A Death in Ueno Read online

They ate in silence for a while. Hattori finished his bowl, drank off the broth, and pushed it aside.

  “I want to go with you,” he said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “When you called you said we had to meet before eleven. You haven’t mentioned any other leads.” Hattori’s gaze was intense. “I figure you saw something in Jinguji’s pocket calendar, something scheduled later today, and you want to get there at the same time.”

  They studied each other for a long moment.

  “We’re just going to talk to him,” said Sakonju finally.

  Hattori nodded. “Of course.”

  Outside the rain had receded to a midday drizzle, and they walked quickly between two- and three-story concrete buildings crowding the dreary streets. Having spent most of the day outside Sakonju was wet through, the sharp wind painfully cold. Hattori wore only a thin nylon jacket but he strode along impervious, unaffected by the weather.

  The demolition site was an oblong block fenced with blue plastic and bamboo scaffolding. The building that had previously occupied the lot was now a heap of broken concrete and rebar. Some of the laborers Sakonju had seen at the callout were scavenging plumbing and metal fixtures; most were slowly transferring the rubble to a battered dump truck backed halfway in.

  They didn’t approach, but waited down the street in a narrow bar whose sliding glass doors allowed them to watch the site from dry seats.

  “He’d better show soon,” said Hattori, who’d managed to nurse a single beer for two hours.

  Sakonju shrugged. “The address of this job was listed in his calendar. It’s the kind of place you’d expect him to show up - small job, guys to talk to, not so many enforcers around to run him off.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  It was late afternoon when Jinguji finally appeared, but he came from the other direction and the first they noticed was the laborers standing in a circle, at a cautious distance from the dump truck. As Sakonju and Hattori approached an argument became audible, then peaked in yells abruptly cut off.

  They rounded the dump truck to see three men closing on a fourth, throwing him against the truck’s side as one picked a meter-long piece of pipe from the scavenged pile. Jinguji ducked the first swing, which clattered against the truck and smashed a running light. Two of his opponents grabbed at his arms and tried to hold him still.

  “No damage,” said Sakonju as they hopped the fence and he knew Hattori understood. Sakonju struck the first man with the sharp edge of his hand, just above the elbow. The yakuza dropped the pipe, crying in surprise, and as he turned Sakonju kicked him behind the knee, driving him to the ground. At the same time Hattori grabbed the second tough from behind, one hand on each arm, with a strength from years hauling nets on the open seas. He wrenched the man off Jinguji and tossed him aside like he weighed nothing.

  “That’s enough!”

  Jinguji’s shout cut through the melee with a power Sakonju hadn’t expected. As the assailants paused, Jinguji shoved aside the third yakuza and moved quickly forward. In the space of a couple seconds, he pushed Sakonju and Hattori back out onto the sidewalk, and they backed away. The yakuza watched them go but did not pursue.

  They stopped under the shelter of an expressway overpass some distance away, the rain now falling in sheets between the bridge and the buildings around it.

  “Thanks,” said Jinguji. He was tall and wiry, with a sharp jaw and a piercing gaze he held on them unblinking. “How did you find me?”

  “Who said we were looking?” asked Hattori, but Sakonju just ghosted a smile.

  “Broke into your room this morning,” he said. “We’re not with another gang, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Oh, I knew that. Rival thugs, you would have waited until they finished with me, then moved in.” He wiped his wet hair backward. “You certainly look the part, though.”

  “What were you trying to do?”

  Jinguji made a gesture of indifference. “Talking only takes you so far. If they see you stand up to the yakuza in person, now and then, it helps them understand what they could do together.”

  “There can’t be many of you out here.”

  “Eleven in our organizing committee, across Tokyo. But the general membership is growing fast.”

  “Still,” said Sakonju. “You must need more help . . . pay your volunteers anything?” Jinguji looked at him quizzically, but said nothing. “Let me be particular: Hattori-san.”

  “Ah.” Jinguji sighed. “Now I understand.” He looked more closely at them. “Family? I might see a resemblance.”

  “Yes,” said Hattori shortly. “You hired him?”

  “He was interested, and he had started to work with us, yes. I advanced him some money.” He looked down. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “He was killed because of you,” said Hattori with a cold anger.

  “No,” said Sakonju, placing a hand lightly on Hattori’s arm. “Not exactly.”

  Jinguji nodded agreement. “They would never kill one of us,” he said. “Even the beatings I’ve gotten have been minor. Just a little discouragement, you might say. Think about it - if they murder someone to send a message, the police are going to get it just as clearly, and we’re nowhere near worth that kind of trouble.”

  “He’s right,” said Sakonju. “Anyway, the last place they’d commit such a crime would be one of their own sites - it shuts the job down, on top of everything else. The company employing them would never stand for that.”

  “But - I don’t understand.” Hattori subsided in puzzlement.

  “How much did you pay him?” Sakonju asked Jinguji.

  “Forty thousand yen.” His sharp face was gaunt in the rainy twilight. “My mistake was to hand it over all at once.”

  Sakonju nodded. “Yes, it was too much.” He turned to Hattori. “I think I know where we have to go next.”

  ***

  They arrived well after nightfall, the tunnel floors dirty from the rain-soaked shoes of commuters thronging homeward. Sakonju led the way, and they found Tatsu still in his cardboard kip, the blanket now folded beneath him as a seating pad, a styrofoam container of yakisoba and a bottle of Asahi Super-Dry for his evening meal.

  “No, don’t get up,” said Sakonju.

  Tatsu had stopped eating and squinted at them suspiciously. “What do you want now?”

  “You lied about the drugs,” said Sakonju. “He wasn’t an addict.”

  Tatsu shrugged. “So I was wrong.”

  “That little LCD TV - twenty, thirty thousand yen, maybe? When did you buy it?”

  Tatsu frowned, and a few moments passed.

  “He wasn’t your friend, really,” Sakonju said. “But he had to tell someone when he got all that money. Probably bought something decent to drink, wanted to share it around.”

  “No.”

  “Or if he didn’t say anything, you figured it out anyway - maybe he bought himself a night in a clean hotel, or you just noticed him being unusually cagey. Doesn’t matter.”

  Tatsu hunched into himself but said nothing, still staring at them. Hattori stood carved of stone.

  “You probably met him at the construction site after work one day -it’s close enough, maybe it was a convenient place to get out of the rain. Then it was just a question of waiting until he was alone, and taking advantage of what was at hand.”

  “No . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Sakonju shook his head and pulled out his cellphone. He dialed the local police number and then they waited, no one saying anything, while businessmen in wet raincoats hurried incuriously past.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mike Cooper’s stories have received wide recognition, including a Shamus Award. His novel Clawback will be published in 2012. In younger days Mike traveled widely in Asia, and spent several years in Japan. He now lives outside Boston with his wife and two children.

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by New Word City, Inc.,
2011

  www.NewWordCity.com

  © Mike Cooper

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-61230-060-3

  Ebook Conversion: Reality Premedia Services Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India.

  Table of Contents

  A DEATH IN UENO

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT