She put on her fake smile and dipped her
head while accepting the drink. “Thank you!”
He slid onto the bench, pushing up against
the side of her body, despite lots of open space, and draped his
arm along the back of the seat. “So what’s your name,
beautiful?”
“Asami.” The name of one of her favorite
characters from a series of adventure novels. “And you?”
“I’m Go,” he said. “As in, ‘go, go, go!
Drink more!’ “
She wanted to roll her eyes but kept her
composure. “How long have you worked here?”
Go smirked and shrugged. “I can’t remember!
What do you do, Asami?”
“I work in an office.”
“Haven’t seen you before. You new here?”
She nodded. “I transferred in the
spring.”
“And just you tonight, huh? No friends?”
She faked a sigh. “I’ve been really busy,
haven’t had a chance to make many friends yet.”
Go put on a disappointed look. “That’s too
bad. But don’t worry, I’ll be your new friend!”
“Oh really?” she asked with a giggle.
The night continued on like that. Go was a
pretty experienced host—he didn’t offer up much personal
information on himself and he focused all discussion on Kyoko and
her life. Whenever Kyoko tried to push for something personal, his
response was clearly either a lie or he would redirect the question
to her. She continued to play the part of a typical customer, but
Kyoko found her patience waning. By the time she was on her third
plum wine, she decided to push for more.
“I have a little bit of a confession,” she
said.
Go smiled. “Ooooh, confession. I like the
sound of that.”
“One of my co-workers told me about this
place. She said there’s a great guy here named… oh what was it?
Shoji… ? Shiro… ?”
“You mean Shoki?” asked Go.
“That’s it! But they said he’s not here. Do
you know when he might come back?”
Go leaned back into the seat cushion, still
as relaxed as ever. “Dunno. Think he quit or something. Haven’t
seen him in a while.”
“Really? Why did he quit?”
Go’s eyes stared at the ceiling as he
muttered
eto…
under his breath. “Sorry, no idea. Didn’t
really know him that well, I just came here from another bar about
three months ago. Ah, but you know who knows him?” Go turned his
head and shouted at another table. “
Oi
! Ichiro! C’mon over
here! Come say hi to a pretty girl!”
The host had his back to Kyoko and Go, but
when he turned, Kyoko realized instantly who he was. She could see
his bottle-blond hair a lot more clearly without the baseball cap
and the suit certainly looked better on him than the tracksuit had.
Ichiro stood from his table and invited the two girls sitting with
him over to Kyoko’s. For the moment, however, he didn’t seem to
recognize her.
“You and Shoki were pretty tight, weren’t
you?” asked Go.
He nodded. “Yeah, but why do you ask?”
Go motioned to Kyoko. “She heard he was the
guy to come see.”
Ichiro took another look at Kyoko, but as he
studied her more intently, his toothy grin drooped and his eyes
bulged slightly. The only advantage Kyoko had was that he wouldn’t
try to run in the middle of work.
“Whoever told you that must’ve come on my
day off!” said Ichiro, following it up with a nervous laugh. Even
the girls who were being entertained by his charms a few minutes
ago now gave him a sideways look.
“I saw him once,” said one of the girls,
wearing a sundress. “He was a lot of fun. But that was until she
came in, then he pretty much jumped to her.”
“She?” asked Kyoko.
The second girl who had short hair and was
dressed in jeans and a tank top with a light sweater nudged her
friend and gave her a dirty look.
“Never mind, it was nothing,” said the first
girl.
Kyoko nodded in understanding, making mental
notes of everything Ichiro and the two women said. A silence fell
over the group and Go tapped his knees impatiently, like a child
with a short attention span who was given nothing to do. He clapped
once, breaking the silence.
“I know!” He slammed the table twice to
accentuate each word. “We need drinks! And we need
karaoke!
I’ll be right back!”
Go nearly jumped to his feet and ran to the
bar master to grab the
karaoke
song selector and order
another round for the table.
* * *
Kyoko left Nanpa after the second hour, paid her fee
(including the charge for
karaoke
, which she had hoped to
avoid), and took note of the bar’s closing time. She rented a
private booth at a nearby Internet cafe and reclined in the chair
for a few hours of sleep. The buzzing of her phone’s alarm woke her
at four thirty and she returned to Nanpa.
While she lingered around the empty streets,
now slowly filtering out the people who decided to close down the
bar, she bought a can of ice coffee from a vending machine and
sipped it, her eyes fixed on the building Nanpa was in.
One by one, the hosts filed out of the
place. A few of them had customers hanging off them. Ichiro,
however, was not one of them, but he was drunkenly stumbling just
as much as they were.
“We’re gonna get a taxi, you wanna come?”
asked Go, his arm around one of the girls who was sitting with
Kyoko before she left.
“Nah, think I’ll walk it off,” said Ichiro,
stumbling as he turned away. His arm flailed up in what Kyoko
assumed was supposed to be a goodbye wave and moved down the
street. Kyoko followed him, keeping her distance for a bit.
“Ichiro!”
He stopped and nearly fell over while
attempting to face her. His glassy eyes fixed on her, his lips
mouthing something. Finally, he pointed at her. “Hey… don’t I know
you?”
Kyoko nodded and drew a cigarette. “Got a
light?”
Ichiro chuckled and turned. He tried to run,
but tripped and fell flat on his face. Kyoko sighed, put the
cigarette back in her purse, and helped him up. She put his arm
around her shoulders and wrapped her arm around his torso to try
and keep him steady, leading him into one of the back alleys.
“Where we goin’?” he asked. “This… this
isn’t the way home…”
Kyoko pushed him against the wall and he
slid down against it until he hit the ground.
“D-don’t hurt me, lady… please…”
“Relax.” Kyoko knelt down in front of him.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to know what you can tell me
about Shoki. Or should I say Shinji?”
Ichiro pointed at her. “Hey… you aren’t
supposed to know that…”
Kyoko slapped his hand and he let it drop.
“You wanna tell me why you were following me today?”
“’Cuz Shinji’s my friend, okay? When I saw
you, thought maybe you mighta known where he was. So I followed
you. Then I got scared when you confronted me… so I ran.”
“The girls who were at the table with us.
One of them mentioned another woman who was interested in Shinji.
And then her friend shut her up. I get the feeling you know
something about that, too.”
Ichiro shook his head. “Can’t tell you
that.”
“Listen to me.” Kyoko grabbed his jaw with
one hand and held it firm so she could look into his eyes. “Your
friend is missing. Possibly in trouble. I can only help him if you
work
with
me. Understand?”
“You’re hurting my face,” he said.
She released it and Ichiro stretched his jaw
out, working the tension. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Shinji had a girl
who came in. Older woman in her fifties or something. She threw
money at him like you wouldn’t believe. Bought him gifts,
everything. He told me she paid him for sex, too. But she’s the
jealous type. And some of the girls who come to Nanpa… if they
don’t do what she says, it could mean trouble for their jobs. Maybe
even worse.”
“Why would she threaten their jobs?” asked
Kyoko.
Ichiro sighed. “Because she’s Suzume
Tanaka.”
The mention of that name almost knocked
Kyoko over. This case had now gotten much bigger than she initially
imagined it would. Most of the women who visited the club were
fuzoku
themselves—employees in the red light district. And
if the Tanakas were involved, that meant things were about to get
much more difficult.
There was only one word to sum up Kyoko’s
feelings, and she uttered it in a hush breath: “
Kuso
.”
* * *
Chief Inspector Takeshi Hashimoto stood outside the
hospital smoking a cigarette. His creased face broke into a smile
when he saw his protégé walk towards him, a cup of coffee in hand
and sunglasses on her face. Kyoko had just barely fallen asleep
when Hashimoto’s call came.
“Naka-chan,” he said. “You look—”
“Don’t bother,
Kacho
,” she said.
“Rough night?”
“In more ways than one.”
“Oh yeah?” asked Hashimoto, followed by a
chuckle and then, “so what’s his name?”
“I’d slap you, but I’m too exhausted,” said
Kyoko. “What’s up?”
Hashimoto stubbed out his cigarette in the
standing ash tray. He jerked his head toward the door. “Come with
me.”
Kyoko walked by his side into the hospital.
Despite Hashimoto’s age, he hadn’t let himself get soft like most
in his position. Although his hair had gotten a bit white and he
now needed glasses, he was still as tough as he was in his days
serving with the
Jieitai
, or Japan Self-Defense Forces. And
it was from him that Kyoko learned everything she knew about
investigation.
Hashimoto walked up to the elevator and
pressed the down button. “I looked into your missing host. And
guess what I found?”
“Declared a runaway?” asked Kyoko.
The elevator arrived with a ding and they
stepped inside. “That’s what I
thought
I would find, but not
even that.”
“Then what?”
Hashimoto pressed the button for the
basement and the doors closed. “Missing persons division has
absolutely no record of any report filed about Shinji
Kuroyama.”
After what Ichiro had told her last night,
Kyoko couldn’t say this came as much of a surprise, but she kept
quiet. Years of experience taught her that Hashimoto had more to
reveal and once the elevator reached the basement, he proved her
fears correct. The doors opened and she took off her sunglasses,
staring at the sign on the wall directly across from the elevator.
Three
kanji
were written on it: morgue.
Hashimoto led her inside and a medical
examiner stood in the corner, arms crossed. Lying on the slab in
the center of the room was a young man whom Kyoko clearly
recognized. It was none other than Shinji Kuroyama.
“I’m sorry about this, Naka-chan,” said
Hashimoto.
Kyoko approached the body, staring at the
pale skin. She glanced to the medical examiner. “Could you give us
a moment?”
He bowed and left the morgue. Kyoko watched
him leave and then looked down at Shinji’s lifeless face. “I think
this is starting to make sense.”
“Granted I don’t know a whole lot about
this, but can you fill me in?”
“
Kacho
, if someone wanted to erase
the record of a missing persons report, what would they have to
do?”
“They’d have to have gotten to someone
inside the department, obviously.”
“Right, but how thorough are the records?
Have they all been computerized yet?”
Hashimoto scoffed. “You know how long it
takes for things to change around here.”
“So it’s possible that a person with
leverage over somebody in the department could make a record
disappear?” asked Kyoko.
“Possible, yes. Not necessarily likely,
though. You’d need to be talking about someone with some
considerable influence.”
“Someone like Suzume Tanaka?”
Hashimoto sighed. “I know you didn’t just
name Ryunosuke Tanaka’s wife as a possible factor in this
case.”
“Last night, I went to the bar Shinji worked
at. One of his friends told me that Shinji had become something of
a kept boy for Suzume. She was buying him gifts, paying him for
sex, and apparently, she’s a bit of a jealous type.”
Hashimoto crossed his arms. “So you think
Suzume Tanaka, who is married to one of the most powerful
yakuza
bosses in the city, was having an affair with this
host, and then got jealous of his other clients? Then what? She had
him killed?”
“Or maybe her husband found out and had him
killed. Then once Misaki Kuroyama filed a report about her
brother’s disappearance, it was seen to that the record
disappeared,” said Kyoko.
He stepped close to her and lowered his
voice. “Stop now.”
“What?” she asked.
“You were hired to find the kid, and you
have,” said Hashimoto. “But if you start investigating the Tanakas,
I can’t watch out for you.”
Kyoko scoffed. “Since when are you scared of
going after someone,
Kacho
?”
“Since it raised the possibility that I’d
lose the closest thing I have to a daughter,” said Hashimoto. “If
you go after them, I don’t think I can protect you. Just drop it.
Please.”
Kyoko lowered her head and gave a shake.
“You know I can’t do that.”
* * *
“Yes, yes, I understand. Just stay out of sight and
try not to cause me any more trouble.”
The woman disconnected the cell phone call
and threw it on the coffee table. Suzume Tanaka was in her fifties,
but with her toned body and youthful features, as well as graceful
poise, she could give any woman half her age a run for her money.
The man who sat on her leather couch was burly and had a shaved
head with a mustache. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses, even
though he was indoors, and a gray suit that shone slightly under
the lights of Suzume’s living room.
Suzume paced in front of him, one hand on
her hip while the other rubbed her forehead. She wore a simple
white dress that hung loosely on her body and extended to just
above her knees.