"Next thing we need to talk about," Rod Ross said in between puffs of his cigar.
"Is it that we're low on alcohol?"
Being the person standing next to him, I had to learn to take shallow breaths, or I'd choke on his heavy pollution.
"We're always low on alcohol," Mello noted.
It was true; that was Rod's men's number one complaint at these meetings. If my mental count was correct, then they went through a month's supply of alcohol in about two weeks. Nonetheless, how could we complain when Rod was willing to use his own money to pay for it?
"It leaves the food and water rations alone." Rod pointed it out.
Mello, shifting at his wooden desk, the one we used to keep track of inventory, was about to make his ruling when one of Rod's men came rushing into the storage room.
"Boss, um, something happened."
I've only seen him once or twice; he blended in well and normally didn't get reprimanded enough to stand out.
"What is it, Pedoro? Why aren't you with Eddie watching over Takimura?" Rod asked calmly.
He caught his boss in a positive mood thanks to the talk of drinks.
"Well, Takimura's gone and killed himself."
"What the hell do you mean? Where were you?" Rod's shiny head started to change to a bloody red.
"I don't know how it happened... but, um, we both fell asleep. Next thing I knew, the old man was swinging by his necktie."
Mello slowly stood up, pushing the supply problem back for another time. He excused himself and Rod to follow Pedoro while I was asked to meet them back in the meeting room.
The meeting room was just the living room, but since it was where anything important was discussed, the name just naturally changed. I made myself home in one of the leather chairs—the kind that could recline back. It felt good to get off my feet every once in a while, especially on this very rare occasion where I had a moment alone.
I started to ponder the possibility of Takimura's death being a suicide.
The circumstances seemed normal to the untrained eye, but I've worked too hard on this case to assume Kira didn't pull the strings on this. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, though. What does Light Yagami gain from that man's death? Takimura knew pretty much nothing, and what he did know, Light had to figure out that I would have already told.
It's almost L levels of cruel to say, but Takimura's death was a waste of ink to write down.
Nonetheless, this would be a good test for Mello. To see just how hard he's following along.
The loud-speaking broke me out of my train of thought, causing me to look over the chair's headrest to watch as Mello and Rod walked back in. Mello took his usual seat on the couch to think before he spoke. He grabbed the remote control for the small television in the room, flicking through the channels. Mello only stayed on for a few seconds on certain channels before becoming satisfied enough to turn it back off.
"The Task Force is keeping the kidnapping out of the media." Mello hummed, easy to miss if the room wasn't so silent.
Rod and I looked over at Mello, who jumped back up to his feet. We watched him walk over to the dartboard where Rod's men free from duty would pass the evenings, snatching up the darts to take back to his work desk kept in the corner of this room.
"We'll work as if Kira is without a doubt someone in the task force because I believe he is," Mello stated after a few minutes of nothing but scratching from his pen.
"Since Takimura didn't know about two members, it's a safe bet that one of them is Kira or a pawn."
As Mello spoke, he got up and walked around.
"What's the goal here?" Rod asked, staying seated but turning his head to follow Mello.
I watched the smile crawl over Mello's lips, rolling the darts between fingers.
"The second notebook."
Mello called me by my last name, speaking with a leather-covered finger to stand by him. Once close enough, he handed me a dart.
"'Luck be a lady,' and all that."
I took the dart in between my middle finger, pointer, and thumb. Rolling it around gave me a little embarrassment, as I sucked at this game. Rod's men always asked me to join in their drunken antics, and one night I did, just to miss the board by a mile. Their laughter still rings in my ears every once in a while. Mello stuck two small white squares to the board, their upper corners almost touching the bull's eye. I wasn't aiming for one; I was just sticking to what I planned, which was to hit something.
Once Mello was out of the way, I pulled my arm back and released it with as much force as I thought it would take. The little dart easily peeled one of the white squares, and Mello told me to go get it.
With one simple touch to its lower left-hand corner, I knew it was a photograph from the glossy coating. I flipped it over and saw a school photo of a young girl with bright brown eyes and straight brown hair that fell to her collarbone. She looked happy, like a normal high school student.
At the bottom of the photograph, written in pen, was the name Sayu Yagami.
"That's her senior high school yearbook picture; now she's a freshman in college, but I'm told she looks just the same," Mello interjected.
I stared at the picture while Mello talked, burning everything I could into memory out of habit.
"I'm sending you back to Japan." I heard him mess around with his leather vest behind me.
He didn't need to explain it to me; I already knew a good idea of what my next job was going to be.
"You're going to follow her for a week, then you're going to pick her up and bring her back to the States."
I turned around to look at my son, and the look on my face must have been heavy because Mello ordered Rod out of the room. The gangster chuckles, some deeper meaning behind it, and takes his leave.
"I don't think this is a good idea." I started.
"Why, it's not your first kidnapping."
Mello strutted himself over to his desk again, flopping down into his chair. He dug out a white card with a phone number that wasn't his handwriting. The damn thing was tucked snugly in between his gloved fingers, waiting for the taking. I felt the heat of regret burn my cheeks at his words, thinking about Misa Amane on the To-Oh campus.
"L had hard proof on Amane; you have nothing but deductions."
"Hints why you're leaving tonight; I'll have it in a week."
I wasn't getting through to him, so I tried something else.
I tried to explain to him that Sayu had nothing to do with the investigation; she was a private citizen and shouldn't be drugged because of her brother. With a flat expression, a small vein throbbed under Mello's temple.
"If I go myself or send any of Rod's men, it'll scare her off. It has to be a woman."
Maybe I was slipping off my will in my stage of life because what he said made sense and reminded me of L.
"Besides, Ma, you can't stand here and tell me that L never put you in permanent positions in all the years you worked with him."
He had me; if L were a normal man, I'd have assumed he got a kick from all the "positions" he placed me in. Just then, my train of thought caught up to me.
"Ma?"
I tasted the word, understanding the meaning, but still felt foreign on my tongue. I had to swallow the swelling feelings bubbling in the back of my throat, or I would have choked on tears. The professional side of me was nagging me to stop it; he was most likely just saying it to get what he wanted, but I couldn't convince myself of it.
"...Which airport?"