by Steve Bein
“So what? This is breaking news? Dealer tries to get top-quality dope for bargain basement prices? Not much of a headline, Han.”
“No, I’m asking, what’s in it for the Divine Wind? If a deal’s too good to be true on one side, then the other side’s getting the shaft, neh? And they had six months to think about this. They’ve got to be the dumbest bunch of drug dealers I’ve ever heard of.”
“You’re thinking like a narc. The way to solve this is to think like a cultist.”
“Huh.” Han thought for a second, then shook his head. Laughing at himself, he said, “See, this is what we need you for, Mariko. You know how you’re riding yourself all the time for being the new recruit in Narcotics? Well, stop. I’ve been swimming in this pool so long I forget there’s such a thing as dry land. We need you. You’re amphibious.”
“Gee, you really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”
“Come on, you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I do. Amphibious. Very sexy. That line’s got to kill on the speed dating scene.”
At last she got the blush she wanted out of him. “Fine,” he said, “so I’m a Neanderthal. Guilty as charged. Will you teach me how to think like a cultist now?”
Mariko indulged in a self-satisfied smile. “The MDA’s a hallucinogen, neh? Perfect for tripping at, you know, prayer meetings or whatever. So maybe . . . maybe the priest wears the mask to heighten the trip.”
“So what are you saying? These guys are devil worshippers? Please don’t tell me they stole your sword to make human sacrifices.”
“I don’t know. I’m just spitballing here. But fanatics are willing to risk a lot for their faith, neh? It goes a long way toward explaining why they’re taking such awful risks to get a mask and a sword. Maybe they need them for some ritual that happens on a certain day—”
“Or when Venus is aligned with Jupiter or whatever.” Han thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, could be. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“How do you figure that?”
“We’re on our way to Intensive Care. One of our suspects lawyered up.”
19
Mariko didn’t care for hospitals. She supposed nobody actually liked hospitals, especially when, like Mariko, they’d recently been confined to one. She was laid up for a solid week after her sword fight with Fuchida, but that wasn’t why she had a hang-up about hospitals. It was her father’s death that made her so uneasy.
It wasn’t an easy thing to explain. There was no drama to it. She hadn’t carried him bleeding into the emergency room. She wasn’t in the room for his death rattle. She hadn’t been there at all. She’d known he was sick when she went off to school, but her parents hadn’t revealed how sick. He’d been weak for a long time by then, long enough that the daily fear of death had subsided. It was disturbing how quickly a family could return to business as usual even when one of their number was dying. Get the groceries, do your homework, clean the dishes, Dad’s got cancer. So Mariko went off to college with her father’s blessing, and then—in her memory it had only been a matter of days—her mom called to tell her he was dead.
For years after that, Mariko had wished she could have been in that hospital room. At a minimum, she wished she’d been the one to make the choice of whether or not to come. At eighteen she hadn’t had it in her to make that choice unemotionally; she would have dropped everything, no matter the effect on her GPA, and that was precisely why her parents hadn’t called. They knew their daughter well.
All the same, Mariko still thought she should have had the right to make the choice herself. Now and again, even all these years later, she tried to imagine the room where he died. There were no photographs. It wasn’t the sort of event you broke out the cameras for. Mariko had never asked her mom to describe it—nor her sister, now that she thought about it, though Saori was younger, so she’d been there until the end. For all Mariko knew, the room where her dad had died looked exactly like the room she was standing in now.
She’d never seen the man in this room before, but she’d seen plenty of battery victims in her time. He seemed to sink into his bed. Both eyes were blacked. A huge swollen dome dominated the right side of his face from eyebrow to hairline, obviously the result of some massive blunt force trauma; it looked like someone had managed to shove a hamburger bun up under one of his eyelids. A neck brace squished wrinkles into his unshaven cheeks. Both lips were punctuated with cuts. His forearms were nothing but knotted, swollen bruises—almost certainly defensive wounds—but neither was broken. In short, by the standards of the Kamaguchi-gumi, he’d gotten off light. He’d stay under observation for a few days, but he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
The suspect’s mouth moved constantly. At first Mariko thought he was delirious, but after a while she saw he was chanting the same words over and over again. A mantra. His eyes blazed at her, the whites as brilliant as the full moon, unnaturally bright thanks to the red and purple contusions that surrounded them. Mariko could barely hear him, but given the way he stared at her, it seemed he meant to speak directly to her. And that wasn’t what she found weird; the weird part was her sneaking suspicion that this man looked at everyone with that same thousand-yard stare. It made her not want to get close enough to hear that mantra of his.
The only other person in the room was SWAT’s tactical medic, who was so obviously exhausted that Mariko wasn’t sure he’d be safe to drive himself home. “He’s been spouting that same line ever since we put him in the ambo,” the tac medic said. “Never stops, never sleeps.”
“That’s speed for you,” Han said.
Mariko had reached the same conclusion. Staying up for days on end was probably just another day at the office for a cult that cooked massive quantities of amphetamines. On the other hand, selling that much product probably left a good amount of cash on hand for legal fees.
The lawyer was already reaching into his pocket for his business card as he walked into the room. “Officers,” he said, giving Mariko and Han a short bow. His tone was a little too familiar, his dress a little shy of the immaculate benchmark set by the rest of his profession. His shirt was pressed to perfection, but he hadn’t quite tucked it all the way in. His suit was of second-best quality, which was to say far more expensive than anything Mariko or even Lieutenant Sakakibara could ever justify putting in their rotation, yet not quite up to snuff in the scrutinizing glare of the courtroom spotlight. If he were a gaijin businessman, no one would ever have noticed these details, but in a Japanese defense attorney they bespoke pride, swagger, even gall.
But it was understated swagger, swagger by implication, just like the quality of the business card he proffered with both hands, one to Han and then one to Mariko. The card was not paper but wood, a veneer thinner than cardstock and smoother than silk. HAMAYA JIRO, it read, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
It was an implicit request for Mariko and Han to offer their own cards, and to be professional they had no choice but to oblige. Hamaya had already set the terms of their relationship. “I’m sure you’ll agree,” he said, “that Akahata-san is not yet in any condition to endure a police interrogation.”
Mariko eyed the man in the bed, whose eyes still blazed like a madman’s. His lips still moved in their playback loop, chanting their mantra. “Akahata, is it? He looks ready to talk to me, Counselor.”
Hamaya gave her an insouciant bow. “He speaks, yes, but not to anyone in this room. He prays for Joko Daishi to liberate our souls.”
Han and Mariko shared a knowing glance. It was the second time they’d across the word daishi this morning. Without seeing the kanji, there was no way of knowing what daishi meant—with these two characters it meant “nun,” with those two, “cardboard”—and so when Nanami had said the Kamaguchi-gumi was slinging Daishi these days, there wasn’t much for a narc detective to do with the information. Daishi could have been a nickname, an ingredient, anything. But in context, Joko Daishi could only be Great Teacher
Joko, the same daishi as Kobo Daishi, whose name was known to everyone. Kobo Daishi was the sobriquet given to Kukai, the eighth-century monk who had contributed as much to Buddhism as anyone in Japanese history. No doubt the name Joko Daishi was meant to evoke images of Kobo Daishi, earning credibility by association.
“Joko Daishi, huh?” Mariko eyed the tweaker in the hospital bed. “Let me guess: he’s the leader of your Divine Wind?”
“The very same,” said Hamaya, bowing, his eyes closing, his voice full of reverence. Akahata’s chanting went from a silent mouthing to a barely audible whisper. His lips redoubled their pace.
Not seeing the kanji for Joko, Mariko couldn’t do anything with the name. It would have been nice to have something to plug into a search engine. She’d have liked to wheedle the name the old-fashioned way too, but somehow she didn’t think it would fly if she suddenly expressed interest in joining the Divine Wind and asked Hamaya to write down his whack-job leader’s name and home address.
The latter might well have been a psychiatric ward. There was no doubt in her mind that this Joko Daishi was a loony and an extremist. It took an extremist to command such loyalty from Akahata, a brand of loyalty that was almost literally undying: that head trauma might easily have killed him, and if it had, he’d have gone to his grave with Joko Daishi’s name on his lips. Nor did Mariko harbor any doubt that the Daishi pills that Nanami was popping these days were directly connected to the man called Daishi that Akahata prayed to. One glance at Han told her he was thinking the same thing.
“Good to know,” Han said. “Now let me take a wild guess and say the way Joko Daishi liberates our souls is to get us all high.”
Hamaya admitted the smallest of smirks. “That would be illegal, Detective.”
“Now, what if the thing he was using to do the liberating was MDA?” Mariko said, making Hamaya shift his attention to her. She and Han made a habit of speaking in turns. They had a good rapport that way, each anticipating where the other was going, riffing off each other, always redirecting a suspect’s focus, never letting him feel settled. It worked on suspects’ lawyers too. “A nice high with some gentle hallucinations—good spiritual stuff, that. Pass enough of that around and you could probably start a cult.”
“Maybe so,” said Han. “Of course, he’d need a steady supply to make enough MDA for a whole cult to take part.”
“But wait,” said Mariko, “hasn’t your client been making deals with the Kamaguchi-gumi for whole barrels of hexamine?”
“That’s right,” said Han. “He’s been doing that for months, hasn’t he? Do you know what you can make with hexamine, Hamaya-san?”
“I’m sure I have no idea.”
“Well, your client does,” said Mariko. “I mean, he’d have to. He knows how to cook speed, after all. Lots of it. Enough to make himself very rich—rich enough to purchase expensive antiques, for instance. Masks, swords, that kind of thing. If he didn’t feel like stealing them, of course.”
Han poked Hamaya on the shoulder and whispered, “This is the part where you say, ‘Allegedly.’”
“Now, why would a guy who likes to cook amphetamines give a whole bunch of his product away?” said Mariko, laying claim to Hamaya’s most obvious legal riposte. She figured they might as well get a good look at it now, before the case went to court. Urano Soseki, the capo that oversaw the Kamaguchi-gumi’s shipping and packing plant, had claimed the same defense right from the outset, just minutes after Mariko had blasted him through that door: there was never any dope deal. No money had changed hands. In court Hamaya could make a mirroring claim on Akahata’s behalf: since the speed was in the Kamaguchi-gumi’s possession, it clearly belonged to them. A buy wasn’t a buy until someone paid for something.
That wouldn’t wash for Urano’s crew. Just having the speed on the premises was more than enough to convict them. But Akahata was innocent until proven guilty. Unless Mariko and Han could prove he’d been involved in the deal—and holding a big wad of dope money was the usual proof in these cases—Akahata’s only criminal activity that night had been as the victim of aggravated battery. She and Han always had the option of getting Urano to dime out Akahata, but Urano’s credibility as a witness wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. Mariko could take her turn on the stand, but she’d have a hard time convincing a jury why Akahata would use fifty or sixty kilos of speed to buy an old rusty mask, and an even harder time explaining how she’d discovered that information while hanging out in Kamaguchi Hanzo’s kitchen. Unless Akahata admitted to felony possession, Hamaya would see him walk.
But Hamaya ignored that line of defense completely. “No one gives contraband away for free, Officer.”
“Oh?” said Han. If Mariko read him right, he, like her, was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Hamaya gave them a thin smile. “Please. This little back-and-forth game of yours might work on some poor, hapless purse snatcher you drag into your interrogation room, but we’re all professionals here. There’s no need to insult my intelligence.”
Han was at a loss, literally dumbstruck. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t make it say anything.
Mariko jumped in: “Just what are you suggesting, Hamaya-san? Are you admitting your client’s guilty of felony possession? Trafficking? Conspiracy? What?”
“I don’t wish to be presumptuous, Officers, but allow me to hazard a guess as to your intentions. You expected me to claim my client is innocent. Had no part in the drug transaction, or something like this, at any rate. Since you’re utterly lacking in evidence, you’ve considered trying to get one of your other suspects to testify against him. Being good at your jobs, in all likelihood you’d succeed, and then my client would be sentenced to a very long prison term. Was that your plan, more or less?”
Mariko had never been belittled so politely in all her life. “Uh,” she said.
“I guess you think you’re pretty smart,” said Han, whose tone suggested he didn’t take kindly to having his mind read. “Well, two can play this game. You’re not really Akahata’s lawyer, are you? You’re here for his boss, this Joko Daishi, whatever the hell that means—”
“Great Teacher of the Purging Fire,” said Hamaya.
“—who, by the way, we’ve already got by the balls. We know he’s been buying the hexamine, we know he’s been cooking, and we know there’s a new amphetamine on the street called Daishi that’s selling like pointy ears at a Star Trek convention. We also know it’s the Kamaguchi-gumi that’s slinging the Daishi, and it’s only a matter of time before we confirm that your client is their delivery boy. Now we’ve got your boy and you’ve got a jabber-mouth tweaker spouting gibberish all day long. The boss-man starts worrying that his disciple might spout something incriminating, so he sends you down here for damage control. How am I doing so far? Is that the plan, more or less?”
Hamaya’s laugh chilled Mariko to the bone. An “okay, you got me” laugh would have suited her just fine. She’d even have taken a derisive “you cops are so goddamn stupid” laugh or a haughty “I’m far too big for you to touch me” laugh—something to make it clear that Han had him dead to rights. A humorless grin. A little swallow. The tiniest flicker of guilt. Anything. But Hamaya’s laugh conveyed an entirely different subtext: Not only are you not in the ballpark, but you’re not even in the right sport. We have even less to fear from you than we thought. You haven’t got the slightest clue of what you’re dealing with here.
Han had missed something. Something big. And Mariko couldn’t spot it either.
She did what she always did in such circumstances: she started collecting details. She couldn’t help it; it was just a habit of mind. And the first datum she caught was a cold light in Han’s eyes. He wasn’t responding with a detached curiosity like Mariko’s. He was furious.
Immediately her detective’s mind started seeking connections. She’d seen Han angry before. Losing what should have been a win in court on a trivial technicality. This wasn’t like that. Losing what shou
ld have been a win because the perp’s lawyer was just too damn good at his job. This wasn’t like that kind of anger either. Losing big at Lieutenant Sakakibara’s Thursday night poker table, getting conned on a hand that should have been a sure thing. That’s what this was. Han didn’t like it when people got into his head. Or rather, he didn’t like it when they got in uninvited. Mariko could read his mind all she liked. They were partners. But when Hamaya did it, he’d violated the most sacred kind of privacy. He’d intruded the sanctum sanctorum. And Han was ready to throw down with him for that.
“Han,” Mariko said, interposing herself between her partner and Hamaya, “why don’t you step outside for a second?”
“This prick knows his client’s guilty.”
“I know.”
Han’s face was getting red. Staring Hamaya right in the eye, he said, “He’s going to tell his client to run. He’s going to aid and abet a known criminal. I’m not going to stand here and let him do it.”
“You don’t have a choice,” said Hamaya, thoroughly enjoying himself. “I’m afraid Akahata-san hasn’t been charged with anything at this point, and until you convince one of your other suspects to attest otherwise, you only have an innocent assault victim and his attorney.”
“You’ll want to do yourself a favor and shut the hell up,” Mariko said, shooting him a quick glare over her shoulder. “Han, you need to take a walk. Outside. Right now.”
“Fuck this guy—”
“Please. For me? I’ll handle him.”
Han paused for a moment, tense, as if coiling to spring. Mariko started thinking about which restraining holds worked best from her current position. Then Han turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
“I daresay that got the nurses’ attention,” said Hamaya.
“You’re an asshole,” said Mariko.
“And you, Sergeant, are in over your head. There’s nothing you can do to prevent my client from walking out of here—”