Tokyo Enigma (5 page)

"I see."

Maybe the U.S. could license swear words to Japanese. They
obviously needed some, and it might help the trade imbalance.

For a day trip, Morioka was a long haul, but the information
we scored might be critical. Morimoto said he would check the bank
accounts we got from Noboru Hosoi and try to trace where the
money came from. Japan had not adopted a social security
numbering system like the U.S., so it was possible for Hosoi to open
an account under false identification, which she had in fact done. No
problem. We had the numbers and the alias: Ai Yoshida. As far as I
knew, the authorities did not have that information.

"Our banking system is sometimes cloudy, but I understand
it," said Morimoto. There was a spark of fire in his eyes that might
have been stoked by spite at that same system that had spit him out.
"I have contacts, still. If the money was transferred from another
bank, I'll trace the source. If it was cash, I'll find out."

That was the most pluck I'd seen in him since he shoved me
onto the rush-hour train. I liked it.

Later that night, I got a call from Yuri asking me if I could
find my way to Shibuya station the next morning. The investigator
who had rendezvoused with the model was working in that area, and
he had a report for us. She said they'd wait for me at a coffee shop
across the street from Hachiko.

"What's Hachiko?"

"Just go to Shibuya and follow the signs. You'll find it."

I did. Hachiko was a dog that decades ago had developed a
habit of waiting at the station every day to meet its master. After his
master died, the dog still trotted to the station and waited. Japanese
found the hound's inability to break his habit endearing. He became
a symbol of war-time loyalty. They put up a statue and made a movie
about him.

Lucky dog.

In China, Hachiko would have been soup de jour the day his
master died.

Yuri was right about Hachiko's statue being easy to find. So
was the shop. She and her
compadrè
were having lattes
when I arrived. I ordered the brew of the day. It wasn't Cajun, and
they didn't have egg and bean
mariachis
, so I got a bagel and a
banana instead. Yum.

Not everyone in Shibuya looked like they were on their way
to audition for a boy band or a costume-play club. The coffee shop
customers were dressed for office work. The only thing unusual was
that about seventy percent were women. Yuri and the investigator
with her were both dressed in black pullovers and black slacks.
Maybe Protect Agency had a dress code that Morimoto hadn't heard
about.

Yuri introduced Ken Nozaka. He half rose and extended his
hand, good grip. Not that I was attracted, but objectively, I'd have to
say he was prettier than Yuri, skinnier nose anyway. Not a bad
choice for someone to chat up a model.

"What'd we find out?" I asked Yuri, but Nozaka answered for
himself.

"Where would you like to begin?" He spoke as though he'd
stayed up all night practicing the elocution on that sentence. It was
precise, but unnatural. I gave him another scan. He was lean but built
solid. His nails were filed and his hair was neat, except for a few
strands that fell across his forehead. He had probably counted them
out and sprayed them into place. The imperfection that imparted
perfect balance, like pouring a tablespoon of yin into two cups of
yang. Nature didn't like purity.

Me neither. Besides he was sitting too close to Yuri.

"Did she know Dorian?"

"Unfortunately, I could not find out. When I asked her too
much about Miss Hosoi, she almost didn't answer."

I was pretty sure he meant to say that she didn't answer
most of the questions. Nozaka's dicey syntax made Mr. Perfection a
little more likeable, but not by much.

"Did she say why she didn't want to talk about Hosoi?"

"No, she looked afraid, and—" He glanced at Yuri as though
he was asking for permission to talk.

She didn't respond.

I did. "And?"

"Yuri-san asked me to try to make a deal, so I offered to pay
the model for sex. She said okay. I think she expected it."

"How much?"

Yuri nudged Nozaka's shoulder and leered at me. "You
interested?"

"If I have to explain every question, this could be a long day."
I bit into the bagel, chewy overly processed batter, and flushed it
down with trendy coffee that wouldn't know chicory from chives. As
far as my stomach was concerned it was already a long day.

"Just trying to help," she said.

"How much?" I asked again.

"At first she wanted fifty-thousand yen, but she agreed to
thirty-five thousand. I turned on a little charm, and she came down
in price, you know."

"Not really. How long had she known Hosoi?"

"She met her at Foxx Starr soon after Hosoi-san arrived in
Tokyo. It was seven or eight months ago."

"Just a minute." I did some math on a napkin. "Hosoi said
Maho had eleven million yen in bank accounts. Even at
fifty-thousand yen a pop, so to speak, that would take about two hundred
and twenty tricks. Then there were living expenses."

Nozaka shook his head. "It's hard to say. I don't think she
was so professional. I think it was only sometimes for extra money. It
is just my feeling."

Yuri nodded in agreement. "Anyway, I doubt many johns
would pay that much. If you want to know the economics though, we
need to find out exactly what Foxx Starr does. If it only handles
modeling and the girls do a little free-lance on the side, then I expect
Nozaka-san is right. Once in a while, they pick up enough extra to
keep themselves in Dior and Hermes accessories."

"And if the agency's mostly a front for prostitution?"

"Then they might get steady customers, but you have to
figure the agency would get about half."

I had nothing more to ask Nozaka. I thanked him, and he got
up to leave.

Yuri, however, had a final question. "So did you?"

Mr. Charm smiled. "Of course not."

Only his expense accountant manager would know for
sure.

Yuri called a real estate agent and asked about vacancies in
the building where Hosoi had lived. She gave the number of Hosoi's
unit and said she had heard it was available. The agent checked. The
apartment had been vacated last week, but it wasn't ready to show.
Yuri said she needed to find a place quickly and didn't mind seeing it
before it was cleaned. The building was about a ten-minute uphill
walk from Harajuku station in an area thick with trees. The entry
was as Spartan as a warehouse and the elevators were built to carry
freight. Most of the rooms had corporate nameplates on the doors.
There was a wide hall with rooms on either side like a hotel.

There didn't seem to be much to recommend the place until
we saw inside the apartment. It had three spacious rooms. A balcony
big enough for lawn furniture looked out over a sprawling park
called Meiji Jingu. It cost a hundred ninety thousand yen a month,
which was about the entire salary of a convenience store worker her
age.

Yuri started looking into cabinets and under counters. The
agent explained again that the place had not been cleaned. Yuri said
she was just checking the carpentry. The agent crinkled her forehead
and started blinking like a butterfly on the wing. I asked her to show
me the balcony. It had a nice view of lots of nice trees and nice
houses and a really nice sky. She listened to me say "nice" for maybe
four minutes, before her demeanor went from puzzled to vexed. She
figured she'd been had, but couldn't figure out why.

Yuri was looking in a cabinet under the bathroom sink when
we came back in. She banged her head on the bottom of the sink, said
"ouch" and "thanks," and we left.

"Look what I found." Yuri held out her hand as we strolled
on a nicely paved sidewalk. She dangled a plastic bull about as big as
my thumb tip from a thin ribbon that ran through a loop on its back.
For whatever reason, Yuri acted like she had an air-bubble of
excitement inside her that she was struggling to hold back like a
belch at a tea party. We'd only come to get an idea of Hosoi's living
style and expenses, but for a bonus we got a plastic bull.
Olé
.

"I might know where this came from." The toy was black
and shaped with the powerful shoulders and narrow hindquarters of
a fighting bull. Its horns were stuck through the basic mold so you
could rotate them up and down.

"Spain?" I threw a straight-line slow up the middle of home
plate.

"Originally." She ignored me. "There's a Spanish restaurant
in Aoyama. It's about a fifteen-minute walk from here. I've been
there a few times."

"So?"

"So, they serve a wine called Sangre del Toro, blood of the
bull. The bottles have these babies attached." She wiggled our friend
from its wee ribbon.

"It's a long shot, but I'm impressed
Señorita
Taen. Shall we go?"

"
Vamanos, Señor Sanchez. Tengo hambre
."

"I'm very impressed."

There was no convenient subway, so we walked. Most of the
stretch was along a broad boulevard. The first major intersection
had a condom specialty store called "Condomania" on the corner.
Farther along were myriad curio shops and tearooms. Retail outlets
ranged from high-rise malls to mom and pop cafes that were mostly
on side streets just off the main drag.

The restaurant, El Castellano, was a two-room niche on the
second floor of a ramshackle building. It seated maybe twenty people
and had been around a good while. The walls were white. Customers'
graffiti in Spanish, Japanese and English filled in the spaces between
old photographs of soccer teams and corrida posters. Mementos
were stacked randomly like odd tools in the workroom of an
eccentric inventor. Yuri and I got there as the last of the lunch crowd
was clearing out.

The proprietor looked to be in his early sixties, had a modest
paunch and wore black trousers, a white shirt and a red
cummerbund. He treated his customers like houseguests.

"I'll start with fried sardines," I said.

He clicked his tongue. "You don't like garlic?"

"Garlic's fine."

"Then you should have the sardines sautéed in garlic
and butter, not fried." He made circles with his thumbs and
forefingers, held his hands palms up. "They are so much better."

I looked at Yuri. She smiled. She'd been here before.

"All right."

We also ordered grilled lamb and paella. I was scanning the
menu for something else, but he stopped me.

"That's enough. If you want more when you finish. You can
order something else, but it's quite a lot here."

The proprietor was an artisan first and a businessman
second, but he was good at both roles.

"Something to drink?"

Yuri showed him the plastic bull. "Sangre del Toro."

She had a photo of Hosoi in her shoulder bag and took it out.
It was a long shot, but at least we weren't wasting time. We had to
eat somewhere.

The proprietor returned with the wine and sardines along
with a baguette that we hadn't ordered, but which apparently he'd
decided we needed.

"Smells great," I said by way of small talk. "I'm Mick Sanchez
and this is Yuri Taen."

His manner became formal, and he bowed his head slightly.
"
Con mucho gusto, me llamo
Miguel Herrera."

It must have been the "Sanchez" part of my name. I might
have done better in Spanish with Mr. Herrera, but I didn't think Yuri
went much beyond "I'm hungry," so I kept to English.

"We'd like to ask you about someone who might have been a
customer, if you don't mind."

The arch in Mr. Herrera's left eyebrow indicated that I had
raised a delicate topic, but he didn't say no.

Yuri showed him Hosoi's photo. "Have you seen this
person?"

"Of course."

I flashed a smile at Yuri.

"I live in Japan. I read newspapers and watch television.
Everyone has seen her."

"I mean, do you remember if she was ever a customer here."
Yuri wasn't going down that easily.

Neither was Mr. Herrera. "Perhaps we could know more
about each other first."

He didn't take the opportunity to describe his first pair of
long trousers, so Yuri and I produced our business cards. I explained
what we were doing and said that we had good reason to suspect
Dorian might not be the one who had murdered Maho.

Herrera had a daughter, and he was a champion of justice. If
what I said was true, he might be able to help. He told us that Maho
had been in several times, usually with women friends, but the first
time he'd remembered seeing her she'd come with a man. It was a
few months ago.

"That's an impressive memory you have Mr. Herrera. Would
you mind a game?"

I asked Yuri to turn her face away and then asked Herrera to
describe her. He aced it, down to a small scar on the side of her chin,
to a crooked smile when she raised the right side of her lips and
lowered the left, to a pair of beauty marks one about half the size of
the other at the corner of her left eye. I was sorry I had asked. There
was an almost embarrassing intimacy in the details of his
description. Yuri didn't seem to mind though.

"The beauty marks are quite arresting. You have lovely
eyes." Herrera said when Yuri turned back around.

"Quite arresting," the man said. This sixty-something
polyglot restaurateur was speaking in his maybe fifth or sixth
language and had Yuri on the verge of a blush. I hadn't noticed her
"beauty marks." If I had, and if I'd thought to say anything about
them, I probably would have come up with, "nice moles."

Herrera turned to me. "Did I pass?"

"Sorry." I was just being a twit. "Was Charles Dorian the man
she was with? I expect you've seen his picture on television
too."

"The man was Japanese. Since I've decided to talk you, why
don't I tell the story, as I remember it, of course, and you can ask
questions when I finish?"