A Ken Tanaka Mystery story
by
Dale Furutani
— :: —
I don’t know how I get myself into these predicaments.
I was hanging by one hand from an eight story balcony, one foot propped up on the edge of the balcony to help support my weight, and waiting for my target to appear. I’ve seen hundreds of detective movies and read thousands of detective books; in not one of them did the detective find himself in the position I was in.
My name is Ken Tanaka. I had some success solving some murders a few years ago and decided to change professions and become a full time detective. In some states this means printing up a few business cards with your name and the title Detective. It’s often harder to become a barber. At least for a barber there’s usually some type of testing or license.
In California, however, to get a PI license you have to put in thousands of hours doing some kind of police-like work before you can apply for a PI license. As usual for California, everything is harder. This requirement gives a tremendous advantage to ex-cops or MPs going into the detective business, which may be the idea, but it’s not impossible for others to get a license. In my case I was doing my hours of investigative work under the supervision of a lawyer.
I was hired by Enrique Velasquez. Yeah, that Enrique Velasquez. Working for a famous lawyer looks great on your resume but it could also be stressful because of Enrique’s high standards.
My idea of PI work was a lot of running around town, wearing a trench coat, and cracking wise. (Do they still use that phrase? It comes from reading too many old detective stories. It means talking like a smart ass.) I soon found that modern investigative work really means hours spent behind a computer screen. You’re looking for addresses, criminal records, property ownership, credit history, records about money, and things like that. Most people have a very long electronic trail. Since I was an ex-computer programmer that wasn’t so difficult, but I was really itching for fieldwork. Not everything is digitized. If it was, I’d go back to programming because it paid a lot more than detective work.
It didn’t take long to realize I was naïve about fieldwork. In front of your computer you’re in a nice air conditioned office with clean bathrooms and a coffee shop usually no more than a block away. Most fieldwork involves sitting around in a stuffy car, eating junk food, and telling yourself you really don’t need to go to the bathroom. As soon as you take a bathroom break the person you’ve got under surveillance will probably pick that exact moment to jump in a car and leave. More experienced PIs carry wide-mouth bottles on surveillance just for this situation, but I still have problems with that. I’m convinced that if I avail myself of the relief offered by a bottle, there will be a rap on my window and I’ll look up to see a cop standing next to my car, asking me why I had my junk stuffed into a bottle. Some guys could handle this situation with aplomb but I’d just as soon avoid this scenario, if I could.
The saving grace of surveillance was if you were patient enough, there would be moments of pure exhilaration. The quarry would leave the nest and the chase would be on. Often it would lead to nothing—a trip to the hardware store or grocery store or something like that. But sometimes you could nail the object of your surveillance doing what you were hired to catch him or her doing. I guess it’s a lot like fishing: any little nibble keeps you interested. Click, click, a few snaps with a digital camera and your job is done. That part, completing the assignment, is tremendously satisfying.
My current assignment was following a rich guy who liked to have both a wife and a girlfriend. I suppose a lot of rich guys (and more than a few poor guys) like this, but California is a community property state so this is, to say the least, problematical. And potentially expensive. Just as critically, he wasn’t good at juggling a wife and a girlfriend. It seemed the wife always found out. He had three very expensive divorces to prove it.
Now he was on marriage number four—soon to be divorce four if I had anything to do with it. The guy had learned something from his past experience, though. For wife four he had a prenuptial agreement. Wife four wasn’t a dummy, though, so she had her own lawyer insert an interesting clause in the agreement. If the guy cheated on wife four the agreement was null and void and wife number four was free to go after as much as she could get. I don’t think the actual legal language said this, but that was the gist of it.
All this explains why I was hanging off an eight story balcony trying to take a picture of hubby and his girlfriend. I trailed him to a bar where he popped in and immediately came out with a very good looking brunette. Except for his money, this guy was no prize so the woman was obviously someone he knew and not a quick pickup. They sped off to an apartment building in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and parked. Then they entered the building and a few minutes later a light went on in a seventh floor apartment.
I noticed the building was eight stories tall and that there were balconies circling the top floor. That’s when I got the not-so-bright idea that I could hang off the top floor balcony and take a picture through the windows of the seventh floor apartment. I made my way up to the roof, slipped the lock on the door to the roof (one of the many new skills I’ve learned since pursuing a detective career), and went to the edge of the building. Then I hesitated. From eight floors up it’s a long way to the ground.
Below me was a parking lot. If I fell I could aim for a Fiat with a canvas top or the sedan next to it. The sedan had a glass sunroof. If I could hit the Fiat, I decided that canvas would make a better landing than glass. After a moment’s reflection I decided that hitting the Fiat after falling eight stories was really the difference between an open casket or a closed casket service. Unless the Fiat was filled with pillows I wasn’t going to survive the fall no matter what I hit.
Still, that picture was worth a lot of money. A lot of money to wife number four and a lot of money for the law firm I was working for. It was also a lot of money for the guy I was trailing, although not in a positive way. I didn’t have any sympathy for the guy—if he cared about the money he should have kept his zipper up until he was divorced from wife four. The only person involved who wasn’t looking at big money from this photo was me. Of course, no amount of money is worth falling eight stories for, even if you hit the canvas top of a Fiat.
I’m not the biggest and toughest private eye you’ll ever meet. I’m sure I’m not the smartest and I’m certainly not the most experienced. One thing that I do have going for me is that I will not give up on an assignment until it is completed. Persistence. Or maybe just stubbornness.
So I hiked myself over the parapet on the roof and dropped down to the balcony on the eighth floor. Then, with more bravado than brains, I climbed over the safety railing and started hanging down past the edge of the balcony so I could take a picture through the window of the apartment on the seventh floor.
I could see through the open curtains of the apartment to the living room. I heard activity in the apartment and got my camera ready. I was as tight as a pulled rubber band waiting to snap. I just wanted to take my picture and get out of there. Some people eat and run; when taking a picture of a married guy and his girlfriend it’s best to click and run.
Suddenly there was a noise from inside the apartment. I got ready to take the shot, hanging even more precariously than before. A woman walked into the living room dressed in a robe. She looked out the window and saw me hanging there. She let out a tremendous scream. It was the kind of scream that should be used to alert passengers that a ship is going down. It was the kind of scream that could literally rattle the knickknacks and photos in a room. It was the kind of scream that I was unprepared for and it startled me and my foot slipped off the balcony edge.
Now I was hanging by one hand high in the air and yelling. I think I was yelling, and not screaming, but I can’t be sure. Interestingly enough both the lady and I were shouting the same thing: Help! I could see her doing something practical about her screaming and she picked up a phone and started dialing. I hoped it was 911. If she wasn’t calling for the cops, then I hoped it was at least for an ambulance. Actually, I would be happy to have anyone who could get me off the balcony show up.
I did something to help myself and dropped the camera. The camera was owned by the law firm I worked for but I didn’t care. If I was alive for them to deduct the cost from my pay I’d consider it a bargain. With my hand free I reached up and grabbed for the balcony above me. It took a couple of tries, but I was eventually able to grab the edge of the balcony. Then, a little bit at a time, I was able to slowly pull myself up to the point where I could get myself to safety.
As I did this I heard a police siren and saw a squad car pull into the parking lot, screeching to a halt. In the past, I’ve had friends call the LAPD and wait over an hour for a cop to show up. I would’ve been happy for the cops to arrive late so I could get out of there but now they arrive in just a couple of minutes. Where’s poor police service when actually you need it?
Two officers jumped out of the car, looked up to see me, and rushed into the building. I pulled myself the rest of the way onto the balcony and then over the parapet onto the roof. I was halfway to the roof door when it opened and the two cops came rushing out. I had made the mistake of leaving the door ajar so I could make a quick exit. They must’ve been in good shape, running up eight flights of stairs. Or maybe they were lucky and caught the elevator quickly. They saw me and shouted, “Freeze!” just like in a cop movie.
* * *
It wasn’t long before I found myself in an interrogation room at the local precinct. Sitting across a table from me was Detective Bachman, a nemesis from past encounters. He was looking at my wallet, examining my ID. “I guess they’ll let anyone apply for a PI license,” he said. He used a tone of mock surprise, going for sarcastic comic effect. I guess in LA even the cops are frustrated actors.
I thought of retorting that apparently in LA anyone can be a cop, too. By comparison letting anyone apply for a PI license was nothing. I thought better of it. The LAPD aren’t supposed to use rubber hoses, but that doesn’t stop some of them from using nightsticks and excessive force when they lose their cool. Look up “Rodney King” if you don’t believe that. Frankly, you don’t want the cops of any city mad at you if you’re trying to be a PI there. So I just sat stony-faced and stared at the jackass. Excuse me: Detective Jackass.
There was a knock at the door and a uniformed officer opened the door, motioned, and Bachman stepped out into the hall. When Bachman returned he had a look of genuine sadness on his face. “The woman you peeped on won’t press charges,” he said. “You can take your stuff and go.”
I must have set several speed records leaving that police station. When I was outside I felt a sense of relief. I guess even innocent people feel a sense of relief when the cops let them go and I was hardly innocent, although my transgression was unintended. I just drew the wrong conclusion when I saw a light go on in the seventh floor apartment. I did feel lucky, though. If the woman had pressed charges I would have been in a world of trouble.
I decided to call the office and ask someone to give me a ride back to my car. I noticed that two voice messages had come in while the cops had my phone. The first was the private number of Enrique. Enrique liked to call himself the Latino Johnny Cochran. This was a reference that was dated and it was something almost no one else used when describing him. He was a superb lawyer, but like most superb lawyers who are also rich he had a lot of scuzzy clients. Enrique started out representing people abused by the system but he soon realized that the people doing the abusing were usually richer than the people getting abused. I won’t say Enrique abandoned all his early idealism but, like I said, some of his clients were pretty scuzzy.
“Tanaka,” he said, “what the hell have you been up to? A friend of mine at the precinct tipped me off about your troubles. I got the phone number for the woman you were peeping at. I’ve had to use more persuasive firepower with her than I usually do with a death penalty jury. She was ticked off and I don’t blame her. What a stupid stunt! I hope you have that photo of our client’s husband and his girlfriend. After getting into so much trouble there better be a payoff.” He hung up the phone. It was nice of him to get me out of trouble, but it was plain he wasn’t thrilled by the situation, to put it mildly.
I suppose I could lie and say the photo was in the shattered camera, but there was so much money riding on the shot that I figured Enrique would have someone retrieve the picture from the shattered camera’s memory. I decided to shelve this problem right now and listen to my second message.
“Bruddha, this is Gary Apia. I need your help. Right now.” Then he gave the name of a police station and hung up.
I realized I was standing in front of the station Gary mentioned. I turned around and walked back in. The officer who had just seen me leave was surprised to see me back. “Did you forget something?” he asked.
I told him that I was there to see someone who was at the station, a sumo wrestler named Gary Apia. I told him that I was with the Velasquez law firm. If he assumed that I was a lawyer with the firm instead of just a PI, well, that was his problem. I wasn’t sure why Gary was there and what trouble he was in. If he had been arrested I wasn’t sure they would let me see him unless they thought I was his lawyer.
Regardless, after some verbal dancing that would’ve made Enrique Velasquez proud, I was taken to an interrogation room very much like the one I had just escaped from. There, taking up a good third of the room, was Gary Apia.
Gary took up so much space because he was 6’5” and a massive 500 pounds. As required by the Japan Sumo Association, Gary was dressed in a light kimono, a yukata. His hair was carefully shaped into a hairstyle that wouldn’t be out of place in a samurai movie, with a small ponytail pomaded and flipped upwards against his head. Gary was a rikishi, a professional sumo wrestler.
I first met Gary in Japan. Gary was a Hawaii-born guy, like me, who became a professional sumo wrestler. His ring name was Torayama, Tiger Mountain. The mountain part was appropriate and in the sumo ring he was a tiger. All in all a great name. He had done me a favor in Japan. A big favor. That meant I owed him. Japanese culture, like some other cultures, makes a big point of remembering the favors done for you and the obligations that incurs. This trait has carried over into Japanese-American culture, which means it was drummed into my head from childhood. Whatever trouble he was in, this was my chance to pay him back.
Gary looked up when I entered the room. An expression of amazement passed across his face. “Hey bruddha, how come you come so fast? When I say fast, you are fast. Amazing.”
I didn’t want to go through the trouble of explaining to Gary that I’d been just down the hall being questioned about a peeping Tom incident, so I just said, “I was in the neighborhood. Are you arrested?”
Gary shook his head. “No. But still, this is big trouble.”
“What happened?”
“Some guy is, da kine, missing.”
“Some guy?”
“Another rikishi, sumo wrestler, on da tour. Some of us sumo wrestlers are here in Los Angeles to give a demonstration at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA. One of da wrestlers is missing.” He looked up and kind of shrugged. “It was somebody I hated.”
“Did you tell the police that?”
“Why not? It’s true.”
I winced. Still, what’s done is done. I pushed on. “What caused the bad blood between you?”
“His name is Ishikabe. Da Sumo Association set up a tour for us here in da United States. We started in Hawaii and we’re now doing da West Coast. We’ll end up in Chicago and New York. This is a two night exhibition tournament to get people interested in sumo and to explain something about it to them. On these expeditions we rikishi try not to do anything dat will seriously injure another wrestler. After all, it’s not a real tournament. One of da things we’re not supposed to do is a tsuppari, a slapping attack.” He took his big arms and made a motion like he was battering the head of another wrestler.
I knew about the tournament in Los Angeles. In fact I had tickets for the second night of the tournament. I hoped to see Gary after the matches. Now I was seeing him under totally unexpected circumstances.
I’ve seen the sumo slapping attack. It’s a silly name for a vicious assault. Sometimes wrestlers are throwing open hand punches that look like they’d stun an ox. It’s not a namby-pamby technique.
“In a regular tournament a slapping attack is allowed,” Gary said. “But in these exhibitions you can really hurt somebody throwing those kinds of punches. So we agree not to do it. I’ve fought Ishikabe several times in Japan. Dat guy’s never beat me. He’s been around a few years, moving up and down da ranks of wrestlers. He never puts together a string of victories so he’s constantly being promoted and demoted. I’ve been doing pretty good,” Gary said modestly. “I guess because of dat Ishikabe has decided he hates me. He said some dirty things about me in da Japanese press. Real stink-eye stuff. Sumo wrestlers aren’t supposed to do dat. Still, I didn’t expect him to start a slapping attack during da first tournament in Hawaii. Dat threw me off balance and dat guy was almost able to force me out of da ring. Dat guy wanted to beat me and he was willing to cheat to do it. Dat dirty trick didn’t work and I was able to push him out of da ring. Dat made him even more mad with me. Look, you know how it is in Hawaii. We try to live and let live. But if a guy like Ishikabe is going to do dirty to me I’m sure going to pound him. I wanted to throw him right out of da ring onto da floor. So da second night in Hawaii dat’s exactly what I did. I picked him up and threw him out of da ring. Da other wrestlers told me dat’s what they’d do.”
“So why are you here at the police station?”
“We’re wrestling two nights here in Los Angeles, at Pauley Pavilion. Tonight was da first night. I drew Ishikabe for my first bout. Da other wrestlers said I should throw dat guy out of da ring again. They’re tired of dat guy, too.”
“So what happened?”
“He didn’t show up! Ishikabe liked to be by himself before a match. At Pauley Pavilion he found a small room to sit in until right before da match. He said da time allowed him to focus his power so dat he could do his best in da wrestling ring. About five minutes before his bout with me, one of da students helping with da tournament went to knock on da door to tell Ishikabe da match was coming. Ishikabe said okay. Then I entered da ring and started my usual pre-bout ritual. I kept waiting for Ishikabe to show up so I could throw da salt in da air and drink da power water and do all da other things you do before a match. Dat guy never showed up. I figured he was doing this to make me look foolish, to lose face in front of da crowd. Da referee finally declared da match a forfeit and I left da ring. I can tell you I was boiling. I went to da room where Ishikabe was but da door was locked. I pounded on da door and yelled at him to come out and face me. When he didn’t do dat, I knocked da door down. Da room was empty. Nobody knows where he’s gone.”
I got a few more details from Gary before the cops said he could go. Unlike the way I was just dumped on the sidewalk, they offered to drive Gary back to his hotel in Century City. Since he wouldn’t fit into some of the little compact cars they use for taxis these days, this was a good move.
It was now pretty late and I decided no one would be at the office, not even the usual eager and exploited law school interns that Enrique (and most other law firms) took advantage of. So I called a taxi and, sure enough, it was one of those little hybrids. Unlike Gary, I fit in it quite nicely and went to retrieve my car.
* * *
The next morning I was not anxious to go into the office and face Enrique, so I called the office and told them I was busy on a case. Of course, this didn’t involve billable hours but I didn’t mention that. Working for a lawyer teaches you the value of lies.
I went over to UCLA to look over the scene of Ishikabe’s disappearance. Pauley Pavilion was closed, but I banged on a door until someone let me in. A short conversation and flashing my PI card got me into the arena. The arena is usually set up for basketball, but now it was converted into a sumo stadium. In the center of the stadium, surrounded by cushions that acted as floor seats next to the ring, was a raised mound of earth and clay. It was square in shape, about 15 feet on a side and about three or four feet off the ground. In the center of the square mound of earth was the circular sumo ring marked by a rope buried in the clay surface. The most spectacular thing about the ring was a roof suspended above it by cables. The roof was a representation of a Shinto shrine roof. It had the gentle arc that you find in classical Japanese architecture and it was covered in dark red tiles. The decorative ridge pole of the roof was painted dark red with gold colored plates acting as both a decoration and a brace. Hanging down from each corner were silk rope tassels of different colors- black, white, blue, and red.
Next to the ring was some kind of electric forklift. One Japanese guy was driving it and another, standing high in the air on one of the elevated forks of the lift, was adjusting one of the rope tassels.
Sumo seems like an easy sport. All you have to do is push your opponent out of the ring or have him fall so that something besides the soles of his feet touch the ground. That’s one reason sumo wrestlers are so big—they’re harder to push!
If you’ve never seen a sumo match you may think it’s just a bunch of fat guys in diapers bumping into each other. It’s considerably more than that. For one thing, the action is usually lightning fast and the bout can be over in a matter of seconds. Sumo also involves a variety of strategies about how you can make an opponent either fall or get thrown from the ring: slapping attacks, push-downs, pull-downs, force-outs, and more. Sumo is also tied to traditional Japanese Shinto religion and there are a lot of colorful ceremonies associated with the sport.
I talked to the young man who let me into the Pavilion. He told me he was helping with the sumo tournament. “So were you here last night?” I asked.
“Sure. I’m the one who went to Ishikabe’s room and told him the match was about to start.”
“Did you tell him in English or Japanese?”
“I’m studying Japanese here at UCLA. That’s one reason I wanted to help out with the sumo tournament. I told Ishikabe in Japanese.”
“And what did Ishikabe say to you?”
“He said hai, yes. That was it.”
“You’re sure this was just five minutes before the match?”
“I sure am. It’s one of my duties to tell the wrestlers five minutes before they’re due to go out into the arena.”
“Can you show me the room Ishikabe was in?”
The young man took me under the stands at Pauley to the section where the locker rooms are. The room, which seemed to be some kind of storage room, was pretty easy to pick out. It had a smashed door. Gary must’ve been pretty upset because the door looked like it had been hit by a bulldozer, not a man.
I satisfied myself that there was only one way in and out of the room. I thanked the young man for the tour and went back to my car. I was really stumped as to why Ishikabe would not show up for his match. Even more puzzling was the fact that nobody saw him leave Pauley Pavilion.
The UCLA campus is right in the middle of Westwood. Gary told me that Ishikabe was 5’10” and weighed around 420 pounds. When he disappeared he was dressed in a muwashi, which is that combination belt and underwear that sumo wrestlers wear. The cheeks of his rear end would be exposed to the world and his hair would be in the distinctive topknot of the sumo wrestler.
Los Angeles has a lot of strange people wandering the streets. But even for Los Angeles a 420 pound sumo wrestler wearing what looks like thong underwear would be something worthy of taking notice of.
So I figured he didn’t just wander off into the night. And because he had been informed of the upcoming bout in Japanese, he didn’t have some kind of misunderstanding about where he was supposed to be. What happened to him? Good question. One I had answered for me before I finished lunch.
I was wolfing down a burger from Fatburger (it tastes better than the name) when my phone rang.
“Ken-san?”
“Gary?” The Hawaiian accent is pretty distinctive.
“Yeah. Say, bruddha, they found Ishikabe.”
“Yes?”
“He’s dead. Feedin’ da fishes in Los Angeles Harbor.”
I was stunned.
“They say he was, da kine, strangled.”
“Strangled? How could a man that big get strangled?” Ishikabe was probably fat, but he was also a trained athlete, amazingly strong, and sumo wrestlers can be incredibly fast and agile, at least for a short period of time.
It occurred to me that it would take a pretty big guy to strangle Ishikabe. A guy as big as Gary. If the thought occurred to me it must have occurred to the cops. I would have to call Enrique Velasquez; Gary probably needed a good lawyer.
I went down to the office and, after a short wait, got in to see Enrique. He was pretty upset with me for not getting the picture despite getting arrested. The camera I broke was just the cherry on the cake. His anger was mollified somewhat, however, when I explained to him the situation with Gary and the fact that Gary would need a lawyer. Before I finished Enrique had called Gary, told him not to say anything more to the police, and told him he would be contacted. The only problem with Enrique representing Gary is that people usually don’t hire a lawyer of Enrique’s reputation and cost unless they are actually guilty. Most innocent people could do with lesser, but competent, lawyers.
While Enrique was still in the afterglow of snagging a new client, I snuck out of the office and went back to work.
I returned to Pauley Pavilion. Now that Ishikabe’s disappearance was a murder case I wanted to look at things again. The two Japanese guys were finishing up their work. I watched them for a few minutes, then went back to the room with the broken door and walked the hallway in both directions. At the time of the tournament I imagine there were a lot of people wandering around backstage.
If you strangle someone who weighs 420 pounds, how do you drag the body through a busy sports stadium to get rid of it? Especially if the body was 420 pounds of literally dead weight.
I went back to the sumo ring and approached the two Japanese guys. I greeted them in Japanese and asked them if they could speak English. “Yes,” one of them said in slightly accented English. “Can I help you with anything?”
“I am here investigating the disappearance of Ishikabe-san.” The two guys looked at each other. They had the look that Japanese sometimes get when they don’t how to respond to a stranger. I ignored it and pushed on.
“Are you connected with the sumo organization?”
“Yes. We’re ring attendants, called yobidashi in Japanese. On this tour we do everything, including setting up the ring and attending to the wrestlers. My name is Junichi and this is Shimazu-san.”
“Junichi-san, was Ishikabe-san acting strangely last night?”
“No. He went through his pre-match preparations as normal. He just wanted to be alone in a room to prepare himself mentally.”
“Could he have left that room?”
“No. The UCLA student assisting us talked to him right before he was scheduled to go out to the ring. Shimazu-san and I were backstage. A lot of other people were backstage. Someone would have seen Ishikabe-san if he left.”
“What other people?”
“Members of the Sumo Association, local sumo supporters, various local officials, and many other people.”
“Your English is very good,” I said.
“Thank you. We’ve both made many trips all over the world. The Sumo Association usually assigns us to these types of tours.”
“Did Ishikabe-san make many trips?”
“Yes, he would usually join any group of sumo wrestlers doing a foreign tour to educate people about sumo. The tours are helpful. We have amateur sumo wrestlers all over the world now, places like Europe and Russia, and even places like Turkey or Bulgaria.”
“So Ishikabe-san was experienced with foreign travel?”
“Yes.”
“And did he ever do anything like this before, disappear before a match?”
“Never.”
I felt like I was hitting a stone wall so my next step was to get more information from Gary.
* * *
Gary was staying at a really fancy hotel. When I pulled up in my old Nissan they looked at me like a garbage truck had arrived. The real test of a first class hotel is they treat everyone with courtesy and respect. They don’t change behavior based on the kind of car you drive. This place failed the test.
Gary had a suite that probably cost more per day than I earned in a month. I wish my apartment was half as nice as his hotel room. After the usual greetings we settled in. Gary ordered some room service and I sat in a nice comfy chair. He sat on the couch like it was a piece of children’s furniture.
“Dat lawyer Enrique said don’t speak to da cops,” Gary said.
“That’s probably good advice.”
“But I’m innocent. I don’t need to hide nothing.”
“At this stage it doesn’t matter if you’re innocent,” I said. “The police are going to start thinking about who is capable of strangling Ishikabe. That doesn’t leave too many suspects. Unfortunately, you’re probably a prime suspect. You’re big enough to strangle a man the size of Ishikabe and there was bad blood between you. To the cops you’re probably suspect number one.”
Gary opened his mouth, then shut it again. Finally he said, “Why would I be a suspect?”
I sighed. Gary was basically a kind and trusting guy, and those people often get into trouble when dealing with cops. “Number one, you told the cops you didn’t like Ishikabe. Number two, you broke down the door of the room he was in, which shows how upset you were with him. Number three, you’re big enough to handle Ishikabe physically. And number four, who else could be a suspect?”
“But he wasn’t in da room when I broke da door down.”
“The fact that others can verify he wasn’t there is probably the one thing that’s stopping the cops from hauling you downtown. That and Enrique raising his usual fuss about his client being abused and harassed by the police. Plus they want to work out how you transported the body. How Ishikabe ended up in Los Angeles Harbor is just one of the strange things about this whole strange situation. By the way, if you had any involvement in Ishikabe’s disappearance, don’t tell me. Private investigators don’t have the same kind of confidentiality protection as lawyers. You can discuss anything with Enrique, but don’t make any confessions to me.” I didn’t mention that I wasn’t officially assigned to the case, which would make things more complicated.
A dark cloud passed over Gary’s face. “I told you I’m innocent. I didn’t like da guy, but I wouldn’t kill him.”
I forgot that I was dealing with a professional athlete capable of incredible violence in the ring. I could see that if Gary was indicted and tried Enrique would never put him on the witness stand. Too frank and too honest. The same openness doesn’t work with the police, either. The cops would take any flashes of anger as evidence that Gary was hot headed enough to murder Ishikabe.
“Don’t get upset. I know you’re not involved, but I have to say this sort of thing. Just standard legalese.”
The tension was broken. Room service arrived and the server brought the cart into the room. Gary signed the bill and we pulled up a couple of chairs and tucked in. Gary’s chair gave occasional groans as he shifted about. The parking valets may have been snotty, but the kitchen was certainly top notch. It was the best meal I’ve had for quite a while. It’s difficult to describe how much food Gary was able to ingest. It was an amazing thing to behold. I was eating like a bird by comparison.
When we finished we sat around making small talk. Something strange caught my eye. It was a little trunk painted dark green and vermilion. It was about three feet long, two feet wide, and eighteen inches high. The top and the bottom had a trim of split bamboo. The front of the chest had big Japanese symbols, the kind families use like a coat of arms, painted in vermilion.
“What’s that?” I ask Gary.
“It’s my akeni,” Gary said.
“A what?”
“An akeni. It’s a sumo wrestler’s storage chest. It’s presented to you by your supporters when you get da kine promotion. Like everything in sumo, it has a long tradition and a story behind it. It’s made out of woven bamboo, a wooden frame, and da whole box is covered in paper which is lacquered.”
“Paper?”
“Yeah. They actually use old documents from da 1800s because da quality of da paper is so good. We wrestlers carry our wrestling belt and other gear in dat box. Only one family still makes da akeni. Dat box costs $10,000.”
“$10,000!”
“Dat’s right. Sumo is an expensive business. But, like I said, da fans will raise da money to help celebrate any promotion you get into da upper ranks of sumo. Only da wrestlers in da top two ranks of sumo get a box like dat.”
“And you all get your boxes from the same family?”
“Yeah.” Gary thought a minute, then said, “Da only person who didn’t was Ishikabe. He had his made by someone else. He claimed it was an antique akeni, but it didn’t look old to me.”
As Gary finished the phone rang. Gary picked it up and talked for a few minutes. Then he said, “Your boss, Enrique Velasquez, is coming up to talk to me. Da tournament will move to San Jose after tonight so he wants to see me before we leave.”
I didn’t want to meet with Enrique, especially since he might ask me some embarrassing questions about what I was doing with Gary. After all, I had not been officially assigned to Gary’s case. I told Gary that I had to get back to my investigation and I asked him not to tell Enrique I was there. To his credit, Gary didn’t ask me why.
I slipped out of Gary’s room and took the stairs for a couple of floors to make sure I didn’t meet Enrique. Then I took the elevator down to deal with the snotty parking attendants.
Like I told you, I don’t have any special virtues as a PI. I do have persistence. When I run out of new ideas I’m quite willing to start over; to go over everything and talk to everyone to see if I missed something. Sometimes people don’t want to talk to you anymore, but other times you learn something valuable the second or even third time you talk to them.
I returned to Pauley Pavilion and found the student I talked to earlier. He seemed to find it strange that I wanted to see the room Ishikabe was in one more time, but he obligingly took me there anyway. I searched the room carefully, but frankly didn’t come up with anything that would give me a clue whether he was killed in the room and, if he was, how the body was moved through the busy backstage.
As we left the room I had a brainstorm. I asked the student, “When you talked to Ishikabe, did you see him or did you just talk to him through the door?”
“I talked to him through the door. But it was pretty clear he heard me.”
The light bulb went on. I had an idea. Persistence paid off. I left.
* * *
About two hours later I was back at Pauley Pavilion talking to the ring attendants.
“Thank you very much for seeing me,” I said.
“We would be here anyway to make sure that everything is in place for tonight’s tournament,” Junichi, who seemed to do all of the talking, said.
“It’s kind of you to let me disturb your routine, but I need your help. It will help clear Gary of the murder of Ishikabe-san.”
“Gary?”
“Excuse me, Torayama.” I had forgotten that only Gary’s ring name would be used by anybody associated with the sumo world.
Both of the attendants showed recognition at Gary’s sumo name. “Anything we can do to help Torayama-san, we will,” Junichi said.
“Fine. I want to take a look at Ishikabe’s wrestling chest, his akeni.”
The two attendants looked at each other. “His akeni?”
“Yes. I called Torayama at the hotel. He asked officials of the Sumo Association to check Ishikabe’s hotel room. They were able to confirm that his akeni was not in his room. I know that the akeni is brought to the stadium each time a wrestler has a bout. I thought in the confusion his chest probably was not returned to the hotel.”
“I don’t think it’s here,” Shimazu said. I did a double take. These were the first words I heard him speak and I just figured he didn’t understand English.
“I think we’d better check,” Junichi said. “Perhaps it is here.”
Junichi went off under the stands of Pauley as I stood awkwardly with Shimazu. I tried to make a little small talk, but Shimazu could not be drawn into a conversation. Finally Junichi appeared at a door and said something in rapid Japanese. My feeble Japanese couldn’t follow what he said. Shimazu looked at me and said, “I’ll take you to where Ishikabe’s chest is.”
Junichi disappeared and Shimazu took me into the area under the stands at Pauley. Shimazu seemed to know where he was going. He took me down a hallway to a set of double doors to what must have been a storage room. He opened one of the doors and motioned me to go in.
I walked into a dimly lit room. Suddenly someone stepped in behind me, slipped a noose around my neck, and pulled it tight. I spun around in time to see Shimazu stepping away from me. Suddenly the noose jerked upwards and it pulled me up until the rope was tight. I grabbed at the rope around my neck. I was able to see Junichi sitting in the seat of the electric forklift used for the sumo ring setup and maintenance. I saw the rope wrapped around the rising forks of the lift. I was being hanged.
Junichi had his hands on the forklift controls. The look he gave made it clear this was not some kind of sick prank. “Now,” he said, “I want to know why you are interested in seeing Ishikabe-san’s akeni.”
“Because it’s different,” I croaked.
“What do you mean?”
“I was told Ishikabe had his trunk made by someone different than all the other wrestlers. I wanted to see if I could tell why.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
Junichi gave a small touch to the forklift controls and now I was on my tiptoes.
“I think there is more than that,” he said. “Tell us.”
There were several things I could say. I hoped I selected the right one.
“That’s the only reason.”
That was the wrong answer. Junichi’s hand twitched and I was suddenly standing on the very points of my toes like some ballet dancer, except ballet dancers are trained to do that. Every time I wobbled or fell off my toes the noose hurt like hell.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“Okay, okay—I thought the akeni might have something to do with Ishikabe’s death.”
“Why?”
“The different manufacturer and the fact it was missing from his room.”
“And?” The noose momentarily lifted me off my feet and my arms tried to relieve the pain of the noose. Junichi put me back down on my toes. A searing pain was coming from my neck, but there was nothing I could do to loosen the rope.
“The ring attendants are responsible for moving the trunk to and from the stadium. The trunk was not returned to Ishikabe’s room even though no one knew he was dead yet. I thought there must be a reason. Either you just forgot to return it in the confusion or you wanted the trunk. I also thought you might be lying about seeing Ishikabe on the night he disappeared.”
“Why?”
“You and Shimazu are the only people who said they saw him last night. Torayama didn’t see him and he said no one else saw him, either. That means Ishikabe was able to disappear from a locked room at Pauley or you both lied. I think it’s impossible that he just disappeared. And, since the student only talked to Ishikabe, and didn’t see him, I think that it was you or Shimazu in the room. You probably did that ruse to add confusion about what time Ishikabe died. I’m sure you killed him earlier in the day and took a truck you use to haul sumo equipment to dump his body in the harbor.” My arms were getting tired and I had less ability to ease the pressure of the noose. “From this rope and forklift I can see how a man your size could strangle a man Ishikabe’s size. The only thing I don’t know is why you and Shimazu wanted him dead.”
“That’s easy, isn’t it, Shimazu-san?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Shimazu nod agreement. “Ishikabe-san was a cheat,” Junichi said. “We were in business together. His akeni has a false bottom. An akeni is almost never closely inspected by Japanese customs, so it is easy to move drugs into Japan using it. Because of his dress and looks Ishikabe-san could hardly go out looking for drugs in the various foreign cities we visit, but Shimazu-san and I could. Ishikabe-san couldn’t sell the drugs to wholesalers once we got back to Japan, either. Again, Shimazu-san and I did this. Despite Shimazu-san and I taking all the risks, Ishikabe-san wanted most of the money we made. Eventually he started demanding a bigger and bigger share of the profits so Shimazu-san and I decided to end our business with him until we could find a more reasonable sumo wrestler to work with. Ishikabe-san didn’t like this and threatened to have us arrested for drug smuggling. Ishikabe-san said he would claim he was ignorant we were using his akeni to smuggle drugs. They treat sumo wrestlers like little gods in Japan so he would have gotten away with it, too. Just a few years ago, one wrestler claimed he just forgot to pay taxes on three million dollars in cash and the authorities accepted that story. Shimazu-san and I would be thrown to the wolves if Ishikabe-san carried out his threat, so we decided we needed a permanent solution to the problem Ishikabe-san presented. We are going to use the same solution to the problem you present.”
Junichi moved his hand and the forks lifted again, hauling me a couple of feet off the ground. Fire coursed through my body from the pain shooting through me and my legs started kicking about.
Suddenly, from the door came a roar and out of the corner of my eye I could see Gary running into the room. He knocked Shimazu aside with a swipe of his arm. Shimazu slammed against the open door and slumped to the floor. Then Gary charged the forklift.
He struck the forklift with such a shock that I felt it all the way down the rope and through my body. The forklift tipped over and I found myself lying on the floor. It was a concrete floor and I hit it hard, but I was happy to have the pain in my neck ease up.
Junichi jumped off the seat of the forklift as it tipped. Before he could get away Gary grabbed him, literally picked him up, and tossed him across the room. Junichi bounced against the wall of the room and hit the floor, skidding along for several feet. Gary came up to me, looked down, and asked, “Are you okay, bruddha?”
Gary loomed over me like a mountain. A big, strong, protecting mountain. It took me a few minutes to get my voice back, but I didn’t feel so bad about my injuries when I saw the damage done to Junichi and Shimazu. They were both crumpled like rag dolls. Well used and abused rag dolls.
Every PI deserves to have a sidekick, and Gary is the biggest and toughest sidekick I know. I had asked him to come to the stadium early to keep an eye on me. I didn’t know what would happen with the two ring attendants, but I thought if they could handle Ishikabe they could certainly handle me. Gary would more than even the odds.
While we waited for the police to arrive, I looked for Ishikabe’s akeni. I found it and looked inside. Even though I knew his trunk had a false bottom, it looked normal inside.
“What are you looking at?” Gary asked.
“I just wanted to see if I could see what they were smuggling. I’ll leave it to the cops to open the bottom because I don’t want to mess up evidence. I guess an akeni is a good way to smuggle things.”
Gary’s face turned red.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Maybe a few of da kine Rolexes might have made it into Japan in my trunk,” he said. “But certainly nothing like drugs. I can’t thank you enough, bruddha. I caused you a lot of trouble and almost got you killed. If I got into some murder scandal it might ruin my wrestling career.”
“You can thank me by paying Enrique Velasquez’s bill promptly, no matter how outrageous it seems. In addition to giving you good advice, he was able to keep you out of the press and there was no inkling you were a potential suspect. And the LA cops will be very happy to take credit for solving a puzzling murder in less than 24 hours.”
“And what about you, bruddha? What kind of reward you want?”
“The reward I want is something that you can’t give me.” I pulled a small digital camera out of my pocket. “I hope the cops get here soon because I’ve got to get a picture of a philandering husband or Enrique Velasquez is going to skin me alive.”