Chapter 19 – 'Chikan' cop goes nuts

A BAR in a covered shopping arcade looked inviting.  A retired welder shouted his name through an open doorway.  Nakazono fought down the urge to drink.  It would take all day to get drunk enough to make the fear go away and would leave him exposed to predators.  There was a better, safer way.
    It took longer than expected to get to Kokusaidori.  His eyes on the balconies overhead, he kept banging into pedestrians.  He gave up on the direct route and zig-zagged across streets and alleys, refusing to walk below any building higher than two stories.
    The thunderous crash of martial music rocked him back on his heels.  He let the glass door swing shut and pushed through a wall of noise and cigarette smoke.  Row after row of pachinko machines roared beneath neon lights as bright and hot as the core of the sun.
    Housewives and hoodlums, bums and businessmen crammed the aisles.  They sat on short stools, shoulder-to-shoulder, back-to-back.  Most appeared drugged, a few brain dead.  All stared straight ahead, their faces less than an inch from the glass-faced machines.  Cigarettes dangled from slack lips beneath varnished eyes.  None flinched as chrome ball bearings clattered and cracked against the glass.
    Nakazono squeezed down an aisle and found a vacant stool between a hooker and a salaryman.  Ass overflowing the stool, knees jammed halfway to his chest, he bought and dumped fistfuls of balls into the feeder tray.  They bounced through a thicket of brass nails and dodged tiny airplane props.  The machine shrieked, numbers flashed red, and the balls plummeted out of sight.  He tried again and this time the machine spit out a few balls as encouragement.
    His neighbors had reached the desired state of nonexistence.  The hooker’s regrets and razor-blade memories were long gone; the salaryman sat released from obligation.  Nothing could penetrate the withering vortex of noise and numbing repetition.
    Not yet, Nakazono.  He still had a ways to go.  The hooker’s breasts were nondescript but near, her long legs angled in his direction.  He brushed against her with his elbow, feeling the scratch of lace beneath her blouse.  She twitched but didn’t blink.  He passed his elbow vigorously over her nipple and leaned down to look under her skirt.
    She’d been at it for hours, coaxing thousands of glittering balls from the machine.  They filled two plastic bins sitting on the ledge next to her purse.  Nakazono shrugged.  Her passivity was boring; a bomb could go off under her ass and she wouldn’t notice.
    There were other sights to see.  Ball girls scampered around the parlor, squeezing down the aisles when summoned by the least somnolent customers.  They cheered the winners and unclogged overworked machines.  Despite the hopes of management, few customers were in any condition to notice the girls’ slinky blue jumpers, their fishnet stockings or their glossy stiletto heels.
    The pachinko parlor worked its magic.  Nakazono forgot the girls and the hooker.  His eyes tunneled as the noise, at first battering and painful, became pure and white.  The balls whizzed round and round, banging and hammering.  His right hand gripped the accelerator like an extension of the machine.  When he ran out of coins he pushed bills into a change machine and kept playing.
    The pressure lifted, rising like smoke.  Nothing could touch him.  The voices, so hot inside his head, cooled and fell silent.  Elena and Hara, debts and death—the parlor’s soothing mania overwhelmed them all.
    He surfaced hours later, feeling purged and refreshed.  The ashtray was overflowing and his wallet lighter by seventeen-thousand yen.  Nakazono grinned.  He was no better at pachinko than mahjongg or blackjack.  But it had been worth every yen, he was thinking clearly for the first time in a week.  Plans bubbled up unbidden, each nastier than the last.
    His respite was short.  A fight broke out in the next aisle.  A woman screamed and a man shouted.  It was Fukuyama, Hara’s second-in-command.  Fukuyama never went anywhere without bodyguards.  There had to be more yakuza nearby.
    Nakazono made it out the back without being seen and started for his apartment.  Halfway home he changed his mind.  Until he could get in touch with Jiro and make his next move the neighborhood didn’t feel safe.  Hoping Hara would get over his nostalgia for lighting fires by morning, he decided to spend the night in a flophouse near Jiro’s hangout.
    It was rush hour and Ueno Station was clogged.  He pushed aboard a Hibiya Line train heading north-east just as the doors were closing.  The train surged ahead and the passengers fell back en masse.  The driver braked and the crowd tipped forward.  Nakazono listened to low moans and startled cries as commuters fore and aft were crushed by a shifting mass of bodies.
    He reached over the back of a teenager and grabbed a strap to steady himself.  Contact was unavoidable; his crotch rubbed against her ass, her apple-flavored hair caressed his lips.  The girl was in a precarious position, forced to stand between the splayed knees of a man fortunate to get a seat.
    Nakazono smiled as the man slid lower, slyly rubbing her legs with his thighs.  She tried to back up but there was no escape.  He ground his cock into her ass and breathed hot in her ear.  She fell forward until the hem of her short skirt touched the man’s chin.  He slumped even lower, content to stare goggle-eyed up her skirt.  She closed her eyes and pretended she was already home.
    Nakazono loved crowded trains.  He often rode just for fun, picking a point on the map and returning by a different route.  He never left the stations.  What was the point?  All the action was on platforms and in the cars.
    While basic mechanics militated against actually getting laid on trains, every man and not a few women thought about it incessantly.  For most it was a harmless, private way to pass the time while commuting to and from work.
    Video stores encouraged their fantasies, displaying entire shelves of porno shot inside mock-up train cars.  Nakazono never missed a new release and never tired of the format—after minimal resistance a strap-hanging woman gives in and puts out.
    Better still were flicks filmed on location aboard moving trains.  The plot remained the same but the action took place on the Yamanote, the Chuo and the Keio lines.  The extras, unpaid and unconsulted, were quite real—docile passengers too tired or frightened to move—they sat with their eyes averted.
    At the end of the cars young hipsters with wispy artistic beards gave direction to extremely beautiful women.  They grunted and sucked behind newspapers held up by yakuza in sunglasses.  Children on bikes waited at railway crossings, gawking at pink breasts flattened against windows sparkling in the sun.
    The majority of men remained disappointed dreamers.  They used fantasy to block out long painful train rides and kept their hands to themselves.  Nakazono did not belong to this group.  He was one of the many hand-roaming, loin-thrusting men who infested every train.
    The train stopped in Iriya and the girl in front of Nakazono elbowed him in the stomach and shoved her way off the train.  He shrugged off her anger and looked around for another prospect as each rider fought to reestablish territory.  A short woman in a tailored suit emerged to his left.  Their hips bumped as the train began to move.  A hint of perfume excited him.  He slid behind her to get in position.
    A clerkish man with narrow shoulders stood in the spot he wanted.  He started to bull him out of the way and stopped.  Like Nakazono, he’d been forced to reach over the woman’s back to reach a strap.  Unlike the cop, his other hand was in view, holding his briefcase to his chest.  As the train swayed and shimmied he leaned away from the woman, trying hard not to touch her with his lower body.  Nakazono let him stay where he was, he might be useful later.
    He liked her beige suit and her perfume, knowing exactly what each signified.  Leaning over her shoulder, he peeked down her blouse.  She was wearing a low-cut silver-gray bra.  It was all the confirmation he needed.  Only women hot to trot wore beige suits, perfume and silver-gray bras.
    She looked like a housewife in her mid-thirties.  He knew the type—randy broads looking for a little fun before going home to their husbands and kids.  Of course, there were a few, dykes, he figured, that resented being molested on trains.  He’d been yelled at many times and slapped twice.
    Both of the slappers had been gaijins and now he left them alone.  Japanese women were far superior—more feminine, he and his cop buddies called it.  They almost always kept their mouths shut and let men be men.  Even if they objected to being fondled—damn, he loved that word—they rarely complained, preferring to endure silently rather than call attention to themselves.
    He brushed her hip with the back of his hand and checked her reflection in the window.  She kept her head bent over a paperback and didn’t move.  The train would arrive at his station soon and he had to hurry.  He skipped the foreplay and dragged her skirt up around her waist.  His hand was busy inside her panties when she yelled for help.
    “Police!” Nakazono shouted, and grabbed the man to his left.  The woman turned as the train pulled into Kita-Senju.  She looked frightened and confused.  Nakazono flashed his shield and frog marched the clerk off the train and out of the station.
    He was still laughing when he reached a motorcycle repair shop three blocks away.  God, how he loved being a policeman.  He’d released his captive with a warning and the dimwit had actually thanked him.
    A van owned by a major TV network was parked by the curb.  The owner of the shop, a biker reformed by wife and child, was working on a pink scooter in the repair bay.  He blinked as Nakazono walked out of the sun into the cool shadows, recognized the cop and went on with his repair job.
    Jiro was in the back office examining a map with a young guy in jeans and black T-shirt.  Neither noticed Nakazono's approach and he didn’t announce his arrival.
    “Where do you want us to start, Yamaguchi-san?” Jiro asked.
    Yamaguchi pointed at the map.  “Anywhere on this section of the expressway.  Just don’t do anything until you see our van and we’ve got our camera rolling.”
    “I still don’t understand exactly what you want us to do.”
    “If I told you what to do it wouldn’t be news, would it?”  He laughed.  “Just be yourselves.”
    Jiro shook his head.  “Can’t you give me some idea of what you expect?  You’re paying us good money and I don’t want any complaints later.”
    “It wouldn’t be ethical to have you work from a script.  Why don’t you just tell me what you and your friends would normally do?”
    Jiro grinned.  “How’s this sound.  First, we would weave our bikes in and out of traffic and scare the shit out of everybody.”
    Yamaguchi nodded happily.  After the land speculator in Asakusa had been snuffed on camera, hints that the network’s execs wanted more live violence had worked their way down the chain of command.  With this punk’s help he was going to give them exactly what they wanted.  “And then what would you do?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Jiro sighed.  “It would depend on our mood.  Maybe just make a lot of noise and then go home.”
    “That’s it?”  Yamaguchi looked disappointed.
    “Wait, hold it a minute.  Like I said, it depends on our mood.  Sometimes we surround a car and terrorize the occupants.  You know, windows get smashed, doors get kicked in, shit like that.”
    “You think you might be in that kind of mood tomorrow night?”
    “We can be in any kind of mood you want, Yamaguchi-san.”
    The TV producer folded up the map and shoved it in his jeans.  “There’s just one more thing.  I don’t want anybody physically injured, is that clear?”
    “Sure, no problem.  But your film is gonna be pretty boring without some ass-kicking.”
    The shithead was right.  If it bleeds it leads—the network wanted to see blood.  He tried to figure out a way to make everybody happy.  It was too risky to set up a real assault, it would be his ass if word got out.  He put his arm around Jiro’s shoulders.  “I think you’re right, it needs a little more punch.  Hypothetically speaking, what would you do if a member of my team jumped out of the van and tried to stop you?”
    Jiro shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Go away?  Nothin’?”
    “Let me put it another way.  What if a complete stranger messed with you?”
    “We’d break his head.”
    Yamaguchi smiled.  “Good, that’s more like it.  Now, what would you do if a complete stranger who just happened to be working for me messed with you?”
    Jiro slapped his hand on the desk.  “Whoa, I get it.  You want us to fuck with one of your guys.  Hey, that’s really cool.”
    “I didn’t say that, I didn’t even think it.  Right?”
    “Yeah, right.  But why would anybody be dumb enough to try and be a hero if they knew we were supposed to beat their ass?”
    “Who knows?  My assistant always listens to what I tell him.  Maybe my advice won’t be so good this time.  Everybody makes mistakes.”
    Nakazono stepped into the office and tapped Jiro on the shoulder.  “They certainly do.”
    Jiro jumped.  “Lieutenant!  Uhh, how long you been standing there?”
    “Long enough.  Aren’t you going to introduce us?”
    “Yeah, sure.”  He turned to Yamaguchi.  “This is Lieutenant Nakazono of the Asakusa police.”
    Unfazed by the intrusion, Yamaguchi fished a business card from his wallet and bowed.  “Glad to meet you, Lieutenant.  You saw my van out front?”
    Nakazono nodded.  “Yeah, and I know a criminal conspiracy when I hear one.”
    “Not everything is quite like it sounds,” Yamaguchi said.
    “Is that so?”
    “Yes, and I’d be honored to get together with you to explain what I mean.”
    Nakazono sat on the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette.  “You work for a company with very large resources...”
    “I certainly do and I could bring some of these resources with me for explanation purposes, if you think that might make things clearer.”
    “I think that’s an excellent idea.”
    Yamaguchi bowed again.  “It’s always a pleasure to do business with the police.  You’ll be hearing from me very soon.”
    As the TV van pulled away from the curb, Jiro grabbed a couple of beers from a refrigerator under a rack of tires.  He looked more confident than the last time Nakazono had seen him.
    “You’re going into show business, huh, punk?”  He popped open a Kirin.
    “Yeah, and I’m gonna be a star.”  He laughed and when Nakazono didn’t join him, hesitated.  “I mean, that’s OK with you, isn’t it?”
    Nakazono was feeling magnanimous.  The pachinko and the train ride had made a new man out of him.  “Sure no problem.  We’re both going to get something out of it.”
    Jiro relaxed.  “How come you’re here?  You got another job for me?”
    “Yeah.  I need you to hit the same place again but this time with a little more, uhh, what’d that producer call it?”
    “Punch?”