Fukuzawa began to walk toward the entrance. Ranpo soon jogged after him.
After going through the service entrance in the back, Fukuzawa walked down the staircase to the basement, where the theater owner greeted him.
“So?” the owner demanded casually. “What’s your excuse for being late?”
The owner was a woman in a suit, probably around Fukuzawa’s age. With her chest held out and her arms crossed before her hips, she looked up at Fukuzawa with a defiant gaze. She seemed to have a tic where she would push up her glasses every few moments or so. Her wiry black-framed glasses were shaped like acute triangles.
“My apologies, Ms. Egawa.”
Fukuzawa bowed his head before the woman. It was Ranpo’s fault they were late due to his whining and grumbling, but that had nothing to do with this lady.
“Sigh. It’s fine.”
The owner swiftly turned around, then began walking down the hallway, her shoes click-clacking. Fukuzawa silently followed.
“There’s still time before the performance, so make sure to have a good look at the scene of the crime.”
While following Ms. Egawa, Fukuzawa asked, “Do you have any idea who made the death threat yet?”
Ms. Egawa stopped in her tracks and turned around.
“That isn’t your job. I’ve already alerted the police. Your job as bodyguard is to capture the culprit if anyone gets killed. In other words, you’re nothing more than security. The officers in uniform will be keeping watch and investigating. Gah, I can’t stand this. Someone sent us a death threat, and guess how many cops were sent over? Four. Just four. Ugh. I’m getting upset just thinking about it. They probably think this is a big joke; they seem so certain no one will get killed. If someone does end up murdered, then they’ll know the blood’s on their hands, mark my words.”
Fukuzawa didn’t even bat an eye, despite his confusion. The client who had introduced him to the theater said the owner was levelheaded and reliable in her work, but she seemed slightly different from what he had imagined. But that wasn’t a problem for Fukuzawa. He had no interest in commenting on how others did their jobs. He simply needed to do his job, just like the owner said.
“Could you tell me about the threat? Depending on what the enemy is after, that could change how I approach things.”
“Take a look at this.”
Ms. Egawa took out a printed sheet of paper. A few lines were written in a simple typographical style.
“Someone sent this to my office a few days ago. ‘An angel shall bring death, in the truest sense of the word, to the performer. —V.’ They wrote the date and time of the performance along with its title. ‘Angels’? ‘V’? This death threat is ridiculous. I’ll bet it’s one of the rival theaters trying to hurt the business.”
“You think so?”
A voice suddenly came out of nowhere, making Ms. Egawa jump.
“I happen to think it’s pretty well done. One of the actors is going to be killed? Personally, I can’t wait to see how this turns out, but I guess nothing really fazes you once you’re old. You’ve probably seen it all by now.”
“‘O-old’…?!” Ms. Egawa’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Fukuzawa, who is this child? This is no time to be bringing along uninvited guests.”
“My apologies. He’s…looking for a job. I heard from your people that you were short on staff, so I thought maybe you could give him an interview when this was all taken care of.”
“Well, we do need more workers year-round, but…” She narrowed her eyes and stared at Ranpo dubiously. “All right. Please send your résumé to the office in accordance with the rules, and we will examine it along with the other candidates.”
“Whaaat? There are other people who want to work here?” Ranpo seemed to be in a bad mood. “That’s not fair. There’s no way I’m going to be hired if you do that! Make up your mind now.”
“Excuse me?”
Fukuzawa sighed deep down inside his throat so that nobody else could hear.
I…had a feeling this was going to happen.
“Listen here, kid. Do you really think grown-ups want to hire a brat? Good manners are a must in the adult world, so you’d do best to keep that in mind,” said Ms. Egawa.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one already.” Around that moment, Ranpo began looking unprecedently annoyed. “The ‘adult world’ makes absolutely no sense to me. Why can’t we just say how we really feel instead of hiding it? Take you for example. You don’t want to be a theater owner. You may have spent a lot of money on your clothes and shoes to intimidate the workers, but you barely take care of your nails, and you don’t wear any rings. Plus, you have calluses on your palms, although they’re fading. Your hands want to return to their former job. In addition, you don’t trust the police, your bodyguard, or anyone who works at the theater. If you did, you would’ve introduced this old guy here to the cops. But you didn’t because you want him to keep an eye on them for you, right? And vice versa. I mean, I don’t blame you, since someone’s life is at risk here, but why not just come clean from the get-go?”
“Wha—?” She reflexively hid her hands. “Nonsense. What a rude child.”
Her flustered expression made it clear to Fukuzawa as well. Ranpo must have hit the nail on the head.
“Want me to go on? The simple necklace you’re wearing is brand-new, but it wasn’t a gift. You bought it yourself. Also, you once pierced your ears, but the holes have started to close, showing me that it’s been a few years since you’ve had a relationship with—”
“That’s enough,” interrupted Fukuzawa in a hushed tone. “Ms. Egawa, how you really feel is of no importance to me. All I plan on doing is making sure nobody dies tonight. At any rate, would you mind if I asked some of your workers some questions?”
“Whatever. Just do your job!” barked Ms. Egawa, trying not to sound flustered. “I like what I do! Ugh! I’ve had enough of this. I seriously just can’t catch a break…”
She stomped off, quickly clicking her heels down the entrance hall as she left.
“The adult world is so bizarre. What made her so mad?” Ranpo muttered as he watched her walk away.
Fukuzawa took in a deep breath, paused, then exhaled. His expression was exhaustion itself. It was the face of someone who had found out why Ranpo couldn’t hold a job.
The details of what the performers would be doing during the show had to be investigated. If the death threats were aimed at the performers, then they had to nail down a few things. Where were they going to be and at what time? Would there be any moments when they would be alone? Apparently, the police were mainly keeping their eyes on the entrances and exits, and there weren’t enough of them to guard each performer individually. In other words, once the criminal got inside the venue, they would be free to do whatever they’d like.
Therefore, Fukuzawa and Ranpo went around talking to each performer. They were handed the time schedule the performers all got, along with a program that had all of their roles and appearances listed. Nevertheless, Fukuzawa felt he had to check what exactly each performer would be doing and when they would be vulnerable. He needed to remind them to not do anything alone. If given the chance, Fukuzawa also wanted to ask the performers if they had any idea why the criminal sent them a death threat.
The first person Fukuzawa went to was the star of the show—a young man, from a group of twelve performers, who would be playing the protagonist. He was sitting in his private dressing room while religiously reading over his lines.
“Uh? Excuse you.” The handsome young man lifted up his head from the script and frowned. “What do you want? It’s almost showtime, and I’m reading over my script.”
There was no one else in the room. Perched on the edge of his seat, the young man angrily threw the script to the side.
“The show is about to begin. Do you have any idea how it feels to be an actor right before a performance?”
Fukuzawa didn’t respond.
“We dive into
another world—become other people. And we practice nearly a year for this moment. If you get in my way, you’re dead.” The performer then threw back his glass of water that was sitting on the table. “I’m thirsty. Fetch me some water, will you?” The young man signaled to the large container of water with his chin as he held out his empty glass to Fukuzawa. He drank the glass of water that Fukuzawa quietly poured for him, then said, “I’m concentrating.”
After a close look, the young man appeared to be somewhat pale. Slightly dark bags hung under his nervous-looking eyes as well.
“I respect your work,” said Fukuzawa while he stared at his pale expression, “but there’s a chance you performers could die tonight. Is there any part during the play when you’re alone?”
The star, Murakami, took in a deep breath to say something, but he immediately exhaled as if he had given up.
“…I’ll be alone in the wings a few times. There will be some stagehands backstage, so I won’t be by myself when I go to the dressing room. I’ll also be alone right before curtain call. Anyway, we’re all doing our best to be careful, so I’ll make sure I’m with someone at all times… Oh, but we’ll be pretty vulnerable in one particular place, especially me. I’ll be alone for ten, twenty minutes at a time.”
“And where is that?”
“On the stage.” The corner of Murakami’s lips curled into a grin. “I am the star of the show, after all.”
Fukuzawa groaned. He wouldn’t be able to guard the performers onstage with them, and it wasn’t as if he could order them to perform in the shadows because they might be attacked. However, the stage was going to have everyone’s eyes and ears. It would be nearly impossible for someone to assassinate a performer onstage and escape with that many people watching. The most dangerous time was surely when the actors were going to be alone.
“Heh. The leading actor, huh?” Ranpo, who was standing by Fukuzawa’s side, suddenly spoke up.
“What’d you say? …Oh, it’s just some kid,” said Murakami with a scowl. “Don’t tell me you’re that bodyguard’s helper or something.”
“Hey, what’s the play going to be about?” asked Ranpo, completely ignoring Murakami.
“What kind of question is that? If you’re one of the guards, then you should have gotten a script from the troupe. Read it yourself.”
“And die of boredom? I couldn’t even make it past the first page. Come on, just tell me.”
“Die of boredom”…?
Fukuzawa quietly covered his face. Bringing Ranpo with him was a mistake. He’d thought that leaving Ranpo in the lobby was a disaster waiting to happen, but this wasn’t any better. He said all the wrong things. Surely the actor was going to blow his lid and stop talking to them entirely… At least, that was what Fukuzawa thought.
“It’s boring, huh? Well, if a brat like you says so, then it’s gotta be,” answered Murakami with a solemn expression. “The viewers are the ones who decide whether a play is boring. It’d be easy to strangle you until you agreed to read the entire script, but that’s a job for a thug, not an actor. Hey, brat. What would make the play interesting to you?”
“To me? Hmm…” Ranpo tilted his head to the side. “It’d be pretty neat if one of the actors got killed during the performance just like the death threat said.”
A chill ran down Fukuzawa’s spine.
“Ha! An appropriately bratty answer.” But Murakami cheerfully smirked. “If that’s what the people want, then maybe giving it to them wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
“Hold on,” Fukuzawa interrupted, knitting his brows. He found the comment to be in bad taste.
“Obviously, I don’t plan on dying.” Murakami faced Fukuzawa. “But as someone in show business, you think about these things. ‘Would you take a life in order to achieve the ultimate performance?’ …I would. Without a doubt. The only reason I haven’t is because nobody has come up to me and offered to teach me the secret of acting in return for someone’s life…yet. So my hat’s off to whoever made that death threat if they planned all of this only to surprise the viewers.”
Murakami wasn’t looking at Fukuzawa, nor was he looking at Ranpo. He was lost in his head—looking at himself and the spectators he could influence. Fukuzawa frowned. The spirit of a performer was an admirable thing, but this was troubling. Murder was being viewed as just something that happened; human life was nothing more than a bargaining chip. Why were the owner and this young man not taking this death threat seriously? Fukuzawa didn’t even think they should have been holding this performance in the first place. Surely rescheduling the show to save a life would be a no-brainer. And yet, the show was to go on. There were probably a lot of people who thought like Murakami.
“Well, people should be filling the seats right about now.” He stood out of his chair. “I ought to get going. We’re both professionals here, yes? And a professional protects their client and makes sure nobody gets harmed. I’m counting on you.”
There was no way to reply to a statement like that other than simply “Very well.”
After that, Fukuzawa met with the other performers and asked the same questions. There was a total of twelve actors who were going to be in the show: seven women and five men including the lead, Murakami.
Given the theater’s large size, it seemed fair to assume that each actor would have their own dressing room, but apparently, Murakami was the exception. The others had all gathered in one big dressing room where they checked their costumes, practiced their lines, and swung around small props like swords. Fukuzawa heard that Murakami was going to have around half the stage time to himself.
“He’s actually a really popular actor,” commented an actress. “This is basically a one-man show. He’s got way more lines than the rest of us, and he even has a fight scene,” she claimed as she checked her makeup. “He had a lot of meetings alone with Kurahashi, the playwright. He seems to have really put a lot of stock in it. I even heard that someone saw him yelling at the stage carpenter.”
Fukuzawa asked another actor about the events.
“Nobody actually believes someone is really going to get murdered,” answered a slightly older actor while he looked at the program. “We work in entertainment, after all. Jealousy is far from unheard of. There are even fanatics who worship the troupe. We don’t have time to worry about every single threat. Granted, I only have a side part, so there would be no value in killing me. If anyone in the cast is gonna get death threats, it’s Murakami. He has a ton of groupies, followers, that sort of thing.”
The actor smiled, but another actress knitted her eyebrows.
“A threat?” She wore a large silver wig and was fixing her makeup. “Honestly, I’m sure everyone knows where the death threat came from.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know…” The actress winked. “It’s a small industry, yeah? People get together… They break up… Maybe someone banged one of the new girls, or they broke up and she quit. Who doesn’t have one or two people on their hit list?”
“Do you?” Fukuzawa asked her, but she just giggled and evaded the question.
Hopefully, this was nothing more than a crime of passion, and the threat was just made to scare someone. Fukuzawa thought back to the assassin killing the secretary this morning.
What if the one who made the death threat was an assassin of that caliber? Fukuzawa wasn’t confident he could protect everyone: the spectators, the performers, Ranpo, and himself.
He retired from the dressing room after hearing what everyone had to say. As he walked down the hallway, he thought.
I could handle fighting one-on-one even if the assassin were a skill user, but no matter how skilled the bodyguard, there are only so many people that can be protected at once.
If Fukuzawa were the assassin, then four police officers wouldn’t change anything. He could break through, take advantage of the commotion, and kill the target with no problem at all. But Fukuzawa was there to protect, and if he wanted to creat
e a safe space with an ironclad defense for everyone in the theater, he was going to need ten men. This was an obstacle Fukuzawa naturally encountered as a bodyguard. No matter how talented of a martial artist he was, the enemy would break through the holes in the defense. He was only one man. He couldn’t protect the lives of every good person with just one body. Evil, on the other hand, would need only one body to pick a place, find an opening, and attack. All they would need was enough power and one moment to unleash it at maximum efficiency.
There was an imbalance between the power needed to protect and the power needed to attack. The only way to protect oneself from incredible skill and power was to have skill and power of your own, but unfortunately, the scales strongly favored one side. Therefore, something other than brute force was needed to make up for it.
“Whatcha thinking about, old guy? I’m getting hungry, just to let you know.” The boy by Fukuzawa’s side suddenly spoke up in a lackadaisical tone.
Just then, Fukuzawa was hit with an epiphany.
Who was it who found the company president’s real killer this morning? Who was it who uncovered Ms. Egawa’s secrets during their first encounter?
“Hey, kid. Has anything jumped out at you since you’ve been here?”
There was no denying this boy had something extraordinary. Fukuzawa wasn’t sure exactly what, but perhaps it was something that could compensate for the difference in necessary force between attacking and defending.
Ranpo simply stared at Fukuzawa, eyes fixated on him. He could see something.
What’s he looking at?
“Nothing’s really stood out to me. It’s just confusing. That’s all.” Ranpo tilted his head in a bored manner.
Fukuzawa stopped in his tracks. He was standing in the theater’s entrance lobby. There was a long line with people already entering the building for the show.
“I see.” Fukuzawa sighed. Nothing had caught his attention?
Fukuzawa had been inadvertently depending on Ranpo for an answer. Looking back, that was probably why he brought him along to talk to the performers, despite knowing the negative consequences. Perhaps he’d even brought Ranpo to the theater just to witness his talents. It was a rather pathetic thing to do for someone who was initiated in the Sankyo school of ancient Japanese martial arts.
The Untold Origins of the Detective Agency Page 10