by Barry Lancet
Once his cigarette had burned to a stub, he tamped it out and didn’t replace it. The grin, however, never faded.
We rolled into the taxi entry to Tokyo Station and the young cabbie pulled up short. The final approach was jammed bumper to bumper with arriving cabs.
An eye at the dashboard clock, he said, “Two minutes, mister. Now your turn to make fast.”
I dropped twice the meter’s total on the front seat and ran the last eighty yards, the footfalls of my guard detail pounding the pavement at my heels.
* * *
Waiting inside the ticket gate, Noda pointed at me and yelled “That guy” to a nearby attendant as soon as I turned the corner, then the chief detective showed me his back.
With an alacrity that defied his bulldog bulk, the head detective barreled up a short stack of steps, disappearing from sight. I nodded goodbye to my watchdogs and sprinted for the gate. The gatekeeper waved me on without a ticket and I bolted through the gate, up the short stack, then scaled a long set of thirty-odd stairs three at a time, all the while conscious of the earsplitting trill of the one-minute warning bell.
I hit the platform, then lunged through the doors as the bullet train’s panels slid shut with a pneumatic hiss. My chest heaved. I glanced into the closest carriage. The car was full.
“Good thing the seats are reserved,” I said to Noda, who stood to the side.
Noda waved a pair of tickets. “Last two.”
Which had been the same phrase the waiter had mumbled when Rie and I ordered matcha custard for dessert seconds before the head detective yanked me away from a promising evening.
“A work emergency. I’m really sorry, but—” I’d told her after finishing the call with Noda.
She shunted my apology aside with a warm smile. “Just go. I’m third-generation, remember?”
Her father and grandfather had joined the force before her, not to mention two older brothers. Rie carried the distinction of being the first woman in the family to wear a badge.
“How could I forget?” I’d said, racing for the door after dropping some bills on the table to cover the meal and a dessert I’d never see.
TOKYO STATION, 9:20 P.M.
TWO HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES FROM KYOTO
We wove our way down the aisles of five cars, past other passengers and a food cart, before finding our seats.
Noda slid into his high-backed chair, pressed the recline button, and eased his seat backward.
“So tell me why I’m here?” I said.
“Youngest ran off to the big cosplay event in Kyoto.”
“That’s where Mari is planning—”
“I know.”
“Did you—”
“She’s on it.”
Noda didn’t disappoint. He’d moved the pieces forward. Now it was my turn.
I’d called Mrs. Nobuki twice since my arrival—once after settling in at Brodie Security and again before I headed off to meet Rie—but she had been napping both times. With medicinal assistance. I’d told the guards not to wake her. I took a deep breath and dialed.
Ken’s wife picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Nobuki-san? Brodie.”
“Brodie-san, thank you for calling. I apologize for all the trouble we’ve caused.”
“It’s been no trouble,” I said, reciting the ritual answer to her ritual opening. If all of this turned out to be linked to Mayor Hurwitz’s program, I’d owe her a lot more than a ritual response. The idea that I might have indirectly been the catalyst curdled something down deep.
“Naomi gave me the latest news from the hospital. She says Ken is in good hands. Is that true?”
“The mayor himself is overseeing Ken’s treatment, and we have our best man in Washington watching your daughter.”
A mother’s sigh of relief expressed her gratitude, and some of the weight lifted. “We’d never know where to start without you,” she said.
Without me you might not have had to start.
I inhaled deeply, clearing away the darker thoughts. “I’m here to help in any way I can.”
“Do you know why all this is happening?”
“We’re working on it. Tell me why Aki-kun skipped out.”
Her next sigh boiled over with exasperation. “Akihiro’s nineteen and believes he’s king of the world. I couldn’t stop him from leaving. He has a new girl and they have been looking forward to this event for months. I don’t even know what cosplay is. Do you?”
I explained it to her, and a melancholy sigh reached my ear this time, suggestive of a wilting from within. I didn’t like what I heard.
“We’ll find him,” I told her, instantly regretting the pledge but loath to retract it.
“Thank you. I’m so sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“I forgot to mention to the man from your office who called earlier that Akihiro wants to be a manga-ka.”
A Japanese comic artist.
“That’s good to know. Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Their costumes have a lot of red. They paraded around here yesterday.”
My gaze strayed to the stream of city lights flashing by outside our window. We were rocketing toward Shin Yokohama Station, the last stop in the greater Tokyo area before we hit Nagoya, some two hundred miles down the tracks.
A lot of red. We needed more than that if we were going to pluck her son from the crowd.
“Do you know which characters they’re going as?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you know if the costumes were store-bought or handmade?”
Many cosplayers fashioned their own outfits. Zealous fans made as many as two or three a month, twenty or thirty a year, in exactingly accurate detail. Mari would be able to spot the difference.
“I don’t know. My son couldn’t have made them, but the girl might have, I suppose.”
Nothing but dead ends. Think, Brodie. New girl . . . paraded. A romantic angle? “Were they wearing matching costumes by any chance?”
“Yes, but tailored differently, boy and girl styles.”
“That’s something.” Though minor. There would be dozens, maybe hundreds, of couples with paired outfits.
“I’m so worried, Brodie. I can’t concentrate.”
“You’re doing fine. Did you notice anything else? Any extras?”
“Like what?”
“Accessories. Maybe a sack or a sword or a crown?”
“Masks. They were wearing masks.”
“Great,” I said. “That’ll help a lot.”
Or a little.
Attendance was expected to surpass seven hundred.
KYOTO
Mari was glowing.
She was in her element. Well, one of them. Her professional world revolved around everything digital—computers and software and hacking. Much of her personal life touched the same chords, since her circle of friends were keyboard jockeys like her. Many of them were into cosplay too, which offered distraction, release, fantasy, playacting, and new friendships.
Tonight’s gathering was magnificent. Hundreds of people just like her in costume. She’d always been different. Even after she discovered her talent for computers.
Even after her IQ tested off the charts.
And earlier tonight, Brodie Security had called with her first field assignment ever. Brodie-san had promised her it would happen one day. He’d pushed against the prevailing office opinion to keep her chained to the computer because she was the best they had. She craved a change and Brodie had come through.
But there was still no sign of Akihiro Nobuki.
Mari stood in the middle of a circle of friends and new acquaintances, some of the latter gravitating naturally toward her group because they too had dressed as vocaloids. Their conversation rose above the thrum of the crowd, loud and enthusiastic. Mari joined in, even as she scanned the immediate area for Akihiro and his girlfriend.
A
s she looked about, the amended description sent by Brodie from the bullet train played over and over in her head: male and female in matching costume; mostly red; wearing masks. And occasionally, to refresh her memory, she glanced at the photo of the youngest Nobuki sibling on her mobile.
Although in Mari’s mind she had reached the upper age limit for prancing about in costume, she reveled in tonight’s festivities. The event was chaotic and glorious. Raucous and mad and liberating. When she slipped into a costume, she could escape the stifling suffocation of society. She could show another side of herself—any side she chose: playful, wise, exotic, sexy, dangerous, noble, or her own unique mix of those.
With cosplay, everyone was transformed.
Colored lights flickered everywhere, dropping the crowd into shadow or darkness, and then spotlighting them with a rainbow of hues. It was a frenzied and fantastic escape. Only now, in this maddening, ever-growing, swirling, prancing, posing throng, she needed to find a man-boy and his girlfriend.
Quickly.
For their own good.
CHAPTER 30
YOKOHAMA, 9:38 P.M.
ONE HOUR AND 54 MINUTES FROM KYOTO
AS soon as the bullet train left Shin Yokohama Station behind, Noda said, “We better fast-track this case.”
With people dying, he’d get no argument from me.
“You have a plan?” I asked.
“Your mayor’s program first. Tag any disgruntled parties yet?”
“No, but there could well be. On either side. Those opposed to their country’s participation, or those left out.”
“Any similar program in other countries?”
“Not that anyone’s heard of, but that’s what we have our rovers working on, right?”
Noda nodded. “The Asian side. That’s one.”
One line of inquiry, he meant.
Noda swung his eyes in my direction. “Art’s your field. Enemies?”
“Professional jealousy’s an occupational hazard when this much money is involved, but we’re talking about artists. The petty ones can be vicious. Gossips and backstabbers, but I can’t see that extending to rooftop snipers.”
“Nobuki’s tops in contemporary Oribe?”
“Top three.”
“Slot opens up, what’s it worth?”
“If Ken were to die, people would begin to think in terms of the next Oribe artist ‘in line.’ Once there was a consensus, the ‘chosen one’s’ profile and prices would rise.”
“Can the consensus be influenced?”
“You know it can.”
He grunted. “What’s an opening worth?”
“Millions,” I said.
Noda nodded. “To dealers and collectors too?”
“Yeah.”
I’d had to explain the dynamic to Renna because, like Sean Navin, the SFPD detective had veered off in the wrong direction.
“Your friend’s a potter,” Renna had said. “I guess we can strike greed from the motive list.”
I shook my head. “He’s a successful potter. In Japan, the best potters approach clay as an art form. They get art prices. Very respectable prices.”
“What neighborhood of respectable are we talking about?”
“Ken’s net worth could be anywhere between five and twenty million.”
“Dollars?”
“Yeah.”
“Good neighborhood. And maybe deadly.”
Now, in Tokyo, six thousand miles west of San Francisco, Noda underscored the sentiment: “So businesspeople around the artist could also profit?”
“If they’re clever about it,” I said. “God knows there’s plenty of them who stockpile works by anyone they think could be the next Living National Treasure.”
“Big money?”
“Very.”
“That’s two,” the chief detective said.
KYOTO
There was music now.
Loud, pounding, vibrant music. The lights flickered faster. And whipped about. Shadows deepened. People swayed to the beat. They wanted to dance but the crowd had grown too dense.
Mari’s enjoyment levels had plummeted. Finding Akihiro had become urgent. With each passing minute, their chances grew worse. She envisioned him being hauled off by some faceless undesirables.
Mari moved through the crowd now, swaying to the rhythm of the music, acting out a distinctive move of her character when a space opened briefly in front of her. After all, this was cosplay and she should stay in character.
Tension mounted in her throat and chest. She wanted to locate the man-boy. Not that she was much older. She was twenty-three to his nineteen, but his features were soft. A pudgy boyish face. The wide eyes of an innocent. A spoiled pout edging the corners of his mouth.
Mari circled clockwise through the cavernous hall; her boyfriend circled counterclockwise. Brodie Security had hired two floaters from a Kyoto affiliate. They circulated too, outside, where the overflow congregated. The event was sold-out. Rumor had it that a couple hundred cosplayers had crashed the gates before reinforcements arrived. A second rumor claimed the arrivals outside outnumbered the paying customers inside. All in costume.
Compounding the problem, the Kyoto affiliate had sent the wrong kind of people. They were middle-aged and without costume.
A colossal blunder in this world.
Mari had seen one of them from a distance earlier in the evening. A sharp-chinned, angry woman, who resembled nothing if not a furious mother looking to drag her kid home—which wasn’t winning her any friends.
Passive rancor, at first. People moved aside with languid disregard. Turned their backs and continued to chat with friends, holding their ground. In growing frustration, the Kyoto operative started elbowing people aside. People shoved back. Where they might have been more reserved toward an elder during daylight hours, in costume they were different people. This was their world.
Even the man-boy would shirk away from the two Kyoto ops if he saw them first. He would guess they were looking for him.
Mari’s phone chirped with a text message. The Kyoto woman was being taken to the emergency room with injuries. Mari was not surprised. The clueless operative must have jostled the wrong person. Or the wrong character. A cosplayer in character might jab an offender with a sword. Or one of the many sharp-edged fantasy weapons. Granted, cosplayers wore fake weapons, but they were serious reproductions for fanatics, filled with detail work and molded from high-quality plastic.
Hard high-quality plastic.
Clueless or not, we’re down to three people, Mari thought. In a crowd approaching two thousand.
With the clock ticking.
CHAPTER 31
NAGOYA, 10:57 P.M.
35 MINUTES FROM KYOTO
ON the train, we slept and woke in starts. I was battling jet lag. Noda habitually slept whenever he could because, in this job, a case might keep you running thirty hours straight.
As the train stormed out of Nagoya, a fresh thought occurred to me. “You know,” I said when Noda opened his eyes, “a rooftop sniper is a stretch for a family motive, too.”
“Unless . . .”
The detective’s voice faded as he turned to watch the city lights streak by in luminous streams of color. Long straight avenues flashed by outside our window. Like many of Japan’s urban areas, this coastal city had felt the brunt of the World War II firebombings. From the ashes of thousands of wooden houses along mostly narrow, often twisting passageways, the city leaders devised a plan of wide avenues and buildings of brick and ferroconcrete. Progress or a step backward? Arguments had ranged on both sides, but Japan had moved on.
“What?” I asked.
“Any of the Nobukis have reach?”
“Toru was a sculptor, Naomi’s a local reporter, her husband’s a domestic lawyer, and Akihiro is a wannabe manga artist. They’re all homebodies. I had to drag Ken to San Francisco.”
“Naomi travels.”
“When she can, which is infrequent because her husband hate
s overseas trips.”
We reached the edge of the city. Nagoya was small by Japanese standards.
“How good’s her English?”
“It’s one step above nonexistent. Which doesn’t stop her, as we know.”
Noda’s glance lingered on the changing scenery. Away from the city, moonlight painted the night a brooding silver-blue. The orange glow of farmhouse windows shimmered in the distance.
Noda’s head lolled back toward me, dark eyes on mine, the scar bisecting his eyebrow neutral in tone. “Anything stop her?”
“Now that you mention it, no.”
“Which makes enemies,” the chief detective said. “That’s three.”
KYOTO
Mari was exhausted.
Her feet ached. Her throat was parched. Her eyes burned.
Young Akihiro Nobuki was nowhere to be seen.
She needed her first field assignment for Brodie Security to be a success. Otherwise, why would they offer her more?
She rubbed both eyes with her palms.
Blinked.
And then he was there.
She saw the couple first, their matching costumes streaked with blue and red and white, then the masks. Her fourth potential target of the night. Not predominantly red getups but streaked with three colors, red being the brightest among them.
Which could give the impression of a red ensemble.
Staying in character, she pranced in their direction.
“Nice costumes,” she shouted over the music, her eyes going to matching shoulder sashes they’d fashioned on their own.
“Thank you,” they both said.
The girl looked at Mari’s long purple locks streaming to her waist. “I love your wig. Where’d you get it?”
“Nakano Broadway. I got help with the costume from a shop on Asagaya Anime Street.”
“Oh, the new place! How is it?”
“Wonderful. Small but growing, and their heart’s in the right place.”
Mari smiled at them both, trying to see behind the masks. Then she just went for it. “You’re Akihiro Nobuki, aren’t you?”
He froze. The girl blinked in surprise. The couple backed away.
“Wait. Don’t.” Mari reached out and touched the girl’s wrist.