TITLE: Hourglass
AUTHOR: Go-Go Spiders
FANDOM: Lupin III
RATING: PG
NOTES: Tag for Red Jacket episode 57, 'Will It Be the Computer or Lupin?'/ 'Alter-Ego Maniac'.
"Jeeze, this Hunter nutjob sure had a lot of friggin' butt-ugly vases," said Jigen. "And none of them very valuable." He pulled a small obsidian statuette of a raven from the pile of antiques they'd stolen from Professor Hunter's collection. "Your turn, Fujiko."
"That's what I told you," sighed Fujiko, picking up a pair of polished silver horseshoes. "Better than leaving with nothing but it's not a big payday even before you split it four ways. Lupin?"
Lupin immediately selected the box of coins. "You're up, Goemon."
"Huh. You're taking Zenigata's coin?" said Jigen as Goemon silently pulled a small brass dagger from the treasure.
"Yup!" said Lupin, holding up the coin for the others to see. It didn't appear very different from the other antique coins in the box, except for having the name of Inspector Zenigata's ancestor, Heiji Zenigata, engraved on it.
"Hey, how'd that Hunter guy get his hands on it in the first place?" said Jigen, dragging an old phonograph from the pile. "From what Pops was saying before, it sounded like his family took Heiji Zenigata's legacy pretty damn seriously. You wouldn't expect them to give up those coins."
"Maybe it was stolen," suggested Fujiko, picking up a pale blue china vase.
"Don't think so. You'd have to be an idiot to parade a stolen family heirloom in front of a cop from the family it was stolen from," said Lupin. "And Hunter's many things, but he's not that stupid. No, this was bought legitimately from the Zenigatas."
"If the Zenigata family treasures the throwing coins of Heiji Zenigata so much, why would they would sell off those coins?" said Goemon.
"Money troubles, I bet," said Lupin. "Being the descendant of someone famous is a neat conversation starter, but it doesn't usually pay the bills. Isn't that right, Goemon?"
Goemon huffed and turned his head away from Lupin. "You have not taken another item yet, Lupin," he said stiffly.
"All right, all right, don't get grumpy." Lupin picked up a small red lacquered box. "There. Now it's your turn, Goemon."
After Hunter's collection had been divided between the four of them, Lupin was left with the decision with what to do with his share of the items.
Most of it he would try to sell off. Fujiko was right, most of the antiques in Hunter's collection weren't valuable, and very little of it he was tempted to keep. There were only a handful of items he didn't send off to his fence, Heiji Zenigata's coin among them.
Lupin looked up at the light in his bedroom through the hole punched into the center of the coin. The little penny that had started it all.
He was tempted to just give the coin to Inspector Zenigata – it had belonged to his family, after all – but knew that wouldn't work. After everything Zenigata had done to return the coin to Professor Hunter before, it was likely that he'd see it as his duty as a policeman to return the stolen coin to its owner, Professor Hunter. Putting Zenigata in a position where he would have to give up his ancestor's coin to Hunter for a second time seemed downright cruel.
What he needed was a way that would keep it out of both Hunter and Zenigata's hands.
Lupin considered his options and then smiled to himself, flipping the coin up into the air and catching it.
'Perfect'.
During one of the rare lulls in Lupin's global grand larceny tour, Zenigata went back to Japan. It was only for a few days, just to check in with his colleagues at the Interpol office in Tokyo and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. If he was very lucky, he might get a chance to see his daughter, Toshiko, before he got another calling card from Lupin and had to head back out.
One night, after returning to his hotel room, he discovered a paper envelope someone had slid underneath the door. Inside were two tickets to the Tokyo National Museum, good for the next day.
There was a note wrapped around the tickets. Zenigata carefully unfolded the note and sighed. He would have recognized the familiar handwriting in an instant, even without the little cartoon face of Lupin at the bottom.
'Hi Pops! Nice to see that you're back in Tokyo for a bit. While you're there, you should take your daughter here tomorrow – you'll both be in for a big surprise! Hugs and kisses, Lupin the Third'
Zenigata read the note, re-read the note, and then stared down at the two tickets.
Was it a hint of where Lupin was planning to strike next? But why tell him to take Toshiko along with him? Zenigata couldn't knowingly put his daughter in a potentially dangerous situation – while she was a Zenigata and tough as anything, she was also a ten-year-old girl from a divorced family who only saw her father once or twice a year. He'd have to go to the museum alone.
Zenigata began to crumple up the note, but stopped. There was a message written on the back he hadn't seen.
'Pops, I'm not even in the same country as you right now. Trust me, nothing that you'd consider 'bad' is going to happen at that museum tomorrow, sheesh! Just relax and have a good time with your daughter – you deserve it. Love, A.L. III'
Zenigata looked back down at the tickets.
'Lupin, what are you up to?'
It didn't take long for Zenigata to discover why Lupin had sent him tickets to the Tokyo National Museum once he and Toshiko had arrived at the museum the next day.
Toshiko spotted it first, while Zenigata was admiring the panels of an elaborately-painted paper screen. She had wandered over to the next display case, still in Zenigata's peripheral vision, when he heard her gasp. "Papa!" she shouted. "Look!"
Zenigata was by her side in an instant. Even with Lupin's assurances that he wasn't after anything at the museum, Zenigata was still on high alert. "Toshiko! What is it, what's the matter?"
Turning her large eyes towards him, Toshiko pointed up at the display.
Zenigata glanced up at the display and then his eyes bugged out in disbelief. "What the-"
Sitting on top of a thin post inside the case was Heiji Zenigata's coin, the same one he had stolen and then returned to Professor Hunter, only for Lupin to steal again minutes later.
According to the placard underneath it, the coin had very generously been donated to the Tokyo National Museum by Professor Hunter. Zenigata doubted anything on the placard was true. Someone had given the coin to the museum, but it sure as hell hadn't been Professor Hunter.
Zenigata stared at the coin in shock. 'Is this why you wanted us to come here, Lupin?'
"That coin has our family name on it!" said Toshiko excitedly, tugging at the sleeve of her father's trench coat. "Isn't that cool?"
It occurred to Zenigata that he had never told his daughter about Heiji Zenigata. When he had left the country to chase after Lupin, she had been too young to understand just how important Heiji Zenigata's legacy was to his family. He had only seen her a handful of times since then, but telling her about Heiji Zenigata had never been on his mind at the time.
"Well, there's a reason for that, Toshiko. That particular coin belonged to our ancestor, Heiji Zenigata," said Zenigata. "He was a policeman during the Edo period."
"Papa, why does the coin have his name on it?"
"That's how he'd catch crooks, he'd throw coins at them. He was famous for it."
"Wow," said Toshiko quietly, her eyes growing even bigger. "And we're related to him?
Zenigata nodded. "He's your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, Toshiko."
"That's amazing!"
"A writer named Kodō Nomura wrote stories based on Heiji Zenigata," said Zenigata. "The first came out when I was a little older than you are now. Reading those books was what made me decide that I wanted to be a policeman when I grew up, just like him."
"Do you still have those books somewhere, Papa?" said Toshiko after a moment.
Zenigata nodded. "Would you like to borrow them?"
With a wide grin, Toshiko nodded enthusiastically.
"I'll dig them out of storage tonight and bring them over first thing tomorrow morning, all right?" Zenigata smiled back at his daughter, and they moved on to the next room.
He should probably mention to the museum's staff that the coin had been stolen, and that the person who had 'donated' it was most likely Lupin the Third, not Professor Hunter.
Zenigata glanced over his shoulder at Heiji Zenigata's coin. A cluster of American tourists were standing in front of the coin's display now, one of them reading the placard's English translation out loud to the other two. One of the other tourists took a photograph of the coin with their camera.
Maybe in a few months, Zenigata decided.
the end
I've been slowly going through Red Jacket episodes and recently got to episode 57. From Zenigata's line about wanting Heiji Zenigata's coin to be in a museum towards the beginning (in the English dub), I was kind of hoping that Lupin would give it to a museum after he cleaned Hunter out. Except the coin disappears from the plot after Zenigata returns it.
So...this just kinda popped out.