Huge in Japan

by Matt Lincoln

  I texted Fiona an update once we were in the cab. It had only been a few minutes since we left, but we couldn’t be too careful. They had already attacked us multiple times since we’d arrived, and we needed to stay informed on one another’s movements.

  Even though it was early in the morning, the casino was already open when we arrived. A conglomeration of flashing lights, bright colors, and all manner of sounds assaulted my senses as we stepped into the casino. As far as I could tell, the entire first floor was filled with video game cabinets, claw machines, and other contraptions I didn’t immediately recognize.

  “These kinds of arcades typically stay open twenty-four hours a day,” Hajime said as we walked up to the towering building. “The first two or three floors are usually filled with video games and claw catcher machines. Students come and play during the day. The upper floors have slot machines and other games that are only open to adults. Those usually don’t start operating until around six or seven in the evening.”

  As I looked up at the building, I could see that the windows on the first two floors were decorated with what looked like cartoon characters and bright colors, while the windows on the higher floors were bare.

  Once inside, a flurry of bright colors and blinking lights assaulted my eyes. The entirety of the first floor was full of claw machines, each filled with stuffed animals and toys. I could see some small children walking around with their parents, as well as a few teenagers who I assumed were skipping school to be here. Hajime led us through the arcade until we came upon an employee.

  Hajime said something to him in Japanese, and the employee quickly led us to a tiny room at the back of the arcade. Unlike the rest of the building, this room was drab and gray. Judging by the coats and bags hung along the wall, this must be the employee break room. After having a short conversation with him, Hajime turned to Charlie and me.

  “He’s a manager here,” she explained. “I asked him how many employees work in the casino, and he said dozens.”

  “About seventy,” I confirmed. “That’s what Fiona told us too. Can you ask him how many of the employees receive or send packages from this location?” Hajime said something to the man, who shook his head before answering.

  “He says that none of the employees should be sending or receiving any mail here,” she translated. “Only the owner has permission to do that.”

  “Just because it’s not allowed doesn’t mean someone isn’t doing it anyway,” Charlie noted. “If that was the case, there wouldn’t be any crime for us to investigate.”

  “If only that were the case,” Hajime mused before saying something to the man. “He says that he would notice if someone did. The arcade frequently gets shipments of new toys and will sometimes mail prizes as well as payments. He has records of all the mail that arrives or gets picked up from this location. The only person who has ever shipped anything from this address is the owner.”

  “That definitely narrows down our list of suspects,” I agreed. “Can you ask him if the owner is here?”

  “He says no,” Hajime replied after consulting with the man. “Apparently, he’s almost never here. The few times he’s stopped by were just to get a record of the casino’s earnings and to drop packages off for mail collection.”

  “That’s pretty suspicious,” Charlie asserted.

  “It sure is,” Hajime agreed. “Now we just have to figure out where to go from here. We can arrest him now, and under Japanese law, we can hold him for up to a month. If he is involved, I’m sure we could get him to talk during that time. However, doing so would definitely alert the rest of the group. We might end up with the same situation we had with Fujioka. Let’s step outside to talk so we can let the man get back to his work.”

  Hajime said something to the manager who offered her a quick bow before leading us out of the small room. Once we were back on the main floor, he returned to his normal duties.

  Hajime led us out of the building and onto the street where it was quieter. I hadn’t spotted any school-aged kids in the arcade which made sense considering they were probably still in school. However, there had been a few young mothers with small children, many of whom were screeching with delight or crying over not winning a toy they wanted, and it was getting pretty loud inside.

  “So then,” Hajime crossed her arms over her chest. “How should we approach this?”

  Before I could answer, my phone went off. I pulled it out of my pocket and answered as soon as I saw that it was Fiona.

  “Did you find anything?” I asked immediately.

  “Yes,” she responded. “I got an email from the NCB. I managed to find the man in the security camera footage. It’s Kiyoshi Watanabe. The same guy who owns the casino. I’m sending you his address right now.”

  “Thanks, Fiona,” I replied before ending the call. I knew she’d be able to find him.

  “Did she find out the identity of the man who attacked Daichi?” Hajime asked.

  “Yes,” I responded. “It’s Watanabe himself. She’s sending us his address right now.”

  “Well, that certainly makes our decision easier,” Hajime replied. “Let’s head there right away.

  The address was about ten minutes away by train. I grew more anticipated with every minute that passed. I could feel that we were getting closer and closer to the center of this organization, and I couldn’t wait to stop them once and for all. The area the house was located in was much nicer than the rest of the city. Rather than tightly packed skyscrapers and apartment buildings, the houses here were newer and more spaced apart.

  “Kiyoshi’s doing well for himself,” I commented.

  “Yeah, using money earned from trafficking women,” Charlie spat with contempt.

  We turned a corner, and I could see Kiyoshi’s house sitting at the top of a hill. We’d scarcely gone two steps up the steep incline before I heard a bang, and Hajime fell to the ground with a yell. I swung around to look in the direction that the sound had come from and spotted a man at the end of a long alley between two of the houses.

  “Get down!” I yelled before jumping to the side to take cover behind one of the houses. As I did, I heard bullets exploding from down the alleyway. I counted nine, which meant that he should be out of bullets if I counted the one that had hit Hajime. Most standard semi-automatic pistols could only hold ten bullets, but there was always the possibility that the magazine the man was using could hold more. I could risk taking a peek to check if he was using an extended magazine, but doing so would leave me exposed, and I probably wouldn’t be able to see clearly from this distance. I decided to take the gamble and jumped to my feet. Charlie must have had the same thought because I saw him take off after the suspect just as I did.

  The man was trying to reload the gun but dropped it and took off as soon as he saw us coming at him. He wasn’t very fast, and Charlie was able to overtake him in just a few minutes. He tackled him to the ground, and I caught up to him just a few seconds later.

  “Go check on Hajime,” he instructed as soon as we finished handcuffing him.

  “Right,” I responded as I turned around to start heading back down the alley. Before I could, though, I saw Hajime running toward us.

  “Are you okay?” I asked incredulously. I was sure I had seen her go down. She pulled her jacket open to reveal a bullet-proof vest.

  “It will leave a bruise, but I’ll be fine,” she assured us. “This isn’t my first time dealing with this kind of cowardly scum.”

  “Maybe we should start wearing vests more often,” I remarked. We’d been shot enough times that it wouldn’t be unreasonable.

  “We’ll talk to Wallace about it,” Charlie huffed as he pulled Watanabe up off the ground. Hajime stepped forward to speak to him.

  “Is he the same man from the security footage?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “This is the man who tried to kill Daichi Fujioka.”

  29

  Charlie

  The police station that
held Watanabe didn’t have a two-way mirror, which was unfortunate. It meant that only one of us would be able to participate in the interrogation. Hajime had insisted on being present since this was a part of the NCB’s investigation as well, and Junior and I both agreed that three would be a crowd.

  In the end, we’d decided that I would be the one to conduct the interrogation. While Junior tended to be better with the parts of the job that had to do with speaking, this man had shot at us completely unprompted. Suspects this hostile were more my territory, so Hajime and I would sit in the interrogation room while Junior waited outside.

  Inside the room, Watanabe was seething. They had handcuffed him to the table after he’d punched one of the officers and tried to escape. Even now, he was practically foaming at the mouth as he struggled to escape his confines. He quieted down as we entered the room and sat down.

  “You can’t do this!” he yelled immediately, pulling against the cuffs around his wrists. It relieved me to hear that he spoke English. That would make conducting the interrogation easier. “You don’t have any proof I’ve done anything wrong!”

  “You shot a cop,” I growled. “That alone would have been enough to arrest you, but that’s not all you’ve been up to, is it?” Watanabe sputtered before answering.

  “I was just surprised,” he argued weakly. “It was self-defense!”

  “What exactly were you defending yourself from?” I asked sarcastically. “You fired at us from behind. We weren’t even at your home yet.” Watanabe’s face went red, but he kept silent.

  “Tell me about this symbol,” I demanded, pulling up an image of the flower symbol on my phone and presenting it to him. There was a spark of recognition in his eyes, but he didn’t answer me. “It’s the trademark of the organization you work for, right? The one that’s been trafficking women from all over the world?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man insisted through gritted teeth.

  “That’s fine,” Hajime interjected. “We have enough as it is to put you away for the rest of your life just with the fact that you shot me. I’ll make sure that you spend the rest of your life in the highest security prison in Tokyo. And you’ll be sure to receive the special kind of treatment only afforded to criminals who try to kill law enforcement officers.” Her threat didn’t seem so bad to me, but when I looked back at Watanabe, his face was pale.

  “Fine. What’s in it for me if I talk?” Watanabe asked. It surprised me that he was changing his tune so easily, but now wasn’t the time to question Hajime over it. “Japanese prisons are inhumane. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life rotting away in one. I need some assurance that I’ll get special treatment if I turn on my partner.”

  “So Saito is your partner?” I asked.

  Watanabe’s eyes went wide as he realized he’d slipped up.

  “How do you know that name?” He asked angrily.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I sneered. “Look, right now, you’re going to go down for this fifty-fifty. If you really are partners, then that means you have shared responsibility in this. If, on the other hand, it was Saito calling all the shots, then maybe your punishment won’t end up being as bad as his.” I was bluffing, of course, but I had a feeling that Watanabe was the kind of sleazy guy who would turn on anyone in a second if it meant saving his own skin.

  “That’s not good enough,” he snarled. “Make me a deal, or I’m staying quiet.”

  “You don’t seem to understand the position you’re in right now,” I stated coldly. “You think Japanese prisons are bad? Imagine being locked up in one across the sea. No friends, no allies. Because if you do go down for this, we will extradite you to the United States. An American woman was killed on American soil, and a federal office was bombed. The government is taking all of this very seriously, and right now, you’re the only person we have to pin this all on. Hell, for all I know, you are Saito, and you’re just trying to shift the blame away from yourself.”

  “No!” Watanabe shouted, slamming his fists on the table. My words seemed to have struck a nerve. “Fine, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I’m not the leader of this organization. I just do whatever Saito tells me to.”

  Just as I suspected, he threw Saito under the bus as soon as things started looking bad for him.

  “Good,” I responded. “Tell me more about him.”

  “He operates a brothel in Kabukicho,” Watanabe explained. “That in itself is nothing new. In fact, there are so many brothels there that it’s impossible to make money there unless you do something to make yours stand out. That’s what Saito is trying to do. He’s been curating women from around the world so that he can build a brothel where clients can have anything they want. Race, nationality, age, he has it all covered. Since it’s such a novel concept, he can charge a high amount for entry.”

  My blood boiled as I listened to him speak, and I had to temper the urge to punch him. I searched through my phone until I found Laura’s photo.

  “Was this one of the women?” I asked as I showed him the phone.

  “Yes, she was,” Watanabe admitted after looking at the photo for a moment. “American. She escaped a few weeks ago after killing a client.”

  “She did what?” I asked, shocked.

  “We found him dead a few hours after he arrived. Apparently, he had a knife on him, and she managed to get it somehow. She injured one of our members as well. He caught her rifling through our documents, and she stabbed him in the eye.”

  “Good,” I replied.

  I knew it wasn’t smart to antagonize him, but it slipped out before I could think better of it. Watanabe didn’t seem to care and just chuckled darkly.

  “She had spirit, that one,” he mused. “She was a tourist. One of our members invited her to a party and lured her to the brothel. She didn’t even hesitate. She fought, though, once she realized what was happening. So much that we had to keep her drugged most of the time.”

  I clenched my fist beneath the table. I was used to criminals eventually admitting to their crimes, but this guy spoke as if he had no remorse. He sounded like he was sharing a funny work story and not discussing how he’d callously kidnapped and murdered an innocent young girl. His indifference was causing me to go nearly blind with rage, but I kept my emotions under control. I couldn’t afford to lose it right now.

  “She made it all the way to Chicago,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “How did your group track her?”

  “Her passport was missing,” the man shrugged. “We store them in our records so we can keep tabs on any missing person cases. When we discovered that she’d also stolen our member’s credit card, it wasn’t hard to put the pieces together. His statement showed the purchase of a flight ticket to Chicago. All we had to do was contact one of our members in the United States and have her eliminated.”

  “And you knew she wouldn’t say anything,” Hajime deduced, “because you have the police on your side. And the victims know that, don’t they?”

  Watanabe smiled cruelly.

  “We make sure that they see the police coming in and out of the brothel,” he informed us. “That way, they know not to even attempt an escape. Actually, that wasn’t even the first time that American girl had tried to run. She escaped just a month after she first arrived, but she ran straight to Fujioka, and he brought her right back.” He laughed wickedly.

  “Daichi Fujioka?” I asked, horrified to think that the same man who’d guided Junior and me around Tokyo might have actively participated in the kidnappings.

  “Of course,” Watanabe grunted. “Who else would I be talking about? He was one of our most useful members. Young, handsome, and he was a cop. Every woman he talked to would trust him immediately, no questions asked. Then the little idiot had to go and let himself get caught by the NCB.” He glared angrily at Hajime.

  “That’s why you needed to kill him,” Hajime stated calmly, ignoring the frigid look he was sending her way.

  �
��Obviously,” he jeered. “Even the most loyal member can be broken, eventually. We couldn’t risk information getting out. That’s why Saito sent to have that girl killed too.”

  “You said that Saito told one of your US-based members to kill Laura,” I started as something began to dawn on me.

  “Yeah, so?” Watanabe asked.

  “Chicago is thousands of miles away from California, where Otsuka and Kimura live,” I replied. “Does Saito have members stationed in other parts of the United States?”

  “You caught them too, huh?” Watanabe asked with a huff of laughter. “Damn. Well, I guess it really is over for us, isn’t it?”

  “Answer the question,” I demanded impatiently.

  “Yes, he does,” Watanabe responded. “All over the United States. All over the world, even. How else do you think he would be able to gather women of every ethnicity and nationality? There’re only so many tourists we can snatch without drawing attention.”

  “Tell me where the brothel is,” I insisted angrily. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This organization stretched further than I ever imagined.

  “Don’t lose your temper, agent,” Watanabe taunted, and his words were the last straw needed to set me off. I reached over the table and pulled him up by the collar of his shirt.

  “Tell me where it is now,” I hissed as I stared straight into his eyes.

  “You can’t do this,” Watanabe whined. “This is brutality! Aren’t you going to do something?” He looked at Hajime, who had her head turned completely to the side and appeared to be closely studying the wall on the left side of the room.