Tokyo Blues
Chapter 21
I worked through Christmas and New Year's and took some time off in the first week of February. Until then I had had a lot of time to plan my next step.
There were at least two parties involved in the matter. One was Kritiker and its troop of assassins. The other one remained unknown to me. The clubs were either hunting ground to Kritiker, or it was a trap set up to lure victims into their death.
I had to unveil the identity of the second party in order to find out.
The dead businessmen did not belong to either side, I assumed, and had to be viewed as individuals whose deaths did harm in some way to either Kritiker or to Kritiker's unknown opponent.
There had been the warehouse in Minato-ku which had been destroyed completely. Several of the long-term employees had been killed by the same weapon that had ended the lives of the unknown business men in Tokyo as well as those we had found in Kobe two months ago. Whatever had opened their torsos was a very distinct weapon, and the killer must have had a lot of training in order to handle it as skilfully as he obviously did, because there had never been more than one precise blow to end the victims' lives.
My partner Iwase had not not been slain like the others, but shot in the chest. It may not have been the same killer, but in all cases the red-haired woman of Kritiker had shown up with her Rottweilers to take care of the mess.
The upper class salary men had been in possession of a special members card that had allowed them entrance to a place which was crucial to my investigations, and the incident at the warehouse, should it be connected to the case, led me to believe that the trading of illegal goods was involved.
This was all I had to go on, and I decided that in order to get hold of more information I would have to pay the Red Star a visit and find an easy victim that had access to the back room, as I was sure the club owed one, just like the Blue Moon did. I would track my target, bring it somewhere safe, and use a convincing technique to get everything out of him that I needed to know.
The thought scared me less than it would have a year ago. The police man turns into the criminal... Was that why Iwase had to die?
On my first day off work I took a cab to the Red Star, dressed in one of the outfits Mai had chosen for me back when I still had felt like a regular guy with a solid purpose in life. I wore a pair of dark blue jeans that was long enough to crease around dark brown Belstaff motorcycle boots. Despite of the suggested dress code a dark blue Armani silk shirt and a brown leather jacket that had cost a month's wage completed the outfit.
The club turned out to favour colors and decoration that made me feel like a time-traveller trapped in the nightmare version of a European mansion in the eighteen-hundreds. The oppressive, cloying atmosphere of an opium din and the wicked surroundings of a Paris brothel melted into an anachronistic chaos of leather-clad bodies writhing on a dance-floor beneath laser spots and artificial fog and faceless couples that stretched out languidly on red suede couches, drinking champagne and pleasing each other.
A gallery surrounded the main floor on which there stood more couches which were separated from one another by heavy curtains. Small chandeliers hung from the ceiling and candelabras were fastened to the walls.
There was a semi-circular bar made of cherry wood located at the far end of the dance floor. I ordered a Gin Tonic and scanned the walls for doors. A woman in a sleek black dresws noticed my interest in the surroundings and stepped up to me, a glass of champagne in her perfectly manicured hands.
"Your first time?"
I gave her a smile. Everything else would have seemed suspicious. "Certainly not my last time. What about you?"
The music changed beat as the DJ decided to make the girls show what they got. The lascivious voice of Prince or however he called himself in the new decade seeped out of the boxes and clung to everybody's skin like molten caramel.
My new acquaintance ignored my question. "You have the darkest eyes I've ever seen" she said, but she did not rub against me to get the action started as I expected and instead looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and awe.
"Thanks..." I mumbled, unsure as to what the proper response would be. "You have... dark eyes yourself."
To my astonishment I triggered a laugh from her. She winked at me and introduced herself as Mahra. We talked for a couple of minutes and I ordered her another glass of champagne. I was happy about the pleasant company.
"The clientele here splits into four groups", Mahra explained to me about half an hour into our conversation. "There is the successful business man who wants the world to know the size of his dick. There is the rich brat who blows daddy's fortune and gets off at the way chicks drool at the roll of cash in his pants. The shooting star who's just had a breakthrough in modeling or acting and is now trying to make an adventure of life. And last but not least there's the loner, looking for a challenge or a distraction, depending on how life is treating him at the moment."
I remained silent for a couple of seconds, taking all of this in. Involuntarily my brow furrowed. "You have things figured out, it seems."
I knew she expected me to ask which group she thought I belonged to but I did not do her the favour. I would have given in at some point but a movement in the corner of my eye made me turn my head and I froze in shock.
xxx
I knew the man who passed me by in a distance of less than 10 feet. It was crazy. I felt dizzy. Mumbling an excuse I abandoned Mahra and followed him. He left the bar behind and turned left into a corridor that was obscured by a labyrinth of curtains.
At the end of the corridor there was the door I'd been looking for. The man flashed a calling card and a guard placed his palm on a pad inserted into the wall. There was a beep and the door opend soundlessly.
Sill dazed I waited a couple of minutes before I stepped up to the guard myself and produced the Red Star card I had found in the last victim's pocket. Time seemed to slow down to a viscuous trickle. The man guarding the door stood at least 6'4" high. He looked at the card before his eyes locked on mine.
I did not hold my breath, and I did not straighten as his scrutinizing stare tried to invade my head. Fortuunately this seemed to be the right move, and the elephant opened the door to let me past.