Tokyo Zangyo

by Michael Pronko

  “We need the originals. They sent us doctored files,” Takamatsu said. “It’s the only way.”

  Hiroshi put his phone away. The tape would explain the blackouts in the video they sent, but Hiroshi wasn’t sure how anyone could block the high camera in the parking garage. And how could they get up to the cameras to put the tape without being seen? The tech guys had said the video flashed and went black.

  Takamatsu walked to the cut-open V in the fence.

  Hiroshi followed. Looking past the edge through the crime scene tape, he could see the opposite sidewalk and a bit of the street twenty floors below. Hiroshi took several steps back. It was impossible to not think about the tumble, time, and landing, Onizuka’s body on the concrete below.

  Takamatsu ground out his cigarette, ducked under the tape, poked his head out the V, and leaned forward to look at the black tar on the outer ledge, where it sloped down to a rain gutter, no fence or rail, and beyond only air and gravity.

  Takamatsu peeled back the yellow tape and put a leg onto the outside ledge.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Hiroshi said, grabbing Takamatsu’s sleeve.

  Takamatsu balanced himself, one leg out and one in. He pulled up his sleeve and rotated his arm to lock wrists with Hiroshi.

  Takamatsu leaned down toward the edge of the building, stretching his fingers toward something Hiroshi couldn’t see. Hiroshi pulled taut on Takamatsu’s wrist while he stooped and wiggled his fingers to the very edge.

  Hiroshi dug in his feet and pulled back to let Takamatsu ease toward it, the edge coming closer with each stretch until Takamatsu’s fingers snatched something from the gravel.

  Takamatsu shifted his weight. Hiroshi grabbed him above his elbow with his other hand and pulled him back in through the cut fence.

  Takamatsu held up a cigarette butt.

  Hiroshi looked at it and then at Takamatsu’s face. He was smiling.

  Takamatsu pulled an evidence envelope from his inner pocket and slipped in the butt. “I got my DNA all over it, but it’s the same brand. Gold and black. Sobranie. There were some in the smoking lounge ashtray. Onizuka’s wife smokes them, too.”

  Hiroshi hadn’t noticed. “How did the crew miss this?”

  “I only saw it because of the light reflecting on the foil.” Takamatsu put the envelope in his pocket.

  “His last cigarette?” Hiroshi recognized the brand but couldn’t remember from where.

  Takamatsu looked around the rooftop area and straightened his cuffs. “If all the video is missing, or taped over, it’s got to be an inside job.” Takamatsu lit another cigarette, blowing the smoke high into the night wind.

  “Detectives?” Imasato called out.

  Hiroshi and Takamatsu turned to see Chizu, the young HR assistant, shivering in a business jacket and skirt by the main door to the roof, looking in their direction. Even in the dark, Hiroshi could see the worry in her face.

  Chapter 22

  Takamatsu put out his cigarette. “You take this one,” he growled to Hiroshi, both of them staring at Chizu shivering by the smoking lounge. “I’m going to get a ladder and check out the parking garage camera.”

  Takamatsu and Imasato walked back to the hatch door and disappeared inside. Chizu bowed to Takamatsu and walked toward Hiroshi.

  “It’s cold up here,” Hiroshi said.

  “The wind’s blocked over there,” Chizu said, pointing at the other corner where large, Plexiglass barriers lined the two sides of the roof opposite the crime scene.

  Chizu was tall with shoulder length, neatly cut hair that the wind blew dancing around her face. She moved easily, hunching her shoulders like too-tall people do. Inside the protective barriers, the wind lost its icy sting. Chizu circled to face the door from the elevator and looked at Hiroshi. She had thick lips and high cheekbones, and her eyes weren’t afraid of his. They were intelligent and searching.

  “Thank you for answering my LINE message,” Chizu said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I’m not always free to send messages.”

  “What did you want to talk about?” Hiroshi asked, letting his eyes rest on hers.

  “I changed my mind.”

  “About talking with me? It’s all right to—”

  “No. About the topic. Before, I wanted to give you my understanding of what happened. But now I hear you’re interested in seeing the files on Onizuka.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Actually, it does.”

  Chizu blinked. “A friend in the ministries.”

  Hiroshi wondered if that was the silent thirty-something official he and the chief met. If not, it was someone like him, with a younger, fresher view of how the government ministries and large companies interacted.

  “There are a lot,” Chizu said, keeping a close eye on the door.

  “A lot of friends? Or a lot of files?”

  Chizu smiled, making her even prettier, even in the dark.

  “Files,” she said.

  Hiroshi tried to keep her talking, but she kept looking at the door. “You’ve seen all the files?”

  “I had to file them,” Chizu said. “Or refile them.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I’ll have to show you. Otherwise you’ll never get to see them.”

  Hiroshi turned to look at the door. “Can you take me now?”

  Chizu shook her head. “That’s why I wanted to schedule tomorrow lunch. I have a dentist appointment, the only way to get away from work, but now you know what I wanted to tell you, so it’s better not to risk it.”

  Risk what? Hiroshi wanted to ask, but instead he nodded reassuringly. “I wish you’d tell me more about what you know.”

  “I will. But not now. Not here.” Chizu stopped herself and turned from the door to look out through the Plexiglass barrier toward the Imperial Palace grounds. It was dark in that direction, but you could make out trees and the moat, and a guard station in front of the old stone wall.

  Chizu was young, but already had a larger comprehension of the world. It came through in her calm manner and direct stare, and in the wariness with which she answered, not resistant, but cautious. That’s probably how Mayu was, too, grasping the deeper implications of what was being done around her, of what she was asked to do, and not sure how to resist it, much less change it.

  A man’s voice coming from behind startled Hiroshi.

  Chizu spun around.

  It was Nakata, the head of HR, striding toward them. He stopped close to Hiroshi with a curt bow. Chizu took a step back. Nakata seemed taller on the roof than in the conference room, but just as sure of himself.

  “Chizu-san, are you filling in the detectives with everything they need to know?” Nakata asked. “We’ve got the press conference on Friday. I thought you were preparing for that? Lots of things left to do.”

  Chizu looked down and nodded. She was obviously not supposed to be there on the roof talking to detectives. She was supposed to be working. Hiroshi tried to think of something to say.

  Nakata pointed in the dark. “You can see the very heart of Japan from here, the Emperor’s Palace,” Nakata said to Hiroshi. “That’s part of why we like our main office here.”

  Hiroshi said, “That’s just what I was asking about. Chizu was nice enough to give me an explanation and a brief history of Senden.”

  Nakata forced his smile a little wider. “She wrote her graduation thesis on Senden, didn’t you?”

  Chizu drew a breath. “Yes, about the history of advertising in Japan.”

  “That’s one of the reasons we hired her,” Nakata said. “Among her other many professional qualities. Well, Chizu-san, we’re probably interrupting important detective work, and we have so much to do for Friday’s announcement. Did you get the redecoration of the lobby finalized and the conference room set up?”

  Chizu nodded and said, simply, “Hai.”

  Hiroshi looked at him closely. “We’ve gathered
a lot of evidence, so we’re getting near to understanding what happened up here.” In fact, they had a whole lot of nothing, not much more than glue on the cameras and a cigarette butt.

  “Can you give me a rundown on what you have so far? Or maybe you were just telling Chizu-san about that?” Nakata looked back and forth with a disingenuously blank face.

  “We didn’t find much in the files you sent, and the video seems to be missing quite a few minutes. The blanked-out part is longer than we can account for. We also need to get into the HR files for Onizuka. I think we’ve requested all of that,” Hiroshi said in polite Japanese.

  Nakata took a step closer. “I spoke with the company president and other CEOs, and it will take a bit of time to get what you asked for. All of the documents and files you requested should be ready in a few days, right, Chizu-san?”

  Chizu nodded rapidly.

  “A few days?” Hiroshi said. “We’re used to moving a bit more quickly on investigations.”

  Nakata looked at him. “I’m sorry, but there are important privacy issues. When you deal with the human side of a large, successful company like ours, you need to be especially sensitive to these issues.”

  “We’re not used to too much sensitivity,” Hiroshi said. “It never seems to accompany the facts.”

  Nakata said, “Well, I can tell you this much right now. Off the record. Numerous women complained about Onizuka over the years.”

  “We need to talk with all of them.” Hiroshi said.

  “We don’t even know where many of them are now.”

  “I just need the names. We’ll find them.”

  Nakata took another step closer, well within the distance reserved for two people to bow. “Most of them were just not willing to put up with his demanding leadership style and, admittedly, sexist views. He was difficult to work with and a bit of a maverick. But those are not crimes.”

  “Nobody said they were.” Hiroshi looked at Nakata but he gave not the slightest hint from his stance or his face about what he was really thinking.

  “We want to get this investigation concluded and find out what happened up here, no matter what it takes,” Nakata said.

  “It might take more than you think.”

  “There are complicating factors. The women who filed complaints asked other women to obtain files for them illegally. Then, they misfiled budget and personal files. We’ve had trouble relocating essential documents.”

  Hiroshi wanted to laugh at this evasion. “Internal sabotage?” It was just as the sniffling accountant Kato had told them. Nakata was probably the one hiding files so only he knew where they’d be.

  “Mistakes are common and that can be corrected. But deliberate misfiling weakens the structure of the entire company. Some employees have no loyalty. Often women employees, I hate to admit.” Nakata glanced at Chizu.

  “You mean, men are better employees?” Hiroshi wanted to shake the guy, or set him up in a kendo match with Ayana to take him down a notch or two.

  Nakata shook his head coolly. “Men devote their lives to the company. Women don’t because their loyalties are always divided. We have to keep that in mind in all HR decisions.”

  Hiroshi caught Chizu’s eyes boring into the wall behind him, her jaw as motionless as stone. He couldn’t see her face well in the dark but enough to tell she was holding herself in check. If only he’d had five more minutes to talk with her before Nakata interrupted them. Hiroshi looked away at the lights of Tokyo spreading like fallen, cooling stars all the way to the horizon. Overhead, the skyglow that hung over Tokyo blocked the real stars.

  Hiroshi said, “The chief of homicide and I stopped by the Ministry of Labor this afternoon. They were quite interested in learning of our difficulties getting hold of the materials we need.” Hiroshi knew that was far from true, but as Takamatsu always said, save the truth for the end of the case.

  “The ministries?” Nakata tried to contain a smirk. “I can tell you one thing that Onizuka understood well. On the global stage, we Japanese have to work harder than everyone else. What we lack in creativity, innovation and critical thought, we make up for in patience, perseverance, and attention to detail. What we lack in global vision, we make up for in solid traditional values. The government is pressured by outside forces to make overtime a crime. Harassment is an unfortunate side effect of a hard-working corporate culture. It’s my job to bring the best out in workers and keep the company on pace toward continued success.”

  Hiroshi saw Takamatsu walking toward them with his coat tails flying behind. He was smiling. He must have found something.

  Hiroshi spoke to Nakata without looking at him, “If Senden was concerned about Japanese values, they would prioritize the inherent value of employees, not just their use value. Senden seems to have that backward. Losing workers shows a failure in personnel management.”

  Nakata glared back at him.

  “We’ll get Onizuka’s death properly determined, with or without your help. We’re used to doing it both ways.” Hiroshi held Nakata’s gaze and then walked away without another word, knowing it was now going to be harder without his help. He could hear Nakata clearing his throat and coughing in the cold, dry wind.

  He worried about leaving Chizu there. There was something in Chizu’s silence that left him uneasy. He turned back to see her standing beside Nakata in the shadow of a tree. Takamatsu would back him if he wanted to take her along for her own safety, but he would find out more when they talked the next day. It was only a few hours, actually.

  Takamatsu waited by the main elevator. The guard Imasato held up his passkey and slid it in the reader to let the detectives ride down by themselves, bowing deeply as the doors closed.

  Just before the lobby, Takamatsu said, “Seems there’s two ways up to the roof, and two ways down.”

  “There’s two of everything at this company,” Hiroshi said. “One they want us to see and one they don’t.”

  Chapter 23

  It felt good to be off the roof and away from Senden. Hiroshi started walking south beside the elevated train tracks. Long commuter trains clanged along the tracks above, their heavy rumble broken only by the overhead screech of wheel on rail.

  Hiroshi ignored the cross street under the tracks into Ginza, and kept going past German beer halls, Chinese dim sum joints, Korean barbecue places, and yakitori grills with savory smoke billowing into the street.

  Takamatsu hung a step behind, smoking, giving Hiroshi space to think.

  Hiroshi kept walking, but near Shinbashi Station he stopped stomping forward to take a call from Sakaguchi. Takamatsu pointed at the smoker’s lounge and Hiroshi gave him a vague nod.

  “Who?” Hiroshi shouted into his phone.

  “I can’t pronounce his name,” Sakaguchi said. “‘Su-chi-bu Tai-ta-su’ is what it sounds like to me. He had your meishi in his wallet.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s been arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “Drugs. Some beat cops snagged him at a club near Ueno. For marijuana.”

  “Are you there now?”

  “They called and woke me up. I’d finally gotten to sleep.”

  “I’m with Takamatsu. We’ll pick him up. Go back to sleep.”

  Takamatsu put out his cigarette, said something to a woman he’d been chatting with that made her smile, and came over. Hiroshi waved for a taxi and explained.

  Takamatsu said, “I was going to say, let’s get a drink. But I admit interrogations do go better sober.”

  ***

  The police had blocked off an alley not far from Okachimachi Station where Ueno’s eight- and ten-story ferroconcrete buildings turned to two- and three-story wooden homes, ragtag drinking spots, and boarded-up shops. Utility poles strung with power lines, internet cables and leftover wires jutted out of the street at irregular intervals. A single police car blocked each corner, leaving just enough room to squeeze by.

  Hiroshi and Takamatsu hopped out of the taxi on
the corner of an intersection between the bigger and smaller buildings. Police officers and narcotics agents were going in and out of an eight-story building whose upper floors had large glass windows painted with the names and numbers of the restaurants and clubs inside. Local police, lab technicians, and narcotics agents bustled in all directions. They led handcuffed suspects out of the building through the one-at-a-time door. Emptying the building would take time.

  Hiroshi stopped an agent in a black windbreaker and bulletproof vest who steered them to a square window-less bus parked on the larger street where suspects were being held. Hiroshi and Takamatsu showed their badges and the guard on duty called for the agent in charge, a stout man in a windbreaker with a pockmarked face and a black stocking cap.

  “We got a call about a foreigner here. Can we see him?” Hiroshi said.

  “Westerners are just trouble when it comes to this. Rights, forms, lawyers, they think they’re owed something. You just want to talk with him?”

  “For now. We’ll let you process him,” Hiroshi said.

  “Thanks,” the stout agent said. “That smaller bus is empty, so you can talk to him in there. When this bus fills up, though, we’ll need to put people in there. The club was crowded and we’re taking everyone in.”

  “His name’s Steve Titus,” Hiroshi said. “Jazz musician.”

  “Oh, that guy. He doesn’t speak a word of Japanese. All the Chinese we arrest are fluent.” He shouted for someone to get the American out of the big bus and take him to the smaller one.

  When Steve Titus came out he locked eyes with Hiroshi, but didn’t say a word.

  Hiroshi and Takamatsu waved their badges at the two agents walking him from bus to bus. The agents handcuffed Steve to a railing that ran down the middle of the bus between two benches. When they pushed the back door closed, the overhead light darkened but stayed on. Sitting opposite Steve, Hiroshi let the gravity of his situation sink in. Takamatsu stared him down.

  Finally, Hiroshi said, “Don’t you know the drug laws in Japan?”

  “Yeah, but man, it’s all over the place anyway.” Steve pulled on the handcuffs. “Do you know where my saxophone is?”