“Dad? You need something? I have class in a few minutes, so if—”
“Shoichi, I need you to come home. Now.”
“What? You know I can’t just—”
“Your mother is dead.”
Silence.
“No … no … are you sure? She can’t be—”
“She was murdered last night.”
There was a pause. “This can’t be—”
“Come home, Shoichi.”
Vasili hung up the phone, letting it drop from his hand. It clattered to a stop in the pool of vodka, blood, and glass at his feet.
The Tokyo megalopolis spread out before him, as vast and grand a construct as man had ever created. But he would tear it apart if he had to. He would find whoever was responsible for this if he had to raze the city and sift through the rubble by hand. Whoever was doing this to him would pay.
One of the things Vasili had always loved about engines was how they could be rebuilt. They could be retrofitted and repurposed to suit the task at hand. And right now, Vasili didn’t need an engine. He needed a war machine.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The fog was some of the worst Satoshi had ever seen. It would roll in thick and heavy on the wind and then linger. It blanketed everything in its path, bringing traffic on the city streets to a standstill and leaving everyone walking on the sidewalks frozen in place. Or at least, almost everyone. Satoshi kept moving through the thick haze. He had to. He felt that if the fog swallowed him, he’d never break free again.
Satoshi pushed on towards the apartment building and began climbing the stairs to Ozu’s place. His run-in with Nobuyuki had convinced him that Ozu knew something about Masa’s whereabouts. Ozu might even be harboring his old partner in crime himself.
As soon as Satoshi arrived at Ozu’s apartment door, every internal alarm in his head was screaming at him, telling him something was wrong. The barking dog inside the apartment tipped him off first, and his suspicion was confirmed by the fact that the door had been forced open. A glance through the frosted glass window next to the door told him that a light was on inside the apartment. He removed his gun from its holster and flicked the safety off. Then he opened the door with one hand, putting inward pressure on it to prevent the hinges from squeaking.
He could see through the dark kitchen to the next room, where a body lay crumpled on the floor. Ozu’s dog was there to greet him with a volley of barks and growls when he entered. The dog kept running back and forth between Satoshi and his master, who was now lying crumpled in the next room. Cautiously, he crept into the apartment, carefully checking his corners to make sure no one was waiting for him with a nasty surprise. He noted that the sliding glass door to the balcony had been left slightly ajar. He walked over to the body to inspect it. A train passing nearby rattled the windows in the apartment and gave him a jolt, but he willed himself to be calm.
Satoshi circled Ozu’s battered corpse. He had a gash across his throat and was lying in a puddle of his own blood. The blood looked fresh. Then he saw a faint spurt of blood from the man’s neck wound and realized that Ozu was still alive. Satoshi briefly considered seeking help, but gave up on the idea. The man was too far gone. All that would accomplish would be to make his investigation more difficult.
This meant that Masa was close. He knew it was Masa beyond a shadow of a doubt. Most professionals would have just killed the dog. Quieter that way, and therefore safer. But not Masa. He had always had a soft spot for animals. Plus, the open balcony door was one of Masa’s staple tricks. When he arrived at a job, he would open the balcony door just enough to make it look like someone might have gone out there. Then he would hide somewhere else. He had seen Masa do it on just about every job they had been on together that called for it.
That left only two options: the bathroom door off of the kitchen and a closet in the main room. Since the bathroom was closer to the entrance, he went there first. The flimsy door burst open with a swift kick, raining splinters down into the empty bathroom.
Satoshi moved to the closet. He unchambered the round, then rechambered it as loudly as he could. Then he raised the gun and aimed it roughly at stomach-level.
“Alright, Masa, come out!” he said loudly before quickly and quietly moving to the other side of the door, just in case Masa decided to respond with a bullet.
No response.
“Masa?”
He heard a scream from somewhere below. It sounded like it came from the balcony, so Satoshi ran that way. He looked down to see Masa hanging from the railing of the balcony of the second-story apartment below. Masa locked eyes with Satoshi just as another scream sounded from the apartment. Without taking his eyes off him, Masa released his grip and plunged down into the gathering fog below. It swallowed him whole.
Satoshi sprinted out the door to the stairway, cursing his stupidity the entire way. Of course Masa knew he knew his balcony trick. So of course he would hide on the balcony. But how did he know it was Satoshi and not someone else?
Satoshi sprinted down the hallway, doing his best to clear his mind so he could focus on the task at hand. As he flew down the stairs, he removed a Dextro-MXE capsule from his pocket. It would take too long for the effects to kick in if he swallowed it, so instead he pulled the two halves of the capsule apart and snorted the contents of one half. He threw the rest away and vaulted down to the next landing. The warm, heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach told him it was starting to work. The adrenaline and his pounding heart would just speed it up.
When he made it to the street in front of the building, he could hardly see through the fog. But the wet slap of feet pounding on pavement told him which way to go. He briefly considered unholstering his gun but decided against it. If it came down to it, he still wasn’t sure he could pull the trigger.
With his height advantage, Satoshi quickly gained ground on the shorter Masa. But soon the footfalls stopped and he heard something that sounded like sliding gravel. Just then, the fog shifted on the wind to reveal the scene before him.
Masa was about fifty feet ahead, clambering up an embankment towards the train tracks. He jumped across the tracks, and for a second he was illuminated in the headlamps of an oncoming train. Satoshi could see his shadow silhouetted against the thick fog for just an instant. Then Masa jumped to safety and the train plunged into the roiling cloud of particulate hanging heavy in the air.
Masa was on the train tracks. Of a main trunk line that included the Yamanote Line and several other heavily traveled lines. At rush hour. With almost zero visibility.
Madness.
At least, that’s what Satoshi thought as he scrambled up the embankment and onto the tracks after Masa.
Most of the underground lines had been suspended due to flooding. Even those that were mostly aboveground ran on reduced schedules.
Too bad the main lines on this track were all considered too important to suspend. In addition to the Yamanote, this stretch of track also included several other train lines that fed into the main stations along the route. Although most of the lines ran on reduced schedules, their operating times were concentrated around mornings and evenings for work commuters. Which meant that all the lines would be fully operational now.
He heard gravel crunching to his left and gave chase in that direction. When the fog cleared slightly, he could see where he was going, but most of the time he was virtually blind. A gap appeared. He could see three pairs of tracks running parallel, as well as a complicated patchwork of sidetracks running between and connected them. There were utility poles in between the tracks that held up a complicated electrical grid above the tracks. He ran in between two parallel sets of tracks, which gave him the best chance of dodging in case a train managed to sneak up on him.
Just then, he saw a faint light off to his right, followed immediately after by a train rushing through the fog. Looked like he wouldn’t be getting much warning when the trains were coming after all. It was funny, in a way. The fog that had led to so m
any deaths by cancer just might lead to his own death by train. He reminded himself to laugh about that later if he survived.
He saw Masa disappear into the mist farther up on his left, and so he cut across the lines. He was careful not to trip on any of the tracks underfoot, but while he was watching out for these, he came close to running into a raised railing. Dodging that almost sent him through a hole in the ground that would have left him plunging into the street below the elevated train tracks. The fall wouldn’t have killed him, but the cars passing through the tunnel might have.
Admonishing himself to be more careful, Satoshi sprinted after his quarry. His lungs were already burning from the exertion, and his respirator mask was starting to fog. But he dared not take it off. Breathing the fumes of the city and getting them in his eyes would be far worse. He had made that mistake before.
The footfalls seemed to be coming from straight ahead, maybe thirty feet or so. He resolved to stay in a straight line as much as he could. At least, until the rumbling underfoot told him to abandon that plan.
He turned around just in time to see a headlamp penetrating the gloom behind him, followed closely by the boxy front of the commuter train. In another second it would be upon him. His heightened senses kicked in then, virtually flinging him sideways before he could consciously react to the threat. The moment he jumped, he looked up to see Masa do the same, only he dove in the other direction.
The train blared its horn angrily as it tore past them. Satoshi ran along beside it, hoping to bring himself even with Masa by the time the train moved ahead of them.
The train passed, trailing vapors of fog behind it.
But there was no Masa.
He stopped to listen, but he couldn’t hear anything besides the retreating train and his own humid panting behind his respirator. He spun around, unsure of what to do and where to go. The fog concealed everything beyond about ten feet now, obscuring Masa’s movements.
Suddenly feeling himself exposed, Satoshi ducked down and ran over towards the far edge. Beyond the last set of tracks was a guardrail, and beyond that was nothing but fog and a few lights from high above. He realized that they must be on an elevated overpass through the city.
Not knowing what else to do, he kept to a crouch and ran back the way they had come. The wind tore through the haze long enough to reveal a shadow up ahead, which was briefly illuminated by the lights from an oncoming train. The train shot by on the farthest set of tracks away from Satoshi, obscuring Masa behind it. Satoshi was left guessing as to which way he had gone. But he ran towards the train to be ready for when it passed by.
When it was gone, he ran to the opposite side to try to pick up the trail. Luckily he didn’t have to, because he could hear Masa cursing loudly farther down the tracks. Satoshi took out his gun as he slunk forward as quietly as he could over the gravel. There it was again, Masa’s voice emanating from out of the gloom.
“Ow, fuck,” he heard Masa practically shout.
Satoshi crept through the fog towards the sound of his voice. It was coming from the middle of an elevated section of track. It sounded like a road passed by below, given the honking and car noises, but he couldn’t see beyond the metal railing.
“Satoshi! You’ve got to help me, man! I think I broke my leg!”
The sound came from just a little farther up. He seemed to be behind a large lamppost jutting up from right by the railing.
“Satoshi, give me a hand here!”
He didn’t see Masa on the other side of the lamppost, so he walked on a little farther. But the sound seemed to be emanating from right by the post. Strange.
Just then, the fog cleared enough for him to see where the sound was coming from. Where he expected to see Masa, instead he saw a small two-way radio resting on top of the metal railing. Masa’s voice was coming out of it, which meant Masa must now have him in the sights of his gun barrel.
Realization came instantaneously to Satoshi, and he sprang into action before he was even consciously aware of doing so. He crouched down and began sprinting towards the railing. As he did, his altered senses picked up the two bullets that sparked as they ricocheted off the lamppost just beside him, mere inches from his head. Then his hand was on the metal railing as his body vaulted over it. While his hand was on it, he could feel another bullet rattle the railing with the force of its impact. Another one passed so close to him that he could sense it more than actually see it through the fog.
And then he was over the railing, the force of the momentum carrying him into the gloom that lay beyond.
It rushed up to meet him with terrifying speed.
Human Sacrifices
Tokyo Noir - S01 E03
無間道
- Chinese Buddhist term for the lowest level of hell,
from which there is no redemption
The Distant Past
Iosef Sokolov stared out the window of his office without really knowing why. It wasn’t like the view ever changed. Dark mountains off in the distance covered in white snow. Gray sky above. Dirty-wet snow blanketing Norilsk. People bundled up beyond recognition sloshing through the wet streets. The colors beyond the rain-spattered window never strayed far from gray in either direction.
The weather always depressed him, but at least now there was more about the city that excited him. Because lately, seeing the glittering lights of Norilsk stretching off into the distance made his heart beat faster with anticipation. The population had ballooned to nearly a million people in the last two years. Moscow was in flames, and the fighting had spread as far west as Novosibirsk. Though the people in Novosibirsk seemed positively lucky compared to what the President’s forces had done to the people of Bratsk.
But Norilsk was buried in the hinterlands of Siberia. It must have seemed to people in the capital and Russia’s other major cities like a haven from the fighting all around them. They came flocking to the city in droves. He had heard that the two-lane roads coming from the south and west through the Siberian wasteland were choked with vehicles night and day. Some were abandoned. Some contained the bodies of those that didn’t make it.
He smiled ruefully. If nothing else, the refugees from the fighting had brought more opportunities to their once-tiny city. Norilsk was full to bursting. It had gone from rows of identical corporate-industrial housing to a boomtown in a few short years. It was what he imagined the American Wild West had been like in its day, only perhaps less law-abiding and more profitable. At least for men like Iosef.
Because everywhere he looked, there were profits to be had. In the bars that had sprung up to cater to the new refugees, who would pay anything for enough vodka to forget the horrors they had escaped. In the temporary shantytowns that had been erected to house the overflow of displaced persons. In the runners who charged exorbitant prices to bring relatives to Norilsk from other cities, despite their poor success rates. In whorehouses, back alleys, the central market housed in an abandoned airplane hangar, the new tenement houses being built.
Everywhere he looked, there were drugs to be pushed, permits and licenses to be forged, prices to be gouged, and money to be pocketed. There was no better time to be bratva. Soon they’d even be able to afford a nicer office. Maybe one with a view of something worth looking at.
“We done here?” Iosef asked Sergei, his right-hand man.
Sergei was still looking over the books. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “We can be. I need a fucking drink after trying to untangle this shit.”
Iosef took out two glasses and a bottle of vodka from his desk drawer and poured them each a glass. “Any luck?”
“I don’t know what half-assed accounting system the old man was using. But assuming this is correct, it seems to add up. The old man’s insolvent.”
Iosef nodded. He suspected the old man was telling the truth. Not even the bravest, toughest gangster could sit there and keep lying with one hand broken, but the old man had kept insisting that he had no way to pay them back. Even as he s
pat blood and teeth out of his mouth with every frantic plea.
“We’ll have to figure something out with him. He owes too much money otherwise.”
“I’ll give it some more thought,” Sergei said, sipping his vodka.
“Maybe we could—” Iosef began before being interrupted by a knock at the door.
Without waiting for a response, Konstantin poked his massive head into the room. “Someone to see you, boss.”
“I’m not taking visitors now,” Iosef said peevishly.
“I know, boss, I know. Just … maybe you could hear him out?” Konstantin asked as he ushered a young kid into the room.
Iosef glared at Konstantin. His hired muscle was the only man he had ever met who could liquefy a man’s face with just his knuckles. Yet still he cried at the end of sad movies without fail. The big softy would even tear up after some encounters that turned violent. Frankly, Iosef didn’t even know why he kept Konstantin on anymore, or why Konstantin stayed in this line of work. But then, maybe it was because out here you were either a predator, or you were prey.
Iosef eyed the young man. More of a boy, really. The skin around his face was badly bruised where he had obviously taken a beating. The blackened eye on the left side of his face was heavily lidded, while the right eye blazed with a fierce intensity. Black crumbles of dried blood still crusted his nose and upper lip. Without saying anything, Iosef motioned him into a chair across from him.
“What can I do for you, boy?”
“I need you to kill a man for me.”
He spoke with more conviction and determination than Iosef would have imagined for someone so vulnerable-looking.
“Well, as an upstanding businessman, I wouldn’t know where to even begin—”
“I’m not stupid. I know what you do.”
Iosef looked at Konstantin and scowled.
“Who is this man?”
Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season Page 33