“Any idea what the gun was?”
“Tokarev, probably. Russian gun. Every yakuza has to have one these days.”
“What are these guys fighting about?”
Sekiguchi lit a cigarette. “You wouldn’t believe the shit these guys fight over. Here’s what I heard. Two guys from the Yamaguchi-gumi go pay a visit to the Kokusui-kai office in Taito Ward, Tokyo. One of the Yamaguchi-gumi guys is named Nakai. His friend got in a car accident involving a Kokusui-kai guy, so Nakai and his buddy have shown up to smooth things over, settle the bills, whatever. Apparently, Nakai is a loudmouth and he says something to piss off the Kokusui-kai guys. One of them is Korean, right, so he’s got a hot temper, and he pulls out a gun. Next thing, the Yamaguchi-gumi guys are on the floor.”
“A gang war over a traffic accident?”
“Yeah, but no, it’s not just that. The Yamaguchi-gumi rules Kansai [western Japan] and owns about forty percent of the market. They’ve been trying to expand into Tokyo [in Kanto, eastern Japan] for years. The Kokusui-kai guys are offended that the Kansai thugs are even walking on their turf. Nobody wants them in here. In Saitama they don’t have an office, not yet, so I think the trouble was just part of the bigger picture. Like, stay out. But it doesn’t matter much. Once the bullets fly, there is no going back.”
At the time of this gang war, the Kokusui-kai was the third largest crime group in Saitama, after the Sumiyoshi-kai and the Inagawa-kai. It had eighteen offices and around 230 known members. Cops were now stationed in front of each of the offices.
According to Sekiguchi, it wasn’t unusual for yakuza to use a private detective agency as a cover, but the preferred fronts were real estate agencies and construction companies. The Kokusui-kai had done well pretending to be private dicks; they’d take an infidelity case, milk the client for all they could, and if they found out the spouse was cheating (almost always the case), they’d blackmail the cheater by threatening to tell their client the truth. It was a nice little racket.
On the morning of the eighteenth, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department received a call from someone claiming to be the gunman.
“The Konosu shooting? I’m the fucking guy.”
He said he’d be turning himself in with the gun that afternoon, and as promised, he did. He was Takehiko Sugaya, twenty-seven at the time, a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi.
In Saitama, Sekiguchi was assigned to interrogate Sugaya. Sekiguchi’s skills as an interrogator preceded him. Yakuza were known to confess on the spot, lest Sekiguchi in the course of interrogation get them to spill incriminating evidence about other crimes. (Sekiguchi wasn’t bad with white-collar criminals either, although he stood out from other investigators with Ivy League educations and highfalutin backgrounds. The way I heard it, he’d treat yakuza with deference and respect, as if they were important people, and he’d treat bureaucrats and corporate criminals as if they were the scum of the earth—as if they were yakuza.)
I waited a day before going to see him. By now a case involving yakuza forging pachinko receipts and ripping off millions of dollars from the big pachinko giants was about to break. The gang war had ended, and now that the gunman was in custody, it was already old news. But Sekiguchi’s job was not finished.
While Mrs. Sekiguchi prepared some late-evening fried rice for us, Sekiguchi and I huddled under the kotatsu and talked shop. Sugaya was proving to be a tough bird, he said. The kid was claiming that he’d done the job on his own; no one had put him up to it. Sekiguchi had reason to believe otherwise. In the Yamaguchi-gumi, if you knock out a rival gang member and then turn yourself in, you’ll be promoted to executive class once you’ve served your time. It was a rite of passage. But in many cases, the real gunman went scot-free and the organization would send a proxy in has place. Sekiguchi wanted to determine if Sugaya really had been the gunman; fortunately, since the victims were alive, he had front-row eyewitnesses.
I took a long drag of the cigarette and tried to blow smoke rings, which I wasn’t good at. Then I made my stupid remark of the day: “Okay, but who cares? Sugaya will be convicted, and he’ll be out in three or four years. When yakuza kill yakuza, nobody gives a crap. Especially if they don’t actually kill other yakuza but just wound them.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Why should those guys get off any easier than anyone else? The crime is the same. Because they know that the courts will treat them differently, it encourages them to have gang wars. The guys are more willing to shoot each other because they know they won’t be doing serious time.”
“Well, that may be true, but Sugaya is still only going to get four years—max. Look at the statistics.”
“I’m the interrogator. I could get this guy put away for ten.”
“Ten years? In your dreams, Sekiguchi-san.”
“Ten years, minimum.”
“I’ll make you a bet. If you get this guy put away for ten years, I’ll take you and your family out for yakiniku, and you can order whatever kind of beef you like. If he gets less than ten, you have to give me the list of all the yakuza offices and their executives in Saitama.”
Sekiguchi stubbed out his cigarette. “That’s a bet you’re going to regret. I may have two little girls, but they eat like five little boys. Prepare to ante up, Adelstein.”
Mrs. Sekiguchi chuckled at the two men in a pissing match. “I’ll be the witness to the bet. Jake-san, I don’t think you will win this one.”
I assured her that I’d never lost a bet in my life, then intoned, “Assault never carries ten years, even with gun violations.”
“Who’s talking about assault? This is attempted murder.”
I hadn’t thought about that. Anyway, you’d have to prove the intent. “Did Sugaya say anything like ‘Die, you bastard’ or ‘I’m going to kill you’?”
Sekiguchi winced. “No, he did not.”
“Well, how are you going to establish intent?”
“The legal principle is mihitsu no koi. Any reasonable person would know that if you shoot someone in the chest and gut at point-blank range, there is a strong likelihood that person will die.”
“Sugaya isn’t stupid. He’ll just say he meant to frighten them. It wasn’t like he put a gun to their head and finished the job. A couple of shots, and he ran. Panicked. No intent to kill.”
“You’re way off, Jake-kun. This guy is a soldier. He didn’t care whether they lived or died. He would have been happy to have killed them.”
“Maybe so, but is anyone stupid enough to admit that?”
“Oh, he’ll admit it to me.”
“Good luck. Let me know when I should pick up the list.”
With the bet between us, our banter continued. But Sekiguchi was serious about one thing: he detested the Yamaguchi-gumi and was happy they weren’t in Saitama. “Once they take root in any prefecture, they spread like cancer. I’d take the Sumiyoshi-kai over those guys any day of the week.”
To make a long story short, Sekiguchi got Sugaya prosecuted for attempted murder in addition to violations of gun and firearms laws. He appealed to Sugaya’s “manly pride” to get him to tell the truth. Sugaya was put away for ten years. I had to take the Sekiguchi family out for yakiniku, dropping 30,000 yen ($300) for a meal of prime Japanese beef.
Shibata smiled.
“Jake-san, sometimes you are a real bakayaro [stupid guy]. You should never have bet the cop. Even I’ve heard of Sekiguchi. He was no friend of ours, but everyone respected him. And that guy Sugaya—I admire him. Yakuza used to be like that—you did the crime, and you did the time. It was gokudo. You didn’t whine or plead, like the chin-pira do now. You live like a man, you take your punishment like a man.
“The punks today are afraid to go to jail. Too damn weak. That’s why we farm out the dirty work to the Chinese and the Iranians. If they get caught, they don’t talk and they just get deported. Sugaya is going to get out of prison and find there is no organization to go h
ome to and no place where his honor is appreciated.”
“You really think so?”
“It’s all about money now. Loyalty to the oyabun, honor, endurance, obligation—they don’t count as much. The Kokusui-kai Sugaya shot at are now part of our group. We merged with them last year, so now we’re in Tokyo. Won’t be long before we control the entire country. And I don’t think that will be a good thing.”
I was a little puzzled. “You’re a yakuza yourself. Where’s your team pride?”
He laughed. “Maybe I had pride in being a member of the organization once upon a time. But you get closer to the end, you question things. You begin to wonder if everything you took for granted is so good. The organization I entered isn’t the same as it was. When things become too big, they get out of hand, things go bad. A lot of the yakuza have no rules anymore, they don’t respect ordinary citizens, they don’t respect anything. They’re involved in all kinds of really bad shit. Especially the Goto-gumi.”
“More than before?” I asked, hating to ruin his nostalgia buzz.
He was quiet then. He put his hands on his knees and took a deep breath. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe it always was shit. I don’t know. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, but I did a few things right. I never betrayed the oyabun, I never double-crossed a friend, and I never ran away from a fight. Maybe it ain’t much, but it’s the measure of what I am.”
“It counts for something.”
“You bet it does. Now, what did you want to ask me?”
“I’ve got two things.”
“I’m not asking you to number them. Just ask me.”
“I’m missing a friend. I haven’t seen her in a couple of months.”
“Give me a name.”
“Helena.”
“Do you have a picture?”
I gave him one. He looked at it, looked back at me.
“Give me the details.”
I filled him in. I told him who she was and what I had asked her to do. He flinched a little when I mentioned the Goto-gumi and the NGO name. He muttered something and motioned me to come to where he was sitting by the window. I could barely hear him, so I leaned over.
He slapped me across the face with such force that I fell backward and landed on my ass. My ears were ringing so hard I thought I’d gone deaf in one of them. He stood up and glowered at me, motioned for me to get up. He was breathing a little heavily but seemed fine. I didn’t feel fine.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” he screamed at me.
“I didn’t know.”
“You should have known. You’re not a child, you’re a man. You should never have asked her to look into that organization. What is wrong with you?”
“Goddammit, Shibata. I told her to stop.”
“And you should have known she wouldn’t. You liked this woman, maybe more, and she must have liked you. So why did you take the risk? Sometimes you’re so fucking smart, Jake-san, and sometimes you’re just a fucking idiot.”
He gave me his hand and helped me up. His grip was strong. He sat back down.
“I’ll look into it. I don’t think you’ll get the answers you want, but I’ll ask. Now, what’s the other thing you want to know?”
I sat on the bed, trying to sit up and stay up. My balance seemed kind of shot.
“I know that Goto wasn’t the only guy to get a liver transplant at UCLA. I hear there are others. I want one more name.”
Shibata offered me one of his cigarettes, I took it. He was already almost through the pack of Luckys.
He shook his head and stared at the floor for a few minutes. He looked up at me and stared into my eyes. I don’t know what he saw, but he nodded again.
“I know what you’re trying to do. I don’t think it’s wise. But I understand. Are you sure you want to go down that road? It’s kemono no michi.”
“Kemono no michi?”
“Sometimes in the mountains the animals make paths by using the same route again and again. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you might think it’s a path made by humans—it looks that way. If you follow that path, the path of beasts, you won’t get anywhere at all. People lost in the wilderness, they follow these paths and only get more and more lost. Sometimes they lose their way and they die. It’s not a path for humans, it’s a dangerous diversion. Are you sure that’s the road you want to take? It won’t get you where you want to go.”
“Look, I’m just pursuing the story. I’m not planning to do anything crazy.”
“No, you’re not planning at all. Think a little. Keep your eyes on the right road, not the wrong one.”
Then the old bastard whacked me across the face again, even harder. And when I fell down this time, he kicked me in the stomach. I managed not to puke but curled up in a fetal position, feeling very stupid and a little scared. Actually, really scared.
“I’m not making jokes now. You cannot be careless. Don’t trust anyone. If you think this is painful, what Goto will do to you or your friends if he knows what you’re doing will hurt a thousand times more. Don’t fuck around.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Now get your lazy ass up and get me some more Luckys. I’m out. The box is over there on the television.”
I retrieved the cigarettes, but I wouldn’t take them to him. I refused to go within striking range and tossed them at his head. He caught them and chuckled. We had a long conversation after that. Before I left, I reattached the smoke detector with great difficulty. It was really hard to stay balanced on the chair. Have someone slap you as hard as he can, and then you’ll understand why.
In 2007, Shibata died. But before this, he got back to me with a name: Hisatoshi Mio, the founder of the Mio-gumi. He was also a backer of the Emperor of Loan Sharks, Kajiyama. It made a lot of sense. Goto had taught Kajiyama how to move money through Las Vegas. It wasn’t surprising that Goto also knew Mio. I was pretty sure now that the Goto case wasn’t an isolated incident. There was something very strange happening at UCLA. I kept my promise to Shibata. I gave the letter to his wife, and she promised to give it to her son when he was old enough to read. I’ll probably go back someday and make sure he got it. He never gave me anything about Helena.
Sekiguchi followed Shibata that autumn. I had suddenly lost both my main yakuza source and my main police source. My prospects for breaking the Goto story now looked bleak.
Sekiguchi was forty-eight years old. Thinking back on it, I’d known him and his family for almost fourteen years. He took his last breath at 3:45 P.M. on a rainy day toward the end of August. The whole family and I had returned to Japan and were staying with my mother-in-law. It had been good for the kids—they were becoming very skilled at English, and now they needed to brush up on their Japanese.
The day before we were supposed to return to the United States, around August 29, while we were all eating Chinese food, Sekiguchi’s wife called and told me he’d passed away. I wanted to cancel the flight and to be there for the funeral.
I made everyone, except the kids, very angry. I had a heated argument with Sunao and my mother-in-law. They were both of the opinion that I should go to the wake, assuming there was one, and just visit the family the next time I was in Japan. I didn’t agree. You wouldn’t think that a weird Jewish kid and an organized crime cop ten years older than him would have become such good friends, but over the course of so many years, that’s what had happened. I wanted to stay, but Sunao was not having that. I asked Sunao if she could take the kids home by herself. I’d escort her to Narita and have someone meet her at the airport in America and drive everyone home, but I was accused of putting my selfish need over the needs of my family.
We left the Chinese restaurant after eating and went back to Sunao’s home. I had to at least see the Sekiguchi family and pay my respects to the dead. At 10 P.M., I found myself in a taxi heading in the rain toward the Sekiguchi house in desolate Konan. Sunao came with me. We weren’t talking to each other. The rain was coming down so hard
the taxi had to stop once or twice along the way. The taxi fare came to almost $250.
A midnight run to the Sekiguchi home. It felt like old times, but it wasn’t. I was wearing a black suit I had with me and had borrowed a black tie from Sunao’s mother.
I know that funerals and wakes are meaningless rituals, but not for the ones left behind. I’d promised Sekiguchi that when he died I would go to his funeral and pay my respects; that I would wear a real suit; and that I would try to wear matching socks. I owed him a stick of incense at least. You would think that people would understand that sometimes promises are binding even after death. It’s one of the few regrets I have in my life: I had promised to go to his funeral, and I didn’t.
His body was already home by the time I got there. It wasn’t laid out in Buddhist fashion, which is typical in Japan. He was going to have a Shinto funeral. When I arrived, his body was on a futon in the living room, Shinto style. I didn’t know anything about Shinto rituals. It was a new experience.
Sekiguchi had taught me more about reporting, interrogation, honor, and trust than anyone else I had ever known. I kind of considered him a second father. I had taken my Beni to see him before I took her to my own parents. Even in death, Sekiguchi still had something to teach me about Japan.
It was weird to see him laid out on the tatami floor like that. They took the white cloth off his face and let me see his expression. He looked as if he were smiling. He had that same shit-eating grin that he used to have when he would dangle tidbits of information in front of me or crack a bad joke or when I’d lost yet another bet to him.
Tokyo Vice Page 33