Rain of Terra
Ratatosk
4. Chapter 4
Rated: T - English - Crime/Mystery - Tomo T. - Reviews: 68 - Updated: 12-15-11 - Published: 08-23-09 - id:5325016
Tomo was busy elaborating her 'Asagi-is-a-prostitute' theory to a disbelieving Torako, when Torako decided it was time to put an end to that nonsense.
"I'm going to regret saying this," Torako said. She exited the highway and headed toward a business district.
"Oh? What's that?" Tomo said.
"Tomo, when it comes to busting cases, you have great powers of observation. The best I've ever seen. No one can deconstruct a crime scene or find evidence like you."
Tomo was beaming so brightly that the Civic could have turned off its headlights, and they'd still be able to see their way. She was scratching the back of her head in false display of modesty. "Oh, really? You mean it? Go on, go on!"
"But," Torako said, "you come up with the most stupid conclusions and motives I have ever heard."
Tomo's smile cracked like desert wind. "Wha- what? What do you mean?" she said, like a scolded child.
Torako sighed. "Tomo, who besides you thought that a farmer's goat disappeared because of a secret alien invasion? Or that a work shed burned to the ground because a low-level demon materialized inside the propane generator?"
"Hmph," Tomo said, crossing her arms and affecting a defiant look, like a mutineer facing execution. "Who's to say those things don't exist?"
"Not getting into that argument," Torako said. "But they don't have any place in a police investigation. It makes us look like nutcases. Not to mention," Torako added, to prevent Tomo from interrupting, "the problems caused by following your hunches."
"Are you talking about that lawyer?" Tomo said. "Come on, I could have sworn he was wearing a mask. His face was all rubbery and fake looking."
"I was thinking about the noodle incident-"
"That wasn't me!" Tomo shouted. "No one can prove it was me! I wasn't even there!"
Torako winced. "This car is too small to start shouting."
Torako let Tomo sulk before speaking again. "I'll admit that this prostitute theory kinda makes sense, at least compared to your previous theories. Maybe I got burned so many times by your hunches that I just stop believing them. It's like a survival instinct."
Tomo still sulked, so Torako decided to enjoy the quiet.
...
The bakery was located in a business district. This meant busy, crowded and loud during the day, but at night, when everyone left for home, a ghost town. The buildings towered like shadows, and the streetlights were too dim to expose anything lurking behind them.
They saw a light down the street, shining like a Cyclopean eye in a dark cave.
"There!" Tomo said. She attempted to point through the windshield and smudged it instead. "I bet that's it!"
Torako parked the civic on the curb, near the building. The building was a temporal oddity, a three story brownstone out of the 1950s standing amidst all these towering behemoths of glass and steel, monuments to Japan's bubble economy of the 1980s.
Tomo pulled out her bokken the instant she hit the sidewalk.
"Not yet," Torako said. "Let's talk with them first."
"Aw, come on" Tomo said. "You're just jealous you don't have one."
"Don't need it," Torako said. "Got a gun."
"Yeah, rub it in," Tomo said, but she put away the bokken. Not for the last time, Torako wondered how she sat down with that thing stuck in her coat.
They approached the lighted building, and sure enough, it was Broodwich Bakery, written in English and katakana. Torako tapped at the name on the plate glass window and looked derisively at Tomo, as if she was a competitor who lost a spelling bee. "How's that prostitution theory coming along, genius?"
"I'll be proven right, just you wait!" Tomo said.
They entered the bakery, and were hit with the warm, sweet smell of baked grains. It was an ancient smell, the first hint that man had pushed aside the lifelong hunt and was finally putting his big brain to use. It was the smell of the beginning of civilization.
Torako flipped the open sign to 'closed' while Tomo teleported to the counter to ogle the pastries and cakes in the glass display case, which she had spied from the entrance. The tile floor was in a checker pattern, with alternating black and white squares. A small, cast iron table and its two chairs sat next to the window. Takeout seemed to be the main way this place did business.
The push door opened from behind the counter, and a sales girl walked out, wearing a frilly white apron and a nametag that read Ryoko. She greeted the two with a fresh smile, displaying a chipperness that was unusual for the late hour.
"Good evening, and welcome to our bakery. You guys just made it in time. We close in ten minutes, so what you see in the display case is twenty percent off."
"Man," Tomo said. "This smells good!"
Ryoko described the many types of bread and deserts they cook at the bakery. Tomo, of course, wanted to know what the sweetest one was.
Torako waited for Tomo to swing the conversation around to the investigation, but realized that Tomo was too far gone into smells and potential tastes to concentrate on her job. Torako propped an elbow up on the display counter and rested her head on her hand.
"Manager in?"
Ryoko maintained her business-friendly smile, although some quizzical light came from her eyes. "Well, yes, she lives upstairs. But I'm sure there's something I can help you with."
With her free hand, Torako flipped out her police badge. Tomo would have done the same, but she was pressing her face against the display glass, eyeing a cherry pie.
Ryoko's smile stumbled like a marathon runner at the finish line. "Um, is there something wrong?"
"Cops flashing a badge, asking to talk to someone," Torako said. "When does that mean something's not wrong?"
"Oh, don't pay attention to her," Tomo said, shooting straight up from her crouching position. "She's PMSing tonight." Tomo flashed her badge. "But yeah, your manager please."
"I'll go see if she can come down," Ryoko said.
"Don't worry about it, we'll follow you," Torako said. She leapt over the pay counter like Daredevil hopping across tenement roofs in Hell's Kitchen. Tomo attempted to follow suit, her foot entangling in the phone line and crashing her to the floor. The phone was jerked from the counter and slammed into her head.
"Oops, sorry," Tomo said, wincing in pain and rubbing her head with one hand, while trying to untangle the phone line from her ankle with her other hand. Ryoko looked at Tomo with some concern, although Torako didn't appear to notice that her partner had committed a pratfall.
The swing door behind the counter opened to a hallway, with two doors to the left and a flight of stairs on the right. Ryoko started to walk up the stairs, but Torako pushed open the first door in the hallway. Ryoko climbed down and followed behind, trying not to show her nervousness.
Torako entered the kitchen, which had been shut down for the night. The oven was shut off, and the table used for kneading was wiped clean. Several mixers, empty and silent, arrayed the top of a stainless steel counter. A mop bucket, with the mop sunk into the dirty water, stood guard next to the doorway.
"Seems an awkward place for a kitchen," Torako said.
"Well, this building was originally a small residential apartment, back before this area got big," Ryoko said. "This used to be a lobby, but it was converted to a kitchen about… thirty years ago, I think."
Torako followed the sales lady back up the stairs, and noticed with some irritation that Tomo wasn't behind her. Probably still untangling the mess she made.
The stairs opened up into the living quarters. Torako followed Ryoko to a closed door facing the stairs. A window was at the end of the hall overlooking the street, but the view outside was as dark as black construction paper.
Ryoko knocked on the door. "Ma'am? Some visitors are here to see you."
The door opened and an elderly woman appeared, wearing a sky blue yukata decorated with swaths of white wind flowing from back to front. "Thank you, Ryoko," she said. She looked up at Torako and smiled at her like she was a visiting grandchild. "And who might you be?"
Torako flashed her badge. "We we're hoping to ask you some questions, Ms.-"
"Ando. Would that be your partner?" She indicated direction by nodding.
Torako turned around to see Tomo standing behind her. Tomo was cradling pastries and cakes in her left arm. She was holding a slice of cherry pie in her right hand, already bit into, and was chewing with undisguised bliss. Her eyes were lidded like a sleepy infant's. "It's so good," she said, through a mouthful of pie.
Torako fumbled her ability to speak, but managed to recover. She turned back to face Ms. Ando. "She'll pay for those, I promise."
...
Ms. Ando had taken them to her dining room, where they sat down at her kotatsu. A western style cherry wood dresser was in the corner, with a creamy green vase full of yellow chrysanthemums on top. Their fallen petals layered the top of the dresser like the aftermath of a wedding. A picture of Ms. Ando in her younger years, along with her late husband, stood next to the vase.
Ms. Ando dismissed Ryoko for the night, who locked the bakery before leaving. Tomo finished her slice of pie and was now working on a blueberry muffin. Ms. Ando had brewed tea, which proved to be much more drinkable to Torako than the Hell brew served to them earlier at the hotel.
"Damn fine tea!" Tomo said, slamming her empty porcelain cup on the table. She poured more tea from the pot Ms. Ando had brought out to them, the heady astringent smell seeping across the room.
"I'm glad you like it, dear," Ms. Ando said. She turned toward Torako and said, "So, officer, what do you need to discuss?"
"Asagi Ayase," Torako said. Tomo glanced over at Torako, who was busy taking a sip of her tea.
"How are you able to see through those long bangs?" Ms. Ando said. If she knew Asagi, she certainly wasn't revealing it. Her kindly, wrinkled face hadn't changed since she first greeted them at her door.
"The hotel she's staying in received a phone call that was traced to this establishment," Torako said. Was staying in, Tomo thought. Is she trying to catch Ms. Ando in a lie? Or…
"You two," Ms. Ando said, "are new here, aren't you? Filling in for the detectives that got fired, I take it?"
"That's right," Torako said. "If-"
"I see what this is," Ms. Ando said. She kept the same sweet smile, the same kindly voice. "You want what those old detectives had. You want in. And you think harassing an old lady running a bakery shop is going to do it."
Torako took a sip of her tea while Tomo chomped another bite from her muffin. Tomo looked back and forth between the two. She decided to let Torako handle the questioning, and besides, she was too busy eating anyway.
Ms. Ando leaned over the table and faced Torako. "You don't know what you're up against. Some newcomers, not even knowing how this ward is run, think they can get a little action in before being sent back to their old ward. The detectives you're filling in for, Watanabe-
"Heh heh heh," Tomo said, laughing at her own private joke.
"- and Saito knew the rules. They lost, didn't they? You two ladies are outsiders. I assure you, you'll fare far worse than they." She glanced at Tomo before leaning back in her chair and fixing her grandmotherly gaze on Torako. "This is what you will do. You will leave. You will not come back. You will not mention Asagi Ayase to anyone." She looked at Tomo. "And you, dear, will pay full price for those goods."
"What?" Tomo said, through a mouth full of blueberry muffin, globs of it falling from her mouth. "The sales lady said they were fifty percent off!"
"No, she said they were twenty percent off," Ms. Ando said, smiling.
While Tomo argued the price with Ms. Ando, Torako pulled the police issue camera out of her military jacket. She turned it on and studied at the view screen while cycling through the pictures she took at the crime scene, before stopping on one; the one. She studied it longer than she wanted to before putting the camera on Ms. Ando's table.
Ms. Ando lifted an eyebrow, the only change in expression since she let the two into her apartment. "What's this, some blurry shot made on a street corner? You think this will matter?" Ms. Ando picked up the camera.
The transformation was instantaneous. The smile on her face was knocked cold by a gasp of horror. Her gentle eyes widened into shock before darkening into pools of sorrow.
Ms. Ando put the camera back on the table, and Torako quickly pocketed it. Ms. Ando leaned her now sagging face into her hands. She stayed like that for several seconds before removing them and speaking again.
"How did this happen?"
"We don't know," Torako said, quietly. "That's what we're trying to find out. If there's anything you can tell us, please do it. We need to know."
"Can you- can you give me a moment," Ms. Ando said. Her eyes were misting like condensation on glass.
...
Tomo and Torako were in Ms. Ando's living room at the end of the hall. The light was on, and Torako was sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall, one arm propped on her knee. She kept trying to form some thought, anything, but nothing was coming.
Tomo sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the television. She was flipping through channels at an obnoxious pace before settling on a late night variety show.
"Look at that idiot," Tomo snorted, pointing at the screen. "A vibrating toilet seat? Who thought that was a good idea?"
Torako stood up. "Ten minutes is long enough," she said. "Let's go."
They knocked on Ms. Ando's bedroom door, and she exited, ready to continue questioning. They went back to the kotatsu, where Tomo poured herself some more tea.
After sitting down, Torako said, "Were you the one that made the call to her hotel room?"
"Yes, I was the one that called her," Ms. Ando said, the edges of her voice chiseled by shock and grief. "I tried her cell phone, but she didn't answer. I knew where she was staying, so I tried calling her there. She never answered."
"There was a phone call made two minutes later to the front desk," Torako said. "We traced the number to a payphone in Tokyo station."
Ms. Ando shook her head. "I don't know anything about that."
Torako continued. "Why was she staying there?"
"I don't know," Ms. Ando said. "I don't work for her."
"You don't work for her," Torako repeated. She absentmindedly rotated the teacup with her hand. The bottom of the cup scraped against the kotatsu while she did this. "You throw smoke in our eyes the instant we mention her. You know her cell phone number. You even knew what hotel she was staying at, and her room number. You start threatening us, telling us to leave her alone. And you say you don't work for her."
Ms. Ando shook her head throughout Torako's accusations, as if she had Parkinson's disease. "She's like a daughter to me," she said. "She owns this building. I don't make enough money to keep this business running, but she bought it and lets me stay here rent-free. I would have been forced out years ago if it wasn't for her. Can you blame me for wanting to protect her?"
"No," Torako said. "Still leaves some unanswered questions, though. Why would she tell you where she's going if you didn't work for her? Did she always do that?"
"It's something I wanted her to do, for me," Ms. Ando said. "To check up on her and make sure she's okay. It had nothing to do with her business."
Now that its attention was free from eating, Tomo's mouth burst like an overinflated tire. "Is she a prostitute? Is this place a front for criminal activities? Where's the whorehouse?"
Ms. Ando looked at Tomo with a mixture of amusement and annoyance. "You mean you don't know what she does? Neither of you?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," Torako said.
"She runs gambling dens," Ms. Ando said. Torako gave Tomo a triumphant look, slight and subtle.
"She owns twelve dens, I think, all in this ward. Some of them are what you'd call for the lower class player, slot machines and what have you. She has some for high rollers, craps tables, roulette tables, Blackjack, that sort of thing. She sponsors some underground Poker tournaments with high-stake betting. She's a killer mah jong player herself."
Ms. Ando looked at Tomo. "And no, young lady, this place isn't a front. It's a legitimate bakery, as it has been for the past thirty years. Asagi kept me in business just because she liked me." Ms. Ando let out a sigh. "I suppose that will be changing now. Whatever lackey takes over won't have any interest in helping out an old woman."
"Well, do you know where we can find some information about her activities? Like locations of the dens," Tomo said.
Ms. Ando stood up. "Follow me. I'll take you to her office. It's downstairs."
Torako and Tomo glanced at each other before standing up. Tomo's look said everything: jackpot! Tomo quickly drank the rest of her tea. She wiped crumbs off her lap before following the two downstairs.
...
Asagi's office was located on the first floor, next to the kitchen. It was a small office, with a wooden laminate desk, a black leather executive chair, and one leather visitor chair in front of the desk.
Ms. Ando had tapped the computer on the desk and was about to say something, but stopped as she watched Torako approach the wall displaying pictures. Tomo sprawled in the visitor's chair. She didn't seem to be aware of what was going on. The sugar from the pastries, cake, and pie she ate was having its revenge on her. They would soon know defeat, because Tomo's unnatural energy levels couldn't be affected by something as mundane as a sugar crash.
Torako studied the pictures on the wall. Most were of people she had never seen before. There were two pictures of Asagi's sisters, but none of her parents.
A picture of Torako and Asagi in their first year of college was in the middle of the display. The two were posing in front of Torako's first car, a hand-me-down from her parents. Asagi was wearing a knowing smile and a peace sign, while Torako looked tough behind her newly lighted cigarette and her black leather jacket.
I can't see this right now, Torako thought. She quickly moved away.
"That is you," Ms. Ando said. "I thought I recognized you. Those same long bangs. You and Asagi must have been good friends."
"Wow," Tomo said. She had managed to teleport herself from the chair to the picture without anyone noticing, a classic technique Tomo perfected over the years, causing dismay to everyone Tomo inflicted it upon.
Tomo looked at Torako, poked the picture with her finger, smearing it, and grinned like an escaped mental patient. "I never thought you'd stand still long enough for someone to take your picture! It's like you don't even care that they took it."
"Yeah," Torako said. "You'd think I was traumatized by someone constantly sticking a camera in my face after pulling a prank on me."
"No one I know!" Tomo said. She flashed a cute and manic smile while blasting a thumbs up. Torako ignored her and said to Ms. Ando, "That must be Asagi's computer. We'll have to confiscate it."
...
Torako was carrying the PC to the car when Tomo decided to harass her with questions.
"Why aren't we calling in the field analysts? They're the ones who are supposed to do all this. That whole building needs to be searched, and besides, Ando needs to be arrested and taken in as an accomplice. I don't trust her kind old lady act." Tomo had convinced herself that the food she took was actually supposed to be fifty percent off the full price, and Ms. Ando was ripping her off by only taking off twenty percent. So what if the sales lady said...
"We're taking this back to Chiyoda," Torako said, interrupting Tomo's poorly constructed anger. "Our people are going to look at it. There's no way Asagi could run that many gambling dens here without some kind of kickback to the cops, or have her 'office' out in the open like that. I'd hate for this to get mysteriously disappeared. I don't trust Ms. Ando either. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole ward is in on it." Tomo opened the rear door for Torako to shove in the computer.
"Ah, a conspiracy!" Tomo studied Torako. Tomo held her chin like she was posing for a cheaply made glamour shot. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were swinging around to my way of thinking."
Torako shut the rear door and stretched her back. "Too much wrong here," Torako said when she finished stretching. "Those two detectives apparently wanted too much, or tried to blackmail her, and got busted for it. No telling how many policeman here are in on it. We need to be careful."
Tomo's smug face changed into a thoughtful, worried look. "You know, it was Ueno police we left guarding the hotel. They took all of…" Tomo trailed off, letting the thought complete itself in Torako's head.
"Yeah," Torako said. "Let's not start getting paranoid here."
Tomo pointed to the computer in the back seat. "Too late for that," she said.
Torako answered by lighting a cigarette.