THE NIPPON KUMIAI OFFICE WAS located on a backstreet in Takadanobaba, a plain three-story structure that could have been a travel agency or a language school. Sakai told the police officers accompanying her to wait outside. She showed her police ID to the young man at the reception desk and ignored his protests as she made her way to the office at the back. She knocked once and opened the door to a room latticed with framed black-and-white photographs. The room smelled of cigar smoke, aftershave, and feet. A small, smiling man in his fifties with thick, black hair slicked back sat at a bureau too big for him. His spectacles were too small for his wide, coin-like face.
“Yes?”
His voice was inquisitive, pleasantly surprised at the young woman standing before him. When Sakai held up her police credentials, his expression did not change.
“Assistant Inspector Sakai. Division One.”
“My name is Gorō Onaga. Please sit.”
Signed portraits of Jean-Marie Le Pen and Saddam Hussein sat on Onaga’s desk, facing outward toward the visitor. Another photograph showed Onaga warmly embracing the former Minister for Security. Above his chair, a huge portrait of Yukio Mishima, handsome and muscular, looked down at Sakai. Beneath the author’s folded arms ran a quote of his in severe, dark text.
PERFECT PURITY IS POSSIBLE IF YOU TURN YOUR LIFE INTO A LINE OF POETRY WRITTEN WITH A SPLASH OF BLOOD.
Onaga cleared his throat.
“Division One?”
“The Homicide Unit, Mr. Onaga.”
The man’s eyes widened theatrically as he sat back in his chair.
“So, what can I help you with, Assistant Inspector?”
Sakai gestured around the room.
“What is it you do here?”
“Nippon Kumiai retains the fundamental character of our nation.”
“I see.”
Her eyes settled on a long rack in the corner that supported T-shirts and Windbreakers of all sizes. They all bore the Nippon Kumiai logo.
“Is that why you came here, to ask me that?”
“I think you know the answer to that question, Mr. Onaga. I’m just curious about your … organization, that’s all. I’ve heard certain things.”
He leaned forward, a delighted grin on his face.
“May I ask what things?”
“That you seek to justify Japan’s role in World War II. That you reject its war crimes.”
“What I reject is self-hate. I reject the self-flagellation taught in schools to our children. I reject the pacifist constitution foisted on us by America. I reject the limp-wristed lack of patriotism in our youth. And I’m not the only one to question ‘conventional wisdom’ when it comes to our history.”
“I see.”
“You don’t sound convinced, Inspector.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Onaga laughed but his eye twitch belied his displeasure at her quip.
“Go to any bookstore in this country and you will find all manner of freely accessible literature questioning our role in the war and supposed ‘crimes.’ In the West, this would be shocking—even unacceptable. But we’re invisible to the West. So why pander to it? Why let others define us? Forgive me, but I am free to judge my own nation’s character as I see fit.”
Sakai leaned forward, picked up one of the framed photographs and inspected it. It showed a large group of Nippon Kumiai members smiling in front of a baseball diamond. Evidently a team-bonding exercise.
“It’s interesting, Mr. Onaga. The constitution that you have just rejected so freely is the very thing that protects your ideology.”
Onaga laughed an unpleasant laugh, marbles being mixed in a bag.
“We live in a puppet state, Inspector Sakai. A puppet state from which my group demands independence. The error of postwar democracy is unforgivable.”
“You’re a fool if you think you can ever achieve that.”
Onaga chortled.
“Inspector, do you realize that my group has swollen to over fifteen thousand members? In the last year alone, we’ve staged over one hundred demonstrations all over the country. Many, many more are active online. Japan is at a turning point, Inspector. And I will die seeing it return to the old way of life.”
Sakai took out a notebook, signaling the end of the debate.
“What you will do, Mr. Onaga, is very simple.” She turned the photograph around and pointed to Kodai Kiyota’s long face. “You will tell me where this man is.”
For the first time since she had entered the room, Onaga’s smile dropped.
“Why are you asking me about him?”
“Do you think I’m paid to answer your questions? I asked you where Kodai Kiyota is. That’s all.”
Onaga’s face darkened.
“I don’t know where. In any case, that man is no longer part of our organization.”
“Why not?”
“Because he left.”
“Why?”
Onaga mulled this over. Sakai was used to this pause, the search for the right words, the search for clean answers.
“Mr. Kiyota was a very promising member of our organization. I thought he might go on to achieve great things. He had a talent for … getting people to listen to him. But in the end, it didn’t quite work out that way.”
Sakai stopped writing for a second and looked up at him. Onaga sighed and sat back in his seat.
“You’re here about the dead Korean family, I assume? Look, that family’s pigheaded stance over the housing project became somewhat of a thorny issue in the local area. The VIVUS project would bring jobs, infrastructure, and wealth to Setagaya. Yet this one family was too obstinate and selfish to care.”
Sakai waved this away.
“Get to the point. Where does Kiyota come into it?”
“Mr. Kiyota had only recently joined us and had achieved good results. He asked me if he could deal with the family personally. Of course, I made it clear that he could only talk with them peacefully and lawfully.”
“But the Kaneshiros wouldn’t budge.”
“They started legal proceedings which would be extremely costly for us. I then made it clear to Mr. Kiyota that we had to know when and where to pick our battles but he wouldn’t let it go. It created tension within the group. And it was at that time when trusted members pointed out to me his own … unsavory tastes.”
“Don’t be shy, go on.”
“His drinking was out of control and his criminal past was becoming irritating. It gave us all the wrong associations. Left-wing press had more and more mud to sling at us.”
“Kiyota, talk to me about Kiyota. So he was a drinker with a criminal record, what else? You said ‘unsavory tastes.’”
Onaga met Sakai’s eyes.
“There was also his girlfriend. But she was … very young.”
“Name?”
“She was also a Nippon Kumiai member. I can arrange for her details to be given to you when you leave.”
“I’d like those details now, please.”
There was a long pause before he picked up the phone and requested the necessary file.
“It won’t be a minute, Inspector.”
“Thank you.”
“You know, I must say, I have the utmost respect for you. Police, I mean. A noble undertaking. Not necessarily in this case, you understand. Here I think you are wasting your time, but generally speaking, a most commendable undertaking.”
“You don’t think a murdered Korean family merits investigation?”
He smiled.
“I didn’t say that. I mean a waste of your time by coming here. But then again, maybe it was providence that brought you here. Perhaps you might come again. For further discussion?”
“I deal in homicide, sir. That’s all. Frankly, I think the only one wasting their time is you.”
Onaga’s smile faded then twisted into a snarl.
“There are over a million of those cockroaches living in my country, Inspector. You say you deal in death? Well, let me be frank—Nippon Kumiai deals in hatred, nothing more. Nobody does anything about injustice. But for hatred? People have no limits for their hatred.”
“Very rousing. But I came here for Kodai Kiyota.”
“I cannot say where Kodai Kiyota is, nor what he did or didn’t do. If he is involved in those murders then, of course, I condemn it. But let me say this to you, Inspector Sakai. Whoever did kill that family must have had their reasons.”
The receptionist entered holding the file. Sakai plucked it from his hands and opened it. It contained a single typed page concerning a female named Asako Ozaki. In red ink, a word had been stamped across the page:
EXPELLED
Onaga shook his head gravely.
“Her father killed himself when she was very young after being forced out of his laundry business. Guess who moved in to clean up and steal customers at half the rate? Her mother married another man, and Asako was left, more or less, alone. She never forgot those Koreans who moved in. By the time she came to us, she was more vitriolic than many of our most hardened members. To be honest, she was a PR dream. I was sad to see her go. She was so dedicated. But what can I say? Love is blind and lovers cannot see.”
“Why was she expelled, Mr. Onaga?”
“She refused to follow our code of conduct. She was consistently in trouble with the authorities and then this relationship with Kiyota, well, we had to let her go.”
Sakai ran her finger down the page.
Are you Iwata’s girl?
“Inspector, you think that we’re simply racists, don’t you? I can see that. But this word, it does us a disservice—simple racism robs us of logic and integrity. It implies an irrational disgust or fear. But it’s not the right word. No, we choose, in all logic, to fight back against this small but powerful minority. And if that makes us racists, then so be it. If that leads to condemnation in the liberal media, so be it. We are already fighting greater, more insidious battles.”
Ignoring him, Sakai reached the bottom of the page. Asako Ozaki lived in Shin-Ōkubo. She was fourteen years old.
Sakai stood up.
“Mr. Onaga, I hope we cross paths again. I do.”
Smiling, Onaga stood and offered his hand.
“Oh yes, Inspector. It was a pleasure.”
“No, I think you misunderstand my meaning.”
She left the room.