The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi Series Book 1)

by Michael Pronko

  The contact said he should wait in a hotel in downtown Kobe and they would find him. He waited for two days in the business hotel, terrified to go out. When he went out to the convenience store to get some food, they were waiting in front of the hotel, inviting him into a black Toyota Crown with tinted windows at the curb.

  The compound had bodyguards positioned like trees at points along the driveway up to the Japanese style house. Normally curious about every visual detail, Shibata kept his eyes down and followed them inside the house, where more bodyguards—big guys in black suits—stood passively in the entranceway.

  Whoever he was—Shibata didn’t dare ask his name—who came out to talk with him on the tatami mat room was obviously someone of importance. He wore a black shirt with frog buttons and a mandarin collar, all very expensive silk, Shibata noticed, but that was as high as he allowed his eyes to go.

  The boss lit a cigarette and had one of the bodyguards give one to Shibata, who was glad for something to help stop him from trembling.

  “She’s caused us a lot of trouble, this girl,” the boss said, kneeling down on a zabuton cushion on the tatami. One of the bodyguards put his hand on Shibata’s shoulder for him to sit down. “Lost a lot of money because of what she did.”

  Shibata bowed and said, “I understand. I am very sorry for the inconvenience she caused. It won’t happen again.”

  “It seems from her attitude now it won’t happen again.” The boss pulled on his cigarette and scoffed as he exhaled. “But how can I know that?”

  “You have my word,” Shibata said, bowing deeply onto the tatami. It was the only time in his life he had bowed so low his head actually touched the floor.

  “That’s not much good to me. Neither is the word of that accountant—what’s his name, Sono?” He sighed. “Everything in Tokyo causes problems for us down here.”

  A couple of the bodyguards let out a low chuckle, so Shibata assumed this was supposed to be a joke of some kind. He kept his eyes low and only let them up when the boss nodded his head to one of the bodyguards at the side of the room. The guard walked off through the shoji sliding doors—covered in a large painting of a crane—into the next room.

  When he came back, Michiko was with him. She was dressed in a simple, indigo-dyed hakama with her hair pulled behind her head tightly and simply. Her face was swollen and her eyes downcast. She walked with delicate, mincing steps and kneeled down on the tatami and bowed.

  The boss spoke in a big voice. “We taught her some manners, how to be more Japanese. So, you’ll find she’s a changed girl, I think.” The sarcasm in his voice made the bodyguards snicker. “No more money games, OK?” he said to Michiko, and she bowed again.

  The bodyguards waved him up and another stood behind Michiko. They walked them to the door, without another word from the boss, and after they slipped on their shoes, they were led back to the Toyota Crown.

  The driver and two bodyguards took them to the shinkansen entrance of Shin-Kobe train station and said, “Go directly back to Tokyo.”

  Shibata was about to say he had left his things at the hotel, but there was no room for argument. He led Michiko to the train station ticket counter and bought them both tickets back to Tokyo.

  ***

  Hiroshi asked again, “How was she changed?”

  “When she disappeared. For a year. In Kobe.” Shibata looked off at the distance. “I tried to help her that day but I couldn’t get across the street in time. If I had, none of this would have happened. One of the men she got information from figured out she was smarter than she acted. Some people lost a lot of money and decided it was her fault.”

  “Was it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I wouldn’t be surprised. There were properties, in Kawasaki and Azabu. Any building involves a lot of cash, but the Azabu one was billions of yen. Even a small percentage comes to a lot.”

  “So, the people who lost money wanted her to pay it back?”

  “She said Paris would close the circle.”

  “What circle?”

  Shibata shrugged.

  “We need to stop her,” Hiroshi said, “before she gets out of the country. To Paris or wherever.”

  Shibata said, “She has an accountant. Somewhere in Akasaka. I met her near there once, after she came back from that year away. I thought everything was going to be all right. She was taking accounting classes.”

  “Was she?”

  “She said a lot of things.”

  “What’s his name, the accountant?”

  “She never says things like that.”

  “What happened that year?”

  “Before, she could have been a model. I thought she was the one I’d make my name with. But after that year, she never let me take any more photos of her.”

  “Except for business.”

  “Except for business,” Shibata pulled his cigarette pack out and turned it in his hands, then put it away. “She was still so beautiful, but her beauty was too far inside. I couldn’t get to it, and she wouldn’t let it out.”

  “So, it was you who pushed the emergency stop button last night?” Shibata nodded, yes. “So,” Hiroshi continued, “where do we find her?”

  “You don’t. She’s leaving, or has left.” Shibata picked up his camera bags by their straps and placed them over each shoulder. “I tried to stop her years ago, to get her to ease out of it, to let go a bit, but—” He shook his head and looked off in the distance again. “Is he all right, that cop?” Shibata asked.

  “It could have been worse. They had to pick the other guy up with chopsticks.”

  Chapter 40

  “Pull over here, can you?” Hiroshi said to Ueno. He came back out of the convenience store where they’d stopped holding an ice pack for his ribs. Easing into the front seat with a groan, he put the ice pack under his shirt.

  Sakaguchi said, “I told you to be careful.”

  “That was in the game center in Shibuya.”

  “Just breathe through it.”

  “I’d stop breathing if I could.”

  “Once it bruises up, you’ll be all right.”

  “It’s not far from here,” Hiroshi told Ueno, breathing in hard when he pointed the direction.

  “First lesson in sumo is where to land,” Sakaguchi said.

  The lime-green building of Sono Accountancy looked grimy in the false twilight created by the taller buildings around it. Ueno parked nearby, and Osaki walked toward a convenience store, searching for something to eat. Hiroshi left the ice pack in the car, testing his ribs gently before tucking in his shirt.

  Sakaguchi and Hiroshi squeezed into the rickety elevator up to Sono’s accountant office. The elevator moved slower than Hiroshi remembered, probably due to Sakaguchi’s weight.

  The same secretary unlocked the door, peeking out, meek and confused, holding a lap blanket.

  Sakaguchi pushed in, with Hiroshi right behind.

  “Where’s Sono?” Hiroshi demanded.

  She looked to the back of the cubicle-filled office and stepped out of the way.

  Sono, peering out from behind a partition at the far back of the office, sighed when he saw Hiroshi. Hiroshi and Sakaguchi stood in the partitioned meeting area, which was bathed in an unsettling green tint from the flickering bulb in the back. The secretary brought tea, which spilled into the saucers, and gave a curt bow. Sakaguchi barely fit into the low chair, his huge knees bumping the coffee table. Hiroshi sat up straight to keep the pressure off his ribs.

  Sono fiddled with papers in his cubicle and then came forward and sat down. Before Sono could say anything, Sakaguchi placed a photo of Michiko on the table.

  “Is this one of the women you made payments to? For Wakayama?” Hiroshi asked.

  “I sent the payments to bank accounts.” Sono put on his glasses, leaned over and studied the photograph, finally pulling off his glasses. “I never see their faces.”

  “Never?” Hiroshi persisted.

  “I sometimes meet clie
nts the first time. After that, few clients come in person again. It’s phone or email.”

  “Let me remind you: Michiko Suzuki.”

  “A common name.”

  “Not a common person.”

  Sono worked the hinge of his glasses back and forth. Sakaguchi wiggled forward in his chair. “If you’re sure you don’t recognize her, we can get a squad of detectives in here to look through your files.”

  “That could take a week or more,” Hiroshi added.

  “I can check my records, but I doubt it,” Sono said.

  “So, go check your records.”

  “You’ll need a court order for anything more than a verbal confirmation.” Sakaguchi shook his head. He could have a dozen detectives here in twenty minutes to confiscate every file in the place. Sono knew that, too. He got up and ducked behind the partitions. They heard him lighting a cigarette and smelled the smoke floating over the partition, heard him burrowing through papers.

  In a few minutes, he was back. He opened a file folder, put on his glasses, and looked at them. “I was thinking of someone else. I remember her now. What do you need to know?”

  “Did you send money from Wakayama to this woman?”

  “She was one of the women. Yes.”

  “We need to find her,” Hiroshi said.

  “All I have is a bank account number,” Sono said.

  “Don’t tell me. She contacts you,” Hiroshi said, his voice drenched in sarcasm.

  “She showed up here from time to time. Unexpectedly,” Sono said. “But that was years ago.”

  “If you handle accounts for her, you must have an address.”

  “I’d have to look in another file.”

  “Did Wakayama put any buildings in her name?”

  “Wakayama owned property only in his name.” Sono folded and unfolded his glasses.

  Sakaguchi moved forward, “If we have your files impounded, it could take our accountants years to get through them all.”

  “I used to work in a government office. I never leave my books vulnerable.”

  “That just means it will take longer.”

  Sono allowed himself a small snort.

  “You worked as a government accountant?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Finance Ministry.”

  “No one quits government work,” Sakaguchi said.

  “During the bubble years. I got tired of making things work for a bunch of spoiled bureaucrats who went to college together. The Japanese economy was one bubble after the next. As soon as one burst, another was floated in its place. I got tired of it.”

  “So, now you use that technique yourself.”

  “No bubbles. I make sure everything has no air inside.”

  Hiroshi said, “Even if all’s aboveboard, our looking through them will chase away most of your clients. Especially the foreign ones.”

  “The foreigners aren’t afraid of that. And they need my expertise even more than Japanese.”

  Hiroshi’s guess was right: Sono handled foreigners needing Japanese accounting. That was enough to connect Sono to Bentley, he hoped. He looked up at the flickering bulb, his ribs aching with each breath. “What is it your clients need from you?” Hiroshi asked, trying to bring Sono closer to Bentley. “They have their own accountants.”

  “They don’t know bureaucrats on the inside,” Sono said. “I do. Before the economic reforms, it was hard for foreign firms to get a foot in the door. After the reforms, everything was up for grabs.”

  “And you grabbed what you could?”

  “I helped others negotiate bureaucratic tangles across the two economies.”

  “Two economies?”

  “Outer and inner. Transparency is not a Japanese concept.” The flickering bulb went into a longer off cycle, before buzzing and snapping back on. Sono lit another cigarette.

  “And Michiko. Where is her money?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Mostly overseas.”

  “And where did it come from?”

  “That’s not my job.”

  Sakaguchi sat forward to the end of his chair, his belly over the top of the table. He started drumming his fingers on his huge knee.

  Hiroshi had followed the trails of offshore accounts, faked investments and embezzled funds from his office, but now he was hearing it all in person. Takamatsu was right—he couldn’t solve this case from his office. Hiroshi continued, “If you did her taxes, you had to write something down.”

  “Hostesses make a lot of money. Especially with her looks and her smarts,” Sono answered.

  “Did she have more than one source of income?” Hiroshi asked.

  Sono smoked and nodded, yes.

  “Several men on the hook or a few on the hook in different ways?”

  “I don’t investigate clients. That’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “Our job is to find out who committed murder,” Sakaguchi said, pushing forward over the table.

  Sono looked at the file folder in front of him. “As far as I know, all she did was make money. Roppongi has plenty of it.”

  “How much did you put away for her?” Hiroshi asked.

  “I’d have to look.”

  “Enough to live on for a long time? Overseas?”

  Sono nodded. “I’d say a good long time.”

  “She’s not coming back to Japan?”

  “She doesn’t need to return for money. Maybe in a couple years.”

  “If her money is already moved, she won’t need you anymore,” Sakaguchi said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Give us her address. We know you’ve got it,” Hiroshi said.

  Sono stared at the two investigators, and then leaned back, smiling. “You two don’t really know what you’re doing, do you?”

  Hiroshi’s ribs hurt as he leaned forward. He had to stop his hands from moving to them.

  “You don’t know where or how to find her, do you?” Sono said, shaking his head.

  “We know this,” Sakaguchi said, his thick fingers tapping the photograph. “The girl’s cleaning house. She’s already killed several men. What makes you think she’ll spare you?”

  “She needs me.”

  “That’s what the others thought, too,” Hiroshi said. “Things have changed in the last few hours. She might not need you anymore.”

  Sakaguchi leaned forward. “You’re a sitting duck. She’ll be back for you.” He put a photo of Steve’s body on the train tracks in front of Sono and tapped it with his thick fingers. “See this? That’s what happens.”

  Sono looked under his glasses at the broken, bloody body in the photo, and then looked back and forth at them.

  “You better hope we find her before she finds you,” Sakaguchi added. He pushed the photo close toward Sono. The photo was graphic and close up. The dead man’s head was smashed into the “I” of the steel rail of the track, his eyes turned up and away. His thigh bone jutted out jagged and sharp from the meat of his thigh, and his hip bone collapsed inward.

  Sono looked away.

  Hiroshi leaned toward him. “You know who ends up testifying in every fraud and murder case we handle?”

  Sono folded his arms and stared silently at the two detectives.

  “The accountant. You know why?” Hiroshi stood up. Sono crushed his cigarette out in the ashtray. “Because they want to stay alive.”

  Looking back at the detectives, Sono pulled a form from a file folder and passed it over to Hiroshi, pointing out one box.

  Hiroshi took out his cell phone, sucking in the pain when he moved, and photographed the address. “That’s one. Where’re the others?”

  “That’s the only one I have.”

  “She lived in Kawasaki?”

  “That’s the address she uses for taxes. It’s a factory.”

  “A factory?”

  “Small one. Her father’s.”

  “She lives with him?”

  “He died some time ago. That’s all I know,” Sono said.

  “We’ll see if that’s a
ll you know,” Hiroshi said.

  Chapter 41

  The outdoor stairs of her father’s factory always grabbed at Michiko’s shoes because of the cross-tread pattern of the metal steps. The welded pipe handrails had surface rust, but the crossbeams and support poles were sturdy and solid. The office and living space had been built by workers who didn’t need to skimp or hurry.

  In the musty office, only a sliver of light came through the window from the workshop floor. Michiko went to the small sink and washed her hands. She opened the hanging key case and took out a large key ring for her father’s desk. The top drawer clanked into her hands as she pulled it all the way out and set it on the floor.

  She took five well-wrapped packets of cash from her black leather duffel bag and spun a round of duct tape over them. Squinting into the desk, she taped them inside. She set the heavy drawer back on its tracks, hammered it down, and slid it in place. She looked over the window at Uncle Ono in the factory below. For years, he had kept the machines in shape, even though no orders came in.

  Sensing her presence, Uncle Ono spun the hand-wheels and flipped the spindle control until the lathe slowed, patient as any machinist. He pushed the overhead socket to the side and hung up his safety goggles.

  “O-kaeri nasai, welcome home,” Uncle Ono called out to her.

  “Tadaima, I’m back,” she answered.

  Neither could hear the other, but they didn’t need to.

  Uncle Ono latched the front door with an extender arm that let air circulate but kept the entrance from opening wider. His compact, wiry body bristled with energy, though his coveralls and jika-tabi toed work shoes were worn soft.

  Michiko climbed down the ladder from the office, her duffel bag dangling and bouncing on her back. From the large pegboard rack she loved organizing when she was a girl, she took down a long ratchet handle and socket. She knelt down at the lathe in the middle of the floor, and set to ratcheting off the bolts that held the lathe in place by pulling with her whole body as if sculling a boat.