Hiroshi heard the tink and ping of bowls and plates, the sucking sound of the refrigerator door, and the shush of the faucet. He smelled coffee, or a dream of coffee, and rolled over to smell Ayana on the empty pillow next to him.
Maybe Takamatsu was right about the need for food, drink, conversation, and sleep. He felt restored. And sex. Especially sex.
His phone was ringing. It was Watanabe at the Tax Agency. “Can you stop by here on your way to work? I found some things you might like.”
Hiroshi told Watanabe he’d be there in less than an hour and hopped in to the shower.
After he got dressed and picked up the client list and his cellphone, he found a message from Takamatsu that they were already at work, reminding him he missed the morning meeting, again, and asking where he was.
Hiroshi sent him a message to meet at the Ministry of Finance building.
Takamatsu wrote back to say he and Ishii would be waiting outside.
Hiroshi found Ayana standing at the kitchen counter typing on her laptop, a cup of coffee and a bagel beside her.
“I don’t know how to give a speech, or write one, or anything.” Ayana stuffed the bagel into her mouth and shut her laptop.
“Improvise. Like a jazz musician.”
Ayana chewed slowly. “You’re always full of suggestions after you get some sleep.”
Hiroshi poured a cup of coffee. He took the other half of the bagel from the toaster and slathered it in cream cheese. “I wish I had suggestions for this case.”
“Maybe I’ll call in sick today. A personal day. I can get this finished and shop for a dress.”
“The archives can run themselves for a day.”
“But not detective work, I guess. Forensic accounting is so necessary for the functioning of the world.”
“You want me to take a day off too?” Hiroshi’s phone rang.
Ayana pointed at it. “Nice try. I’ll see you tonight. Or not, if the forensic accounting runs late.”
Hiroshi watched her getting ready to leave as he listened to Sakaguchi tell him he missed the morning meeting, a brief one due to lack of progress. He listened politely. He’d slept longer and deeper than he thought. No one had found anything from the hotels. There were no sightings of the two girls.
Ayana waved from the front hall, blew him a kiss, and was gone.
Hiroshi stuffed the rest of the bagel in his mouth and finished the coffee. He washed the dishes and hurried outside to catch a taxi.
Ishii and Takamatsu were waiting in front of the Ministry of Finance building that housed the Tax Agency and Watanabe’s office. Takamatsu was talking to the security guard and Ishii waved.
Hiroshi called Watanabe to let him know they were downstairs. They went through security and Hiroshi wondered if the list Mehta had given him was going to help. It was just as likely to get a hit as calling hotels, but he had to try something.
Takamatsu held the elevator door open and they got in.
Hiroshi pressed the button. “Who has wealth in this country? Wealth they want to hide?”
Takamatsu turned to Ishii. “See, happens every time. Hiroshi starts expanding the investigation. We were supposed to find two abducted girls but Hiroshi wants to look at tax compliance for the moneyed elite.”
Ishii said, “If it’s connected…”
“Everything’s connected, according to Hiroshi.”
Hiroshi patted the file of investor names. “If some of the investors Patrick Walsh helped had been sokaiya, would that catch your interest, Takamatsu?”
Takamatsu’s eyes widened. “It might, yes, but that was a long time ago. They’re all somewhere else, working some other line.” Takamatsu frowned.
“You were the one who brought it up yesterday.”
“I was drunk.”
“You mentioned it before you got drunk. Call it nouveau sokaiya.”
Takamatsu scoffed, mumbling “nouveau” in Japanese pronunciation.
Ishii interrupted. “Sokaiya are old history, aren’t they?”
“That makes me old history too.” Takamatsu laughed.
“I read about their extortion and blackmail. Did you work on those cases?” Ishii looked at him.
The elevator door opened, and Takamatsu walked out first. “Everyone did in those days.”
Watanabe welcomed them into his office. He had on the usual suspenders and pinstripe shirt with a white collar. It gave his elegant bow even more charm.
“This is Takamatsu and Ishii,” Hiroshi said.
Watanabe opened his arms wide. “I’m glad homicide is taking an interest in these kinds of tax issues. They’re killing the country.” He waited for them to laugh at his joke, but only Ishii smiled.
They sat down and Hiroshi handed him the list of clients from Mehta.
Watanabe put on a pair of glasses, leaned back, and read slowly and carefully. His face lit up at some of the entries. He hummed with interest.
Ishii waited with her hands folded calmly in her lap, attentive and patient. She was going to be an asset to the homicide department.
Takamatsu squirmed in his chair. Hiroshi wondered if he had attention deficit disorder.
At the end of the final page, Watanabe folded the list shut. “Quite a collection.”
“Do you know any of them?”
“A few. One of them was caught up in a scandal with some of London’s EMIs.”
“What are EMIs?” Ishii asked.
Watanabe smiled. “Electronic money institutions, the love child of cryptocurrency and crooked banks. Used by all sorts of high fliers. Started as a way to move cash for investing in start-ups, but it was quickly taken over by high-risk customers.”
“High risk?” Ishii asked.
Takamatsu smiled at her being first on the questions.
Watanabe nodded. “High risk could be anything. A lot of the clients on this Nine Dragons list would fall into that category. Someone who’s received too many SARs would want to slip their remaining transfers through the EMIs instead of regular banks.”
“EMIs hide everything?” Ishii leaned back in her chair, thinking.
“Not everything, but they’re below the radar. Way below.” Watanabe smiled. “E-money companies have fewer regulations than banks, especially in the EU. Transactions aren’t protected by deposit insurance, but that’s one of the risks they’re willing to take.”
Hiroshi heard about this on a case he worked with Interpol, but he was told there was no international agency tracking EMI transactions. The money moved too fast. “Can you tell us which of these clients was involved in EMIs?”
“I can do better than that.” Watanabe handed Hiroshi a printout. “I found this. From my side.”
Hiroshi took the list and recognized a few of the names.
Watanabe took a fountain pen from its holder and put a checkmark by a dozen names on the client list Hiroshi had given him and handed it back.
“So, these check marks mean…?” Hiroshi held up the printouts.
“Who you want.”
“Can we take your list?”
Watanabe closed his eyes. “Hide it in your pocket while I’m not looking.” He laughed. “What I’m concerned with is who’s moving money without paying taxes. Like this guy on your list, name of Kosugi. He’s been in my crosshairs for years, but he’s just too good. He knows the value of paying professionals like Nine Dragons.”
Takamatsu quit fidgeting. “Kosugi, that sounds familiar.”
“It should. He was one of the first yakuza to start transferring illegally obtained profits to legal activities after the nineties bubble burst.”
Takamatsu took out his lighter and flicked it open and shut.
“He seems to have a knack for balancing unreported income with reported, so some taxes are paid and everything looks good enough for lazy auditors, and he’s free from taxes on the rest. Before the financial system internationalized, the lack of transparency was the cover. But now that it’s internationalized, it’s just too much money moving too fast.”
Takamatsu laughed. “I remember Kosugi from twenty-some years ago. There were articles in the paper about how he was one of the good guys trying to reform the yakuza.”
Watanabe laughed. “I wonder how much that article cost him.”
“It pays to advertise. Even for people like him.” Takamatsu played with his lighter.
“So, why would people need a firm like Nine Dragons?” Ishii asked.
Watanabe nodded. “Some of their money has been ‘liberated,’ as they say. But not all. They have ties here, and who knows how many old accounts are sitting around, earning no interest but drawing no scrutiny, either. They probably want Nine Dragons to launder what’s left, or at least give it a rinse and spin dry.”
Hiroshi had seen how much was parked in savings accounts working a case on scammers who targeted the elderly. Because older Japanese often put everything into Japanese postal savings accounts, Japanese banks had some of the largest reserves of low-interest accounts in the world. If that money were put to use, it would boost Japan’s economy. And if it was taken out of the country, it would avoid a lot of taxes. “So, Nine Dragons helps drain the country.”
Watanabe shrugged. “There’s a lot of money in Japan, a lot of illegal money, and a lot of savings that might or might not be illegal. Even if it’s legal, moving savings to high-interest accounts hidden in an overseas trust sounds pretty good to most people.”
Hiroshi looked through the list in his hands.
Watanabe popped his suspenders. “And Nine Dragons knows all the new-style tax avoidance tricks. If one of the Nine Dragons employees was in Wyoming, I don’t think it’s because he knows how to wear a cowboy hat and sits a horse well.”
“It’s because he knows his way around the trust fund shell company heaven.” Hiroshi folded up the list and put it in his pocket. “Are you going to freeze these accounts?”
Watanabe smiled. “I put in a request for that, but they’re negotiating. Nine Dragons has connections to Chinese banks, so they don’t want to upset any international investment schemes. International cooperation and all that.”
“But they will soon?”
Watanabe shrugged. “Maybe a day or two. If we can’t freeze them, you and me both won’t be able to find anything.”
Ishii leaned forward. “If the wife is working at Japan’s largest bank, she must know the small banks and how to use the SWIFT messaging system.”
Watanabe shrugged some more. “Any account manager could move funds from their legit accounts to someplace outside Japan.”
“And from there to less legit money institutions before dropping it into a shell account.” Ishii whistled at the ease of it all.
Takamatsu pointed at Ishii. “Now she’s thinking like a criminal!”
Hiroshi’s cellphone buzzed. He took the call and listened as Takamatsu and Watanabe chatted about the importance of thinking like criminals.
Hiroshi hung up. “We’ve got to go. Seems like financial crimes have bumped against human realities again.”