Time of attack, p.28
Time of Attack, page 28
part #4 of Jericho Quinn Series
“Ah.” Bowen smiled politely, but he couldn’t help thinking that with that tiny caliber, for all practical purposes they were both unarmed.
He grabbed the edge of his seat when Hase made a right-hand turn into what looked to be oncoming traffic, then remembered they drove on the left in Japan. Hase took the on-ramp to some sort of expressway, then crossed a bridge to exit among a tumble of mismatched buildings and random shops that looked like concrete blocks dumped out of a sack. Streets ran at odd angles and disappeared into blind alleys with no apparent reason or order.
Hase had apparently spent plenty of time in the area and knew exactly where he was going. He parked the Nissan in an open space at the end of a narrow block, backing in over some sort of fold-up barrier underneath.
Bowen raised an eyebrow. “The police have to pay to park?”
“Why should we not pay to park?” Detective Hase dropped his keys in his jacket pocket. “I am a policeman, not the emperor.”
Bowen took a quick look around, trying to memorize where they’d left the vehicle, but the tangled streets and chicken scratches that comprised Japanese signage provided him little to go by. The sounds, the sights, everything was as foreign as if it had been from another planet. It was like trying to navigate using a map drawn by some impressionist painter. If anything happened to Hase, Bowen realized he would have no idea where they were, or how to contact the cavalry.
By the time he turned around from trying to orient himself, Hase was halfway down the block.
“You know Ayako Shimizu very well?” Bowen asked after trotting to catch up.
“I do,” Hase said. “She is my . . .” He turned his head, brow creased. “I am not sure of the word.”
“Informant?”
“That is it.” Hase nodded, working through the vocabulary. “Informant . . . because she informs me about criminal actions.”
“She’s supposed to have a place around here?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Hase said. “She works at several of the hotels in this area. One in particular is her favorite. We will try there first.”
“I see,” Bowen said. A girl in a short skirt and tall heels rode by on a bicycle, reminding Bowen of an album cover from his youth. She parked the bike in front of a white tile building called the Excalibur and shuffled inside, looking like Bambi on ice in the tall stiletto heels. Bowen nodded at the sign out front as they walked by. REST: 4400 YEN, STAY: 7900 YEN. “These are that kind of hotel. Rooms by the hour?”
“Something like that,” Hase answered. “They are used by prostitutes like Shimizu to be sure, but these love hotels also fill a certain need. In this country many generations of families often live under the same small roof with very thin walls. Sometimes a couple needs to get away.”
“Have you ever been to one?”
Hase gave a noncommittal grin. “I am not married.”
Bowen smiled back. “And that’s not what I asked.”
“Come,” Hase said, still avoiding the question. “That is the one, down the street.” He pointed to a red brick hotel with a matching privacy wall out front at the end of the crooked block. A life-size statue of Cleopatra reigned in naked glory beside the entrance. The sign above her said this love hotel was called THE LUXOR.
“My sister came to this one once when she was younger,” Hase said, his face pensive. “So I have a special relationship with the proprietors. College girls often wear fancy kimono to their graduation ceremony. My sister’s boyfriend convinced her to accompany him here . . . and, of course, remove her kimono. She did, but when their three hours of ‘rest’ was up she realized she did not have the necessary skill to dress herself back in the kimono. The entire process is quite intricate. Lucky for her, the old auntie at the front desk knew how to tie kimono and was able to help her get dressed before she returned home to our family.” He looked at Bowen through the narrow eyes of an elder brother. “But I could tell.”
“What happened?” Bowen asked as he stopped in front of the Luxor, waiting for Hase to finish his story before they went inside.
The detective winked. “I had a talk with my sister’s boyfriend and he is now my brother-in-law. We laugh about it now because I come here for work and talk to that same old lady that helped her out. My sister does not think it is very funny.”
He motioned Bowen through the door ahead of him. “Please,” he said. “After you. Japanese people are very polite. If someone is going to kill us, it will be in the back.”
Bowen stopped to look at him.
The detective grinned, showing a playful side brought out by the family story. “I am joking, Bowen-san.”
A bell chimed when they opened the glass door and entered a dim, but surprisingly clean, tile foyer. More nude statuary greeted them beside the front desk. These were plaster renditions of the goddesses Athena and Aphrodite, Greek not Egyptian, but Bowen doubted any of the Luxor’s patrons cared even if they happened to know.
“Irashaimase,” the granny behind the front desk window said. Please come in. A curtain with a print of a beautiful geisha hung down so the clerk would have to stoop to see anyone who was checking in. It was an illusion of privacy because there were two cameras facing the door that presumably fed monitors in the back office.
The clerk buzzed a side door open and waved Hase out of the main foyer with a flick of her liver-spotted hand. Bowen didn’t understand her words, but it was apparent that having a police officer loitering around check-in would be bad for business.
They were taken to a cramped back room, stacked to waist level with bins full of clean towels, bottles of shampoo, assorted lotions, and complimentary cans of beer. A plastic laundry basket sat just inside the door, filled to the brim with adult magazines and toys Bowen expected to find at such an establishment. If Hase and the old woman were embarrassed, they didn’t show it.
The two spoke for a short time, with the detective doing the lion’s share of listening while the old woman rattled on about something that Bowen thought was probably her bursitis, the way she kept holding up her elbow.
Finally, Hase turned to explain. “First,” he said, “you should know that Mrs. Mori thinks you are very handsome.”
Bowen looked at the grinning old woman. She was seventy if she was a day. “You’re talking about this woman here?”
“Yes,” Hase said. “She said is a shame that all the rooms are full and wonders if all American law enforcement officers are as good looking as you.”
“Not sure I know how to answer that.”
“That’s okay.” Hase laughed. “You don’t have to.” He nodded at a television monitor mounted on the back wall. A baseball game was playing, but the old woman picked up a remote and began to move through the channels. She clicked through five adult movies, pausing on one that was apparently a favorite of hers, before finally clicking through to a color-coded grid.
She studied the list of room numbers for a moment, then spoke rapidly to Hase.
“He’s still here, in Room four-oh-two—the Caesar Suite.” The detective pointed to the television screen. “That picture of a small lock below the room number means the door is shut. It will show unlocked if he opens the door to let someone in or leaves his room for any reason. They cannot allow people to walk freely around the halls in a place like this. Men can use one of the free papers from the lobby to pick out a girl and then call and place his order from the room.”
“The girl on the bicycle.” Bowen mused.
“Yes.” Hase nodded. “I am sure she was from one of the free paper advertisements. The man in Room four-oh-two has called to order such a girl, but Mrs. Mori said she has not yet arrived.”
“I see.” Bowen marveled over the differences between the Japanese and American versions of no-tell motels. “High tech.”
“High . . . tekku?”
“Tech,” Bowen said. “Technology.”
“Ah, yes,” Hase said, translating for the woman who smiled at the compliment regarding her system.
“So anyway.” Bowen nodded toward the flat screen. “Who is this man waiting in the Caesar Suite and why are we interested in him?”
“His name is Watanabe,” Hase said. “A yakuza soldier I have arrested numerous times. He is a regular client of Ayako Shimizu and will know how to find her if we ask the right questions.”
“And what type of questions are those?”
Hase turned to walk toward the elevator. “The same type of questions that turned my sister’s boyfriend into my brother-in-law.”
CHAPTER 60
Quinn and Ayako waited beside a vending machine that sold vitamin drinks in a shadowed alley across the busy four-lane thoroughfare of Sumiyoshi Street. A conservative black sign in large block characters ran between the uppermost row of windows and the flat roofline of the fifteen-story building. It read YANAGI PHARMACEUTICAL.
A steady wind howled, cold enough that periodic raindrops stung when they hit exposed skin. The motorcycle leaned on its side stand a few feet away, hot engine ticking as it cooled.
Ayako sniffed, brushing a wisp of hair out of her cold-pinked cheek. The wind blew it back again, so she gave up after two tries. She hunched over a small notebook, scribbling something while Quinn kept his eyes focused across the street. Whatever it was, she brooded about it for a moment, before tucking the book inside her bra, next to her heart.
Sighing heavily—as if she’d come to some grave decision—she took her phone out of her jacket.
“The website says this pharmaceutical company is a subsidiary of Yanagi Chemical Corporation . . .” She used her thumb to scroll down the page as she read. “What would Oda want with a company that manufactures antibiotics and tetanus vaccine?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said, leaning against the bike. “But it can’t be good.”
He’d watched four women and a man who all looked to be American or European leave together shortly after he’d parked the bike a little before 11:00. Now they walked back up the street, returning with cups of takeout coffee from a nearby café, chattering happily among themselves. Two of the women gave each other a high five as they crossed the street at the end of the block. They were celebrating something.
Quinn fought the urge to strong-arm his way to Oda. He’d come this far looking for answers. It would do little good to blow it all because of impatience. Still, they had to start somewhere—and of all Quinn’s good qualities, quietly waiting was not chief among them.
Emiko Miyagi had pointed out this fault early on. She told him of a poem that described the three most prominent shoguns in feudal Japan and their methods of dealing with a bird that refused to sing.
If it doesn’t sing, kill it, the first said.
If it doesn’t sing, make it sing, was the second’s philosophy.
The third, and most successful shogun, Lord Tokugawa had said: If it doesn’t sing, wait for it. It will.
Quinn had pointed out that Lord Tokugawa was also one of the most ruthless men who ever ruled Japan. “Balance, Quinn-san,” Miyagi had said. “It is always about balance.”
He smiled at the memory. The man behind the attempted murder of his little girl was very likely across the street. Balance was one thing, but at this point, the scales tipped toward going inside and making someone sing.
The American visitors were nearly to the front door.
Quinn turned to Ayako. Strands of black hair plastered across her face. “How about we get you out of this wind?”
She gave him a little bow. Grinning enough to show the delicate crow’s-feet at the corner of her eyes.
“That is an excellent—”
Ayako gave a little jump when the cell phone in her hand began to ring. She looked at the caller ID, frowning.
“Moshi moshi,” she answered. “Emm . . . Yes . . . yes, of course.” She looked up at Quinn, eyes wide. “It is for you. A man named Winfield Palmer.”
CHAPTER 61
Mrs. Mori was able to watch Bowen and Hase on the closed-circuit monitors in her office off the lobby of the Luxor love hotel. The detective waved at the hallway camera when they reached Room 402. The door gave a faint click as she opened it remotely.
The king-size bed was turned down, but empty. A pixilated adult movie played on the big-screen television. A single pair of well-worn but highly polished black shoes had been placed in the alcove just inside the door.
Bowen was hit immediately with a face full of steam and the heady odor of scented bath soap. The sound of dripping water to their right said Watanabe was in the bathroom.
Thinking it was his date, the yakuza soldier yelled something through the door.
Hase grinned, putting a finger to his lips. “He says he has the oil,” the detective whispered. “He wants us to come in and . . . apply it . . . In so many words.”
“This should be rich,” Bowen said, and pushed open the door.
He was greeted by the unpleasant sight of the heavily tattooed Isamu Watanabe, who was facedown and naked on a large plastic air mattress that took up all the usable space of the bathroom floor below the tub. The gangster’s right hand was wrapped in a bloodstained bandage. He kept it tucked in close to his side to protect it, but that hadn’t stopped him from using his other hand to douse himself with cooking oil. It puddled in the small of his back and ran down into the creases of the air mattress.
Facing away, with his cheek pressed against the plastic, he barked a command to who he thought was the girl he’d ordered from the free paper.
“He wants us to rub his back,” Hase said out loud. He stomped the end of the mattress, sending the startled yakuza rolling. “I don’t think I would care for that, would you?”
Watanabe spun at the male voice, drawing into a ball to cover himself and cowering against the far wall.
Body ink was nothing new to Bowen. Many of his friends in the military had tats. He’d heard of the Japanese mafia’s culture of tattooing their entire body, but he’d never actually seen one. Even on this sniveling runt it was an impressive thing to behold—blues, greens, and oranges flowing in surreal lines to form dragons and fire-breathing demons.
In a sudden gust of bravado, the surprised yakuza sprang for a pistol that lay on the counter beside the bathroom sink. He might as well have been reaching for the moon.
Hase gave the air mattress another stomp and sent the yakuza flying backward to bounce off the tile wall. By the time Watanabe could rebound, the detective produced an expandable metal baton from under his golf jacket and opened it with a flick of his wrist. Swinging the telescoping club with startling accuracy, the detective struck Watanabe twice in the injured hand and knocked out a front tooth before the man even knew he was being hit.
Bowen, who stood closer to the sink, snatched up the pistol and tucked it into his waistband, hoping Hase might forget he had it.
Though he’d appeared all mild manners and good sense from the time they’d met at the airport, Bowen was pleased to note that Detective Hase had an “on” switch. Evidently, Watanabe flipped it.
The yakuza soldier put both hands to his face and sank to his knees on the deflated air mattress. He sobbed as if he was choking to death.
Still clutching the expandable baton, the detective leaned in, launching into a series of spit-filled, rapid-fire questions. He hardly gave the cowering Watanabe time to answer before starting in on the next.
Bowen imagined it would be difficult for anyone to withstand a long interrogation by the screaming Hase, but enduring it with a mutilated hand while naked, slathered with cooking oil, and missing a tooth only added to the humiliation.
A look of amused surprise spread across Hase’s face. He turned to Bowen.
“Watanabe tells me that your fugitive cut off his finger last night and killed five members of his yakuza family. Ayako Shimizu killed a sixth.”
“So we were right that he is running with Shimizu?”
“Six dead.” Hase patted the metal club against an open palm. “And that is not taking into account those we found at Shimizu’s apartment. According to Watanabe, this American with a dark beard and cruel eyes cut the head off the gangster underboss and gave it to the top boss—a man called Tanaka.”
Bowen whistled. Quinn had really gone into the deep end of the pool.
“Does he say where we can find them?”
Hase began to shout again. The naked man groveled, still kneeling in the pool of oil. The peony flowers surrounding the fanged demons of his tattooed back appeared to ripple as his glistening skin twitched in pain and fear.
“He says he cannot seem to go two days in a row without someone beating him up.” Detective Hase half turned, trying to suppress a grin. “I told him you were an American police officer and your rules for interrogation were probably much more lax than ours.”
Bowen looked at the froth of blood streaming between Watanabe’s broken teeth. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said.
“He swears he hasn’t seen Ayako Shimizu since she stomped him in the groin . . .”
Watanabe broke in, bowing as he rattled off what sounded like a long excuse for something.
“Wait,” Detective Hase said. “He’s making a correction. Ayako Shimizu and the American were on a motorcycle the last he saw them, leaving a shrine near Tanaka’s warehouse.”
Watanabe chattered on, fearful he might leave something out.
“Apparently,” Hase said, rolling his eyes, “Watanabe has decided he hates being in the yakuza now.”
“Did he say where Shimizu and the American were headed?”
“He did,” Hase said. “I know the place. It is not too far from here. Yanagi Pharmaceutical.”
CHAPTER 62
Quinn turned his back to the wind that whipped down the alley as he spoke, eyes still glued to the front of Yanagi Pharmaceutical.
“How did you find me?”
On the other end of the phone, Winfield Palmer gave a long, deliberate sigh. Quinn could picture him sitting behind his broad mahogany desk, perusing a computerized map of Japan with a red blip that signified Quinn’s location.
