Crawl Away: Chapter 4

    After I threw the tantrum that morning when he left, I made a phone call to Joe.  He said he will do what he can, cursed at me for waking him up  then hung up.  I checked out an unmarked vehicle from the motor pool, volunteered two guys from my section to assist with shift rotation and spent the next few days canvassing Kanryu and his routes. 

   There were neither commotion nor changes in Kanryu’s routines.  He attended the usual meetings and ate in the same restaurants.  At night, he visited his clubs and he made his usual visit to the teen bar in Shibuya on Monday night.  If anything troubled him, he did not show it.  He wore a pleasant smile and walked through his private entrance at the west side of the club.  I smoked through another pack of cigarettes and contemplated the consequences of giving into the urge to walk in to the club just to hit him. It as not so much to wring the information about Aoshi from him, but just to sedate some of the anger that had been simmering in me which boiled just a little hotter whenever I saw him.  He left the club an hour after it closed.  Two handsome boys followed him out of the club and they were laughing as they got into the limo and left with him.  Storm had not ruined the paradise after all.

   The two boys left Kanryu’s estate at noon the next day, driven off by the same limo that had picked them up.  Four days had passed without word from Joe.  I had not caught a glimpse of Aoshi and for all I know, I was watching the wrong place.  Aoshi could have changed his mind and finally left Kanryu on his own, and he’s somewhere safe.  Or he could be alive and being tortured somewhere in that mansion as I sat in my car 100 yards away.  Or he could already be dead.  From time to time, I remembered how good Aoshi looked naked and the slightest trace of sadness in gorgeous green eyes that he tried to hide with his smiles.  I remembered the sex and also how he cried quietly that last night we were together.  I was going mad with those thoughts and boredom until day number five. 

   A blonde man in a custom fit black suit came out of the mansion, looked to his right and left, then over to me.  He walked toward me, his strides were efficient and with purpose.  He looked as if he would break into a sprint at any moment.  As he came closer, the details of his features became clearer.  He was Caucasian with strong Eastern European features.  His eyes were sky blue and full of intelligence.  He was handsome, in the hardened way that reminded me of the men in western cigarette commercials.  He might have been a body builder, by the looks of his thick chest and small waist.  I made out a vague outline of the butt of a handgun below his left arm.  He had a compact radio clipped over his right hip.  I jammed the freshly lit cigarette into the over flowing ashtray in the car.

   “Excuse me sir, I seem to be lost…” I said when he walked up.  He said nothing.  He looked at me as if I had just begged him for spare change.  He kept a reasonable distance from the car so it would be difficult for me to clear a shot at him without leaning out of the window.  One of Kanryu’s security.  Probably one of his better ones.

    “You’ve been here for three days,” he said.  He had a slight accent that could be German.

    “Four,” I corrected him. 

    “What for?”

    I shrugged.  He stared me a little harder and looked back at the estate as if he was waiting for someone to give him a signal.  No one did.  He turned back to me and lowered his voice.

    “He’s not here,” he said. 

    “Who?”

    He looked annoyed and didn’t say anything for a moment.

    “Aoshi’s not here,” he said. “One of your flunkies failed to detect him being transported out when he took your shift last night.”

    “Hard to get good help in these days,” I sighed. 

     “Kanryu-sama’s already annoyed that you’ve fucked his son,” he said evenly.  “It annoyed him even more that you’ve taken up residency on his curb and he can’t kill you.”

     “Actually, Kanryu-sama sent him out to be fucked the first time.  He couldn't hold that against me.”

     He said nothing.  A corner of his mouth moved slightly.  He might have tried to smile.

     “This is not about you anymore, Saitoh,” he said.  He said my name bitterly. 

    “I don’t think it ever was,” I said.  “But I will find him."

   "You need to leave," he finally said after we stared each other for a few moments.  "There's nothing more you can do for him."

   "Is he dead?"

   "No," he said.  "Not yet."

   He turned and started to walk back toward the estate.

    "You sound like you might just give a shit about Aoshi," I said.  

    He stopped but continued to stare forward at the gated manor. 

   "He's been sold," he said finally.  "And he'll be worked toward the slaughterhouse where he will die..."    

    Then he continued to walk back to the mansion.

    I called Joe from work and told him about the conversation I had with the blonde man.

   "Ian Von Erich," he said the blonde's name.  "When I knew him, he was one of the three captains that controlled all of the guns for Kanryu.  Aoshi was one of the three and he was removed from that position after the incident with the cop.  And the other guy who co-captained with Von Erich died last year in a plane crash."

   "So he's it."

   "Most likely," he said.  "You must have really annoyed Kanryu to have the security head to personally come out of the mansion and tell you to get the fuck off his property."

   "Nice to know I still have the touch," I said.  "I need you to find someone in the prostitution business...someone who runs or controls clusters of low-end whorehouses in Tokyo for me to speak to."

   "Doesn't mean they will talk to you," he said.  "They are more likely to be afraid of Kanryu than they are of you."

   "Then get me names, I'll drag a couple of Vice guys and annoy them until they talk to me."

   "Did they tell you that being a people person's a requirement for your job?" He sighed.  "Well, don't come in with the guns and badges blazing.  Only the low men will talk and they probably won't tell you anything you want to know.  If you rattle the people too high up on the food chain, they'll throw lawyers on you and you won't get shit."

    "I don't care, get me some names."

    He didn't say anything for awhile.

    "So daddy sold him, eh?" He finally said with a vague amusement.  "Didn't think Kanryu could do it."

    "I don't think blondie's screwing with me telling me that," I said.  "He wants me to interfere."

    "He wants you dead.  I can't say if he and Aoshi were fucking or just really cozy friends, but they definitely had an intimate history being partners running guns for a few years.  Von Erich has every reason to hate you and want you murdered in the worst possible way.  Did he say he wanted you to get into this?"

    "No.  He told me to leave.  He said I couldn't do anything for him."

    "I think Von Erich is a lot smarter than you are."

    "But I am much cuter than he is," I said.  "I need you to expedite on this.  I have a feeling Aoshi's not going to be kept in Japan and once he left the country, he's gone."

    "I'll see what I can do," he said finally and hung up.  I replaced the phone back to the cradle and stared at it for awhile.  

    I walked to the window and watched a small boy walking a white Husky puppy on the leash taking a short cut through the parking lot.  He was headed for the city park a block away past the station.  The phone rang again, interrupting my intense study of a boy and his dog.  It was Tomoko, a flight attendant I had met a few months ago.  I slept with her once, on the day we met and I've never really thought about her since.  Somehow, hearing her voice made me feel better.

    "I came back this morning.  I missed you," she said.  "Want me to come over to your place tonight?"

    I recalled the rumpled bed that I had not slept in since Aoshi left me.

    "No," I said.  "I'll come over to yours at eight."   

    When I hung up, a small part of me that had been emptied became filled.  That night, I did not want to think about Aoshi.    

    Joe set a meeting up for me the next night with a madam.  Keiko was suppose to be one of the better connected whore house owners but her territory was actually in the Yakuza's.  Joe told me he had told her who I was and as long as I didn't make snide remarks about her profession, she probably have the information I wanted.  

    "She has a thing for cops, in spite of her profession," Joe said.

    "And I am cuddly to boot.  She won't be able to keep a shred of secret from me."

    Keiko was in her late 40s, with her advanced age and stress showing through in streaks of gray in her lusterless black hair.  She had aged hints that she was a beauty 20 some years ago.  Most likely she used to be a high-end call girl who had gone into management before she lost her youth and beauty.  She wore an expensive red Versace pant-suit with red low-heeled pumps.  She had a thick gold and pearl choker with matching earrings.  When I took her offered hand to shake it, a gold Rolex peeked out from under the cuff of her jacket.  Capitalism and the world’s oldest profession had been very good to Keiko. 

    "Well," she said with a smile that revealed her straight, white teeth.  "Aren't you a cutie?"

    "Yes, aren't I," I said and sat down after she did.

    Keiko had been working on whiskey on the rocks.  

    "Joe asked me not to ask you, but I am going to anyway..." she said.  "Why is a cop looking for Kanryu's--"

    She nearly said "whore" but she caught herself.  She cleared her throat to buy a few seconds to think of an alternate word to use.

    "...former lover?"

    "Joe was right," I said.  "You shouldn't ask."

    "Joe also told me you're an insufferable bastard that won't tell me anything, even if I asked."

    "And Joe's right again."

    Her smile grew.

    "I assume you had personal encounters with Aoshi, and now your concerns led you to trying to locate him now."

    "I'll give you that much. Yes."

    "Do you care about him?"

    "My personal feelings' not up for discussion."

    "But you should consider it, before you pursue him any further," she said. "He probably won't live very long, and the way he's going to die won't be very quick and simple."

    She paused to catch a reaction from me. 

    "He's at one of my places in Ginza recovering," she said.  "Kanryu messed him up pretty bad.  His left shoulder's dislocated.  He had a couple lacerations on his chest, one deep enough to require 15 stitches...."

    She took a sip of her whiskey.  Our eyes held each other and we waited for each other to say something.  She sighed.

    "He was beaten quite thoroughly.  I've never seen anyone covered with so many welts and bruises and survive ," she continued.  "And Kanryu had him raped.  I don't think I need to describe to you any further on his other...conditions."

    I eyed her whiskey longingly.  The heaviness in my chest became a little heavier as I recalled Kanryu's carefree smile as he walked out of the club with the two boys a few days ago.    

    "He's in Ginza," I said after I regained some of my bearing.  "For how long?"

    "If you are thinking of breaking him out, you can't," she said.  "Kanryu has a little army camped out there.  Actually, Kanryu sent him away just so he would stop beating him..."

    "Father of the year material," I said.  "Von Erich told me he's being worked toward the slaughterhouse."

    Her face paled and she took a long drink from the tumbler and nearly drained it.

    "I didn't know that," she said.  "Aoshi's suppose to stay with me for a couple of weeks, then someone from Kanryu will take him to his buyer."

    "Who's the new buyer?"

    "No one from Japan," she replied.  "I heard it was someone from North America.  That's about as specific as I know."

    I nodded.  Keiko stirred the ice in her glass, then drank the last sip of whiskey left in it while she gestured for a waiter to come to her.  The bartender looked up and nodded when she held up her empty tumbler.

    "Educate me quick about the structure on this kind of business," I said.

    She looked offended by my request at first.  I gave her one of my charming smiles and she sighed and nodded. 

    "The whores, whether or not they came to this business on their own or if they were sold into this, they are separated into different classes by their current assets and by market demand. They are ranked by their worth by how much they can be sold for, based on how healthy or young or beautiful or exotic they are.  The more of the four criteria I've listed that prostitute has, the higher their value.  Of course, their keepers would take better of them and protect them from the abusive clients.  It all has to do with meeting a quota.  A better grade of whore didn’t need to do as many clients to make the same money as a lower grade one who will have to spend the day on the mattress or do the…undesirable acts to match the end of the day income."

    Her drink was made and dispatched through a waiter.  The waiter took Keiko's empty glass and asked me if I would like something from the bar as he placed the fresh drink on the coaster.  I shook my head and he left.

    "Then the age and health and beauty deteriorate.  These used property usually gets sold to a lower class by the former management for a finder's fee.  To the whores, it's an expected demotion they take.  Of course, the lowered class means lower class of owners and clients.  The brothel's not likely to protect the whores from abusive clients, as long as the clients pay for the damages.  The less the client paid for sex, the dirtier it become…and of course, the more of those low-class assholes the whore had to suck or fuck.  In this case with Aoshi...well, he's being sent down the spiral much faster because of his spat with Kanryu.  He's not even being moved through the mid-class and by the rate sub-class will abuse him to milk their money from Aoshi's looks while he still has it, he'll end up in the slaughterhouse within 6 months.  I didn't think Kanryu would sell him to one of those..."

    "What happens at a slaughterhouse?" I asked. 

    "The whores a few months left in their career, gets wrung through the press to squeeze out the last pennies.  They'll drug him, if they haven't already made him an addict already.  The drug is for suicide prevention and it will make the body a little more resilient to the sex.  He'll be raped for 14 hours out of 24.  They'll rent him out by 15 minute blocks.  One guy sticks his cock in until the 15 minute timer goes off and he'll get off.  The next guy comes in and sticks his cock in and starts the timer again.  If he's lucky enough to have someone take pity on him, he'll OD.  Knowing how crazy Kanryu is, I wouldn't doubt it if he ordered Aoshi to be raped until he died on his own."

    Keiko picked up the whiskey and drank it like she needed it--very fast and didn't put the glass down until it was empty.  

    "Slaughterhouses' pretty bad...and it is worse than I had described.  Ten years ago, the cops closed the one in Okinawa.  Somewhere in Naha.  I took in a couple of the survivors and the things they tell me..." She looked down at her glass and contemplated it as if she was trying to decide if she should order another one.  "Is there anything you can do to stop him from being sent out of Japan?"

    "Not much," I said.  "I know we are talking about human trade and it's illegal, but unless the entire transaction's documented, patterned and verified, we have nothing.  Evidence can only carry a case so far, if there's nothing that tied Kanryu to it.  And Aoshi's refused repeatedly to run away from this on his own, or with my help."

    "Situations change," she said.  "And minds change, especially when he finds his final fate in a place where he'll die excruciating slow and without dignity."

    "I don't think his situation changed since the day he was sold into prostitution," I said.  "Are you able to arrange a meeting for Aoshi and I?"

    She frowned.

    "Not sure if you want to risk it," she said.  "For you and for him and for me."

    "As long as there's no audience or witnesses, it'll be fine," I said.  I wrote my home phone on the back of my card and gave it to her.  She read it once and put it in her purse.

    "I can't promise anything," she said and got up.  I stood up also and stepped out of the booth with her.  She placed a 5000 Yen note beneath the empty tumbler.  

    "I am not holding you to anything," I said.  "Thank you for what you've given me so far."

   She nodded, kissed me on my cheek and left.  I left after few minutes later when I started to think about the slaughterhouse and how much I really wanted to drink.

   It had been two days since I returned to my own apartment and it was odd walking into a place that didn't feel like mine. I clicked on the answering machine and stripped out of my coat and blazer.  I listened to the Chief yell at me over the answer machine while I decocked the gun and disassembled it to wipe down the barrel and slide.  The humidity the rain had eaten away the lubricants.  I had to rewind Chief's message and listened for the actual message hidden in the foul language.  Apparently I had missed an appointment with him to meet my new partner while I met with Keiko.  I sighed and reassembled the gun and left it on the desk and walked into the bedroom.  The second message was from Tomoko.  She was still speaking on the answering machine when I lied down on the bed.  Aoshi's gentle, soft scent was still in the sheets and blankets and suddenly, the emptiness started to open up inside me again.  I fell asleep.  I dreamt about that rainy night again. 

 -Narcissus   20010110