“What does that mean?”
“Well, when you get shot—which statistically speaking is a sixty-forty proposition out here—it’s easier for me if I don’t associate a name with a face.”
“Thanks.”
“Sorry. It’s how it works out here.”
“Why are we out here?” Mei said. “Why doesn’t the Edogawa branch handle this shit?”
“They handle as much as they can. But every now and then, they call on the other wards for help. Shibuya’s turn was up.”
“Don’t we have riot police for this shit?”
“Sometimes. But we’re a little short-staffed at the moment. Two of our four teams got chewed up in a firefight. Now we’re pulling bodies from wherever we can to make up the shortfall. Sorry, guess I should say ‘officers,’ not ‘bodies.’”
“I’d appreciate it. How do you think today will go?” she asked, trying to keep the quaver of fear from her voice.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. Only about one job in four ends in a shootout these days.”
“Damn.”
“Yup. At least the odds are in our favor.”
“Why not just shut it all down? Relocate the people out of here?”
“Well, they’ve tried that. Couple of times. Only they don’t have a place to put them, or the money to do it properly. So people keep coming back. And a lot of the gangs have moved in, now that they know the local government and law enforcement are powerless out here. I’ll bet half of these blown-out windows were caused by drug lab explosions or gun fights.”
“Jesus.”
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
“Point is, it’s a whole new world out here.”
The convoy of police vans soon arrived at its destination. They pulled over to the side of a mostly empty street and parked against the curb. Though from the looks of things, they probably could have circled up in the middle of the street without being in the way. They drew into a circle as everyone finished gearing up.
“Alright, listen up! My name is Ishikawa, I will be your tour guide as we explore the deepest circles of hell!”
That elicited a few chuckles from the group of six officers facing him. Mei didn’t join in.
“Our target today is Aina Uchida. Wanted on suspicion of offing her former boss, Mikio Yuhara, to take control of his territory.”
“Pfft, good riddance!” someone called out.
“Agreed! However, as murder police, it is our job to punish people who do things like that. Which is why we’re here today. Now, you may have noticed you’re all wearing riot gear. Some of you may have noticed that you have been issued semiautomatic weaponry. This may have given you the false impression that there will be a shootout today. That is not the case! I want this arrest to go off without a single shot fired, understood?”
Murmurs. Head nods.
“Good! If engaged, you will return fire. Under no circumstances are you to engage yourself unless the threat is imminent. And I mean imminent. There better be a fucking gun in your face before you even think about firing shots. Because you may feel badass standing here in your body armor, but believe me, we are just tourists here. If shots are fired, don’t count on getting out alive. Understood?”
They nodded.
“Okay, then—you two, front entrance. You, back entrance. That leaves you three with me, heading into the belly of the beast.”
Mei’s heart began pounding and she started feeling lightheaded when she was lumped in with this last group.
“Intel says she has her headquarters on the third floor, so up we go. I want: Quick! Tight! Surgical! Precision! Let’s go!”
They lined up by the door. One of the door team members pointed to a CCTV camera covering the front entrance. Mei’s heart sank. They knew the police were coming.
Ishikawa counted down with his fingers, and when he was done, it was go time. The door team led them in, then fell back, and it was just their group of four plunging into the dark building.
All the doors to the first-floor hallway were closed. Only eight shafts of light penetrated the gloom, from the headlamps and gun-mounted lights of each member. They headed to the staircase at the back of the hall quickly and efficiently. The stairs were empty, so they proceeded to the second floor.
Here there were several doors open, allowing some pale light to filter in. They were able to see better here, at the risk of more openings for surprise. The team quickly moved from doorway to doorway, clearing each one before moving on. The place seemed to be an abandoned office building. Some of the rooms still contained office furniture and ancient IT equipment. In one, she saw rats nesting in a hollowed-out computer behind a busted monitor. In another room, the office equipment had been piled in the center and set alight, scorch marks extending to the walls and ceiling.
When each room had been cleared, they moved onwards and upwards to the third floor. Mei’s heart was thumping painfully in her chest, and she could hear her labored breathing behind the plastic face mask. If an attack was coming, it would be coming here.
They secured the floor room by room, until they came to the last room at the end. Ishikawa took point, counting down with his fingers, then nodded to the officer closest to him. He lifted his leg and leaned in towards the door, bringing his full weight down right beside the doorknob. The rotting wood splintered and the door swung open.
They moved into the room to find a man and a woman, already standing with their hands in the air against the wall.
“Fucking took you long enough,” the woman said with a grin.
It was Uchida, judging from the photos Mei had seen. She kept her hair cut in what looked like an asymmetrical bob that gave her a strange look. Or maybe that was just her pale skin, sunken eyes, and the way her mouth twitched to one side in a semi-smile. The overall effect struck Mei as being akin to staring at a hollow-eyed skull that smirked back.
“On the floor! Now!” Ishikawa bellowed as the four of them streamed into the room.
The two complied.
“There’s another one in—”
“Shut up! On the floor! Down!”
The two did as they were told, dropping to their knees with their hands still in the air. On the other side of the room came a sound from behind a closed door, then the door swung open suddenly. Mei froze.
“They here yet?” came a voice from behind the door. “Or do we—”
That was as far as he got. The officer closest to him swung his weapon over, raking the wall and the door with a burst of automatic fire. The door exploded into splinters. Ishikawa nudged what was left of the door out of the way with his foot to reveal a man writhing on the ground.
“You fuckers! I tried to tell you there was one more here!” Uchida shouted from the ground where she was being cuffed.
“Goddamn,” Ishikawa said. He reached for his radio. “Dispatch, this is Ishikawa. Target secure. We need a medical team out here stat. Over.”
There was some static. “What is your location?”
“Edogawa, 2-chome, 16-11. By the four-way intersection.”
More static. “That’s a negative. We cannot send medics to that location. You will have to transport your wounded out of the restricted zone. Recommend transport to Ichimori Hospital over the bridge in Koto Ward. I can alert them that you’re coming. Over.”
Ishikawa cursed under his breath, then into his radio he said, “Please do. Over.”
Ishikawa stood there, as if uncertain. Mei walked over.
“He’ll never make it,” she said softly.
Uchida seemed to hear and looked up from where she lay handcuffed.
Ishikawa shook his head. “We’ve got to secure the site before moving. We’re not authorized to make a return trip. We’ll have to do what we can to help him hold on.” He turned to the others. “You, help me carry him. You two, walk them down.”
Soon they were assembled out in front of the building. Ishikawa and two others searched the premises for evidence. Mei loo
ked at the man who had been shot. For some reason, he had been handcuffed, with his arms underneath him. The officer who had shot him was trying to apply pressure to the wound. He looked up at Mei as she approached.
“I didn’t mean to. I swear, it was an accident. I just got spooked.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you have medical training?”
“Just the basics.”
“Me too,” he said, looking back at the man. “I don’t think he’ll last until the hospital.”
“Do what you can.”
“Watch him for me, will you?” the man asked. “There are some medical supplies in the van.” With that, he took off running.
Mei looked at the man. Blood welled up from bullet holes strafed across his chest. His breathing was shallow and ragged. His eyes were open, but glassy and unfocused. Or so she thought, until his head tilted and his gaze focused on her. He coughed, spitting up blood in the process.
“Hold on,” Mei mouthed.
He blubbered, and began crying. He coughed up more blood in dark clots. Mei turned him on his side. Even at that, he’d probably choke in a few minutes.
“Hey!” Uchida said.
She was kneeling on the ground a foot or two away from the dying man. Mei looked her way.
Uchida motioned towards her man next to her. “Finish him.”
“What?”
“Kill him.”
“I can’t do that. We’ll be out of here soon. Just hold on.”
“You said it yourself, he’ll never make it to the hospital. He’ll choke to death, if he doesn’t bleed out first. He’s suffering. At least have the decency to put him out of his misery.”
Mei backed up, her hands held in front of her. “I can’t do that. I can’t just shoot someone who’s lying there defenseless.”
“You assholes already shot him. Now finish the job. Don’t just let him lie here until he drowns in his own blood.” Uchida’s eyes were glistening. “Don’t half-kill him and walk away because you’re too chickenshit to finish the job. Be a fucking human and end his suffering”
“Look, I’ll get my commanding officer, see what we can do for him.”
Mei turned and began walking towards the other officers milling about. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Uchida moving. She turned around in time to see Uchida scoot over top her fallen soldier and wedge his head between her thighs.
“Sorry, Hirohito,” Uchida said. “You deserve better than this.”
With that, she gave a great wrenching twist with her whole body, snapping his neck. The man’s struggling ceased, and she backed up off of him. Her pants were wet with blood. Her right cheek streaked with a tear.
Mei was too shocked to move. Finally, anger welled up inside her, sending her into motion.
“What the fuck was that? You kill a guy in front of a police officer? How stupid can you be?”
“How heartless can you be? He wasn’t going to survive, just suffer more. And you were going to let him because you’re too much of a coward to do the right thing.”
The other officer came jogging back over, a half-unwrapped bandage wrap in hand and more supplies tucked under one arm. He came to a stop when he saw the man on the ground lying still.
“Oh, man, did he …”
Mei looked at Uchida, who didn’t return her gaze. Then she looked up at her fellow officer.
“He didn't make it.”
The man looked ready to cry. He nodded and staggered back toward the van.
Uchida looked up at Mei with anger in her eyes. She spat on the ground and shook her head.
“And you think you’re the good guys,” Uchida hissed venomously. “You’re barely even human.”
Chapter One
“Confess!”
The word echoed throughout the room, reverberating against every surface before crashing into Vasili. With every breath he drew, Vasili’s lungs grew tighter and tighter. His pulse raced, even as he felt his blood turning to sludge. The room swam before him, sharp details just out of reach of his burning wits. He wanted to glance at Takabe and Nobunaga to either side of him. But he dared not look for fear that if they saw his face, they would know it was him.
He drank cool water from his glass, but it did little to quench the fire within. It hurt to even swallow, and only served to make him shorter of breath. He tried not to gasp aloud as he sucked in air.
“You know who you are,” Eriko said from the podium. “Do you feel that? Even as we speak, your guilty conscience is quickening your pulse. Your heart is pounding in terror and your breathing is becoming labored. And with each beat of your heart, the poison is circulated further throughout your body. It’s seeping into every muscle, every fiber, every cell. Soon you’ll be unable to breathe. Killed by your own conscience. With some help from me, of course.”
As his mind crumbled inside his skull, Vasili tried to puzzle out how it had happened. How did she know? He suspected it was the hit on Chobei. That little secret had been allowed to fester and grow far too long out in the open. It wouldn’t surprise him if it had metastasized by now. Hell, the only real surprise was that it had held off this long before surfacing. He couldn’t really blame Eriko for killing him over that. Fool or not, Chobei was still her son.
Of course, it could have been for killing Matsuo. But he didn’t think this was too likely. Certainly not impossible, but considering how recent it was, he’d be surprised if she had been able to find out so quickly. Yoshii wouldn’t have dared to expose him, because doing so would have left him open too. No, highly unlikely. She must have found out about the hit on Chobei. But how?
He almost laughed out loud thinking about it. He would done so, too, except that would only make it harder to breathe. He didn’t know exactly how it had happened. But there had been plenty of opportunities. Masa had been allowed off the leash for too long. He had had too much time, and too many chances, to tell someone.
As breathing became more of a struggle and his brain overheated, Vasili came to a decision.
He would confess.
There would be no mercy from his erstwhile friend and boss. He couldn’t expect that. All he could do now was confess, and ask forgiveness. He probably had time left for that at least. He took a deep breath, with great difficulty, and prepared to deliver his own eulogy. But before he could speak, he heard a voice from the end of the room.
“Alright, I did it! I confess!”
All heads, including Vasili’s, turned to the end of the table on the opposite side of the room. There he saw Takeuchi staggering to his feet.
“I tried to have Chobei killed!”
Shock reigned in the room, which fell eerily silent. Vasili looked down to where Chobei was sitting. He seemed to be taking it remarkably well, with just a hand over his throat in what Vasili took to be surprise.
“I only did it for the good of the Kaisha!” Takeuchi said. He seemed to be struggling to breathe now. “The boy’s dangerous! He … he’ll drag us all into war if we let him!”
“You,” Chobei said hoarsely. “It was your men that fired on me outside of that restaurant.”
“That’s right!” Takeuchi screamed. He was red-faced now. “My only regret was that they missed! You should have been exterminated long ago!”
Eriko regarded Takeuchi with frosty disdain. She smiled thinly, then spoke.
“Thank you for your confession, Takeuchi. But you weren’t the one I was talking about.”
She snapped her fingers. Her guards materialized out of nowhere and began dragging him away. Takeuchi had always been a fighter. But now he looked too shocked and confused to put up much beyond a feeble attempt at self-defense.
“For you, Takeuchi, there will be no cure. There will be nothing except for a long, slow, painful death.”
It occurred to Vasili once more that maybe not all of the trophies in Eriko’s vault had been taken after death. Despite his flushed face, the thought still sent a cold shiver down his spine. At least he would probably suffoc
ate before she could do the same to him. This must be her sense of mercy at play. A relatively painless death for his years of dedicated service.
“No, it wasn’t Takeuchi I had in mind. It was someone else who broke my commandments.”
She looked around and almost seemed disappointed when no one spoke up.
“No? Nobody’s going to just go ahead and eat their plate too?”
She sighed.
“Not even you, Akiyama? Nothing you’d like to confess?”
All eyes now swiveled to Akiyama. He was hunched low over the table. Even from a distance Vasili could see he was struggling to breathe. Vasili began to breathe easier. Metaphorically speaking, but also literally.
“Anything you want to say? About how you were importing women? About how you and your agents preyed on women in poor countries? How you promised them riches in Japan as hostesses, then enslaved them?”
Eriko was building to a fever pitch. Vasili was half-afraid she was going to work herself into such a frenzy that she’d die on the spot herself.
“Tell them, Akiyama, how you abused them, prostituted them, treated them like cattle, then threw them away when there was no more profit to be wrung from them. While you’re on the subject, how about you tell them how you thought you were smart enough to hide it from me, eh? How you thought you could get away with it?”
Akiyama didn’t answer. He just wheezed, red-faced, as he tried to grab Miyagi’s sleeve next to him. She shook him off and slid her chair as far from his as possible. Yoshii did the same on his other side.
Akiyama was left to slowly drown in poison before them all. Surrounded by colleagues, yet utterly alone.
Eriko faced the assembled bosses. “Well. I’m sure he would apologize, if it were still in his power to do so. But enough entertainment. I’m sure you’re all hungry.”
She clapped. The plates were cleared and the next course was brought out, consisting of bubbling pots with beef sukiyaki. All of the bosses just stared at them, afraid to touch the food within.
“Eat!” Eriko commanded. “I’ve killed who I meant to kill. Now just enjoy your meal.”
Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season Page 69