“That was Osaki,” Hiroshi told Ishii, buckling up as she pulled out of the circular drive in front of Tokyo Station faster than he expected. “How far to Akihabara?”
“Ten minutes.” Ishii dodged through the last of morning rush hour. “Osaki’s with Takamatsu?”
“He’s waiting for him.” Hiroshi wondered where Takamatsu found the energy to keep getting into trouble. Hiroshi wanted cases he could work from his office.
Ishii pulled along Suitengu Dori until it merged with Chuo Dori, and soon they were in Akihabara, once the central electronic goods shopping area of Tokyo. Once upon a time, everything from transformers to fuses, relays, switches, motors, and circuit breakers were sold from small stands. Larger stores catered to the latest models of consumer products.
But as tourism and online shopping exploded, the older buildings, and the industry they housed, were rooted up and fancier buildings with new goods plunked in their place. These new places catered not to the realities of electronics, but to the fantasy worlds of maid cafes, video games, manga, and anime.
Akihabara’s windows and walls became covered in cutesy characters—big-eyed, round-shaped, bright-colored images to keep Tokyo’s otaku entertained. The oddly alluring images pointed, in the psyches of some, to the real females working at predatory maid cafes, compensated dating, and porn films.
Hiroshi studied his cellphone app and stared ahead. “Osaki said there was a parking lot next to the gang headquarters.”
“Gang headquarters? Here?” Ishii slowed the car in the back lanes.
“We need to cross the Kanda River.” Hiroshi reached over and showed Ishii the old, unusual kanji character in the address. He wasn’t sure how to pronounce it.
Ishii scrolled through the GPS list of chome blocks in the Akihabara area until she found it. The buildings were eight-story stacks of offices for small companies in what used to be the electronics industry. Hiroshi couldn’t guess what most were now, IT or software companies, small companies to which all the real work was outsourced.
Ishii pulled onto a small lane with buildings rising up from the curb on both sides. The back lane was only big enough for one car at a time, though there were no one-way signs. “That’s them, isn’t it?”
Osaki stood by the entryway, a solid metal door, of a rectangular building. Next to the building was a small pay parking lot where Sugamo stood between parked cars.
Ishii looked around. “I wish there was somewhere else to park than here.”
“We’ll need you to help and we don’t want to draw attention parking out of place.”
Ishii backed into a parking spot. The tire lock barrier rose automatically from below, blocking the two back tires until they paid at the machine in the corner of the lot.
Ishii waited by the car and Hiroshi edged between the cars to Sugamo, who nodded at the building. Rust dripped down from the gutters of the balconies, staining the walls. The windows were painted black and there were no company name signs. There didn’t seem to be any fire escape, either.
“Takamatsu’s in there?”
Sugamo nodded. “We should have called you sooner.”
“How long has he been up there?”
“Longer than we thought.”
“Nozaki?”
“His old headquarters. Takamatsu said he’d staked it out thirty years ago.”
“No back way out, it looks like. No fire escape, either?”
“Probably those rope ladder things. Takamatsu made us promise to wait.”
“He’s been in there over an hour?”
Sugamo nodded. “Are we going in?”
“We’ll have to.”
Ishii walked down the lane to where Osaki was waiting, her baton open already.
Hiroshi called Takamatsu, holding his hand up for everyone to wait. Before he got an answer, the front door burst open and two men in all-black outfits with colored ties rushed out. The door slammed the wall by Osaki. Ishii rushed with baton drawn.
The taller man in a purple tie shouted, and the man with a dark orange tie sprinted to the parking payment machine. He tapped an IC card on the card reader pad and headed to a black van.
Sugamo and Hiroshi rushed him, but he pulled a gun, turned, and fired into the payment machine. Splintered pieces flew in all directions around the lot. Hiroshi and Sugamo ducked and covered their heads.
The man hopped into the driver’s seat of the black van and started it up before they could get to him.
Osaki and Ishii circled the tall man who’d faced off with them by the door. Nozaki.
Sugamo pulled his baton out to smash the windshield of the van, but it wouldn’t break. Hiroshi tried to think of a way to block him. Takamatsu always carried a knife, for tires among other things.
Nozaki hadn’t budged staring down Osaki and Ishii.
When Osaki saw the van coming, he lunged at Nozaki, but Nozaki moved too quickly and Osaki only got an arm around his neck for a moment.
Ishii planted her legs and swung her baton hard into Nozaki’s knee.
Nozaki hopped to the side, clutching his knee. Osaki grabbed his arm and tried to flip him, but Nozaki stayed balanced and pulled away.
Ishii cracked him on his shoulder. Nozaki kicked at Ishii. She dodged and hit his leg. Osaki grabbed him from the other direction.
Sugamo kept banging on the window of the black van. The driver twisted the wheel and rammed the van forward at Hiroshi. Hiroshi jumped out of the way.
The side door of the van popped open as it headed toward Nozaki.
Hiroshi saw the blur of Ishii’s baton, but Nozaki ducked aside and the black van swung around, cutting Ishii off. Nozaki leapt into the van, sprawling on the floor.
Hiroshi ran close enough to grab Nozaki’s ankle but Nozaki pulled a pistol and pointed it right at him, smiling calmly, waiting for Hiroshi to decide as the van kept moving.
Hiroshi let go and stepped back. It wasn’t worth getting shot for. Nothing was. He thought of Ayana saying she was nervous when he went to work. He wouldn’t tell her this.
The van sped off and Nozaki leaned out the side panel waving his gun and grinning at the detectives. The van turned left on the main wide road and was gone.
Ishii turned and ran for the car. “Let’s go!”
Osaki hurried after her to the parking lot, but Sugamo stood in front of the payment machine. It was in pieces. Sugamo banged his fist on the box, and more pieces dropped off. The tire blocks were up on all of the cars in the lot, locking them in place.
Hiroshi leaned over to catch his breath. “We better find Takamatsu.”
They gathered at the door. Hiroshi pulled the door back. Steep stairs ran straight up to the second floor. He looked back to see if everyone was ready to go. They braced themselves, and started up.
Before the second step, though, Takamatsu appeared at the top of the landing. He started down, clutching the railing and taking the stairs one by one.
Behind him were two young guys with scraggly hair and tight-fitting clothes. One had his hand under Takamatsu’s arm, helping him.
Hiroshi hustled up to help.
Takamatsu, for once, let him. “Nozaki got the jump on me. Again.” He clutched his stomach.
“At least he didn’t break your nose.” Hiroshi helped him but Takamatsu shrugged him off.
“Nozaki is in deeper on this one than I thought. And not just for his own money. He always seemed calm and collected before. But now, he’s panicked.”
“Why’s that?” Hiroshi asked.
“From what I could tell, he screwed up with Nine Dragons. Maybe he’s on the hook over this one.”
When they got Takamatsu outside, Ishii checked him for injuries, following procedure, but Takamatsu waved her away and patted himself for his cigarettes and lighter. He pulled out a crushed pack and discovered a long tear in his camel hair coat. He held up the signs of his struggle and shook his head.
Osaki and Sugamo grabbed the two guys coming after Takamatsu and frisked them against the wall.
“We need to go.” Ishii pointed after Nozaki and the van.
Takamatsu lit half a cigarette he managed to salvage and nodded to Ishii that it was OK to let them go.
Police from the nearby koban arrived and Hiroshi started explaining.
Ishii clicked her baton shut.
Takamatsu waved Osaki and Sugamo off the two guys who’d followed him down the stairs. “They’re just renting this space from Nozaki for their business supplying outfits to the maid cafes around here. They have racks of every cosplay and holiday costume imaginable. Dry cleaning, stain removal, rental, storage. Quite the enterprise.” Takamatsu smiled at the two young guys and Osaki and Sugamo let them go. “They told me they were moving. Nozaki kept raising the rent.” Irritated at only half a smoke, Takamatsu flipped the butt into the gutter.
The local police called on their shoulder mics, and more police arrived on bicycles. Sugamo walked over with one of them to figure out how to get the payment machine to release the cars. The local cop called the parking lot company.
Ishii looked confused. “We should follow them. They’re getting away.”
Takamatsu pulled his cellphone out and handed it to her. The screen showed a tracking app with a pulsing dot moving east along the Shuto Expressway.
“How did you know which vehicle was theirs?” Ishii asked.
“I didn’t.” Takamatsu smiled. “I put a GPS on every one of the cars in the lot.”
Ishii smiled.
Takamatsu showed her the app. “We shouldn’t let them get too far away, though. Just far enough they won’t see us coming.”
“What are we going to do with these guys?” Osaki asked about the two guys who followed him down.
“Give them a reward. They got me out of the handcuffs Nozaki had me in. Universal key. The one guy tried to talk Nozaki into calming down. That’s good enough for me.”
The local police couldn’t get the payment machine to work, so they grabbed the back bumper of the car Ishii drove, rocked it up and down on the tires, and lifted it over the immobilizing block. Osaki and Sugamo helped them with the other car.
Hiroshi took Takamatsu’s cellphone and checked the app. “They’re heading east along Route Nine.”
Takamatsu took his cellphone back. “Can you call Sakaguchi and tell him to bring pistols. And that sharpshooter, what was her name? Made it to the Olympics. Sakaguchi will know. I wanted to do this one up close, but distance works too. Nozaki got away thirty years ago. He got away just now. But he won’t get away next time.”
“We’ll get you some cigarettes on the way,” Ishii said, heading for the car.
“Best thing for a broken rib.” Takamatsu took a painful breath and smiled.