Tokyo Enigma (6 page)

I nodded.

"First, I have a talent for recalling people. It helps in my
business, you see. I know the names and favorite dishes, and favorite
soccer teams for that matter, of more than a hundred repeat
customers. My memory becomes even sharper when I see a beautiful
woman."

He stopped long enough to smile at Yuri, who grinned back
like a loopy schoolgirl who'd just gotten an A plus from her pet
teacher.

"They weren't chatting as you would expect if they had been
dating. Their conversation was more businesslike, too intense to be
casual. I might not have noticed or remembered so well if what
happened next had not occurred. I was just passing the table when
the man lay down a thick envelop. Miss Hosoi opened it and counted
out a large number of ten-thousand yen notes."

He paused.

"Is that it?" I asked.

Herrera held up one finger. The sound of a bell from the
kitchen had indicated the roast lamb was ready. "No, the man asked
for a
ryoshusho
, a receipt for reimbursement from his
company or for tax purposes. I made it out to Kamio Investigators,
which piqued my interest all the more. And that,
Señor
Sanchez, is it.
Un momento
."

He went to fetch the grilled lamb. When he returned, I was
dipping a pinch of baguette in the sardines' butter sauce.

"I see you like the garlic." Mr. Herrera stood by the table
with his hands clasped in front of him and beamed as though I'd just
agreed to be godfather to his first-born grandchild.

"Nicely segued. Garlic is a much better topic."

With a simple gesture, he had dispelled thoughts of
homicide and the events that had led to it. They weren't welcomed
among the savor of fish and spice and wine. Grand as they were, they
were only complements to the homey ambience. It evoked a
far-removed time and place in which the greatest aggravation of a young
woman like Hosoi might have been fending off suitors recruited by
well-intentioned matchmakers.

Even Yuri put the case aside while we ate. "What was Laredo
like? All I know is that song about a cowboy getting shot."

"That was before my time. There's a lot of money floating
around the city from Mexico trade, oil and gas, and ranches, but it
floats high above the heads of most. It's hot. Before air conditioning
it was a whole different world. People would leave their windows
open, so you knew your neighbors' troubles and joys. Roofs were
built as cisterns to catch what little rain fell. Before Falcon Dam was
built, the Rio Grande would sometimes run as low as a mud
flat."

"Except for the lack of water, it sounds a little like
Japan."

"How so?"

"More communal. In winter families would sit around a
kotatsu
, a low table with a heating element on the bottom.
People put their legs under a blanket draped across the tabletop. It
got toasty and didn't use much electric power. Windows stayed open
in summer, you hear what TV shows your neighbors watched and
when they took their baths. That is if they had a bath. Otherwise
they'd pack towels and soap and meet at the local
sento
."

"How did you get to New Orleans and come by that
accent?"

"My father ran off when I was too young to remember. My
mother sold box lunches in front of a train station. When I hit the
terrible teens, I was too rowdy to handle. Her sister lived in New
Orleans with her American husband. They agreed to take me in. I
thought the way people talked was standard English, so that's what I
learned and I'm stuck with it. After high school, they swung a loan for
college, and I paid it back."

El Castellano's food was scrumptious, and Herrera's
servings were more than ample. When we finished, he saw us to the
door and invited us to join his repeat clientele.

Yuri's mental excursions to happy times past apparently had
more to do with Herrera's charm than with mine. When we hit the
street, she was back on the job.

"Herrera said Maho had gone in with a man from Kamio
Investigations."

"Yes?"

"You might know that private investigators in Japan are not
so tightly regulated as they are in the States."

"I've heard."

"So, there are a lot of different standards depending on the
company.
Caveat emptor
, so to speak. Some are more
legitimate than others."

"Okay."

"My company is one of Japan's top five. We have nationwide
branches. Kamio Investigations is in the top ten. They are also
nationwide. The difference is—and I'm not particularly proud of this
part of our business—but if you want to catch your spouse
in
flagrante delicto
, you come to us. If you want to hire someone to
seduce your spouse, so you can get an easy divorce, you go to Kamio
Investigations."

"That's an interesting difference."

"Uh huh. Just a sec." Yuri called her agency. "We've got an
address on Ito's residence." She winked.

It was late in the afternoon by the time we found the
neighborhood of Foxx Starr's boss lady. It was in an upscale area of
Yokohama called Yamate, with homes built on a bluff, on lots like
terraced gardens. Reinforced concrete shored the hillsides to protect
against earthquakes and typhoons. The bluff overlooked Tokyo Bay
where freighters and cruise boats lined the harbor. After a few stops
to consult a map on her smart phone, Yuri found the house. It was
three stories, surrounded by a high wall. A few electronic security
devices were visible.

"Okay Yuri, seat-of-the-pants appraisal."

"What?"

"How much is it worth?"

"Hard to say. It's not exactly the best home on the hill, but
I'd put it at a bit more than
ichi oku
yen."

"In dollars?"

"Round numbers, one million, but I'm not a real estate
expert."

"Even if you're a little off the mark, that's pretty good cash
flow for a two-room modeling agency."

"Maybe Ito has a rich uncle, or sugar daddy, and runs the
agency as a hobby," Yuri said.

"She keeps odd company for a dilettante—tattooed lady and
Panther."

"Pan—?"

I flashed the palm of my hand. "Stop. Just a tough-looking
guy and a receptionist with a give-a-rat's attitude."

There were no taxis cruising the red-brick road, so we
walked down toward the harbor alongside Motomachi Park where
lay a patch of graves called Gaijin Bochi, Foreigners' Cemetery,
dating back to the nineteenth century. One Henry Ernest Harrier had
been buried on January two, eighteen ninety-eight at the age of
twenty-eight. I nodded to Mr. Harrier and wondered about his short,
adventurous life. We couldn't shake hands. We were on different
sides of a well-tended, wrought iron fence that marked the boundary
of foreign ghosts in their tombstone ghetto. Death imitates life.

"You think your agency could handle some snoop 'n poop?" I
asked.

"'Seat-of-the-pants appraisal. Snoop'n poop.' Would it be a
whole lot to ask for you to speak English?"

"Surveillance."

"Didn't anyone tell you?"

"Guess I'm not in the loop. Sorry, I mean..."

"I know what that means. Look."

Yuri opened her satchel and popped the top off a box that
contained a listening device. "I got the go-ahead for this yesterday.
It's not cheap. I'm talking about our service, not the bug. Your
company must be loaded."

"Don't impress us too much. We might buy you out."

"How do you want to handle it? Straight or backdoor?"

"Straight means we saunter in, and I distract Ito with my
charm while you plant the bug? I don't think that will work."

"From what Morimoto-san said about the office, I didn't
think so either. I brought these." She lifted the flap on a pocket inside
the satchel.

"Nice tools," I said.

She had a set of picks and rakes for breaking a lock and a
ring with maybe fifty master keys on it.

"Make those yourself?"

She grinned. "Not the hooks or the rakes, they were perks,
but I did grind out the bypass pick from a hacksaw blade."

I saw something else in her satchel. It was a narrow leather
sack about ten inches long and attached to a wooden handle. "Do you
mind?" I squeezed it. It was filled with metal balls about the size of
double-ought buckshot. "Make that yourself?"

She tucked her chin and batted her eyelashes in a parody of
a coquettish belle. "Why I surely did, Mr. Sanchez."

I laughed and shook my head. "Ever use it."

"Once, right after I got this." She pointed to the scar on the
side of her chin.

Be still my heart. "Any other talents?"

"Ni-dan, second-degree black belt, shorenji kempo. How
about you?"

"Nothing really. On a good day though, I bench press
three-sixty. I'm kind of primitive."

"Pounds or kilos?"

Kilos would have been close to eight hundred pounds. She
was funny. Instead of a laugh though, I made a fist with my right
hand and slapped the crook of my elbow with my left. Universal body
language.

We caught a taxi and I directed the driver to Nishi Azabu.
Once in the neighborhood, I remembered the route to Foxx Starr.
With my directions, the driver made good time. There were still
lights on in the office when we drove past. I hoped Ito was not some
kind of workaholic and would go home at a reasonable hour. Yuri
and I went to a coffee shop and waited.

Except for exterior lights, the whole building was dark when
we walked back. It had an open-air entry with an elevator on the side
of a stairway on the ground floor. We took the stairs. There were
only three offices on each floor and no cameras or any other security
devices that I could see.

Yuri checked out the locks on the door. There were
two.

"Try these on the lower lock." She handed me the master
keys. "Test the blue ones first."

The keys were coded with colored tape according to lock
manufacturer.

"The bottom lock is older. It's probably the original, so one
of those keys will likely work. The top lock might take a while. It's
still old but higher security."

"Meaning?"

"The pins have little heads on them like a nail. When you
raise one and twist the turning tool, there's a little give, because the
pin's shaft is narrower than the head. It tricks you into thinking
you've got it in the right position. There are five pins, and if one
hasn't been picked properly, you have to start over. We're lucky. The
most recent locks are impossible."

The seventeenth master key I tried opened the bottom lock.
As I stood guard, I heard a noise near the stairs. I gestured to Yuri,
and she zipped her pick out of the lock faster than a ferret backing
out of a skunk hole. This would not be a good time to meet Panther
and his thirty-eight-size lump. I stepped quietly down the stairs and
nearly disturbed a young couple making out like Parisians. They
didn't notice me before I eased out of sight and went back up the
stairs.

"It was nothing."

For a terrifying moment, Yuri looked as furious as a woman
scorned. "
Che
!"

I didn't know that word. Maybe it was just another way to
say, "that lock."

She went back to work, while I kept alert for more amorous
couples.

It was another ten minutes or so before Yuri announced
success. She looked ragged as we slipped inside. It might have just
been nerves, but she tittered when she saw the old lock on the door
to Ito's private office. She slipped a rake into the keyhole, shimmied
the pins into place and had the door open in less time than it would
have taken a drunk with the proper key.

I held the flashlight while Yuri broke out the listening
device. The receiver was sound activated and had a short-range
radio transmitter. There were two options. Either post a human in
the neighborhood to monitor the transmissions or plant a recorder
nearby. Lack of manpower demanded the latter course, so only two
decisions were left: where to place the transmitter so it would pick
up conversation and where to spot the receiver.

The best place we could find for audio reception was
underneath a coffee table. It looked risky to me, but there was no
reason for Ito to expect a bug, so why would she look? As for the
receiver, we had a quarter-mile radius to find a spot. Yuri led the
way out and down a street a couple of blocks from Ito's office. We
walked under a giant cherry tree whose branches spread over the
fence. Yuri stopped and pointed skyward. I cupped my hands for her
foot and hoisted her to branch level.

While I kept watch for strangers in the night, she pulled
herself up, and taped the receiver to the topside of a thick branch.
Foliage would have helped, but even though the tree was bared by
autumn, the receiver wasn't noticeable from the street. She dropped
down. The pale light of a corner lamppost etched the lines of her grin
in shadow. She looked like a schoolgirl who'd just raided Farmer
Jones' orchard. She also had smudges on her hands and clothes from
soot that had covered the tree.

Despite her obvious pride of accomplishment, Yuri was a
little shaky.

"You need a beer," I said. "Don't argue."

"Make the first round a Guinness and single malts
thereafter, and I won't fuss a bit."

We found an Irish style pub, took two stools at the bar and
ordered pints. For a long moment, we sat silent and let guilt-tinged
elation crackle between us like lightning snapping on the cusp of a
storm. In the electric afterglow of illegal mischief, Yuri balled her fist
and punched my arm.

"What have we got?" I asked.

"Truth? About a ninety percent chance that the bug will
work like it's supposed to. After that, who knows, maybe fifty-fifty
that we'll get anything useful."

"Fifty percent isn't bad."

"Make it forty-five, fifty percent of ninety remember."

"Still beats
nada
." We clinked glasses.