CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Proper greetings

Saigo was woken by his father knocking on his bedroom door. It was an afternoon in October 2002, and he was taking a nap. Saigo was wearing sweatpants and nothing else. It was still hot, despite being the fall, and he didn’t like the feeling of his T-shirt sticking to his sweaty torso.

At first he ignored the knocking, but his father kept politely pounding on the door, gradually with more force. His father finally explained why he was there. There were cops at the front door, and they were threatening to break it down. There were at least fifty of them, and they had a battering ram.

Saigo didn’t want to have to buy a new door, so he told his father to ask them what they wanted. His father told him to at least not worry about the door — he had already let them in. So the door would be fine. Then, before Saigo could say another word, his father went downstairs to make some green tea for the police officers.

His father was still keeping the books, managing day-to-day affairs, and Saigo thought the visit by the cops was just a routine greeting or a public performance to show they were cracking down on organized crime. Maybe one of his crew had been arrested. He’d let his father handle it; he was sleepy.

A kick in the ass and the lights being turned on rudely awakened him. He looked up at an old cop, who looked down on him and clicked his tongue in disapproval. The cop was called Inspector Midorigawa aka Greenriver. He had a grizzled beard, and wore a bad suit and an expensive Rolex. Behind him were several young men and women, in bright new blue uniforms, armed with notepads and pencils. One of them was snapping pictures with a compact camera. The older cop asked for the boss.

Saigo, who was just in his pajama bottoms, sat up. “I am the boss.”

Greenriver looked down at him. Saigo stood up and came chest to chest with the cop, who was a few inches shorter than him, and moved forward, chest-bumping the detective. Greenriver didn’t flinch. He poked Saigo in the chest hard and fast. Saigo was surprised to find that the cop had almost knocked him back down with a single poke. He struggled to stay standing.

Greenriver was a powerful guy.

The cop flashed him a search warrant. They’d heard that Saigo was in violation of the Firearms and Swords Control Act. An anonymous tip had come in, saying that the Suguwara-gumi were holding weapons for the Inagawa-kai. So the police had come to look around.

Saigo was livid. He was about to yell when the cop motioned with one hand for Saigo to shut up, and, to his surprise, Saigo did find himself shutting up.

Greenriver addressed the young cops behind him and held up the search warrant for them to see. “We’re here searching for guns or swords. If you find one, yell, and I’ll come over. Don’t move it or touch it.” The young cops all nodded in agreement vigorously. Greenriver then poked Saigo gently in the chest, where the Inagawa-kai symbol was tattooed. Saigo wasn’t sure what was going on.

Greenriver traced the pattern in the air. “This is called a daimon. The Inagawa-kai daimon is the Chinese character for river, kawa, made to look like a mountain and rice plants, ina, next to it. It’s supposed to mean that everything you can see from Mount Fuji is Inagawa-kai territory. It’s very artsy.”

The students came closer and stared at Saigo’s chest. He felt like an animal on display. A young female police officer asked him if the daimon on his chest was the same as the one in his office downstairs — and did it have a different meaning if it was colored differently?

Saigo roared at Greenriver. Was he taking the cop kids on a field trip?

In fact, he was. They were collecting data for a study, and Greenriver was teaching them what a yakuza office looked like. The other police officers were still attending the police academy, and this was part of their training.

Saigo told the officer to get the “baby cops” out of his office. Greenriver told him to have some respect for the learning process, and to turn around for a second.

Saigo did as he was told, and the cop poked his back. The skin was slightly raised. Each of the carp’s scales were textured.

It all seemed surreal. Saigo turned around and growled. He wanted them out.

Their lesson was over for now. The senior officer told Saigo he would see him later, and he led the kids in blue out of the room. In the hallway, Saigo could hear his voice, pedantically pointing out another daimon, the sensors, and the cameras — they were everywhere. He explained to the trainees that yakuza office hallways were often narrow, and sometimes partitioned with iron doors, to slow down an attack from a rival gang.

Saigo got dressed slowly, still half-groggy. He went to the window and opened it up. There were thirty or more police cars parked in front of the house. There were cops everywhere. They were digging up the yard, inspecting his car, looking in the garage.

Saigo wasn’t dumb enough to keep guns on his own property. The cops were wasting his time and their own time, but then, without warning, two cops pulled one of his men out of the office. They’d found a sword.

Damn, thought Saigo. That wasn’t expected.

A minute later, three young cops ran up the stairs and told Saigo that they had just arrested one of Saigo’s men for violations of the Firearms and Swords Control Law. They asked Saigo to please come downtown to speak to the inspector in charge as soon as possible.

The cops had nabbed one of his older soldiers. This particular soldier, Yusuke Ikeda, had been planning to leave the organization and go straight. Saigo had given his tacit approval. And now they’d arrested him for possessing a sword. While it was possible to have an antique sword as an art object, it required a lot of paperwork. But possessing a real sword, one that could actually cut and kill, and had no value as an antique, was simply illegal.

It says a lot about Japan that swords and guns are regulated by the same law. The gun and sword control laws are very severe. Yusuke was facing some serious time in jail.

It was a shame.

Saigo was deep in thought when one of the trainees showed him a picture he’d taken off the wall. “This daimon is very nice-looking. Did you have it done in gold inlay?”

“Give me that back,” Saigo said. He was not about to lose his kanban again.

The cop returned it, looking down in shame, perhaps feeling he’d been rude.

Other police trainees were now rifling through his desk and closet. There were close to 100 cops on the property. He called up his crew; every office and every front company of the group was being raided. It took him an hour to get hold of all his lieutenants. He told his father he’d be going down to the police station to see if he could bail out Yusuke.

They were expecting him at the Machida Police Station. When he came in, he was sent up to the Organized Crime Control Division to see Greenriver. A cop pointed him to the elevator. Saigo took the stairs. In the back of the room, with his feet up on the desk, Greenriver was reading a yakuza fanzine and drinking a cup of coffee.

Greenriver motioned for him to sit down. A year prior, Detective Lucky had taken exams to rise up to sergeant level, and had been sent to the police university for two years of intensive training. Thus Greenriver had been working at the station for over a year as Lucky’s replacement, and still hadn’t had a formal visit from Saigo. He was offended, and he wasn’t necessarily wrong. It was customary to pay greetings to the new sheriff in town.

Saigo did not sit down. Since when was it the law that he had to go and kiss the ass of every new cop in town?

But it was common courtesy. Greenriver was in charge of the organized crime control division in Machida, and Saigo was operating on Greenriver’s turf. He had expected a proper greeting.

Saigo was incensed. He pounded his fist on the desk. Greenriver had basically raided his place with 100 cops because he hadn’t said hello. Greenriver retorted that there were also rumors that Saigo had guns on his property, but, personally, Greenriver thought the rumors were just that. He hadn’t expected to find anything. Finding the sword was a pleasant surprise.

Saigo knew that Yusuke, the retiring underling, was already on a suspended sentence for attempted extortion. This arrest would mean he’d be in jail for quite some time, but what was the point when Yusuke had planned to leave anyway? Saigo offered to go in his place.

Greenriver took his feet off the desk and put them on the ground, and stared at Saigo “That won’t work. It doesn’t work like that.”

Saigo thought fast. What about the man’s fingerprints? If the sword didn’t have his fingerprints on it, maybe his subordinate could go home. Greenriver didn’t know about that, though. They hadn’t given the sword to Forensics yet. So Saigo said it was his. “Arrest me,” he said.

Greenriver cocked his head to the right, and stared at him, with a bemused look on his face. Greenriver had met a lot of yakuza in his time. He was impressed.

He decided they would seize the knife and leave the ownership in dispute. Greenriver had a few things to discuss with Saigo, and then they could call it a day.

Saigo was speechless.

“Now,” said Greenriver, “would you please sit down and talk to me?” Greenriver was too tired to stand up. He had finished testing for his fourth-degree black belt in karate the day before, and his legs were killing him. The casual mention of a karate black belt would have sounded like bragging from anyone else, but Greenriver was just explaining himself.

When Saigo understood that Greenriver was a karate-ka, some more things made sense to him. Beneath Greenriver’s crumpled, ill-fitting suit was a powerful man. He hadn’t just poked Saigo at his office, he’d hit him with a nukite (spear hand). No wonder he’d almost fallen over. And his chest still hurt. There was more to this old man than met the eye. Greenriver had been busting yakuza for over two decades. Over time, he’d taken on the mannerisms of the people he put in jail. In some odd way, Saigo felt like he was talking to another yakuza boss.

Saigo sat down. Greenriver asked Saigo whether he wanted some green tea. Saigo said no. Greenriver had one of the officers bring some black coffee for both of them. They sat in silence for a bit, both sipping their coffee. Greenriver spoke first.

Saigo’s right-wing group and its activities annoyed everyone in the town. It only took one convoy of his right-wing propaganda trucks blaring out through their loudspeakers to generate complaints from 200 people calling 110.* It created a public disturbance every time their trucks did that.

[* The 110 phone number is the Japanese equivalent of 911.]

Saigo argued they were just exercising freedom of speech, and Greenriver told him to be a little less free with his speech, or else he’d shut them up completely. He wanted Saigo to reduce the number of trucks. No more running around town in fifteen to twenty truck convoys — five or six would be okay, but no more than once or twice a week.

Saigo agreed to reduce the number. “But you should know,” Saigo said, “The Shelter is backed by the Inagawa-kai.”

“Ask me if that means shit to me,” Greenriver said. Saigo was the Inagawa-kai executive director. So, of course, his group was backed by the Inagawa-kai. And, on that note, Greenriver thought his executive meetings were a nuisance to the neighborhood as well. He didn’t care if Saigo had all 150 members of his clan show up, but they needed to car-pool or something. Thirty to fifty Mercedes Benzes, all with the Saigo-gumi standard license plate 3000 on them, intimidated people, blocked the streets, and caused traffic to slow down. It was a pain in the ass for the cops.

Greenriver wasn’t saying that Saigo couldn’t have meetings at his office anymore; he was just requesting that Saigo reduce the number of guests to ten or twelve people, or get people to share a ride.

That was a lot to ask for, but Saigo would rather do that than go to jail, or have Yusuke go to jail. Those were his choices. Saigo took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled. He thought it over, and agreed to Greenriver’s terms.

They shook hands, and had a deal.

Saigo was smart to take the deal, for, only a couple of months later, Saigo needed Greenriver’s help. Hanzawa’s meth habit had gotten so bad that Saigo’s soldiers were loathe to even let him stay in the office. One morning, Saigo got a phone call from Hanzawa’s mother. Hanzawa was home, and on meth again. He was prone to bouts of violence in between catatonic states, and wouldn’t listen to reason. She couldn’t handle him. Saigo took some men with him, and went straight over.

The entrance of Hanzawa’s house was full of broken plates and bloody footprints. Hanzawa was sitting cross-legged and half-naked on a small tea table in the tatami-matted living room. He was trying to cut his hair with a sharp kitchen knife, and his bloody head was completely bare in one spot. He thought there were insects inside his head.

He nodded at Saigo when he came in. Saigo had never seen him so thin. He tried to find out what Hanzawa was doing, but couldn’t understand his logic. He told Hanzawa that even if there were bugs inside his head, cutting off all his hair wouldn’t get rid of them.

Hanzawa realized that Saigo was right. Then he stuck the tip of the knife in his ear, and prepared to start burrowing into his skull. Saigo shouted at him to stop, and Hanzawa politely warned Saigo that he would stab him if he tried to take his knife.

Saigo tried anyway, and Hanzawa stabbed him in the hand. He backhanded Hanzawa across the face while another soldier grabbed Hanzawa’s hand and twisted his wrist back until he dropped the knife. The others joined in and tried to pin Hanzawa down. They managed to tie his hands and feet together with neckties, but he was somehow still moving and violent. The only person that Saigo thought could truly help was the enemy. He dialed Detective Greenriver.

Greenriver answered the phone immediately. Saigo explained the situation, and the detective immediately came over with a patrol car. Hanzawa was now tied to a chair close to the door. Greenriver asked one of the yakuza guys to slap Hanzawa in the face; Hanzawa woke up, and Greenriver checked his pupils. He was definitely high. They wrapped Hanzawa up like a turkey, and tossed him in the back of the car.

Saigo felt a little ashamed of himself. He had called the cops on one of his own men — but he was trying to save this guy’s ass. Hanzawa was very, very close to being put in a nuthouse for the rest of his life. If he went to jail instead, he could come back to society after only two years.

As it happened, Hanzawa got out of jail after serving his full time, and was arrested on the usual charges within a month of his release. Some people just can’t be healed.