by Sam Waite
Compared with the first time I saw him, Morimoto was walking on the spry side of jaunty. Big change. Maybe he'd gotten lucky in love. Or lucky in work. I wished for the latter. He asked the receptionist to bring coffee, and then led me to a meeting room. He kept a folder close to his chest and made small talk until the receptionist brought coffee. It must have been another of his rituals. He shoved the cup aside and laid the folder in its place.
"I found more money."
"That was paid to Hosoi?"
He nodded.
"How much?"
"Fifty-thousand dollars, paid in U.S. dollars from a bank in the Caymans."
"Any connection to Dorian?"
"I don't know who paid it. I only know the bank that it came from, and when. The deposit was made the day before Hosoi-san was killed. I don't think it came from Mr. Dorian."
"Why not?"
"The same amount was transferred out of Hosoi-san's account back to the Cayman bank. That transfer was made the day after she died."
"While Dorian was a guest of Tokyo prosecutors."
Morimoto nodded.
"Most of the other deposits were in cash, but there was one bank-to-bank transfer of three million yen that came from a trading company."
That was about the annual salary of an office clerk.
"Why a trading company?" Nothing I learned about Hosoi indicated she was likely to set up an import-export shop.
"I don't know the relationship, but the company, Ukeda Trading, is known to be used by money washers."
"Money launderers."
"I know." Morimoto looked like a cat that had been scolded for bringing home a wounded canary. "It's hard to pronounce laun...der..."
"Money washers." I liked him better spunky.
"The company's owners are Chinese. They send money out of Japan for workers who don't have proper visas, mostly Chinese and Southeast Asians."
"You said Ukeda Trading is known to wash money. Who knows?"
"Bankers, Mr. Sanchez. Also, the authorities, I assume. It is not so unusual. Other companies send money to North Korea from ethnic Koreans born in Japan. They control a lot of the Pachinko business. That's an irony, isn't it? Japanese pinball has been a big source of foreign exchange for North Korea even as it threatens the country with nuclear missiles."
If it was, it wasn't one I cared about. The only irony I was interested in was the open-and-shut murder case against my client, who I was convinced was not guilty.
"Any idea what it means?" I said.
"Not yet. The account was not on the list that Hosoi-san's brother gave us. It was the same name, Ai Yoshida, but in a different bank."
"How'd you find it?"
"I know the questions to ask. Information is traded among banks on individual accounts."
Morimoto was on home turf now and was clearly proud of what he'd pulled off. Yuri had said he had likely been a bantam rooster at the bank. I saw what she meant.
"Obviously, I couldn't have the information sent to me. I still have ties to people in my former bank. There are ways I can help them. Someone agreed to accept the account data that I asked for, and then pass it along to me."
"Outstanding. Just curiosity, but how can you help your former colleagues?"
"Debt collection. We have always used people who could—" He scratched his head. "—intimidate."
"Like yakuza?"
He nodded.
"Banks hired gangsters?"
He caught my twinge and tried to rationalize the banks' actions. "It used to be legal. That is, until some years ago when anti-gang laws were passed.
"We weren't as bad as consumer loan companies. They would take out life insurance on borrowers and sometimes they would harass them for payment until they committed suicide. Then they collected the payout. With new laws, it's more difficult than ever to collect loans, but also more dangerous to use those people. I'm a convenient liaison."
I realized my mouth was open. I closed it slowly. There was more to Morimoto, and to Japanese banking for that matter, than I had guessed.
I'd learned a lot from an off-hand question. Morimoto didn't seem to hide anything, but he didn't volunteer much either. The trick was to ask the right questions. I took a sip of coffee to give myself time to think. Before I set the cup down, a young man opened the door, bowed in apology and began talking to Morimoto. I couldn't follow what he said, but Morimoto's expression indicated bad news. The man bowed again and left.
"Taen-san has been taken to a hospital."
"Yuri? What happened?"
"She was beaten. When an ambulance got to her, she was still unconscious on the street."
Chapter 6
The hospital was in a university district in Central Toyo. I didn't know the area, so Morimoto drove. Yuri's complexion was pallid, but her eyes looked as sharp as ever.
"What happened," I asked.
"I got clobbered."
"I see that. Who was it?"
"I was hit from behind."
"Where were you?"
"Look, why don't you just let me tell the story before you ask questions."
I held my hands up.
"I went to a coffee shop near Foxx Starr to check the bug we planted in Ito's office. There was nothing for several minutes, and then the phone rang. I couldn't guess who Ito was talking to, but she made an appointment to meet someone in thirty minutes. I took the scooter to a spot where I could see the entrance to the Foxx Starr building. She left with a man who looked like he did a lot of power lifting."
"Panther," I said.
Yuri scowled. "I followed them. He was driving and made a quick right turn in front of oncoming traffic. There was no way I could stay with them, so I went down a block and made a U-turn. By the time I caught up with them, the driver was helping Ito out of the car in front of a restaurant. It was a narrow street, so the only thing I could do was to ride past them.
"I turned onto a side street, chained the scooter to a tree and walked back to the restaurant. I think I irritated a waiter by refusing tables until he offered one that gave me an angle to watch Ito. She was sitting with a man with salt-and-pepper hair. There was something about him that seemed out of place. His suit didn't fit well even though his mannerisms were impeccably refined, and he was clearly accustomed to expensive restaurants like the one we were in.
"I was able to get a few photos of them with my phone. One of them shows him handing Ito a small black shopping bag. She smiled when she took it, but didn't look inside. He paid the check. It was risky, but I left enough on the table to cover my bill and followed him out. Ito gave me a funny look as I walked past her, but I didn't think there was any reason for her to suspect anything. Anyway, I followed him to a subway, and got on the same train.
"He got off after four stops. I followed and that's when it happened. Never saw it coming."
Yuri was quiet for a while.
"Where was it?"
"In Kabutocho, where most of the government buildings are. That might explain the man. He might be in the bureaucratic elite, but with a middling salary."
"If he were top tier, he'd be paid well and likely have a driver," I said.
Morimoto cleared his throat. "Maybe the meeting was secret even from his driver."
I raised an eyebrow and briefly considered giving Morimoto a friendly punch on the arm.
"That's all I remember."
She hadn't seen who had hit her and she wasn't sure the man she saw with Ito was Panther, but I was certain of it.
If he'd had better sense, or better instructions, he would have snatched Yuri's purse. That would have given him her identity, if he didn't already know it, plus the camera and the receiver. He hadn't. He hit and ran.
Morimoto briefed Yuri quickly on what he had found from bank records, but she was in no condition to think about the case. Her concentration drifted as he spoke.
A nurse with the effervescence of a high school cheerleader interrupted to take Yuri's vital signs. Four other beds in th
e six-woman room were occupied. Curtains around each bed were only partially drawn or fully opened in a cavalier regard for privacy. The room was clean, but depressingly bleak. I asked Morimoto if we could arrange for a transfer to a better facility.
He was surprised that I'd asked. The hospital, he said, was known for having competent staff and technologically advanced equipment.
I'd have to take his word for it. The nurse used an ear thermometer that took about two seconds to register. I'd never seen that. Guess the place just needed paint.
The nurse didn't shoo us out, but she told Morimoto that Yuri needed rest more than anything else.
Apparently Yuri agreed. She managed to direct me to her purse and the digital camera inside before she waved her hand good riddance and closed her eyes.
After we left, I handed Morimoto the camera. "Can you do anything with that? It'll probably be hard to make an ID just from photographs."
"Probably, we have a data base and software that can recognize faces, but..."
"It's a long shot."
My self-assigned role was to come back to the hospital, bring flowers and stage a bedside or visiting-room vigil. Handholding probably wouldn't help Yuri. It might, however, help me atone for not having seen the danger and to calm a growing rage.
I didn't know yet where or when or under what circumstances, but before long Panther would have a reckoning with El Jaguar Sanchez. But I'd have to be careful. This was his jungle.
* * * *
When I got back to the hotel, I asked the concierge to have flowers sent to Yuri's room. I didn't know enough about her preferences, so I left the arrangement up to the florist. I also had roses sent to my room for me to take to her the next day. I couldn't decide between candy or fruit, so I ordered chocolate-covered strawberries. Whoever invented those deserved some kind of medal.
I left for the hospital the next morning, hoping I had my bases covered. I needn't have worried. Yuri was not in her room. A nurse with a dark complexion, flat features and a frosty manner explained that Yuri had left against doctor's orders. With my rudimentary Japanese, the nurse's sprinkling of English and a sketchpad, the telling took some effort. The nurse was busy. She was frazzled.
I gave her the roses and chocolate-covered strawberries and walked out.
Morimoto was at his desk when I called Protect Agency. Yuri hadn't checked in. She was on sick leave and wasn't expected to call.
I explained about the hospital and asked for her home phone number.
"I can't give it to you. It's against policy."
"We're on the same case. Doesn't that make us partners?"
"It's a company policy. You're not in the company."
"I'll say 'please.' If you say 'no' again, I'll go there with a crowbar and tear the door off its hinges."
Silence.
"Just a minute." He gave me the number. Probably thought I was serious.
I was.
On the third ring, a man answered. Somehow, this morning I had woken up in Wonderland, but I didn't feel much like Alice. Soon I heard Yuri's voice.
"What happened?" I said.
"Wu' do ya mean?"
"Last I heard, you had a concussion. You should be in the hospital."
"I have bad memories of hospitals. I don't like 'em, don't trust 'em."
"Fair enough, but you could have called me."
"What for? I thought you had a case to work on."
"I..." I had planned to spend all day making sure she was okay. Time that I didn't have to waste. "I was worried."
"Well don't be. I felt better this morning, and I have someone here to watch me for a couple 'a days."
"I didn't think you had a brother."
"I don't."
"You don't have any women friends, either?"
"What? What's that supposed to mean?" The anger that trickled into her speech couldn't be good for her health.
"Nothing."
"What do you care?"
"Goodbye, Yuri."
I couldn't even vent my frustration on Abe Granger. I tried to conjure up visions of my giving him hell in a mental catharsis, but couldn't. It wasn't just anger. I could deal with that. I felt at odds with the whole culture here, genteel on the surface, but hostile in a myriad of subtle ways.
Morimoto the Meek used the word "intimidator," in the context of debt collection and spoke as though intimidation was acceptable practice. I wondered how many deadbeats or just folks down on their luck Morimoto was responsible for sending to hospitals from stress-induced ailments without ever knowing he had done so.
I'd thought Yuri and I had enough of a personal relationship that she would at least acknowledge my concern. That bothered me more than it should. The man taking care of her was not my business. He shouldn't bother me at all, but he did.
With my role as nursemaid taken, I had no agenda for the day. It was time to have a long talk with Dorian's lawyers. Even as I rolled that through my mind, however, I knew I was headed for something quite different.
The rage was back, and I welcomed it.
* * * *
I showed a taxi driver the way to Foxx Starr. Admonitions to myself to be careful had been seared away. It didn't matter whose jungle I was in anymore. My rational ego was no longer in charge. It had lost a power struggle to an id that smelled blood.
The tattooed lady was at her desk and was surprised to see me. She said Ito wasn't in, even though I hadn't asked. I walked to the door to her office and opened it.
The receptionist hadn't lied. Ito wasn't in. Neither was the Panther, but someone I took to be an angry young protégé was. The man was on his feet and telling me in guttural street language to get out. He was about my height, but was only a light-heavy weight at best. I walked toward him. His hand flashed out, seized my collar and twisted.
So much for intimidation.
I grabbed his neck in one hand, pressed my thumb into his throat and marched him into Ito's desk. He fell backwards onto it. I brought my knee hard into his groin, lifted him off the desk and punched his face.
He landed a haymaker on my forehead.
I hit him on the jaw and thought the bone might have cracked. I hit him again in the same spot. He went down. I dropped to one knee that landed in the middle of his back, grabbed a handful of hair to hold his head in place and cocked my fist to slam into his temple.
At that instant, my rational ego welled up and forced its way back into control. With his head on the floor, there would have been no give, no dissipation of energy except into his cranium. No way out for either of us, if I landed that punch.
I looked for another target. His jaw was clearly broken. Maybe a rib. Maybe an arm.
Maybe it was time to go.
The tattooed lady was on the phone when I walked past her desk. She looked like she was calling for help. Not much chance it was the police.
I went down the first subway entrance I came to and changed trains at random just to put distance between me and Foxx Starr. Eventually, I made my way back to the hotel. I had lost a button, my collar was wrinkled and my knuckle was bleeding. Maybe the concierge wouldn't notice. I nodded and gave him a cheerful, "Good afternoon."
Apparently he had noticed. A mini first-aid kit was on my bed when I got out of the shower. I didn't remember hitting the guy in the mouth, but I must have raked the knuckle of my little finger across his teeth. The cut was deep. A patch of skin had also been scrapped off my ankle. I hadn't remembered that either. My knee throbbed. I probably got a piece of Ito's desk when I hit the guy in the groin.
"Clumsy" would have been a compliment. "Oafish" struck closer to home. If I'd gone against the Panther, I'd be the one with the broken jaw, or worse. He wouldn't care much about the consequences of hammering my head against the floor.
I replayed my mistakes. Instead of throat-grabbing and kneeing, one punch under the nose should have taken the guy out. A twist of his wrist and pressure against the elbow might have worked. A kick, instead of a knee, to the groin would
have brought him down. A dozen post facto scenarios played out better than real life.
They always did.
I needed a drink, but I'd stared into that abyss before and didn't like what I'd seen. A drink when I wanted one was all right. "Need" was different. It was unquenchable.
The hotel had a modest workout room for executives to burn off power lunches. The concierge and I were getting to be buddies. I called and asked if there was a better equipped gym that he could get me into.
He sent me to a place called Tipness, another product of the random-name conspiracy that seemed to be in charge of Japanese marketing. A young woman at the desk apologetically asked for the equivalent of about thirty dollars, for a single session, then a little extra for a towel. It didn't bother me. I intended to get my money's worth.
I started out with squats. After warm-ups, I loaded one hundred fifty kilos onto the bar. It was only three hundred thirty pounds, but I couldn't quite get to a ninety degree squat. Normally, I could handle that much easily. Today, my knee objected in the only way it knew how—with spasms of pain. My rational ego didn't care. It was payback-to-id time. In six sets, I'd worked down to a hundred kilos. Next, I went to leg presses, leg curls and calf raises. I switched to upper body with bench press, incline dumbbell, butterfly, tricep extensions, stomach crunches with twenty kilos on my chest, pull-ups, and dumbbell rows. Two hours after I'd started, I strained through my last set of one-arm curls with ten kilos.
I was purged, physically and emotionally.
I'd found the exit from Wonderland. The yakuza was a man, not a panther. Dorian was a client, not a cause. And Yuri was a colleague, nothing more.
At the hotel, I had a glass of amontillado and a light supper. Then I went to my room, turned off the alarm and slept.
Chapter 7
During the night, wind and rain had cleansed the air and politely ended their task before the city awoke. I stood at the window and breathed slow and deep. With each breath a pulse teased through my body, gently invigorating it. Mt. Fuji's distant snowcap shone stark in the sun against pristine blue. Wind whisked veils of snow from Fuji's peak and scoured the sky in what seemed an affirmation of my own catharsis.