Prefecture D: Four Novellas Read online

  “I think so, in most cases. I’ll check on that and get back to you.” Maintaining his expression, Tsuge lowered his voice. “I’m actually looking for Assemblyman Ukai. Do you know if he’s in today?”

  “I haven’t seen him, no, although it’s possible he’s upstairs.”

  Tsuge brought his voice down to a whisper.

  “I heard he’s planning to ask something police-related.”

  “Yes, I think I remember him saying something like that.”

  “Do you know what he’s planning to ask?”

  “He said you wouldn’t like it, but, no, he didn’t give me any details.”

  So it was true. Ukai had something he was planning to use against the force.

  “I’ll ask, if I see him. Can’t have you worrying too much.”

  “Thank you. That would be a great help.” Tsuge bowed and told the man he’d call later that night. He bowed one more time.

  Next was the New Liberal Democratic Club. In the case of the assembly, it often happened that the opposition was privy to the same—or more—information as the party in power.

  The trip earned him no new knowledge, but everyone he approached seemed to know something about Ukai’s intention to launch an offensive.

  I’ve got to find Ukai.

  The decision wasn’t a hard one. Tsuge had no particular fear of confronting the man. He could be a little difficult, a little obtuse, but Tsuge had no issues with his type. In the course of the last six months Tsuge considered himself to have built a decent enough relationship with the man. Perhaps he’d missed something, or perhaps Ukai was more cunning than he’d thought. It would have to be one of the two if he truly was planning something.

  Tsuge climbed to the second floor and knocked on the door to the assemblyman’s study. There was no answer.

  “Assemblyman?”

  Tsuge swallowed, then pushed on the door. There was no one inside. A briefcase on the desk, however, told Tsuge the man was somewhere in the building. The door was half closed when something compelled Tsuge to stop. His eyes flicked back to the desk. To the brown and well-worn briefcase. It was open. Papers poked out from the inside.

  No …

  Tsuge had to catch his breath. He closed the door. In that moment, he heard a voice behind him.

  “Can I be of assistance?”

  Tsuge flinched as he turned to see Ukai standing in the corridor, looking wary. The small towel in his hands meant he’d been visiting the bathroom.

  “Assemblyman. Sorry, I thought you were in your study.”

  Ukai held Tsuge’s gaze, his pin-like eyes sharpening behind black-rimmed glasses. Tsuge felt a rising panic. It was as though the assemblyman could hear the thumping of his heart.

  “Come on, then, if you have something you want to discuss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Tsuge followed the man’s broad back inside. Ukai gestured at the couch but Tsuge set himself down on a chair instead. Ukai took the briefcase from his desk, then sank into the couch. He raised his angled features to his visitor. “Well, what can I do for you?”

  “Actually, it’s about the upcoming cabinet meeting.” Tsuge made eye contact, his gaze faltering slightly. “Someone told me you have a question for the police.”

  “That’s right.”

  Ukai had admitted it without hesitation. He looked annoyed, but that was the man’s default expression.

  “Could I inquire as to the subject? It would help us to—”

  “Sorry, not this time.”

  Tsuge stiffened at the unexpected force of the man’s tone.

  “It would only cause you trouble.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, the best I can do is suggest you get your captain to brush up on begging for forgiveness.”

  Tsuge felt himself shiver. It was clear now—Ukai was looking for revenge.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Ukai took his briefcase and went out into the corridor. He pushed the button on the elevator across from his study. The doors slid open.

  Tsuge rushed in after him, barely making it.

  “Assemblyman. I need to at least know the subject.”

  “Oh, you intend to use the elevator?”

  Members only. Tsuge was only too aware of the rules.

  “Get out.”

  “…”

  “What, you think your job entitles you to this?”

  “Assemblyman. I just—”

  “Leave. Now.”

  The doors began to close as Ukai pushed Tsuge out. He watched as the assemblyman—and all—descended gradually out of sight.

  3

  It was clear from the tension in the room that the captain was back. Secretariat Chief Shoichi Sakaniwa was in the visitors’ room to the right. One of the small room’s primary functions was to shield the captain, at least temporarily, from unwanted guests. The cups of tea on the table inside told Tsuge that Sakaniwa had just finished dealing with one such guest.

  “Can we talk?”

  Sakaniwa glanced up from his notebook when Tsuge called from the door. His expression stiffened when he saw the look on Tsuge’s face. “What is it?”

  “We might have an issue, sir.” Tsuge closed the door behind him and took a seat. He gave Sakaniwa a brief summary of events.

  “A time bomb? What kind of time bomb?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can we change his mind?”

  “That might be difficult. He seems quite determined.”

  Sakaniwa folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling. “We need to know what he’s going to ask.”

  “It could be some kind of dirt, sir. Maybe to do with the executive.”

  Sakaniwa gave Tsuge a wide-eyed stare before looking away. Dirt. It was a catchall word for the hidden misbehaviors of the force. There was some on Sakaniwa, too. Seven years ago, he’d drunk too much and went after a taxi driver. The driver had been a high school classmate of Tsuge’s, and Tsuge had stepped in on Sakaniwa’s request and convinced the man to settle the matter privately. Internal Affairs never heard of the incident, and Sakaniwa had maintained his position in the race to the top.

  That spring, Sakaniwa had cleared his debt by bringing Tsuge into the fold. While such transfers were usually the domain of Administration, the man’s proximity to the captain afforded him certain privileges and allowed him to essentially handpick his staff.

  Tsuge had welcomed the move. He’d been a dyed-in-the-wool member of Security, having spent his whole career in the department, but the Secretariat was special, the domain of the captain, and his sense of ambition had been tickled by the chance to work with the assembly. It would serve him well to become expert in its matters, to gain the confidence of its members, especially in the context of a force that was weak in its external relations. Sakaniwa had himself spent years working with the assembly. One of the main reasons he’d made it to chief of the Secretariat, despite his obvious lack of social nous, was because the captain, together with the bureaucrats in Tokyo, needed someone who could maintain the relationship between the assembly and the force.

  Still, it was a double-edged sword to work with the assembly. While success guaranteed a bright career, failure was certain to end one.

  “If Ukai won’t tell us…” Sakaniwa seemed to consider something for a moment. He looked Tsuge in the eye. “I seem to remember you have a contact in Internal Affairs?”

  “Yes.”

  Inspector Shindo. The man had effectively been a go-between for Tsuge’s marriage, having introduced him to the daughter of a distant relation when they’d both been in Security.

  “I want you to see if he knows anything about this. If he’s hesitant to commit, tell him this is the direct concern of the captain.”

  “Understood.”

  “And try the assembly again, see if you can’t get some more details.” There was a sudden buzzing sound. Sakaniwa jumped from the couch. The captain. “Make sure you stay on top of this,” he muttered, fiddling with his ti
e as he rushed out.

  Tsuge walked to a corner of the room and picked up the phone. He called Shindo and asked to meet on the roof. The usual play would be to visit his home at night, but speed was of the essence.

  Shindo had not yet gotten there when Tsuge arrived. He sat himself down next to the concrete viewing pillar. The cylindrical object was two meters wide and marked with the name of every city and town in the prefecture and the direction in which they lay. It was modeled after the original in the Metropolitan Police Academy, which pointed at the prefectures. When it gets hard. When you don’t know where to go. You come here and you think of home. Tsuge had been here just once, eight years ago, but he hadn’t looked toward home. He’d glared, instead, in the direction of Tokyo. He could still picture the vast blue sky he’d seen that day.

  “Hey.”

  Shindo walked into view. He stopped and lit a cigarette.

  “You’re smoking again? That can’t be any good for your stomach.”

  “Isn’t much left to damage.” There was something in his voice that suggested he’d started to let go. It was harder, since the operation on his stomach and his subsequent transfer to Internal Affairs, to see in this man the high-flying officer from Security. He looked as though he’d grown suddenly old. Maybe he’d given up his aspirations to reach the top. “Now, tell me what’s so important that you had to call me all the way up here.”

  Tsuge proceeded to give him a quick summary of events.

  “Attack the police?” Shindo repeated, sounding genuinely surprised.

  “Can you think of anything he might have been able to dig up?”

  “Nothing that’s new. Sorry, can’t think of a single thing.”

  Shindo told him that Internal Affairs had nothing that could be pinned on the executive. If that were true, it was perhaps an organizational issue that Ukai had come across, something that concerned the force itself. It would be too much work to track down something like that. Of course, Tsuge would still have expected word that Ukai was sniffing around to have reached Internal Affairs, even for something like that.

  Yet Shindo was adamant that they’d heard nothing.

  Tsuge wondered if it had to do with someone in the executive after all. He knew there were other cases like Sakaniwa’s. It was possible that Ukai, with his reach as an assemblyman, had managed to unearth something that even Internal Affairs didn’t know about. And Ukai’s motivation was a factor to consider. The man was looking to exact revenge. He wouldn’t draw the line at exposing some past transgression and presenting it as if it were brand-new.

  At three o’clock, Shindo got to his feet. Looking off to the distance, he started to speak, quietly, as though to himself.

  “You could do worse than check in with Administration.”

  “Sorry?”

  “With the ace. It’s possible he’ll have something we don’t.”

  Tsuge watched Shindo’s diminished frame get up and leave, seeing a different side to the man as he did so. Shinji Futawatari. The ace. As part of Administration, he specialized in personnel. He also held the record for being the youngest officer to make superintendent in Prefecture D, having secured the promotion at forty. Still relatively new to Administrative Affairs, Tsuge had hardly spoken with the man. Yet he couldn’t help feeling irked whenever the name came up in conversation. What had he done to be the subject of such universal praise? Sure, he was good at what he did. But his strengths were applicable only inside the force. How, Tsuge wondered, would he fare in the outside world? His influence meant nothing in the assembly, in the halls of government. Surely the project to rebuild the headquarters, left now to gather dust for nearly three years, was a case in point.

  Tsuge was still sitting next to the pillar.

  I’ll get it moving.

  He would be the one to rally the conservatives; with Misaki at the front, he would be the one to get the stalled plan back on track. The result? He would be the first officer in the prefecture to make superintendent in his thirties, bringing him ever closer to claiming Futawatari’s position as “ace.”

  He walked back down the stairs, taking his time as he made his way along the corridor on the first floor of the main building. The door to Administration was open. A slim man with sloped shoulders sat at a desk toward the back. His peaceful, delicate features angled briefly upward. Tsuge hadn’t been ready for the sharpness in the man’s eyes.

  He’d already disregarded Shindo’s advice. The Secretariat would deal with Ukai. Futawatari’s piercing stare had done nothing to shake his resolve.

  4

  It was a little after seven when Tsuge arrived home. His apartment took up one corner of the third floor. Misuzu greeted him when he pushed on the reinforced metal door, looking anxious.

  “Darling, there’s something—”

  Tsuge pushed his way through, telling her to keep it for later. He picked up the cordless handset and shut himself in the room at the end of the hall. He was tired of her complaining. For the last month, it had been ceramics class. It was the latest obsession of the chief of administration’s wife. She looked after the local wives’ group and insisted the others join her. Misuzu hated it. She was proud of her slim fingers, which meant it was agony for her to use them to mix clay. When he’d suggested she should give it up, she’d just told him she didn’t want to be isolated. And when he’d suggested she should put up with it, she’d fallen silent, then started to tug at her hair before finally lashing out at the things around her.

  She’d been beautiful, full of a passion for life, when he’d first met her. He’d proposed on their second date. He hadn’t forgotten, even now, that he’d been obsessed with her. But she’d thinned out in the ten years since their marriage and now all she did was use him as a sounding board to vent her grievances. It was because of this that he’d begun to question the sense of his decision. Had he really wanted her? Or had he simply been excited, ten years ago, by the fact that she was a relative of his high-flying boss? Was there a part of him now that felt betrayed by witnessing the man’s decline, realizing that the gamble hadn’t paid off? Work will be work. Home will be home. He remembered having sworn to maintain the distinction, but it had all become jumbled over time. The two worlds. The two sets of emotions.

  Focus.

  Tsuge forced himself back to the present. He opened the directory listing the details of all the members of the assembly and dialed Sakuma’s number.

  “Sorry to call so late.”

  “Tsuge, right…” The assemblyman’s tone was apologetic from the start. “Sorry. I failed to get anything from Ukai. He told me it was none of my business.”

  “I see. Thank you for trying.”

  “No problem. Doesn’t look good, though, does it? It does seem as if he’s sitting on something big.”

  Tsuge smoked a few cigarettes after the call. He’d vowed never to smoke at work, whatever his stress levels. The captain had given it up, so everyone—starting with Sakaniwa and the director of Administrative Affairs—had opted to follow suit.

  He started to call the other assembly members. The conservatives had nothing. Taking a deep breath, he called an assemblyman he trusted in the opposition. Still no leads.

  He looked into the living room, still edgy, and saw that Misuzu was in the middle of getting dinner ready. She turned his way.

  “Darling, just listen.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He thought he’d been clear that he had no intention of hearing her out. Apparently ignoring this, she came over to whisper in his ear.

  “It’s Morio. He’s being bullied at school.”

  “What?”

  “They steal his satchel, leave him out of things.”

  Tsuge felt a sudden chill. He stared into his son’s room. He saw the boy, turned away, his back slouched, his small hands fiddling with the pieces of a board game.

  “Morio!”

  He’d called out before he had time to think. His eight-year-old son’s pudding-bowl haircut rotated. T
he boy looked beaten down, anxious. He was perhaps expecting his dad to be cross. Tsuge didn’t know what to say. He remembered the small town. The tiny world. For a total of nine years in primary and secondary school, Tsuge had been controlled by a boy with snake eyes. He didn’t doubt that he’d looked anxious, too, just like his son did now.

  Crush anyone who dares get in your way.

  He said nothing. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of anything suitable to say to the weak-looking reflection of himself.

  5

  Mornings were busy in the Secretariat. It was during this time of day that the various division chiefs crowded in with documents requiring the captain’s approval.

  Among them was Yoshikawa from Transport Guidance, who was acting a little jittery. Brash enough in his own division, he found himself, like many others, a little overawed when he came here. He handed the response to the question on the hit-and-run to Tsuge and left without so much as a word. Tsuge reviewed the content, then passed it on to Sakaniwa to give to the captain.

  Taking up the question he’d drafted the previous day for Misaki, Tsuge left the office.

  Only five days remained until the cabinet meeting. He would head straight for the assembly. Once there, he would see if Misaki had anything more on Ukai. Misaki had tipped him off about the “bomb.” He must have gotten the information from someone else first.

  Tsuge entered the man’s study to find him lounging on the couch, just as before, giving the impression that he hadn’t moved.

  “Tsuge, you’re early.”

  He seemed to be in high spirits. When Tsuge handed him the question sheet, he stuffed it into his briefcase without so much as a second glance, winking to show he trusted Tsuge’s work.

  “Assemblyman. The information you gave me, about Ukai—”

  “Ah yes. Did you get to the bottom of that?”

  “I was actually wondering if you had anything else that might help us.”

  “Sorry, I’ve already told you all I know.”

  “Who told you about it?”

  “Why, the man himself. He volunteered the information. Told me he was sitting on a time bomb, that it was for the police.”