by Asa Nonami
With the new load of evidence, detectives scattered in all directions. One team was assigned to find out whom Hara had made payments to from his bank account, and who had deposited money into his account. Takizawa and Otomichi, along with several other teams, continued to interview the tenants of the building. The beauty salon owner's testimony had led to a huge break in the case, which was all the more reason why they needed to hear what the other tenants might have to say. It was essential to cover the same ground more than once.
"He put those girls to work and then sat back and raked in all the profits. What a low-life." Takizawa said his thoughts aloud as usual, and then, with a sideways glance at Otomichi, caught himself. Damn.
She was beside him again, being her usual glum self. Perhaps she had felt the weight of his eyes; in any case, without a change of expression, she replied flatly, "Yes, that's right."
The woman did not have a shred of likeability. She was straightforward, which was fine, and intelligent, which he appreciated; but he found her presence stifling. Still, unable to think of any pretext for lodging a protest, he walked along in silence.
They were able to interview people from the English conversation school located on the second floor alongside the beauty salon, and from the photography studio next door to it, with little difficulty. But none of them recognized the victim from his photograph, and none knew anything about the date club on the fourth floor. The language school personnel were furiously searching for a new location, yet were efficient and willing enough to comply calmly with the investigation. The photography studio, in contrast, was run not by a company but by an individual, who was beside himself at the loss of expensive photographic equipment. He appeared at the entrance of his swanky condo, on which he no doubt still owed a lot, looking worn-out, and had this to say:
"I mean, just think about it. I busted my butt from the time I was a kid, and finally opened that studio. After all I went through, then to have it go up in smoke, literally . . . I'm sorry for the guy who died, but I sure wish he hadn't been in that particular restaurant at that particular time, you know what I mean?"
"What about insurance? You didn't have any? "
"I did. Of course I did. But who knows if they'll reimburse me for everything, and even then, it's sure to take time. In the meanwhile I'm going to have to shut down the business. This is pretty devastating."
He was angry about the fire. But on learning that it was neither the fault of the restaurant, nor arson, but the byproduct of a murder, he seemed unsure who should bear the brunt of his anger.
Takizawa made himself listen attentively to the photographer's story, but found himself getting more tired than usual. Murder investigations and fire investigations were known quantities, but this case fell into a category all its own. Besides, the thought that the dead guy was far from an upstanding citizen made the suffering of the others much more unfortunate.
On hearing that the acupuncturist on the third floor could not be reached, Takizawa, eager to hear testimony from someone who wasn't in such a bad way, said to Otomichi, "What places didn't get burned?"
"On the third floor, only the astrologer's place. Also the accounting firm and the sporting goods sales office, both on the fourth floor. The floors above that are mostly intact. The closest one from here would be—"
"The astrologer. Let's start there."
"All right."
"That oughta be right up your alley. Women go in for that kinda thing."
He knew this sounded inane, but it was the best he could manage. If he ever softened up on her she'd take advantage of him, start walking all over him. Women were like that. Anyway, before you could talk to someone, you had to be interested in them.
Yeah, right. What about this female could ever interest him?
There was one thing he might be able to work up a little interest in, but what was he gonna do, ask her about the men she'd slept with? With another guy he could joke around about it, but with her it could turn into an unmitigated disaster. Still, if she was his partner, she was an important factor in the equation; he wanted to talk things over with her—to the extent necessary—but when everything he said got no reaction out of her, he couldn't help adding a few barbs.
"How about if you do the talking this time?"
"Is that all right with you?"
"Suits me fine. I have a thing about fake fortune-tellers. Kinda like you do about queers."
"Well, let me see how he reacts to us, and then I'll decide. If it seems like I would be better suited to handle him, then I'll take over."
Now she was being weirdly cautious. Of course, there were times when a woman was better suited to ask the questions. There were people like that patient with the bad eyes, the one who couldn't deal with men. But work was work—you couldn't pick and choose. About the only time he was glad to have a woman partner for work like this was late at night, when visiting a woman who lived alone.
If only we were interviewing those harebrained high school girls.
Takizawa was curious to know what girls his daughter's age could be thinking, what reason they could have for working at a date club. If they had been assigned to investigate that angle, it might have been a strain, but Otomichi might have done herself proud.
"Date clubs, huh."
As they walked along, the words slipped out of Takizawa's mouth. Quickly he glanced over at Otomichi, but seeing that she showed no reaction, he clammed up, feeling slightly irked. It made him mad that she would ignore him, without so much as a "Pardon me, did you say something?" Anyway, today was as good a time as any to lay down the law to his younger daughter: Don't be an idiot, don't do anything you'll only live to regret.
4
Teruo Hara did not have a bad reputation. Regardless of how he made his living, there was no sign he had connections to yakuza or ran up huge debts. His relations with women were complicated, but the women he was involved with had nothing worse to say about him than "I turned all my money over to him." No one seemed to bear him any particular grudge. Surprisingly, he had been saving money regularly, and he had taken out a life insurance policy with his mother as beneficiary; he seldom used his credit card, and had apparently been a reliable guy despite appearances to the contrary.
"He got women to shell out all the money he needed, so sure, his earnings could go into savings, or whatever," one investigator said. "No decent man would run a date club."
True, thought Takako, very true, and yet this seemed like a kind of prejudice, plain and simple. Not that she was anyone to talk. She'd been prejudiced against the gay hairdresser from the start.
The date club's books were balanced, there were no reports of disturbances, and neither the girls nor the clients had anything bad to say about Hara. In fact, detectives were surprised to learn the girls had affectionately nicknamed him Taku, short for Takuma. More than a few of the girls—not just a handful—testified that they were able to tell Taku things they couldn't tell their parents or teachers, and that he listened and gave them helpful advice.
The girls had learned about the date club by word of mouth, and they came to him by themselves. Once they joined the club, he would lend them cellphones for free. The cellphones were for the purpose of contacting the girls when they had been selected by a client; but the girls were free to use them as they liked, and could give out the number to whomever they pleased. Many of the girls had joined up just so they could get a free cellphone, and had been further tempted by the chance to make easy money on the side.
"Some of them were earning more than their old man."
That night, after the meeting was over, several detectives had stayed behind at headquarters, and this bull session just seemed to evolve. They put together a simple meal, had a few drinks. It would have been easy enough to go out somewhere, but the case was not a topic that could be discussed openly and conversation would be constrained. It was more relaxing to hang around headquarters, kick back, have a few, unwind. Four days had passed since Takako and Ta
kizawa pinned down Hara's office.
"What the girls did after the date was up to them. If they let the client fool around with them a little, they could make a bundle."
"What I don't get is, here you got a guy who's taking advantage of them, preying on them, right? Why would they trust him so much? Why would they go to him with their problems?"
"Maybe because he had so little connection with their ordinary lives. Maybe that made it easier. Even a son-of-a-bitch can be like an older brother."
After tapping each other's drinks in plastic cups, the detectives had started to express their opinions. Gradually the victim's profile was beginning to emerge, but there was nothing that tied in with his murder. It was the business of the date club that really got to them.
"They were kids! The guy was involved in prostitution since he was a teenager, if you ask me. He made his living off women. These girls sound precocious, worldly and all, playing around with men, but this Hara guy was a pro. Him getting these high school girls to do his bidding was child's play. Don't you see that?"
Teruo Hara became Takuma Sugawara when he started working at discos as a kurofuku—literally, "black suit"—serving as watchman or scout, keeping track of clientele and girls. In that line of work, going from one joint to another until he was twenty-two, twenty-three, he was never hard-up for women. Then he quit the disco life and went to work in a host club; at twenty-seven he persuaded an older woman to finance a small place of his own. That was back in the days when the whole country was caught up in the bubble economy, so things went swimmingly for a while, but after a year and a half he was bankrupt. Then he went back to the host club business, working as a pimp on the side. At thirty-one he started a "telephone club," a place where guys sat around waiting for women and girls to call up and chat and, maybe, get together; but that went under as well. And then, eighteen months ago, he opened the date club in Tachikawa.
Looking at his life overall, there was no sign of any male friends. Rather, once one female entered his life, other females just materialized. That had been the pattern, investigators found; in fact, since the break in the case, a team of detectives had been doing nothing but going around talking to women of all ages and occupations who had known Hara.
"High school girls aren't the only stupid females here. Look at that Sadako Kitayama. And one of the women I talked to was fifty-four; her husband is the director of a hospital!"
"Yeah, or look at that mama-san of the bar in Kyushu, the one who sublet him the apartment—she must be pushing sixty."
* * *
As their drinks began to take effect, the detectives forgot about Takako's presence among them. She had no intention of taking offense at a phrase like "stupid females," so she let the remark pass unchallenged. It was true—some females were stupid.
"He must have been really something with the ladies."
"You can say that again. I don't know about the high school kids, but to seduce those old bags, he'd have had to—"
As the detective was tipsily going on, his eyes met Takako's and he stopped mid-sentence. He was a guy in his forties, someone she knew only by sight; but seeing her, he clammed up, embarrassed. Takako couldn't very well say "Go right ahead, don't mind me." Nor at her age could she pretend she didn't know what they were talking about. Takako did her best to look casual.
"Uh-oh. Keep it clean, guys, keep it clean," somebody stepped into the breach to make amends. For a while there was an uneasy silence. Takako was never sure how to react in these situations. From the corner of her eye she could see Takizawa, grinning at her with his reptilian eyes.
"Well, I figure," someone else spoke up, "one way or another he musta made plenty of enemies among the women, but if ya ask me, no woman is gonna use a trick like that to get rid of him."
Agreeing, Takako nodded slightly, and was finally able to look away.
Actually, I bet a man like Hara didn't make enemies among women all that much. He met them smoothly, gave them pleasure, and then left them smoothly.
Otherwise, how could he have lived like such a Don Juan? There was probably good reason why the high school girls liked him so much.
"Otomichi, you ready for another drink?" A young detective had come up to her holding a large bottle of sake. He filled her plastic cup without waiting for an answer and gave her a genial smile, then continued on his way. She followed him with her eyes as he went around the room offering sake to the group of men, bending down before the veteran members of the force to refill their cups.
"Anybody want some soy sauce?" asked another young detective. "It's right here." This guy had to be about Takako's age. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his hairy arms, his tie tucked between the buttons of his shirt; he was waiting on the others with ease and skill.
A world where women aren't needed.
When she first transferred to this division, Takako had felt self-conscious at times like this, wondering if she was expected to go around waiting on everyone, serving tea, pouring drinks. But when she did, she found the men either became uncomfortable or, as they got drunker, started treating her like a bar hostess. Anyway, these guys were surprisingly good at throwing a meal together and serving drinks. Years of working in an environment without women had probably made it necessary. The sight of these men waiting on each other so capably and affably was charming. And so after a time, she had made it her policy to sit tight on such occasions and do nothing.
As the night wore on and the drinks flowed more freely, the men began raking through memories of old cases.
"Right, right, that old investigator could cut through the shit like nobody else."
"That's what I heard too. Even among the pros, he was head and shoulders above the rest."
"But apparently his instincts weren't like they used to be when he was in his prime. He was always calling for more data."
Takako found these tales fascinating. But no one ever bothered to explain the details to her. She was still a relative newcomer to homicide, and with her limited experience, much of what they said went right over her head. Then the conversation came back round to the current case.
"The killer's got brains, though, that's for sure. Who would come up with the idea of a timed ignition trigger? He's got to be some kind of a professional or crazy geek."
"What about a political activist?"
"Why would a political activist want to kill a pimp?"
As the conversation rolled along, Takako looked around, and her eyes fell on Takizawa, sitting almost directly across the table from her, among officers he was evidently on good terms with. Looking stumpier than ever, her partner was talking enthusiastically with the guy next to him. Takizawa looked relaxed and friendly, a side of himself he never showed her.
"He's gotta be used to handling chemicals, for one thing."
"The lab results are due in any time now, eh?"
"Once we know what he used, it should be easy to figure out how he got hold of it."
How would they do that? Takako wondered. She would probably have opportunity to find out, but in the city of Tokyo, or in the surrounding prefectures, how many ways might there be of obtaining such chemicals? That was the conversation on her left; on her right, a vigorous discussion of motive was underway. She waited for a chance to join in.
"If it was a crime of vengeance, they picked a hell of a way to get back at the guy. A woman couldn't do it."
"Don't be too sure. As long as you had the know-how, it wouldn't take much physical strength to pull it off."
"But do you think it's in a woman's nature to pick an MO like that? Something that elaborate?"
Everybody was wrapped up in the case. Since they were running a race with no end in sight, they appreciated each other's company and support. Takako, who never once had talked the case over with another investigator, felt the same way. She had her own thoughts about it, but no one to share them with.
Not even my own partner.
Feeling downcast, she took a drink from her plast
ic cup, which, now that she thought about, looked like the kind used for urine samples. The situation was absurd. She wanted to yell across the room at Takizawa.
How come you won't talk to me? How come you're so nice to other people and not to me? What don't you like about me? Why are you always trying to pick a fight? Is that how you see me—some kind of shadow or mascot trailing after you?
What if I'd said, "Oh, how could you!" that time, and burst into tears—would that have made you happy? Would it have pleased you to think, Yup, that's a woman for you? Don't you think you should try to train your partner, whether male or female? Or do you think your attitude is going to make me a better cop?
The more she thought about it, the more rage she felt. Good, let it burn, let it grow! She wallowed in dark thoughts. But her rage was not aimed solely at Takizawa. It was aimed at everyone here—at the whole police department— at men.