “Mayu was the name he called out when the pain got too much?” Takamatsu asked.

  “And it was the name he wanted to call me most often. I had to listen to how he yelled it to know if he wanted out—or wanted more.”

  Chapter 20

  Sugamo was waiting on a side street near the hotel, traffic pulling around the side of the car. “How was she?” Sugamo asked as Hiroshi and Takamatsu clambered in, scowling at the cars waiting impatiently in both directions. When traffic cleared, Sugamo started back to the station to get Hiroshi there in time for the chief.

  “Amazing tattoos,” Takamatsu said. “I haven’t seen such great ones since I was on crowd control at the Sanja Matsuri. Skin is the ultimate canvas.”

  “You’re getting a few tattoos then?” Hiroshi asked him.

  “Against the police code or I would,�
� Takamatsu said, cracking a window and lighting a cigarette. “Well, she was a treat.”

  “You believed her?” Hiroshi asked.

  “I wanted to believe her.” Takamatsu blew the smoke out the window. “Didn’t you?”

  Hiroshi wasn’t sure and stared out the window. If any woman could have managed to get Onizuka up to the roof, it was her. Her answers seemed straightforward and her surprise genuine. Her job involved a lot of play-acting, so a few lies wouldn’t be too hard to manage.

  She wasn’t the break in the case they wanted, but they could talk to her again after re-checking the roof. He’d taken all her contact info, so best to let her stew for half a day and then go after her again. By then, maybe the fence cutters would turn up. Maybe the video footage would reveal something. The money angle would connect but that would take time, even with the files in hand. Revenge seemed more likely. If Onizuka liked receiving pain, he must have liked dishing it out.

  When they pulled into the station parking lot, Takamatsu turned around. “What time can you meet on the roof of Senden?”

  “I’ll call as soon as I can shake free.” Hiroshi hopped out at the entrance, hurried down the hall to the chief’s office and plastered on a smile as he stepped inside.

  “You’re on time,” the chief said, looking at his watch.

  Hiroshi waited while the chief slipped on his camel hair overcoat and adjusted his Borsalino fedora.

  “I think we’ll get some help from my contacts in the ministries,” the chief said, brushing past Hiroshi as he marched out the door.

  Hiroshi followed, stifling a sigh, and thinking that the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare should be the chief’s duty. The ministries were full of over-confident and disinterested people, who knew everything and did nothing, the kind who wanted to go to Mistress Emi but were too ashamed to even try.

  The chief’s car was waiting at the side door of the station. The contrast with the worn-down cars they usually took was striking. The chief’s car was plush. Hiroshi had never seen it before. He didn’t know the driver, either.