Rules of the Hunt (40 page)
Fitzduane had been well-briefed on the Hodama-Namaka-Yaibo triangle.
He had been given an extensive dossier on the
whole business, including a detailed summary of the police investigation to
date.
The file included photos of the
principals, and he had been shown covert police videos.
He felt he was beginning to know the
opposition.
He was even beginning to
develop some theories as to what was going on.
Fitzduane's mind wandered onto the concept of ‘degrees of separation,’
the thesis that everybody, even in a world of five billion people, was only a
handful of contacts away from everyone else.
You always knew someone who knew someone who knew someone.
For instance, a perusal of the file revealed a shared interest with Kei
Namaka in medieval weaponry.
Namaka had
even written several articles on Japanese arms for the Medieval Warrior's
Society.
Fitzduane was also a member.
In addition, Yoshokawa and the Namakas, as first-rank businessmen, were
connected through the keidanren, the powerful Japanese employers'
association.
The keidanren was a major
provider of finance for the LPD, the party whose strings Hodama had helped to
pull before coming to a rather unpleasant end.
In
it was not considered polite to approach an established figure directly.
An introduction by a mutual friend or
business contact of the appropriate status was essential.
In
ranked.
Yoshokawa-
san
would make the appropriate introduction.
He scarcely knew the Namakas, but as the
chairman of Yoshokawa Electronics and a fellow member of the Keidanren, he was
entirely appropriate.
All in all, the whole damn thing was connected in one way or
another.
More and more it seemed to
Fitzduane that the world was becoming a very small place.
Very small and very
dangerous.
He thought of Kathleen and Boots and what he was leaving behind, and then
focused on what must be done.
Much later, he slept.
*
*
*
*
*
June 6
His uniformed driver, in the front row of the crowd at the arrivals gate,
was holding up his white-gloved hands a sign labeled ‘Namaka Industries’ and
bearing the group logo.
The security chief himself, Toshiro Kitano, was standing well back.
As a senior executive, he would normally have
sent an underling to greet someone at the airport, but this visitor was
important.
He was the chairman of a
Japanese financial institution based in
arbitrage and stock manipulation.
The
Namakas wanted to tap into his expertise and had been courting him for many
months.
The formalities would have to be
observed punctiliously if negotiations were to be concluded successfully.
Kitano regarded waiting at airports as an activity he could do
without.
His driver could be counted on
to spot the new arrival, so he was daydreaming absentmindedly.
He nearly had a seizure when a tall,
broad-shouldered
gaijin
metamorphosed
in the middle distance into someone he thought had been left for near-dead in
His heart pounded so loudly, he felt that the
people around him must be able to hear.
His mouth went absolutely dry.
A
vein in his throat started to twitch.
This Fitzduane business had initially seemed an easy matter, and yet here
was this
gaijin
of no consequence,
not only fitter-looking than a man of his age had any right to be, but here in
This was appalling.
It was unforgivable.
It would make for the most terrible loss of
face.
The chairman that Kitano had been expecting approached through the crowd,
guided by the driver.
As he approached
the Namaka director, he expected that Kitano would recognize him, show pleasure
at his arrival after such a long and arduous trip, and bow deeply.
These were the minimum courtesies he could
expect.
Instead, Kitano, even after being respectfully reminded by his driver,
stared like some idiot peasant.
The chairman's face froze.
I must kill this barbarian before anyone knows he is here, thought
Kitano.
Here and now amid all these people,
it is impossible.
I must find out where
he is going, where he is staying.
He ran
toward the exit, just in time to see the
gaijin
stepping into a car.
Frantically, he
searched his pockets for a pen to write down the license-plate number.
*
*
*
*
*
The one thing Fitzduane knew about
there into the city center.
The
experienced traveler took the limousine, which cost a fraction of the amount
and was actually a small bus.
The bus was unnecessary.
Yoshokawa-
san
, a broad welcoming smile on his
face, met Fitzduane and Tanabu-
san
in
the terminal and guided them into a waiting car.
The skies were low, gray, and
unfriendly-looking, and it was raining.
He had been expecting cherry blossoms and sun.
He thought to himself that to travel halfway
around the world to get the same appalling weather as
ridiculous.
Worse, it was hot and humid.
Yoshokawa caught his skyward look and laughed:
"I'm sorry," he said, "it's
the rainy season.
We call it ‘plum
rain.’"
"We call it ‘having a nice soft day’ in
"but the stuff is still wet.
When
does it end?"
"It has just begun," said Yoshokawa.
"Fitzduane-
san
," said
Chifune, "I fear you have spent too much time with our files and not
enough reading guidebooks.
Did we
explain about earthquakes?"
"No." said Fitzduane.
"
tremors are very common.
In 1923, there
was an earthquake here in which a hundred and forty thousand people lost their
lives."
"When is the next big one due?" said Fitzduane.
"Soon enough," said Chifune, "but I would not worry.
I think more immediate risks will come from
other sources."
"Tanabu-
san
," said
Fitzduane.
"You are an unending
source of consolation."
*
*
*
*
*
Detective Superintendent Adachi
was feeling somewhat ground down by the many months of the Hodama
investigation, so he was treating himself to a morning away from the squad room
and a little serious thinking.
He was having a late breakfast,
cleaning his gun, and generally mooching around his apartment in his nice,
scruffy house kimono.
Police headquarters was all about action and work and, even more
important, the appearance of work.
He
was not too sure how good it was for perspective.
And right now he needed perspective.
He needed a sense of detachment.
His nose had been to the grindstone so long
that
it
was being ground down.
That was not quite the idea.
He was after a bunch of murderers.
The object was not to die of overwork, even
though that was a common enough occurrence in
The object was to unravel this mess and put
the villains behind bars.
He was doing
all the right things, operating by the book, and he seemed to be getting
nowhere.
He was sitting comfortably on his knees on the
tatami
mat floor with his breakfast, his gun, and various files
spread out in some disarray in front of him.
Rain beat down on the skylight.
He popped a pickle in his mouth and finished cleaning his gun as he
munched.
He was getting used to carrying
the damn thing and he was getting quite good at shooting it.
Recently, he had taken to practicing with it
at least twice a week.
He was feeling a little paranoid, and had the sense that he was under
surveillance from time to time.
He was
sure his apartment had been searched.
His instincts told him that he was part of a wider agenda.
He had a nasty feeling that there was a leak
somewhere in police headquarters or maybe even in the prosecutor's office.
He really had not a clue as to where, but
things were just a little too pat.
The Namakas were an unsavory pair, but they were the last people who should
have wanted to see Hodama dead; yet every time the investigation against the
Namakas slowed, another morsel of proof against them turned up.
But nothing was conclusive.
It was
as if there really was no hard evidence, but someone was manufacturing tidbits
to put the pressure on the Namakas.
And
they were succeeding.
The Namakas were
the only suspects.
They were now under
around-the-clock police surveillance and had been brought in for questioning by
the prosecutor on half a dozen occasions.
The noose around the Namakas was steadily tightening, based on purely
circumstantial evidence — and the absence of any alternative — but Adachi was
uncomfortable.
He was a policeman.
He was a judge of people.
He trusted his instincts.
The Namakas were guilty of most things,
including murder in his opinion, but not necessarily of the killing of
Hodama.
Adachi's gut feeling told him
that the Namakas were being framed.
Of
course, it really could not be happening to nicer people.
A few weeks back, he had started making a few inquiries of his own,
independent of his team, and without telling anyone.
He had used a couple of old classmates from
the police academy who were now posted away from headquarters in prefecture
stations — and had sworn them to secrecy.
Information had begun to trickle in; and at the same time, he had begun
to feel he was under surveillance.
There was one consistent element in the replies.
Practically all the people who were
contributing to the growing case against the Namakas had been found, upon
detailed investigation, to have a Korean connection.
Adachi sipped his iced tea.
Maybe
it was just a coincidence.
He cleaned up
the room's clutter, showered, and got dressed.
He slid his holstered revolver onto his belt and took the subway to Kabutcho,
the district where the stock market was located, to meet the Eel.
*
*
*
*
*
The Eel was in a quiet corner of his favorite restaurant, a dish of his
favorite food — which had given rise to his name — in front of him.
Conveniently, he also owned the restaurant.
He was a round, merry-faced man in his early fifties.
He had been a financial journalist for many
years, but had been expelled from his press club for refusing to report a story
according to the docile official line.
This was a serious development, because news in
disseminated only through press clubs.
Members were expected to report favorably in exchange for being given
information.
Gaijin
were not allowed to join.
Press clubs were a less-than-subtle way of
managing
information
.
The Eel had lot his job when he had been evicted from the financial press
club.
This could have been a disastrous
situation, but he was shrewd and street smart and financially adroit.
The stock market was booming.
He set up a financial newspaper.
He was extremely well-informed, and the
venture thrived.