by KJ Charles
“Well, that puts my mind at rest.”
I glowered at him.
“Okay, assuming she doesn’t sell you out to the yaks, you think it’s a good idea to drag her into this?”
I winced at that but held firm. “Look, she’s in it already. She can run more easily than the others. And, mostly, she knows Roppongi like the back of her hand.” I never went to the gaijin ghetto if I could help it—absurd prices for the worst food and service in Tokyo. But its febrile neon multinational craziness was Sonja’s spiritual home. “If Kelly’s been around Roppongi with this alleged boyfriend, we’ll find out. If we can find him, we might have a chance at finding this bloody bag.”
I called Yukie next. Her phone was switched off, which might have been because she was asleep, except I’d never known her to voluntarily disengage from communications before.
“Hi, Yukie-chan,” I told her voicemail. “I just wanted to say goodbye. I found this guy, he’s kind of nice, a big Hawaiian. He’s taking me to his home, which is…I guess it’s really good for me, but I wish it hadn’t ended like this. I suppose we won’t see each other again, because I’m not coming back, I’m too scared, and it’s not fair because I didn’t have anything to do with all this. I hope things are better for you soon, honey. I wish things were different, but…I’m sorry. Look, the boat’s going to leave soon, I have to go. Take care. Sayonara.” A permanent goodbye.
“Little tear in my eye there,” said Chanko when I hung up. “So I don’t guess you trust her?”
“Sonja said she’s being slapped around by that yakuza. She sounded spaced when I spoke to her before. Maybe you were right, she did tip him off. ‘Hiroyuki-san says’,” I mimicked sourly.
“Mmph,” he said, and then, “Samoan.”
“What is?”
“Me. Not Hawaiian.”
“Oh, okay, sorry. Though I mostly said Hawaiian because then someone might think we’re heading for Okinawa.”
“Devious.”
“From now on, it’s devious all the way.”
We hit Tokyo well before the evening rush, and made it through the winding, narrow streets relatively quickly. Chanko kept up a muttered running commentary of annoyance as he mounted pavements and squeezed by stallfronts.
“You should get a smaller car,” I told him.
“Not mine. We gotta ditch it in Kotake-cho, actually.”
“It was borrowed, right?” I asked cautiously. “Or hired, or something?”
“Borrowed will probably do,” agreed Chanko, and I decided to leave it there.
The car went into an underground garage—Chanko had the access codes, which was slightly reassuring—and we walked about half a mile to Ekoda, where Taka lived. We’d taken our time on the drive, wanting to get there after nightfall.
The area is pretty low-rise, with a few five- or six-storey mansion blocks in the standard grey tile and concrete, and quite a lot of small but pretty houses in dark wood with sloping tiled roofs. Taka’s place had a plum tree out the front, and the deep-pink winter blossom glowed like a red cloud in the gathering sodium-tinted darkness.
He opened the door and stood silhouetted in the light for a second before stepping back with a welcoming cry of “Yoku irasshaimashita!”
Very polite. I pushed Chanko in first, as the more conspicuous of us, and stood shivering outside while he pulled off his boots, then took his place on the genkan and shut the door behind me. Taka and Chanko were exchanging the grunts that pass for communication between men. I bent down to unzip my boots and buy some time.
The last time I’d seen Taka, I’d told him to go fuck himself for a drug-crazed bastard and never to contact me again. Since then, he’d been instrumental in saving my life and Yoshi’s sanity. I don’t know what the etiquette books recommend you say in this sort of situation.
I straightened up. He was looking at me, his long, narrow eyes glittering, waiting for me to speak.
“Taka,” I said. “What have you done to your hair, man, it looks like shit.”
I thought I wasn’t going to get away with it for a moment. Then his face split into his gleeful, charming, totally untrustworthy smile, and he swung forward, holding up a thin hand in salute. “You’ve got no sense of fashion, that’s your trouble. O-genki de?”
“Okagesama de,” I replied truthfully. It’s a routine exchange—Are you well? Thanks to you—but for once I meant the response literally, and Taka’s look acknowledged that.
“Come on in,” he said, and since there was no room to get by Chanko in the corridor, he gestured at him to head into the sitting room.
Taka’s pretty tall, five eleven, with a wiry build and speed-freak thinness that make him seem taller. Silhouetted against Chanko, he looked like he was made of pipe cleaners. And his hair…whoa. It was a ludicrous pompadour, black at the roots, orange to within about three inches of the end, then dyed white-blond, and adding about four inches to his height.
Chanko was looking at him too. “You know, Kerry’s right,” he rumbled. “Your hair does look like shit.”
“You said you liked it before.”
“Yeah, but, you know. I wasn’t actually looking.”
“Bastard,” said Taka amicably, then yelled up the stairs. “Yoshi! Come down, Kerry’s here.”
“How is he?” I asked quietly.
Taka shrugged. “You want beer?”
Chanko indicated that he wanted beer very much and led the way into the LDK—the living/dining/kitchen space that took up most of the ground floor. I waited in the hallway for a few moments, until a voice from above said “Kechan?” almost with horror.
Yoshi looked awful. His eyes were red and bagged, his skin was sallow grey, and someone had chopped off most of his hair into an unflattering, short bowl cut. His shirt looked like he’d slept in it, and for a couple of nights at that.
“Oh, Yoshi,” I whispered, and met him halfway up the stairs. We gripped each other’s hands tightly, the closest he was going to come to a hug.
“Kechan, why are you here?” he demanded. “This is so stupid—”
“Only if they know you’re here,” I pointed out. “Otherwise it’s as good as anywhere and a lot better than Chubu. Come and meet Chanko, and for heaven’s sake don’t tell him he’s tall. He knows.”
I dragged him in and made introductions, since if they’d met before, Chanko clearly hadn’t remembered. Yoshi’s eyes widened as he took in Chanko’s bulk, and he received a long, level gaze in return, very obviously sizing him up. I felt Yoshi bristle next to me. But they exchanged bows and the standard courtesies, and if there was anything incongruous in Chanko saying “dōzo yoroshiku” (literally meaning something like “please take care of me”) to a computer geek who was a foot shorter and about two hundred pounds lighter, none of us acknowledged it.
We settled around the low table on floor cushions, avoiding the usual clutter of gadgets, modernistic lights, piles of magazines and clothes and the entrails of disembowelled computers that Taka gathered around him, and I brought everyone up to date on the background, our adventures in Chubu province, the yakuza bag, the threats, the seventy-two-hour deadline—sixty-four hours left—and the boyfriend theory.
I can’t say it was easy. Taka had always had the attention span of a hyperactive child, but now he was twitching as though…as though he’d recently put something illegal up his nose, in fact. Yoshi was shaken to the core, biting his nails, his eyebrows set in a frown that looked like it hadn’t left his face for days, and it didn’t help that he kept staring at Chanko. Chanko had relapsed into stony impassivity, and that in itself was making me nervous.
“So,” I concluded. “Let’s work on the theory that the boyfriend has the bag, to start with.”
“I like that.” Taka shifted around on his cushion for about the twentieth time. “Makes sense, good sense, good thinking.”
“It makes sense that someone else has this bag,” agreed Yoshi. “Not necessarily a boyfriend, though. It could be a female accomplice
.”
I doubted that. “Kelly isn’t the kind of girl who has female friends.”
“Because she’s too pretty?” Taka said helpfully.
“Shut up, Taka.”
“So what now?” he demanded, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “Where do we find the boyfriend?”
“I’m going to look for him.” I ignored Yoshi’s squawk. “We’re meeting a hostess friend this evening, a girl I trust. She might know something.”
“Hostess? Bring on the babes!”
“Shut up, Taka. Anyway, you’ve met her before. Remember Sonja, the Dutch girl?”
“Wow, Mama!”
“Take that as a yes.” Chanko shook his head.
“No,” said Yoshi. “No way. Kechan, this is a really bad idea. What if the yakuza follow her? What if you get caught looking for this man?”
“There’s no reason I should. We don’t think the yakuza know this guy exists, remember? I mean, we don’t know he exists, not for a fact. And the yaks last saw us in Kanazawa, and since then I’ve let them think we’re going south. They aren’t going to be looking in gaijin bars in Roppongi.”
“Not good enough,” said Yoshi. “You’re not doing it.” I stared at him. He blinked defiantly back at me. “I said no. You’re not going to wander round Tokyo unprotected—”
“No. She won’t,” said Chanko.
“Because you’re going to protect her?” demanded Yoshi. “Like you did this morning?”
“Hey!” I snapped.
“No. Come on, Chanko-san is far too obvious—”
“Not in Tokyo, and anyway—”
“What’s Yoshi-san’s alternative?” asked Chanko, very low and cutting through our raised voices. “Are you going to be Kerry’s backup? Or do you plan to put on a dress and hang around Roppongi instead of her?”
Taka and I each sucked in a breath, but Yoshi was already leaning forward, scarlet-faced. “Maybe Futotcho-san should leave the thinking to people who have brains instead of muscles.”
“Maybe Yoshi-kun should come up with some ideas, not have women taking care of him,” snarled Chanko.
“Shut up, both of you. We’re on the same side, remember?” It didn’t look like they agreed with me. Yoshi had called Chanko a blimp; Chanko had effectively called Yoshi a little boy; neither of them was backing down. “Yoshi, it’ll be much easier for me and Sonja to look for an American man in Roppongi than it would be for you. We need to find him.”
“No, we need to get you out of the country,” said Yoshi. “Kechan, I’m telling you no.”
“You got a right to tell her that?” demanded Chanko, and he didn’t say it courteously.
“Shut up and listen,” I told them both. “We can let the yakuza walk all over us while we squabble, or we can do something about this. I’m doing something. Anyone who isn’t with me can say so now. Taka?”
“Hey, beautiful, you know me. I’m always up for a laugh.”
“This isn’t a joke!” shouted Yoshi, his voice cracking. “After what they did to Noriko— What do you think they’ll do to you, Kechan?”
“What else will they do to Noriko?” I demanded. “What about you? Do you think this is going to stop? Damn it, Yoshi, do you think I’m going to leave you alone?”
He put a hand over his mouth, his face working. I bit my lip. “I’m sorry, honey. But the only thing I can do for Nori-chan now is try to find this bag, and I’m starting with this boyfriend.” I stopped and swallowed. “I want to see her.”
“No,” said Yoshi and Chanko in chorus, then glared at one another.
“No,” repeated Yoshi. “You can’t. They know where she is. They’ll find you for sure. And she won’t know you’re there…and… You don’t want to see her like she is now. Believe me.”
I pushed myself to my feet. “Am I sleeping in the small room, Taka?”
“What? Yeah, yeah, sure—”
“I’m going up. The rest of you, just shut up, okay? Or kill each other quietly. I don’t want to hear it.”
The small study room was full of Taka’s computer crap, with a single futon mattress folded in the corner. I put on my coat, switched off the light and curled up in the cold and dark. There were voices from downstairs, but not shouting. I didn’t really care that much anyway.
After a while, I heard a heavy tread, and the door opened a crack.
“Hey, Butterfly.”
“Go away.”
“Can I put the light on?”
“No.” I sat up and clutched the coat round me. “Where do you get off talking to Yoshi like that? And don’t say he started it.”
“You know, for someone who isn’t your boyfriend, he’s sure protective of you.”
“He’s my friend. He’s had to watch Noriko…”
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that.”
“Well, can you show your sympathy by not picking a fight with him?”
“Butterfly, the guy wants to stake his claim, that’s between you and him—though what the hell you’d see in a snotty little shrimp like that—anyway, point is, whatever’s between you is your problem. He stops me doing my job, or decides to start handing out a hard time, that’s my problem. Okay?”
I banged my head gently against the wall. “Would you do me a favour?”
“What?”
“Would you tell Yoshi you understand that he’s being aggressive with you because he sees you as a sexual predator threatening his woman?”
“No.”
“Well, I wish you would, we could do with the laugh. He’s gay, Chanko, and you know that’s not easy here. Which is why that crack about wearing a dress was seriously ill judged.”
There was a short pause.
“Shit.” It sounded heartfelt. “You could have told me.”
“Nobody’s business but his.”
“Yeah, but… Ah, shit. I thought he was being a jackass.”
“I don’t suppose you made a great impression either.” I wrapped my arms round my knees. “Honest answer, Chanko. What are our chances? I mean, I’m going to do this anyway, because I don’t have a choice, but…what are the odds?”
I should have put the light on, I realised. Although I’d have put a few thousand yen on his face being unreadable.
Finally, he said, “Look, we’ll talk to your friend, okay? See where we stand. Then think. I guess I better go talk to Yoshi-san.”
He cleared off, and I curled up on the futon again.
I thought and fretted and dozed, and finally got myself moving. The prospect of going out as myself was too unpleasant to contemplate, plus I wanted to practise, so I dressed in a short brown leather skirt and a low-cut lace-up top from my hastily assembled bag of tricks, combed out the blonde wig and tied it into a high ponytail, applied pale foundation and put on the eye makeup with a lavish hand. It looked sufficiently Russian to be getting on with.
I tripped downstairs and found the men watching the news in silence. It didn’t hold anyone’s attention when I walked in.
Taka said, “Whoo, Mama!”, more out of habit than interest. Yoshi was far too used to my transformations to do anything but give me a tired grin. Chanko looked around, started to offer a greeting, gave the most spectacular double take I have ever seen, and fumbled his can of beer, almost dropping it on the grey floor tiles. The others collapsed in laughter, and I felt absurdly pleased with myself.
“Holy crap,” he said in English. “Kerry? Whoa.”
“Chanko say konbanwa!” giggled Taka hysterically. His English had always been excruciating and hadn’t improved. “This person Kerry, ne? Big dumb ass!”
“Shut up, Taka. Okay, that is impressive.” Chanko heaved himself off the floor for a closer look, reaching out a hand but not quite touching me. “Your face looks, I dunno, different.”
“Oh, I just shaded round the cheekbones and Westernised the eyes a bit,” I said offhandedly. “Nothing to it. Are we going out or what?”
Taka, in a display of efficiency that someone else was probably
behind, had got “one of his boys” to check out the old couple’s little izakaya where I’d arranged to meet Sonja, and ensure she hadn’t been followed. The owners had either turned away all the other customers, or more likely didn’t have any, because when I walked in, there were only two people in the dingy, black-wood interior, both nursing glasses of beer with expressions of distaste. One was a tall, busty European woman with an athletic physique, a black leather minidress and a mane of scarlet hair falling halfway down her back, and the other was Japanese, with a heart-shaped face, dressed in pink and peacock blue, and standing five feet tall in four-inch heels.
“What the—?” I hurried over to them, cursing myself and Sonja equally as we hugged. “Minachan, it’s wonderful to see you, but what the hell is she doing here, Sonja?”
“Never mind that.” Minachan ducked sideways to peer round me. “Kerry-chan, have you shaved a bear?”
Either that was a proverb I didn’t know or— I swung round to see Chanko stooping under the low black-beamed ceiling and dangling strip-lights, blocking the corridor and being enthusiastically bowed at by the elderly couple who ran the place.
“Wow,” breathed Sonja. “Mine.”
“I saw him first.”
“Forget it, titch. He’d squash you like a bug.”
“Get your claws out, the pair of you,” I said extremely firmly. “That’s my bodyguard. Anyway, guess who’s behind him, Sonja.”
“Mount Fuji? Oh, my God, crazy Taka,” she added as Taka made his way past. “What has he done to his hair? It looks fantastic!”
A match made in heaven. I’d always thought so.
I hadn’t wanted to drag Minachan into this, but she was here, and I knew better than to try shutting her out now. I made the introductions, and we pulled two tables together for the six of us to sit round. The barkeep brought three cold beers in icy glasses without being asked, and next to him his tiny, grey-haired wife smiled and bowed as she placed a dai-jockey in front of Chanko. That’s a glass holding the best part of a litre of beer. I rather thought I could guess who had actually dealt with those local toughs.