Hiroshi called for two detectives to take Mehta back to his hotel to gather his things and move to a new place. Mehta was not pleased when Hiroshi confiscated his passport, but he set up a rotating schedule to guard Mehta, and that seemed to pacify him.
Hiroshi, Takamatsu, and Ishii rode the elevator down to the parking garage. Takamatsu fiddled with his cigarettes and lighter as they walked past the empty parking spots.
Hiroshi got in back. “The next crime scene might well be his.”
Takamatsu pulled out his cellphone. “That’s why we’ll call Shibutani and Ota.”
“To watch him?”
“No, to speed things up.”
Hiroshi leaned across the hood of the car. “You want to outsource this?”
“If Shibutani puts Ota on this, he’ll turn something up faster than we would.” Takamatsu called Shibutani.
Shibutani was a private investigator who worked with Takamatsu in homicide until he retired to start his own office, mostly handling divorces. The two had repaid favors to each other for years. When Takamatsu was suspended, he worked for Shibutani.
Ota was Shibutani’s employee, a small bowling ball of a guy who had taken over the office when Shibutani was in the hospital after a bad beating. Ota was deaf, which had surprised Hiroshi, but the lack of hearing didn’t impede his endurance, competence, and follow-through.
Takamatsu hung up and smiled. “Shibutani and Ota are on it.”
“On what?” Hiroshi asked.
Takamatsu didn’t answer. Ishii got into the driver’s seat and Hiroshi started taking photos of the client list pages and sending them to Akiko. He’d take them to Watanabe at the Tax Agency in the morning.
“All this corporate stuff has me thinking about sokaiya.” Takamatsu blew his smoke out the window.
Ishii pulled to a stop at a light. “Corporate blackmailers? They’re long gone, aren’t they? When the Japanese economic bubble burst.”
“Extortion didn’t disappear.”
Takamatsu rambled, but Hiroshi knew him well enough to wait.
“The easiest companies to extort were the dishonest ones. The more corrupt they were, the quicker they paid off the sokaiya.” Takamatsu laughed. “The murder of a company executive was the first real murder case I worked on. Shibutani was on that one too. Everyone was surprised the sokaiya actually followed through on their threats. It wasn’t all bluff.”
Takamatsu got a phone call. He listened without a word and hung up. “Sakaguchi’s joining us.”
“Joining us for what?” Hiroshi growled. He knew what he meant.
Takamatsu put his hand up. “Look, every Japanese needs several things before sleep—food, drink, discussion, and a hot bath.”
“You’re forgetting sex.” Hiroshi sent all the info to Akiko. He hoped she’d have time to back it up.
“Your girlfriend will wait. Women are good at that.”
Ishii leaned over. “Some are good at waiting, others not.”
“That’s what I meant.” Takamatsu chuckled. “Nearly all cases are solved while sleeping. Didn’t you learn that working at the koban, Ishii?”
Ishii smiled. “I just learned to stay awake all night. I wouldn’t mind a drink, though. I’m driving, so just one. Or maybe two.”
Takamatsu smiled at Ishii’s enthusiasm. “There’s a place in Takadanobaba. Halfway home for you, Hiroshi.”
Hiroshi sighed and sent Ayana a text message.
Ayana wrote back and reminded him not to drink too much.
Hiroshi promised he wouldn’t, a promise more aspiration than certainty.
They were at a parking lot down Waseda Dori from Takadanobaba Station in a few minutes.
The izakaya’s front window held three rows of empty sake bottles, green, brown, and clear. A spotlight hit them and the light refracted through the glass, a poor man’s chandelier.
“Irashaimasse!” the wait staff sang out as the detectives entered.
They pressed sanitizer onto their hands from the bottle by the door, trying not to crowd the people at tables next to the refrigerated cases holding all the bottles of sake.
One of the chefs hurried out with greetings and led them to the back wall where a sliding door opened to a private tatami room up two steps. He turned on the overhead light, pushed the low tables together, pulled out zabuton floor cushions. Handwritten menu items and beer girl ads were thumbtacked to the walls in neat rows.
The detectives toed off their shoes and climbed into the room. Before they sat down, Sugamo, Osaki, and Sakaguchi arrived. They made it past the front tables without bumping anyone, turning sideways down the aisle. When they climbed up the two steps and ducked inside, the room seemed to shrink.
With the table tight against their bellies, there was just enough room for Ishii, Hiroshi, and Takamatsu on the other side. Everyone hung their coats from hooks on the wall and settled onto the zabuton.
The base straw of the tatami poked through the top omote weave here and there. Spilled sauce and oil left curved, dotted stains in places. The patterned heri borders of all the mats had lost their shine. The tatami felt worn and comfortable, support to unwind.
The chef came in with oshibori, cracked the plastic from the hot towels, and held them out steaming for the detectives.
A waiter brought out draft beer in big mugs. Everyone toasted, trying to summon the energy to relax. Ishii took a polite sip, and set it aside to nurse slowly. Takamatsu belted his down, and Hiroshi, despite his email to Ayana, finished half the mug in one gratifying guzzle. Sugamo’s and Osaki’s hands made their mugs seem small.
Takamatsu read the list of daily specials from a printout and Hiroshi scanned the menu options pinned to the wall.
Takamatsu called out orders and the waiter shouted the orders to the kitchen staff. The aroma of grilled vegetables, smoking fish, and deep-fried chicken karaage began to feel real.
When the beers were finished, Takamatsu ordered sake for everyone. The waiter came back with two large bottles of nigori sake and hand-sized cups. After stirring the rice lees with a deft twist of the bottle, he poured out six glasses of the cloudy-white, bubbly sake.
They toasted and took the first sip.
“I love this sparkling sake,” Ishii said. “A hint of sweetness at the edges, and goes down easy.”
Takamatsu smiled. “It’s better than champagne. Fuller flavor and the bubbles are more refined.”
Sakaguchi finished his sake. “Takamatsu, you didn’t tell me about Enoshima.”
Ishii winced and looked away.
Takamatsu frowned. “Two girls and a boy, the oldest was six.” Takamatsu took almost every death as part of work, but he shook his head and frowned at this one. “Their mother drove them right off the end of the pier into the water.”
“Did she leave a note?” Hiroshi asked.
“Mailed it to her mother-in-law. Her husband gambled away all the money. She didn’t want the kids growing up with such shame.” Takamatsu reached for his cigarettes in his camel hair coat. “They owned a yacht berth, but hadn’t paid fees for a year. She drove off there.”
“Certainly made her point,” Ishii said.
Takamatsu pulled over an ashtray from a stack at the end of the table. “The father was a typical rich kid. He just sat there on the sofa with his head in his hands. Made me want to punch him.”
Plates of sashimi arrived, five kinds neatly arranged on a bed of daikon. Sakaguchi, Osaki, and Sugamo started in on one plate. Hiroshi, Takamatsu, and Ishii shared the other. Bowls of cold tofu with ginger and small dishes with pickled vegetables arrived.
Takamatsu held up his sake. “I left it with the Shonan police. As soon as they find who the husband owes money to, they’ll find who’s really responsible. Loan sharks don’t mind destroying families.”
Sakaguchi looked at Hiroshi. “What did you find out today?”
Hiroshi shrugged. “Seems like the babysitter, Taiga, lived a double life.”
“And?” Sakaguchi took a breath and bent his knee up.
“We met his colleagues,” Ishii said. “But they weren’t too helpful.”
Sakaguchi nodded. “Make them help.”
“After he gets out of the coma, we’ll talk to the babysitter directly to find out who he knew. He must have been involved somehow.” Hiroshi finished his sake more quickly than he planned. “Speaking of knowing people.” Hiroshi pulled out the client list. “I’ve got this list from Nine Dragons to check tomorrow.”
Takamatsu drained the rest of his sake. “Why’d this guy come to take the kids anyway? If he had enough money for a 4LDK apartment in Azabu, you’d think he’d leave the dirty work to someone else.”
Ishii nodded. “You can’t get that rich without cutting a few corners.”
“And how do the two scenes connect?” Sakaguchi straightened his knee.
Hiroshi shrugged. “Something was off at Nine Dragons and something was off in their marriage.”
“Something was off? That’s all we have?” Sakaguchi stared through his thin eyes at Hiroshi and Takamatsu.
Takamatsu smiled and Hiroshi waved for another drink.
Ishii spoke up. “No news on the girls?”
Sakaguchi shook his head.
Two plates of deep-fried eggplant bathed in ponzu sauce arrived and two more of pumpkin, the orange meat grilled brown on both sides.
Akiko arrived, walking down the aisle rubbing sanitizer in her hands. She straightened everyone’s shoes facing outward and stepped up into the tatami room and peeled off her mask.
The waiter brought a beer for her and everyone toasted again.
Takamatsu called the waiter over and started to order more food. A waiter brought a beer for Akiko.
“I have news.” Akiko settled in, held up her mug, and looked at everyone with her eyebrows raised. “The chief is retiring.”
Everyone stopped.
“He has some heart thing.”
None of them really liked the chief, but he was still the chief.
Takamatsu was the first to pick up his sake cup. “To the chief. I won’t be sorry to see him retire. But he’s done his part.”
Everyone toasted the chief and drank silently.
Hiroshi wondered about the reshuffle. Sakaguchi would make a good chief and his leg was slowing him down in the field anyway. He just hoped he wouldn’t take Akiko away to be his assistant.
After everyone sat quietly for a few minutes, Takamatsu spoke first.“So, what about the abduction? It’s going to be twenty-four hours pretty soon. Those girls are either well hidden or already gone.”
Sakaguchi leaned back and straightened his knee. “Tomorrow, we go back over everything we did today.”
Osaki and Sugamo groaned.
Hiroshi turned to Akiko. “Did you find anything on the guy’s credit card or the hotels?”
“Nothing on the cards or accounts.” Akiko took a steadying sip. “We narrowed the three thousand hotels down to the most likely half. And we finished half of those. But not a single one had an American with two little girls. There were Americans, couples with kids, couples without kids, or single travelers.”
Sakaguchi set his chopsticks down. “I’ll figure out something to tell the chief. He called me all day.”
The waiter moved dishes around for space to set down plates of deep-fried chicken karaage, roasted ginkgo nuts, and shumai dumplings. After plucking off the last leftover bites, they passed the finished plates to the waiter.
Sakaguchi stared at the wall. “We must have missed something.”
Sugamo and Osaki grunted.
Takamatsu lit a cigarette. “We’ll go through it all again tomorrow.”
Ishii sipped her beer. It was still half full.
A waitress started clearing away the plates, all of them empty save for a little sauce at the bottom.
The waitress came back with small bowls and Chinese-style renge spoons and then brought in two party-size plates heaped with fried rice for everyone to share.