A Dog in Water (16 page)

The line went dead. Kanemitsu took a long drag of a meth-laced cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs, waiting for the pain to dissipate.

He’d taken the gag out of the boy’s mouth and tied it around his own head. The detective’s bullet had only grazed the top of his head, but it throbbed as if he’d been branded with red-hot tongs. The wounds on his ear and shoulder had also started to ache. The meth he’d pumped in was beginning to wear off. He’d only been able to tolerate the pain thus far thanks to the meth cigarettes, but he only had a few left. He turned on the Benz and headed for Haneda.

There were many commercial parking lots around Haneda Airport, long-term lots for travelers. Kanemitsu headed towards one called “Trip Parking.” The garage was officially registered under another name but was in fact owned by Marco.

It had opened a year ago. Yoichi, arrested two years ago and out of touch with Marco’s organization since, wouldn’t know about it.

Drugs coming in by air weren’t unloaded at the vigorously guarded international hubs like Narita or New Kansai but instead routed to Haneda through regional airports like Itazuke or Chitose that accepted flights from abroad. The goods were then freighted to Trip Parking and bought up. Packages smuggled by ship into Tokyo and Kanagawa
were also brought there. Trip Parking also served as a drug storage for Marco’s organization; the goods stayed hidden in the trunks of cars left by overseas travelers and were carried to Izumi’s shop as needed. In the event of a police raid, the merchandise would be considered the property of the car’s owner, who’d be abroad at the time. That would buy enough time for Marco and his group to slip out of the sticky situation.

Kanemitsu drove onto the Trip Parking lot. There were spaces for up to sixty vehicles—on the small side for a long-term lot. The lights were on in the prefab office; employees took turns on the solo overnight shifts. Kanemitsu parked next to the office, grabbed the bag of cash and got out of the car.

He looked through the door’s glass window to find a man sprawled out on the sofa watching TV. It was Izumi. The skin around his mouth was purple and swollen and he had a towel-wrapped ice pack pressed to his face. Kanemitsu rapped on the glass, causing him to turn around. As soon as Izumi saw who was there, he leapt off the sofa in shock and stood there dumbly staring until Kanemitsu knocked again. The drug dealer finally approached with a suspicious look and unlocked the door. Kanemitsu walked into the office, set the satchel on the table and sat down on the sofa.

“What in hell happened to you?” asked Izumi. His two front teeth were missing.

“And you? Why’re you on duty here?”

“Oh, I ran into some trouble. Can’t go back to Roppongi lookin’ like this, so I sent the kid on duty home and decided to spend the night here. I can get my hands on all kinds of painkillers here …”

“What kinda trouble?”

“You first. What did you pull? You’re missin’ half your ear!”

“It’ll grow back in time …”

“You bein’ tailed? The pigs won’t follow you here, will they?”

“Not the pigs.” Kanemitsu closed his eyes, the crease between his brows deepening. “That bastard, showin’ up all over like a fuckin’ ghost …”

“You don’t mean the detective, do you?”

Kanemitsu’s eyes flew open and he stared fixedly at Izumi’s face. “You … It was you who told him my address!” His hand reached for the Glock under his belt.

“N-No, it wasn’t me. I never spilled the beans on you even after I got this done to my face!” Izumi practically screamed.

Kanemitsu probed Izumi’s eyes for a long moment, then snorted a laugh. “Well, whatever …” He released his grip on the gun.

Panting raggedly, Izumi forced a smile. “L-Let me help you. I do owe that detective a beating …”

“Open this bag,” Kanemitsu said.

Haltingly, Izumi did as he was told. He took in the sight of countless bundles of cash and gulped.

“Bring me all the smack and coke you’ve got!” Kanemitsu ordered and closed his eyes.

“Heroin on this side, and coke on this side. They’re both top quality, but this one’s especially good. Four-nine straight from Goa. Heh, surprised? ’Course, it’ll cost a pretty penny …” His trader hat on, over the course of fifteen minutes Izumi had erected a small mountain of taped plastic bags on the table. “But be careful. Take too much of it and your heart’ll pop.”

Kanemitsu blew the guy’s head off.

It was past four a.m. They were thirty minutes into their stakeout of Fujimori Inc. and there was still no sign of Kanemitsu. The detective felt the first stirrings of impatience. He didn’t think Kanemitsu would have been able to get a new car and escape already, and the Benz wasn’t sitting there abandoned. Had Kanemitsu gone straight back to Roppongi? Or did he steal a car somewhere else? No, if he was that good at jacking cars, Yoichi would have said so. It was also out of the question for him to abandon the child and get a taxi. If he was seen wounded and covered in blood, he would be reported right away.

Has he anticipated us lying in wait for him here? Doesn’t seem likely.
Besides, I would’ve noticed Kanemitsu if he saw us. Or …

Thoughts chased each other fruitlessly around his mind.

“It’s my fault for lettin’ him go,” Yano sighed.

“No, it’s my fault for not stopping him when he took the car,” countered the detective.

“Have I been of any use to you at all?”

“Yes, you’ve been a great help.”

“Then …” Yano seemed to struggle with the words. “Tell me one thing. What happened between you and Junko Tajima?”

The detective fell silent. He had intended to tell no one about it. To protect Junko’s honor, he had planned to take that secret to the grave. At the same time he felt pity for Junko, murdered for becoming a murderer. She was not in the wrong, or so the detective believed. She had been cornered until she had no other choice.

The world was filled with malice.

When innocents were exposed to such malice, there were only so many paths they could take.

The detective was conflicted. Should he speak or hold his peace? Suddenly the thought struck him: He’d chosen not to tell anyone because there’d been no one to tell it to.

If I were to tell anyone
 … Yano was sitting there quietly, waiting for the detective to speak.
Wouldn’t he be the one?

The detective began to think so.

The first speedball he’d had in a while came on strong. The sense of exhilaration characteristic of cocaine and unobtainable with any other drug flooded his body. He felt like he’d become the engine of an F1 race car.

Functional beauty, a concentration of the finest technology. Roaring tailpipes. The smell of burning oil. Ferocious power concealed, waiting for the moment to race forward. That was how he felt. After a while the heroin snuck up and wrapped him in melting ecstasy. He couldn’t move at all. He didn’t want to. He felt like he was swaddled in the softest cotton and floating in the sky. He drifted across beautiful
scenery painted in watercolors. He could feel drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth. Then his field of vision snapped into focus as all of his five senses seemed to sharpen.

He traveled back and forth between two worlds.
Meth is total shit
. He could feel his pulse hammering in his temples, the nape of his neck, his solar plexus, his wrists, all over his body. He felt alive.

Suddenly his nose started bleeding. Blood poured out, shocking in its volume.
Am I OD-ing?
But he wasn’t afraid. He felt too good. His pulse raced. He heard a voice call out behind him.

“Kanemitsu.”

He turned around to face the back seat. The boy was crouched there in the darkness. He stared straight into Kanemitsu’s eyes.

“You can’t run anymore.”

The voice was the detective’s.

Yano waited in silence, blowing cigarette smoke.

“Do you know Katsuya Yamamoto?” asked the detective at long last.

“Yeah, I do. Koichi’s younger brother. Well, half-brother, different dads,” replied Yano. “A piece of shit rapist. Been in and out of the slammer a number of times.”

“Indeed,” said the detective. Yano waited for him to continue but the detective’s mouth stayed shut.

“What? You mean …” It suddenly dawned on Yano. “I-Is that what happened?”

“Probably,” said the detective.

“Then why did Junko have to kill Koichi? She shoulda killed Katsuya instead.”

“I killed Katsuya.”

Yano swallowed. But he still didn’t understand.
Why?
“Is that what Junko asked you to do?”

“No, she tried to do it herself. I didn’t want her to become a murderer. She was pregnant with Koichi’s child. I wanted her and the child to be born to have a chance at happiness. I couldn’t think of any other
solution.”

Yano finally understood the meaning of the words he’d heard the previous day at the detective’s office.

“But before he died, Katsuya said everything he’d done was according to Koichi’s wishes.”

“So that’s it …”

“Yes. There was nothing I could do to stop her.”

“Where is Katsuya?”

“He’s been lying in his apartment ever since the day before yesterday.”

Yano stepped out of the car and took out his cell. “It’s me, Yano. Get the old man on the line.”

Sasagawa was having trouble falling sleep. He lay in a bed in a university hospital in Yokohama he was on friendly terms with. He’d chosen hospitalization to escape the police, who were trying to capture him without evidence just to appease the public, and the press, who wanted to stir up a sensationalized fuss.

He had sworn one thing when he was young: He would never start a family. He’d lost both his parents in an accident when he was little. His only sibling, an older brother, had died at the age of fifteen. Ever since then he had believed he never needed a family. He’d never been envious of others. He became a yakuza as a matter of course. Once a yakuza he knew he shouldn’t have a wife or children. A man who had someone to protect turned weak. You couldn’t be a yakuza if you weren’t prepared to die at any moment. This was Sasagawa’s creed. But a young man needed female companionship, if not a wife. Sasagawa constantly carried on short affairs with multiple women. They were only ever there to be bedded. One of them came to him with news that she was pregnant. Sasagawa handed her money and dumped her. She gave birth to a boy. That was Koichi. Sasagawa ordered an underling to send child support but never attempted to see his son.

Once he was past fifty and started to feel his age, he found himself changing his mind. Or perhaps his mind had been slowly changing
for many years. When he thought about it, his had been an empty life. The yakuza way wasn’t all that superior. All he’d done was live with his elbows out. Sasagawa discovered loneliness. He didn’t lack for anything, yet something was missing. He began to think about the child who inherited his blood. What kind of man had he become? For the first time, he found himself wanting to meet his son.

Koichi was already a fully-grown adult. And what a pathetic adult he’d become.

Sasagawa was crestfallen, but he had no right to take his son to task. It was his own fault for never giving him even a drop of affection over the years. Sasagawa couldn’t help but feel responsible for letting his son turn out that way.

Eventually Koichi married. This past spring brought the news that his wife was with child. Tests showed it was a boy. Sasagawa wreathed the unborn boy with hope and expectation. He prayed he would grow into a proper man.

He had no intention of making him a yakuza. He would be satisfied if a child whose veins pumped his blood simply grew up to be his own man. If not, Sasagawa would die dissatisfied with his own life. This was the pattern his thoughts had begun to take, and they grew more insistent with each passing day. Yet …

The woman who killed his grandson was dead. The detective who assisted her only had a few hours left to live. Yet Sasagawa was unsettled. He felt a small discomfort in the pit of his stomach. It was a seed of fear, something he’d never felt before in his life.

The late-night newscast mentioned that Junko Tajima’s body had received a forensic autopsy. The results showed that Junko had been pregnant. Junko had been one of Koichi’s lovers. So the child … It wasn’t certain. There were numerous possibilities. But the detective had said, “You’ll regret killing her.” Was this what he’d meant? Sasagawa couldn’t shake the thought.

The call from Yano came sometime past 4:30 a.m. Sasagawa felt he already knew what Yano had to say.
Old man, you’re a damn fool. You killed your grandkid yourself
. That was what he’d say. He picked up the
phone with a trembling hand.

Kanemitsu knew. If he turned left at the next corner he’d arrive at the front entrance of Fujimori Trading. He knew the detective would be lying in wait for him.

The detective had been watching him the whole time. It wasn’t clear from when, but he got the sense the man had been watching him for some time.

I’m not fucking stupid. I know everything
.

“Kanemitsu, let the child go,” came the voice again from behind. The detective had been calling out to him without revealing himself.

“Yeah, I’ll let him go. Right after I kill you!”

Time to put an end to this
, thought Kanemitsu.
My patience has its limits. If I kill off the Dick I can take the cash and drugs in a safe car and get the hell outta here
.

“You think you can beat me? Huh?!”

Kanemitsu cut left, parking the Benz in front of Fujimori Trading. The area was shrouded in darkness, the sparse streetlights revealing little beyond their own presence. He drew his Glock. A Glock’s safety was on the trigger. As long as his finger stayed away from the trigger the safety was in place, and he could fire whenever necessary by pulling it.
By now this thing’s part of my body
. Kanemitsu got out of the car.

“Hey, Dick! Quit hidin’ and come out here!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

The detective got out of the car. The Benz was parked about fifty yards ahead. The headlights were off but the dome light inside was on. He saw Kanemitsu pointing the gun in his general direction, car door left open.