Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season

by J. Scott Matthews

  “Say it,” she whispered in his ear, grinning wickedly.

  “What?”

  “You know what I want to hear.”

  “Come on, not tonight.”

  “Oh, come on, baby, you know it turns me on so much,” she moaned in his ear. “Ooh, come on.”

  Vasili sighed.

  “Just once?”

  “I am strong like bear!” he said loudly in his thickest Russian accent.

  Kameko began laughing so hard she nearly fell off him. As she cackled, she began punching the pillow next to him. She tried to speak a few times, but she was laughing too hard to get the words out.

  “I cannot believe you still find that funny.”

  She just laughed harder. It took a few more moments before she could compose herself.

  “I’m sorry … it’s just … I don’t know why …”

  “Alright, alright.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’ll make it up to you,” she said, pulling herself back on top of him.

  And she did.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tamazaki was almost glad by the time he got hooded and thrown into the trunk of a car. At least until his boss, Chobei, was roughly tossed in on top of him. Then shit his pants.

  Before that, they had been spending a night at the Black Cat Club in Kanagawa City. At Chobei’s insistence, of course. Tamazaki had tried to impress on him that going out in public right now wouldn’t be wise from a security standpoint. Not when they had been attacked already. And especially not now that they had gone on the offensive.

  Kido happened to see Nitta, Soseki’s right-hand man, and another of his people a few nights ago in a bar. When he phoned it in, Chobei had immediately ordered a hit. Nitta had escaped with a grazing, but the other soldier caught a bullet to the forehead. Chobei had crowed about it, calling it a major victory. Tamazaki didn’t see it that way. He just saw a low-level soldier who had done nothing wrong and gotten caught in the crossfire. Now they were all targets.

  And yet, here they were, out in public. Because wise moves weren’t exactly Chobei’s strong point. He had insisted they go, reminding Tamazaki and the others who they worked for. Tamazaki just had to glance at Kido’s bandaged hand to remember the answer to that. So they went.

  The club required a two-bottle minimum to get a table, and Chobei opted for whiskey. Tamazaki didn’t drink and tried to persuade the other soldiers to do the same. They mostly complied, despite Chobei’s insistence that they join him. Some did, but luckily others were able to fend him off and keep a clear head. Which was good—they would need that if they were attacked.

  Around three in the morning, Chobei got upset and sent most of the other guards home. It was against Tamazaki’s advice, but Chobei insisted. Tamazaki couldn’t tell what was worse—that they were much more vulnerable to attack now that it was just two of them, or that Tamazaki was the only one around to absorb Chobei’s self-pitying whining. He soon decided it was the latter.

  “I just … I dunno why Vasili wants us to hold back,” Chobei slurred. “We should stay on the attack. They’ll never respect us if we don’t.”

  “We already did,” Tamazaki reminded him. “In fact, we drew first blood, remember?”

  “What do you call this?” Chobei demanded angrily. He pointed to where a bullet had grazed him.

  “That’s just a flesh wound. We killed one of theirs.”

  “Then let’s kill the rest.”

  “Vasili asked you to hold off, advice we’ve already gone against. Besides, they say that patience is a virtue.” Tamazaki felt emboldened to speak frankly because he knew his boss was wasted beyond the point of no return. He wouldn’t remember this conversation in the morning.

  “Bah,” Chobei said. “Patience is for women. Men must act.”

  “A time for everything. My father always used to say, ‘Fight fire with fire and everyone gets burned, better to leave your enemies in the cold and let them freeze to death.’”

  Chobei considered this. “Not bad, I suppose. Sounds like your father walked the Path.”

  “He did. That’s how I got started on it.”

  Chobei smiled. “I didn’t know that! You should have told me you were born on the Path as well.”

  “I may have mentioned it once or twice.” Or several times. “The point is, they’ve taken their shot and we’ve taken ours. Now we should wait to see if that settles it.”

  Chobei had a far-off look on his face. Tamazaki doubted he had heard that last part.

  “How was it for you, growing up on the Path?” Chobei asked.

  “Well, to be honest, it wasn’t always that—”

  “Because for me, it was incredible,” Chobei said, lost in his own reverie. “Growing up around these men, who were gods compared to mortal men. These … titans, who carry so much on their backs behind the curtain. Amazing.”

  “I think we might have had different experiences with it. My dad wasn’t nearly as high up as your mom is.”

  “These men, people respected them, you know? You could just see it. Even the people that paid them, even civilians who maybe didn’t like them, still respected them. It’s like they lived in this world, but somehow existed above it. You know?”

  Tamazaki just nodded.

  “Anything they wanted, it was theirs. And anytime they came around my mother—even though she was above them—she listened to them. Made time to hear them out.” He shook his head. “It’s the kind of boss I aspire to be.”

  You got a long way to go, Tamazaki thought. Outwardly he just nodded. Chobei seemed to come back to reality.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should be more … prudent with the Taira-kai.”

  “A wise decision. We’re lucky to have you as a leader.” It never hurt to fluff him a bit.

  Chobei nodded. Then he steered the conversation off on another drunken detour, and Tamazaki just tried to keep up.

  It was nearly four in the morning before he was finally able to get Chobei to leave. But as soon as they left the club through its back entrance, things went from bad to worse. Tamazaki felt the cold metal of a gun barrel pressed into the back of his neck, right before the blackout hood went over his head. From somewhere nearby, he could hear Chobei pleading before taking a punch to the stomach that mercifully shut up his pitiful sobbing.

  With his hands now zip-tied behind him and his head covered, Tamazaki was manhandled into the trunk. It wasn’t long before Chobei was roughly tossed on top of him—and not long after that that Chobei voided his bowels in fear.

  What followed was a rough ride through the streets of Kanagawa. It was made all the rougher by the driver’s alternating between race car acceleration and slamming on the brakes. Tamazaki figured he was waiting until he was a foot before the stop signs before trying to stop for them.

  He was trying to formulate a plan for how to get them out of this, but he found it hard to concentrate. The pungent smell of Chobei’s shit mixed with the smell of gasoline in the cramped, humid air in the trunk made Tamazaki gag. He began breathing through his mouth to avoid throwing up into the hood covering his head. That would be bad.

  Fortunately, the ride wasn’t long. Unfortunately, that probably meant he was going to die sooner. They were half-marched, half-dragged into a building, then pushed upstairs. Their captors weren’t shy about slamming them into walls, or pushing them down in the process. Finally, they came to a stop several stories up.

  Tamazaki had the hood roughly removed from behind before he was pushed to his knees. He blinked hard to shut out the bright lights, then slowly opened his eyes as they adjusted. They were in Chobei’s office. When he looked up, he saw Soseki sitting behind Chobei’s desk. The fearsome scowl he wore was only made more frightening by the muscle and bone that were visible on the one side of his face.

  “Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for joining me.”

  Tamazaki looked over and saw Chobei on his knees next to him. He was red-faced and sniffling.

  “I helped m
yself to some whiskey while I was waiting,” Soseki said. He swirled some of the brown liquid around in a crystal glass in front of him. “Yamazaki eighteen. Good stuff.”

  “What do you want?” Chobei asked.

  “To send a message,” Soseki said. “To show you that we are not to be trifled with.”

  “You don’t scare me,” Chobei said defiantly.

  Soseki looked around at his men, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he fixed Chobei with a crooked grin from behind his oversized black shades.

  “I don’t scare you? Even now when you’re on your knees before me. When I have your life in my hands? If you’re not scared, then you’re either a madman or a fool. But then I suppose you’d have to be a fool to attack us.”

  “It was retribution for your attack on me. On us.”

  “What attack? We don’t strike first when we don’t want a fight.”

  “You shot at us. Outside the restaurant.”

  Soseki looked bewildered, then he glanced at his men. They only shook their heads.

  “We did no such thing.”

  “Bullshit. I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

  Tamazaki wished like hell his boss would just shut the fuck up already. He didn’t want to die today. Not on that asshole’s account, at any rate.

  Soseki just shook his head. “My man Nakae got shot over a mistake? Fuck. We didn’t take a shot at you. Must have been someone else you’ve pissed off, your lordship.”

  “Just get it over with,” Chobei said.

  Soseki ignored him. “Well, I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson today.”

  “Like don’t wear white pants if you’re prone to shitting yourself,” one of the men behind Tamazaki said.

  Soseki and his men laughed. Chobei’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.

  “Well, that too, I suppose,” Soseki said. “But the point I actually had in mind is that nobody is untouchable. Especially someone as careless as you.”

  “Enough with your talk of lessons. What difference do they make for us now? Just kill us already.” Chobei didn’t even lift his head to say it.

  “Is that what you want?” Soseki asked.

  “I’m ready,” Chobei said.

  “But that’s what you want?” Soseki repeated.

  “Do it!”

  Tamazaki wanted to say, “He doesn’t speak for me.” But he decided against it. If he was going to die today, he would at least hold his head up.

  Soseki looked around at the other men and smiled. Then he ambled over to Chobei and held a gun to his temple.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Chobei asked. “Just kill me.”

  Soseki smiled and safetied his gun. When Chobei heard this, he looked up. Soseki slipped the gun into the waistband of his pants and begin walking towards the door.

  “Kill me!” Chobei croaked. “Just do it already.”

  Soseki said nothing as his footfalls receded down the stairs, his men filing out behind him.

  Chobei got to his feet and ran to the balcony, stumbling with his hands still tied behind him. He bumped into the railing over the stairway and screamed down.

  “Kill me! What are you waiting for? Just kill me!”

  Soseki’s only response was the tinkling of the bell as he passed through the front door below.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “… as the trial has wound on, witness after witness has taken the stand to provide damning testimony hinting at collusion between members of the Tokyo Branch of the Greater China Banking Corporation, or GCBC, and a number of major clients. The breadth and scope of the corruption appears to be absolutely unprecedented, including bid-rigging, stock price inflation, even—”

  “Bah, boring,” Governor Haraishi said, flipping the channel. He settled on a news program that was more to his liking, one that showed him on the screen sitting down with a reporter.

  “So you won’t walk those comments back?” the reporter asked him.

  “No, absolutely not. I stand by what I said.”

  “Including your claim that foreigners cause ninety percent of the crime in Japan? A figure which has been repeatedly debunked by a number of independent fact-checkers.”

  “They can have their facts and figures. I trust my instincts. And my instincts tell me that foreigners are dragging this country down with their drugs and crime. Japanese people are peaceful and good-natured on their own. Everyone knows this.”

  “Well, what about your incendiary remarks portraying the Chinese as—and I’m quoting here—‘dog-eating rapists’?”

  “If the shoe fits …”

  “Or your claims that Caucasian people are, quote, ‘genetically inferior to the Japanese people’?”

  Haraishi turned the television off at that. He glanced sideways at his guest and winced. “Sorry about that. Just riling the base up.”

  Vasili shot him a side-eyed glare that could melt steel, but chose not to respond. He sighed and rubbed his eyes. He really hated this guy, but he found him to be a useful idiot. Sometimes. That was why he was now in the lavish official residence of the Tokyo governor.

  “When is your colleague coming again?”

  Haraishi almost spat out his scotch. “You know very well he’s not my colleague.”

  “He’s in your party.”

  “That animal would put on whatever skin he had to in order to sneak into power. Sure, he’s technically a member of the Genyoto, and he says all the right things. But there’s no love lost between him and us.”

  “Yeah, great. How about answering my question? I have other things to do.”

  “He should be here by now,” Haraishi said. “But if you ask me, I think he likes keeping people waiting. Another one of his little power plays.”

  “Eh. Whatever. He gets shit done.”

  “Well, while we’re waiting, something I wanted to talk about. I’ve been facilitating these late-night meetings between you and Taku for some time now. And running quite a considerable risk too, by doing it. I mean, politically, if I were seen doing favors for such a prominent criminal, it would be damaging. Plus, my base would tear me apart if they knew I was dealing with a foreigner.”

  “I thought ‘white devil’ was your preferred term for us.”

  “Hm, yes, well. I’m just saying, I feel that I should be compensated for carrying this secret. For truly, it weighs on my soul not to come clean to the proper law enforcement authorities regarding your secretive dealings.” Haraishi gave him his most insincere smile.

  Vasili nodded. He had been expecting something like this.

  “Yes, knowledge is a heavy burden. I hate to think that you’re stressing out keeping this secret. And you certainly know a lot about me, considering how many times I have helped you hold fundraisers and other parties.”

  “Well, still …”

  “But unfortunately, I cannot pay you. See, I have a secret on you that I’m holding on to, so I think our respective burdens of knowledge cancel one another out.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Seems you left one of Chieko’s parties with a beautiful woman who was most definitely not your wife.”

  The governor smiled. “I’d love to see you prove that.”

  “You went to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Room sixteen twelve.”

  The smile died on Haraishi’s face.

  “You engaged in a bout of spirited, if uncreative, lovemaking that lasted for exactly one minute and thirty-six seconds. Here,” Vasili said, showing him a video on his phone. “If you want to relive your disappointing performance, you can see it from three angles. With audio.”

  Haraishi stared at the video of him furiously humping away at a bored-looking woman. His face was clearly visible.

  “You motherfucker.”

  “If you zoom in, you can see her trying not to laugh when you tell her to call you ‘big daddy.’”

  “Shut up.”

  “So what I’m trying to say is, if you keep my secret I’ll keep yours. If not, I’ll fuc
k you so hard you’ll be calling me big daddy. And I’ve got good stamina. So when I fuck you, it’ll be for a lot longer than one minute and thirty-six seconds. What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

  “Fine. Fuck it,” the governor said, storming over to the bar to fix himself another drink.

  Just then, the doors opened and the governor’s assistant led Taku in.

  “Vasili! Sorry to keep you waiting! Urgent business over at the Diet.”

  “No problem. Come! Sit! We have much to discuss.” Vasili turned towards Haraishi. “If you could just give us about twenty minutes, that’d be great.”

  “I can’t even sit in?”

  “Best not to. You don’t want to get your hands dirty with this business.”

  Grumbling, Haraishi went to sit in a cluster of overstuffed leather chairs in the far corner of the room.

  “Let’s speak in English, too, if you don’t mind,” Vasili said. “Just to be sure.”

  “Fine, fine,” Taku said, taking a seat.

  Taku was young for a politician, as he was only in his midforties. He had a politician’s good looks and perfectly coiffed hair, with a mind that was quicker than most. In his short political career, he had climbed high, through the city council to a position as a member of the House of Councillors (the lower, but more powerful, house of Japan’s National Diet). As a former physician, he had used his expertise to become head of the Review Committee on Medical Services and Technology.

  “But I’ll have to make this quick. I have a late-night strategy session after this with my team.”

  Vasili glanced at his watch. It was nearly 11:30.

  “Burning the midnight oil, I see.”

  “Got to. Only way to stay ahead of these other fuckers.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So how are things coming on your end?”

  “Good. My man is making progress. He’s been able to reverse-engineer three of the major treatments so far.”

  “That’s excellent news!”

  “Yeah, still working on cisplatin and vinorelbine. I think we can have a lab up within the month.”