Tokyo Zangyo

by Michael Pronko

  “I thought you liked to leave people hanging as bait?”

  “Not everyone.” Takamatsu blew his smoke up high into the air. “Did all the bank transfers line up?”

  “The money in and out of Mayu’s account matched the same amount in and out of Onizuka’s account.” Hiroshi waved at Sugamo across the parking lot.

  Sugamo flicked his headlights. Hiroshi and Takamatsu started walking to Sugamo through the busy, crowded lot.

  “But you know where the money went, right?” Takamatsu asked.

  “Chizu said she had something on tha, too. We’re supposed to meet her in the middle of the night to look over the files.”

  “You better go alone on that one.” Takamatsu chuckled. “She’s a looker.”

  “There’s nothing like that,” Hiroshi said.

  “There’s always something like that. Lighten up a bit. This case is getting to you.”

  Hiroshi grunted, but Takamatsu was right. She was a looker, and the case was getting to him. “Chizu said there’s a storage facility for all the files. Don’t you remember what the accountant Kato said?”

  Takamatsu cleared his throat. He didn’t remember. Maybe the case was getting to him, too, if he forgot a conversation. He usually recalled every minute detail.

  “Remember how Kato said they misfiled the important materials, so only a few people knew how to find them. I’m hoping Chizu is one of those people. If we raid the place, and Chizu stays silent, we’ll find nothing.”

  “Do you think Mayu knew that filing system too?”

  “She must have.”

  Takamatsu hummed. “Was Onizuka forcing Mayu to help him with embezzled funds or his own money?”

  “Or both. Or neither. That’s what we need to find out.” Hiroshi looked out the window.

  “I don’t like these company things. Too many bad guys in good suits. No wonder those women get chewed up there.” Takamatsu put out his cigarette.

  Sugamo stopped the car. Hiroshi got in the back and Takamatsu in the front.

  Sugamo pulled out of the lot and into traffic. “Where to?”

  “A woman’s support group, an S&M bar, and a storage facility,” Hiroshi said.

  “Won’t need evidence bags then?” Sugamo said.

  “Not the regular kind anyway,” Takamatsu said. “Nothing’s opened this case up yet, but maybe tonight’s trifecta will.”

  Hiroshi looked out the window. “They’re all we’ve got, but they each might take time.”

  “Another long night,” Sugamo said. I’ve been pulling double shifts at home, my wife’s working extra hours getting the budget done at her company.”

  “You can nap in the car outside,” Takamatsu said.

  “What’s your wife do?” Hiroshi asked.

  “Accounting, like you, but she’s just hakken. As much work as a regular employee, but half the pay.” Sugamo stopped at an intersection.

  “Temp workers are supposed to—”

  “Yeah, they’re supposed to be paid the same, but they aren’t. Not even close,” Sugamo said. “My wife knows exactly how much the full-time, regular employees make because she prepares the payment slips for them.” He honked the horn at a car that pulled across the intersection late. It was the first time Hiroshi had ever seen him impatient.

  “She should—”

  “She should have taken her job-hunting seriously as a student, but she didn’t. She shouldn’t have married a detective either. Now, with two kids, and my hours, she wishes she had more stability. Anyway, she’s studying for the next level of accounting license.” Sugamo looked at Hiroshi in the rearview mirror.

  “I can give her some tips sometime,” Hiroshi said.

  “Thanks,” Sugamo said. “Anyway I got some sleep after my kid fell asleep after school. They overwork the kids so they’re cranky and sleepy every day.”

  “Preparation for company life,” Takamatsu said.

  “What did I miss all day?” Sugamo asked.

  “Just the Senden press conference.”

  “Press theater, you mean?”

  “They handle PR for themselves first and foremost.”

  “What did they say?”

  Hiroshi added, “It was all apology, the universal solvent of Japanese society.”

  Takamatsu said, “If they wanted to really apologize, they would have all resigned.”

  Sugamo said, “How many did resign?”

  “Just one.” Hiroshi looked out the window. “Meanwhile, they made Onizuka appear to be a faithful employee, the embezzlement a mild mistake, and overtime a sign of conscientiousness. And then they presented the company as the premiere global corporation in Japan. Progressive regulations on overtime, new policies on harassment, a global vision based on foreign, and Japanese values both. It was a nicely wrapped package.”

  “I’ve never known you to be so sarcastic, Hiroshi.” Takamatsu turned to him in the back seat.

  “That’s your influence,” Hiroshi said.

  Sugamo pulled through a large four-way intersection and headed for the on-ramp for the Shuto Expressway that would take them crosstown to Kichijoji. Sugamo drove faster than he usually did.

  Hiroshi sighed and leaned against the glass. “After today, I can see how the Senden people are pros at PR. They can now keep us from digging into their accounts and into Onizuka’s death. They can just say it’s all taken care of, no need to help.”

  Takamatsu chuckled. “I was ready to toss this one back and forget about it. One dead salaryman, who cares? But it was the glue that did it for me.”

  “Did they find out more?” Sugamo asked.

  Takamatsu flicked his cigarette out the window. “If there was a video record of Onizuka anywhere in there, and if the company had helped us from the beginning, maybe I’d let it go. But now, we’ve got to take this all the way inside. There was glue all over the cameras, some put there recently, some years ago.”

  Hiroshi twisted in his seat. “Is this new insight coming from your intuition, your anger,or from the facts?”

  “Mostly from the lab guys. But I always follow my intuition. The facts fall into place after. Or at least before I write the report.”

  “But they don’t always fit, do they?” Sugamo asked.

  Takamatsu nodded. “Not always, no. I would like to have shoved Onizuka off the roof myself after hearing how he did things. But what you have to understand is that the last vestige of ancient feudal values resides in those corporations. If we were dealing with a more modern, more humanized institution, I’d say let them handle it internally, tell us the result. They should have disbanded the zaibatsu after the war.”

  “I thought they did.” Sugamo kept a steady pace along the expressway. Evening traffic was heavy and everyone seemed to be heading west.

  “The restructuring didn’t much affect the vertical connections between companies. If anything, the horizontal relations between industries were tightened and strengthened. Every company’s locked into every other one. That network is the economy.” Takamatsu turned and looked at Hiroshi and then at Sugamo. “Isn’t that right, Hiroshi?”

  Hiroshi nodded. “A single company produced everything from sugar to machinery to insurance. They hired textile workers, factory workers, architects, doctors, an army of workers all working together in the same family. Everything they produce is stamped with the family’s name, and everyone is part of the family. Senden’s a perfect example. They control everything, or think they do.”

  Sugamo grunted. “It’s like the historical dramas my wife watches on NHK. I can’t keep the connections straight.”

  “It’s impossible to keep them straight even when you know what they are,” Takamatsu said.

  Sugamo pulled the car to a stop in the heavy evening traffic, sighed and twisted to see how far the traffic jam stretched. “So, you’re suggesting Onizuka was murdered because he posed a threat to the company’s reputation?”

  “If it ends up being that easy, I’ll be happy,” Takamatsu said. “
I would have been happy to pin it on that American, but he couldn’t have set all that up.”

  “The father could have, though,” Hiroshi said.

  “You want to have another go at him? We hardly even pressed him before.” Takamatsu turned around again to look at Hiroshi. He turned back. “I believe the father, though.”

  “I bought his story too. And he told us a lot,” Hiroshi said. “And we’re supposed to be checking people off the list, but they seem to be staying on the list, and for more reasons.”

  Sugamo looked back at Hiroshi. “Even the dead guy himself is still a suspect.”

  Hiroshi got a text from Akiko of the tweets directed at Onizuka. There were even more than the ones Akiko found before.

  Hiroshi texted Akiko. “You’re a huge help.”

  “I know.”

  “Go home and get some sleep.”

  “And a long hot bath.”

  Hiroshi started explaining what Akiko had found. “The tech guys said these tweets all come from the same account, but the main point is that they become increasingly threatening.”

  “Threatening?” Sugamo asked.

  Hiroshi kept scrolling and reading. “We have all the tweets allowed into court during the trial.”

  “When Mayu’s mother sued the company?”

  “Yes, and another list of tweets that were disallowed at trial.”

  “Disallowed? Why would they—”

  “The company lawyers must have gone through and excluded them. Anyway, we can ask the lawyer again. The support group meeting, Overtime Anonymous, is at seven in the flower shop.” Hiroshi’s cellphone buzzed. Chizu texted where to meet later that night.

  Takamatsu turned around. “Is that the HR girl? She’s in the privacy of the toilet again?”

  Hiroshi nodded. “Must be.”

  “Let’s go get her. Where is she? I don’t like her wandering around,” Takamatsu said.

  “Are you going to bring the S&M mistress in too? Worried about her?” Hiroshi asked.

  “I’m worried about her in a different way, but she must know how to take care of herself. She’ll meet us at a bar later tonight.”

  Hiroshi called Chizu back, but she didn’t answer, and until they got to Kichijoji, she didn’t text back, either.

  Chapter 29

  Sugamo pulled close to the flower shop in Kichijoji. On the smaller streets farther from the station there was little traffic and the streetlights caught the heads and backs of bicyclists whizzing by and pedestrians heading home or out to dinner.

  Hiroshi got out across from the shop and planted his feet on the sidewalk, thinking. The flowers that spread along the sidewalk in the daytime had been taken inside, leaving a long row of windows on either side with dark-green houseplants blocking the view of the interior. A sign said “Closed,” but light trickled out.

  Takamatsu rolled the window down. “We’ll wait in the car. You won’t be long, will you? You’re just asking them about the tweets?”

  “If someone comes out, stop them,” Hiroshi said. “Suzuna’s got be the one who knew Mayu’s secrets, and the others probably know some of them too.”

  Sugamo and Takamatsu nodded in silence and looked for a good place to park the car, and for Takamatsu to smoke.

  Hiroshi knocked on the door, peering around the window shade. After a shuffle of chairs, muffled voices and soft steps, the door rattled open.

  Suzuna smiled at him, her face half-shadowed behind the door. In a thick wool sweater and blonde braids, she looked more like a Swiss farm girl than a Japanese city girl, but maybe that was the idea.

  “Are you looking for Toshiko, Mayu’s mother? She’s at home right now,” Suzuna said.

  “Actually, I was hoping to talk with you,” Hiroshi said.

  “Me?” Suzuna strained her face to smile. “Well, could we talk tomorrow?”

  “Tonight is better.” Hiroshi leaned toward her.

  Suzuna looked into the shop and then back at Hiroshi. “We’re having a meeting now. Could it wait?”

  “Is this your support group meeting? Mayu’s mother told me about it. Maybe I could pick up something from the other people, something that would help.”

  Suzuna looked back inside again, keeping the door half covering herself. “We mostly just complain.”

  “That’s just what I’d like to hear. Mind if I take a little time from your meeting?” Hiroshi pushed forward and Suzuna stepped back.

  From the counter where he’d eaten lunch two days before, Hiroshi saw the startled faces of the group of women staring at him, squinting curiously.

  The rich smell of plants and earth, so powerful and pleasant in the day, was stronger at night. Suzuna locked the door and followed him back to the circle.

  Hiroshi smiled at the women, all in their late twenties or early thirties. They seemed to be holding their breath. “I’m Detective Hiroshi and I’m just following up on Mayu. And Onizuka. Do you mind if I sit down and ask a few questions? It would help immensely with the investigation.”

  The women looked confused, but one stood up and offered him her chair. Hiroshi sat down and nodded politely. They averted their eyes. Only Suzuna looked at him, her face hard with concern.

  One woman, slightly older-looking than the rest, said, “We were about finished for today.”

  One of the women had red eyes, a wet nose, and downcast eyes, clutching a wad of wet tissues. Hiroshi must have interrupted her story.

  Suzuna said, “I guess everyone can—”

  “I’d like everyone to stay, actually,” Hiroshi said. “I think my questions concern all of you.”

  Suzuna looked at him more closely.

  Hiroshi pulled out the printed list of tweets that Akiko had given him and placed it on the table.

  The women, who had not introduced themselves, scanned it one by one and passed it on without reaction.

  “Do any of you know who wrote these?” Hiroshi pulled the list up on his cellphone and read off the threats. “‘Onizuka should be killed.’ ‘Beat the bucho.’ ‘Harass him.’ ‘Resign or die.’ ‘Resignation letter up his ass.’ I’m sure all of these are just for fun and not unusual at most workplaces. But then again, Mayu and Onizuka dying at the same place is too much coincidence.”

  The women fidgeted in their chairs, but Hiroshi could read nothing from their faces.

  Suzuna took a breath. “We wrote those as therapy.”

  “Therapy?”

  “To express our feelings, let them out.”

  “Feelings?”

  “They weren’t serious.”

  “They’re serious now. Onizuka’s dead.”

  The women sat quietly staring at the table until Suzuna spoke. “Our support group is for survivors of corporate harassment. We call it ‘Overtime Anonymous.’ We’ve met with psychologists, therapists, doctors. They all said the same thing, find your voice. So, we did.”

  “Your voice?” Hiroshi put his cellphone away and they passed the list of tweets back to him. He let it sit on the table.

  The woman sitting closest to Hiroshi, the one who had been crying, said, “I was terribly depressed when I quit my job. It was a big company like Senden. I sat in front of my computer for two months, barely eating, and then I tried to commit suicide. But I took the wrong pills.” She laughed. “I had no way to free myself from the pressure and shame until I came here. I had failed in society’s eyes, in my parents’ eyes.”

  The woman next to her, a small girl in a Disney sweatshirt and with multiple piercings, said, “My name is Shio. My parents were so proud when I made it to the top ad agency in Japan. I started at the same time as Mayu, and I quit right after she…she…died. I tried to explain to my parents, but they couldn’t understand what it was like to never go on a date, to pour beer for old male bosses at cheap izakaya, address envelopes all day, to never have my own life. I was dying there. This group saved me.”

  A big, plump woman on the other side of the table said, “My name is Masayo. When I was being haras
sed, I ignored it by shopping. The only thing that meant anything to me was buying clothes and shoes. I never even wore them. I would shop online, on the train, at lunch, in the bath. My apartment was so crammed with purchases I couldn’t move. I had two dozen credit cards, all maxed out. It was financial suicide.”

  The other women looked down at the table in silence.

  Suzuna said, “Our tweets were angry, but they weren’t serious.”

  Masayo, the plump woman, said, “When I saw #hatemyboss, #bosshole, #buchoasshole, hashtags that Suzuna thought up in English, I started to understand. And I started to laugh again. I worked in Onizuka’s section, too, for a while, and hated him. I was lucky to be transferred.”

  Shio said, “And did you see the tweets Onizuka sent out? He sent out dozens a day criticizing the work of Mayu and everyone else. Our tweets were nothing. We had to fight back.”

  Hiroshi wondered why the tech guys didn’t find any of Onizuka’s tweets.

  “Didn’t you report these issues to the HR department?” Hiroshi’s phone kept buzzing, but he ignored it.

  Masayo spoke up. “Of course we did. I learned later that many of my senpai had reported Onizuka for years, but the HR people only replied that Onizuka was so important to the company, which was a way of saying how unimportant we were. He was a horrible man. He called me ‘fattie’ every time he saw me.”

  The small girl in the Disney T-shirt, Shio, said, “He kept saying he wanted to make us stronger, but most of us didn’t learn any practical skills at university. All we brought to the company was our willingness to work and our ability to think. And that’s what Onizuka and the company tried to kill off.”

  The woman closest to Hiroshi, who’d been crying, said, “I’m sorry Onizuka is dead, but I’m not surprised. Mayu was stronger than all of us combined. Look what happened to her.”

  “And Onizuka gambled,” Suzuna said.

  Shio said, “He’d curse about his horse racing bets in the middle of the day, whether he won or lost.”

  “And bicycle, boat, and motorcycle races. He had Mayu do research on them for him,” Suzuna said.

  Shio said, “We all wanted to finish work so we could relax at night, but he wasted all day with his selfish activities and then forced us to work overtime.” Her Disney T-shirt reminded Hiroshi that these women went from wide-eyed Disney fan to solemn corporate worker with no transition in between.