Still in the chair, I opened the fridge next to me. I took out a can of Budweiser and popped the top. The fizz vigorously overflowed down my fingers.
I had a mouthful and put the can on the desk. I examined Juri’s expression anew. She stared back at me dubiously, looking a little creeped out.
It was time for me to decide. Hearing my proposal, how would this girl react? If she turned me down, it’d be game over at that moment. She’d simply tell her father just how crazy in the head Shunsuke Sakuma was. Without a doubt, her father would tell Kozuka and demand that I be fired immediately. Kozuka could never go against Katsutoshi Katsuragi. I would be driven out of the company.
But clinging to Cyberplan as things stood would just make me miserable. In that case, I wanted a match.
I was remembering the arcade games I played as a kid. After Space Invaders went out of style, countless others appeared. When a new one came out, I would go by the arcade. Backed by colorful images, the machine would propose a duel.
INSERT COIN—it was the same as then.
I opened my mouth at last. “How about a game?”
“A game?” Juri looked suspicious.
“A game that’ll grant your wish. You’ll be able to snatch from the Katsuragis whatever you’re worth. I get compensated, too.”
“What are you up to?”
“Asks who? This was your idea in the first place.” I took the can of beer in hand again. Gulping it down, I fixed her with a gaze and continued, “A kidnapping game.”
4
When she entered the condo unit, before taking off her shoes, Juri’s nose twitched.
“Do you smell something?” I asked.
“No. I thought it’d smell more like a man. But it smells pretty good. Is it mint?”
“It’s just the deodorant. I don’t like the room to smell, either. Even if it’s my own smell.”
My place was a one bedroom. Juri sat down on the loveseat in the living room. She looked around and said, “So you keep it pretty clean.”
“I clean it up once a week.”
“Huh, you don’t look like you would.”
“If you make a habit out of it, it’s nothing. The important thing is to make sure that you don’t collect too much stuff. I keep throwing out all the extra stuff. If you do that, cleaning up isn’t hard at all. As long as you have thirty minutes, you can get it done. One week is ten thousand eighty minutes, so if you just put in some effort for thirty minutes, you can spend about ten thousand minutes in comfort. But if you don’t put in the thirty minutes of effort, you’ll have to spend ten thousand minutes in discomfort.”
As she listened to me, Juri made a blatantly disgusted face. “Do you have anything to drink?” she asked.
“Should I put on a pot of coffee?”
She didn’t nod. She had her eyes on a Swedish board placed on the wall. “Some liquor would be nice.”
She was such a cheeky girl. But tonight I’d humor her. “Okay. Beer, scotch, bourbon, brandy, sake,” I listed, putting up my fingers. “What do you want?”
Juri crossed her legs, then her arms. “I want Dom Pérignon. Pink.”
Did she want me to slap her? But I held back. “Usually I have two or three refrigerated, but last night I happened to drink my last one. I do have wine, though, if you’ll pardon me.”
Juri sighed, or rather, huffed, “It can’t be helped, I guess. Make it red then.”
She must have been trying to come across as an adult woman. Well, I’d put her in a good mood. “Understood, mademoiselle.”
I had Italian wine that I’d received as a gift lying in the corner of my cupboard. I used a screw-type opener to pull the cork.
Tilting her glass, Juri took some time mouthing the wine. I predicted she’d say it was a little young or something like that.
But she nodded as though satisfied. “Yeah, it’s good.”
“Glad to hear it. Are you selective about your wine?”
“Not really,” she denied unceremoniously. “If I drink it and I think it tastes good, that’s good enough. Remembering the maker is too much work.”
“But you know Dom Pérignon.”
“It’s the only champagne I know. My dad likes to say, ‘Dom Pérignon equals champagne, and anything else is a different drink.’”
Katsutoshi Katsuragi’s face wandered into my mind. I had to object. “Champagne just means a fizzy wine made in the Champagne region. But it’s not just Dom Pérignon.”
Juri shook her head at this. “Actually, how to make champagne was a secret process handed down at the Hautvillers monastery in Champagne. Then it spread to the entire region. The person who invented that process was the cellar master of the monastery, Dom Pérignon. That’s why Dom Pérignon is the true champagne.”
“Well, well.” I knocked back my cheap red wine. “That was illuminating.”
It was revolting. Katsutoshi Katsuragi probably spouted wisdom like that tilting his champagne flute.
“Anyway, I want to continue on with what we talked about earlier,” I said.
“About the game?” As expected, Juri’s expression became tense.
“Of course. I want to check one more time that you’re serious about doing this.”
“If I weren’t I wouldn’t have come here.”
“Give it to me straight. Are you feeling up to a kidnapping game or not? If you’re hesitating, tell me. Depending on the case, I’ll give you time to think.”
But at my words, she shook her head as though annoyed. “I told you I didn’t run away from home as a joke, didn’t I? I even have a grudge against the Katsuragis. I’m in.”
“All right. Then how about a toast before we begin.” I refilled our wine glasses and lifted mine. “May victory be ours.”
Juri also hoisted her glass and clinked it against mine.
It wasn’t as though I had an amazing strategy. Everything was still up in the air at this stage. But, for the first time in a while, I was excited. It was my response to coming across a game that was worth the challenge.
“There are two or three things I need to check.” I put up my index finger. “First, after you left home, did you talk to anyone? For instance, did you call any friends?”
Juri immediately shook her head. “There’s no way I’d do that. I’d be in trouble if they told on me.”
“Right. Then next, go over what you’ve been doing from yesterday to today. Uhh, you said you went to a family restaurant. Which one?”
“Why do you need to dig so deep?”
“Because I want to know who you’ve come into contact with. If, by some chance, someone remembered your face, that would be a hassle.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
“Listen. Why do you think criminals get caught by the police? Because they’re all careless about their actions. You need to be conscious of where you left what traces, otherwise you can’t anticipate the police’s movements.”
“But do you think the waitress at the restaurant would remember me? She meets tons of guests day in and day out. There were dozens even when I went. I bet she doesn’t take a decent look at the guests’ faces.”
“I’d love to think so. But we need to be aware that your face was seen.”
Juri sighed. “It’s the Denny’s when you go out of the hotel and go straight right. While I’m at it, I had shrimp doria, a salad, and coffee.”
I took the notepad and pen from the phone stand and jotted down: Denny’s, shrimp doria, salad, coffee. “Did you sit at the counter?”
“I took a window table. The smoking area wasn’t as crowded.”
“You didn’t do anything that’d make an impression on anyone there?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Was any guest staring at you?”
“Why would anyone?”
“You’re pretty beautiful, so some guy might have wanted to hit on you,” I replied, looking at Juri’s well-proportioned features.
Without even smiling, she turned
her face away. “There may have been, but I didn’t notice anyone. I try to make as little eye contact as I can in those kinds of places anyway.”
“Appropriately,” I commended her. “What about after you left the restaurant?”
“I went to a convenience store and bought snacks and juice.” She must have meant the fare that had been scattered over the bed.
“Where?”
“Across from the restaurant.”
I knew that store well. It sold alcohol, so I’d been there to buy a beer in the middle of the night. “You just bought snacks and juice, right? You didn’t chat with any employee?”
“He was an older guy who looked like he’d just been laid off. He had his hands full just trying not to mess up at the register.”
“So you just went home after the convenience store.” Seeing her nod, I continued, “Did any of the people in the hotel see you?”
“Who knows.” Juri tilted her head. “When I got back to the hotel, I went by the front so someone might have seen me. I didn’t think something like this would happen.”
“I understand. That’s okay.”
I looked over the notepad in my hand. That meant the people who had likely seen Juri were the restaurant waitress, the convenience store employee, and the Polar Hotel staff. But if I took her for her word, then during that time she hadn’t had any conversations that would leave an impression on anyone.
“The problem is when there’s a public criminal investigation. If your profile shot went around the metropolitan area, one of those people you just brought up might remember you.”
“Impossible.”
“I think so too, but it’s when that impossibility happens to occur that a premeditated crime fails. We can’t be relaxed.”
“Then what should we do?”
“All we can do is put a nail in it before your photo goes public. Although it’s unsophisticated, it’s likely we’ll be telling them that line.”
“That line?”
“There’s a line that you often hear in kidnapping dramas, isn’t there? If you tell the police, your kid’s as good as dead. It’s so clichéd that it’s embarrassing.”
“Ah. But isn’t that something you need to say anyway?”
“Why?”
“Well…”
I put down the notepad and poured the remaining wine into my glass. I crossed my legs up on the sofa. “No matter what I say, your father will go to the police. He’s that kind of person. So there’s no point in telling him, Don’t go to the police. It’s a frill. It’s something I’d love to have left out if I could.”
Juri was silent. She seemed to know that Katsutoshi Katsuragi wasn’t the type to be frightened by a kidnapper’s threats.
“Then again, even if I don’t say that stuff, I don’t think the police would go public with it. It’s just in case. More than that, we need to think about what happens afterwards. You’d be safely protected, but you can’t recklessly expose yourself to the paparazzi. For the reason I just gave. We don’t know who might have seen you between yesterday and today.”
At that she turned her wide eyes to me. “You’re already thinking about the aftermath?”
“Naturally. Without an idea of the final shape of things, we couldn’t ever hatch a plan to get us there.”
“And that final shape is you and I winning?”
“Needless to say. I always try to picture victory, or rather, I’m the kind of guy who can’t picture things any other way.” I tilted my glass and savored the bitterness of the red wine.
“If it goes well, I plan on going abroad. So I don’t intend to subject myself to the media or be interviewed.”
“Fine, though completely shutting out reporters will be hard. But they’ll probably agree to a request not to show your face.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” she consented docilely, which was unlike her.
“Then let’s say that we’ve resolved the matter of who witnessed you after you ran away from home.” I took the notepad and pen in my hands again. “Tell me about what happened before you ran away from home. It’s important.”
“Before I ran away?”
“Yesterday night, I only saw you as you left. I want you to tell me where you were until then and what you did. If you can, tell me about your behavior in detail throughout the day.”
“I suppose that’s important, too?”
“Would I ask if it wasn’t?” I tapped the pen’s point against the pad twice. “You got this? With a kidnapping, the police will first try to figure out when and how you were abducted. That’s because they have a good chance of putting together a profile of the perp from those conditions. Long story short, if no one could have kidnapped you, they might start suspecting it’s a charade.”
Juri had a long face. But it seemed she’d understood what I said. “I didn’t really meet with anyone yesterday,” she offered.
“Please don’t be vague like that. That won’t be useful at all.”
She glared at me indignantly. “I can’t help it.”
“Then, let me ask you this way. Who did you last see?”
“That would be…” Juri tilted her head to think, and answered without righting it. “Chiharu…I guess.”
“Who is that?”
“Papa’s second wife’s kid.”
“Ah, your half-sister. So her name’s Chiharu. How do you write it?”
“‘Thousand’ and ‘spring’ as in the season.” She snorted. “What an uncool name.”
“I don’t think it’s so bad. So, when did you see her? In the house, right?”
“After dinner. Around eight. I was at the bathroom sink, and Chiharu came in. We didn’t exchange any words, though, I don’t think.”
“And then?”
“I went to my room and watched TV. Like always. I’m always by myself like that ’til morning.”
“You really didn’t see anyone? It’s really important so try to remember.”
Juri shook her head, like she couldn’t bother to. “After dinner, everyone holes up in their own room, so normally I don’t see anyone. Chiharu always seems to be sleeping over somewhere, but I don’t think her parents know. She just needs to be back in her room by breakfast.”
Just four family members in that huge mansion—perhaps it made sense. “So you ate with your mom and Chiharu, just the three of you?”
Katsutoshi Katsuragi would have been in the middle of a business dinner with Kozuka at that time. Tasting expensive dishes, he must have ordered that the incompetent Shunsuke Sakuma be dropped from the project.
“I was alone during dinner.”
“Alone? Why?”
“It seemed like the two of them had gone out. That kind of thing happens a lot. I find it more comfortable, though.”
“So did you prepare dinner by yourself?”
I’d have been a little surprised, but she quickly shook her head. “Of course not. Ms. Saki makes it for us. Oh, that’s right. Ms. Saki was there during dinner.”
“Ms. Saki? That’s a name that hasn’t come up yet.”
“She’s our helper. She commutes all the way from Osaki.”
So they had a house servant. That was only natural, come to think of it.
“When are her working hours?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think she usually comes around the afternoon. She does the cleaning and laundry, and buys the groceries, and also makes dinner. She goes home at different times depending on the day, but usually before dinner. Yesterday, though, I think she was cleaning up the kitchen while I was eating.”
“So after you finished eating, she went home.”
“I assume she did.”
“During dinner, did you talk?”
“Of course we did. We couldn’t just be together and not speak, could we?”
“What did you talk about? Nothing hinting at running away from home, I hope?”
“Why would I? I didn’t mean to at that point.”
“I see.” I circled Chiharu
’s name, which I had written on the notepad. “You told me yesterday about why you were done with the Katsuragis, but I thought there had to be some reason for your impulsive escapade. It seems your talking to Chiharu after dinner was it. Didn’t something happen then?”
For a moment, Juri’s face became like a mask. She folded her arms, then pouted. “She complained that I used the cream.”
“The cream?”
“The cosmetic cream. I just borrowed a little from the one in the washroom.”
“A-ha.” I nodded. “And then you had an argument.”
“We didn’t. We don’t quarrel. Times like that, I just apologize, it’s on me. I’m used to it because it happens all the time. But yesterday she was a little persistent. She kept on complaining no matter what.”
“So you got pissed off and ran away from home?”
“After I got to my room, I just got more and more frustrated. I suppose you could say I felt miserable. Anyway, I didn’t want to be in that house for a second longer.”
Just like a grade school kid, I thought, but I held my tongue.
Looking at my notes, I tried to organize the info. I’d have to think of a story that didn’t contradict the material she’d given me.
“You said Chiharu sometimes stays over somewhere. What about you? You ran away from home yesterday, but have you ever slipped away to go out like her?”
“It’s not like I haven’t ever. But not as frequently as Chiharu. I have the right to enjoy my best years, too.”
“Your best years, huh.” If a thirty-something man threw that out, it’d probably reek of old age, but why did it sound so fresh coming out of a young woman’s mouth? “And for that, you climb over the wall like you did yesterday?”
“I usually leave through the back door. But last night I didn’t want to be on the security camera no matter what, so I went for the wall. Depending on the camera angle, it’d show me if I went out the back door.”
“Going out is no piece of cake, huh? Did you ever stay out overnight?”
“I might have…a few times.” Looking like she was recalling those instances, she shrugged her shoulders.
“I forgot a crucial bit. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Right now I’m single. It’s like whenever people find out I’m a daughter of the Katsuragis, they keep their distance.”
The Name of the Game Is a Kidnapping Page 5