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Dear God! I'm alive!
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After making their greetings to Hataro Tsukichi and wishing her well another long year of money grubbing—well, they didn't actually wish that, but Ken saw many of his associates implying it—Ken ordered them to circulate and gather information. It wouldn't be difficult for any of them—they were all well versed in the art of winnowing through the throng without arousing suspicion—even Tai could fish out some interesting bits on occasion. Mimi's skill was questionable, but she seemed capable and confident about it, so Ken decided not to raise any point of argument—
God knew how the Kamiyas loved arguments. He honestly believed that they would shrivel up and die (complaining all the way) if they lived a day without running into any sort of disagreements. They thrived on spats like flies on dung.
The truth, unfortunately. The absolute truth.
Ken walked through the throng, looking for a suitable victim. He decided, after listening to his stomach's complaints, to cater to both its and his needs by hunting for a victim around the buffet table.
Even king pins had to eat.
He walked over to the buffet table, which, by the way, was a marvelous piece of art. There were dishes from all over the world, decorated heavily and probably only half as tasty as they looked. There were additionally sculptures of ice, bread and icing sprinkled around the long table and every dish was housed in plates that probably cost as much as Ken received per year.
And yet there were no plates.
There were delicate glass chopsticks and spoons and forks and knives and utensils Ken couldn't even put a name to—but there were no plates.
He stood there, looking blankly at the table as his stomach agonized over the food lying prostrate before him and heavily cursed the monster who cruelly 'forgot' to give the guests the means to eat this scrumptious banquet with.
This, he decided, was one of the most effective ways of torture imaginable.
"You need a plate sir?" Ken looked up and saw a smiling young woman.
And stared.
She was almost as tall as he was, but she wore heels, so it was difficult to tell without a lot of staring. She had lovely eyes and a smooth heart-shaped face decorated with a broad smile. She was a waiter, waitress rather, judging from her outfit—which was worn by several others along the banquet—and her question.
But that was not the reason why he suddenly forgot the wide vocabulary he had accumulated from many years of law study and whiny Japanese, English and Italian professors.
She had purple hair.
Purple hair?? He could understand blond hair, or maybe even red hair. Possibly green hair or red hair (Christmas theme firmly in mind)—but why of all things purple?
"Sir?" the woman repeated.
Ken hurriedly recovered himself and hoped to recover any last vestiges of dignity he may have had left for him by his staring bout. "Uh, yes, Miss. I'd like a plate, please."
She looked at him strangely.
He blinked. SNOOTY! Damn it! He was supposed to be snooty! No normal peon without his nose surgically operated on to stick high in the air would be caught dead hanging around a gala like this!
Hastily, he added, "A plate would be very much appreciated, Miss. Quite obviously, since I doubt it would be possible to actually eat anything the chef prepared without it. Obviously."
He was being redundant. Not a good sign.
The waitress looked at him for a moment. "It's the hair isn't it?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You have it," she laughed, handing him a plate. "You don't look like the type we get around here."
Ken grimaced. He knew he should have practiced the snooty look more. Only Koushiro and Sora were actually any good at it. But then, he never had to deal with anyone with purple hair, right?
He replied wryly, "I'm here not entirely by choice. I've never really been into parties."
He found, as well, that he could not lie to her either. Did purple hair dye have some anti-dishonesty chemical that affected everyone? This was not looking good.
"Neither," she replied. Ken looked at her uniform doubtfully.
She blushed and laughed, "I've never been into parties as a guest, but I go to them as a waitress. You get all kinds of types around here."
Ken immediately focused all his attention on that last phrase. Maybe he wouldn't have to go around fishing for information after all. She seemed chatty enough for him.
"Oh?" he asked nonchalantly. "What do you mean by that, miss...?"
The woman smiled cheerfully. "Call me Yolei."
Ken nodded, smiling slightly. There was no need for his alias here. "Ken."
Yolei smiled again. "Nice t'meet you, Ken. As I was saying, there are all sorts of people who come around to rich parties. There are many people here who I've gotten to recognize, since they frequent parties like this. They're all sorts."
Ken replied, "Like whom?"
Yolei seemed a little puzzled, but she shrugged it off. "Well, there's that fellow over there, by the pillar with that girl."
Ken turned unobtrusively and saw the man she was looking at. He was a tall lanky blonde in a tuxedo—natural blonde, by the looks of it. He wasn't a pure Japanese. He couldn't identify the girl he was talking to—her back was to them—but she seemed familiar.
Yolei went on. "His name is Takeru Takaishi. There are rumors going about that he was cheated out of his inheritance or something. But he's still whipper."
"Cheated?" Ken asked idly, deciding to ask her about that instead of that curious last word—'whipper', was it? He began to fill his plate, giving in to the rally going on inside his belly. "By whom?"
Yolei nodded to another man. "That fellow—Yukio Oikawa. In the center."
The man she called Yukio Oikawa was in his late forties and surrounded by half a dozen other black suits. He was a pale fellow with a cadaverous face and sunken eyes. He seemed oily enough to run a big underground crime business. There was something about him that ranked of crookedness.
"Oikawa," Ken murmured.
Yolei went on, "He's a creepy fellow, but there's no evidence that he actually had done anything against the Takaishis. Good at cleaning up his messes, I suppose. Oh, and over there, do you see that man in the center of the room—white tux, blue tie?"
Ken nodded. "Yes." He observed as the seedy-looking fellow strolled around with a voluptuous woman on each arm. "Who is he?"
"A filthy rich old man by the name of Noru Suetake," she informed him. "I don't know how he got all his money, but five or so years ago, he just showed up dripping with priceless jewels and money spilling out of his fancy tailored sleeves."
"I see," Ken murmured.
Yolei had given him the very bits he needed. He felt thrilled. There were three suspects: Takeru Takaishi, Yukio Oikawa, and Noru Suetake. It was possible that Takaishi of Takaishi Inc., losing his inheritance, would use his still vast monetary resources to fund the activities of the Sayonara to further his wealth and possibly to get back at this Oikawa.
It was also possible that Oikawa, desiring the young man's wealth, used his own resources to sway the inheritance over to his side to continue running the operations of the gang. Yukio Oikawa was a major representative of power in the corporate world, and it would come off as no surprise to Ken if that power was gained illegally. There truly was something unnerving about the man's dead gaze.
And there was Noru Suetake. How had he gained his millions so abruptly? Possibly winning the lottery. Possibly stiking oil. Possibly through illegal operations with the Sayonara gang.
The fun would start now.
Ken smiled—
And got a plate of cream puffs thrust at his face. "Try this," Yolei wheedled. "It's good."
Ken was startled for a moment and then he laughed, taking the plate. "Of course. I had almost forgotten that you were a waitress. You are as well-informed as a gossipmonger without anything to do. Where do you learn all this?"
The lavender-haired girl blushed, then grinned. "We gossipmongers know everything, didn't you know?"
He laughed again. "Of course."
She handed him another dish of appetizers—the only food rich people served in pointless galas such as this one. "Try this."
He grinned openly. Half his work was done. The targets were named—now all they needed to do was shoot them down, one at a time.
"Thank you, Yolei."
She smiled back at him. "Don't mention it. Now, about these little kebobs..."
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Where did everyone go?" Tai wondered out loud looking around in confusion. All the bright lights coming off the many chandeliers and glitzy gowns struck his eyes a little to well. He appeared to have lost his sister.
Izzy laughed. "You seem so lost without your donuts," he mused. "It's almost unnatural. I wonder, if by taking away something that one cannot figuratively live without—your donuts, for instance— would really cause this sort of disorientation."
"And what do you mean by that?" Tai asked in indignation.
"You cannot live without a box of bread rolls in your hand." Izzy grinned. "That simple."
"Hey, I can so!" Tai replied hotly.
"Can you?" Izzy challenged him. "Imagine it: life without donuts. Nothing to munch on. No sugary circles of sweetness, no delightful bread rolls of chocolate and jelly."
Tai actually looked pained. "Please, Izzy. Don't talk like that unless you plan on getting beaten up."
"I'm just saying that pastries have become an integral part of your life, and donuts even more so."
"Life without donuts is so...bland," Tai said almost plaintively. "So...empty."
"And thus I rest my case," Izzy concluded.
"I can live without donuts," Tai protested. "I just don't want to."
"Even if it causes you disorientation and an amazing lack of attention? How gracious of you and how lucky for your sister."
"What do you mean?"
Izzy shrugged nonchalantly, grinning inside. "It's just that you took absolutely no notice of the young man who just whisked your sister off to dance a few minutes ago." Izzy loved the horrified look on his friend's face. Grinning openly now, he continued, "Now, normally, had you your donuts in hand, the fellow would be incinerated or incapacitated—basically rendered incapable of taking your sister anywhere—and that is if you were clutching your donuts to your breast and attentive to it.
"But as far as I can see," Izzy went on, enjoying the growing look of anger on Tai's face—it was a fascinating shade of red. Kari was right, "unless the lad had more than the usual amount of hands and arms, he still remains unharmed and has yet to be disemboweled." He laughed again. "Fascinating," he observed again of Tai's color.
Tai, however, had stopped listening to Izzy. "Someone asked Kari to dance?" he exclaimed.
Izzy observed, "You say it like it's a bad thing."
"Where are they?" Tai's face resembled a nimbus cloud and Izzy sighed inwardly. Normally, Tai was fine to talk to—a little daft now and then, but he normally had a head on his shoulders—provided his little sister wasn't in harm's way.
Which was funny, if you thought about it.
Tai batted no eyelash about the fact that his sister faced danger everyday in her job, yet if you mentioned it to him that she was seen talking to a member of the opposite sex he did not know...
Well, good bye to coherency, hello ramblings of brotherly rage and wrath.
Seeing that Tai seemed ready to crush the marble banister in his hand, Izzy remarked, "You should lighten up a bit more, Tai. Kari's an intelligent girl and that fellow looks the image of a perfect gentleman."
Tai looked absolutely murderous. "Those are the worst types," he seethed.
"Of course," Izzy agreed. "Gentlemen aren't to be trusted. Right. Hey, look over there. By the buffet table. It's Ken." He paused. "Talking to a girl. With purple hair. Bet that confused him for a while. I wonder why he's talking to her, though. She seems to be a waitress."
He watched them, ignoring Tai's hyperactive ranting. Izzy blinked as he watched the waitress point out several people to Ken. "He seems to be doing his job already. Not loafing around like us—the man's the spitting image of that Holmes fellow." He laughed. "I bet he already has a list of suspects in mind."
Tai appeared to have finally put a lit on his murderous pacing. "They're only dancing," he was muttering to himself.
Izzy sighed. "Talking to myself again, I see. Well, I don't blame you, I guess. If I had a sister who was asked to dance by the very image of a gentleman, steam would probably start shooting out my ears, too." He laughed. "Thing is, I don't have a sister."
"Is that you, Koushiro?" someone suddenly asked in a voice far too loud to be of Izzy's liking.
Izzy clenched his fist then slowly released it, putting on an easy smile as he turned around. "Good evening, Jyou," he greeted his old acquaintance with an urbane nod. Inside, though, he was raging. His cover was blown!
The elegant blue-haired man geld out a hand and Izzy shook it, noting the other two men at the Jyou's side. One was a tall man with sunglasses pulled over his auburn hair while the other was a much younger fellow with piercing green eyes and neat shiny black hair.
"What are you doing in a party like this, Kou?" Jyou Kido asked him.
Izzy smiled briefly. ""Is it really that unlikely that I'd come out from behind my computer to take a breathe of not-too-fresh Odaiba air?"
Jyou laughed. "Knowing you, Koushiro, it would be next to impossible, but not quite there yet."
The man with the unnecessary sunglasses spoke up. "Have we met?"
Izzy stuck out his had after shooting Tai a cautious look. "Koushiro Izumi. This is Taichi Kamiya."
There was no use hiding their identities from Jyou. The man was a devil with his unlimited resources and files. Jyou was the owner of a medical insurance company that had spread all across Odaiba and to other places as well. This man knew half the people in Odaiba by name, face, occupation and income and many other ways Izzy didn't care to understand.
Although Izzy doubted that the man would head Sayonara, he didn't put the notion entirely out of his mind. If Jyou did run the crime circle, it would explain many things. Jyou's business had developed to become one of the most efficient intelligence agencies Izzy could name.
The auburn-haired man smiled. "A pleasure. I'm Daisuke Motomiya."
The other fellow nodded. "Iori Hida." He paused. "Is your friend all right?" He watched as Tai visibly attempted to hold in his rage. Checking quickly on Kari, Izzy saw that they had stopped dancing and were instead talking to each other by one of the tall pillars.
"Taichi? Oh, yes, he's all right. Don't worry about him." Izzy waved it off as he searched his memory of the station files. Daisuke Motomiya had to be with the Motomiya branch that dealt with foreign interaction, but he had no idea which category Iori Hida fell into. And there was absolutely no way in Hell that he'd ask.
In a way, he and Jyou Kido were rivals—both had at their fingertips excellent systems of gathering intelligence, and while Jyou had unlimited resources at his advantage, Izzy's personal computer software and his civil authority enabled him just as much. They were evenly matched.
Izzy's mind worked quickly. It would be easy to find Iori Hida in the citizen files. But Daisuke Motomiya could be a possible ring leader or a convert. He would be very useful to the circle, either way, and it would explain a lot. In several gang holes, products from halfway around the world were uncovered in the crates hidden around the warehouses.
He just needed a little time to research.
But with Jyou in the picture, things became a little more complicated. The man was in the perfect position to do Izzy's mission a lot of damage. If Jyou decided to let his friends know who Izzy was, Izzy'd be very much crippled in that area.
Fortunately, though, it hadn't appeared to occur to Jyou yet, for Izzy's strategic leg remained unbroken in that area. But he'd have to be very careful. Jyou was nearly as intelligent as Izzy, and sometimes more clear minded.
"Don't worry about him," Izzy repeated. "It's just nerves."
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Don't you absolutely love Izzy?
Yes, I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've uploaded. No, I haven't dropped the story yet.
Yes, this is an important chapter. No, the story isn't even close to finishing yet.
Yes, you will review. No, you WILL review.