Tokyo Enigma (17 page)

Right.

I woke up as confused as ever. I had coffee and a bite-sized
waffle for breakfast and was out the door before my friendly
concierge had reported for duty. I opted for a taxi to avoid the
rush-hour train and arrived at Protect Agency even before Mr. Look-Busy
Morimoto got in. I was eager to check our video for Kuroda's man on
the bench. By now, I was on speaking terms with the receptionist, so
I asked her if I could use one of the computers that we had loaded
the video onto. I assured her I could identify the machine that I
needed and that I could operate it without assistance.

She sympathized but said my problem was
taihen
, a
conveniently slippery word that can mean either "grievous" or
"great," and which Japanese use to describe anything from a hard
day at the office to a spouse's death. She said things would certainly
be better if everyone was as diligent as I was and came to work
early.

My problem evolved into
our
problem. She deeply
regretted the situation we found ourselves in, but she was convinced
that any attempts to resolve the issue on our own would be hopeless.
Shikata ga nai
, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that we
could do.

I was about to try to console her for causing problems, when
Morimoto showed up.

The receptionist looked genuinely pleased to see him. At
that point, I realized we actually had shared problems. I had needed
a computer, and she had needed to think of increasingly polite ways
to tell me to get out of her face.

Hurrah, Morimoto.

I told him what Kuroda had said about the man on the
bench. He didn't seem excited at the news, but he did break out one
of the computers for me. I found a sequence of video that showed the
bench. Bad angle, the newspaper he was reading covered his face.
Yuri came in as I locked onto the next sequence showing the bench.
The newspaper was lower. We could see his face from the mouth up.
I stopped on the best shot and blew it up. Yuri and I both agreed that
we were looking at the secretary from the FTC.

Like the dealer said, all bets are off.

"I'd figured the MPD had planted the bugs. New option, the
FTC commissioner or his secretary hired a snoop like me." I was just
thinking out loud, but Yuri must have thought I'd launched a trial
balloon.

She shot it down. "In that case, how did Kuroda know when
to show up?"

"How did any of them know? Why did Kuroda tip us off? He
wants us to cooperate. What do you think about going along with
him?"

"I don't like him, and I can't see why he'd help us."

"He helped ID the secretary?"

"You bait the line and when a fish bites, you set the
hook."

"I'm not a fish." The notion chaffed.

"You might look like one to Kuroda. Maybe he thinks we
have whatever Ito and her goons are looking for."

I'd feel a lot better if we did. "How are things going with the
key?"

Yuri pressed her palms together in front of her lips and blew
air through her fingers. "I left an order with our staff to trace it, but it
was misplaced."

"You lost the key?" I was ready to dismantle her office like
Sayoko's apartment.

"No, just the order. It was considered routine. I've sent
another one."

"Let's get the key now, and keep it with us until we find out
what it opens."

Yuri disappeared into the labyrinth of cubicles.

I started counting minutes.

I'd got to twelve and twenty-two seconds when she came
back holding the prize between her thumb and index finger. "There's
a man we work with on things like this."

"Lead the way."

The locksmith's shop was a kiosk, next to a shoe-repair stall,
in what looked like a war-era department store. The proprietor had a
gold front tooth and grinned like a snake-oil salesman. I felt like I
was turning over a pearl to a caliche peddler, just another lump of
carbonate.

He took the steel key and held it like it was gold. Hundreds
of blanks were strung on wire over a workbench, but without
checking, he shook his head. He pulled out a stack of vinyl-bound
books and began leafing through them. After about ten minutes, he
handed the key back. "
Kashi-kinko.
"

"Safe deposit box." Yuri shook her head. "The manufacturer
won't help us with this."

"I know he doesn't have a blank, but ask him to cut a copy as
close as he can get to the original and to stamp in the serial number
if he can."

Yuri sounded like she was trying to be persuasive while she
translated, but the locksmith crossed his forearms in an "X"
sign.

"He says it wouldn't fit, and he doesn't want to try to copy a
key for a safe deposit box. It could get him blacklisted with bank
customers."

I doubted he had any orders from banks, but what did I
know. "Tell him to put in any imperfection he wants to make sure the
key doesn't work. I just need for them to look basically the
same."

With that logic, an earnest plea and thirty thousand yen for a
custom job, he accepted the risk.

It was a long wait, but we stayed until he finished. The copy
was too thick and the lateral grooves weren't right, but it was close
enough. With the manufacturer's name and the imitation key, maybe
Morimoto could find out what bank the safe deposit box belonged to.
I would lock the original in the hotel safe until we found out.

"Of course, we could also do it legally." Yuri said after I
finished explaining my plan. "We could turn the key over to the
attorneys and they could subpoena the manufacturer to identify the
customer."

"Then the contents of the safe deposit box becomes the
property of Maho's estate and goes to her parents. They might not
want to give us the goods."

"We subpoena them for material evidence."

"Evidence can get lost or destroyed. That bothers me."

"Theft doesn't?"

"Not when I'm the thief."

* * * *

Morimoto accepted his new task with no comment except
that he would do his best to find the safe deposit box that fit the key.
I didn't like his response. "I tried" is too often an excuse for
failure.

Yuri called Sayoko to make sure she was okay. She was.

I met Nozaka to go over details for his meeting with
Yokoyama, the Kamio investigator. Nozaka would carry a recorder,
and a young apprentice from Protect Agency would take
pictures.

I wanted to see things first hand, so I tagged along.

The meeting was at a Japanese restaurant on the top floor of
a Shinagawa skyscraper. The inside was dimly lit and the
décor was dark and oaky. Tables were made from rough-hewn
planks, stained deep brown and varnished. The effect was a
sprawling country inn from a long-past era. Each table was enclosed
on three sides for privacy. The set up wasn't ideal for surveillance,
but it was the kind of place I'd pick to see a private investigator
about a spouse's infidelity.

Nozaka had gone in first and taken a table that was across
from two empty stalls. The apprentice went in next and got the best
angle on Nozaka. I followed and took the hindmost, which wasn't too
bad. If a panel didn't block my view, I'd be able to see Yokoyama's
face. We had fifteen minutes to show time, and I'd have to order on
my own.

The menu was in Japanese, but no problem, it had
photographs of the food. I pointed to oysters on the half shell and to
grilled yellow tail. The waitress wasn't happy with that. She
suggested that I observe the peculiar ideal of mixing food from the
sea with food from the mountains. I swapped out the yellow tail for
marinated bamboo shoots and cold tofu with grated ginger. After I
reordered, the waitress looked worried that she'd been too pushy. If
I really wanted the yellow tail, it was okay.

I made a mental note to ask Yuri how to say, "I'm on a
stakeout, miss. Leave me alone and bring the food." Maybe I was
telepathic, the waitress did just that.

The tofu was easy nibbling while we waited for Yokoyama.
He arrived precisely on time. His shirt cuffs extended one-quarter
inch past his coat sleeves. His hair just touched his collar, and his
shoes would have passed Marine Corps muster.

I talked into my mobile-phone set to camera mode and
pointed it in his direction as he sat down. He glanced at me and
moved out of my line of sight.

Nozaka's original story was that he wanted to find out if his
wife was having an affair. While he was at it, he'd try to find out what
he could about Kamio Investigations. Yokoyama left the table briefly
and didn't look my way when he passed, either going or returning.
About fifteen minutes later, he left again, this time for good. He had
bowed to Nozaka after he stood up.

We stayed to give him time to get out of the building. I was
about to leave when two men with bad haircuts and rumpled suits
stopped at Nozaka's table. They flanked him when he stood up, then
they came my way.

Nozaka looked nervous. "They are police. They want us to go
with them."

When I stood, I saw a uniformed patrolman standing near
the entrance.

I asked Nozaka for an explanation, but he didn't have any.
He said he didn't think we were being arrested, but they wanted to
talk to us outside the building. They took us to a parking area near
the train station. The two plainclothes and the patrolman boxed us in
against a car.

One of the plainclothes faced me and extended his hand.
"Passport."

The guy studied my picture and name and ports-of-entry
stamps. There were a lot of them. It took a while to find the one for
Narita. He made notations in a pad and finally handed it back. Then
they searched us and took my mobile phone and clicked on the photo
viewer.

The policeman said something to Nozaka. "He wants to
know why you were taking pictures inside."

"Tell him I'm a restaurant critic."

The guy must have wanted more information. He scowled
and removed the memory card.

"You can't do that. Tell him he can't do that." I reached for
his hand, and the uniformed cop rapped my arm with a wooden
truncheon.

"Don't resist." Nozaka was waving his hands in front of his
chest.

Good advice. I kept myself out of jail and got the phone back
minus the memory card with Yokoyama's pictures. The police left us
with no explanation, no threats and no how-do-you-do-sir. Maybe
they figured the visit was message enough. I just wasn't sure yet
what it meant. When Nozaka and I headed back to his car, I saw our
young apprentice moving through a crowd toward the train
station.

"Why did you lead them to me instead of him?" I wasn't
angry. I was just curious.

"I didn't." Nozaka said. "They already knew."

Before we found Yokoyama's business card, I had
considered trying to use the police to help us identify him. It turns
out we located Yokoyama and he led the police to me. Fate was a
mean comic, and I'd crashed its act.

* * * *

Nozaka believed in survival of the paranoid. He had taped
the voice recorder to the small of his back. The police hadn't done a
thorough search and missed it. The apprentice had followed us out
on the next elevator and had pictures of Yokoyama and the three
policemen. He'd gone unnoticed. Beginner's luck.

We checked his pictures at Protect Agency. Yokoyama
looked like he was in his early forties. He had angular features and
thin lips. When I saw him in the restaurant, I had put him at about
five feet nine. He was lean and moved in straight lines and sharp
angles that matched his face. There was nothing round or soft about
him.

Nozaka said Yokoyama had excused himself to use the
restroom. That was probably when he phoned the police. Later he'd
received a call, and then left.

Even if Nozaka's story had stunk, he hadn't had time to
deliver it before Yokoyama had made the call from the washroom.
The guy had only glanced at me, with no sign of recognition. How did
he know?

It was still early in the evening, and I hadn't had a proper
dinner. I called Yuri as I walked to the train station, but no answer. I
bought a ticket and wondered what she might be doing. Was she
with friends? Did she eat alone? Did she sometimes sing her to
goldfish when she was happy?

Did she think of Mick?

Kuroda refused to meet me in his office. I didn't want to talk
to him where someone could overhear, so I asked him to recommend
a private spot.

"You like parks," he said.

That wasn't exactly private, but he had a point. Hardly
anywhere in Tokyo was private, except smack dab in a crowd. No
one paid attention to individuals.

A gravel path led most of the way to the station. Sycamore
and gingko leaves had turned dry and were strewn along it like puffs
of colored powder. The crunch of stones underfoot covered the
sound of their disintegration.

To kill time, I counted crows. I had lost count and started
over when I saw Kuroda headed my way.

"You changed your mind." Kuroda had a lot to tell me about
myself.

"Maybe."

"I told you about the man on the bench. What do you have
for me?"

"Would you like pictures of your friends?"

Kuroda grinned. "I don't have any friends, just like
you."

Funny guy. "Man named Yokoyama plus two plainclothes
policemen and a uniformed patrolmen, as yet unidentified."

Kuroda lost the smile. "What are you talking about? Who is
Yokoyama?"

"Uh-huh. How did you know about our park meeting with
Allworth?"

"I won't say, but I wasn't the only one watching you."

"Stop sparring. Let's back off, level lances and charge."

"What?"

"Talk straight, answer honest. Did you put listening devices
in Lance Allworth's office."

"No."

"Did you know about them before you found out about the
park meeting?"