Chapter 2: We Were Only Strangers on Mystery Trains

After making his statement, Lupin was not so much summoned to the Commissioner's Office as he was hauled in by that same captain he'd run into at the scene of the landing.

Lupin leaned his weight on the shelf along the wall of the Commissioner's office, palms to the wood, only half listening to the captain's political grumbling. He'd been after it for several minutes, and was only now coming to the point. After the first few, Lupin had realized that although the man was ostensibly addressing his boss, what he was really trying to do was start a fight with Inspector Mori Jirokichi. But it was fine; all the circular talk was helping Lupin get acclimated to this forgotten vision of Tokyo he'd been dropped into.

"The last thing we need here is some newcomer interfering with our work! Who is he to come in here and tell us our business, when we've been handling things, at worse times, without any help?"

So this was 1954, then, the year that the Japanese government began restructuring its police force from the municipalities up. It sounded clean in a history textbook, but clearly the situation on the ground was a lot more tangled…

"Isn't this undemocratic?" the captain demanded. "Some Imperial Guard like him, ordering us to change this and change that?"

"Eh?" Lupin said. "Interesting, interesting. Would you say the police are a democratic institution, then?"

The captain stalked over and jabbed him in the chest. "What is that, a koan? I don't have time for riddles! This isn't a monastery!"

"It is not a monastery," interrupted the commissioner. "It is a place of work, and as such, I would like to see you working, Keishi. Complaining to me won't change things. Please go back and supervise the disaster outreach team."

The captain huffed, but he gave a curt salute and marched out all the same.

The commissioner sighed. "Forgive him, he is an idealist. He's right, things have been difficult here. It's a large city, and we are only now getting to grips with the last of the dispossessed from the war."

"How could I take it personally?" Lupin said, shrugging. It was easy to project professional neutrality when it actually wasn't his business at all.

"And now this… incident," said the commissioner. "I have been on the phone with the Public Security Investigation Agency all afternoon. All the business with this... this... what do the Americans call it, Yu-Fo?"

"Yes," said Lupin, maintaining an admirably cool expression, "that's definitely what they call it."

"The agency is taking this very seriously," the commissioner concluded, resting his face heavily on his fingertips. "There's concern that it might be a matter of national security. I hope it goes without saying that you will not speak of the incident to anyone until we have confirmed orders from the PSIA, Inspector."

"...A matter of national security, really?"

The commissioner gave him a sharp look. "Where do you think that machine came from, Inspector?"

Ah. And the Americans would be jumpy about it too. Lupin smoothed the surprise off his face. "I couldn't possibly tell you, sir," he replied.

The commissioner sighed again. "That's enough for now. Please let me know if you need assistance with your audit, in the meantime."

So Officer Mori Jirokichi was here to conduct an audit of some kind—probably in preparation for updating the new integrated chain of command and merging duties in case of overlap. There would be new policies, new titles, some jockeying for promotions, and of course cut-throat politics... Officer Mori would likely have been keen to flex his authority over since a well-established and (dare he say) dug-in precinct, but Lupin the Third had no intentions of making waves! Smooth like butter, that washisplan. Easy in and easy out! No need to disturb the timeline. Leave some other fool holding the bag, and with a fond farewell, bid the suckers adieu.

Lupin exited into the bullpen of the precinct, smoothing the collar of his stolen coat. You had to pity the poor commissioner, with all this going on! And soon he'd be down a priceless piece of evidence, too. But it wasn't any of Lupin's business. First things first, he'd need to case the security on the evidence locker. Then, if it wasn't too tight—and he couldn't imagine it would be, in 1954—retrieve his lovely lady, stash her in a hotel room—

No one paid much mind to Lupin as he strode confidently around the precinct. It was a funny fact of human life that the tighter security was around the front, the less anyone on the inside paid attention to anything out of place. If you were on the inside already, you must have a reason to be there, right?

A flash of badge and a friendly exchange with the man at the front desk had him oriented right on to the evidence locker. No one stopped him on his way in. Why would they?

The lockup had that unpleasant lingering smell of severed human fingers left out on the floor too long—garbage, soot, old blood, whatever happened to be on the evidence before it went into lockup. Lupin examined the lockers. Easy to pry these open, if he wanted to, but he was going for something a bit more subtle than a smash and grab here. The key design couldn't be very complicated, a set of hairpins would probably…

"Inspector Mori?"

Lupin drew back, slipping his pins back into his hair with a laugh and a scratch to the back of his neck. "Oh hey, Zenigata, wasn't it?"

The young man stood in the door, brows pinched in confusion under the cap he'd forgotten to take off indoors. "What are you doing?"

"Inspecting!" Lupin tossed a hand, gesturing at the row of lockers behind him. "These are not really up to modern standards, you know? Look, this is a slam lock, but if someone didn't press it hard enough it might not engage at all."

Zenigata came over, watching the analysis with interest. "I guess you're right," he said. "Maybe with padlocks would be better…"

"Mm, you won't want that," Lupin said. "Padlocks come open at the slightest bit of jimmying, they're barely better than tying something with a rope. Any kind of key lock is a liability, really; imagine how easy it would be for someone unscrupulous to take the key and make a copy?"

"Oh!" Zenigata pressed his palms to the metal, intent on the puzzle. "Dial locks, then? Only people who knew the code could open it."

Lupin slouched back against the locker next to him, amused. "Well sure, that's great, except that you're not really going to change the combination every time the shift changes, are you?"

Zenigata frowned. "I guess not…"

"A bit of a riddle, isn't it?" Lupin said. "Of course, really, there's a simple way to nip all this off at the bud."

Zenigata looked at him. "What's that?"

"Make sure nobody gets back here who isn't supposed to be here." Lupin rapped the metal behind him with his knuckles and pushed off, heading for the door. "Anyway, I've got an audit to get to! See you around."

Better ease off for now, he decided, what with a certain someone sniffing around. Might as well play his part for a little while, get the lay of the land. He left the younger Zenigata contemplating the wall of locker doors with an expression that would become a signature on him in years to come.

In an effort to keep things running smoothly with his borrowed identity, Lupin went about the motions of a procedure audit. He chatted with the officer in charge of the drunk tank, took some notes on the booking process, inquired with the riot squad, and got slapped by the beautiful lady cop who already had a boyfriend. All through it, he kept a watch out of the corner of his eye to see what Zenigata was up to.

Twenty years would make him harder and more cunning, but there was already a recognizable bullheaded awkwardness about Zenigata as he interacted with other officers. At times sullen, at times overenthusiastic, he charted the courses of conversational waters as if every pleasantry was a rock beneath the surface. Occasionally, he hit a rapid and overturned.

Lupin had watched this a hundred times over the years with the spectatorial fascination of a sportsman watching a riverboat driven by a bear. Occasionally, jobs even put him on the receiving end of it. And yet, you couldn't deny that there was something almost endearing about the way Zenigata stubbornly kept getting back in the boat.

Lupin watched the younger Zenigata carrying on a conversation with a woman reporting a lost item across the bullpen. She was wringing her hands, eyes fixed on Zenigata's face as she tried to impress upon him the importance of her missing jewelry or dog or whatever. Lupin watched as all at once, shining and full of determination, Zenigata changed for her—like a storm cloud had opened suddenly to reveal the midday sun, he filled the room as if the world stopped and turned its head for a moment. Lupin had seen this before. Every time, it struck him like light off of a diamond. Every inch of the man's being suddenly oriented toward justice, and for a moment, Zenigata became something you couldn't help but believe in.

A bright shock of surprise came across the woman's face. And then she laughed, bowing to him, and shook his hand.

"Inspector? Inspector, sir, did you want to see the log book, or...?"

"Hm?" Lupin broke his gaze and returned his attention to the officer across the desk. "Sorry, my mind wanders sometimes. Yes, thank you, that would be just perfect."

For his last task of the evening, Lupin gave the current keeper of the evidence locker keys a very long, very boring lecture about types of padlocks, push locks, keys, etc, while gesturing meaningfully with the key that he had taken from the man, in order to better demonstrate what he was talking about. After some deft sleight of hand, he left the office with a neat putty impression tucked into his jacket pocket.

Using the modest amount of cash he'd pick-pocketed from the men at the tavern, prior to negotiating their little détente, Lupin arranged to find and check into the hotel that apparently was expecting the Late Mori Jirokichi, and then grabbed some ramen at the street stand across from it. It was an old-fashioned place, or at least, it would be in twenty years. Right now it was quite fresh; you could still smell the wood. He made some inquiries at the desk about where a fellow might find a good locksmith around here, and oh, while he was at it, possibly a phone book?

And if he turned at some point to ask an empty corner of the room for a lighter, well, that was hardly anything worth remarking on. He carried one of his own, anyway.

Ultimately, he crawled into bed sometime around midnight and slept the long, dreamless sleep of a man who could sleep anywhere, at any time.

"Yes, thank you! I know, I know, it's just that we're very interested in this project, and we would hate for him to miss out on the opportunity—right, and the industry is only getting bigger!"

Lupin twirled the cord of the telephone around his hand absently, feet kicked up on the desk that he'd comandeered.

"I think the time is coming for exactly this sort of thing, I think audiences are ready for it—so I'll be there later today, so long as the trains don't stop! Thank you, ma'am, and may I say you have just the loveliest voice? No really, you should have been a radio star!"

There was a knock against the door. Lupin spun back around, unwinding himself from the phone cord as Officer Zenigata hesitantly ducked into his little office. It wasn't really Lupin's office, per se, but he'd staked it out in Jirokichi's name on the basis that it had its own telephone and he really would need one of those to work, wouldn't he? He'd had a fine time rifling through the files of its last occupant too, that loud red-faced lieutenant who would do his work just fine in the bullpen with the rest of them.

A squawk of static drew his attention back to the phone. "Oh stop, Mrs. Mamoh you are just a peach! Yes, I'll tell him hello from you. Thank you! Bye!"

He finished untangling himself from the last loop of cord and hung up the phone, dusting off his hands in satisfaction.

Zenigata had watched all this with frankly delightful confusion. "Er… Inspector Mori? You asked for me?"

Lupin planted his hands on the desk. "Zeni-chan!" he exclaimed, "Just the man I wanted to see!"

Zenigata nearly toppled in shock. "Inspector!" he protested, "you can't just call me that! We don't even know each other!"

"Ahehe, but how can I help myself when you're so cute?" Lupin said, leaning further over the desk, so far forward he was nearly on the tips of his toes as he rose out of his chair. "Anyway, aren't I your elder? So I can call you anything I like!"

Oh, Lupin thought, he must be spitting mad. Look how red he's turning. Too bad I outrank him…

Zenigata hunched himself into his big shoulders as he glared around the room. He really was adorable. It kind of made Lupin want to take a bite out of him.

"And you should call me Jirokichi-san," Lupin added, unable to resist. "We're going to be working together very intimately, after all."

"I'm not going to—What do you mean?"

Lupin straightened up, adopting a pose of casual disinterest. "I asked the commissioner for someone he could spare, to help me with my investigations. Someone keen but not too bright, and with a good back. So the commissioner gave you to me."

"Gave me to…"

"To me," Lupin agreed, fixing Zenigata with a sidelong leer. "In other words, you're mine, Zeni-chan."

The blush that had been sinking away rose again with double strength. "Um," said Zenigata, looking mildly terrified. "Until you… leave?"

"Mm," Lupin said, meaningfully avoiding the question. He came around the desk, fingers trailing the wooden edge. Zenigata's oddly pretty eyes widened; he stood there as Lupin advanced on him, like a deer in the headlights.

Lupin reached out… and… pinched his cheek.

"So don't worry about it!" Lupin said, "I won't steer you wrong!"

Zenigata grimaced, as Lupin let go. "But I'm already assigned to traffic duty—"

"This will be more interesting," Lupin said, airily. "After all, I'm tracking that same suspect you were chasing."

All Zenigata's reservations evaporated immediately. "Mamoh?"

"That's right," Lupin said. "I have a lead on Mamoh, and I want you to come along as backup. But if you'd rather stay and direct traffic…"

"No! Please, I want to come, take me with you, Inspector!"

"I told you to call me Jirokichi," Lupin whined. "Come on, be cuter. What is with the stubborn youth these days?"

Zenigata, showing uncommon tact, ignored the question. "How can you have a lead on Mamoh? No one's reported him, I've been listening out for it."

Lupin took the writing pad at his desk and tossed it to Zenigata, settling back into his seat and kicking up his heels.

"Mamoh Arinori… Three seven nine five… twenty thirty-eight… Tokyo-to…" Zenigata jolted. "You found his family? But you said he wasn't from here."

"That's the address of a nice older couple with a son about your age," Lupin said, "I called around, chit chatted with his mother a bit. The son's a writer, science fiction, might know something about our fugitive."

"You think so?" Zenigata said, with a skeptical frown.

"Trust me, Zeni-chan," Lupin replied. "In this line of work, there's no such thing as a coincidence."

They took the train out into the boonies, riding the midday empty cars out past the scar tissue of Tokyo where the last of the war's rubble was piled in neat patches for a future landfill. Lupin had never thought much about the rebuilding process; uncomfortable to think that ten years out it would still be going on.

There was something about an empty train car that made a guy wary about being the first to sit down. Without discussing it, they'd ended up standing side by side, neither quite willing to be the first to give up in the face of inertia. Lupin smoked one of the bitter, unfamiliar cigarettes he'd picked up the night before, thinking that the brand reminded him of Fujiko. With his back to the eastern window, he watched the scenery roll by.

He blew out a pensive cloud, letting it roll over his lips, and belatedly noticed that Zenigata was watching his mouth. He giggled to himself and offered out the pack, shaking it a bit.

"My bad, my bad. You want one?"

Zenigata immediately stiffened and looked away. "My mother doesn't like it when I smoke."

"Mama's boy, huh," Lupin remarked. He tucked the pack back in his jacket. "I guess you must be living at home, still. Think she'll smell me on you?"

"N-no? I mean, yes, maybe? What do you mean mama's boy!"

"Everyone's got a favorite parent," Lupin said. He shrugged one shoulder and put the cigarette back in his mouth. "Or at least that's what I hear."

"What about you?" Zenigata shot back.

"Me?" Lupin paused, glanced at the ceiling. He thought of the woman who had taught him how to tie his shoes, read kanji, use a garrote, dislocate his thumbs. He thought about the games that were never games, the song she used to hum, the muzzle flare. "I guess I'm more of a daddy's boy, if you absolutely have to know," he said, leaning over to blow smoke against Zenigata's ear.

He giggled as Zenigata slapped at his ear and turned pink.

"I'm not surprised you're a momma's boy, anyway," Lupin said. "You've got a sentimental soul. Not good in a police officer."

"You're just trying to get a rise out of me," Zenigata grumbled.

"Guilty!" Lupin said brightly. "I get bored on these long rides. Let's play cards or something."

Zenigata side-eyed him. "Do you have cards?"

Lupin patted himself down, finding a latex kit, the key-copier kit, a length of industrial twine, several smoke bombs, several fake blood packets, and a matchbox full of needles. "Damn," he said.

"Then why did you suggest it?" Zenigata asked, but he was smiling despite himself.

"What I wouldn't give for an in-flight movie," Lupin sighed. Had they invented those yet? He didn't think so.

"It's not even that far away," Zenigata pointed out. "Shouldn't you be reviewing your case notes, or… planning your approach, or something like that? This guy could be hostile!"

"He's not going to be a problem." Lupin smirked, setting the cigarette back in his mouth. "Besides. I already know exactly what I'm going to say."

"…What are you going to say?"

"That I'm with the police," Lupin said, "and I'm here to help."

Puzzled, Zenigata repeated, "Help?"

"Sure," Lupin said. He glanced over, lifted an eyebrow. "That's what we do, isn't it? Help?"

Zenigata looked at him for a moment, and then that light dawned around him—that light that changed him, like magic turning a pumpkin into a glittering carriage, making it larger and more beautiful—and he smiled. "Yeah," he said. "That's exactly right. We help."

Lupin blinked at him, and then looked away.

"Want me to show you how to beat a lie detector test?"

Zenigata startled like a cat hearing a car backfire. "Why would I want to know that!"

Lupin gave a sheepish little laugh. "If you know how it's done, you won't be fooled by it, right? The thing is, it's pretty easy to confuse the machine if you know how it works. But it leaves a pattern you can see from a mile away, if you know what to look for."

It was a skill Lupin had rarely ever needed to make use of. Mostly he'd used it to convince someone of his cover identity, or a false drop location, and usually a mark wouldn't go that far. But he'd been taught it a long time ago, and a successful thief never forgot a useful skill.

Zenigata was intrigued despite himself, you could see it on his face. "Really?"

"Knowing something's off won't tell you what the truth is, of course," Lupin said, "but you'll know something is off, and that's a start for any detective worth his name."

"Okay!" Zenigata said, and set his shoulders. "Show me, please, sir."

"Uwah, I told you, it's Jirokichi," Lupin complained. Still so stubborn… but the more he resisted, the more certain Lupin was that he'd get the little bastard to capitulate somehow.

"Alright," he said, "come over here, sit down."

He grabbed Zenigata by the shoulders and shoved him into one of the train's seats, then stood back and took another puff, looking the kid over.

"Now the first thing they'll do to you—" Lupin said, "the hypothetical you, I mean, of course—is fit you with a battery of sensors. There'll be a blood pressure cuff," he wrapped a hand around Zenigata's wrist and turned it over, "electrodes on your fingers," he tapped the four fingertips with his own, "a respiratory belt, mmm, maybe leg monitors. Oh! And, sometimes," he grinned, slipping a hand between the seat back and Zenigata's body, "they even monitor anal sphincter movements. You wouldn't believe how invasive a dedicated inspector can be, when there's something he wants."

The shiver ran up Zenigata's spine like a wild graph pen down a sheet of polygraph paper, from the small of his back up to the hair on the back of his neck. Disgust? Fear? Either way, Lupin appreciated the reaction. He thought he'd like to see it again.

He took his hand back and straightened up. "Next thing is they'll start asking you some innocuous stuff it's easy to check," he went on. "Where do you live, how old are you, your mother's maiden name, that sort of stuff. Then they'll start circling in around the real issue. Where were you on the night of the 14th? Did you know the victim? Where were you really?"

Ears still red at the tips, Zenigata looked up at him with rapt attention, as if he was making notes in his head.

Lupin flicked his cigarette at the windowsill. "Then they ask you some invasive questions, to get your blood up," he said. "This part is to figure out what you feel like when you're on the defensive. What's your heart do when you're scared? How do your lungs move when you're ashamed?"

He took Zenigata's wrist again and pressed his thumb to the pulse. He leaned in close. "Ever stolen anything, Zeni-chan?"

Zenigata erupted like a kettle on boil. "No!" he shouted, directly into Lupin's face.

Lupin recoiled, pressing his free hand to his ear. "Jeeze, okay. I shoulda seen that one coming."

"Only lowlifes steal," Zenigata told him. "I work for my money. I don't need to steal."

"Hm." Lupin considered their hands together for a moment. "…Ever wanted something you knew you couldn't have? Really wanted something, something it was bad to want, but you wanted it anyway?"

"I—hnng." Zenigata sucked in a breath and looked away. "No."

Lupin let go and tapped Zenigata's wrist, smirking. "That was a blip. You lied."

Zenigata yanked his wrist back and cupped his hand around it, like it needed protecting.

"Now, the trick to getting around this thing is confusing your yeses and nos," Lupin said. "Bring everything back towards the middle—muffle the panic when you're guilty and increase your body's arousal when you're not. The simplest way to turn the tone of your reaction down is with drugs. Tranquilizers, downers, hell, even alcohol can do in a pinch. But you're pretty likely to get caught trying that, and they'll just throw the results out and have you come back in when you're sober."

"So I should be looking for signs of inebriation," Zenigata said, frowning thoughtfully. "Dilated pupils, slurring…"

"Marijuana works too," Lupin suggested helpfully. "Harder to notice, on a seasoned partaker."

"Um, right," said Zenigata, who obviously knew nothing about pot.

"Blood pressure meds," Lupin went on, "oh, and allergy pills, you'd be surprised."

"Ah," Zenigata said, expression falling.

"Anyway, the other half of the puzzle is getting the stressful questions to look less stressful. You might tense up and hold that during the mother's maiden name portion of the quiz. Then, when they start asking you about that bag of pearls you definitely weren't holding, you let all your squinched up muscles go and float off into the Pure Land for a bit."

Lupin fluttered his hands, putting on his most angelic face. Zenigata bit down on a laugh.

"There's also breathing exercises," Lupin said. He threw himself into the seat beside Zenigata, twisted to lean over the armrest, and pressed his hand to the younger man's chest. He held it there through the initial jump of surprise, and then through the wariness, and into the inevitable slump of submission.

Zenigata's chest was warm. His jacket was open, and his crisp cotton shirt crumpled beneath Lupin's hand. The train rattled around them, but deep inside, just detectable to a safecracker's hands, was the steady thumping of his heart.

"Take deep, even breaths," Lupin told him. "Like your lungs are the ocean, bringing in the tide."

Bit by bit, the steady rise and fall of Zenigata's chest slowed. Zenigata looked up, and their eyes met. Up and down, the breath rolled out of him.

"Now speed them up," Lupin said.

Obediently, Zenigata started to draw quicker breaths—eyes on Lupin, watching for his approval, as the intervals grew shorter. It was like he couldn't stop once he'd started. He was getting ahead of himself, probably, until he was nearly gasping to keep his lungs fed. His heart was like a rabbit's underneath Lupin's palm; his cheeks were flushing, his ears turning red.

How long could I keep him like this, Lupin wondered. Forever?

An abrupt chime from the PA system broke the dull roar of the train car, announcing the next stop on the northern line. Lupin drew back, let out a little laugh, and turned to the doors.

"What do you know! You were right," he said, "it wasn't very far."

Lupin fixed his hat and lined up at the doors, leaving Zenigata slumped in the seat like an abandoned puzzle, red-faced and wide-eyed, struggling to calm his breathing again.

They arrived at a house in the countryside that resembled the picturesque in all ways except the skeletons of various machines cracked open on the lawn like the remains of horses around the lair of a dragon.

Most of what Lupin actually knew about police procedure he had learned from watching cops on his case over the years. That was to say, mostly, Zenigata had taught him what it was a police officer did and said.

He glanced back at the rookie tailing him like a big broad shadow. Oh boy…

They knocked on the door, waited several minutes, and finally knocked again. The latch clicked, and then the door opened about half the width of a man. On the other side, a narrow eye glared out through the gap.

"Yes?"

Lupin put on a friendly smile. "Hello, we're with the Tokyo Metro PD, and we're making inquiries regarding a man who might have been spotted in your area. Could we come in?"

The glaring half of a face remained silent. Lupin fished out his badge, thumb conveniently obscuring the majority of the photograph, then kicked back and thumped Zenigata on his shin. The younger man fumbled for his badge as well, and then presented it.

"...Alright," said Mamoh Kyosuke, and opened the door.

He was recognizable, although the years would change him more dramatically than they would Zenigata. He looked less thin now, less pinched—his hair, although unfashionably shaggy, left both eyes visible. He hadn't bleached it yet, either. Instead of the unhealthy dry straw blond Lupin was familiar with, there was a healthier (if a bit unkempt) natural black.

Lupin strode in confidently, Zenigata on his heels. One thing that made Japan such a challenge, for a career criminal and wanted man, was that everyone around here was so helpful to the police. Yes officer, I saw him outside the post office. No officer, I wouldn't mind answering a few questions. The only place worse for Lupin was France, where the newspapers still regularly ran photos of him in their international section every time he so much as pulled off a heist in Timbuktu. Anyway, it made impersonating the police here an absolute breeze at least.

The house was messy, but not exactly unclean. Mamoh led them to a western style drawing room and brushed some dog-eared paperbacks off the loveseat at the window.

"You must be quite the voracious reader," Lupin said, examining the tall shelves of hardback books. "What's this, Introduction to Electronic Repair? Not exactly a page turner."

"I am an autodidact," Mamoh sniffed, "it's much easier to teach myself how to do something, rather than listen to some fool dither on about the basics."

"Impressive, impressive," Lupin said, "is that what all those machines in the yard are for? Are you teaching yourself how to build a car?"

"Hardly," said Mamoh. "Please. Sit down."

They sat down. Zenigata winced, reached behind himself, and removed a wrench from under the cushion.

"You said you were looking for someone…" Mamoh prompted them. He had not taken a seat.

"A fugitive!" Zenigata said, sitting forward. "We believe he's a dangerous man—he was armed and fleeing the scene of a crash."

Well. That was one way to put it.

"I see," said Mamoh.

"He'd be about forty years old," Lupin said, slinging an arm over the back of the sofa. "Dressed in a long cloak. Bleached hair, sort of a dark yellow color."

The younger Mamoh reached up as if he was going to touch his own, black, hair. Lupin kept his expression pleasant and vague, but on the inside, he perked up.

"What do you want with him?" Mamoh asked. "Has he committed a crime?"

"Not exactly," Lupin said. "We want to know what he knows about certain… events."

"And to stop him from hurting anyone else," Zenigata interjected, "if it was him that caused the crash yesterday, he needs to be stopped!"

"I've been a poor host," Mamoh said. He took a step back. "Let me bring you some tea. I'll just be a moment."

Lupin waited until he had been gone about forty-five seconds, and then turned to Zenigata. "I'm going to follow him. You stay here and keep an ear out."

"And I'll look around his desk!" Zenigata said, immediately. "Maybe he's left out a clue!"

"My my my," Lupin drawled, "without a warrant, officer?"

Zenigata opened his mouth and then snapped it shut.

Lupin smirked at him. "Well, what does it matter? Violate the man's home if you want to. The courts in this country will probably accept evidence either way."

Zenigata looked like he'd sucked on a lemon.

Lupin gave a broad, dramatic shrug. "I mean, if the law doesn't care, why should you?"

He left Zenigata to it, slipping silently through the halls towards the bright warmth of the kitchen, where he paused at the door and pressed himself to the wall.

Two nearly identical voices were engaged in a low discussion, just barely audible in the quiet of the house. Lupin inched closer, pressing his ear to the gap in the door frame.

"—Doesn't look like you described…" said the first voice. "They say they're policemen."

"It doesn't matter what he looks like," said the second voice, just a touch rougher and more intense. "Lupin the Third is a master of disguise, he can look like anyone. Was one of them a sort of stupid looking buffoon, with a cleft chin?"

"Yes, there's one of those…"

"That'll be him. Zenigata is one of his favorite faces to steal, don't ask me why. Maybe it's a perverse form of affection."

"I'll send them away," said the first voice. It was tight, stressed, but contained. "I don't know anything, and they can't prove otherwise."

"He'll kill you to destroy me," said the second voice. "You won't be the first or the last. The moment you let your guard down—he's a killer, you're nothing to him."

The tea kettle started to whistle. The first voice said nothing.

"This is the man who will annihilate your family," the second voice said. "If not for yourself, think of your brother's children! As long as he's alive, they're in danger. I've seen the future, I know what that wretched family means for us. We have to end this now."

That boded well!

Lupin drew away, as silently as before, and crept back into the drawing room. Zenigata, who was peering at a notepad on the writer's overfull desk, jumped and then dropped it with a guilty expression.

"Anything interesting?" Lupin drawled.

"No," Zenigata said, looking away. "Just science fiction mumbo jumbo."

"Hm, really." Lupin moseyed over and flipped back the page Zenigata had been looking at. It was a story about an alien, or at least he thought so. A lot of it was crossed out and written over.

"Excuse me," said a voice in the door. Lupin looked up and found Mamoh watching them, tea tray in his hands.

"Sorry!" Lupin said, projecting his best aw shucks energy. "Just couldn't help myself, had to get a peek. I have to admit, I actually know who you are, Mamoh-sensei."

"...You do," Mamoh echoed.

"Yeah! I'm a fan, actually! I've read some of your stuff in Weird Fiction. I hope you'll forgive me! I couldn't resist getting a backstage look at the production."

Mamoh looked from him to Zenigata, who was standing off to the side sullenly, arms crossed.

"Ah," said Mamoh. He came the rest of the way into the drawing room and set the tea down on the coffee table. Both of his guests returned to the sofa, taking up their previous positions. Despite the western style of the furniture and the house, the serving set was traditional. Mamoh poured one for each of them, and then one for himself.

When Lupin reached for the tray, Mamoh beat him to it instead, picking up one of the cups and pushing it directly into Lupin's hand.

Ah, thought Lupin. He doesn't want me to take the other one.

"Do you believe in that stuff?" Lupin asked him. "Aliens and all?"

"Not aliens, no," said Mamoh. "I only write the stories to clear my head of useless ideas. And to put tea in the pot, obviously," he added, gesturing at the serving set. "My real genius does not belong to a page."

"You think of yourself as more of an inventor, then?" Lupin asked. He gestured at the corner of the room, where a partially dismantled bicycle stuck out of a pile of books and old receipts. "Electronics for beginners not the right kind of page for you?"

Mamoh glanced over briefly—Lupin took the opportunity to swap his and Zenigata's drinks, popping the cup out of the young man's hands just as it was about to reach his mouth. At the startled "Hey!" from Zenigata, Mamoh's gaze swung back around, but Lupin only smiled vaguely at him.

"No…" Mamoh answered, narrowing his gaze. "I don't want to write educational screeds, I want to make the impossible into reality. My thesis will be a demonstration in motion, not words in a book."

"Are you interested in computers?" Lupin asked. "I'm very interested in computers, myself. I think it's the future of law enforcement. There's just this pesky problem with punch cards, right now—it's all so cumbersome, you know?"

"Hah!" said Mamoh, "It is, isn't it? But it doesn't need to be. I've already begun designing my own interface. The English have it easier, with their alphabetical system, but I think we could get along just as easily with a syllabary."

"Like Katakana?" Lupin asked innocently.

"I think not," Mamoh said. "Hiragana is the obviously superior option."

"I just don't see how that would work," Lupin said, "how would the computer know what you meant?"

"Don't be stupid," said Mamoh, with obvious relish. He snatched the notepad off his own desk and began scribbling on it. "See here, all you would need to do is program the computer with a basic algorithm, give it some parameters for linguistic interpretation—"

Lupin watched as Mamoh sketched out a flow chart of the linguistic algorithm, oohing and ahhing at appropriate intervals. He largely ignored Zenigata, who was mostly sipping his tea and observing all this with an expression of utter bewilderment. Once he was more or less satisfied that he understood the system Mamoh was describing, Lupin also picked up his tea and made a great show of sipping the cooling beverage.

He gave it a couple seconds. Asked a follow up question or two. And then he began to put on a show.

"Augh!" he cried out, clutching at his stomach. "Oh, that's—what's happening to me? Oh my god! I need to lie down, I have to lie down—please, someone call a doctor!"

Zenigata jumped to his feet. "Inspector! What's wrong, what's hurting you?"

Lupin only groaned in ever more theatrical pain.

Mamoh, who had dropped his notepad at the first groan of pain, took a step back. His gaze jumped from Zenigata's nearly empty teacup to the barely touched one in front of Lupin.

"No," he muttered, "but I—I was sure…"

"Hold on, we'll get help for you! Mamoh-san, call someone, now!"

"Yes," Mamoh said, blanching, and fled.

As soon as he was gone, Lupin cut the theatrics. "Bet he'll think twice about poisoning someone now," he said, lifting his head from his curled over position.

"Inspector?" Zenigata asked, reaching for his hands. Lupin was surprised when the younger man clasped them, leaning in as if he meant to shield Lupin's back from some nonexistent sniper. "Are you alright? Did he really poison you?"

It took Lupin longer than it should have to answer. His attention seemed to be fixed on their hands, for reasons he couldn't articulate. Worse, after his silence stretched a bit too long, Zenigata lifted one of his hands and pressed it to Lupin's forehead, searching for a fever.

For a moment, he felt as if he did have a fever. Zenigata had never touched him so gently before; his skin felt funny. Then he shook himself free, regaining some distance between them. "I'm fine!" he said. "I didn't actually drink it. I had a hunch, after what I heard in the kitchen."

"You heard something? You didn't say anything!"

"No? My bad, my bad! Well, I heard something. Our fugitive is here, in this very house. If we go now, we can corner him in the confusion. He won't be expecting it now."

Understanding dawned on his young assistant, with a certain starry quality about the eyes. Zenigata leapt to his feet. "Inspector! You're a very brave man!"

And before Lupin could even begin to respond, he was off like a shot, rushing into the hall. Lupin blinked a couple times, and then realized he was about to let baby Zenigata try to arrest a homicidal madman.

"...Crap. Zenigata!"

Lupin skidded into the kitchen almost too fast for the slippery floor, catching himself on the edge of the icebox. Zenigata's back was just visible from there, his shoulders drawing up as he faced off with someone. Around the corner, just beyond sight, the cold voice of the elder Mamoh was saying:

"How typical of you to let someone else take the fall, while you get off scot-free."

Lupin watched Zenigata, who planted his feet as he said, "Jirokichi is fine, but what you did is unconscionable! You're under arrest for attempted murder, Mamoh."

"Really, is that the way you want to play it? Why all the pretense? Why not just shoot me now? Oh, but of course," the voice took on a smug lilt, "I forgot! There's no way you're getting home on your own, is there? You're stuck here, without me and my machine."

Lupin frowned. That sort of wind-up sounded like—he twisted to look at the other side of the room, and there in the doorway down to a wine cellar, he caught just the barest glint of metal as a gun barrel lifted. He was right, it was a distraction.

There was no time to be graceful about it. Lupin grabbed the nearest thing off the counter as he lunged, swung—realized he had the still-hot kettle from the stovetop in his hand—and walloped the younger Mamoh directly in the forehead, just as he was about to pull the trigger. The shot rattled eardrums in such a small space. Sawdust blasted out of the wooden ceiling, while the younger Mamoh staggered into a wall then dropped in a heap against the floor.

The elder Mamoh whirled. His eyes blew wide as he took in the scene.

"You!" the elder Mamoh howled in a rage, "It was you all along!" He dove past Zenigata, who had turned at the sound of gunfire, and shoved Lupin out of the way with his whole weight. He hauled his younger self over his shoulders and fled, escaping out the rear door in a flurry of curses.

Lupin, who had just barely caught himself on an alcove set into the wall of the stairwell, wobbled with his toes on the edge of a step and then carefully set the sole of his shoe down flat on the next nearest one. His heart pounded, but he was alright.

"Hah," he muttered, "at least we got him away from his gun…"

"Inspector!" Zenigata shouted, and then he was at the top of the stairs, hauling Lupin upward.

It was good to be on flat ground again—Lupin discretely shut the door to the wine cellar behind him, just to be sure. Zenigata picked up the gun and offered it to him, with the kind of meaningful gravitas of a Samurai offering his lord a cup. Lupin had no idea what he was supposed to do with it.

Before he had time to ask—although he really shouldn't, a real Inspector ought to know that sort of thing—Zenigata was off across the kitchen, to where Mamoh had kicked open the door to the back garden and left it swinging on its hinges.

"Shouldn't we go after them?" Zenigata said, already straining to peer through the exit like a dog begging for walkies. "He'll be looking for a doctor for his accomplice, if the man isn't already, er…"

Lupin picked up the kettle, wincing as the scalding on his palm he hadn't previously noticed made itself known.

"I'm sure he's alive," Lupin said. "Might have a fuzzy memory, getting hit like that, but he was still conscious long enough to catch himself. He'll need looking after, but…" Lupin dropped the kettle back on the stove and spun back to Zenigata, clapping his hands. "Let's talk about the more important thing! You called me Jirokichi!"

Zenigata started stammering denials, but Lupin ignored them. He swung an arm around the younger man and squeezed him. "You did! You can't take it back now!"

"I was under a lot of pressure!" Zenigata protested, "I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Zeni-chan, you really are the cutest." Lupin gave him another squeeze and then set off for the hall. "Come on, let's get back to the station before they miss us."

"What?" Zenigata jogged after him. "Are you sure? We could track them–"

"Let 'em go. It's not right to interfere with another person when they're looking for medical treatment."

Not to mention, Lupin thought, I really don't know what will happen if the inventor of the time machine kicks the bucket before he can invent it…

In the drawing room, Lupin pulled his hat off the hat stand and set it over his eyes. "Besides," he said, "haven't you been shot at enough for one day?"

"No sir!" Zenigata said, immediately.

Lupin stared at him for a minute. Then he wheezed.

"Okay," he said, "maybe you haven't, but I have! Come on, there's another train in an hour, if we leg it. I'll be really nice and take care of aaaall the paperwork myself."

After all, he thought, it wasn't actually as if he'd be reporting any of this.