The detective glanced to his side, made sure Junpei looked as ready as possible, and then rang the doorbell of the house they'd arrived at. To be honest, he wasn't sure if the kid would ever have his head completely in the game. He'd done his best to rub into Junpei's skull that, if he was going to be a private eye, the routine cases were the ones that paid the bills. That both of them were going to have to do their best on this missing person case, if the detective was going to keep the leeway from his superiors that let them work together on the big stuff.
Even after all that, there was only one missing person case on Junpei's mind most of the time. The detective would just have to trust it not to get in the way of this one.
The front door of the house creaked open and a middle-aged woman peered out through the gap. The detective was used to the reactions to his stocky frame and height that towered over most Japanese people; his police badge was already in his hand in anticipation as the lady began to flinch away.
"Mrs Matsuo?" he asked. "Can we come in? We're here about the disappearance you've reported."
Still a bit nervous, and certainly dazed, Mrs Matsuo responded slowly. "About Kenji…?" she said, weariness threaded through her voice. "I… Yes, of course. Please…" She trailed off, the open door as she stepped back finishing her sentence for her.
Once the detective and Junpei had stepped inside, the lady led them through to the living room. As they sat down on the offered sofa the detective looked around, taking particular notice of a photo framed on the side table that portrayed Mrs Matsuo and the man they'd come to ask about standing side by side. She was in no state to offer them refreshments and so she just sat opposite them, her head slightly bowed.
"Can you tell us what happened with your husband, when he went missing?" With the question asked the detective fell silent and leaned back, giving the woman room to answer.
Mrs Matsuo clenched her hands together and shook her head in tight, little jerks. "I-I don't know. Kenji just left in the middle of the night. It was sudden. So sudden."
The detective could see from her face the way the pertinent details were getting buried under her shock. He was about to pry further when Junpei spoke up first.
"Anything that happened beforehand? Did Kenji say or do anything that would give us a clue where he's trying to get to?"
Mrs Matsuo met his gaze for just a second before looking away again. "Um… He was acting strange the evening before. But I don't see how that could help you find him."
Junpei put on a warm, beckoning smile. "Every little bit can help. We won't know what information will be important until we seek it all out. Please, help us help him."
That was a good start, on Junpei's part. The detective settled in to watch Mrs Matsuo's reactions, see what clues they provided on top of her words.
The lady blinked a few times rapidly, cleared her throat, then began to answer Junpei's question. "Three days ago, I got back to find Kenji stood in here, yelling at the dog."
The puppy in question – a young black and white terrier – had emerged into the living room to investigate the new guests, and was now nuzzling up against the side of the detective's leg.
"He was just screaming at the top of his voice and waving his hands at him. Something about how the poor thing 'wasn't right' and was 'being so rude.' All sorts of things like that. It didn't make any sense."
That was something that made this different from any other missing persons case. "Whoa!" the detective exclaimed, hoping that it sounded sympathetic. "Any idea why he was doing that?"
The lady vigorously shook her head. "No! I couldn't believe he was doing that! He's never been cruel to the dog before. And… I don't think Kenji knew why he was doing it, either."
"Huh? Mr Matsuo didn't know either?"
"I asked him, and he just couldn't answer me. I was so angry… I just sent him to bed, told him he should explain himself in the morning." Mrs Matsuo put her head in her hands, guilt driving rivulets of tears from the side of her eyes. "By then, he was gone. He left that night. Never came back."
The detective and Junpei asked a few more questions after that. They established that Mr Matsuo had packed for his disappearance, taking cash and cards and changes of clothes for five nights. The detective ran through a list of known associates, making sure they had all the details of everyone the missing man might have contacted or taken shelter with. And so the routine part of their investigation came to an end.
After they had made their goodbyes to Mrs Matsuo and exited her house, Junpei turned to the detective. "This isn't just some guy having a mental breakdown, is it?"
The detective shook his head in agreement. Now back to talking just among themselves, he let his voice settle back into its more natural, rougher tones. "Nah. This was too planned out for some guy going nutso. If that was all this was, one of the beat cops would have picked him up wandering the streets by now." He rubbed is forehead with his fingers, reading himself for what was to come. "Let's get our asses back to HQ and put together what we've got."
o-0-o
Back at police HQ, and after getting Junpei through his colleagues' inquisitive gazes by talking up the benefits of collaboration with Junpei's newly-joined private agency, the detective had taken over a conference room to act as the base of operations for this investigation. He'd projected profiles of the missing Mr Matsuo on the screens around the walls and spread the witness accounts the beat cops had collected from nearby houses on the central table. Then he'd set up computer terminals for himself and Junpei, from which they could follow up any leads and pursue their hypotheses into the wider world.
They'd begun their work of tracking where Mr Matsuo could have fled to, collating new information as it came in and bouncing ideas off each other. The detective had felt particularly proud, successful as a mentor, when Junpei had brought up the usage of the man's credit and debit cards, which suggested even further that the man was in full possession of his wits – money drained from his accounts, and then a taxi out to no destination they could make sense of. Even so, they hadn't made any concrete progress yet. Just as the detective was about to call for a coffee break his phone began to ring.
The phone was out on the table, and Junpei was able to get a look before the detective was able to pick it up and answer. His eyes narrowing in first concentration, then surprise, Junpei read out the caller ID that had shown up across the screen. "Huh? 'Exhibitionist Demon Lady', it says… Is that Lotus?"
The detective snorted. "Yep. We've kept in touch, ever since… you know." It wasn't like anything more needed to be said about that event in both their lives. "But why the hell's she calling me now?"
Junpei shrugged. "You got any choice but to pick up the phone?"
The detective did so. "Hey, Hazuki! What's up?"
The voice came from the other end of the line, sultry and jocular. "It's been crazy here like you wouldn't believe. Or who knows. Maybe you would." Hazuki paused then, the faintest tremors of barely picked-up speech coming through the speakers as she conversed with someone in the room with her. "I caught wind of something that might interest you. People are going crazy in a number of different places, and they might be connected."
Junpei perked up, eyes narrowing as he peered towards the phone the detective was holding. "Huh? Could that have anything to do with our case?"
That drew a response from the other end of the line as well. "Is that Junpei? Say hi to him for me."
The detective duly put the call on speaker so that Junpei could take part. Then he continued speaking to Hazuki. "So how'd an ol' lady like you get mixed up in this?"
Her gasp of rage wasn't so much heard as projected all the way across the call to blast into the detective's ear. "I'd kick your ass for that! If only we were in the same country… Anyway, it wasn't my fault. I just happened to be around when the big one happened."
Obviously, that wasn't the whole story. But the detective had learned not to look a gift belly-dancer in the mouth. "So this bull isn't just happening in Japan?" Hazuki had moved away to America a few months back, when her daughters had gone to live there. "It's happening all over the world?"
"No. Just the USA and Japan. Nowhere else, at least for now." A deep sigh crackled over the connection of the phone-call. When Hazuki's voice came back it was lilted with an ironic "Now, what else has happened recently that connected America and Japan?"
Something that had involved a connection between Japan and America? There was only one thing that came to the detective's mind.
"I can't fucking believe it. The Nonary Game?" the detective said, his voice drained, wearily resting his head on his palm.
"I can't fucking believe it. The Nonary Game?!" Junpei said, his eyes shining with a desperate, all-consuming, desire, his voice rising with uncontrolled hope as he leaned unconsciously in towards the phone.
"Yep. I guess I'll be seeing you soon." After that Hazuki hung up.
With that extra clue in hand – and after some not-entirely-legit strings were pulled by Junpei's detective agency – it wasn't long until the two of them tracked the missing Mr Matsuo to an airport, buying tickets to San Fransisco under an assumed name.
"How's your passport situation?" the detective asked Junpei.
"Not great," Junpei said with a smirk. "They've been iffy about it ever since I ended up outside the country with no idea how I'd got there."
It didn't matter. That wasn't enough to stop the two of them from getting where they were needed.