Tokyo Heist

by Diana Renn

  “Glenn’s daughter.” She sniffs. “Right. Where was Glenn Marklund born?”

  “North Bend, Washington.”

  My ready answer startles her. “High school?”

  “North Bend High, one year. Then he moved to Seattle. Graduated from Garfield.”

  She sucks her teeth. “Smile.”

  Smiling is about the last thing I feel like doing. But her hands are in her jeans pockets; what if she pulls a knife? So I smile like my life depends on it, which it very well might.

  “Huh. You have his dimples. I guess you really are his kid. It’s just odd he never mentioned you to me. Not once in ten months of going out.”

  “If it’s any consolation, he never mentioned you to me, either.”

  “He didn’t?” She blinks a few times. “Oh.” She sighs. “Still, you were following me. You know, it’s illegal, filming someone without permission. I could turn you in.”

  My heart pounds. I hadn’t thought of what we were doing as illegal. I can’t tell her we suspect her of stealing van Goghs. Maybe she’ll buy some watered-down variation of the truth. So I tell her Edge and I were working on a student film, set in Belltown, when I happened to spot her on our coffee break. “You were being followed, but it’s not what you think.” I tell her about the two guys in the Prius. “We followed, too, to try to catch them on film.”

  “You’re serious? What did they look like?”

  I describe them in precise detail and add that I noticed them outside Margo’s gallery, too.

  “My God. Who else knows about this?”

  “Just my friend—I mean, just this guy from school.” I can’t even say his name. “I didn’t want my dad to worry. Who do you think they are?”

  “I can’t be sure, but they sound an awful lot like yakuza to me.”

  “Japanese gangsters?” The yakuza is Japan’s version of the mafia. In detective manga, they often show up as thugs, with black suits and elaborate tattoos. I’ve never thought of them as real and definitely not here in Seattle.

  “That missing pinky,” Skye says. “Sometimes yakuza get their fingers cut off for missions they’ve failed to accomplish or errors they’ve made. It’s like an apology to their boss.”

  “You think yakuza would be driving a Prius? In the manga I read, they drive flashy cars.”

  “Well, that’s manga. That’s not real life. These days they try to blend in more. Most of them look and act like real businessmen. If people in Seattle like hybrid cars, that’s what they’d probably use.”

  “How do you know about all this?”

  “I spent my junior year in college in Japan.”

  “And you took Yakuza 101?”

  “Very funny. No, I studied near Osaka, which is a yakuza hotbed, and I kept my eyes open. I asked my friends questions, and I learned pretty fast.”

  “So why would Japanese gangsters be following you in Seattle?”

  She thinks for a moment. “Here’s a theory. Let’s say some mob boss heard about Kenji’s discovery of the drawings back in February. He wanted those van Gogh drawings. He sent a couple guys here to nab them and maybe to sniff out that lost painting, too.”

  “Yeah, I read some articles about the van Goghs. I know Kenji’s brother bought the drawings along with a painting. But I thought the Yamadas didn’t know where it was.”

  “Right. But maybe the yakuza think the Yamadas know. Maybe they even think I’m doing restoration work on it! Violet, you’d better tell Kenji and your dad about these guys.”

  She starts walking back toward my dad’s house, and I follow. I can see glimmers of niceness in her, like sun leaking through gray sky. But I need to know a little more before I rule her out as a suspect. Is she a liar? “I’m sorry about you and my dad, by the way. I noticed you’re not wearing your ring.” I point to her naked left hand.

  “What?”

  “Kenji said you announced your engagement.”

  “Oh! I had to say that, to get the guy away from me. It sort of flew out, and then I put on my grandmother’s old wedding ring to back it up. See, Kenji hit on me a few weeks ago. He came downstairs while I was working. We were looking at the Hiroshige and discussing some cleaning I might do on it. He took my hand and said he’d love to take me to a place like the one in Hiroshige’s picture. Said all this junk about being a romantic at heart.”

  I feel like I’ve been punched. Kenji and Mitsue seem so happy.

  “I meant to tell Glenn before the reception the other night,” Skye goes on. “I just didn’t get a chance. So your dad heard about the ring? He must think I’m completely crazy.”

  “I’ll explain it to him.” I’m starting to feel sorry for Skye. She sure has problems.

  “No. The Yamadas are his most important clients. I don’t want to mess anything up.”

  One last test. I need to know what she dropped off at SAM on Friday. “I noticed you brought a portfolio to the art museum.” We turn up my dad’s street. “What if the yakuza thought you were bringing the drawings to the Seattle Art Museum to sell to someone?”

  She laughs. “If they want that portfolio, they can have it. I already got the job.”

  “Job?”

  “I had an interview at SAM Friday. I brought examples of my restoration work.”

  “Oh. Um, congratulations, I guess.”

  We’re back in front of my dad’s house. Skye gets into her car. Before she closes the door, she looks at me. “How’s he doing anyway?”

  “My dad? He’s working. Like, a lot.”

  “Yeah, what else is new?” She smirks. “You seem like a nice kid. It’s good for your dad that you’re with him. Make sure he eats something once in a while. He forgets when he stresses over a show. And, seriously. These yakuza, they’re dangerous. Tell your dad and Kenji. Now.”

  I watch Skye drive off. My emotions swirl like a dropped palette of paints. Relief: she didn’t kill me. Confusion: if she didn’t steal the drawings, then who did?

  1

  2

  Almost twenty-four hours later, Skye’s parting words still give me chills. But it’s impossible to tell my dad about the yakuza. Other than spending yesterday morning at his questioning, which he said went quickly and mostly involved questions about Skye, he’s been locked up in his studio. He stumbles into the kitchen now and then to grab a slice of cold pizza. “Not now,” he mumbled, the one time I tried to bring it up. “I’m in a conceptualizing phase. I am carrying this entire mural around in my head, and I don’t have room for one more thing.”

  I pictured him walking around with a big rectangular head, bashing into walls.

  “Sounds painful,” I muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  As for calling Kenji or Mitsue, I can’t bring myself to do it. They might be annoyed that I got this involved in the case. They might think I’m some nosy kid and un-invite me from the trip. Worse, my dad’s connection to Skye might make the Yamadas worry the yakuza will follow him, too. They could postpone the Japan trip or call off the whole mural commission. Bottom line: if I blow this opportunity for my dad, he’ll never forgive me.

  I wish I could tell Edge about my run-in with Skye. He leaves for film camp tomorrow. There’s still time. I could call and apologize, then fill him in on the mystery. But a part of me knows it would be like painting a dark canvas white. The ugly underpainting would seep through. My dad may have disguised his damaged living room wall by turning it into artwork, but it doesn’t mean the damage is gone. Inspecting the wall now, I see the stains are oozing beneath his paint, the cracks in the plaster still spreading.

  We just have to get through two more days, and then we’re out of here, and maybe time and distance will ease some of the pain I have about Edge. I decide to spend the morning packing for Japan, th
inking of the future instead of the past.

  In her last email, after a paragraph of exclamation points in response to my upcoming trip, Reika advised me to load up on gifts for people I meet in Japan. “Baseball cards, key chains, Seattle knickknacks. Small gifts will open doors here.” So after lunch, I venture out and hit the Fremont shops to buy some omiyage. As I head back to my dad’s house, I pass Deluxe Junk. I pause in the doorway, but the smell of musty old things is an overpowering reminder of Edge, and the day we danced together. My eyes fill with tears. I hurry back to my dad’s house.

  And I stop cold when I see a plain white van parked outside. I approach slowly. No driver. The yakuza might have changed their vehicle. They might have come looking for my dad because of his connection to Skye. Oh my God. Could they be in the house?

  I mount the steps and take out my key, but the front door is already cracked open. I grab a stick of driftwood, though I have no idea what to do with it. Men’s voices mumble upstairs.

  “Dad?” I call into the house.

  “In the studio, Violet,” my dad calls back. “Come on up.”

  He doesn’t sound like he’s in mortal danger or talking through layers of duct tape. I run upstairs, still holding the stick.

  I set it down when I see it’s just Julian Fleury and my dad in the studio, flipping through stacks of canvases. Everything looks normal, except the studio is messier than ever. It’s like a windstorm has scattered art supplies, drop cloths, unframed canvases, books, and bits of nature in cryptically labeled boxes. “Reflections on Wind.” “Moss, etc.” “Random Sticks.” “Shifting Sands.” “Detritus.”

  “Violet, you remember Julian Fleury, Margo’s assistant? He’s here to pick up some work for the Tokyo show.”

  Julian nods curtly at me and hefts four unframed paintings onto a table. “I’ll just get these crated and load up the van.” He opens a toolbox. Then he glances at the boxes and portfolio that Skye brought over the day before. “These are the Japanese prints we’re taking for the Yamadas? Did Skye finish the re-matting?”

  “I haven’t looked at them yet, but yeah, I’d assume they’re all set.”

  “Oh, really? I wouldn’t assume anything about that woman,” Julian mutters.

  “What is with everyone suspecting her?”

  “What’s with your defending her honor?” Julian snaps. “It doesn’t exactly make you look good, being associated with her. It doesn’t make Margo or me look good, either. Everything you do casts a shadow on us. We had detectives taking pictures outside the gallery today.”

  “Look. Can’t we put this whole Skye thing behind us?”

  They’re circling the table, glaring at each other, as if they might draw swords.

  I back up and try to become one with a file cabinet.

  “What you did, Glenn, was unacceptable. Just because you’re some hotshot artist, you think you can swoop in and steal any woman.”

  “Whoa! I did not ‘steal’ your woman!”

  “That is a fiction. You most certainly did.”

  “Skye said you were never going out. That it was all in your head. That you had an ambiguous brunch, a little non-date, and you got the crazy idea that—”

  “It’s not crazy. She was my girlfriend.” He takes a swing at my dad.

  I retreat to a corner and look for something I might use to distract them. “Hey, guys? Hello? Kid in the room here.” I wave a white paint rag, but they don’t notice me. They circle the table faster now, their eyes locked on each other.

  “You make Skye sound like some brainless moron,” my dad snarls. “She has a mind of her own. She obviously chose the better man.”

  “You arrogant son of a bitch.” Julian swipes at my dad again. This time his punch lands right on my dad’s nose.

  My dad recoils, holding his hands to his face and moaning.

  “Hey! Stop it, you guys! Cut it out!” I yell, but they still ignore me, so I bolt for the door just as my dad swings back at Julian. Then they’re on each other, scuffling and wrestling.

  My dad is bigger than Julian, but Julian shows a surprising burst of strength. He shoves my dad into the file cabinet I was standing by moments before. My dad pushes back. Julian falls into a stack of blank canvases. Jars of paint fall off a shelf and crash to the floor, splattering all over Julian’s clothes. He gets up and lunges at my dad, clutching a paintbrush in his fist.

  “Stop!” I scream. I shove a tabouret of art supplies in Julian’s direction.

  Julian trips and falls on top of the tabouret. It slides all the way across the studio floor, carrying him until he crashes against a wall. Two drawers fall out, scattering pencils.

  “Just stop it!” I yell again. “You guys are acting like complete idiots.”

  My dad, breathing heavily, lowers his head. “She’s right, man,” he says. “Just finish doing what you have to do and get out. You’re messing with my headspace.”

  My dad retreats to the bathroom.

  Not wanting to hang out with Julian by myself, I escape to my room. Julian Fleury’s just rocketed to the top of my suspect list. He’s stronger than he looks; he could have pulled off the heist. And he has motives galore. He wants to be an art dealer, but Margo treats him like dirt. He holds a grudge against Skye. Maybe he stole the art to make a name for himself as a black-market art dealer—or to make money from the sale and go do his own thing. And maybe he wanted to make it look like Skye did it. To get back at her by framing her.

  Kenji said that, according to a UPS guy, Julian signed for a package on the evening of the crime. That, plus the security camera, was proof he was at the gallery and not stealing art. But is that strong enough proof? Maybe Julian paid one of the art handlers to sign his name. Or maybe he paid off the UPS guy. And if he had some technical savvy, maybe he changed the time stamps on the security video. Something like that happened in Vampire Sleuths 17.

  My mind drifts to Edge. I stare at my cell phone. When I think of him going off to camp with Mardi, and of my going overseas in just two days, I get this pulsing ache in my chest. But the phone remains silent. All I hear is the sound of the front door slamming and Julian’s van starting up. Driving off.

  At the drafting table, I lose myself in Kimono Girl, inking panels. Hours later, hunger forces me to stop. In the kitchen, I find my dad, his nose swollen and ugly.

  “Hey, what do you say to dinner at Blue C Sushi?” he says. “I better learn about sushi before I embarrass myself in Japan. You can teach me what to order.”

  “Yeah, definitely! I love Blue C Sushi.” My mood lifts a little. I’m glad he sees me as an expert on something, even if it is raw fish. “But your nose. Are you okay?”

  “Better now. I should have ducked. I haven’t been in a fistfight since eighth grade.” He grabs his car keys and we head out to the street together. At the bottom of the steps, he slaps his forehead. “My wallet. I don’t have any idea where it is.”

  “I saw it in your studio. On the little table by the window.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right next to my brain. Wow, you’re really good at finding stuff!”

  “Thanks!” Two compliments in two minutes? “I’ll just run up and get it.”

  The studio still shows signs of the fight: a sea of papers on the floor, an overturned chair, a puddle of spilled paints, bleeding together. Just as I grab the wallet, something catches my eye.

  Near the tabouret of art supplies lies a brown portfolio.

  Time stops. Even the dust motes stop dancing. What if that portfolio holds the van Gogh sketches? What if Julian stole them from the Yamadas’ house and then planted the stolen drawings today to frame my dad, not Skye? He seemed upset about my dad “stealing” Skye. He can call the police, say he saw something suspicious in my dad’s studio, and the police will be all over it. If they can nab my dad and recover the drawings, Jul
ian’s one hundred thousand dollars richer from the Yamadas’ reward money.

  I pick up the portfolio and shake some papers onto the table. Drawings. They’re beautiful, but they’re not van Goghs.

  They’re charcoal sketches of Skye. In one, she’s in a canoe, trailing her hands in the water and staring into the distance with a dreamy expression. In another, she’s picking flowers. In another, she’s sitting on a porch swing, holding a cup in two hands. In the next three, she’s nude, and I quickly shuffle those to the bottom of the pile.

  In all of these pictures, she looks softer than she does in real life. And happy.

  A photograph falls out of the pile. It’s a picture of her and my dad at a holiday party at some funky warehouse-style art gallery. They stand arm in arm by an aluminum Christmas tree decorated with old car parts, gazing into each other’s eyes.

  There’s more to their story than the fight they had. My dad looks really happy, too.

  Not like now. I look outside. My dad’s talking on his cell phone and pacing.

  He’s been through a lot today, with Julian. He’s nervous about the trip, too; whenever he’s not locked in his studio, he’s on the phone with Margo or his friends, muttering about trying to please Hideki Yamada. I put the sketches back and head downstairs.

  Outside, my dad’s just hung up the phone. He looks shaken as I hand him the wallet. “I can’t go out to dinner,” he says, his voice cracking. “Julian’s been attacked.”

  1

  3

  “What? When? Who attacked him?” My breath comes fast.

  “Margo called. A couple of guys jumped him. Messed him up pretty bad. Lacerations. Concussion. He’s in the hospital. And my paintings.” He grimaces. “Slashed.”

  “No way!”

  “Margo’s on her way over to Virginia Mason Hospital right now. She wants me to come. Guess I’ll have to talk to the police again since Julian had come from my house.” He hands me a twenty from his wallet. “I’m sorry about dinner. Get yourself some takeout. I’ll have leftovers later.”