The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi Series Book 1)

by Michael Pronko

  Hiroshi and Sakaguchi listened to her as attentively as school boys.

  “No internal bleeding, fortunately. Two broken ribs, a broken collarbone, and a broken forearm. His legs are OK.” She arranged the medicine and supplies in the cart and made notes. “He was lucky.”

  “What time was he given the drug?”

  “Hard to say. Are you a family member?”

  “Colleague. Detective.”

  “So, talk to the doctor. They start their rounds at six.” She checked all the equipment again and walked out.

  Sakaguchi said, “You sure you want to stay? I don’t mind.”

  “I want to be here when he wakes up,” Hiroshi said. “And talk with the doctors.”

  “Get some sleep. You could use some.”

  “I could use a lot.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours.” Sakaguchi looked at Takamatsu again, shook his head and walked out.

  Hiroshi was left to stare down at the comatose Takamatsu. He flopped into a small chair in an alcove by the window, a few steps from the bed.

  It was just like Takamatsu to go it alone, stubborn bastard, always so sure of himself, always doing things his way. If Takamatsu had only called to say where he was going and why, Hiroshi might have been there. Who had he found, he wondered? Did he find her or find someone or something else—stop thinking, Hiroshi told himself. Takamatsu would explain it all when he woke up.

  Hiroshi pulled a chair over for his feet, took off his shoes, and closed his eyes, trying to quiet the thoughts ping-ponging inside his head. He turned on his side toward the window, slung his jacket over his shoulders, and let his exhaustion carry him into a deep sleep.

  ***

  Something in the rhythmic beeping of the monitors shifted and Hiroshi blinked his eyes open. His neck hurt. He wrapped his arms around himself and pulled his jacket over his shoulders, wondering if there was a blanket somewhere. He was too tired to get up to ask the nurses, so he hunkered back down.

  Before he fell back asleep, the rhythm of the monitors slipped offbeat again. He rolled over and saw a woman in a beige dress slip out the door.

  Must be his wife, he thought and rocked himself halfway up. He found his shoes and stood up. He had never met Takamatsu’s wife before, and in his mind he was formulating what to say to her in his mind. Hiroshi tried to shake the fatigue out of his head, squinting to refocus his eyes.

  He walked stiffly out to talk with Takamatsu’s wife. Outside the room, he saw her walking down the hallway. Strange, he thought, still dazed. He watched as she turned to look into the nurses’ station, and the light hit her for a moment.

  She wore a gauze mask and a big floppy hat. She was tall with long hair, and moved easily, as if she did yoga classes all day in whatever suburb of Tokyo Takamatsu owned a house, or was it an apartment. Hiroshi didn’t have any idea.

  Hiroshi wondered where the woman was going. Had she been standing there for long while he slept? He could see her waiting at the elevator at the end of the hall. He started to wake up, walking quickly, and then jogging toward her.

  A nurse exiting the station nearly collided with him.

  “Who was that?” Hiroshi asked the nurse.

  He saw the woman get on the elevator and disappear.

  “You’re the detective,” said the nurse said, continuing on her way.

  Hiroshi stopped her. “Is the small elevator faster than the large one?”

  “Much faster,” she said.

  “You have the keys?”

  “Yes.”

  “I need you to open it for me.”

  She shook her head. “Police are always so much trouble,” she said and dug in her pocket for the keys, walking briskly ahead of Hiroshi. She keyed the small elevator and waited until it arrived, then leaned in, put the key in and asked, “Where to?”

  “Lobby, I guess,” Hiroshi said.

  She pressed “L” and let him go.

  Hiroshi rode down. A couple of young doctors got on at the sixth floor, and, at the fourth, two nurses got on. Hiroshi pressed the “close door” button repeatedly. The doctors and nurses stared at him in silence.

  In the lobby, Hiroshi ran back toward the main entrance and dialed Osaki.

  Osaki sounded as groggy as Hiroshi had been before a shot of adrenaline woke him up.

  “I think she came to the room,” Hiroshi said. “I’m going after her.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Lobby.”

  “I’ll be down,” Osaki said.

  “No, stay there—” Hiroshi barked, but the phone clicked and the line went dead. Who knew if Osaki heard him? Hiroshi didn’t have time to find out. He hustled out to the drop-off circle and asked the guard in charge of traffic, “Did you see a tall woman with a mask and floppy hat?”

  The guard said, “I don’t look closely.”

  “The last few minutes?”

  The guard shook his head indifferently. “I’m sorry, I don’t really look.”

  “Is there another door out of the hospital?”

  “This is the main door.”

  Hiroshi looked around stupidly. She was too young to be Takamatsu’s wife—unless she was in spectacular shape. If she were, he would have bragged about it. Hiroshi stepped out from under the eaves into the gray rain, looking at the bicycle parking area and the bus stop and cursing himself.

  On the opposite side of the street, far down, past the end of the hospital, he caught a glimpse of a woman walking quickly. The umbrella blocked her, so it could be anyone or it could be her. He stayed on the hospital side of the street and picked up his pace to close the distance. He wiped the wet off his forehead and felt the rain soak into his shoulders.

  The street wound downhill and spilled into a lane of small wood-framed shops with old rusting signs and sliding glass front doors, a pocket of the city unchanged for decades.

  She apparently knew her way and walked at a steady speed.

  The raindrops fell heavier. Hiroshi wiped his eyes. He passed a bus stop and saw a clear, vinyl umbrella with a broken stretcher and bent ribs hanging on a rail. He snatched it and slid it halfway open.

  She turned into the large courtyard of a shrine and walked across the gravel toward the main shrine building. Hiroshi slipped inside the courtyard after her, turning down a long, covered walkway that led away from the main shrine.

  The woman, still covered by the wide umbrella, threw a few coins into the collection box, rang the large bell with a rope, and clapped her hands twice before bowing her head in prayer. She stepped down from the screen-covered inner shrine and stood still, looking straight ahead into the shrine, its interior hidden behind long hanging screens.

  Hiroshi stepped behind the small stone pagodas, near a huge pine tree with spreading branches propped up by wood supports. The half-working umbrella spared him from the rain.

  The woman dropped a coin in the donation box for one of the wooden ema prayer plaques left out for after-hours purchase. She pulled a pen from her purse and wrote for a long time. When she finished, she walked to the large upright frame where hundreds of ema hung in tightly packed rows under a thatched roof.

  With his head down, Hiroshi scooted across the back area, around to the other side of the courtyard, where the woman couldn’t see him.

  When he looked back again, she was gone.

  He searched the courtyard carefully, looking from different directions. There was nowhere to hide in the courtyard. She was just gone.

  He ran around the main shrine building and then to the front gate. She would have had to run hard over the gravel to get to the gate, but he heard no crunch.

  He snooped cautiously around the tree and, as he passed the racks of hundreds and hundreds of ema, he stopped. He found her ema on the top right. Raindrops plunked down splattering the ink.

  Kamisama, Kigan. I had a moment of weakness and I felt human again. Thank you for that. Let me leave this city of pain, this city of men. I’ll let you punish those who deserve it, sav
e those who need saving. Please, transport me safely, away, from this, from here, never to return.

  He let the ema swing back with a clack and looked around again wondering how she managed to just disappear.

  He dropped the broken umbrella and started running back the way he came. Just outside the gate, he met Osaki.

  “Where is she?” Osaki demanded.

  “I lost her,” Hiroshi said.

  “She can’t have gone far.”

  “That might be far enough,” Hiroshi said. “Who’s with Takamatsu?”

  “No one.”

  “Takamatsu’s all alone?”

  Hiroshi grabbed Osaki’s shoulder and spun him around as he took off at a sprint back for the hospital.

  Chapter 36

  Osaki outweighed Hiroshi by double, but ran twice as fast. Osaki looked back once, and then went ahead at a sprint.

  At the hospital, Hiroshi, soaked with rain and sweat, bounded up the stairway to the entrance and rushed across the lobby toward the elevator. Hiroshi pushed into the small elevator and flipped open his badge, telling the doctors and nurses not to press any other floors. He jammed his thumb on the close door button.

  On the tenth floor, Hiroshi rushed past the nurse’s station toward Takamatsu’s room. Spinning into the room with his left hand on the doorframe, Hiroshi bumped smack into Osaki. Osaki didn’t budge.

  Hiroshi looked around his shoulders to see a woman leaning over the bed, holding Takamatsu’s barely lifted hand, her long hair draped like a canopy over his bandaged, pincushioned body. She glared at them, her eyes red, her hair tangled.

  As Hiroshi caught his breath, he could see that this woman was shorter, rounder, older, and in different clothes than the tall, masked woman who had entered the room not an hour earlier. This woman wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and straightened herself. She was about to speak when Takamatsu groaned.

  They all turned to him.

  “Awake finally,” she said.

  Takamatsu craned his neck to look at each of them, using only one eye. The other was swollen shut, the skin red and puffy. He waved his hand and in a voice that sounded nothing like his regular booming bravado, managed to croak out, “Hiroshi, Osaki, my wife.”

  “I’m Hiroshi Shimizu,” Hiroshi managed, finally, and bowed deeply to her, since it was the first time they had met. “I’m pleased to meet you, but I wish it were under different circumstances.”

  Takamatsu’s wife bowed and turned back to Takamatsu. “You’re supposed to be asleep,” she admonished her husband, pulling his sheet up, and folding it back at his shoulders.

  Takamatsu’s voice was a distant whisper, barely able to squeak out his answer. “Sleep sounds nice.” One side of his face quivered as if he was trying to smile.

  “Could you let us talk a minute?” Hiroshi asked Takamatsu’s wife in polite Japanese. She ran her palms over her eyes, nodded OK, and stepped outside.

  Hiroshi looked into Takamatsu’s still-open eye. It was also swollen, next to his blue, bruised nose, but not completely shut. “Anything to avoid having a drink with me, huh?” said Hiroshi, swallowing hard.

  Takamatsu swallowed, the effort obviously causing him pain. “Just a little hangover,” Takamatsu’s shriveled voice was so faint Hiroshi had to lean over to catch it.

  “You feel like talking?”

  “Let’s get it over with,” said Takamatsu shifting his weight and moving his shoulders slightly. “Morphine drip?”

  Hiroshi pressed the button, but nothing came out. The timer clearly showed that it was too soon for another dose. Hiroshi kept pressing the button anyway, and said, “I’ll tell you what happened, then you squeeze my hand once when I’m on track, and twice when I’m off, OK?”

  Hiroshi took his hand and Takamatsu grasped his just enough to make Hiroshi notice.

  “The night we separated you found her in the David, right?”

  Takamatsu squeezed once.

  “You figured you’d do it on your own. I’m not sure why.”

  Takamatsu croaked, then squeezed once.

  “You went to eat with her and to another club.”

  Takamatsu squeezed.

  “So, the place you picked—”

  He squeezed twice.

  “She picked.”

  Takamatsu tried to look around at the drip. Hiroshi pushed the button again, but nothing came out.

  “Was it on the list?”

  Yes, he squeezed.

  Hiroshi continued narrating for him. “You toast with small sake glasses. You suck yours down in a gulp. Small dishes, lacquer chopsticks. You eat, as does she, in small bites, talking in between.”

  Takamatsu squeezed and coughed.

  “She’s asking you detailed questions about family, your job, your life. You give her tidbits from past cases and past affairs. You make her laugh.”

  Takamatsu tried to talk, swallowed, and managed to say, “She never laughs.”

  “The talk gets freer, and you forget to call me. Then you look for a chance to take a break, but your phone is off or doesn’t work inside the place.”

  Yes.

  “Your eyes can’t pull away from her. More sake. You decide she’s the one.”

  Yes.

  “Her face was more stunning up close, but icy and distant, a perfect mask. Can you remember her face?”

  Yes.

  Hiroshi continued, “She took you back to the David Lounge, right?”

  Yes.

  “You knew what would happen because you knew it was her.”

  Yes.

  Takamatsu nodded at the morphine drip. Hiroshi pushed it, sending a small flow through the tube and a wave of comfort through Takamatsu. He eased into his pillow.

  Hiroshi waited until Takamatsu came back and started again, “Then—”

  But Takamatsu squeezed his hand twice. He swallowed and tried hard to bring his voice out. “I…twisting in the air,” he whispered, out of breath by the end. Takamatsu picked his head off the pillow. Bloodstains and yellow fluid covered the depression where his head was.

  “Go slow, OK?” Hiroshi said. “That was her here, earlier wasn’t it?”

  Takamatsu drifted away. The machines tracked the weakened rhythm of his life. His usual swagger, vitality and glimmering eyes were buried deep under the morphine. Hiroshi waited. In a few minutes, his eyes opened and he managed to squeeze Hiroshi’s hand a little.

  “There’s more,” Takamatsu said, his voice clearer. “Tell Sakaguchi…it’s her. He…remember her—”

  Hiroshi leaned close to hear, waiting to see if he had more. His voice was too weak to catch all his words.

  “Before…another case. She…information.”

  “It’s OK. Why don’t you rest?” Hiroshi said.

  Takamatsu fought against the pain and the pull of the morphine. “We bought information…sold…she helped—”

  “What information? About companies’ investments, building projects, future plans?”

  Yes, Takamatsu squeezed, trying to find his voice again.

  Seeing him struggle, Hiroshi said, “Take it easy. There’s no hurry now.”

  Takamatsu continued. “…tipped off chief…too much money…she was…smart…set us up—”

  “The information was connected to Bentley?”

  Takamatsu nodded.

  “That’s why you wanted me to go there. Wakayama laundered the cash, losing on real estate to get it clean.” Hiroshi pushed the button for the morphine drip, but nothing came out.

  Yes, Takamatsu squeezed.

  “When was that? A few years ago?”

  Yes.

  “But you recognized her again?”

  Yes.

  “So, she’s more than just a purveyor of information. She has other things going on?”

  Yes.

  It was getting to be an effort to tell if Takamatsu was really squeezing, yes, or not. His grip was almost gone.

  “How did you find her yesterday?” Hiroshi asked, leaning over Ta
kamatsu’s maroon, swollen lips.

  “She found me,” Takamatsu managed.

  “And she lugged you to the platform from the David Lounge, and then you were in the air with the train barreling right at you?”

  Takamatsu groaned from deep inside. Hiroshi knew it was a groan of pain, but also a groan of humiliation and shame too profound for even the morphine to touch. Takamatsu’s pride would be decimated after his go-it-alone approach, and unethical and unauthorized techniques failed, nearly costing him his life.

  Hiroshi stood up. “Rest now.”

  Takamatsu squeezed again, several times it felt like, and said, “My wife—.”

  Hiroshi walked to the door and looked for Takamatsu’s wife. She was folded into herself, seated on a chair, staring listlessly at the floor. When she saw him, she got up and came into Takamatsu’s room. She reached into her bag and pulled out a large manila envelope that was ripped open at one end.

  “What’s this?” Hiroshi asked.

  “I hired a private investigator to follow him,” Takamatsu’s wife said. “I needed photos for the divorce lawyer.”

  Hiroshi opened the envelope and pulled out black and white prints of Takamatsu with Michiko. Many of the shots were grainy and distant but others were clear enough that it was easy to see Michiko’s face. In some shots, without sunglasses, her eyes were sharp, in control, fiery.

  “I had him followed, but I didn’t want him to get hurt. I just wanted him to stop having affairs.” Her voice was low and plaintive, her face caught between anger and fear.

  “It’s not your fault,” Hiroshi said.

  She choked back tears.

  “A private investigator took these?” Hiroshi flipped through the photos one by one. “Can you give me his name?”

  She looked at Takamatsu, who nodded to her. She dug into her purse and pulled out a name card.

  “I didn’t believe him when he said his affairs were over. He was working on a case in Roppongi, he said. But that’s what he always said. I was sick of his shoddy excuses and cheap alibis,” she said, her voice, aggrieved and forgiving at once.

  “Did you have him followed for a long time?”

  “Off and on for a couple months. It’s expensive.” She took Takamatsu’s hand.