by Barry Eisler
“I am pleased to hear you say ‘used to.” ’
“I was able to say it pretty accurately, until just recently.”
“May I continue?”
“As long as we’re clear from the outset that there’s no obligation here.”
He nodded again. “As I have said.” He paused to withdraw a tin of mints from inside his coat pocket. He opened the tin and extended it toward me. I shook my head. He withdrew a mint and placed it in his mouth without dipping his head or stopping to look at what he was doing. It wasn’t Tatsu’s way to take his eyes off what was going on around him, and it showed in the little things as well as the more significant.
“The weightlifter was a front man,” he said. “It is true that he looked like a Neanderthal but in fact he was part of the new generation of organized crime in Japan. His specialty, in which he had proven himself unusually adept, was the establishment of legitmate, sustainable businesses, behind which his less progressive cohorts could then hide.”
I nodded, knowing the phenomenon. The new generation, recognizing that tattoos, loud suits, and an aggressive manner offered them only limited upside in the society, was casting off its criminal persona and foraying into legitimate businesses like real estate and entertainment. The older generation, still wedded to drugs, prostitution, and control of the construction industry, was coming to rely on these upstarts for money laundering, tax avoidance, and other services. And, at the same time, the newcomers went to their forebears whenever the competitive pressures of business might be eased by the timely application of some of the traditional tools of the trade—bribery, extortion, murder—in which the older generation continued to specialize. It was a symbiotic division of labor that would have made a classical economist flush with pride.
“The weightlifter had established an efficient system,” he continued. “All the traditional gumi were using his services. The legitimacy this system afforded the gumi was making them less vulnerable to prosecution, and more influential in politics and the boardroom. More influential in society generally, in fact. Our mutual acquaintance, Yamaoto Toshi, had grown particularly dependent on the weightlifter’s operation.”
Gumi means “group” or “gang.” In the yakuza context, the word refers to organized crime families, the Japanese equivalent of the Gambinos or the fictional Corleones.
“I don’t see how his absence is going to make a difference,” I said. “Won’t someone just take his place?”
“In the long run, yes. Where there is enough demand, eventually someone will offer a supply. But in the meantime, the supply is disrupted. The weightlifter was critical to the smooth maintenance of his organization. He groomed no successors, fearing, as strongmen do, that the presence of a successor would make a succession more likely. There will be a struggle in his organization now that he is gone. Deceit and betrayal will be part of that struggle. Assets and connections that are now hidden will be exposed. Criminal influence on legitimate enterprises will be lessened.”
“For a time,” I said.
“For a time.”
I thought of what Kanezaki had told me about Crepuscular.
“I had a run-in with someone from the CIA recently,” I said. “He mentioned something you might want to know about.”
“Yes?”
“His name is Tomohisa Kanezaki. He’s American, ethnic Japanese. He mentioned a CIA program for ‘furthering reform and removing impediments to reform.’ Something called Crepuscular. Sounds like your bailiwick.”
He nodded slowly for a moment, then said, “Tell me about this program.”
I started to tell him the little I’d heard. Then I realized. “You know this guy,” I said.
He shrugged. “He was one of the people who came to the Metropolitan Police Force requesting assistance in locating you.”
Marvelous. “Who was the other?”
“Holtzer’s successor as the CIA’s chief of Tokyo Station. James Biddle.”
“Haven’t heard of him.”
“He’s young for the position. About forty. Perhaps part of a new generation at the CIA.”
I told him how I had met up with Kanezaki and his escort, fudging the details to conceal Harry’s involvement.
“How did they manage to find you?” he asked. “It took me an entire year, even with local resources and access to Juki Net and the cameras.”
“A flaw in my security,” I told him. “It’s been corrected.”
“And Crepuscular?” he asked.
“Just what I told you. I didn’t get details.”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “It doesn’t matter. I doubt that Kanezaki-san could have told you more than I already know.”
I looked at him, as always impressed with the breadth of his information. “What do you know?”
“The U.S. government is funneling money to various Japanese reformers. This is the same kind of program the CIA ran after the war, when it was supporting the Liberal Democratic Party as a bulwark against communism. Only the recipients have changed.”
“What about the ‘removing impediments’ part?”
He shrugged. “I imagine that, as Kanezaki-san suggested, they might want you to help with that.”
I laughed. “Sometimes these guys are so presumptuous that a certain grandeur creeps into it.”
He nodded. “Or they could be under the misapprehension that you had something to do with William Holtzer’s demise. Either way, you should stay away from them. I think we know that they are not to be trusted.”
I smiled at his use, probably deliberate, of “we” and “they,” as though Tatsu and I were partners.
“All right,” I said. “Tell me about the favor you want.”
He paused, then said, “Another key Yamaoto asset. And also a man whose primitive appearance masks a more sophisticated set of skills.”
“Who is he?”
He looked at me. “Someone you should understand quite well. A killer.”
“Really,” I said, affecting nonchalance.
The waitress brought his tea and set it down before him. He extended the cup in my direction in a silent toast, then took a sip.
“He is a strange man,” he said, watching me. “From his background, you might conclude that he is only a brute. There was a history of child abuse. Fights in school, and early evidence of sadistic tendencies. He dropped out of high school to train in sumo, but couldn’t develop the necessary bulk. Then he took up Thai boxing, where he had a short but unspectacular professional career. About five years ago he became involved in a so-called no-holds-barred sport, something called ‘Pride.’ Do you know of it?”
“Sure,” I said. The Pride Fighting Championship is a mixed martial arts sport, based in Japan, with televised bouts held every two months or so. The idea behind so-called mixed martial arts, or MMA, is to pit against each other a combination of traditional martial disciplines: boxing, jujitsu, judo, karate, kempo, kung fu, Muay Thai, sambo, wrestling. Audiences for Pride competitions have been growing steadily since the sport was founded, along with interest in related events, like King of the Cage in the U.K. and the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the States. The sport has had some difficulty with regulators, who seem more comfortable with a boxer being beaten unconscious than with an MMA guy tapping out to a submission hold.
“What is your impression?” he asked.
I shrugged. “The competitors are strong. Good skills, good conditioning. A lot of heart, too. Some of what I’ve seen is as close to a real fight as you can get while still calling it a sport. But the ‘no-holds-barred’ stuff is just marketing. Until they decide to allow biting, eye-gouging, and ball shots, and until they start leaving weapons of convenience lying around the ring for the contestants to pick up, it’ll have its shortcomings.”
“It’s interesting that you say that. Because the individual in question seemed to have the same concerns. He left the sport for the world of bare-knuckled underground fighting, where there really are no holds bar
red. Where as often as not the fight truly is to the finish.”
I had heard about these fights. Had once even met someone who participated in them, an American named Tom, who was practicing judo, for a time, at the Kodokan. He was a tough-looking but surprisingly articulate guy who shared some interesting and valuable unarmed combat philosophy with me. I had defeated him in judo, but wasn’t sure how things would have turned out in a less formal setting.
“Apparently this individual was highly successful in these underground contests,” Tatsu said. “Not just against other men. Also in bouts against animals. Dogs.”
“Dogs?” I asked, surprised.
He nodded, his expression grim. “These events are run by the yakuza. It was inevitable that our man’s skills, and his cruel proclivities, would come to the attention of the organizers, that they would then recognize that he had a higher calling than killing for prize money in the ring.”
I nodded. “He could kill in the wider world.”
“Indeed. And, for the last year, that is precisely what he has been doing.”
“You said he had a more sophisticated set of skills.”
“Yes. I believe he has developed capabilities that I once thought were your provenance only.”
I said nothing.
“In the last six months,” he went on, “there have been two deaths, apparently by suicide. The victims were both high-level banking executives in soon-to-be merged institutions. Each seems to have leaped to his death from the roof of a building.”
I shrugged. “From what I’ve been reading about the condition of the banks’ balance sheets, I’m surprised that only two have jumped. I would have expected more like fifty.”
“Perhaps twenty years ago, or even ten, that would have been the case. But atonement by suicide now exists in Japan more as an ideal than as a practice.” He took a sip of his tea. “An American-style apology is now preferred.”
“ ‘I regret that mistakes were made,” ’ I said, smiling.
“Sometimes not even ‘I regret.’ Rather, ‘It is regrettable.” ’
“At least they’re not claiming that taking bribes is a disease, that they just need treatment to be cured.”
He grimaced. “No, not yet.”
He took another sip of tea. “Neither of the jumpers left a note. And I have learned that each was concerned that the actual size of the nonperforming loans of the other party was significantly higher than advertised.”
“So? Everyone knows the problem loans are much bigger than the banks or the government admits.”
“True. But these men threatened to reveal the problem data as a way of blocking a merger that had no sound business rationale, but which was nonetheless favored by certain elements of the government.”
“Apparently not a very smart move.”
“Let me ask you something,” he said, looking at me. “Hypothetically. Would it be possible, realistically, to throw someone off a building and make it look like suicide?”
I happened to know with certainty that it was possible, but I decided to accept Tatsu’s invitation to keep things on a “hypothetical” level.
“Depends on how thorough a pathological exam would be conducted afterward,” I said.
“Assume very thorough.”
“With very thorough, it would be tough. Still possible, though. Your biggest problem would be getting the victim up to the roof with no one seeing it. Unless you had some way of tricking him into meeting you on a rooftop or otherwise knowing in advance that he was going to be there, you’d have to transport him yourself. If he were conscious for that journey, he’d be making a hell of a racket. Also, if he were fighting you, there would be evidence of a struggle. Your skin under his nails. Maybe a clump of your hair in his stiff fingers. Other items incommensurate with a voluntary act. And he’d be fighting with no regard for his own safety, no regard to pain, so there would be evidence of a struggle all over you, as well. You have no idea the way a man will fight when he understands he’s fighting for his life.”
“Tie him up first?”
“You tie someone up, it leaves marks. Even if he doesn’t struggle.”
“And he would be struggling.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Kill him first?”
“Maybe. But that’s risky. Changes to the body set in quickly after death. The blood pools. Temperature drops. And the results of impact to a dead body aren’t the same as the results to a live one. The examiner could spot the discrepancies. Besides, you’d still have to worry about evidence of the actual cause of death.”
“What if he were unconscious?”
“That’s the way I would go. If he were unconscious, though, you’d have to carry him like a body. And maneuvering seventy or a hundred kilos of dead weight isn’t easy. Plus, if you used a drug to knock him out, most likely it would still be in his bloodstream after death.”
“What about alcohol?”
“If he’d drunk enough to pass out, you’d be in good shape. A lot of suicides drink before pulling the trigger, so nothing suspicious there. But how are you going to get the guy to drink himself under the table to begin with?”
He nodded. “The two jumpers in question had blood alcohol levels high enough to have induced unconsciousness.”
“Could be what you think. Or not. That’s the beauty of it.”
“An injection?”
“Possibly. But to get enough alcohol in to do the job, you’d have to leave a detectable puncture mark at the spot where you injected it. Plus there’s alcohol in his bloodstream, but no residue of, say, Asahi Super Dry in his stomach? Not good.”
“Maybe a setup. A woman, someone strengthening his drinks, getting him to drink more than he can handle.”
“That could work.”
“How would you do it?”
“Hypothetically?”
He looked at me. “Of course,” he said.
“Hypothetically, I would try to get to the target late at night, when there would be the fewest people around. Maybe in his apartment, if I were sufficiently confident that he’d be there alone and that I had a reliable means of undetectable access. I’d dress like a janitor, because no one ever notices janitors, hit him with a stun gun, and put him in an industrial-size laundry cart, or a large rolling refuse container, whatever would be in keeping with the surroundings. I’d line it with something soft to make sure he didn’t suffer any contusions that would be incommensurate with his fall. You’d have to zap him every fifteen seconds or so with the stun gun to make sure he stayed quiet, but with no people around that wouldn’t be too difficult. Get him up to the roof, roll him over to the edge, and dump him. That’s how I would do it. Hypothetically.”
“What would you think if you found a small strip of plastic caught in the band of the victim’s wristwatch?”
“What kind of plastic?”
“Sheet plastic. Thick. The kind that comes in rolls, for protecting furniture and other large valuables.”
I was familiar with some of the uses for that kind of plastic, and I thought for a moment. “Your killer could have gotten the victim drunk. Let’s leave aside how for the moment. Then he rolls him in the plastic to prevent contamination from handling. Take him to the edge of the roof, grip one end of the plastic, and give a hard shove. The victim rolls out of the plastic and into the air. Very neat.”
“Unless, somehow, the victim’s watch snagged on the plastic.”
“Not impossible. But if that’s all you’ve got to go on, you haven’t got much.”
“There was also an eyewitness. A bellhop, working late in the hotel where one of the victims died. At three in the morning, the same time the coroner fixed the time of death, he got a good look at a janitor with a large cart going up in one of the elevators. Exactly the scene you just depicted.”
“He described your man?”
“To the details. A crushed left cheek, from his Muay Thai days. Unusual scarring on the opposite side of his face, under the eye
. These are healed dog bites. ‘A frightening face,’ he said. Entirely accurately.”
“No such janitor employed in that building?”
“Correct.”
“What happened to the bellhop?”
“Disappeared.”
“Dead?”
“Probably.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
He shrugged. “And two similar deaths, outside of Tokyo. Each to a family member of a key player in parliament.” His jaw clenched, then released. “One to a child.”
“A child?”
Clench, release. “Yes. One with no history of emotional or other problems in school. No evidence of precursors for suicide.”
I had once heard that Tatsu had lost an infant son. I wanted to ask him, but didn’t.
“If those deaths were intended to send messages to the principals,” I said, “they were being pretty subtle. If the principal thinks it was suicide, there’s no impact on his behavior.”
He nodded. “I had the opportunity to interview each of the principals. Each denied that there had been any contact from anyone claiming that the deaths were other than suicide. Each was lying.”
Tatsu had a nose for that sort of thing, and I trusted his judgment. “I’m surprised you didn’t suspect I was involved in some of this,” I said.
He paused for a moment before answering. “I might have. But, although I don’t pretend to understand how you do what you do, I know you. You could not kill a child. Not that way.”
“I’ve told you as much,” I said.
“I am not talking about what you told me. I am talking about what I know.”
I felt bizarrely appreciative of his confidence.
“In any event,” he continued, “some of your movements, as recorded on the Osaka security camera network, provided you with an alibi.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Your cameras are good enough to track me, but not good enough to spot someone wrapping people in plastic and dumping them off roofs?”
“As I have told you, the networks are far from perfect. I do not have control over their operation.” He looked at me. “And I am not the only one with access.”
I took a last sip of tea and asked a waitress for some more hot water. We sat in silence until it had arrived.