Rain of Terra
Ratatosk
Chapter 9
Rated: T - English - Crime/Mystery - Tomo T. - Reviews: 68 - Updated: 12-15-11 - Published: 08-23-09 - id:5325016
The night sky gleefully rained on the four as they ran back to the car hidden in the alley. Tomo, not knowing how to pace herself when it came to strenuous activity, felt as if her adrenal glands were pumping bleach.
Osaka and Monsieur Chien jumped into the car still clothed in their police vests. Osaka removed hers, and then removed Monsieur Chien's while Torako drove them back to safety, with Tomo taking big gulps of air to put out the fire in her lungs. Once Monsieur Chien's vest was off, the dog's instincts took over and he shook himself inside the car, spraying the occupants with water tainted by his canine self.
Upon returning to the kennel, Monsieur Chien vomited the remains of the frog he ate at the kennel master's feet. Mr. Ichiro, with newly sprouted stubble cactusing his dry and arid face, expressed his opinion on the defilement of his formally spotless yard through profanity and threats of violence against Tomo. That Tomo wasn't holding Monsieur Chien's leash when he ate a frog didn't matter.
"Hey, he's a Frenchman," Tomo said in defense. "They do love their frog legs. Who am I to deny his heritage? You need to stop being a xenophobe, Mr. Ichiro."
Their argument, stupid from birth, quickly grew into idiocy and blind wrath.
The three piled into Torako's Fiat after dropping off the Civic at headquarters. Torako put on her shades despite it being late evening, and didn't argue with Tomo when she played with the radio dial. Tomo used a scattershot method known only to her on when to change the station and when to leave it, which caused many arguments from those forcibly subjected to it.
Torako had been silent since they ran from Ueno Park, her face solidified into a morose frown. Tomo would glance at her occasionally, becoming more and more irritated as Torako's mood influenced her own. Tomo's poorly thought-out attempts at comforting Torako were first ignored, and then answered by an all-consuming, "Shut up."
Angry and hurt, Tomo spent the rest of the ride in silence, with the only sound coming from the bad J-pop playing on the radio.
...
Tomo returned to her apartment with burning ears, wet clothes, aching legs, spent lungs, and a raging mind. She didn't say goodbye to Torako, slamming the Fiat door and running upstairs to her apartment, as fast as her tired, rubbery legs could take her. Osaka's waving and smiling was loud enough to wake up their neighbors, assuming they were able to sleep through the clouds firing thick, heavy raindrops at the building as if it were the target of a drive-by. Osaka said goodnight to Tomo, who nodded and made an arthritic wave while slouching into her apartment.
Tomo dragged herself into the kitchen, and Rico, freshly bathed, whistled. He was sitting at the two-chair table against the kitchen wall, mostly used for piling up mail and receipts before their eventual migration to the trash can, which he had pulled up next to the table. It was full of dead envelopes, slashed open by a letter opener. On the table Rico made two piles for the bills, the smaller one marked "anxiety", and the larger one marked "panic".
"Today sucked," Tomo said, the words sliding out of her mouth like a trickle of water from a leaky sink. She took off her jacket and let it plop on the yellow tile floor with a soggy thud. Rico watched Tomo as she scraped off her wet shoes and socks. "Hungry," she said, like a zombie searching for brains.
"I made some chicken stir-fry," Rico said. "It's in the fridge if you want to heat it up."
Tomo padded over to the counter and grasped the bottom notch of a bamboo drawer, pulling it open. She pulled out a folded blue and white checkered hand towel, holding it by its edges while gravity unfurled it. She rubbed her head and her face, before dropping the damp towel on the floor.
Rico was trying to divide his time between figuring out bills and watching his wife, but his Tomo-alarm was blaring too loudly for him to multitask. He dropped the power bill on the table, folded his arms, and watched Tomo with grim humor.
"Want me to heat up that chicken?" he said.
"Nah, I'll do it," Tomo said. She grabbed the shirttail of her button up shirt and pulled it over her head.
"I'll put that in the dryer for you," Rico said. Before he could get out of his seat, Tomo twisted the shirt like a washcloth and wrung it out, expelling water onto the floor.
"What are you doing?" Rico said, aghast. "Are you crazy?"
"Which question do you want me to answer first?" Tomo said. She tossed the shirt on the floor like a used napkin. "Anyway, it's tile." She tapped her foot on the puddle in demonstration, splashing water on the cabinet doors under the sink. "You can mop it up."
"That's not the point," Rico said. "You… oh never mind." Rico rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands.
"Hey, Rico," Tomo said.
Rico stopped rubbing his eyes and waited for the pink and orange fireworks to fade away. Behind them, he saw that Tomo had removed her pants, and was now only standing in her t-shirt and boxers. She had her pants in her hands, ready to wring like the neck of an annoying sibling.
"Tomo, don't!"
Tomo wrung her pants, punishing the wicked floor with a deluge even Noah couldn't survive. She kept her attention focused on her husband, whose expression danced from shock to tired acceptance. When she had wrung the last drop of moisture out of her pants, she tossed it on her mountain of wet clothes.
"See?" she said. "You can mop it up."
"I can mop it up," Rico said, emphasizing "I" like the name of a mooching relative.
"Well, you like mopping so much," Tomo said. "You talk about it all the time." She walked toward Rico and put her hands on his shoulders, and pushed. He didn't budge.
"Trying to knock me over? Good luck."
"Scoot back, dummy," Tomo said.
Rico scooted the chair back, the metal legs groaning in protest. Tomo straddled his lap, her bare legs hanging down over his hips, the tips of her toes touching the floor. She put her arms around his broad shoulders and buried her face into the side of his neck. He felt warm like a sirocco and smelled clean like a lemon orchard.
Rico put one arm around her waist, and the other snaked into her damp t-shirt. He gently caressed her soft back, his thumb tracing the rocky trail of her spine.
"That bad, huh?" he said. It came out louder than he wanted it to, more suited to barking instructions at a jackhammer operator instead of comforting a woman.
"Yeah," she said, into his neck.
"What happened?"
Tomo tried to run the night through her head, to pick one thing she could talk about, but all that appeared were the jumbled images of Torako's anger and the pictures Tomo hid in Osaka's apartment.
"I don't even know," Tomo said, nuzzling Rico's neck. "Stupid Torako."
A wide grin spread across Rico's face, seen only by the imp prodding him on.
"What, she wouldn't give you any play?"
Tomo leaned back and looked at Rico with as much disdain as her tired self could muster. "Shut up," she said, and Rico laughed.
...
"I mean, who the hell does she think she is?" Tomo said. "I was there trying to help her and she snaps at me like I'm some dumb child. What's her problem, huh?"
"She was looking awful down, Tomo," Osaka said, flipping eggs in a saucepan. "I think she's really upset about not finding out who killed Ms. Ayase."
It was late morning, and Tomo took advantage of her day off to hang out at Osaka's taqueria. Breakfast was an alien concept to the business minded Tokyoites in the area, so in the morning hours the restaurant was visited by immigrant workers from Latin America, eager for a taste of home even if it was by way of Mexico.
Osaka was at the Viking range, all burners going at once. She was tending to a large iron skillet, seasoned to such slickness that Spider-Man himself couldn't stick to it. Right now it was frying a chorizo sausage, made in-house at her taqueria. At the other end of the snug kitchen, one of her cooks was putting ground corn into a mechanical tortilla press. The ones that weren't deep-fried were wrapped in cellophane, tied, and stickered with a tag that said "Osaka's Taqueria". A cashier would grab several at once and bring them up front to the slavering customers, more Latin American immigrants who knew where to find the best tortillas in Tokyo.
Tomo sat on an equipment counter behind Osaka, with an empty beer bottle next to her hip and a half full one in her hand. She was careful not to be in view of the order window. Sure, it was only 10:00, but some people can be a little uppity about drinking alcohol at such an early hour.
Osaka moved the chorizo onto a blue plate, and Tomo saw bubbling black mass in an iron pot on the stove.
"Ugh, what is that?" Tomo said, pointing. "Boiled tumors?"
"Oh no, they've come back!" Osaka said, reaching for a knife. She saw what Tomo was pointing at, and relaxed her grip. "That's not it," Osaka said. "Those are refried beans." She grabbed a ladle and scooped some into the plate.
"Refried beans? How… wait," Tomo said, her eyes squinting in confusion. "What do you mean 'they've come back'?"
One of Osaka's employees walked into the kitchen from the service entrance, head down, tracing a constantly walked trail to her service station, which was in front of the serving window. She grabbed an apron and hastily tied it on while she made a subservient bow to Osaka.
"I'm sorry I'm late Ms. Kasuga," she said. "Please forgive my indiscretion."
"Eh? You're late?" Osaka said, studying the bowing figure. "I thought I was late."
"Um," the employee said. She vacillated between bowing and standing, not sure what protocol dictated her to do. "Well, I guess you can be late, Ms. Kasuga. I mean… well…"
"Well, we're both late together, then" Osaka said. She smiled and did her rapid-fire, sandy laugh. "Got a plate coming up, so get ready."
"Yes ma'am," the employee said. She prepped her station.
Osaka dumped the eggs on the plate, along with the sausage and refried beans. The plate moved over to the tardy employee's section, where she added pico de gallo, guacamole, and four freshly fried tortillas. She put the plate on the serving window and rung the bell, and a waitress came and took it to the waiting customer.
The cashier poked his head through the serving window. "Most of the customers have left now, Ms. Kasuga," he said. "It's going to be slow going until the lunch crowd."
"Okay Guillermo," Osaka said, rolling up invisible sleeves. "Clean-up time. Give the girls up front a break, but stagger it. I don't want a repeat of Friday. That was all sorts of awful."
"Yes'm."
"Hey," Tomo said. She had stuck her fingers in her beer bottles and was clanking them together. "How many people do you have under you?"
"Hmm, let's see," Osaka said, her eyes drifting upward, as if to read notes printed on her mental ceiling. She counted on her fingers. "Sixteen… no, yeah! Sixteen!" she said.
"Wow," Tomo said. One of the empty bottles fell from her finger and bounced on the floor. "You're in the big time with all those people." She hopped down and collected the dropped bottle, ignoring the angry stares from the two staff members inside the kitchen.
Tomo threw away the two empty bottles and leaned against the counter next to the stove, where Osaka was wiping down her area with a cloth. Tomo was going to start up on the subject of Torako again, but Osaka pre-empted her.
"What all happened at that homeless community?" Osaka said.
"Oh that," Tomo said, and detailed the failure at getting anyone to talk. "Torako looked super depressed when it fell through. I guess you could say it was her last stand."
"Aw, that's too bad," Osaka said.
"Pfft, what do I care? It's her stupid case, not mine. Anyway, I know those guys know something."
"Really? How so?"
"Well, how they were acting! They weren't just silent, you know, they were shifty about it. They were doing that little trick where they try really hard not to look at each other, and you can tell they're trying, you know?"
"They figured you were cops, I guess," Osaka said. "Since they saw you two come talk to me, and I had that big 'ol vest on. Homeless folks don't particularly care for cops, doncha know."
"Yeah," Tomo said. She scooted close next to the counter so one of the cooks could pass on her way to the freezer. "I'm surprised the cook gave me some rice and tea. Nice guy."
"Yep, and to spare you some food, too," Osaka said. "I mean, most of those guys actually have jobs, but they can't afford housing here. So they gotta buy the cheapest staples they can, you know? Rice and organ meat and all that. Not much spice outside of salt."
"You know a lot about homeless, Osaka," Tomo said, smiling. "You study up on them or something?"
"Nope," Osaka said. She tossed the rag on the stove and turned to face Tomo. "My husband was homeless for a while, and told me about it."
And there it was. The gauntlet thrown down. The subject Tomo had been dancing around since this morning, and Osaka decided to just plow right on through.
"Torako saw my necklace," Osaka said. "I'm guessing she told you about it."
"Yeah," Tomo said. She swallowed, and said, "What happened?"
"He got killed," Osaka said. It was a simple statement of fact, with no emotion behind it. Osaka picked up her rag and started cleaning the already clean stove, rubbing the top slowly. "Over a year ago," she said. "That happened, and then five months later I was in Mexico eating that taco." She tossed the rag down again, and gripped both sides of the stove. She looked straight ahead at the collection of pots and pans hanging from their hooks, seeing something reflected on their shiny surfaces that she didn't recognize. She turned slowly to face Tomo, her eyes glazed and smiling like Osaka always was, but her mouth a tight straight line, like a border between two warring countries. "I lost five whole months. I don't know if I even got to grieve, or whatever. Don't know where he's buried."
Tomo swallowed again, her mind groping for any little thing to say, some iota of comfort. She blurted out, "I'm sorry," and regretted the banality of it.
Osaka smiled, gentle and sincere. "Thanks," she said. She let go of the stove and sighed.
"Listen," Tomo said, leaning close to Osaka and speaking quietly. She glanced at the cook at the tortilla machine, who seemed occupied with some work related task. "I care about what happened, but I don't want to dig up anything, okay? So if I don't ask you about what you've been doing for the past seven years, I want you to know it's not because I'm selfish. But if there's-"
The freezer door opened and the tardy cook came out, carrying a box. Tomo moved away from Osaka while Osaka pretended to clean the stove again.
When the cook passed, Tomo leaned in toward Osaka again. "You can talk to me about anything, and I'll listen."
"Thanks again," Osaka said. "But there's not much I can talk about, I guess."
Tomo grinned and reverted back to her normal self, which was a combination of loud volume and manic behavior. "Oh, that boring, huh?"
"No, they told me it'd be a security risk," Osaka said, and Tomo decided it was time for another beer.
...
Osaka let her kitchen staff take a quick break while she prepared adobo, a marinade made from chipotles, tomatoes, and limes, amongst other ingredients. Osaka grew most of her own chilies, herbs, and spices on the roof of her restaurant, a jungle of pots and tangled vines. Some items traditional in Mexican (or at least Matamoros) cuisine couldn't be grown in Tokyo despite Osaka's best efforts, such as avocados. She did manage to find an avocado grower in Okinawa, so she didn't have to worry about paying high prices in import fees. Chipotles, however, had to be imported, as they were simply too time consuming for her to make at the volume her customers demanded.
"Stupid Torako," Tomo said. She was sitting on the edge of the sink, tapping her half empty beer bottle on the edge while she watched Osaka play in the red goopy marinade.
"You oughta call her," Osaka said. "She probably feels bad about snapping at you."
"I'm not calling her," Tomo snorted. "She should be calling me to apologize." She hopped off the edge of the sink, walked toward Osaka, and leaned on the prep table, careful not to invade Osaka's radius of messiness.
"Hey, do you have to do anything different for Japanese tastes?" Tomo said.
"All the time," Osaka said. She held up a finger, dyed red with the guts of tomatoes and chilies. "As a matter of fact, I made a new invention using rice tortillas! I call it taco yaki!"
Tomo fixed Osaka with a look between disbelief and scorn. "Um, Osaka? Takoyaki is old. You should know that, you're from Osaka."
"No Tomo, Taco… yaki."
"Yeah, takoyaki," Tomo said, and she took another sip of her beer, giving Osaka a quick sidelong glance.
"No, listen to me," Osaka said. She held her two hands, palms facing each other, as if they were fencing in her concepts. "Taco," she said, and then moved the fence over for the second part, "yaki."
Tomo shrugged.
Osaka flung her hands in the air, slinging marinade on the wall while Tomo scrambled for cover. "It's fried octopus ball tacos!" she shouted.
"Oh," Tomo said, and then Osaka's concept finally infiltrated her brain. "Oh! Ohhh! Fried octopus ball tacos!"
"See? I might have to spell it in English for it to make sense," Osaka said. "But I make these oblong rice tortillas and put the octopus balls inside, with a mild spicy sauce. I press the edges together, and you have a pocket type food that you won't spill on you when you eat it."
"Hey, that's actually a pretty good idea, Osaka," Tomo said. She held the beer up in salute. "You can actually eat tacos on the go without spilling them on you."
"Yep! There's a high school around here, and a lot of the kids pass by on the way home. So, I got something I can sell while they walk home, and they- gah!" she shouted.
"What?"
"Why are my walls bleeding?" Osaka said, spinning around her kitchen. "I'm in a horror movie!"
"No Osaka, that's marinade," Tomo said. "You flung it on the wall when you were talking about octopus balls."
Osaka giggled.
"What?"
"Sorry, it's just… never mind." She went back to her adobo. "You know what? I'm tired at looking at this. It's done because I say it's done."
"Yeah!" Tomo shouted, thrusting her fist into the air, splashing some of her beer onto the floor. "Show it who's boss!"
Tomo helped Osaka marinade the pork and chicken she planned on cooking that evening. The two cooks came back, the one who worked in the prep area giving Tomo the evil eye. Tomo responded by looking straight at her and taking a mighty swig of her beer, draining it. Osaka asked the cook to clean the marinade off of the wall. She grudgingly complied with a "Yes, Ms. Kasuga" and a confused look.
"Your octopus ball tacos are a good idea," Tomo said, while they washed their hands, "if you'd add a little fried rice to it."
"The tortilla is already rice," Osaka said. "It'd be kinda overkill." She flung the water from her hands into the sink before grabbing a towel. "It's weird, you know. We eat rice so much, you'd think we'd get tired of it already."
"Well, it's what you eat along with it," Tomo said. She thought of the homeless community and the cook with his combination of rice and green tea. I bet that got monotonous, Tomo thought, and then inspiration struck her.
"Osaka!"
"Tomo?" Osaka said, seeing her friend's shining face.
Tomo grabbed Osaka's shoulder with her free hand. "Make forty tacos! Pork, fish, beef, chicken, whatever!"
"Um, okay. Are we having a party?"
"Yeah, a homeless party!" Tomo said. She then shook her head. "No, I mean, it's for the guys in Ueno Park! See, Torako came on too strong, but of course that's Torako for you. But, I bet if I treated them to some real good food, they'll open up a little and tell me what they saw at Takamori statue!"
Osaka glanced at the empty beer bottle in Tomo's hand, and smelled the alcohol on her breath. "Hmm, a little kindness would go a long way," Osaka said, avoiding what she wanted to say like a negotiator in a hostage situation. "But you're assuming an awful lot, thinking they saw something or remember anything."
"I know they did," Tomo said. "They were acting way too shifty. Something weird is going on over there, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
"Okay ladies," Osaka said to her staff. "Let's get on that right now." The two cooks gave a chorus of yes ma'am, and started collecting the ingredients.
"I tell you what, I'll finance this endeavor," Osaka said, fixing Tomo with a serious look like a Wall Street broker.
"What's with the fancy language?" Tomo said. "Besides, they're only seventy-five yen a pop. I can handle it."
"Oh, I know," Osaka said. "But I'm glad you'll let me talk to you about stuff, I didn't know where I stood there with you. You were kinda all squirrely about that ever since we bumped in to each other again."
"Sorry about that," Tomo said, rubbing her head and looking away. "I didn't mean to come across like that."
Osaka waved her concerns away. "See, this is just a small favor I can do for you. It's like those fairies in A Link to the Past, who heal you and give you bombs, and say 'this is just a small favor I can do for you.'"
"Um…"
"Basically, I'm the fairy that increases the size of your bombs and arrows. Get it?"
Tomo froze her grin to hide the mounting horror and faint amusement moving in behind it. "Uh, sure, thanks."
"You're welcome," Osaka said. She walked over to her range to prepare cooking the meat, when Tomo followed behind.
"Oh yeah, one more thing," Tomo said. She tossed her empty beer bottle in the trash.
"What's that?"
Tomo held out her hand. "Can I borrow your car?"
"My car?" Osaka said. "But I thought you couldn't do a stick shift-"
"No, I'm not talking about The Black Death," Tomo said. "The steering wheel is on the wrong side anyway. I'm talking about the delivery truck."
The delivery truck was an older model Daihatsu Hi-jet van, primarily used for picking up food from the local farmer's market. Osaka wasn't aware of her traffic infractions and lack of driver's license, and Tomo made a convincing argument that it would take at least ten beers to get her drunk. Osaka handed over the keys, and Tomo was on her way to Ueno Park to distribute forty tacos to the homeless camp in an attempt to help Torako with her case. This plan, cooked up in a brain stewed in alcohol and hurt feelings, looked less and less viable to Tomo as she became more and more sober.
...
There weren't many people at the park when Tomo entered through the main entrance. Puddles left over from last night's storm reflected the grey sky, and sagging trees dripped water like tears. Tomo took a park map from the smiling attendant behind the public service counter. Obviously the homeless camp wouldn't be listed, but she looked for the Saigo Takamori statue, and traced her and steps from there. The chill wind grabbing her bare legs made her realize shorts were a bad idea. Shortly, she was in front of the clump of trees holding the homeless camp she visited last night. Tomo, holding the insulated bag full of food, shivered and tramped through the small growth of trees.
Last night, with illumination provided by the weak gleam of low-wattage light bulbs and paper lanterns, the homeless camp had an almost surreal feel to it, like a hidden village found only by secret pathways and arcane rituals. Now, under the grey light of an overcast day, it looked drab and decrepit. While the inhabitants did their best to keep the camp clean and organized, it was a hard battle to protect tarp enclosures and dirt pathways from nature's attack.
Tomo walked toward the café, taking delicate steps to avoid muddying her shoes. She didn't see many people, and the ones she saw weren't the same from yesterday. The tiny voice telling her that this was a stupid idea and that it wasn't going to work was ignored. Tomo shored up her confidence by imagining herself telling Torako about how she got the people here to open up about what they saw at the statue. She could see it now, Torako on hands and knees, weeping, and begging forgiveness for treating Tomo so callously.
"Oh Tomo, how could I ever have been so mean?" Torako said, although she was manlier in Tomo's fantasy. "Can you ever forgive me?"
"Why of course," Tomo said, standing tall and voluptuous over the cringing Torako. "You shall be on the receiving end of my queenly magnanimity! Stand tall young Torako, and one day you too can attain my heights of awesomeness."
Torako stood up, her deep bishounen eyes blinking away glittering tears. "Oh, thank you, dear Tomo. I can only hope to aspire to your level of lordly caliber."
The tiny voice in Tomo's head was now shouting that Torako would chose death over acting like a subservient flunky, but that too was ignored.
...
Tomo stood in front of the café, empty of people. She peeled off her shoes on the large floor mat, which displayed the colorful logo of a defunct tire corporation long since merged and liquidated.
She saw that a wide floor table had been placed where she ate last night. "Hey!" she said, placing the bag onto the table. "Anyone home?"
At the back of the restaurant, adjacent to the makeshift kitchen, was tiny camping tent. The flaps opened and the cook from last night poked his head out and blinked at Tomo.
Tomo wanted to do this the proper way, so she stood and bowed. "So good to see you," she said.
"One moment," the cook said, and he ducked his head back into the tent and zipped it up. Tomo looked around the inside of the café, and saw that several people had entered, led by the sumptuous smell of Osaka's cooking.
"Hello," she said. "These are free." She opened the bag and took out some tacos.
The tent flap unzipped, and the cook stepped out onto the floor. "Welcome back," he said. He sniffed, and zoned in on the tacos Tomo was placing on the table. "I knew you didn't come here to get some more rice and tea," he said, his eyes on the food. "But I didn't expect this."
"It's my way of saying thanks!" Tomo said. "There're forty of them, so whoever wants any can dig in."
The cook, named Yoshi, opened his café for business. Twelve people showed up, and they consumed the tacos and drank tepid water that had been boiled that morning. Tomo didn't recognize anyone from last night.
"Hey, I don't remember seeing this," she said, knocking on the table.
"It was being cleaned last night," the cook said, after he had swallowed his mouthful. "One of the guys here gets disinfectant from his job, so we use it clean the eating area."
"Eh? She was here last night?" a voice piped up from the crowd huddled around the table. "What were you doing here?"
"She's a cop," one of the guys said, before Tomo could answer. He looked young and oily, and wore a perpetual sneer.
The eating halted and the men made secretive glances at each other. Tomo plunged into her explanation - her cunning plan - before it could be scuttled by her sinking heart.
"Yeah, about that," she said, propping her elbow on the table. "I'm looking for any suspicious activity going on in front of the Saigo Takamori statue, specifically a woman with light brown hair. Or anything." The tiny disquieting voice became a cyclone of mocking laughter. She didn't even have a picture of Asagi Ayase to show to this group. Her expression and posture froze in an attempt to hide her sense of failure.
"Oh yeah," one of the guys said, a wild-haired man. "Kumi told me about that. You and some other cop came over here, and she was asking those same questions. She even had rice and tea and everything."
"She ate here?" One of the guys said. "What, you like it so much you decided to come back and bring food?"
"There's no need to bother her, gentlemen," Yoshi said, his eyes darting over the group.
"Well, uh… I was hoping, you know," Tomo faltered. She smoothed down her hair with both hands before putting them in her lap. "I brought food over because, well, I was hoping it would convince you guys that I was okay, and someone would tell me what's been going on at that statue."
The men looked at Tomo and then looked at each other. A man, grizzled with grey hair and a grey beard, stood up and threw down his half eaten taco and stormed out of the café. A snicker escaped before being choked back. The snicker, however, brought more with it, and soon the whole table erupted into laughter. Tomo clenched her fists.
"What's so funny?" She said. "That girl's been murdered! Does that mean anything to you?"
"Don't talk down to me," the young oily man said. He stood up and pointed at Tomo. "I'd rather live here my whole life than snitch to some pig."
Tomo stood up and shook a fist at the petulant sneer and the boy behind it. "Oh yeah? How about you spend your whole life in jail! How do you like that?"
Several of the men sprung to their feet and started shouting a cacophony of threats against Tomo, who turned red and started threatening them back. Most of the other eaters quickly left the café, taking their tacos and glasses of water with them. Yoshi stood up with his hands outstretched, entreating the assembled to calm down. They eventually left the café, leaving Tomo with Yoshi and an old man, who was sitting at the table and calmly eating his taco.
Tomo stood still, facing downward, her fists at her hips. She was failing to control her harsh breathing.
"I'm sorry for that," Yoshi said. "They can be quite prideful. You're welcome here whenever you want to come, although the crew may not like that much."
"Thank you," Tomo said. She looked up at Yoshi and forced a smile. "I need to be going, sorry to cause a commotion." She bowed in apology.
Yoshi put his hands on his sides and bowed back. "No need to apologize," he said, when they both stood upright. "This was superb food you brought, absolutely delicious. Please give my compliments to the chef."
"Yeah, these are pretty tasty," the lingering old man said, sitting at the other end of the table. He burped and thumped his chest. "You should've brought some sake, though."
"Why?" Tomo said. "So they could be drunk and angry?"
The old man shook his head, and tapped his chest to expel more gas. "Nope. They probably would've told you something." The old man looked up and smiled a gap-toothed grin at Tomo. He patted the space next to him. "Come over and speak for a bit."
"No thanks," Tomo said, "I need to be going. I borrowed a car, and well… I just need to go," she said.
The old man cocked an eyebrow. "That's some pretty lame investigating, Ms. Detective," he said. "Back in my day, they would've pursued this to the end."
"Oh great," Tomo said. "Someone trying to tell me how to do my job. No thanks, mister."
"Yoshi," the old man said. Yoshi stopped his cleaning of the table to listen. "Get us some tea, please."
"I told you, I'm not staying," Tomo said, walking toward the exit where the shoes were kept. She started stuffing her feet into hers.
"I was a beat cop, back in the day," the old man said, loud enough for Tomo to hear him. "I was taught how to identify witnesses and how to pay attention." He made a show of cleaning his fingernails while Tomo paused putting her foot into her other shoe. She stared at the old man while he made elaborate gestures of cleaning his fingers, observing each nail carefully as if it was a rare jewel.
Tomo sighed, rolled her eyes, and stepped out of her shoes. "Alright, you got me," she said. "I'll sit next to you. But if you try to feel me up, I'm taking you down, old man."
"I'm not going to feel you up," he said with a sly grin. "But if you had that tall drink of water from last night with you, well… she might not be so lucky."
Tomo squinted as she tried to process the old man's weird riddle. The terror pillaging her face showed that she had solved it. "Torako?"
"Ah, Torako," the old man said, with a wistful smile. He looked into space, as if reminiscing of past lovers from countless summers ago. "So that's her name. Fitting."
"You like that, old man?" Tomo said, as she sat down next to him. Yoshi brought out their tea, placing the cups in front of the two.
The old man snapped to attention. "Call me Jichiro," he said to Tomo.
"Tomo," Tomo said. She took a sip of her tea, and watched Yoshi sit across from her. He had his own cup of tea "So, what do you want to talk about?"
Jichiro looked intently into Tomo's face. He was silent for so long that Tomo thought he didn't hear her.
"Why did you become a detective?" Jichiro said.
Tomo propped an elbow on the table and leaned her head into her hand, like a bored student in after-school detention. "Hunt down evil-doers, duh," Tomo said.
"That's a childlike answer," Jichiro said, when he finished taking a sip from his tea.
Tomo jerked upright and slammed her palm on the table. "Childish? What's so childish about that? Why did you become a cop, huh? Wait, let me guess." Tomo folded her arms and pursed her lips, her head cocked at a jaunty angle. "You probably got some girl knocked up, you didn't have any education, so being a cop was the only way out, huh?" She thrust her face close to his brown wrinkled face, and waited for an answer.
"Nope," he said. "I wanted to hunt down evil doers."
Tomo went back to her bored student in detention look. "Uh huh," she said. "So, what's with calling me childish?"
Jichiro held his cup in his hand and eyed Tomo. "Don't slouch," he said. "Sit up straight. I said childlike, not childish. We both became cops for childlike reasons, and that's a good thing."
"How so?" Tomo said, slouching even further, the effect making her body appear as a bag of viscous liquid held up only by her arm propped on the table.
"An adult reason is usually going to be something along the lines of having a career, or tradition, or that nonsense you said about me," Jichiro said. "We did it for pure reasons."
"Yay purity," Tomo said, as she held up her tea in toast. She took a sip.
"Yeah, mock an old man," Jichiro said. "Just making sure we're on the same page. Why'd Torako become a police officer?"
"She wanted to drive fast cars and chase after people breaking the speed limit," Tomo said. She caught herself right before she looked at her watch.
Jichiro smiled his gap-tooth smile. "Nice," he said. "She's like us, then."
Tomo figured he was an old man wanting to spend some time with an attractive young woman. She wondered how long she'd have to play this game before he either said what he knew, or showed her up as a fool.
"So, Mr. Jichiro," Tomo said, "why'd you end up here?"
"Well, aren't you blunt," he said.
"You wanted to talk," she said.
"I got fired because I was a Burakumin," he said, as if it was minutia not worth bothering over. "They trumped up some false charge about me embezzling, but everyone knew the real reason. I had just hit my fortieth birthday, too. That's how it goes, I guess."
"So you've been here…" Tomo counted on her fingers. "Fifty years? Wow, you've seen a lot in your life."
"I'm seventy-two, Tomo," he said. Tomo bristled at him using her name with such a familiar air, as if he was her grandfather. "I did a lot of odd jobs, mostly rust repairing at a local machinist. They call when the need me." He shrugged. "Not much of a demand for those sorts of skills anymore. I help out around here by growing daikon. I got them spread out all over this park. They're pretty good, too. You should take some with you."
Tomo's body began to tremble with impatience and mounting anxiety. She was worried that she'd have to listen to his whole life's story.
"I'm sorry to hear about you getting fired," she said. "I bet I could find you a job somewhere as a beat cop. I'll put in a good word with Chief Akiyama."
Jichiro's face lit up. "Saneyuki?"
"Yeah, you know him?"
Jichiro laughed and slapped the table. "Well, don't that beat all! I thought they drummed him out after the black water incident!"
Tomo's boredom and anxiety vanished, replaced by the excitement of scandalous information concerning the chief. She stretched her head toward Jichiro as if she was trying to will her ears to get larger.
"Black water incident? What's that about?"
"Well," Jichiro said. He stopped and narrowed his eyes at Tomo. "Why don't you ask him?"
"Oh come on," Tomo said. "Surely you can tell me something. Please?"
Jichiro cleared his throat. "Well, I'd prefer not to," he said. "But I will say everyone expected him to go all the way to the top. Superintendent General, no doubt."
"Wow," Tomo said.
"He was brilliant," Jichiro said. "After the black water incident, though, he was persona non grata with the higher ups. What's his rank now?"
"Superintendent," Tomo said. "He's over the Kojimachi district."
Jichiro shook his head, and made a grunt of disbelief. "At least they're smart enough to keep him on." He stretched, and pushed his empty teacup to the middle of the table. Yoshi, sitting silently on the other side, picked it up and took it to the makeshift kitchen in the back of the café.
"I've seen a brown haired lady at the statue a week ago," he said.
Tomo leaned in close to listen to his quite voice. "That'll be Asagi Ayase," she said.
Jichiro nodded. "But she's not the only one. Once a week, every Wednesday, at least for the past two months, at 12:00 noon, two people meet at the bench next to that statue."
"Well, that's conveniently specific," Tomo said.
Jichiro's eyebrows and frown showed distaste. "I told you, I was a cop for twenty years. I pay attention. But as I was saying, one guy will sit on the bench, around 12:00, and put a box next to him, like it's his lunch. If the bench is occupied, he'll wait until he can sit down. Another guy will come from the same direction and stand in front of the statue, far enough to observe his compatriot sitting on the bench."
Yoshi came back with Jichiro's cup of tea, for which he thanked him. He took a sip before continuing.
"The man on the bench will get up to leave. The second person will walk to the vacant spot and pick up the box, and walk away with it."
"Ah, a handoff," Tomo said.
"Well, it only started a month ago. I don't know what purpose they have doing it, it's not my business, you know."
"Now, you said you saw Ms. Ayase there?"
"Yes," Jichiro said. "Last Wednesday, at 12:00. They were about to do the handoff, and she walked right in front of the man on the bench and started talking to him. The other man came over, and they had some angry argument, all kinds of finger pointing and frowning and all that. One of the guys tried to grab her arm, but four large, mean looking men showed up and surrounded the two. I'm assuming they were her bodyguards. Anyway, the two ran off."
"Do you think they'll show up again?"
Jichiro shrugged. "Who knows? I don't know any of the reasons for that behavior. So, what happened to Ms. Ayase?"
"She was killed in a hotel room," Tomo said. "We're investigating it, but keep it quiet, if you don't mind."
"Heh, who would I talk to?"
...
Tomo thanked Jichiro for his help. Scratching at the back of her mind was the possibility that this stocky old man with the twinkling eyes and easy smile was playing a joke on her. Maybe, but it would be up to Torako if they were to take his story seriously.
Walking out into the chill wind, Tomo quickly made her way back to the delivery van to crank up the heat. She pulled out her cell phone, rallied her self-confidence, and selected Torako's number stored in the phone's address book.
The phone immediately rolled into the answering service, showcasing Torako's terse and sullen message. "Torako. Not in. Leave message." Tomo made an exasperated grunt. She didn't want to relate the whole story to the answering machine, so she asked Torako to call her back as soon as possible, "It concerns Ms. Ayase. I'm serious Torako, I'm not teasing. Please call as soon as possible."
Tomo clamped shut her cell and pocketed it. She sat with her hands in her lap while the delivery van idled. She watched the billowing exhaust reflected in the rear view mirror. Lethargy seeped into her body and her eyelids grew heavy, so she leaned her head onto the driver-side window. Some time passed before she blinked away the heavy film coating her concentration.
"Ugh, what's wrong with me?" she said. She sat up, vigorously slapped her cheeks, and grunted. "Stupid weather," she said, as she put the truck into reverse. "This is your fault."
...
Rico called while Tomo was en route to Osaka's taqueria. He was able to leave work early, which cheered Tomo. He didn't sound so happy about it, though.
"Hey, what's the deal?" Tomo said, as she sped through a yellow light. "You sound like you're dreading spending some time with me."
"No, that's not it," he said. "I think some nationalist right wing group showed up at work today."
"Uyoku dantai? Hah, those jokers. What were they doing, playing propaganda over their loudspeakers and driving around in vans?"
"I wish," Rico said. "They were driving a black Toyota Crown. There were three of them, dressed in suits and ties. They asked one of my workers a question, and he pointed at me. They looked at me, frowned, and left."
Tomo gripped her cell phone and nearly ran over a passing motorist. "What? Why? Did you ask your coworker?"
"Yeah, I did. He said they specifically asked for me by name."
"The hell they do that for?"
"Lady, I don't know," Rico said. "If I was going to take a wild guess, I'd say it's because, maybe, I'm from Brazil?"
"Oh come on," Tomo said. "Your dad's Japanese. You look the same as us, how can they tell?"
Thick silence seeped out of the phone. "Uh, Tomo? Maybe you think you're married to a different guy, but I'm dark skinned and 198 centimeters tall."
"Yeah, but your eyes!" Tomo said. Rico laughed. "Tell them you're from Okinawa!"
They closed the call after reassuring each other that it was an isolated incident, and it would never happen again.
...
Tomo's cell phone played Morning Musume as she pulled the delivery truck into the parking lot of Osaka's taqueria. Torako was calling. Tomo chose that ringtone for a very specific reason.
"I hate Morning Musume," Torako said, when Tomo told her that they were her new ringtone.
"I know! That's the whole point!" Tomo said. "You'll have to listen to them when you call."
"If you were close enough where I could listen to them, I wouldn't have to call you," Torako said, punching holes in Tomo's mad scheme. "So really, I don't have to hear them."
"Ah, but every time you call me, you'll know they're playing," Tomo said. "That knowledge will drive you crazy, and then my plan will be complete."
Torako made a tight-lipped smile. "That doesn't bother me one bit," she said.
"Oh? The knowledge that one of your most loathed bands plays whenever you call doesn't even cause the slightest distress?"
"No," Torako said. "Would it bother you?"
"Yeah," Tomo said. "I couldn't stand it."
So in retaliation, Torako set Tomo's ringtone to The Stranglers No More Heroes, a song Tomo loathed beyond all rational bounds. She hated the slurry English voice cataloging failed pseudo-heroes, and the inappropriate keyboard diddling in the background. What she hated most of all, though, was that her scheme had backfired so spectacularly. At least Torako didn't bring it up anymore.
Tomo answered the phone. "Hey, Torako!"
"I can't believe I missed The Stranglers No More Heroes," Torako said.
"Dammit, not now. I have some…" Tomo trailed off when she heard popping sounds in the background. "Where are you?"
"Firing range."
"Okaaaay," Tomo said. "Nice. Anyway, I got some info you might like to hear." Tomo related Jichiro's story.
"Do you think he's telling the truth?" Torako said.
"Well, only way to find out. I knew those guys were acting fishy last night."
"Hmm," Torako said, and Tomo imagined her blowing smoke. "She causes a confrontation at Ueno Park, and then gets murdered at the hotel six hours later. We have three days until Wednesday. Should be plenty of time to prepare a plan."
Tomo waited for the shots to stop before she spoke. "Well, in that case, we destroy this vandalism case in the meantime. Also, you have the rare opportunity of apologizing for being mean to me last night."
Tomo heard more gunshots. "Mean," Torako said.
"Yeah, you snapped at me when I was trying to make you feel better."
"You're being over sensitive," Torako said. "That's not like you. But yeah, I'm sorry."
"What, that's it?"
"Yep. Take it or leave it."
...
Tomo, carrying a bag of food Osaka made for her, walked into her apartment to the sound of announcers screaming Portuguese from the television while her husband berated the screen in the same language.
"What's going on in here?" she said, as she walked into the living room. Rico was sprawled out on the couch, the light of their television flickering on his face. "I thought I banned that sort of language here."
"Really horrible football," he said. "Stupid Vitoria, they're going to get bumped to Series B if they keep screwing up." Rico was watching a game recorded and burned to DVD by his brother, sent as part of a gift package mailed to Rico about once a week. Rico exercised considerable self-restraint by not looking up results or scores from Vitoria's games. He made sure each game was a fresh experience, although recently they had been disappointing ones.
Tomo glanced at the screen. "Ah, you're watching-", Tomo made a dramatic pause and faced her husband, "-soccer!"
Rico pointed at her, his face stern like a high school principal discovering wrongdoing underneath the bleachers. "That word is never to be used to describe football," he said.
"Hah, you can't tell me what to do, I'm a cop! I'll arrest you for… uh… bad taste in sports!"
"Bad taste?" Rico hopped off the couch to stare down Tomo. "What's baseball? It should be called luckswing. It's out-of-shape guys wearing pajamas and whacking balls with big sticks, which is proof of what a depraved game it is."
Tomo tossed the bag of food on the coffee table. "Oh yeah? It's still better than diveball." She put her hands on her hips and leaned toward Rico. "You can hit a soccer player with a feather and they'll start rolling around on the grass, crying and clutching their knees. What a bunch of wimps."
"What? They only do that so the referee will know they've been fouled."
"Oh enough of that, let's eat," Tomo said. She sat on the floor and started taking the food out of the bag, arranging them on the table.
Rico turned off the DVD player and put the TV on a random channel, just to have something on in the background. He sat down at the table and surveyed the meal. "Mexican food," he sniffed. "Courtesy of the Big O."
"I don't know who this Big O person you're talking about is, but she sounds terrible," Tomo said, unwrapping a banana leaf to reveal a pork tamale. "These are from Osaka."
"Oh, you had to go all the way to Osaka to get these?"
"Ha ha," Tomo said. "You're a riot. And why did you turn your soccer game off? Didn't want to see your team stomped into the ground, eh?"
"Yeah," Rico muttered as he unwrapped a tamale. "I hate soccer." He took a bite while Tomo zealously chomped and chewed away. "These are good," Rico said, "but I'd really like to see her make some moqueca."
Tomo's eyes sparkled in a mischievous plot. "I'm sure she does," Tomo said through her mouth full of food, some of it falling onto the banana leaf. "I mean, she's got all kind of Mexican food."
"Mexican?" Rico said. "Moqueca is Brazilian. Don't even pretend."
Tomo shrugged. "Brazil, Mexico, same thing."
Rico suspended his tamale in mid-air while he stared at Tomo. His face was full of disbelief, despite coming to the realization, long ago, that Tomo was capable of saying and doing anything.
"They are not the same thing," he said. "We don't even speak the same language."
"What? That jibber-jabber isn't Spanish?"
"It's Portuguese!"
"Same thing," Tomo said.
Rico dropped his tamale and launched into a tirade about the differences between Brazil and Mexico while Tomo grinned like a mad idiot. This day off, she decided, was going to be great.