The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi Series Book 1)

by Michael Pronko

“And Shibuya does that with other girls, too? Not just you?”

  “He does more things, too.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Everything.”

  Hiroshi caught Sakaguchi’s eye and changed to a friendlier tone. “Listen, Yukari, I had a hard time adjusting when I came back.”

  “I totally failed to adjust,” Yukari said, chuckling sadly and puffing her cheeks before sighing.

  “These things you’re doing hurt others, and hurt yourself, too,” Hiroshi said.

  Yukari nodded her head, yes, she understood. “Can we go?” Yukari asked. “I won’t…,” she stopped mid-sentence. She leaned over and hugged her mother, who patted her back to comfort her much larger daughter.

  “Yes,” Sakaguchi said, relieved. “You can go.”

  Sanae and Yukari bowed deeply in apology as they gathered themselves and got up.

  “You have my card,” Hiroshi said. “If there’s anything else, call anytime.”

  Sanae looked at Hiroshi’s meishi again, tucked it into her purse and put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders.

  Sakaguchi opened the door for them and Hiroshi watched them walk down the hall.

  “I’ll tell Mikhail Gorbachev he can leave,” Sakaguchi said. “Want to join us? We can always use a hand.”

  “For what?”

  “Shibuya in Shibuya. Have you back by lunch.”

  “I’ve already wasted the morning.”

  “Takamatsu said you hole up in your office all alone. This will be a good chance for hands-on training.”

  “I’ve got a full workload today.”

  “You have to learn the other side of what we do. The car’s on its way.”

  Chapter 14

  The three officers waiting in the police parking lot wore sunglasses and suit jackets that fit tightly over their bulky frames. Their faces were as round and plump as Sakaguchi’s.

  “Are these guys sumo wrestlers too?” Hiroshi asked Sakaguchi.

  “Sugamo was, but Ueno and Osaki did rugby.”

  “Rugby?”

  “Pays better,” one of them said, and they all laughed.

  “Pays differently,” another said, and they laughed again.

  Hiroshi could not tell if they were joking or not.

  “That’s Sugamo driving, and this is Osaki and Ueno.”

  “I don’t usually go out of the office,” Hiroshi said.

  “Good exercise,” Sakaguchi said. “Takamatsu said you got in on your English. We got in on our size.”

  Osaki held the back door open for Hiroshi.

  “Actually, I didn’t take the martial arts training when I started,” Hiroshi said.

  They all stopped, each with one leg in the car.

  Hiroshi looked embarrassed. “I studied kendo at university, so the head of my dojo wrote a letter for me.”

  They mentally re-planned the attack positions, and reset expectations.

  ***

  The Shibuya streets were packed with shoppers roaming from large department stores to small shops to boutiques to specialty stores. Racks of clothes, shoes, jewelry, and eyeglasses spilled out onto the sidewalks as if shopping could never be contained. The automatic doors of ATM plazas inhaled and exhaled people for cash withdrawals. Karaoke places rose stories overhead. Advertising images danced across giant TV screens. Four-story-high posters of singers and celebrities smiled impossibly wide, too-cheery smiles.

  Young people squatted on stoops and curbs munching cream-filled crepes, sugary hamburgers, and consuming plastic-bottled drinks and palm-size bags of nibbles. They clustered in groups to reconfirm themselves with every purchase and text message, sinking into the anxiety-soothing haze of teenage consumerism. Shibuya held them tight in its grip of teenage fun.

  “Hiroshi, be careful until we get them down on the floor,” Sakaguchi said. “Ueno back there got sliced, when was it?”

  “Couple years ago,” Sugamo said. His greased-back hair missed only the sumo wrestler topknot.

  Osaki leaned forward, around Hiroshi. “That high school girl, right?”

  Ueno grunted. Everyone held back a laugh. They all had earthy Osaka accents like Sakaguchi.

  Sakaguchi turned his head around and said, “Good you have plenty of bowls of chanpon rice porridge between you and your vitals.”

  “A moment of inattention; six months to heal.” Ueno patted his belly and looked out the window.

  Sakaguchi said, “You should have rushed her with an uwatenagi overhand throw.”

  Ueno pushed back his long, oiled hair and said, “I should have felt her up like Osaka would have. She had the blade inside her underwear.”

  Osaka, the youngest and leanest of the group, said, “I never felt up any of those girls up. They just kept claiming that.”

  “Oh, right, because you’re so handsome,” Sugamo said, leaning back from the steering wheel. “They stab me and flirt with you.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Does that happen often?” Hiroshi asked, serious.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Knives?” Hiroshi asked.

  “These days, every time,” Sakaguchi said.

  Sugamo parked across the street from the game center. They all got out of the vehicle with quick purpose, leaving Sugamo waiting at the wheel of the car.

  Ueno and Osaki looked even larger in the juvenile universe of Shibuya, and out of place in their stiff, unfashionable suit coats. They hurried across the street ahead of Sakaguchi and Hiroshi. Sakaguchi stepped to the side of the building to see if there was another exit. Then, they plunged into the blast and blur of the game center arcade.

  Squeals, shouts, bells, gunshots, and theme music blared from the games. High school students in uniforms wielded laser guns, punched attack buttons, and fisted joysticks with manic energy. The boys’ shirts fell loose, and their pants were slung low on their thin waists. The girls hiked up the pleats of their sailor uniforms to expose the skin of their thighs.

  In back, a circle of young punks skulked in one corner, their white shirts unbuttoned under off-the-rack suits. They stood around as if they ran the place, as they probably did.

  Ueno and Osaki disappeared around the machines on either side of the middle row of games. Sakaguchi headed straight for the group. Hiroshi hung back. He had never actually used his kendo outside a dojo.

  One of the boys in the group noticed Sakaguchi and muttered a warning in a low voice. The others positioned themselves for a fight. Sakaguchi kicked the closest kid’s leg out from under him, sending him down hard, the back of his head smacking a video machine.

  Hiroshi hurried to catch up and put his shoe on the kid’s shoulder so he couldn’t get up, and made sure the kid didn’t have a knife.

  Sakaguchi was looking at the other guys standing in a defensive half-circle.

  No one moved.

  Sakaguchi cleared his throat. “The moron lying on the ground isn’t Takayuki Shibuya. So, which one of you is?”

  The group tensed, defiantly quiet.

  Hiroshi guessed which one was Shibuya, though they looked very much the same: tanned skin, flyaway hair, and gold chains around their necks. Hiroshi readied himself to kick whichever one of them needed it. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Ueno and Osaki coming down the outside aisles.

  “Those of us with real jobs have this different sense of time. We don’t like to wait. We have things to do.”

  The group stood quietly.

  Then, as if by a predetermined signal, the one Hiroshi guessed was Shibuya bolted for the door. Sakaguchi lunged after him, but two other punks grasped at his thick arms long enough to let Shibuya get a step ahead.

  Hiroshi grabbed the arm of the kid closest to him and twisted. The boy dropped to the floor. Sakaguchi flung the other kid against a game machine and shot after Shibuya, Osaki right behind.

  Ueno punched the third kid’s cheek before he could even move and then put a hand on the kid’s shoulder to ease him down to the floo
r. The kid put both hands over his bleeding nose and tear-blinded eyes and slumped to the floor.

  Customers looked over from their fantasy worlds, but they just kept playing. With three of the boys corralled on the floor, Hiroshi looked over at Ueno for guidance. Ueno shoved each of the guys they pinned down again, but seeing that they weren’t a threat, he nodded at Hiroshi and walked off toward the door.

  Hiroshi, thinking of the knife, looked back at the trio, who were picking themselves up. They showed no sign of doing anything.

  Outside, Sakaguchi and Osaki were holding the ringleader—Shibuya—who made a break for it, against the outside wall of the game center, arms pinned behind his back. The other detective patted him down and took his cell phone and money roll from Shibuya’s pockets.

  The detectives frog-marched Shibuya across the street to the car. Sakaguchi caught his breath and said, “Shibuya-kun, I have a feeling you’re the kind of young man who likes to go driving. Am I right?”

  Shibuya squirmed and flailed at his arm, breathing deeply with his eyes shut. His right shoulder was out of its socket, limp and useless at his side.

  Sakaguchi frowned and nodded to let him go. Sugamo grabbed Shibuya’s wrist and Osaki held the kid around his scrawny chest. Shibuya moved to the side without a word, shuddering.

  Sugamo leaned back into a steady, even pull, and Shibuya’s arm popped back into its socket with a loud, bony click.

  “Better?”

  Shibuya nodded, relieved in spite of his tough attitude. He tested his shoulder.

  “Let’s drive a bit. It’ll relax you.”

  Hiroshi wondered how everyone would fit, but they squeezed in with Shibuya in back and Hiroshi in front. With Sugamo at the wheel, they drove quietly through the shopping streets for a few minutes, and then pulled up onto the expressway.

  As soon as they merged into the traffic, Sakaguchi leaned over the seat and cracked Shibuya across the face with his palm. Shibuya pulled his hands up, ready to block the next blow.

  “That’s for kicking me on the way out of the game center. Do that again and I’ll rip your arm all the way off. When I come to talk to you, you talk. Understand?”

  Shibuya leaned back and nodded.

  Sakaguchi backhanded him again. The sound was loud in the tight space of the car.

  “Speak up!”

  “Hai. Yes.”

  “You organized high school girls to extort money out of men on the morning train, right?”

  Shibuya nodded.

  “Speak up!”

  “Hai.”

  “And you’re going to move into another line of work from now on, right?”

  Shibuya hesitated, but then nodded again and muttered, “Hai.”

  “So, who are you giving this money to?”

  “I have debts,” said Shibuya.

  “To…?”

  “Different people.”

  “Let’s stick to names, places, amounts, OK?”

  Shibuya nodded but said nothing.

  “You’re making my afternoon difficult. Who?”

  “A woman.”

  “Yeah? Sounds interesting.”

  One of the detectives shifted into the inflamed shoulder socket on Shibuya’s sore side, making Shibuya contort in pain.

  “A hostess,” Shibuya said. “Works in Roppongi.”

  “Which club?”

  “For special tastes.”

  “What kind of tastes?”

  “For hostesses to relax after work.”

  “Was it the David Lounge?” Hiroshi asked, turning back toward him.

  Shibuya looked up at him in the rearview mirror. “Not there. A different place called The Tulip—other side of Roppongi.”

  Hiroshi said nothing. Could there be a second club? It was unlikely. It must be the same. He could tell Shibuya was lying, since the two clubs were next to each other—not on opposite sides of Roppongi. He would get in there with Takamatsu when they went back to Roppongi.

  “And the debts?” Sakaguchi asked.

  “She loaned me money.”

  “And she organized you to do this?”

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “How much do you owe her?”

  “A lot.”

  “A sharp businessman like you? Your tough friends know that?”

  Shibuya shook his head.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Michiko.”

  “That’s her real name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her family name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know much. What’s she look like?”

  “Haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “A while?”

  “A while.”

  “She can’t have changed that much?”

  “She changes that much.”

  Osaki shifted his weight onto Shibuya’s shoulder.

  He twisted in pain, before he said, “She’s tall, big shoulders, long hair, trim figure.”

  “That’s half of Tokyo.”

  “She’s strong. Fit. Muscular.”

  “You’re not strong enough to take on a girl?” Ueno asked.

  “Sounds like my kind of woman. What’s her number?” Sakaguchi asked and nodded to the detective on the unhurt shoulder side.

  He held up Shibuya’s cell phone. Shibuya sighed.

  “What’s it under?” asked Sakaguchi as the detective clicked through the numbers.

  “She’s not in there,” Shibuya said.

  “Come on,” Sakaguchi said, as if talking to a child.

  “Really. I don’t know her number. She calls me. Nothing ever happens around her she hasn’t thought of.”

  “You must have saved one of her calls.”

  “She doesn’t have caller ID.”

  Osaki scrolled through the numbers, the recent calls and missed calls, but there was nothing. He held up the screen to Shibuya and asked, “This your home address?”

  Shibuya nodded.

  He copied it into his notebook. “We might want to come visit you sometime.”

  Sakaguchi leaned over the seat. “Shibuya, where does the money really go?”

  “Like I said, it’s all just to her.”

  “Chinpira punks like you are too stupid to operate on their own.”

  “I make it how I want and pay her back little by little.”

  “That’s it? You don’t help her out other ways?”

  “I owe her a lot of money.”

  “Maybe we should keep the whole thing?” Sakaguchi said, waving the cell phone.

  Shibuya leaned back in exasperation. He had too many valuable photos and addresses on there.

  Sakaguchi rolled down the front window, twisted the phone in his hand until it snapped in two, and then gave it a light backhand toss out the window where it bounced and shattered against the shoulder of the expressway.

  They drove on to the next exit and pulled under the expressway onto side streets lined with manufacturing companies, distribution centers, and vacated blocks of buildings. Under an overhead highway and train line, they pulled into a deserted car park.

  Osaki got out, and Ueno shoved Shibuya toward the door. Clutching his shoulder, he slowly got out of the car, ready for whatever was to come, eyes closed, shuddering slightly.

  Osaki snorted at him and slid back in the car.

  Sugamo pulled off, circled once around Shibuya standing alone in the wide, empty space clutching his arm awkwardly by his side amid the tall clumps of weeds springing up through the concrete.

  Sugamo headed back to the small streets.

  “I’m a little hungry after that workout,” said Sakaguchi. “What about some ramen noodles? I know a good place close by here. Old sumo guy runs it.”

  “When is Takamatsu putting the unit back together?” Sugamo asked.

  “Soon, he said,” Sakaguchi answered. “And Hiroshi here will join us, too.”

  Sugamo, Ueno, and Osaki all nodded their approval.

&n
bsp; Chapter 15

  West Shinjuku gleamed like a vain architect’s dream. Functional, systematic, efficient—it was a business conception of spatial order unlike the organic chaos of old Tokyo. On the sunny side of the skyscrapers, the banks of windows ricocheted splinters of sunlight back and forth between buildings rising dizzying stories into the air. Opposite the sun, the massive buildings threw shadows over the grid of straight roads and neat walkways below. Global hotel chains and offices for conglomerates bullied aside the standing bars and cheap eateries that once dotted the area, though a few noodle shops and discount stores hung on at the feet of the skyscrapers.

  Michiko walked past the office workers returning in reluctant waves to their sky-world cubicles after lunch. Small clusters of women in pastel uniforms giggled, clutching wallets and cell phones. Men with serious faces left their ties tucked into their shirts to keep them from falling into noodle bowls or oily plates of fried rice.

  Michiko walked to the front desk of the lobby of the 60-story NS building. Her loose summer blouse, layered skirt, and long hair flowed behind her, tousled by the wind. At the reception counter, she dropped her heavy bag like a schoolgirl and asked the receptionist to call Mark Whitlock at Bentley Associates and say Michiko was here to see him.

  The receptionist smiled formally, dialing the number, her mouth covered politely. Michiko looked down on the receptionist’s white pillbox hat until she hung up, bowed and pointed with a white-gloved hand toward sofas across the atrium.

  A few minutes later, Mark Whitlock bounded out of the elevator and across the atrium, as athletic as a college student, but dressed for a mid-level position. He looked around for Michiko, and then aimed his thick blond hair and expensive suit toward where she stood near the windows.

  She pulled her sunglasses on top of her head, amused at his curt, stiff manner. He stopped an arms-length from her.

  “Not much of a welcome,” Michiko said.

  “I told you not to come by here,” Mark hissed. “Especially not now.”

  “I thought you might take a break?”

  “Steve killed himself, and you still—”

  Michiko nodded her head and looked away.

  “Did you talk to him recently?” Mark asked.

  Michiko shook her head, no.

  “The money for the new branch in Bangkok is missing.”