Crazy Noise

Chapter 22 — Torturing Manny

HELEN FELT the muzzle of the gun and jerked.  The bullet went into the macadam and she rolled under the truck.  She heard Nakazono curse, his breath rasping in his throat.  His shoes scraped across the pavement and he groaned as he leaned down, peering under the truck.  Helen scurried back into the darkness, away from the wavering muzzle of the revolver.  His eyes would adjust any second and that would be the end.
    A shout turned her head.  And then another.  First Sam, then May.  Feet running toward her, feet running away.  When she looked back the gun was gone.

    First light, with May, once again, peaceful in her bed.
    Six stories below, a seventy-year-old cook emptied his slop outside the Chinese restaurant and kicked at a dog.  It snarled and backed away.
    The temple gate had just opened across the street.  An old woman rang the offering bell.  It rattled dull and tired, as if bored with her tedious prayers for the dead.  The bell pleaded for the sun to warm its copper and for a supplicant of greater originality.
    The cook wiped his hands on his whites and grinned at Helen.  Traffic noise from Kokusaidori drowned out his greeting.  Afraid to step away from the safety of the sidewalk, he waved.  She nodded and gave him a weak smile.
    It would have been good to talk to Helen, to tell her he was sorry, but there were too many cops.  Cops made his head ache and upset his stomach.  He retreated into the restaurant, let the door swing shut and counted the uniforms.  He lost track at nine and started again.  They crawled over the street, measuring and drawing arcane symbols on the macadam.  One circled shattered bricks on the building in yellow chalk, another photographed skid marks from half a dozen angles.
    So many cops.  The cook grimaced.  He wondered if it was because he was old and naturally more timid.  It seemed like there were more cops these days.  Certainly they were taller and stronger.  Everywhere he went, everywhere he looked, he saw them.  They saw him, too, staring as he walked by, fingering their radios and guns and clubs.  They watched everybody, peering in innocent windows, knocking on blameless doors.
    The macadam was rapidly filling with chalk and beginning to look like a child’s drawing.  The cook laughed.  If they weren’t so dangerous, the cops would be funny.  Scurrying, whispering, trying so hard to look busy.  Only the dumbest crooks had ever tripped over their chalk, none had been lassoed by their measuring tapes.
    If real detective work was an alien concept, oppression was well understood.  People toed the line in a city with a cop under every bed.  The cook watched Helen standing in the middle of the street talking to Nakazono’s sergeant.  The cop stood close, glaring at her.  He couldn’t hear through the window glass but he knew the voice would be rough and angry.
    “I already told you,” Helen said.  “I didn’t see his face.  He was wearing a mask.”
    “Then what makes you think it was Lt. Nakazono?  It could have been anybody.  You shouldn’t make accusations without proof.  This is Japan.  You gaijins think you can do anything.”  He took a step forward, forcing Helen to back up.  “Unless you’ve got some real evidence you’d better shut up and mind your own business.”
    Helen turned her back and walked away.  The cop was an idiot but he was right about one thing.  She’d better shut up.  One more word and there was a good chance he’d drag her down to the station.
    Ten feet away her temper flared.  This asshole wasn’t taking her seriously.  Twice she’d almost been killed.  First by Jiro and then by Nakazono.  Sam was wrong.  She hadn’t been brave.  She’d been stupid, absolutely crazy to chase after him.  But it had happened so fast and she’d been so angry.
    She whirled and shouted, resorting to English.  “Look it, you jerk, I know it was Nakazono.  I could smell him, I looked him right in the eye.  He shot at me for Christ’s sake.  Everybody in the neighborhood heard it.”  She waved at the patrolmen.  “Instead of scribbling all over the street, why don’t you check his gun?  Why don’t you at least see if he was hurt last night, you dumb motherfucker?”
    Helen took a step toward the sergeant.  He shouted and his hand went to his club.  Sam jumped between them.  She bit her tongue and crossed the street, watching angrily as Sam tried to mollify the cop.  He bowed, he scraped.  He humiliated himself to keep her safe.  The sergeant shouted until he regained his face.  Sam took the abuse meant for Helen.
    She couldn’t watch anymore.  Clouds caught her eye.  Impetuous, early morning risers, they wouldn’t last.  They didn’t have the strength to face the sun.  The cop turned, yelled orders at his men, jumped in his patrol car and drove off.  Helen felt as weak as the clouds.  Sam walked into the temple and sat on a stone bench.  He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes.  She watched and wanted to cry.  The night had been too long, the morning too painful.
    An hour later, the last of the police had disappeared and the cook finally relaxed.  He stepped across the empty street and rang the temple bell.  It sounded loud and clear, happy with the hot sun and cook’s prayer for the living.
    Sam watched as Helen poured out two cups of coffee.  “You didn’t tell them about the guy that attacked you at the station.”
    She shook her head.  “There wasn’t any reason.  He’s dead.  It’d only get those bums in trouble.  It wasn’t their fault.  If they’d let him live he would have come back and hurt them.”
    “Are you sure it was one of the kids that attacked me and Manny?”
    “Absolutely.  He was as close to me as I am to you right now.”  Her hands shook as she picked up the cup.  She carefully set it back down as a tear slid down her cheek.  “God, Sam, the way he died...”
    Helen lowered her hands to the counter, resting her cheek on her arms.  Her blonde hair flowed over the counter, hiding her eyes.  Sam watched her cry, reached out and hesitantly touched her shoulder.  Helen leaned back and stroked his cheek.  “I’m sorry I yelled at that cop,” she whispered.  “You’re the brave one, not me.  I know how much that cost you.  I won’t forget, I promise.”
    He pulled her close and held on tight.  “And I’m sorry for just about everything.  I was scared and stupid.  I really do need a friend.  Please don’t leave.”

    “Please tell me how to say hanabi in English.”
    “Fireworks,” Manny translated, his mouth full of toast.  “How come?”
    His landlady smiled.  “Are you going to enjoy the fireworks, Manny-san?”
    He chased the toast with hot green tea.  “What fireworks?”
    Composing her sentence had exhausted Nobuyo Kojima and she switched to Japanese.  “The Sumidagawa fireworks.  It’s the best in Tokyo.  Millions of people come to Asakusa to watch every year.  You should go.”
    Manny nodded.  “Maybe I will.  When is it?”
    “In a few weeks.”
    “Are you going?”
    “Of course.  I always go.  Maybe we can go together?”
    A sharp knock on the door brought a frown to the old lady’s face.  “Too early in the morning to be so noisy and rude.”  She started to get to her feet.
    “I’ll get it,” Manny said, padding across the tatami in his socks.  “You finish your breakfast Kojima-san.  It’s probably one of those newspaper subscription guys.  I’ll get rid of him.”
    Nobuyo munched on a piece of seaweed, happy she’d chosen her boarder so wisely.  Her warm thoughts were brought to an abrupt halt by shouts from the entryway.
    Thin wooden slats splintered and paper shredded.  Manny’s body flew through the delicate shoji screen separating the living room from the hallway.  He landed face down on the tatami and slid across the floor.
    Nakazono jumped through the shoji and kicked Manny in the side as he tried to get to his feet.  He ignored the old woman’s screams and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.
    “Get out, get out,” Nobuyo cried, crawling across the tatami to help.  “What are you doing?  Leave us alone.  We haven’t done anything.”  She flailed at Nakazono, trying to make him stop.
    The cop slapped her down, shouting that Manny was under arrest for robbery.  She didn’t listen and charged again.  He hit her harder, driving her head into the low breakfast table.  She collapsed on the floor and lay stunned.  Nakazono dragged Manny from the room.  Green tea ran off the edge of the table and poured down the front of her purple kimono.  Helpless tears filled her eyes.

    May paced across the floor and shouted for the tenth time.  “We’ve got to do something.”
    Helen held an ice pack to a bruise on Nobuyo’s forehead and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor, Kojima-san?  It wouldn’t hurt to have it checked.”
    Nobuyo pushed her hand away and shook her head.  “I’m OK.”  She looked at May.  “Sit down, young lady.  You’re making me nervous and you’re not helping Manny at all.”
    May started to object.  “But we can’t just—”
    Sam set down the phone, picked up his sister and plunked her down in the booth across from Helen and Nobuyo.  “She’s right, May.  You’ve got to try and be calm.  We’ll get Manny out, I promise.”
    “What did Nakazono say?”
    “I couldn’t get through to him.  The desk sergeant said Manny’s being held for questioning.  That Seven-Eleven on the next block was robbed last night.  They said he did it.”
    “Bullshit.  It’s just another one of Nakazono’s—”
    May leaped out of the booth and raced for the door.  “No way!”
    The door slammed and Sam raised his hands in frustration.  “God knows what she might do.  I’d better go after her.”
    Helen shook her head.  “She’ll be all right.  She isn’t going to do anything to crazy.  Maybe we should call the Philippine Embassy.  They might be able to help.”
    “I’ve already called them.  They said they’d look into it but they didn’t sound very hopeful.  The cops can hold anybody without bail or arraignment for twenty-three days.  No records are kept.”
    “Why three weeks?”
    “I guess it gives the prisoner enough time to confess.  If he doesn’t, the cops think they haven’t done their job.  The conviction rate is ninety-nine percent.  Only guilty people are tried or so it would seem.”
    “What about your lawyer.”
    “I’ll call her but don’t get your hopes up.  Lawyers are barred from interrogations.  The prisoners are on their own.”
    May rushed back into the club just as Sam hung up the phone.  “I knew it,” she yelled.  “I talked to the owner of the store.  Maejima-san said she doesn’t know who the robber was.  The guy was wearing one of those big motorcycle helmets.  She told the cops that he sounded gaijin but she wasn’t even sure of that.  She was real mad at the police.  They kept trying to get her to swear the robber was Filipino and when she wouldn’t do it, they were really rude.”
    Sam pulled May into the booth.  “Well, kid, I think it may be time to give Nakazono what he wants.  What do you think?”
    May looked confused.  “You mean he arrested Manny just to get you to sell the building?  Can he really do that?”
    Sam nodded.  “Cops can do almost anything.  Look how many times we’ve reported him and nothing has happened.  Helen is sure he was driving the truck last night, but it doesn’t matter.  We don’t have any proof.  Nobody is going to take our word for anything.”
    “So he wins?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where would we live?”
    “Anywhere you want.  We could buy another house somewhere in the neighborhood or move across town.”
    May closed her eyes and leaned against Sam.  She didn’t understand what had gone wrong.  They’d taken her mother away, they’d hurt all her friends.  Bad things happened every day.  If she stayed they’d take it all away, they’d never stop.
    Sam knew he’d failed his sister.  He couldn’t protect her.  It was as simple as that.  He looked at Helen.  She read his thoughts and shook her head.  “It’s not your fault.  You did the best you could.  She’s getting older.  She see things now.  It would have happened even if your mother was here.”
    May opened her eyes and sat up straight.  She announced her decision.  “We can’t live here anymore.  We don’t fit in and they’ll hurt us.”
    Helen asked, “Where do you want to live.”
    May wiped away a tear.  “California?”
    Sam and Helen groaned.
    “But it’s negotiable,” May offered quickly.  “Anywhere is OK as long as you come, too.”
    “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Helen smiled, looking at Sam.  “Is that all right with you?”
    Nobuyo interrupted before he could answer.  “What’s going on?  Speak Japanese.  I don’t understand.”
    May explained and the old lady frowned.  “So I won’t see you again.”
    “Sure you will.  Flying is fun.  You can come and visit all the time.  My brother will pay for your ticket.  It’ll be great.”
    “But what about Manny?  How are you going to get him out of jail?”
    “I’m going to sell the building to Nakazono.  There’s nothing else we can do.  He’ll let Manny go as soon as I sign the papers.”
    “Wait a minute,” Helen said.  “I’ve got an idea.  I think there’s a way to get Manny released without giving in to that asshole.”  She quickly laid out her plan, making much of it up as she went along.
    “I love it!” May yelled before she could finish.  She crawled over Sam and ran to the phone.  “Hey, what are you guys waiting for?  Let’s get to work.  Nakazono is going to be totally surprised!”

    Manny’s cell was nine feet deep and four feet wide.  There was no window, toilet, sink or bed.  There was nothing but a rotting tatami floor, a rusty vent high in the ceiling and a naked light bulb.  Manny sat cross-legged in the center of the tatami.  He didn’t move.  Prisoners were required to sit motionless for sixteen hours a day and reflect on their crimes.
    This was all new to Manny.  He’d learned the hard way.  A jailer had kicked him in the head when he’d found Manny stretched out on his back.  After two hours he’d asked to be taken to the toilet.  His request had been refused and an hour later he’d asked for a sip of water.  This, too, had been denied.
    A bug crawled out of the tatami, over his naked foot and started to meander up his calf.  He flicked it off and watched another take its place.  A pair of young cops had taken him from Nakazono, roughed him up, and thrown him in the cell.  They’d laughed when he’d asked what he was charged with.
    The light overhead was so bright it hurt his eyes.  He knew without asking that it would be left on twenty-four-hours a day.  Food was out of the question as was the use of a telephone.  His bladder hurt and it was terribly hot in the cell.  He could feel sweat run down the back of his shirt and soak into his trousers.  It would get worse as the summer sun rose higher in the sky.  For the first time, he thought of dying.  There were many ways they could kill him but the easiest would be to let him die of thirst.
    Think positively, he told himself.  He wouldn’t be much use to Nakazono dead.  It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that he was just being used by the cop to get to Sam.
    Patrolman Takahashi opened the cell door.  Middle-aged, bespectacled and bald, he was mildly retarded.  Due to his handicap he had never been promoted and was rarely allowed into contact with the public.  He kept the station clean, assisted in interrogations and never asked questions.
    Takahashi shoved Manny out the door and pushed him down a corridor at the back of the Asakusa police station.  Prisoners, many of them held without trial for months, were kept well out of sight of the public.
    The interrogation room was larger than the cells but not much.  There was a metal desk and two chairs.  The walls were beige and the linoleum on the floor a scuffed and dirty gray.  The only window was tarred with years of cigarette smoke and nearly opaque.  It looked out on an alley and a gray wall made of cement blocks.  The window was covered with steel mesh.  A poster next to the window featured a pretty teenage girl exhorting citizens to donate blood.
    Takahashi pushed Manny into a straight-backed chair bolted to the floor.  He pulled lengths of rope from the desk and tied his wrists to the arms of the chair, his ankles to the chair legs.
    Nakazono entered and locked the door behind him.  He didn’t look at Manny or the jailer as he sat down behind the desk.  Takahashi coughed discretely, tightened Manny’s restraints and stood in a corner at parade rest.
    If Manny felt like a dead man, Nakazono looked like one.  He watched as the cop rooted around in the desk, muttering to himself.  He pulled out a first-aid kit and a woman’s silver make-up mirror.  His impact with the dump truck’s steering wheel had left a deep gash over his left eye.  Dried blood stained an insufficient gauze bandage.  The surrounding socket was yellow going on purple.  His lips were bruised crimson, split and swollen.  The skin on the rest of his face was loose and greasy white beneath a week’s black beard stubble.  He looked like a dead clown prettied up by a drunken undertaker.
    Takahashi’s eyes rolled back in his head.  It was a sign that he was nervous and worried.  Something in the room smelled bad.  It wasn’t shit or piss, smells he was used to during interrogations.  He leaned forward and sniffed at the Filipino.  Nothing there, just an average fear-smell, an odor Takahashi was accustomed to and liked.  Intrigued, he forgot what little he knew and crept up on his boss.  He had his nose buried in Nakazono’s collar and was closing in on the source of the scent before the lieutenant noticed.
    Nakazono dropped a pair of tweezers and shouted, “What are you doing, you idiot?”
    Takahashi muttered an apology and retreated to the corner.  Manny twisted in his seat, looked back and shuddered.  All he could see were the whites of the jailer's eyes.
    Nakazono stared at Manny.  His voice was low and weak.  “Do you believe in ghosts?”  He repeated the question, almost pathetically.
    Manny kept his face neutral.  What kind of an interrogation was this?  The cop was serious and seemed to expect an answer.  No, I don’t, he thought, but it looks like you do.
    “Yes,” he answered gravely.  When Nakazono winced, he added, “I saw one a few days ago.  It was, uhh, a terrible experience...”
    Takahashi couldn’t stand it any longer.  The boss had always been such a tiger.  Now he was acting like a rabbit.  He tried to get the interrogation back on track.  He pointed at Manny and asked, “The usual?”
    Nakazono nodded absently and slumped back in his chair.  It didn't matter, nothing did anymore.  He was convinced Elena was going to kill him.  He’d been nearly hysterical when he’d dragged the Filipino down to the station.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time.  He’d figured Elena would leave him alone.  The guy wasn’t a relative or anything.  After last night, he didn’t dare go anywhere near the Crazy Noise or her kids.
    A bubble of sanity floated behind his eyes; he jerked, trying to catch it.  Stop this.  That wasn’t a ghost.  You got a good look at her.  It was that Canadian bitch.  Calm down and think.  You’ve still got a chance; you’re still alive.  If the Sumiyoshi-kai wanted you dead they would have already done you.  Don’t fuck this up.
    Takahashi moaned.  “Please boss.  What do you want me to do first?  The ears or the head?”
    Nakazono already had a headache.  He didn’t think he could stand the noise the ear treatment required.  It involved screaming in a prisoner’s ears until they bled.  It was terribly painful but didn’t leave any marks.
    He opened a drawer and removed a Tokyo phone book.  It was at least six-inches thick.  “The head,” he ordered.  “Work on the head first.”
    Takahashi nearly leaped across the room in eagerness.  He snatched the phone book off the desk and brought it down on Manny’s head with all his strength.
    After the third blow Manny wondered how much damage his spine could take.  By the fifth he remembered he still didn’t know what crime he’d committed.  He would have been happy to confess if someone had only filled him in on the details.  No one did and the seventh blow knocked him unconscious.

Chapter 23 — Jail break

HELEN AND MAY marshaled their forces in the club shortly after dawn Thursday.  Chieko was the first to arrive.  She’d just ushered out the last drunk karaoke singer and showed up with three of her bargirls drafted for the occasion.  They slithered in the door laughing.  Skirts too short, hair too wild—their bangles, their bracelets jangled.  They crossed the floor and flowed into a booth.  Helen smiled.  The girls were highly picturesque.
    Kiyomi was next.  As ordered, she wore her school uniform as did May.  Both had complained but Helen had insisted.  Four similarly clad kids, two boys and two girls, arrived a few minutes later.  All had been bribed.  May had won their hearts with the free use of the club’s video games for two weeks.
    Helen set everybody to work making signs and banners.  Sam served donuts and coffee and tried to stay out of the way.  His lawyer, Rie Matsushita, walked in a few minutes after seven.  A tall stately woman in her mid-fifties, she wore a dubious expression and a suit by Anne Taylor.  Sam offered a donut and a smile.  “Thanks for coming.  How about some coffee?”
    She took a cup and surveyed the club.  The kids and the bargirls had poster boards and paint spread all over the stage.  “I admire your enthusiasm but I don’t think this is going to work.  The police are stubborn and conservative.  They’re unlikely to give in even if they know they’ve made a mistake.  Nakazono’s superiors will do everything they can to protect him.”
    He shrugged.  “It’s worth a try.  We’ve got nothing to lose.”
    “Maybe.  At any rate, it’s unlikely the police will get too rough with women and children.”
    Nobuyo Kojima was the next to arrive.  She held the door open for the neighborhood’s oldest resident, Kimiko Nakamura.  Both ladies were wearing their best kimonos, tabi socks and zori.  They were the picture of propriety and contrasted serenely with the noisy bargirls and kids.
    May rushed up.  “Nakamura-san, I didn’t know you were coming.  It’s nice to see you.”  She covered up her surprise and led the women to a booth.  She hadn’t called Nakamura-san because of her age.  Walking was difficult, marching in a protest had seemed too much to ask.
    “Why didn’t you let me know?” Kimiko asked.  “I wouldn’t have heard about this if Kojima-san hadn’t called.”  She patted her friend’s hand.  “You don’t think I’m too old for neighborhood activities, do you, May-chan?”
    “Of course you’re not too old, Nakamura-san, but this isn’t exactly a regular activity.  It’s not like we’ll be picking up trash around the neighborhood.  It might be dangerous.”  Her eyes brightened.  “We might even get arrested.”  It was a possibility she clearly relished.
    “Then you won’t let me go?” Kimiko asked, sinking lower in the booth.  Tiny when sitting erect, she nearly disappeared in her disappointment.
    “Watch out, she’s going to cry,” Nobuyo warned.
    May hesitated and relented.  She could have Sam take care of the ladies.  Age was still respected and their presence would be a big help.
    Sam arrived with green tea and cookies.  “Kojima-san and Nakamura-san are going with us,” she announced.  “It’s going to be your job to keep them safe.  Think you can handle the assignment?”
    “It’ll be my pleasure.”
    Kimiko pointed at the activity on stage.  “What are they doing?”
    May explained that everyone would carry a sign demanding Manny be freed.  It took a long time for Kimiko to grasp the possibility of wrongful arrest and before May was finished she’d dozed off.
    Nobuyo pried a cookie loose from her hand and rearranged her shawl.  “She’s tired.  It took her great-granddaughter two hours to get her into her kimono this morning.”
    “Will you explain the rest when she wakes up?”
    “I’ll try, but it really isn’t necessary.  I’m sure whatever you’ve got planned is fine with her.  She’s too old to be afraid of anything.  She just doesn’t want to be left out.”
    “I’m not afraid, either,” May boasted.
    “Of course, you’re not.  I’d be surprised if you were.  The very young and the very old have a lot in common, May-chan.  Didn’t you know that?”
    “I never thought about it.”
    “No one ever does.  We’re old before we know it.  It sneaks up on us.”
    “I’ll never be old.”
    “How are you going to manage that?”
    “I’m going to die young.  I bet I don't make it to thirty.”
    Nobuyo laughed and put her arm around the girl.  “I said the same thing when I was your age but I’m still here.”
    “I’m different.”
    “Not that different, dear.  You’re a Japanese woman.”
    “So what?”
    “That means you’re going to live a long, long time.  You’d better get used to the idea.”
    “But—”
    “You can’t change the way things are, May-chan.”  Nobuyo sipped her tea, remembering when she was a schoolgirl.  She’d measured the future in minutes, not decades.
    “Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
    “Hardly.  There are days when I look forward to it.  When I was a teenager, I was just like you.  I couldn’t even imagine being old and wrinkled and weak.  No matter what anybody says, nobody likes being old very much.  Unfortunately, we don’t have any choice.”
    May was sorry she’d asked so many questions.  “But you’re doing OK.  Your health is good and you seem happy.”
    “Being an old person isn’t half as bad as I’d thought it would be.  Luckily, I’ve always been able to find somebody around whose even older.  They’re the old ones, I always think, not me.  It wasn’t until I was about forty that I realized something you still can’t understand—that life isn’t unlimited and that I was certainly going to die.”
    “Sounds pretty scary.”
    Nobuyo nodded.  “A little bit, I suppose, but the real scary part came just a little later when I realized that I was going to live.  The option of dying young wasn’t realistic.  I had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to get old.”
    “Was it hard?”
    “Yes, but the most difficult part came even later.  I had to accept the fact that not only was I was going to get old, but I was going to be old for a very, very long time.  I think it’s both a curse and a blessing to be a Japanese woman.  We live forever, you know.”
    Nobuyo nodded at Kimiko.  “Look at her.  She’s ninety-seven.  She was already old forty years ago.  Some people don’t even live that long.  She’s seen so much, things you can’t even imagine.”
    “That doesn’t sound so bad,” May whispered.
    “It’s not.  That’s the good part.”
    “So what’s the bad part?”
    Nobuyo sighed.  “Being alone, I think.  The men always leave.  Either they just go away or they die.  They always take the easy way out.  I’m eighty-three and I’ve been a widow for nearly thirty years.  My husband was a good man but sometimes I get angry with him for leaving me alone for such a terribly long time.”
    “I’m part gaijin,” May said.  “Maybe I won’t get so old?”
    Nobuyo laughed and hugged her.  “Don’t worry, honey.  You’re not going to get old today or even tomorrow.  Life gives you plenty of time to get accustomed to the idea.”
    Helen called everybody to the center of the club for a final briefing.
    “Remember our job is to get Manny out of jail.  That means we might have to get arrested ourselves.  If there’s anybody that doesn’t think they can do that, it might be best if you stayed here.  We won’t hold it against you.”
    The kids looked at each other and laughed.  They were as fearless as Chieko and her troopers.  Nobuyo Kojima stood tough and determined.  By her side, Kimiko Nakamura looked slightly confused.  She raised her doll-like hands into the air.  “Banzai, banzai,” she shouted.  “Banzai!”
    Helen laughed and looked at Nobuyo.  “Does she know what we’re doing?”
    “Don’t worry about it,” Nobuyo shrugged.  “She’s having fun.”
    Helen continued with her battle plan.  “OK, like I said, we want to get arrested.  But we don’t want anybody to get hurt.  If the cops attack, just lie down and let them drag you away.  You got that May?”
    “Sure.  Why are you looking at me?”
    “Because I don’t trust you.  I don’t want any kicking, punching or biting.  Is that clear?”
    May winked at Sam.  “Yes, Helen.  I promise to control myself.”

    Hiroshi was waiting in front of the Asakusa Police Station as promised.  He’d been very successful in mustering the Tokyo media.  Network camera crews stood in groups drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups while print journalists and photographers formed their own contingent a few yards away.
    “Well, what do you think?” Helen asked, pointing at the protesters as they hefted their signs and began to chant.
    Her ex-boyfriend smiled.  “I don’t know if you’re going to be able to get your friend out of jail but the networks are going to love it.  You’re a very photogenic group.  Those old women are a great touch.”  He pointed across the street.  “See anybody you recognize?”
    A photographer for the Washington Post was standing next to the bureau chief for the Oregonian.  A pretty reporter for the L.A. Times laughed as an older man, NBC Radio’s Tokyo voice, told a joke.  The correspondent for London’s Economist sniffed and pretended he didn’t understand the punch line.
    Helen knew all of them slightly.  She nodded.  “No matter what happens, I owe you.  You’ve really done a great job getting all these people here.”
    He waved away her thanks.
    “Is there anything we should do?”
    He shook his head.  “Not really.  You told them not to fight back if the police try to make arrests, didn’t you?”
    Helen nodded.
    “Then I think you’ve got it just about right.  Make sure your people give interviews to anyone that wants one.”
    A crowd was already gathering to watch.  Tousle-haired housewives stood on balconies, husbands paused on their way to the station.  Little boys on bicycles ignored their parents’ commands and peddled furiously toward the scene.  Their toddler sisters bounced on the handlebars.  They giggled and screeched and rang bicycle bells.
    Kimiko Nakamura carried no sign.  They were all too heavy.  She felt left out and when a patrolmen peeked out of the station door she flung her arms in the air.  “Banzai!  Banzai!”
    The husbands smiled, the wives laughed.  The toddlers screeched louder and cameras clicked and rolled.  Three Tokyo stations opened live feeds to the scene, interrupting regular programming on morning gossip shows.  Hiroshi walked away from Helen and took out his notebook.
    A flock of reporters descended on the police station as the protesters yelled and shook their fists.  The cop ducked back inside and slammed the door in their faces.  They stared through the glass and shouted, demanding information on the prisoner, Manuel Ramos of Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines.  The policeman managed to look surprised, besieged and offended all at the same time.  He fell away from the window as a battery of strobes flashed and captured his anger for twenty-five million afternoon readers.
    Word spread through the neighborhood as the police hunkered down in their fortress.  New recruits swelled the ranks of the protesters.  Noriko Maejima, owner of the store that had been robbed, grabbed an extra sign and waved it angrily.  She liked Manny and wanted him freed, but more importantly, the police had been rude to her.  A camera crew quickly homed in on her round honest face and nodded sympathetically as she recounted her ordeal.
    Across the country, ten million equally sympathetic housewives nodded and exclaimed, “What a pity.”  Less than a million actually picked up the phone.  It was more than enough.  Fiber-optic cables swelled and relays inside the National Police Agency chittered in fear.  On a dozen floors, in a hundred private offices, senior police officials tried to soothe their angry wives.  Threats of cold dinners, cold baths and warm beers rang in their ears.  They replaced telephone receivers as if they were cobras and buried their heads in their hands.
    On the tippy-top of the building, in an expansive corner office, the NPA chief sighed and pressed a buzzer on his desk.  His adjutant was instantly through the double oak doors, striding across yards of deep blue carpet.  His captain’s uniform was custom tailored, his hair a work of art.  The shine on his shoes was rumored to have permanently blinded three coworkers.
    In contrast, Japan’s top cop was a rumpled old man.  He’d served as a junior lieutenant with the secret police in Manchuko during the Pacific War and only MacArthur’s intervention had saved him from a war-crimes tribunal.  The general had used him and hundreds of others in a crackdown on suspected communists and union radicals in the early 1950s.
    “Have you been following this?”  He waved at a bank of TVs, all broadcasting live from Asakusa.
    The adjutant settled into a chair and nodded.  He checked to ensure he hadn’t creased his trousers.  “I’ve already taken action to diffuse the situation, sir.”
    The chief shook his head.  “The only action we’re going to take is ignore it until it goes away.  I want you to order the officers in Asakusa to stay inside the station until that mob gets tired and goes home.  There will be no press releases or briefings of any kind.  I’ll have the ass of anybody that speaks to the media.  Is that clear?”
    “But, sir—”
    The chief stared his adjutant into silence.  “I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it.  I don’t care if it’s a whole new ball game out there and I don’t give a shit about bad publicity.  Somebody has to draw the line somewhere.  Those human rights assholes can take over the rest of the world but they’re not going to get away with it here.  That Filipino is going to be treated just like a Japanese.”
    “But, sir—”
    The chief rose from his seat and leaned over the desk.  “Are you having trouble hearing me, Naganuma?  My orders are very clear.  We release no one.  We admit to nothing.”
    “I’m afraid...”  The adjutant shifted in his seat and nodded helplessly at the TVs.
    The announcers’ voices were different but the picture was the same.  Cameras panned the crowd, offering glimpses of happy, expectant faces.  They cut to the front of the station.  The door opened and a thin, middle-aged man with brown skin walked out.  He was limping and his face was bruised.  The announcers fell silent, allowing the cheers of the crowd to the tell the story.  He fell into the arms of a little girl in a sailor suit.  Tears were clearly visible on her cheeks.
    “They let him go,” the chief roared.
    “Yes, sir, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.  I ordered his release twenty minutes ago.  I thought it would be best to accept our losses and—”
    “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
    The adjutant stood up and defended himself.  He was tired of the old days and the old ways.  He’d tried to do the right thing and wasn’t going to be bullied any longer.  His courage was a surprise and once unleashed it grew and grew.  “Sir, I believe I’ve saved the agency a great deal of negative publicity both here and abroad.”
    The chief fell onto a sofa and sighed.  He was too old to fight much longer.  Things were changing too fast.  He couldn’t believe he was hearing such words from the mouth of a Japanese police officer.  The probability that there were more just like him was appalling.  “Who are we going to blame?” he asked softly.
    Naganuma smiled.  He’d won.  “Everything has been taken care of, sir.  I’ve scheduled a press conference for you at thirteen-hundred hours.  You will announce that the officer in charge of the Asakusa station has been relieved of duty pending investigation and possible criminal proceedings.”
    The chief’s eyes fell shut as he retreated into the years.  “What’s for lunch?” he whispered, as Naganuma left the room.  “Do you think I could have Chinese?”

Chapter 24 — Nakazono's demons

THE FRONT door stood open.  It offered a sky pink with sunset and a summer breeze like a celebration on the skin.
    Chieko’s girls danced and danced, their eyes blazing with the light of victory.  Laughter defied gravity; they orbited slower dancers like overheated planets and brushed their backs with tender hands.
    Kids crowded the arcade games while Chieko slipped coins in the Wurlitzer.  She threaded her way through the dancers and took a seat at the bar.
    “Another beer?” May asked.
    “No, thanks.  I’ve had enough.  How about some coffee?”
    Kiyomi poured out a cup and pushed it over the bar.  “What’s wrong?  You should drink like everybody else.”
    She shook her head.  “Too tired.  I have to open the bar in a few minutes.  What I really need is some sleep.”
    “You can’t go,” May complained.  “The party is just getting good.”  She nodded at Chieko’s employees.  “Your girls are having fun.”
    “They’re not the only ones, I think.  Does your brother know you’ve been drinking?”
    May threw up her hands and backed away from the bar.  “Who, me?”
    “And her,” she nodded at Kiyomi, as the girl handed half a dozen beers over the bar to Noriko Maejima and her housewife cronies.
    May looked aghast.  “Kiyomi-chan, you haven’t been sneaking beer again, have you?”
    “Of course not,” she burped.  “I’m too young.”
    “Well, just don’t let your brother catch you,” Chieko warned.
    May leaned across the bar and whispered.  “What gave us away?  How did you know?”
    Chieko laughed.  “You should take a look at yourselves.”
    The girls grinned into the long mirror behind the bar.  Kiyomi’s face was strawberry red, May’s a deepening rose.  They screamed in mock horror and covered their faces with their hands.
    “You look really drunk!” Kiyomi accused.
    “You, too!”
    “How much have you had?” Chieko asked.
    “A lot!” the girls laughed.
    “How much is a lot?”
    “A whole can.”  They looked proud of themselves.
    “Well, that is a lot,” Chieko agreed.  “One whole can each.  I’m impressed.”
    “Uhh, not exactly,” May admitted.  “We shared it and she couldn’t even finish her half.  What a lightweight.”
    “I did, too.  You’re the one that—”
    “They look very happy, don’t you think?” Chieko said, changing the subject.  The girls didn’t appear in imminent danger of falling down or getting sick.  Half a beer wouldn’t hurt them.
    “Who?”
    “Your brother and Helen.”
    May and Kiyomi leaned on the bar and placed their chins in their hands.  Encircled by the other dancers, Sam held Helen close and whispered in her ear.  “It’s so romantic,” Kiyomi sighed.  “She’s so lucky.”
    “Hah!” May exclaimed.  “He’s the lucky one.  She’s totally perfect.  Everybody knows that.”
    The girls began to argue, Kiyomi saying that Sam was smart and kind and reliable.  May countered with Helen’s beauty, independence and bravery.
    “What do you think?” they asked Chieko, willing to let one of their favorites settle the argument.
    “You’re both right,” she answered.  “Now, why don’t you calm down and watch.  It’ll give you something to look forward to.”
    May and Kiyomi needed no further urging.  They watched and smiled and dreamed as Sam spun Helen across the floor.  May was so happy she thought she might faint.  Nakazono was gone gone gone.  Anything, absolutely anything was possible.  Nothing could hurt them ever again.
    “So that’s it, I guess,” Helen said.  “I wonder how he’ll like it in jail.”
    Sam was holding her close enough to feel her heartbeat.  The cop had been far from his thoughts.  He felt free for the first time since his return to Japan.  His choices seemed limited only by his imagination.
    “Nakazono’s not going to jail, you know that,” he said.  “They’ll fire him, they’ll humiliate him, but they’ll never convict him.  I expect he’ll be around the neighborhood for a long time.  He was raised here.  He has nowhere else to go.”
    “You don’t think he’ll try anything else, do you?  He’d have to be crazy.”
    “Everything is going to be fine.”  He caressed her cheek and lost himself in her gray eyes.
    Helen laid her head on his shoulder.  “I hope you’re right.”
    “Trust me.”
    “I’ve heard that one before.”
    “And did you?”
    “What?”
    “Trust.”
    “Too much.  I staked my whole history on it, my past and my future.”
    Sam nodded.  “You’re right, that is too much.  I might not be able to pick it up, let alone carry it.  Why don’t you just trust me today?  I can do that much.”
    She smiled and hugged him.  “That’s sounds just right.  You’ve got a deal.”
    The music changed.  Helen held his hand and towed him back to their table.  “How was Manny doing?” he asked.
    “He was still sleeping the last time I went upstairs.  He’s just tired and bruised.  He’ll be fine in a couple of days.”
    “How about the old ladies?  Are they taking good care of him?”
    “Kojima-san was guarding him like a mama bear watches over her cubs.”
    “Did Nakamura-san go home?”
    Helen shook her head.  “No, she’s still up there doing what she does best.”
    “Sleep?”
    “Exactly.  Kojima-san put her into bed with him.  You should go up there and take a look before she wakes.  It’s a very pretty picture.”

    Lt. Nakazono stumbled out of a bar under the tracks.  A train rumbled overhead as he pissed on a cement wall.  His suit jacket was long gone, his shirt stained and torn.  He leaned forward and pressed his cheek to the wall.  The cement was still warm from the sun.  A woman in black approached.  She averted her eyes and tucked her chin into her breast, afraid to see too much.
    Nakazono slid down the wall to his knees.  He moaned and held out his hands, begging for help.  His fluttering hands, his bruised and bloody face—the woman changed course.  His eyes scratched at her as she passed.  She gasped and began to run.  That kind of help wasn’t hers to give.
    Nakazono made it to his feet and struggled onward.  The stars, shining above, were pretty.  They pulled him toward the river and his apartment.  A ragged choir sang brittle a cappella in his head.  Off-key voices drowned out the world and pushed him forward.  He bounced off pedestrians, knocking men and women aside.
    A light brighter than stars, brighter than neon, pulsed and swelled.  He looked up and howled.  She stood tall and strong atop Matsuya department store.  Her hair was long and white.  Looking at him, laughing at him.  The choir scrambled behind his eyes, wailing in fear, fighting for a better look.  They upset his balance and he crashed to the pavement.

    Just to make sure, but casually so no one would notice, Patrolman Takahashi verified his feet were touching the ground, confirmed the top of his head was lined up with the moon.  Everything seemed properly oriented and he continued walking.  You could never be too sure, especially after a day like today.
    Eyes on cracks in the sidewalk, resolutely onward, he walked toward the home of Nakazono.  To put things right, if he could.  He nearly cried out in fright.  Without the lieutenant, what would become of him?  It was a mercy he had no imagination, his vision of the future—a wall of blackness—was horrible enough.
    For nearly thirty years, Nakazono had been his life, an anchor.  When the ground trembled and tried to dislodge him, only Nakazono kept him from drifting away.  Takahashi turned a corner and checked his feet again.  Still firmly planted.  But not this afternoon.  When they’d come for the lieutenant he’d floated up to the ceiling, flailing and crying.  No one had noticed his ascent, they’d been too busy with Nakazono.
    First, they’d taken away his gun.  That had been the easy part.  The lieutenant had been more difficult when the captain from headquarters had asked him to give up his bottle of gin.  It had taken three men to pry it out of his hands.  They’d covered his head with a beige raincoat to hide him from the photographers.  Takahashi could still hear Nakazono’s sobs eerily muffled by the coat.  He’d assisted at a hanging in a prison on the edge of the city last year.  The man had worn a hood, not a raincoat, but his final cries had sounded exactly the same.
    He knocked on the lieutenant’s door.  A neighbor stuck her head out of an apartment down the hall.  Her eyes were both sly and angry.  They burned with a passionate interest in lives more eventful than her own.
    “Get back inside,” Takahashi shouted.
    The woman snarled and pulled her head back into her apartment.  Takahashi knocked again.  No answer.  The patrolman sighed and put his ear to the door.
    And there it was:
    Nakazono moaned and moaned.  So much rarer than tears, an expanding pain, a loss of breath.  A great sadness given voice.  Dead silent screams, loud between the cries, were heard as far away as Honolulu.  Pleas for release at any cost, they rolled up the beaches like a tsunami.
    A chain rattled.  Takahashi whispered, afraid of upsetting what might be behind the door.  “Boss, let me in.  It’s me, Takahashi.  I just want to help.”
    Slowly, the door swung open.  The room was dark, filled with darting flickering images.  A TV set glowed in a corner, chocolate drapes billowed.  They concealed a balcony and a sliding glass door open to the night.  An air conditioner hummed, straining to cool humid air pushing into the room.  Currents, hot and cold, blew over Takahashi’s cheeks.  They carried a fearful smell.  Gin consumed and passed through the skin, forgotten food conniving to rot, urine, vomit and coppery blood.
    He gasped and followed a dark shape deeper into the room.  It paused, stymied by shards of red brick strewn across the carpet.  A bonsai with shiny leaves lay collapsed on a bier of dry soil.  Yellow roots shivered, exposed and dying.  The wallpaper was torn three feet above the baseboard.  A smear of mud and a dusting of red brick marked the spot the little tree had hit.
    The patrolman snapped on a table lamp and turned off the TV.  Nakazono muttered, detoured around the broken pottery and shuffled over to a leather couch.  He was naked under a woman’s pink terry cloth robe.  The sleeves squeezed his biceps like tourniquets and hung just past his elbows.
    Takahashi stared at the wreckage.  His jaw fell open and he made a little noise of confusion as the lieutenant’s feet tangled.  He fell into the narrow divide between couch and coffee table.  Nakazono cried and struggled to free himself.  Takahashi hesitated, fascinated, as if seeing a tortoise on its back, baking in the sun.
    Nakazono muttered and pulled himself up on the couch.  He sat with his hands on his knees, shaking his head like a dog whacked in the skull with a two-by-four.  The tissue surrounding his left eye was purple-yellow, tinged with green.  The eye had closed beneath a cut that would require many stitches to close.  Dried blood caked his face.  The corner of the coffee table was sharp beveled maple.  A dark streak stained the table and ran down to a small pool of blood soaking the carpet.
    Nakazono was still wagging his head back and forth like a metronome.  Takahashi shivered, stepped forward and held the lieutenant’s head until it slowed and stopped.  Nakazono began to clap his hands and laugh.  He slapped them together slowly.  His laughter was soft but growing, rising.  His hands popped together like gunshots.
    “Stop, oh, please stop,” Takahashi cried, afraid of such craziness.  He grabbed and held the lieutenant’s hands with all his strength.
    Nakazono opened his good eye, aware for the first time that someone was in the room.  He cocked his head for a better angle.  “Who’s that?  Is that you, Takahashi?”
    The patrolman backed away, unnerved by his own audacity.  To touch the boss.  Until today, what an unthinkable thing.  He grinned.  “Yes, boss, it’s me.  I’m here to help you, I mean, I know you don’t need my help but, uhh...”
    Nakazono sighed.  “Shit, the idiot.”
    Takahashi began to cry, fat tears streaming down his middle-aged face.  “Let me help, boss.  Let me make it better.  You can be strong again, stronger than before.  We can get those bastards, we can get ‘em good.”
    The lieutenant shook his head.  “Get the fuck out of here.”
    Nakazono reached under the couch and pulled out an American-made .45 automatic.  He put the muzzle in his mouth and rocked back the slide.
    His head exploded, cracked open by a red-black screaming thing.  A voice like no other, huge and cruel, shouted, “STOP!”
    White hot pain raced up his arm.  The gun clattered to the table.  He screamed and looked down, expecting to see his hand burned to the bone.
    The voice laughed.  “HURT DIDN’T IT, ASSHOLE?  WELL THAT WAS NOTHIN’.  YOU TRY A STUNT LIKE THAT AGAIN AND I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT REAL PAIN IS.”
    Takahashi sobbed and crawled toward the door as Nakazono gagged on the pain and threw up.  The red thing, the black thing, was purging his skull.  The other voices, guilty little secrets, tried to escape.  It ran them down and crushed them.
    Until only one survived.  “YOU DON’T NEED THIS ONE NO MORE, DO YA?”
    Nakazono wiped his mouth and coughed.  “Too strong, too strong.  It was an accident, I tried to explain, she won’t listen.”
    The voice laughed.  “OF COURSE SHE AIN’T LISTENIN’, YOU DUMBSHIT, SHE’S DEAD.  YOU KILLED HER.”
    “But—”
    “SHUT THE FUCK UP.  IT’S JUST YOUR IMAGINATION.”
    “What about you?”
    “I’M THE REAL THING, BOYO.”  The voice moderated it’s tone.  “AND FROM NOW ON YOU AND ME, WE’RE GONNA HAVE SOME REAL FUN.”
    “Please—”
    Pain crawled up from his stomach and Nakazono screamed.
    “YOU’RE NOT LISTENING.”
    The lieutenant whimpered and surrendered.
    “THAT’S BETTER.  AND SINCE YOU’RE BEING SUCH A GOOD LITTLE SAMURAI, I GOT A TREAT FOR YOU.”
    The red-black thing raced across his head and pinned Elena to the back of his skull.  It ripped open her blouse, yanked up her skirt and shredded her panties.
    “HEY, LOOK AT YOU.  THAT’S WHAT YOU WANTED ALL ALONG, ISN’T IT?  WELL, GO AHEAD, EAT YOUR FILL, THERE’S PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM.”
    Patrolman Takahashi reached the door.  Still on his knees, he looked back.  He was shaking in fear and it was all he could do to keep from screaming.  The lieutenant was slumped on the couch covered in vomit, masturbating wildly.
    Takahashi unlocked the door.
    “Get your ass back over here, patrolman,” Nakazono ordered.  “I got plans for you.”