Crawl Away: Chapter 5

         The reprimand session from the Chief was a little painful but at least he kept it short.  He stepped outside and said a name. By the time Chief took his seat behind his desk, a young man in a neatly pressed and creased tan suit came into the room.  He closed the door carefully behind him and bowed politely to the Chief before he took the empty seat beside me.

         “Okita-san,” Chief said and pointed at me.  “I apologize in advance but he’s the inept partner that you were suppose to meet yesterday.”

         Okita turned to me and his smile grew as he offered his hand to me.  I took it and shook it.

         “You’re what? 18?” I said.

         He laughed.  It was an adorable, light laugh. The kind from someone who had never experienced a bad day.  I liked him already.

         “Don’t be an asshole, Saitoh,” Chief said.

         “I am actually a year older than you, Saitoh-san,” Okita said.  He turned over the department badge that was clipped at his left breast pocket and I read the birth date printed there.

         “I’ll be damned,” I said.  “You must tell me your secret.”

         “Saitoh—“ Chief said but Okita’s perky laughter cut him off.

         “That’s fine, Chief,” Okita said happily.  “I like Saitoh-san’s sense of humor.”

         “That’s not his sense of humor.  He’s always been an asshole,” Chief said.

         "And often misunderstood," I said and looked over to Okita then over to the chief.  "No offense, but why am I being sent a partner? Someone thought I needed to be watched? Or am I seriously retarded enough to have to be sent someone to help me?”

         Chief looked at me as if I had just told him the world was flat.

         “No offense taken,” Okita said.  “But by all means you are not being replaced or deem incompetent, Saitoh-san.  You’re well regarded by the overheads.  They didn’t tell you? You are being promoted and transferred back to Homicide department and I will be taking your slot.  I am here as your partner but purely on training status.”

         Chief said nothing.

         “That didn’t answer my question,” I said.  “You are here to replace me because I couldn’t break Kanryu’s case?”

         Okita shrugged.

         “No one’s been able to break his case for years. I don’t expect to have any more success than you or any previous investigators.  I am here for the same reason why you are here, Saitoh-san.  Someone has to be in charge of that case, even if it will never close.”

    "Even though your overheads still think you are a pain in the ass, they still recommended you to fill the vacated assistant director position," Chief said and tipped his chair back a little.  "Weren't you about to take a demotion and climb back into a patrol car to get out of Kanryu's case? Why the hell are you suddenly interested in this case now?"

    "I've always had interest in this case," I said.  "Or I would have abandoned this case long ago.  I put in more than half of year into the paperwork alone. I'm not about to walk off empty handed."

    Chief sighed and laced his fingers across his chest and looked over to Okita.  Okita looked at me than back to the Chief.

    "Chief, may I ask Saitoh-san to assist me until I feel comfortable enough to solo on the case?"  

    "Okita-san..." Chief began.

    "I cannot take a case, especially something this volume, if I am not prepared for it.  If I step down and Saitoh-san's already been re-assigned, you will have more than an open case on your hands.  You know no one in Tokyo wants to touch Kanryu's case."

    "Don't threaten me, Okita-san," Chief said.

    "I do not make threats, Chief."

    The two held each other's stare steadily.  It was kind of fascinating to watch, actually.  Not many people had tried to challenge Chief's decisions.  I might just like my new partner, if he held up and didn't break into a litany of apologies and pleas of temporary insanity.  Okita didn't.  Chief cursed and told us to leave.

    "One month," Chief said.  "That's all the crutch you will get, Okita-san.  I can't hold back the district director even if I keep on misplacing Saitoh's reassignment orders, understand?"

    Okita's face brightened and he nodded.  I stood first and walked out with my new partner following me.  Somehow I felt as if I had just adopted a puppy.

    "Saitoh-san," Okita said as soon as he closed the door to the conference room he had reserved to conduct the file reviews.  Stacks of dull-looking manila folders were neatly piled on the polished oak table.  The same piles of atrocities I studied when I inherited the case 6 months ago.  "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

    I pulled a seat out of and sat down.

    "You are very cute, Okita-san," I said and put my foot up on the chair next to me.  "But it's always bad politics to date someone you work with."

    He grinned.

    "Thank you for sharing that with me, but I'd like to ask you a rather...off the record questions about Kanryu's case."

    "That is?" 

    He walked around to the other side of the table and took a seat across from me.

    "Is there something to Kanryu's case that's holding you to it?"  He said. " You were given this assignment as kind of a...punishment, from the overhead.  Now, you are given a promotion and a chance out of this dead-end and you are resistant to them..."

    "I think you have a theory about why I am doing what I am doing," I said.  "Why don't we start there?"

    He stood and shuffled through some of the folders.

    "Chief told me that you had a meeting with Kanryu about three months ago," he said.

    "I had an invitation to speak with him," I said.

    "At New Otani...and you reported back to the Chief that Kanryu was a no-show.  You...uhhh...spoke to someone else.  There's no statement of this meeting filed."

    He picked up a folder and sat back down.

    "Nothing important was discussed," I said. 

    "Even though the person was Kanryu's son?"

    I smiled.

    "So Chief did send someone out to canvass the hotel after all," I said. 

    "He did it to protect you.  What kind of cop let one of their own walk into an obvious set-up alone?"

    "I would have been touched if he discussed the set up with me first," I said.  "The back-up was useless to me since I didn't know who or where he was."

    He shrugged.

    "That's irrelevant now," he said and opened the folder.  I caught a glimpse of a surveillance photo of Aoshi on the top sheet.  "I will not speculate what you did that night or whatever else happened, but I need to know if he is the reason why you're staying on the case."

    "Why is that?"

    "Because I need to know what your motives are," he said.  "Are you here to close Kanryu's case or--" 

    He tapped Aoshi's picture with his index finger.

    "I assume you've read my profiles, Okita-san," I said and got up.  "If you are half as good as I think you are, then you wouldn't have to ask me those questions."

    "Then answer just one thing for me," he said.  "Did you sleep with him?"

    I smiled and walked to the door and opened it.

    "Three times," I said and walked out. 

   Nearly a month passed without any leads.  Day by day, I'd prepared myself for the new transition out of the Organized Crime section.  It was a gradual process also, that I had started to forget about Aoshi.  I also started drinking again.  I took Okita with me to meet with Little Joe toward the end of the month.  That was to be the last time Joe and I would meet on official capacity.  I was on the final transition phase and had started to introduce my informants to Okita.  I was to report to Homicide in five days.

    "You shouldn't be touching that shit," Joe said after I ordered a whiskey sour. 

    "Last I checked, you're not my mother," I said and introduced Okita to Joe.

    "The only thing I think you'll get annoyed by is where he picks the meeting places," I said.  "He likes these lolita-con themed bars."

    Okita smiled brightly.  I doubted anything would annoy or offend him.  Every little thing is a new experience for him, especially when it comes to seedier parts of the job.  

    The drinks came and Joe shook his head as I drank the whiskey.

    "He gets really cranky after he drinks too much. You might want to take the gun or the bullets away before we leave the bar," Joe said.  

    Okita nodded happily.

    "Aren't you going to ask me about Aoshi?" Joe said and took a drink from his beer.

    "No." 

    "Even if I've got something for you?"

    "No."

    Joe looked puzzled.  I took another drink.

    "Tell me then," Okita said. 

    Joe fished out a worn, folded pieces of papers from his pocket and placed it on the table.  There were three sheets of the paper and they were held together by a paperclip.

    "A...friend of a friend whose acquaintance is a janitor for Ryoko Law International got a hold of this..." 

    Okita unfolded the papers and squinted to read the worn prints.

    "Ryoko Law International--the law firm that represents Takeda estate?"

    Joe nodded.

    "Go to page 2, third paragraph."

    Okita flipped the paper over and read it.

    "I think I am more confused."

    I took the paper from Okita and read the paragraph.  In heavy-lidded legal speak in the poor photocopies of Kanryu's will, it named Aoshi as the sole heir to the Takeda estate.  I scanned through the third page and it was only partial list of the Takeda estate. 

    "Where's the rest of it?" I said.

    "That's all he can get for us."

    "Why is Kanryu still alive after all these years...especially when Aoshi has every reason to have him killed?" Okita said.

    I shrugged.

    "It's an awfully elaborate plan to string you along if Aoshi just want to put on a show for you...what does he want then?"

    I shrugged again.

    "I don't think what'd happened to him over years has anything to do with me in particular," I said.  "Kanryu'd been abusing and perhaps molesting him for years even before I came on scene."

    "It would have been very easy for Aoshi to kill Kanryu." Okita said.

    "Maybe he doesn't know what's in the will," Joe suggested.

    "I think it's a natural deduction that Aoshi knows he is in line to contest for the estate, even if he's not named in the will, in event of Kanryu's death.  Officially, Aoshi's the only child Kanryu adopted legally. Kanryu might have spread many seeds all over the world that we might not know about, but Aoshi's official adoption papers has the heaviest weight in court," I said.  "But that adoption seemed to come about as part of Kanryu getting Aoshi into Japan...except that unlike most of Kanryu's multiple adoptions, he kept this one."

    No one spoke for a few moments and I finished my drink.  For once I didn't ask for a second drink.  I folded the papers and tucked them into my pocket.

    "Is there anything else?" I said.

    Joe sighed.

    "Keiko said Aoshi'd been moved to another place last night.  Where? She doesn't know.  She said Aoshi was on verge of a complete breakdown when he was moved," Joe said.  "Maybe because the knight in shining armor never came for him."

    I got up and took the gloves from my pockets.  

    "I'll leave you two to continue on with your date," I said as I slipped on my gloves.

    "Saitoh..." Okita began.

    "I'm fine," I said.  "I feel bad...in the way that I always feel bad when I can't break a case.  But I don't feel guilt.  I refuse to."

    I turned and left. 

    Two days later, a message came from a rather unexpected source: Ian Von Erich.  He wanted to meet with me alone at a shrine in Shinagawa that night at 10 p.m..  It felt like a set-up but I knew it wasn't.  Von Erich was a straight-forward kind of killer, much like how Aoshi was.  It would have been more his style to kill me in broad daylight, right in my own office.  

    I got to the shrine twenty minutes early to scout out the meeting place.  The shrine was already closed and locked down for the night, but behind the rear shrine wall, was a small plain that looked over the city.  Von Erich had chosen a very neutral place to meet.  Unless someone was positioned inside the shrine itself, it would be hard not to detect an ambush from any direction.

    About five minutes to 10, I heard him walk through the grass toward me.        

  "Aoshi want to see you," he said.  His voice was as bland as his expression.  

    "That it?" I said and took another drag out of the cigarette then dropped it on the ground.  I rubbed it out with the toe of my shoe as I exhaled slowly.  

    "What do you mean?"

    "I'm not exactly the sentimental type that insists on the good-byes."

    He looked at me for a while.

    "You're afraid..." he said. 

    I shrugged.

    "If you want to call it that, I don't care," I said.  "I can't get involved with him."

    The words tasted bitter and I could not believe I had made myself say it.  Von Erich was right, I was afraid.  I wanted to walk away but Von Erich's gaze held me.  We were waiting for each other to say something, and finally he did.

    "I love him," he said softly.  "I have always loved him."

    I waited for him to continue.  He had a far away look, as if he was recalling something in the distant past.  His focus returned to the present suddenly and he was looking at me again.

    "But I can't stop the hurt his father puts him through."

    "At one time, you and Aoshi ran two-thirds of Kanryu's guns.  It would have been easy for you to take him out," I said. 

    "Things are not as easy as you make them out to be, Saitoh.  Aoshi was loyal to Kanryu, even if he hated him.  And I was and still am loyal to Aoshi, even if his choices did not agree with me.  I will do anything he ask of me, and he did not want me to kill Kanryu.  I love him too much to make decisions for him."

    I reached into my pocket for another cigarette.  

    "I don't call it love, when you allow him to be tortured and and soon to be murdered by the same man writing your paycheck," I said and lit the cigarette with a silver lighter.  "You don't find it strange of Aoshi to accept this kind of treatment willingly?"

   "It doesn't matter.  As long as he's whole."

    "I don't think he ever was nor will ever be," I said.  "He's been broken from the day his mother sold him to this kind of life.  He's not even sane enough to want to run away from a bastard who tortures and rapes him."

    He said nothing.  

    "Why does he want to see me?"

    He looked past me stared at the skyline that was partially lit up by the crescent moon.  

    "He's being sent out tomorrow morning.  I am not even sure who was suppose to do the pick-up or where he's going to be sent to.  I do know that once he leaves Japan, I will never see him again.  I won't even know when he dies...and..."

    He paused and looked down at his feet.  His eyes seemed to have misted over and he was investing quite a bit of willpower to control his runaway emotions then.  I drew on the cigarette and gave him time to compose himself.  

    "He will go with you," he finally said.  "I'll make sure he goes with you."

    "He's not going to come with me," I said.  "He walked away from me and back to that sadist's arms twice already.  What made you think he won't go back to him again?"

    "I don't know..." he said and looked down at his feet again.  "I don't know anything anymore.  All I want for him to be is happy.  I don't care what price that happiness comes...I will do anything and kill anyone to exact that happiness for him..."

    He looked up at me.  

    "Even if I lose him to someone else, I will be content.  All I need to know is if he's happy."    

   He took out a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out to me.  I didn't take it immediately.

    "I know Aoshi meant more to you than an affair," he said.  "I know you went to Paris to see him.  You sat outside Kanryu's estate for four days waiting for a trace of him.... All I am asking of you to do is finish what you've wanted to do and save him."

    "Save him..." I said.  The words sounded strange, coming from someone else.  I wanted to laugh at those words but I didn't know why.

    "Please."

    I took the paper from him and unfolded it.  Written on it was an address in Shinjuku.

    "I'll leave word with the guard that you're from my security detail to do checks on Aoshi."

    I raised an eye brow at him.  This was too simple and too complete.

    "You just have to trust me," he said.  "If you would like to wear a wire, camera or bring backups to make sure I am not setting you up, you are more than welcomed to.  I would not go to this kind of distance to make an offer with a cop just to pick you off."

    "What offer?"

    "I'll close Kanryu's case for you...in exchange for Aoshi..." he said.  "I will kill Kanryu as soon as I see Aoshi gone."

    I knew he was sincere.  The conviction in his eyes and voice assured me that he would do what he promised.  Aoshi.... I said his name in my mind bitterly. 

    "I can't and I won't promise anything," I said.

    He nodded.

   "How do I take him out of there, if he does want to come with me? And where will you be at?"

    "I am scheduled to drive Kanryu to see Aoshi one last time tomorrow night," he said.  "That would be around 8 p.m. You will have to take out the guards, and there's only three of them, before I show up with Kanryu.  Kanryu usually travels with at least 10 armed guards and you'll be out-gunned.  I'll leave a car in the back for you in case you need one. The key will be in the passenger side visor.  You have half an hour to do what you have to do and get out."

    "What about you?"

    He took in a deep breath.

    "Just tell Aoshi I love him...and I am sorry that I couldn't keep my promise," he said and turned and walked away. 

~Narcissus  20010425