A Dog in Water (23 page)

“The hell happened to your …”

He seemed at a loss as to which to react to—my cropped hair or my damaged ear.

“Did those DBO men mess you up?” He’d chosen to focus on the ear for now.

“Yeah, they stopped by last night for a chat.”

I felt properly hungry for the first time in a while and ordered a doner kebab and Turkish ravioli. My informant ordered Efes, a Turkish beer, and an assortment of appetizers.

“How many times do I have to tell ya to carry a damn pistol?!” he shouted as I related the details of last night’s events. He seemed to be truly pissed at me for ignoring his repeated warnings.

“But if I get into a gunfight every time this happens, soon I won’t be able to stay in business,” I protested.

My informant looked astounded. “Get yourself killed and you won’t be able to do anythin’ at all.”

I suddenly recalled the words of the girl from the salon. “Does seeing me injured make you sad?”

“Why the hell would it? You makin’ fun of me, you rat bastard?”

Yes, he’s definitely pissed off
. I gave him a faint smile. “Anyways,
there’s something I want you to research for me.”

“What, somethin’ about the DBOs?”

“No, I’ll take care of that myself.” I explained the nature of my request as I tucked into my dinner. The doner kebab was so good I considered ordering another, but stopped myself.
In all things, don’t get carried away
.

“Hey, what happened to your hair? Some girl catch your eye?” my informant asked as we were leaving as though he’d just remembered.

“No, I left it to the beautician’s discretion and this is what I ended up with.”

“Oh, right, a beautician …” He didn’t seem satisfied with my answer.

We parted ways and I went back to work. I’d pin down people who had information I wanted and ask them questions.

I kept up the very standard method until well into the night.

The waiter, garbed entirely in black, straightened his spine and knocked at the door of the private room. “Your guest has arrived,” he said, bowing and stepping back.

“Thanks,” I said and entered.

The spacious room had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides, offering a view of early-afternoon Akasaka below. Four people were seated at a huge table. At the far side was Gunji Kawakubo. To his left was a woman around fifty, and to his right a woman about thirty. Across from Kawakubo sat a boy of about ten. Bowls of mushroom potage steamed on the table before them.

“Who are you?” Kawakubo asked, wiping his mouth on a napkin. He seemed to be utterly composed.

“A private detective. Didn’t Mr. Kamata tell you about me?” I said.

Kawakubo’s expression remained unperturbed. “Oh, so it’s you … Seems that Kamata just barely kept his eyesight.”

“Glad to hear it. And my ear is on the mend.”

“How did you find me?”

“I’m a detective. Finding things is my specialty.”

“As you can see, I’m in the middle of a meal. My daughter has come to visit for the first time in a while with my grandson. Don’t you think it’s a bit inelegant to barge in?”

“I figured there’d be less risk of me getting shot if I came here.”

“Leave.”

Kawakubo’s eyes glinted with icy light. His daughter was looking at me, discomfort clear on her features. His grandson’s eyes flicked uneasily between his grandfather and me. The older woman, probably Kawakubo’s wife, continued to spoon soup to her mouth as if she were totally deaf to the proceedings.

“Would you please introduce me to Mr. Toshikawa?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear me when I told you to leave?” There was menace in his voice. Kawakubo’s true character—that of an outlaw—peeked between the cracks of his gentlemanly exterior.

“Let me speak with Mr. Toshikawa and I’ll never cross your path again.”

“You will be dead soon.” The air in the room froze solid. “So you definitely won’t be crossing my path again.”

“Knock it off!” his daughter scolded him. His grandson was staring at him in blank amazement.

I figured it was the right time. “I’ll be excusing myself now. I’ll come again at a later date.” I turned my back on the family whose meal I’d interrupted.

“Do you think I’m joking?” came a ferocious voice.

I turned around and faced its owner. “Are you dissatisfied that I’m not cowering?”

“…”

“I regret to inform you that this isn’t the first time I’ve been threatened in such a manner.”

I opened the door and walked out.

“Hello,” I called out.

The girl stopped walking, folded her hands together and bowed deeply. I had been waiting for nearly an hour in front of the apartment she shared with her mother. Seeing the girl coming home from school with a brand-new pink backpack, I was reminded of Mari, my daughter.

“I think my mother’s already left,” the girl said.

“Actually, I came here to see you today, Shiori. Can we talk for a bit?”

She looked at me for two full seconds, then bobbed her head. We walked side by side to a nearby playground and sat on a bench.

“I can’t tell you any details at the moment, but you are in danger.”

She seemed totally unsurprised by my words. She did, however, get a forlorn look on her face.

“And so, I’d like to move you to a safe place, just for a while.”

“…”

“You would be living apart from your mother.”

“Does my mother know?”

“No, I haven’t told her yet.”

Shiori silently looked up at the large tree in front of us. It was bereft of leaves, ready for winter.

“From when?”

“Right away, if possible.”

“…”

“Will you trust me?”

Shiori slowly got to her feet and turned to face me. “Let me get some clothes,” she said and started walking.

I looked up at the wintry tree she’d been gazing at. Its black silhouette stood out starkly like an upturned broom against the darkening gray sky.

“Wh-What the hell are you sayin’?!” Yano’s voice was nearly hysterical as he looked back and forth between Shiori and me.

“I just want you to look after her for a little while.”

“Why me? I’ve never taken care of a kid before in my life!”

“You don’t need to care for her. Someplace where you can keep an eye on her at all times is all I’m asking for.”

“Is she in danger?” Yano asked in a low voice.

“She won’t be as long as you’re by her side.”

“I don’t know what to do with a kid.”

“Then don’t treat her like one.”

“If I don’t treat her like a kid then I’ll end up treating her like a woman.”

“Do treat her like a kid in that case.”

“Geez, this is a pain in the ass …”

“Don’t hand her over to anyone who might stop by until I get back. Got it?”

“Fine. Okay, little girl, come on in.”

Shiori was about to walk into the apartment but stopped and turned toward me. “Thank you, Mr. Detective.”

The door closed. I suddenly felt like crying.

Yuko Kuroki came to my office at close to two in the morning.

“What have you done with Shiori?!”

She fixed me with a sharp glare as soon as she stepped inside. The woman who stood before my desk was so beautiful I could hardly
believe it was the same one I’d accepted as a client. I stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded.

Yuko had said that she worked in the nightlife industry. Back then she’d looked quite plain, so I had smugly pictured some sort of pub or small restaurant. If I’d seen her like this, “hostess at a top-shelf club in Ginza or Akasaka” would have been my only possible guess. At any rate, beyond doubt she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever met in my life. Even with the fierce expression currently on her face, brilliance and shadow coexisted in her eyes, exuding a charm no man could resist. It was hard to believe that make-up alone was responsible for the transformation.

“Please calm down. What happened to your daughter?” I asked, doing my damnedest not to look her in the eye.

“Stop playing dumb! Where did you hide her?” It was very warm in my office, but Yuko made no move to take off the silver-gray fur coat that she wore over her ankle-length black dress.

“What’s made you assume it was me?” I asked. “Why aren’t you suspecting Johannes?”

Yuko didn’t respond.

“Is it because you know it wasn’t Johannes who took her away?”

“What are you trying to say?” she asked back, the stern expression fleeing from her features. “It hasn’t been ten days yet like the letter said. That’s the only reason I didn’t think it was him.”

“You trust that Johannes would wait ten days like he said he would, but you don’t trust me?”

“…”

“Me, I don’t trust Johannes. That’s why I made a judgement call and quickly moved her to a safe location.”

“Where is Shiori?”

“If you knew, there’s a risk that Johannes will try to get the information from you. It’s better if you don’t know.”

“Then why didn’t you at least tell me that you were moving her? Couldn’t you imagine how worried I’d be to come home from work and find her gone?”

“I’m terribly sorry. I had planned on contacting you once you were off work, but I seem to have nodded off.”

“…”

She eyed me suspiciously. I looked away.

“So when will you bring her back to me?”

“I’m planning on returning her home after two or three days.”

“Have you found Mr. Toshikawa?”

“Not yet. But I think everything will come to light very soon.”

“Understood.”

She turned heel and headed towards the door.

“Shall I drive you?” I offered.

She continued out the door without replying. The faint trace of her perfume lingered in the air.

I woke up to a phone call from Kijima saying he was in West Shinjuku. He said he’d have some free time past noon, so we decided to meet up around one. I dressed and left the office, got into my car and headed towards Shinjuku. On the way I grabbed a double cheeseburger and a coke to wash it down from a McDonald’s. That had become my go-to combo ever since they stopped making quarter pounders.

I parked in a multi-story garage near the Keio Plaza Hotel and walked toward the station. I was a little early so I wandered around the capacious thrift shops that lined the street near the west gate of Shinjuku station. The streets were flooded with people, a majority of them business types released all at once for lunch break from neighboring office buildings. Small lines formed in front of the restaurants that dotted the area.

My cell phone rang. I thought it might be Kijima and took the call, but it was my informant reporting on the info-gathering I’d requested. He said he was going on a road trip out to Gunma Prefecture. I thanked him in advance and hung up.

It was then that I realized a cigarette had found its way into my mouth. I lit it, took a deep drag and suddenly felt uneasy and looked around. On the wall of a convenience store right in front of me was a
sign prohibiting smoking on the street. I ducked past a row of parked bicycles and leaned against the wall by the building’s staff entrance. Yet, two no-smoking enforcement personnel appeared out of nowhere before I’d smoked even half the cigarette. One of the men, around my age, wordlessly thrust a portable ashtray with several butts inside in front of my face.

“Aren’t I on private property rather than the street?” I asked.

“Say what you want, no smoking means no smoking,” the man said, his expression unwavering.

I didn’t know what the current laws specified, but I was hardly feeling convinced as I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray.

“The smoke floats over to where the pedestrians are,” the younger of the duo said, bobbing his head.

“Ah, I see,” I replied and returned the bow. I then walked straight to a Renoir.

I opened the glass door and took the stairs immediately inside up to the second floor, passed the large atrium, climbed another staircase and laid claim to two seats by the windows. Through the glass I could see “Yodobashi Camera – Camera Megastore” spelled out in giant letters. I lit a cigarette without delay. Recently, a fair number of restaurants had instituted no-smoking policies during lunch hours. This was the only place in the area I could think of that definitely allowed smoking at this time of day.

I looked around and saw that every other customer in the place was taking loving drags—although that may have been my imagination—from their cigarettes. A waitress stopped by to take my order. Despite not having walked all that much I felt sweat beading up on my back, thanks perhaps to the first cloudless day in a while.

I wanted to order a ginger ale but it wasn’t listed on the menu. I ended up ordering a lemon squash, something I hadn’t had since I was a teenager. I phoned Kijima and told him where I was.

“You sure picked one helluva clichéd meeting place,” he said and laughed.

My first sip of lemon squash in a quarter-century was far too sweet
to my taste. After drinking down just an inch I decided to abandon it to itself.

Kijima arrived as I was lighting my second cigarette. “An iced coffee!” he shouted to the waitress across the room and sat down opposite me. “All right, here’s what you asked for.”

He produced several folded pieces of paper from his inner jacket pocket and handed them to me. They were the cell phone records of Akikumo Toshikawa.

“Sorry to take so long, but I’m pretty busy.”

“Sorry for the trouble.”

“Fabricating a case to get a cell phone provider to cough up someone’s personal info is definitely illegal. I hope this was the last time.”

“Aw, come on. We’ve known each other long enough.”

“Oh? This is a change of pace.”

“Ah, right.” I was seeing Kijima for the first time since my memories had come back. “For the last eight years or so, you’ve thought I was a little touched in the head, I bet.”

“I’ve thought you were a little crazy since the day I met you, boss,” Kijima laughed.

I chuckled, then told him that my memories of the case from eight years ago had been restored.

“Oh, is that so … Well, I really can’t say if that’s good or bad,” Kijima said smoothly and drank his iced coffee.