by Constantine
“Of course you don’t. But then, I’ll just have to go back down to police headquarters. Tell my friends about how difficult and suspicious you were acting. Maybe have them keep an eye on this building. You know, in the interests of public safety.”
That got Fukui’s attention. Kyoko didn’t know if he was involved in anything illegal. He might have just been a paranoid old man. But the neighborhood seemed on the seedier side, and there was no doubt that some things might be going on beneath Fukui’s nose—or even with his full knowledge.
“Okay, I’ll take you.”
The futon was pushed up against a closet and when Fukui rose to his feet, he turned to open the closet door. There were piles of clothes on one of the shelves. Fukui picked out a button-down shirt and pulled it over his slim torso, but he didn’t bother fastening it shut. Walking past Kyoko, he approached the genkan, and there was an alcove above a shoe cabinet built into the wall. From the alcove, Fukui plucked a ring lined with keys.
Kyoko followed him out the door and they rode the elevator up to the eighth floor in silence. Once they came to the apartment that had been Akane Suzuki’s, Fukui began testing different keys, trying to find the right one. After several tries, he unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“Told the parents I’d box up her shit once I have the place cleaned. But didn’t have a chance yet.” Fukui moved away from the open door and rested his back against the wall. “You go on alone, I’m not dealing with any ghosts.”
Kyoko rolled her eyes and walked inside, taking off her shoes at the genkan. Reaching into the back-pocket of her jeans, Kyoko took out a small handkerchief. Many people carried them in Japan as it wasn’t uncommon for public restrooms to lack paper towels or automatic hand dryers.
With the handkerchief in hand, Kyoko opened the door of the small refrigerator. It was almost completely empty. There were some cans of chu-hi—a kind of wine cooler—and a few condiments, but not much else. Judging from the contents of the cupboards, it looked like Akane had mostly been subsisting on instant meals.
She walked around the small apartment. Opening the closet, Kyoko looked at the clothes hanging on a rack. Several beautiful, elegant dresses were there in various colors. All of them were covered with plastic wraps from the dry-cleaner. All except one.
Kyoko closed the closet and then walked across to examine the bulletin board with photographs pinned to it. There were several photographs of the man she imagined was the boyfriend. And of a girl the same age as Akane. Those two seemed to dominate the pictures.
But none of her parents.
There was also a business card pinned to the board. Shinzo Soma, of the Top Shelf Entertainment agency. The Suzukis mentioned that Akane was excited about the possibility of starting up her career again.
Kyoko took out her smartphone and held it up to take a picture of the board. As she backed up further to get all the photos in the frame, her foot knocked over a small, plastic wastebasket.
“Shit.”
“Everything okay in there?” called Fukui from outside.
“Just fine.”
Kyoko knelt down and set the wastebasket upright. There were some crumpled-up pieces of paper. Kyoko checked each one. Two past-due bills and a receipt from a convenience store dated the day of her death.
And some used condoms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Walk a few blocks from the Nakamura Detective Agency, down a few alleys, and eventually you’ll come to a seven-story building with the top floor housing a dimly lit shot bar named Sho’s.
Owned and operated by Shotaro Morita, the bar was large enough to accommodate a small stage area where jazz musicians would occasionally perform. Sho himself was an accomplished guitarist and would frequently entertain his customers.
Kyoko and her colleagues would often come here at night after a difficult day of work. On many more occasions, Kyoko would come solo. Once she opened the door, the sound of smooth jazz piping through the speakers gave her a sense of comfort. As such a regular customer, Sho recognized her as soon as she stepped in and flashed her a smile from behind the bar. He was a good twenty years older than Kyoko, with shaggy, shoulder-length hair and round glasses.
“Good to see you, Kyoko.”
“Hi, Sho. The usual.”
Sho nodded and filled a tumbler with ice, setting it on the counter while Kyoko took a seat. He took a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black and filled the glass about halfway. Kyoko removed the pack of Seven Stars from her pocket and lit a cigarette. After a few drags, she picked up the scotch and sipped.
“Anything good on tonight?”
“Pretty slow during the week, you know that.” Sho picked up a pamphlet and set it on the counter. “But come by this weekend. Got a great performer coming up from Kagoshima.”
Kyoko studied the face of the young woman on the flyer. “Pretty. You sure it’s just her music you’re interested in?”
Sho chuckled. “You know I’m saving myself for you.”
“You’ll be waiting a long time, you old perv.” Kyoko heard the door to the bar open and looked over her shoulder. Saori and Nobu had arrived.
“Your friends here to steal you away from me?”
“Business, you know how it is. Could you—?”
“Don’t worry, I know what they want.”
Kyoko climbed off the stool and signaled to her colleagues. She walked over to a booth in the corner and slid onto one of the cushioned benches. Saori sat next to her and Nobu across from them both. A few moments after they sat down, Sho arrived with a mug of beer he set in front of Nobu and a chu-hi for Saori. Greetings and thank yous were exchanged before Sho left.
“Tell me what you found out,” said Kyoko.
“Ichikawa’s address, not much else on my end,” said Saori. “Tried to get my contact to send me a record of the calls he made, but I guess not even my charms are that good.”
“Nobu?”
“Made a few calls, meeting a guy later tonight,” said Nobu. “These kind of deals are usually done with fake names, but if I bring some pictures, might get lucky.”
“I went to Akane’s apartment. There’s definitely something fishy about her landlord. I did get him to let me into her place, though. She had a bulletin board of photographs, so I took a picture of it on my phone,” said Kyoko.
“Ichikawa on there?”
“Possibly. There are a lot of photographs.”
“Send it to me, I’ll show it to my guy.”
Kyoko took out her phone and brought up the photograph. She emailed it to Nobu and his phone beeped in his pocket a few seconds later. Before Kyoko put her phone back in her pocket, Saori grabbed her wrist.
“Can I see that?”
Kyoko nodded and passed her the phone. With her fingers, Saori zoomed in on the photo, scrolling from side-to-side. She pointed at one of the images.
“Look.”
Kyoko saw a purikura picture of Akane with another girl, holding peace signs over their eyes. The picture also had names written in hand-drawn hiragana characters. One was Aka the other was Aya.
“You recognize her?” asked Kyoko.
“Ayano Kuroki. Koibito was basically those two.” Saori fished through her bag and dropped a rolled-up magazine on the counter. “And if the magazines are to be believed, they were best friends.”
“What’s this?” asked Kyoko, picking it up. She scoffed when she read the title. “This is a tabloid.”
Saori shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But might be something useful in there. Mostly spins a tale that Akane was into drugs, that she’d clashed with her co-stars many times, and she was boy-crazy.”
“Not sure I trust anything in here, but this Ayano could be a potential source,” said Kyoko. “Good eye.”
“You turn up anything else in the apartment?” asked Nobu after taking a generous swallow of his beer.
“Used condoms in her garbage,” said Kyoko. “And I checked the trash schedule, there was a pick-up scheduled for that morning.”
“You think someone was with her the night she died?” asked Saori.
“No offense, boss, but I don’t think that proves anything,” said Nobu. “I mean, I forget to put my trash out all the time.”
“The basket was mostly empty. The only other things in there were bills and a receipt from the same day. So unless she didn’t have any trash for a week…”
“Ichikawa was with her the day she died,” said Saori.
“And either he’s a stud or he wasn’t the only one.” Kyoko took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled the smoke through her nostrils. “I found three condoms in the trash.”
Saori sipped her chu-hi. “One was probably Ichikawa, then.”
“He’s still my primary interest. But this landlord, Fukui, something about him didn’t sit right with me,” said Kyoko. “He said he had trouble remembering Akane, but when I asked if he’d ever seen her with any guys, he was pretty positive pretty fast that he hadn’t. Almost adamantly positive. And when I mentioned the day of Akane’s death, he looked scared.”
“You think he had something to do with it?” asked Nobu, taking another drink.
“He’s hiding something, I’m sure of it. When he took me to look at Akane’s apartment, he refused to come inside.” Kyoko tapped the cigarette against the edge of the metal ashtray on the table. “Acted like it was haunted.”
Nobu finished his beer and raised the empty glass so Sho could see. He then turned to Kyoko while waiting for his refill. “Superstitious old guys aren’t really rare.”
“Maybe not, but he also didn’t have an alibi—said he was watching TV and drinking when Akane fell. Something else. The bill I found was past-due. Yet Fukui said Akane paid her rent on the first of the month like clockwork.”
“Sometimes you gotta prioritize which bills you’ll pay.” Saori shrugged. “I’ve done that.”
“So have I. But she also had a number of expensive-looking dresses in her closet.” Kyoko paused to sip her scotch. “Akane’s parents said they gave her money on a few occasions. If she was hurting for cash, how did she afford rent and a closetful of high-priced clothes?”
“You think she was moonlighting as a hostess?” asked Nobu.
“There are a few clubs in the area,” said Kyoko. “There are times when those girls will go on dates with customers. The business isn’t strictly prostitution, but it has been known to happen. Fukui wasn’t exactly a model citizen. I saw a stack of old porn mags in his apartment and whenever he looked at me, he couldn’t stop staring at my chest.”
“He might’ve been a customer?” asked Saori.
“Might have explained how she was always on time with her rent when she couldn’t pay her other bills,” said Kyoko. “And we can’t check bank records because he said she always paid in cash.”
“My guy often hangs out near those clubs. I’ll take him to one,” said Nobu. “Get him liquored up and a girl on his arm, he might open up more than usual.”
“Right, it’s all for him,” said Saori.
“Just doing my job, kid.”
“Saori, I want you to go talk to this friend, Ayano,” said Kyoko. “Find out if she and Akane have kept in touch since she was fired.”
“Should I use a cover story or…?”
“If Ayano is really a friend, she’ll want to help with an investigation into Akane’s death. So try the honesty route for now. If that doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else.”
“What are you gonna do, boss?” asked Nobu.
“I’ve handed those condoms over to a friend of mine at the university, he’ll do some tests on them. Without anything to compare the samples to, we won’t know who was with Akane that day, but we will know how many guys it was.”
“Does this mean we’re officially taking on this case?” asked Saori.
Kyoko took another drink of her whiskey. So far, there had been a lot of questions raised by the investigation. Was Akane working as a hostess and occasional prostitute in order to make ends meet? Did her boyfriend find out about her double life and kill her? Or maybe Fukui was sleeping with her, got attached, and then enraged that she was also going with other men.
Of course, there was still the conventional theory—Akane Suzuki was a troubled girl who fell on hard times and took her own life. The photos suggested she was obsessed with her past life, the apartment was nothing to crow about, and if she was working in the mizu shobai—or ‘water business’ as the nighttime entertainment industry was called—then that could have also proven a motive for taking her own life.
“Boss…?” asked Nobu.
Kyoko was taken from her trance. There were still question whether this was murder or suicide. And regardless of what the answer was, Kyoko felt she had to know.
“We’re taking the case.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was around ten when Nobu and Saori left Sho’s. Kyoko had opted to hang around for another drink and some conversation with Sho, but Saori said she wanted to get back to her apartment and curl up with a book before going to bed.
Nobu would have loved to do the same, but he wasn’t off the clock yet. The nightlife in Osaka didn’t really start until after ten and he had plans to get some information out of his contact.
Saori shared an apartment near the university, which meant she had at least a thirty-minute train ride before she’d make it home. Nobu walked with her through the streets of Namba to the subway station. Although it was a weeknight, Namba was still a popular destination and there were plenty of people on the streets, patronizing shops, or heading to bars or restaurants.
“You’re not really big on this case, are you?” asked Saori.
Nobu gave Saori a side-glance. “Why do you say that?”
“Seems like you’re trying to poke holes in the boss’ theories.”
Nobu smirked. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “That’s just kinda my way. Boss says I help her look at all the possibilities by questioning things. My mom used to say I ask too many questions.”
“Your mom…”
Nobu felt Saori’s eyes on him. He kept his mouth closed in fear of saying something else to trigger his young colleague’s curiosity.
“You don’t talk much about your family, do you?” she asked.
There it was. “Not much to say.”
“I’ve been working with you guys for about a year now. I know about Kyoko’s family. I’ve told you tons of stories about mine. And about my roommate. But you never talk about your family unless I ask. And even then, you always change the subject.”
Nobu sighed, fixing his gaze on the distance. How long before they reached the subway? He was half-tempted to just dart off into the crowd.
“You hungry?” he asked. “I know a great takoyaki stand nearby.”
Saori scoffed. “There you go again…
“What?” Nobu held his arms out to the side. “Deep-fried octopus balls, what’s not to like?”
She chuckled. “Fine, keep your secrets. I think I’ll head the rest of the way on my own. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Saori left him standing alone in the street. She would take the Midosuji Line from the subway station, which was the same line he planned on taking to Shinsekai. But now, he figured he’d take the Nankai-Koya Line from the station attached to the Namba City shopping mall.
When he arrived at the mall, he went for the station. He took out his phone, the case holding a rail card for easy payment and tapped the case against the scanner at the platform entrance. It beeped and the small doors opened, allowing him to pass through and step onto the platform.
Nobu boarded a train. The ride took just under twenty minutes before he arrived at Imamiyaebisu Station. From there, he walked down the streets, entering one of the entertainment districts.
The lighted signs illuminated the otherwise-drab buildings along the streets. Some of them were like plazas with a whole arrangement of clubs, bars, and restaurants being advertised. Hostesses in scant, frilly dresses
and young men in freshly pressed white shirts and ties stood on the street, calling out to the men who walked by, attempting to entice them into their establishments.
Nobu took his phone from his pocket and sent a message on the Line app to his contact. A few moments went by and then he got a response: “On my way.”
He closed the app and brought up the photograph Kyoko had sent him. Zooming in on a photo of Akane, he walked over to one of the girls.
“Excuse me,” he said.
She turned and smiled, bowing to him. “Hi!” Her voice was high-pitched, almost babyish. Many of the girls who worked at these clubs would intentionally speak that way to appeal to customers. “Why don’t you come upstairs?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you’d seen this girl.” He showed her the picture on his phone.
The girl studied it for a few moments, then shook her head. “Sorry, haven’t seen her. But if you’re looking for some company, we’ve got some great girls upst—”
“Thanks, maybe another time.”
Nobu moved from her and went up to a few more people. The responses were almost all the same. No one recognized Akane’s photograph. Which Nobu found somewhat strange in its own right. Even if Akane hadn’t been working at any of these places, you would think they’d recognize a former idol.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Nobu took it out and saw a message from his contact: “I’m here.”
Nobu looked around the crowded street and saw a young guy walking towards him. He was dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a t-shirt, with shaggy hair swept across his forehead and a bad goatee.
“What’s up, Tsuji?” he asked with a smile as he approached. “Haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Hey Jun,” said Nobu, greeting the man.
Jun Yamazawa had been in and out of trouble with the police since he was a kid. Growing up here in Osaka, he’d been a delinquent and a bully, eventually joining a bosozoku motorcycle gang once he dropped out of high school. Now in his mid-twenties, he’d grown beyond the bosozoku and apparently was a small-time player in the local drug scene.
“So what’s up?” asked Jun. “Why’d you wanna meet here?”