Ways to Die in Tokyo, page 7
Behind the reception desk is a short, stocky woman who eyes him warily as she checks him in.
“Did you fall down?” she says. Fisher’s hand moves unconsciously up to the bump on his cheekbone. “Yeah, um, a little accident.”
The woman nods.
Fisher pays her in cash.
She hands him his key. “Room 514. A complimentary continental breakfast is served in the café from six to nine a.m.”
“Thank you.”
“Take care, sir.”
*
The room is basic and small but clean. Fisher tosses his backpack on top of the bed, cranks the AC to max. He’s wrung out from all the adrenaline, and the lumps on his forehead and cheek hurt.
After a quick shower, he stretches out on the bed. He sees Sato lying on the floor, his sunglasses in pieces next to his face. Akio had said the guy was in the hospital. A suffocating dread fills his chest. He pushes himself up off the bed. He paces back and forth between the door and the window. Again wonders what he’s supposed to do. Where he’s supposed to go.
He grabs his phone and scrolls through his contacts, most of whom he’s been out of touch with since the divorce. The rest are people he knows more or less casually, hey-how-you-doing-pretty-good-how-about-this-weather types, certainly not people he can reach out to for help. There’s really only Ken and Terry, and he doesn’t want to call Ken because his wife just had a kid. As for Terry, he’s probably still pissed at Fisher for almost losing his shit with that customer last night. Plus, Terry has warned him more times than he can count about Akio.
He dials Terry anyway, because what choice does he have? Terry picks up on the first ring, and instead of his usual boisterous bellow of Hank the Tank! or What’s up, mi amigo?! he says, “Yeah.”
The uncharacteristically curt greeting doesn’t come as a total surprise. Yeah, he’s still pissed. Fisher hesitates a moment, then says, stupidly, “Hey. Terry. It’s me, Hank.”
“Yeah, I can see your name on the screen.”
Shit. He sounds really pissed. “Um, I’m in a bit of a jam, Terry.”
Terry says, “Hold on a sec.”
The background noise fades, and Fisher guesses that Terry has gone into the break room to talk. When he comes back on the line, his tone is sharp. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the guys who were just here asking about you, would it?”
Oh no. They’ve already managed to find out where he works? How? It dawns on him, his pulse thudding in his ears: Akio. Akio must have told them. “They were there?”
“They haven’t left. They’re waiting outside in their car. They don’t look like nice guys, Hank.”
“They’re not.”
“Shit. What happened?”
“Akio set me up with this job and—”
Terry cuts Fisher off. “Wait. Akio? Aw, for Christ’s sake, Hank.”
“He said it’d be easy,” Fisher protests. “A couple hours, just sit there at this meeting with these gangster guys and look tough.”
“Yeah, the word ‘gangster’ would’ve given me pause. But I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.”
“I needed the money, Terry.” The words tumbling out of Fisher now. “That PI I hired located Lisa and the kids, said he wouldn’t give me their address unless I paid him another two hundred thousand yen.” Fisher groans. “Look, I know I’m an idiot.”
Terry says, “Not going to argue with you there.” He blows out a long, exasperated breath. “So let me guess: the job didn’t go quite like Akio said it would.”
“Yeah, you could say that. A fight broke out. I ended up throwing a guy. Turned out he was some kind of bigwig.”
Terry says, “Shit.”
“That’s not the worst of it. Akio says the guy’s in the hospital.”
“What?! What the fuck, Hank?!”
Fisher closes his eyes. “I know, Terry. Goddamn it, I know.”
Terry says, “You gotta go to the cops.”
“Akio said that’d make things worse.”
“Worse for who? That’s nonsense. The guy is in the hospital, for God’s sake. Go to the police and tell them what happened.”
Fisher draws in a long breath. Terry’s right. After he’d left the club, Fisher should have gone straight to the cops. “Yeah. You’re right.”
“Where are you?”
“Roppongi Hills. The APA Hotel.”
Terry says, “Okay. Tell you what. I’ll meet you at Azabu Police Station.”
Azabu Police Station is about a ten-minute walk from the hotel.
“Those guys know me over there,” says Terry. “Might help if I vouched for you.”
Terry maintains good relations with the local cops. It’s a necessity in mizu-shobai, or the “water trade”—the colloquial term for the night-time entertainment business. Still, the gangsters have already paid Terry an unwelcome visit. They’re still there, for Christ’s sake. Fisher doesn’t want to drag him into this any further and he says so. “Don’t worry about me,” Terry says. “I can handle myself. Let’s worry about getting you out of this jam.”
“I appreciate this, Terry.”
“Don’t thank me. Like I said, the cops over there know me, but you hurt this gangster guy bad. I’m pretty sure they’re going to hold you until they can confirm your story. After that I don’t know what’ll happen.”
“Not a very positive picture you’re painting for me.”
“You think Akio’s is better? I’m just trying to be realistic here. What’s your room number?”
“Five fourteen.”
“Give me an hour. I’ll come get you.”
Fisher sits on the bed, a gray cloud of fatigue settling over him. He thinks of Justin and James.
He pictures the two of them fast asleep under their Thomas the Tank Engine and Spiderman blankets, Justin sawing logs like an old man, James purring softly like a little cat. Identical twins, yet so different in almost every way. Justin was the bold one, open and friendly and at times too generous for his own good. When he was with other kids, he would share whatever toy he was playing with and sometimes never get it back. James, on the other hand, was much more guarded. He was naturally wary of people and not afraid to defend himself, and while he wasn’t mean to other kids, he would never let another kid take a toy away from him.
A happy, funny memory: When the boys were three or four, Fisher and Lisa took them trick-or-treating to Azabu, a wealthy enclave in central Tokyo with enough foreign expats for Halloween to have become a tradition of sorts, even among some of the Japanese residents. Justin was dressed as a pirate, James as Thomas the Tank Engine. They were so excited. Each time they stopped at a house, Fisher and Lisa would hang back and watch them run up and knock on the door. He remembers one house where a lady in her sixties came out onto the porch with a big bowl of individually wrapped ramune candies. “Dozo!” she said with a big smile. Help yourself! Justin stepped forward, a big smile on his face. He reached into the bowl, carefully picked out a single candy, said thank you, and put it in his bag. Then James approached the lady, cautious. He reached into the bowl, his eyes locked on the lady’s face the whole time, and pulled out a huge handful of the sweets. Lisa said, “That’s too many, James!” and the lady laughed and said it was fine and asked Justin if he wanted some more, in response to which Justin took two more candies. For the rest of the night, Fisher and Lisa laughed about it, marveling at how two kids with the exact same DNA could be such polar opposites.
They’d begun arguing a lot by that point. Lisa always upset that Fisher was never around, that she had to do everything—work a full-time job and take care of the kids and do all the housework. Fisher always bent out of shape that she didn’t seem to understand that the only way he could provide for them like he’d promised her was to start winning again, and that meant he needed to train more, not less. Not only had trick-or-treating with the kids provided him with an opportunity to be a real dad and a real husband, but it had given the two of them a rare interlude of mutual joy, and they’d both seized on it like a piece of shared treasure.
If only Fisher hadn’t let it go.
Eventually, he drifts into an uneasy slumber, zombie-like hordes of yakuza armed with thousands of shiny silver blades, chasing him through a warren of dead, dark streets.
Chapter Twelve
A bar of early morning sunlight shines through the gap at the bottom of the blinds and creeps up the side of the bed until it hits Fisher’s sleeping face like a slap.
He’s sore. Jesus, everything hurts. He pushes himself onto an elbow and looks around the room, winces as he runs his fingers over the lumps on his head. His thoughts are disordered, he’s unsure where he is. Then with a blast of clarity like the sunlight that just woke him, he remembers: Terry.
He grabs his phone. It’s 5:30 a.m. He has no calls, no texts, no emails. Nothing. He reaches for the phone on the nightstand and calls the front desk.
“No, sir, no messages” is the response. He feels a flutter of dread. He dials Terry’s number and gets his voicemail. “Terry, I dozed off last night and just woke up. Did you come by? I don’t see any messages from you. Everything okay? Give me a call.“ Next, he pulls up the number of Terry’s girlfriend, Laura, and, forgetting how early it is, dials it. The phone rings six times and goes to her voicemail. He clicks off and dials again. This time, Laura answers on the fourth ring.
“Hello?” she says, her voice a groggy rasp.
“Laura, it’s Hank Fisher.”
“Hank?”
“I’m sorry I woke you, but is Terry there?”
Laura groans. “Terry?” she says, irritation in her voice. “Hold on.” A moment later, Laura comes back on the line. “Huh. No, he’s not here. He called last night, said he had to do something before he came home. What’s going on? Is something wrong?”
You could say that. “No, probably not. It’s just that he was supposed to meet me last night, and I dozed off. I just woke up a few minutes ago myself. Probably just missed him.”
Laura chuckles. “Well, I’m sure he’s okay. Maybe something came up with one of the girls or something.”
The calm in Laura’s tone contrasts sharply with the panic rising in Fisher’s chest. Last night on the phone, Terry had said the gangsters were parked right outside the bar. What if he had a run-in with them on his way out? What if they beat him up and now he’s lying unconscious in an alley somewhere?
Fisher has a sudden urge to tell Laura everything. He tamps it down, thinking, hoping, maybe she’s right. Maybe something did come up with one of the girls.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably right.” But no, he doesn’t really believe it. “Listen, if Terry calls could you please tell him to give me a call right away?”
“Okay. I’m sure he’s fine, Hank. You know how he is. Always ’Daddy to the rescue’ whenever one of the girls is having a crisis.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says, forcing a laugh, then thanks her and clicks off.
His heart thumping in his chest, Fisher steps to the window, opens the blinds, and looks down the side of the building at the empty alley below, half expecting to see Terry on the ground, the Tanabe-kai goons standing around his crumpled body.
An inebriated young couple staggers arm in arm down the alley past the closed bars and restaurants, then disappears around a corner.
Fisher locates the number of Yuki, the uni-browed waiter at Lounge O, in his contacts and dials it. He apologizes for waking Yuki up and asks if he knows where Terry is. Yuki says sorry, no, he doesn’t. Is there something wrong? Fisher thanks him, tells him no, no, everything is fine, and hangs up.
He moves away from the window, unable to fully shake the feeling that something horrible has happened to Terry. He forces himself to push it down for the moment and decides to walk to Azabu Police Station by himself. He’ll try calling Terry again later. He puts on a fresh pair of boxers, shorts, and one of the clean T-shirts from his backpack, and slings the backpack over his shoulder. As he approaches the door, a wave of trepidation rolls over him. What if the goons are out there waiting for him? He puts his eye to the peephole. There’s no one in the hallway.
Get a grip.
The Tanabe-kai goons have no idea where he is, and there’s no way they would know to look for him here in the APA Hotel. He can’t imagine them out at the crack of dawn, canvassing neighborhoods for him. He’s always thought of the yakuza as creatures of the night. Allergic to sunlight, like vampires. Still, he can’t shake the feeling he’s in a scary new world without a map.
He hurries out and takes the elevator down to the lobby.
At the reception counter is a thirtyish man with graying temples. The man gestures toward the café adjoining the lobby and tells Fisher to please help himself to breakfast. The mention of food makes his stomach growl, and he realizes he hasn’t eaten anything since early yesterday evening. He approaches the entrance to the café, cautious, and peeks his head inside.
It’s empty. A long, rectangular room with clean white walls and a black and white checked floor, it has a separate entrance fronted by French windows in the rear leading to a narrow street behind the hotel. A flat-screen TV hangs from the ceiling in back. Fronting an empty open kitchen is a counter set with a modest breakfast buffet.
Fisher goes to the coffee machine, pours himself a cup to go, then grabs two hard-boiled eggs, half an orange, and a banana, which he eats on the spot. The shot of calories lifts his mood almost instantly. Laura is probably right about Terry, he thinks, quickly wrapping the eggs and the orange half in a couple of napkins before sticking them in the front pouch of his backpack. One of the Lounge O girls probably got fall-down drunk and called Terry to come and get her. It’s happened before. In fact, that was exactly what had happened a week ago with the new girl from Detroit, Sarah. Sarah had called Terry at 2:00 a.m., drunk and crying, saying she was at a bar with a friend and her friend had left and now she didn’t know how to get home or what to do and would Terry please come get her. So that’s what he did.
Fisher turns to leave and his blood freezes.
There’s a man sitting at a table behind a tall partition just to the left of the café entrance. The table is positioned in such a way that the man had been hidden from Fisher’s view when he came in. Dressed in a beige summer suit, he’s on the thick side with long, slicked-back hair. He’s holding a cup of coffee in one hand, pinky up, intently reading a sports newspaper in the other. Fisher can’t put his finger on it, but there’s something off about him.
A news flash on the TV draws Fisher’s eye. The tagline at the bottom of the screen says in Japanese, “Stabbing in Roppongi.” A video runs, showing several uniformed police officers in a narrow alley, going to and fro behind yellow crime scene tape. Parked at the mouth of the alley is an ambulance, red light strobing.
A picture of Terry appears on the screen and next to it the following caption:
Roppongi hostess bar owner Terry Nishikawa (age 51) in critical condition after being stabbed by unknown assailants. Police are investigating the matter.
Fisher jumps like he’s been injected with ice water. Coffee sloshes out of his cup and burns his hand. He reads the caption again. Terry’s name is spelled out in katakana, as all foreign names are. There’s no mistaking it. Terry was stabbed.
Shit oh shit oh shit.
He sets the coffee down and wipes his hand off with a napkin, and that’s when he notices the guy in the beige suit is staring at him.
Fisher looks down, pretending not to notice. The guy sets his coffee cup down, and as he does this, Fisher catches sight of the ponytail trailing down his back.
Ponytail sees Fisher looking at him, and his lips curl into a smile.
Chapter Thirteen
Cold panic washes over Fisher. Could they have found him already? He averts his gaze and starts to lift his own coffee cup, trying to look casual, but his hand is shaking so badly he has to set it back down. Visible through the French doors is a shiny black Mercedes-Benz with tinted rear windows parked outside at the curb.
The only thing he can think to do is leave the café through the lobby and continue out the hotel entrance to Roppongi Dori, but in order to do that, he’ll have to walk right past Ponytail.
Fisher shoulders his backpack. As he approaches the doorway to the lobby, Ponytail says in English, “Bad accident.”
The words stop Fisher like a wall. He looks at Ponytail. “What did you say?”
Ponytail gestures toward the TV. “Your friend,” he says, like he’s gloating. “Bad accident.”
Fury roars through Fisher like a flash flood. He walks briskly toward the entrance, the coffee in his left hand. When he’s almost to the doorway, he takes a big step to his left and with a quick motion throws the steaming coffee into Ponytail’s face.
Ponytail lets out a piercing shriek. His hands fly up to his face, and his coffee cup bounces off the table and shatters on the floor.
Fisher runs into the lobby and almost collides with the hotel clerk, who is running in the opposite direction toward the café to see what’s happened. The clerk looks wide-eyed at him. Fisher mirrors his expression, gestures toward the café.
The clerk hurries on into the café as Ponytail’s screaming ratchets up, more from rage now than pain from the sound of it, the echoes punctuated by the startled cries of the clerk. “Sir, what happened?! Are you okay?!”
A few feet from the hotel entrance, Fisher halts and peers out the glass doors. The driver of the Mercedes is engrossed in something on his phone, frantically swiping away at the screen.
Fisher scans the street, heart jackhammering in his chest. Where should he go? They stabbed Terry. Jesus, they fucking stabbed him! Roppongi Dori Avenue is empty this early in the morning, its east-bound and west-bound lanes cloaked in the shadow of the elevated hulk of the Shuto Expressway. The sedan is parked on this side of the street, facing west, and because the boulevard, like most Tokyo streets, offers few opportunities to hook a U-turn, there’s no way for the goon to conveniently turn the car around if Fisher heads east, toward Akasaka.
