Japantown (30 page)

“How’s Jenny?”

“Things are hotting up on this end, ja? The lieutenant’s called a half dozen times. Says he can’t get you in Tokyo.”

“Tell me about Jenny.”

“Your daughter came by with the lieutenant’s family and a tough-looking ‘maid.’ Jenny doesn’t know the story?”

“No. Do you know what she’s doing there?”

“Going stir-crazy. Miriam took her and the kids to the movies. But don’t worry. There’s an unmarked outside. And—
oops
. Look what just ran up. Who’s this wee little thing jumping up and down right here by my side? Where’d you come from, buttercup?”

Abers passed the phone and a breathless voice said, “Daddy?”

Her familiar child’s lilt sent a wave of warmth through me. After knocking heads with the powerbroker and the bureaucrat, the simple pleasure of hearing my daughter’s voice seemed the world’s greatest blessing.

“Hey, Jenny. I’ve been trying to call you. How have you been?”

“Okay, I guess.”

It almost didn’t matter what she said, as long as I could hear her speak. Almost. “Come on. Just
okay
? All those sleepovers at the secret house. That’s got to be loads of fun.”

“It was at first. Now it’s
boring
. I can’t go to school and you’re not here. I’ve played all the games with Christine and Joey and Ms. Cooper a zillion-billion times. Did you think about the best-ever? ‘What kind of bees give milk?’ ”

“Of course.”

And I had, but not in the way she meant.

“Did you figure it out?”

“How about an Italian queen bee? She can make gelato, too.”

Jenny giggled and the warmth surged through me again. “No way.”

“Cow bees?”

“Nope. When are you coming back, Daddy?”

“Any day now.”

“Are there any China guys with knives over there?”

“Japan, Jenny. This is Japan, where your mother came from.”

“Well, are there?”

She slung some hard ones. “There’s some tough guys, but your father’s tough too.”

“Watch out for them, okay?”

“I will.”

Jenny’s voice dropped to a whisper, her hand obviously cupped around the mouthpiece. “Ms. Cooper is really a police lady, Daddy. They don’t think I know, but I do. She’s in the shop now. She’s pretending to be a maid for where I’m staying, but I saw her badge in her purse.”

Great. Undone by a six-year-old. How good could the woman be? My worry level ticked up a notch.

“I know about her, Jenny. She’s there to help.”

Jenny fell silent. “Then who’s watching you?”

“Everyone at Brodie Security. Mr. Noda, George. You know them.”

“You’re in a lot of trouble, aren’t you, Daddy?”

What could I say? I didn’t want to lie, but Jenny’s anxiety levels had already shot beyond healthy. I opted for the truth, albeit gently laid out. “I’ve found more than I expected, but I’m surrounded by pros, Jen. The good news is, I also found out more about Mommy. You just let the police lady watch you and my friends’ll watch me, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay. The police lady is
terrible. TERRIBLE.
If I saw her badge, anybody can. What if your friends are terrible too?”

Jenny slammed the phone on the counter and dashed off, abrupt sobs trailing her into the distance. Mentally, I kicked myself. The formula was simple: my daughter felt threatened when I was threatened. I knew that and still misjudged the effects of what I’d meant as reassuring comments. Jenny’s crying became a wail. Her high-pitched lament mauled areas inside me I didn’t know could hurt. I heard Abers trying to calm her and failing.

All Jenny wanted was a nice home. A safe nest. But the world kept on spinning in ways she couldn’t comprehend. She had pleaded with me to stay. She had laid down her best-ever. And she held on with all
her heart. I recalled earlier times when similar anxieties had creased her tiny brow. During each of those times, I’d offered reassurance and was there to hold her. This time the stakes were higher, the danger more acute, and I was six thousand miles away. I sighed and faced a larger truth. I had to find a way to give her a lasting sense of security. If I couldn’t, I’d have to give up my father’s business. In the background, I heard Abers working to assuage her fears, but Jenny was inconsolable. Cringing with self-rebuke, I set the handset back in its cradle.

The Japantown case had seeped into every aspect of my life, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take—or how much more I could subject my daughter to. The events rang an all-too-familiar bell. A long-forgotten memory bubbled to the surface. My parents were bickering as usual when my mother laid down an ultimatum. “Choose, Jake. Between your damn company and us. Choose!” “You can’t ask me to do that,” my father had said. “I built it from scratch. For us.” “Well, we ‘built’ this family, too.
Together
. But it’s on its last leg. So which is it going to be?” Would Brodie Security drive Jenny away from me as it had my mother from Jake? Could I really hang on to Jake’s shop without causing my daughter irreparable psychological damage—or worse?

Still wading through the tangle of my daughter’s fear-driven tantrum, I was reaching for the phone to call Renna when the television screen out front caught my eye. An image of the Golden Gate Bridge with the caption
color it red—again
filled the screen. Rushing into the main office, I snatched the remote and punched up the volume. Everyone turned to watch. A local San Franciscan announcer I’d seen from time to time spoke breathlessly into the camera while footage showed a flurry of ambulances and squad cars racing past. Late last night in San Francisco, sometime during the period when I was playing cat-and-mouse with Goro Kozawa in his scarlet parlor, a German family had been gunned down near Ghirardelli Square.

This time it was a mother, father, and eleven-year-old boy.

From everything I’d learned in Japan, I was certain the second attack couldn’t be Soga’s doing. Japantown had spawned a copycat. But even so, unless Brodie Security came up with proof real soon, Renna wouldn’t be able to tough out this new setback.

Maybe none of us would.

CHAPTER 50

M
Y
next call to Renna found him locked behind closed doors in an emergency meeting with city officials. I left an urgent request with the detective who picked up the phone that Renna track down the purchaser of the car dealerships previously owned by Mieko’s uncle, a trail left by one of Soga’s clients I hoped he might be able to follow.

After hanging up, I scrolled through my address book for the
Mainichi Newspaper
and dialed Hiroshi Tomita’s direct line. Tomita was a Japanese journalist in his mid-forties who, in his early days, had taken down a dirty Liberal Democratic Party politician, a sleazy real estate baron, and a backroom loan shark company secretly funded by a major bank. After his third scoop, the foreign press tagged him with the nickname “Tommy-gun.”

“Tommy? Brodie.”

“Brodie-san,
hisashiburi
.” It’s been a long time.

“Over a year. How’s the news business?”

“Dull as August in Tokyo. Why?”

“I have a few questions about Katsuyuki Hara and a company called Teq QX.”

His voice grew cold. “You’re talking to the wrong guy, you know? I’m not covering any of that.”

“But—”

“Working on a piece about the
glorious
new monorail. Ultramodern design. World-class technology. Stu
pen
dous stuff!”

It was hard to miss the artificial enthusiasm in his voice.

“Tommy?”

“Sorry, Brodie. Jenny-chan okay?”

“Fine,” I said in a flat voice, waiting.

“Well, give her my regards. See you next trip, if there’s time. Sayonara.”

The line died and the dial tone buzzed in my ear. Well, you couldn’t send out signals any clearer than that.

Replacing the receiver, I webbed my fingers behind my head, leaned back in my chair, and contemplated Jenny’s framed photograph, my father’s Bizen saké flask, his Japanese short sword, and the LAPD marksmanship award. Then I stared at the ceiling and let my mind wander. Ten minutes later, Mari patched through a call. When I lifted the phone to my ear, Tomita said, “Hey, monkey brain, you trying to get me fired?”

“Now that you mention it, don’t know why they haven’t axed you yet.”

“You keep asking sensitive questions over the office line, they might. They listen in.”

“Never been a problem before.”

“It is now. You like shogi?”

Shogi is a traditional board game often referred to as Japanese chess. Rectangular wooden pieces with pointed triangular tips were moved across a varnished checkerboard, captured, reincarnated, and moved some more until the Jeweled General was checkmated.

“Never had time for it.”

“Make time. West Gate Park in Ikebukuro. Come alone. No one riding your tail, okay?”

“Got it.”

“No you don’t. Not by half.”

—

Once more, Noda and I took separate taxis in opposite directions. This time his driver circled around and hung two hundred yards behind mine. Staying in touch by cell phone, I arrived at the west exit of Ikebukuro Station, tailless, as God intended, wondering what Tomita was raving about.

I paid the driver and plunged into the heavy foot traffic pouring
from the station exits, with Noda somewhere behind me. My cell phone remained silent, which told me I still hadn’t drawn a shadow.

West Gate Park lived up to its innocuous name, abutting the west side of Ikebukuro Station, a commuter hub on the northern edge of central Tokyo. The park was a slate-cobbled public square with sculpture, an amphitheater, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space, a seven-story building sporting an atrium in the shape of a massive slashed cube.

As I did before starting down a street in my old L.A. neighborhood, my eyes automatically swept the scene, dove into nooks and shadows, scrutinized each cluster of park inhabitants, looking for a furrowed brow directed my way, a surreptitious glance, any sign of a ripple in the accepted social fabric. All looked normal. The homeless lurked on the south side of the park, under a clutch of undernourished poplars. Teenagers with radios and guitars staked out the stage of the park’s amphitheater. Nearby, a skein of game boards sat on overturned plastic beer crates. Squatting on plastic bath stools, lanky professor types, taxi drivers, and retirees hunched over shogi boards, absorbed in the tactics of sending pieces forward into battle. No one looked threatening or out of sync or as if they didn’t belong.

Scanning the crowd for Tomita, I strolled over to the players’ circle. The reporter was nowhere in sight. Making my second pass through the cluster of boards, an old man with silver hair and a Yomiuri Giants baseball cap called out, “You play shogi, gaijin-san?”

Honorary foreigner. I groaned. One of
those
guys. Just what I needed.

“No, sorry.”

“Sure you do. Sit.”

Right. Tommy must have sent him. No one would willingly corner a gaijin player. I sat on a yellow bath stool. The old man moved.

“Your turn,” my opponent said.

I nudged a piece forward, glancing around for Tommy.

“Like this,” he said. “With wrist action, you know? Slap it down, manly-like.”

Cantankerous and demanding. Where the hell was Tomita? Imitating the old man’s gesture, I made a second move.

“You’re hopeless, Brodie-san. I’ll beat you in ten.” The voice had clarified, losing the geezer’s gravelly edge.

I shot a look across the board without raising my head. Under a gray wig and three decades’ worth of makeup, I made out the reporter’s visage. I didn’t show the surprise I felt, but the transformation spooked me. I wouldn’t have known him if I’d smacked into him at Tokyo Station. Once again, I had the feeling I was in way too deep. Only Tomita’s voice, which he’d allowed me to hear stripped of age, gave him away.

“Good,” he said. “Don’t look at me. Just make a move after mine, doesn’t matter how. From a distance, it’ll look fine. Keep your head bowed and move your lips as little as possible. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” I said, bewildered that my simple question had birthed such a ruse. “But what’s going on?”

“You’re only asking about one of the hottest stories of the year.”

“I know the Nakamura killings are big news but—”

“Not that. Hara. There’s a blackout on Hara. All
but
the killings.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“Move a piece. If you’re not playing you have to vacate the seat. Rules of the park.”

I pushed a wooden marker forward, more confused than ever. Hara’s pain had been splashed over the front pages and still generated lead stories. Surely, Tomita was overreacting.

“Tell me what you know,” I said again. “Especially about Teq QX.”

“Aré ka?”
That? “I should have guessed.”

“Talk to me, Tommy.”

“One thing first.”

He removed a cell phone from his pocket and set it on the edge of the board.

“I have men on all sides of the park, watching. Anyone approaches, the phone rings once. Twice, they’re coming fast. You leave fast. The best way is south, down the steps right behind you and through the lane of shops to the right.”

“Jesus, Tomita.”

All feeling drained from my limbs. Suddenly I was back in Soga,
phantoms hovering in the darkness, every step a risk. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take.

On edge and silently cursing myself for missing Tomita’s people, I said, “So what’s this about?”

“There is a news blackout like I haven’t seen since the triple killing in Shin-Okubo. If you’ve got something, I want it.”

“You feed me now, and I’ll fill you in when I know what the hell’s going on.”

“Omae no motteiru joho o saki ni kure.”
He wanted a sample of my wares before he divulged.

“There isn’t time. I have someone watching my back too. As we speak.”

“So they’re on you already?”

“Big time. Give me background now and the stuff I have is yours later. Deal?”