Tokyo Enigma (2 page)

"Prosecutors have been pushing a theory of rough sex that
got out of hand."

"How does that sound to you?"

"Out of character. I'm divorced. I'm not a monk, but I'm
pretty straight in that regard. I've never physically hurt a
woman."

He looked at his hands again as though they were alien
appendages that had attached themselves against his will. "Not that I
remember."

"Did you know the girl?"

"No."

"Ever have a blackout like this before?"

"Not since college. I'm not a heavy drinker."

"Did they do any chemical tests?"

"What?"

"Breath, blood, urine, stool. Did they look for anything
besides alcohol?"

"I'd been drinking. I stank when they arrested me. I
remember that. Breath maybe? I'm not sure what else. I was groggy
for a long time."

"That's all right. Mr. Ishii will check."

I looked toward the attorney, who nodded and made a
note.

"Do you think you can help me?"

From his body language and tone of voice, Dorian might
have been talking about a flat tire. He seemed more puzzled than
frightened.

"I'll be honest. Helping you is Mr. Ishii's job. I'm here to help
Kyle Solutions come clean with the local community, if you're guilty.
And to get everyone off the hook, if you aren't. If you are guilty,
personally, I hope you're convicted."

Dorian scowled, but it was better to clear any false
assumptions.

"May I see your hands?"

The bruising extended from just inside the right palm below
the little finger, across the back of his hand to just inside the palm
below the index finger. There were no marks on the center of his
palms, and the bruises were evenly distributed. Marks were similar
on both hands.

"Any other injuries?"

"No."

"Scratches on your back or shoulders that you can't
see?"

Dorian shook his head.

"I need to take pictures of your hands, and if you don't mind,
of your body,"

"Police have done that."

"The police aren't on your side."

"You aren't either."

"
Touché
. Let me restate. I'll assume you're
innocent until there's proof otherwise. Everyone else thinks you're
guilty."

Dorian undressed to his briefs and, except for his hands,
there wasn't a mark on him. I used a digital camera to record that
fact and checked the images, while Dorian put his clothes back on. I
pointed out the apparent lack of a struggle to Ishii, and noticed our
representative from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department jot
something on a pad.

"What were you doing before eight o'clock?"

"I was at a reception for a violinist. She'd just released a CD.
I'd been invited by a music producer, whom I met through a mutual
friend. I guess that's where..." Dorian's hands fluttered in small
circles as his voice faded.

"You said you didn't know the girl. Have you ever employed
the services of a prostitute?"

Dorian winced. "No need."

"No doubt, but some men find the illicit exchange
stimulating. The Profumo syndrome, natty U.K. parliamentarians and
their madam. Way back. Ever hear of it?"

"No, I have never hired a prostitute."

"Any dangerous enemies, Mr. Dorian?"

For an instant, it looked like Dorian's composure slipped. He
shook his head.

"Thank you, then."

"Is that all?"

"Is there anything else you want to say?"

Dorian didn't answer. He rubbed a bruise on his hand as
though he was trying to erase it.

"The urgent thing was to meet you and get a firsthand look.
I'll be back after I know more about what happened."

A guard came to escort Dorian out. When he got to the door,
he stopped and turned.

"How can you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Work as a private investigator in Japan."

"Conducting a little business on a tourist visa. Salesmen do it
all the time. Besides, except for Osaka, investigators don't need a
license in Japan. Right Mr. Morimoto?"

Morimoto's hair wafted up and down as he nodded. He
looked vaguely offended.

We took Ishii back to his office, and then headed for Foxx
Starr, the talent agency that had employed Maho Hosoi. It was in
Nishi Azabu, a fusion-culture enclave on Tokyo's bohemian west
side. I hadn't had breakfast, and my stomach was growling like a
grizzly getting a root canal. Morimoto didn't know the area, so he
parked at the first place he found. Menus posted outside a French
café advertised Japanese ingredients in cordon bleu-inspired
concoctions.

So-called ethnic restaurants in the area had dishes
representing every country in Southeast Asia. We went into a place
called Westwind. I couldn't identify the décor or the fare. As
far as I could tell, fusion cuisine was less an exotic stew than a
random dropping of mismatched dollops. Haddock roe, daikon
radish and avocado, for instance.

After lunch, Morimoto called Foxx Starr for directions. The
agency was off the main drag, deep in an area where narrow streets
seldom met at right angles. There were no street signs or house
numbers or sidewalks. Morimoto swerved from one side of an
alley-wide road to the other to avoid a young woman pushing a buggy
occupied by a fat, red-cheeked baby swaddled in woolen wraps and
wearing a fluffy cap pulled down over its ears. The woman wore
high-heeled boots, a tight skirt that stopped well above her knees
and a leather jacket that stopped just above the hem of her skirt. She
was smiling as she talked on a mobile phone, heedless to the dangers
of traffic, either to herself or the infant. She was like a lot of
Tokyoites I'd seen, meticulous with style, oblivious to safety.

A car came toward us and Morimoto pulled over as close as
possible to one of the cinderblock walls that fronted many of the
houses on the road. The other driver eased his car around ours. He
had about a six-inch clearance. Morimoto slowed at some
intersections to check parabolic mirrors for reflections of traffic
from otherwise unviewable cross streets. Once we stopped behind a
Yamato "Black Cat" van and waited for the driver to deliver his
package. He repeatedly nodded either thanks or apologies to
Morimoto as he scurried back into the van and drove on.

It wasn't clear to me why half the population of Japan had
not been eliminated in flare-ups of road rage, but Morimoto took it in
stride. While we waited for the van to move, he called the modeling
agency again for a new set of directions, because he couldn't find it,
even though his car had a navigation system.

We finally found Foxx Starr on the third floor of a small
building. Its office comprised a sitting room and an office. A table at
the end of a sofa carried photo albums of models. That was the only
evidence of the nature of the business. There were few frills.
Depending on your point of view, it could have been sparse elegance
or fly-by-night. Not much to pack if creditors came calling.

The receptionist greeted us with an attitude that said she
had better things to do, like stick another star on her see-through,
paste-on fingernails. She had strawberry-blonde hair and a
rose-colored tattoo at the fringe of cleavage. I wondered where the tattoo
ended, but then I guess that's what it was for. Even Morimoto had
trouble looking her in the eye when he asked to see the boss.

Maika Ito, the agency's owner, already had a guest, a wide
man with square shoulders and a boot-camp haircut. His thighs and
neck were thickly muscled. He had flat features except for a
hawk-beaked nose. Only his eyes moved as he watched us like a panther
eyeing an impala, sizing us up in case we met again when he was
hungry. He sat splay-legged and wore a thin jacket that had a
short-barrel .38-size lump under the left-breast pocket. I thought pistols
were banned for civilians Far East of the Pecos.

Ito stood. She was tall and lithe. Deep-set eyes gave a
discordantly hard aspect to her delicately boned face. Ignoring the
panther, she came around her desk and sat across from Morimoto
and me. If she spoke English, she didn't let it show. She and
Morimoto traded business cards and did a lot of bowing even though
they were seated. I supposed he was expressing sympathy for Hosoi.
After Morimoto finished his rituals, he said he was ready to
interpret.

"Hosoi-san had worked for Foxx Starr agency about a year
and a half on a non-salaried basis. She was paid by the job," he
said.

"So how much was she paid? How often did she work? What
kind of modeling: cat walk, fashion, adverts, swimsuit?"

Morimoto hiccoughed a few times as he launched into
Japanese.

Ito responded in a voice that was at once hard-edged and
smoky smooth. After she quit talking, he translated. "She said
payments are confidential. She didn't answer my question about
specialization, but she did say Hosoi-san was in a travel poster
recently for a railway company. "

"Did she have any friends in the agency?" I said.

Thin lines around Ito's eyes and mouth deepened when she
inhaled on a brown cigarette, which she pinched between her thumb
and forefinger. When she exhaled, she didn't care whose face she
blew toward. She leaned back languidly, like a Stanislavsky
protégé acting out ennui. A few more minutes, and she
might affect sleep with maybe a dainty snore and a faint smile to
suggest dreams of elegant debauchery. Or maybe it was just my mind
wandering too far.

"
Hiyaa
," she finally said, "
Mama, jai nai
. "

Morimoto didn't have to translate. She was no one's mother.
Personal relationships aren't her business.

"Do you mind if we question some of your models? Anyone
who had worked with Ms. Hosoi."

Morimoto's translation brought Ito to life. She uncrossed her
legs, leaned forward and, in a husky voice that had just dropped a
couple of notes, talked so long that Morimoto started to fidget.

When she finished, he did a cough routine that could have
sprung from either nerves or tobacco poisoning. "It's difficult," he
said.

I tried for a few seconds to fit his reply into a logical niche. I
gave up. "It took her thirty seconds to say, It's difficult? What's
difficult? We get some phone numbers, we call, set a time and place.
Maybe you have to call a person two or three times, but that's it. It's
not so hard."

"Ah..."

"Ah, what?"

"She doesn't want to disturb her staff."

"I'll be polite." I smiled at Ms. Ito and even gave the panther
a what's-a guy-to-do shoulder shrug.

He didn't respond, but I watched him long enough to see
that he was breathing.

"We can do it here." I said.

Morimoto started hacking like a cat about to spit up a
hairball. I edged away from him as he held a handkerchief to his
mouth. He finally translated.

It had been a long time since I'd studied the language, but I
understood Ito's reply. It was short this time.

"
Sore wa chotto muzukashii
."

The way she snapped her head forward and emphasized the
word
chotto
, made it clear she meant impossible. So did the
set of her jaw.

"Doesn't she want to find out what happened to Ms. Hosoi?"
I said.

Morimoto made no response, so I nudged him.

"Ask her."

He kept his handkerchief pressed against his upper lip as he
translated. By the time Ito finished answering, he was wiping
perspiration from his forehead.

"She read about it in the newspaper. The murderer has been
caught. The police would not have arrested Mr. Dorian, if he was not
guilty." Morimoto put away his handkerchief. "She said she doesn't
think there is anything else for us to talk about."

"Thank you very much." I bowed to Ito and nodded to the
panther before we left.

On the way back to my hotel, I tried to draw Morimoto out. I
wanted to know why he was as nervous as a peasant proposing to a
princess. I'd seen Japanese get jittery because of language problems,
but his English was good, so I figured it must be something else. He
fielded my questions with "uh's" and "ah's" and air sucked through
his teeth, anything to avoid communication.

All he told me was that he wouldn't be able to meet me
tomorrow, because he had to wind up another assignment. However,
his agency had put two investigators on the Dorian case. The other
was Taen-san who would see me the next day. When we got to the
hotel, I gave it one more try and invited him for a drink. He
apologized and said he needed to get home. I suppose it was just as
well.

His little cat coughs had started again.

I'd stayed up transferring Dorian's pictures from the camera
to a notebook computer so I could blow them up to get a closer look
at details. Maybe jetlag, or the beer before bedtime, had addled my
mind. Something about the pictures bothered me, but I couldn't nail
down what it was. If I figured it out, I could add it to the list of things
I already considered odd about the case, such as the apparent lack of
a struggle between Dorian and Hosoi and the chilly reception we got
at Foxx Starr.

This morning, there were two other male foreigners in the
hotel lobby. If Taen was anything like Morimoto, he might need
medical attention by the time he decided which of us to approach. I
tried to keep an eye out for a nervous individual while I read a
newspaper, whose sports pages gave top coverage to soccer and
about equal space to American football, rugby and hockey. I was
reading a story about a judge who was forced to resign for paying a
fifteen-year-old girl twenty thousand yen for sex, when I heard my
name. At first, I thought the woman standing next to my table was
paging me for a phone call, but she was dressed strangely for a hotel
employee. She wore a loose black sweater, black slacks and
rubber-soled sports shoes.

"Mr. Sanchez?" she repeated.