Tokyo Heist (30 page)

I wince.
Nice try, Dad.

Hideki speaks in Japanese. I feel the boat rock as some of the men get off. At least two men; I can hear their footsteps as they leap onto the dock. That leaves one of our abductors on the boat, which lurches as he moves toward the front. I hear something slap the water. The boat begins to move, turning slightly. I guess the man is poling the boat away from the dock.

“Where are we going?” I call out, in case Hideki’s still with us.

There’s a pause, then Hideki answers. He must be sitting just a couple feet away from us. “You are on a
ukai
show spectator boat.”

“Are we going to the show?” Reika asks in a wavery voice.

“In a sense,” Hideki says. “Though I doubt you will have the opportunity to see much of it. I’m afraid you don’t have the best seats for viewing.”

“Enough of this!” my dad snaps. I can feel him thrashing next to me, trying to loosen his bindings. “Untie us right now!”

“This will all go much more smoothly, and be more comfortable for everyone, if you remain silent and if you do not struggle,” says Hideki.

“Tell us what’s going on!” my dad barks. “We have the right to know.”

“I can understand your position,” Hideki says. “I can tell you this much. In a few minutes, this boat will stop a few yards behind my aunt and uncle’s boat. Fujikawa, in a snack boat, will tie up to my aunt and uncle’s boat. At the time of the art exchange, my associate here will take out Fujikawa, Kenji, and Mitsue, and then the three of you. Then I’ll collect the drawings and painting, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Take us out—we’re going to be killed, too?” my dad asks.

My limbs have gone completely numb. I don’t know if it’s from the ropes or from terror. Of course he’s going to kill us. We know too much. Even if the art exchange goes through, we have enough information, and the letters we found, to launch an investigation of Hideki Yamada. Hideki’s worked too hard on this plan to inherit the art. He won’t risk having us mess it all up.

“If you kill us, the FBI will be on you in an instant,” my dad says.

“You think because you are Americans you are going to get special treatment?” Hideki laughs softly. “Your FBI already could not prevent this moment from taking place. Agent Chang has given up and returned to Seattle. Your deaths will be considered casualties of
yakuza
warfare. You will be killed in the dark, far from the shore, with no witnesses.
Gaijin
travelers in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

“It’ll make the news,” my dad says. “You can’t cover up something like this.”

“Yes, it will certainly make the news,” Hideki agrees. “The headlines will read that the Yamada Corporation CEO and his wife, and three
gaijin
, were caught in the crossfire of a gang turf war. These unfortunate incidents happen, and investigators do not bother looking closely into gang warfare incidents here in Japan.”

“Your mural isn’t done!” my dad protests. “Your dignitaries will be welcomed by an empty wall!”

“That is a pity, I agree,” says Hideki. “But it cannot be helped. And now, I must insist on silence. No more talking, please. Keep your heads down. I apologize for the scent of this canvas tarp. It may be a bit unpleasant. But at least your time beneath it will be brief.”

I hear a scraping sound, and then something that sounds like a flag snapping. In the next moment, I’m smothered by a heavy material that smells like mold and covers me head to toe. He must have thrown a big tarp over all of three of us, to conceal us from any passing boaters. I can feel Reika beside me, twisting her head to get air, and to the left of her, I can hear my dad sneeze.

The boat glides down the river.
Should I yell? Are we near any other boats, anyone who can help us?

No. Too risky. All Hideki’s hit man has to do is show his gun. People will think he’s a yahoo and get right out of the way.

I have to get my wrists free. There’s no way to take action otherwise. I twist my hands around and feel the twine gradually loosen. A little. But not enough.

While I’m shifting and twisting, I feel something jab my waist on my right side. The leather pouch with my woodcarving tools. I tied it to my
yukata
belt earlier! It contains three knives that are small but have supersharp blades. If I could get just one knife from that pouch, we could cut the twine off each other’s wrists. Under the tarp, in darkness, our escape might not be detected.
Can I do this? Can I do it blind?

I roll to shift my weight to my right side and move my hands, behind my back, toward my left side. My wrists are bound, but my fingers can just grasp the pouch. I twist my torso as far as I can, but I can’t get enough leverage to pull up the pouch flap and open it up.

“Reika,” I whisper. “My carving tools. They’re in a pouch on my
yukata
belt. Can you reach the pouch?”

Reika maneuvers slowly, writhing along the bottom of the boat until she’s positioned a few inches higher than me. She fumbles and grasps the pouch. “I got it!” she whispers, and tugs until it opens. After a little more fumbling, she extracts something from the pouch. “I’ll try to cut your bindings.”

“Quiet,” my dad cautions.

Reika saws at the twine around my wrists, but nothing seems to be happening. “I don’t think this is a knife,” she whispers. “It’s not cutting at all.”

“It’s probably a gouge,” I say. “It’s not sharp enough. Go back in the pouch and grab another tool. Hurry!”

Reika rummages again and extracts another tool. “Ow!” she mutters. “This one’s a knife, all right. I just cut myself.” She saws at the twine, timing her knife movements with the sounds of the bamboo pole hitting the water. She can’t see what she is doing, since the burlap is still over her head. I pray she doesn’t press too hard and hit my skin with the blade. But after about ten slices, I feel the twine slide off my wrists. I take the sack off my head, reach for the knife, and cut her free, then my dad.

Untied, we huddle under the tarp, which smells over-poweringly of mildew. “I wonder where we are?” Reika whispers. “Should we jump out and swim for shore? Or stand up and yell for help? Maybe the
ukai
show passengers would hear us.”

“I’m assuming these guys are armed,” my dad says. “Let’s lie low, at least until we figure out where we are.”

I raise myself onto my elbows and lift the edge of the canvas, just enough to see out. The sky has darkened to indigo. We’re on a long passenger boat for the
ukai
show, complete with cheerful glowing lanterns dangling from the roof, each one decorated with a black cormorant. Hideki is sitting at the front of the boat, looking intently ahead, while an older, gray-haired man poles the boat forward. When he turns to the side, I recognize him as the bathing yahoo. Shaking, I lower the canvas. “We know the hit man,” I whisper. “It’s our old friend from room nine.”

“Look again,” Reika urges. “Do you see other boats? Anyone we could ask for help?”

I gather all my courage and raise the canvas again. Now I can see we’ve passed under the Moon Crossing Bridge already, and the
ukai
show is about fifty yards up ahead.

Twelve spectator boats just like ours form a graceful arc, the passengers silhouetted in the dark. One boat lingers some distance behind the others. I figure it contains the Yamadas and the van Gogh, and some poor boatman who’s about to get caught in the middle of a mess.

A bit closer is the
ukai
fishing boat. Fire crackles inside the wire basket hanging off the boat, making the water glow orange. With that light, I can make out the three men standing on the fishing boat, and the bobbing heads and flapping wings of cormorants, still tied up, eager to dive. One man slowly beats a drum. “The fishing boat’s only about twenty yards away,” I whisper. “Maybe we could communicate with them somehow.”

I watch as one fisherman tosses the birds into the water, then leans way over the side of his boat, struggling to keep control of the leashes as the birds dive down. Then he pulls the birds back on the boat and extracts fish—the
ayu
—from their beaks. I wish I could set them all free. They’re working so hard and don’t get to keep their rewards. They strain at their leashes. They squawk in protest and flap their wings.

Is that how Tomonori felt, collecting art for a gang boss? Is that why his journal clues and his cover-up painting all related to
ukai?
Or was it just that the
ukai
show was located near the love of his life, who would keep the van Gogh painting safe as a symbol of their undying love?

Suddenly, I hear the whine of a motor. A wooden boat with an outboard motor slowly approaches the Yamadas’ boat. It’s the snack boat. Which Fujikawa is on.

The bathing yahoo—our boatman—poles us faster toward the snack boat. Reika is squeezing my hand so hard it’s going numb.

“What’s going on, Violet? What can you see?” my dad asks.

“The bathing yahoo—the hit man—is poling our boat, standing up on the end, and Hideki’s sitting right by him. And I can see the snack boat moving toward the Yamadas’ boat.”

A man on the snack boat cuts the motor as he pulls up by the Yamadas. This could be Fujikawa himself. He looks old enough to be the famed gang leader; he has a slight stoop, and his hair glows silver in the moonlight. Yet he doesn’t look as scary as I thought a gang boss would. He wears a black windbreaker and a baseball cap, like some old guy going to a sporting event. But since he’s old, and not so physically strong, I’m guessing this has to be Fujikawa and not one of his henchmen.

Now he’s holding up a long tube. Kenji reaches out for it. I suck in my breath. “Fujikawa’s just handed over the drawings,” I whisper to my dad and Reika. That means we’re minutes, or seconds, from gunfire.

Think, think, think
. Tears sting my eyes. I’m not Kimono Girl. I have no superpowers. I can’t fly over to that boat and stop this exchange from continuing.

They say your entire life flashes before your eyes when you’re about to die. For me, it’s all forty-three episodes of
Vampire Sleuths
. Scenes of Kyo and Mika thwarting bad guys. And suddenly a scene from episode five flashes into my mind and sticks. Kyo and Mika were on a boat not unlike this one. A canoe. An armed villain crept onto it, and they threw all their weight against the side to knock him off the boat. This
ukai
spectator boat is wider and longer, but maybe if three of us rocked the boat hard, we could cause Hideki and the hit man to topple off.

Back under the canvas, I quickly whisper the plan to my dad and Reika. “Hideki and the hit man are right on the front of the boat. Hideki’s perched on the edge, and the hit man is standing up with the pole. It shouldn’t take much effort to throw off their balance.”

“But how can we rock this boat?” Reika asks. “If we all stand up, they’ll see us and shoot us.”

“We can stay under the tarp. We’ll roll really hard and make the boat lurch.” I’m surprised at how steady my voice is. There’s no time for fear. Only action. “Go right, then left. On the count of three. One. Two. Three!”

We roll right. The boat tips. I hear a splash. Then another. We throw off the canvas, and I see both men in the water, thrashing and coughing.

The bathing yahoo’s hand reaches up for the boat. He’s going to climb back on.

“Quick, girls! Swim toward the
ukai
boat!” my dad shouts, jumping off. Reika follows.

And I, too, slip over the side of the boat, into the dark, cold water of the Katsura-gawa.

3

7

T
he
yukata
fabric weighs me down and sticks to my legs. I tread water, gasping, pushing the fabric away. My dad and Reika are stronger swimmers, and don’t notice I’ve gotten tangled up and fallen behind.

While I loosen my
yukata
belt so I can move in the water better, I see the bathing yahoo and Hideki both climbing back on the boat we’ve just left.

I look at the Yamadas’ boat. Startled by the commotion, the Yamadas are looking toward us. Mitsue points to my dad and Reika swimming toward the
ukai
boat.

The bathing yahoo stands on the prow again and raises one arm. He points a gun. Not at the Yamadas, but at my dad and Reika. The
ukai
fishermen fight to control the agitated birds as my dad and Reika approach.

Hideki barks something at him in Japanese. The bathing yahoo turns and aims in the direction of the Yamadas and Fujikawa instead. This is it, then. The moment when he kills Fujikawa, Kenji, and Mitsue. I close my eyes.

Fujikawa starts the motor of his boat, and I open my eyes again. Passengers on spectator boats, figuring out what’s going on, start to scream. Boatmen struggle to turn their boats around and flee.

The bathing yahoo fires the gun. Twice. I can feel the hot rush of air as the second bullet screams past my head. Instinctively, I dive under water. I stay there, holding my breath.

When I emerge, gasping, I see my dad and Reika are being hauled up onto the
ukai
boat. They’re safe, for now. But I can’t see Kenji and Mitsue. Did the bathing yahoo kill them?

No. They’re standing up. Kenji picks up the wrapped canvas, the painting, and hurls it into the water, and then he hurls the tube with the drawings, like a javelin. Then he and Mitsue jump overboard and swim for shore.

The painting! The drawings! Why did Kenji throw them into the river? Maybe he wanted to distract the gunmen, send them away from him and toward the art.

Another shot rings out. This one comes from the snack boat. From Fujikawa himself, now crouching and pointing his gun. So the hit man didn’t kill him yet, either.

The bathing yahoo teeters on the edge of the boat for a moment, as if hesitating, and then falls backward into the water with a loud splash. He does not come up for air.

In the next instant, Hideki dives overboad. He must swim underwater a long distance; I can’t see where he went. I don’t know if he’s armed. I don’t know if he’s going after his aunt and uncle, Fujikawa, the van Goghs in the water, or me. And Fujikawa is now scanning the water, his arm with the gun outstretched as he searches for his next target.