Chapter 8
The more pieces of this puzzle came together the more worrisome it became. It ought to have been just a commonplace mystery; a white lie in the workplace; some discrepancy that would prove underhanded but relatively harmless. That's how it had seemed when Kudo first caught its scent while talking with Sonoko.
She'd mentioned it so casually at first; ... I was told the wind wasn't supposed to pick up until late tomorrow morning besides. A harmless bit of misinformation, until paired with the fact that it was for that reason the window cleaners had begun their work early.
Kudo had researched weather reports earlier that evening after Shiho mentioned the weather in Hawaii had been bad enough to divert flights away from landing there. At the time he was concerned it would push out their own flight, but there wasn't even supposed to be a strong wind tomorrow in Tokyo, and the tropical storm over Hawaii should have mostly moved on in the other direction by then.
So why did someone want to move up the time the exterior windows were washed? There were a thousand possible mundane answers to that question, and it was one of those that Kudo thought he was pursuing.
He recalled walking through the corridors of Suzuki Tower after taking Elaine to see one of the Suzuki family physicians; Elaine had begun to mope, lagging further and further behind him and Sonoko, and concerns over the lie Sonoko had been told preoccupied his thoughts, the very first threads of this mystery.
"Was that unusual: a change in schedule like that?" Kudo had asked Sonoko, who'd seemingly given the matter no more thought than the time it took to take the call.
"Huh? Oh, for window cleaners? not really. They have to adjust the time of day according to the weather, the winds can be a real danger to that profession so I usually just defer to their expertise."
"I see, what about lately? Have their schedules changed more than the typical amount?"
"Well it is typhoon season after all," Sonoko answered, "of course the winds affect their schedule more often."
"And is it actually less windy at the times they say it will be?"
"Couldn't say, I'm usually not in so early in the morning. But the windows are clean after they say they've cleaned them, and I haven't heard of more than the usual amount of worker's compensation, so it must be safe enough when they say," Sonoko dismissed. "What else matters so long as the workers are safe and the work gets done?"
He found it interesting the window washers made a habit of moving their time slot forward, but only on occasion. Surely some excuse could be used to move the time on a more permanent basis, if that was what was needed.
Elaine had pulled him from his thoughts then, reminding him of an unanswered question of hers. She had an excitable thirst for knowledge she inherited from her mother and Kudo could never bring himself to squelch it just because her timing was oftentimes inconvenient.
Although, this time, as he broke down his explanation of downdrafts into language she could take in, he realized something that could help him with his own mystery.
Due to the hazardous, and sometimes fatal, wind conditions caused by skyscrapers like this one on the streets beneath them, legislation had been passed that required those city streets to be closed off to foot traffic when wind speeds surpassed a certain threshold.
If this building had been recognized as a hazard, the city might keep a record of wind speeds on the streets beneath it, or otherwise have a record of street closures due to unsafe wind conditions. If he cross-referenced that with Sonoko's records he could determine whether the window washing company had made a habit of lying about the reason for their schedule changes.
And so, as Sonoko started Elaine on a taste-testing tour, Kudo borrowed the key to her office and excused himself to make his investigation.
He called an old acquaintance, a librarian at the city's library of public records, who had been annoyed at the late hour and told him in no uncertain terms that such inquiries could wait until it was a reasonable hour of the day. Unperturbed, he continued on to Sonoko's office.
The building's weekly schedule was kept as a digital file on Sonoko's computer, but there was also a physical planner where she recorded any variations from the expected and last-minute changes. Only by comparing the two did a disturbing pattern emerge.
Jan 21st: janitorial staff must be done with the 29th floor early, no later than 0500; client has international conference call at 0630.
That same day, the window cleaners had moved forward their time, beginning set up at 0300 instead of 0600.
Feb 8th same thing, and again in March, twice in April. Every time the window cleaner's schedule would have aligned with the time of an unusual conference meeting it always moved just a few hours ahead of it, a time when no one would be inside the offices when they'd be outside them.
The correlation had some disturbing implications. Suzuki tower hosted no shortage of corporate clients. Perhaps a competitor, or some other party, was using the window cleaners to gain access to the exterior of those offices and were going out of their way to ensure that their access remained unmonitored.
It was, of course, only a theory, but using the exclusive exterior access granted to window cleaners to install and maintain spyware seemed too disturbing a possibility to be dismissed out of hand. Determined to either confirm or dismiss it, Kudo started on his way to the 29th floor.
...
Touma palmed his assaulted ear as he swung around to fully face the man who'd slapped him, and froze. He was uniformed in a reflective vest just as bright a neon as Touma's sweatshirt and had on the same sort of harness as well.
"You," the hulking man, Elaine assumed to be one of Touma's brothers, yanked Touma up towards him by the straps over his shoulders, "don't ever speak to a young lady that way."
He seemed so massive and imposing to Elaine a step or two down the metal stairs, she could hardly believe how evenly Touma responded.
"Young lady-what are you even on about-"
Touma struggled to maintain balance as the man craning over him tightened his grip on Touma's shoulder straps and dropped his voice to a low and terrifying pitch. If Elaine hadn't been so close she probably wouldn't have made out the words."Her family owns the building, you dolt, I'll beat you bloody if you mishandle her."
"She's the..?" Touma shot her a look, somewhere between an accusation and bafflement.
"That's not-" she tried to interject, but her voice came out so small it withered.
"I just received a call asking if I'd seen the young miss, and I told them none of my crew had. But here I find you running wild and slinging insults."
Elaine sank even smaller. She'd thought her bathroom excuse would have been good for at least a couple more minutes, but she wasn't so lucky. She was in trouble - a whole world of trouble. Touma's brother must have noticed her shrinking, because he released his grasp on Touma and crotched down to what would have been eye level were it not for the stairs.
"Last I heard they were headed up to the East roof," he had softened his voice but Elaine still found it difficult not to be afraid of him, "I'll let them know you're on your way, so you best get on and escort the young miss to meet them there."
"But why do I gotta-"
"-and you will apologize in person for not informing your superiors immediately of an unauthorized unaccompanied child wandering about in a work zone."
Touma finally deflated, "fine," but still muttered, "she was hardly unaccompanied."
"This is not a profession for children, Touma;" his brother laid a hand solidly on his shoulder. "If you want to apprentice for it, that starts with accepting the tasks you're given, even when they are hard."
Touma swallowed, straightened, and gave an accepting nod.
Elaine didn't feel nearly so ready to resign herself over to the consequences awaiting her, but didn't want to get Touma in any more trouble than she already had.
After they had retraced their steps to the entry door and gained plenty of distance between them and Touma's brother, Elaine worked up the courage to apologize.
"Sorry I got you in trouble, and for stepping on your foot- and shoving you...and-"
"It's alright. It couldn't be helped anyhow." His spirits didn't seem to lift at all as he swiped something before the badge box and punched in a code in a movement so seamless it disproved the need to actively think on it. "I did a bunch of stupid stuff too, so you're not the only one who should be sorry."
Elaine passed through the door he held open and only truly registered something was amiss when he opened yet another door leading back outside some minutes later.
The characters on that door were bolder and mostly Kanji, so it took her a moment to piece together all the individual meanings: Caution helicopter landing area: authorized personnel only.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" The door behind them closed as Elaine took in the empty dark expanse of roof ahead.
"There's another staircase, but yeah," Touma pointed it out, but it only sounded like an excuse to her. A sinking uncomfortable feeling settled into her stomach as she followed Touma to the metal stairs.
Uncle Kudo and Sonoko weren't up there; she didn't know how she knew but she did. She hadn't thought to ask for her phone back before, when it would have seemed safe, and now...
Elaine wasn't quite sure when she started to feel afraid of Touma, before his brother showed up he hadn't seemed scary at all. Even when he snatched her phone away, and called her rude names she didn't get that dangerous feeling like she had now. Like he had bad intentions even if she wasn't sure what they were.
She knew she couldn't outrun Touma, and somehow she doubted the trick he'd shown her to use Sonoko's badge would really work if she tried it.
There were lights on the level at the top of the stairs, much more lights than the unlit stretch at its base. That she could see from the glow which seemed caught in the air surrounding it, almost as if held in place.
Reluctantly, Elaine clomped up the metal stairs after Touma, toward the viscous haze of light.
...
That meddlesome trigger happy idiot; that utterly murderous fool of a man without one ounce of patience left in his body. Vermouth clutched the phone, growing somewhat desperate as Gin finished briefing her on his latest actions and intentions.
It all could have gone so smoothly if he'd just waited for the moment she'd told him would come. That handoff would still have been where she had told him to lie in wait, no matter what changes occurred in acquiring Sherry's child. But not now, not after he'd gone and compromised the location.
When had he lost all ability to follow simple orders? He used to be such a good soldier, just a reliable enough conspirator as she'd need to pull off this double-cross. Hadn't he? She fooled herself; Gin saw objectives, not instructions, and had always managed to remain just shy of a bigger picture. She had known that, she had.
Still, she faced the disaster of her mismanagement of him as an asset.
She entertained the thought of providing the aid he'd request only briefly. But no, truly it was not an option.
If she left now, aided Gin in keeping Elaine from being snatched from the first location, it would burn this alias: undo the work of building this persona and getting on the inside that she had spent years working toward, and reveal her treachery. That would put into doubt her past work for them as well.
Not just that, it wasn't merely one alias. A betrayal at this point would reveal they had an enemy. Currently, they believed they were operating unopposed, and she wasn't prepared to facilitate their disillusionment on that front.
Win or lose it, going now wasn't worth the cost; she had more to do from the inside than keep them from Elaine, and it was possible they wouldn't even manage that.
"Vermouth," Gin repeated himself, "can I rely on you for support?"
"I'm afraid you cannot." It was the first she'd spoken since he'd divulged his divergence from her initial plans. She'd kept quiet in the vain hope some opportunity to salvage this presented itself. But he had made an end of speaking and she was still left with only ruins. "You lack a certain, subtlety."
"You won't help because it's gotten too messy?" He sounded annoyed as if he had the right after all he'd done.
"Even if it hadn't, I cannot be spared from here. If I could be, I would hardly have needed you at all, to begin with, don't you think. But yes, now it is doubly so from the mess you've made of things." Vermouth eyed the time, which too seemed to work against her in the most inopportune of moments. She sighed, "We can't expect others to help us clean a mess we've made all on our own after all."
Before he could protest further she severed the call.
