After the murder of a high-flying executive in one of Tokyoâs wealth management firms, Detective Hiroshi finds himself investigating the financial schemes that secure the money of Tokyoâs elite investors. His forensic accounting gets sidetracked, though, by a second murder and the abduction of two girls from the home of a hotshot wealth manager.
The abducted girls are the daughters of an international couple who seemed to have it allâa large apartment in the high-end Azabu district, top schools for the children, and a life of happy affluence. Their life falls apart and they are swept up in threats and pursuits for reasons they cannot fathom.
Tracking the money and tracking the two daughters leads Hiroshi into Tokyoâs murky financial past and outside Japanâs borders as he discovers how overseas investments and tax shelters are really managed.
Hiroshi works with Sakaguchi and Takamatsu and others on the homicide team, including an assertive new detective, as they confront greed and violence in one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
After the murder of a high-flying executive in one of Tokyoâs wealth management firms, Detective Hiroshi finds himself investigating the financial schemes that secure the money of Tokyoâs elite investors. His forensic accounting gets sidetracked, though, by a second murder and the abduction of two girls from the home of a hotshot wealth manager.
The abducted girls are the daughters of an international couple who seemed to have it allâa large apartment in the high-end Azabu district, top schools for the children, and a life of happy affluence. Their life falls apart and they are swept up in threats and pursuits for reasons they cannot fathom.
Tracking the money and tracking the two daughters leads Hiroshi into Tokyoâs murky financial past and outside Japanâs borders as he discovers how overseas investments and tax shelters are really managed.
Hiroshi works with Sakaguchi and Takamatsu and others on the homicide team, including an assertive new detective, as they confront greed and violence in one of the wealthiest cities in the world.
Chapter 1
Patrick Walsh waited outside, tired of the cold, of the dark, thinking it through, worried that the key wouldnât work.
In case it didnât, heâd brought along a mini cordless drill, three sizes of drill bits, a screwdriver, a pick, and needle-nose pliers packed into a drawstring bag. Heâd watched a few online videos on how to ream out a lock.
He keyed in the passcode at the entrance of his Azabu apartment buildingâit still workedâand rode the elevator to his floor. He kept his head down under a cap and resettled his mask, protection against cameras, as much as against viruses.
Heâd almost never met anyone in the hallway and no one was there now. Thatâs what you paid more for in the middle of Tokyoâfew neighbors, silent hallways, extra rooms.
And cleaners. There were always cleaners. The hallways gleamed.
He slipped the key in, held his breath as he twisted, and the deadbolt fell to the side. With the drawstring bag back over his shoulder, he twisted the door handle, stepped in, and toed off his shoes in the genkan.Â
In the room to the left, his mother-in-law was sprawled in her regular spot on her tatami chair in front of the TV. She kept the TV blaring 24/7, but she was out cold, as usual, stoned on a mix of sleeping pills and glasses of shochu she hid on a shelf above the refrigerator.
He tiptoed over and turned off the TV. Her cosmetic-smeared wrinkles and thinning hair were just the same, but she was a bit pudgier, eating well on the money he sent while she filled Miyukiâs ears with invective against him. She must have smoked inside too, or the smell just oozed out of her.
Patrick turned off the lights in the small tatami room and slid the door shut. She was supposed to be at her weekly mahjong game, but maybe the others had kicked her out for cheating.
After Miyukiâs father died and her mother and multiple TVs moved in, the house resonated with the inane patter and forced laughter of quiz shows, travelogues, comedy routines, and program after program about food. Everything was oishii, sugoi, or yabaii, the exclamations silly and senseless. She demanded the most expensive tatami mats, but filled their home with drivel.
The living room looked smaller than he remembered, but that was because the rooms in Wyoming were so large. For Tokyo, their place was huge for a family of four, plus grandmother. Until Wyoming, it was the largest place he ever lived in. Miyuki had been overwhelmed to silence when they first looked at it. The living room alone was bigger than their entire former apartment in Monzen-Nakacho.
Theyâd paid for it in cash, so much cash even Miyuki had been startled when they hauled it to the realtor. After they paid, she collapsed weeping in his arms, surprised at how their happy their life had turned out.
Patrick had just started at Nine Dragons and Miyuki had been promoted after her bank merged with two others. They set up savings, investments, even college funds, and still had more than they knew what to do with. But it wasnât just the money then. It was being together about everything.
The sofa was where theyâd curled up every night during her pregnancy, both of them worn out from work, Miyuki doubly tired with the pregnancy. She took leave as late as she could before Jenna arrived, and again, a couple of years later, when Kiri arrived. Miyuki had kept working at the same bank as accounts manager even while taking most of the burden for the girls.
Through it all, their large multisectional sofa served as nursery, game room, study center, work station, bed, table, and, occasionally after the girls went to sleep, the spot for a quick one. He called it âthe whale,â as it became piled with games, toys, study books, sports equipment, cats, caged bugs, and work files that Miyuki and Patrick carried home to finish up side-by-side.
After nine months away in Wyoming, those times seemed farther away than ever. Patrick looked down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
The cats came out and eyed him suspiciously, but he was too tired from the long flight to re-friend them. The support group advised staying flexible and flowing, without getting stuck on any one task. Now, all he needed to do was gather the girls and get out of there. The support group advised him on all the details of what to do, since theyâd been through it all before.
Behind him, the front door creaked open and a manâs voice echoed into the entryway. âDare desu-ka? Miyuki? Ano, dareka iru no? Miyuki?â
Patrick tiptoed back to the front wall half-expecting to see Miyukiâs next conquest. Was this the next one? What man would be coming into the apartment?
He waited behind the wall.
The soft thud of shoes being removed and the crinkle of a plastic bag was followed by silence. Patrick knew this was what the support group meant when they said, âRemain flexible.â
A young man, twenty-something, gangly and tall in loose clothes, stepped into the living room. He was carrying a plastic bag weighed down with small cartons.Â
Patrick stepped out. âWho are you?â
The boyâs handsomely chiseled face looked half Japanese, half Western. His hair was longish and dyed in streaks.
âIâm TaigaâŚtheâŚthe babysitterâŚâ he sputtered, in English. âWho are you?â
If he was the babysitter, why was he calling Miyuki by her first name? He was a decade younger, more, and an employee. Babysitter? Did he mean home tutor? What was he doing here this late?
Instead of asking, Patrick swung the drawstring bag full of tools.
The kid ducked but slipped. His head hit the edge of the sideboard and his body crumpled to the heated flooring.
Patrick waited for him to get up, but he didnât. A trickle of urine spread from his crotch and blood oozed from below his spiky, streaked hair. That was a bad sign. A very bad sign. Heâd swung the tool bag too hard.
Patrick slung the bag over his shoulder and leaned over to pick the scrawny kid up from under his arms and drag him to the tatami room. He slid open the door at the opposite end from where his mother-in-law slept and wrestled him inside as quietly as he could. Blood dribbled out and quickly soaked into the finely woven igusa rush straw of the tatami.
âRemain on task and in motion,â the support group had advised. They had done all the recon for him, after he told them the details of their daily life. They were good at what they did. They found the right time, and helped plan it all. All except the babysitter.
He followed the rest of their advice and pulled out two plastic ties for the boyâs wrists and ankles. He went for towels from the kitchen, set one under his head where it was bleeding and tied the other across his mouth. The wound didnât look too bad, just a scratch.
He stared at his mother-in-law, stepped back, and slid the door shut. He got some paper towels and wiped the drips of blood from the floor. He rinsed the towels out, threw them away, and washed his hands.
He hurried into Jennaâs room and tears sprang to his eyes. Draped in Disney princess pajamas, her limbs were splayed out in all directions, half in and half out of the covers. Sheâd grown and her hair was longer.
Beside her, Kiri slept in a fetal ball with her fists on her cheeks. She slept that way when she crawled into bed with Miyuki and him. When he left for Wyoming, heâd told her she had to start sleeping alone. At the time, sheâd nodded seriously, but she must have started sleeping with her older sister instead.
Their hair was strewn in long tangles over the menagerie of stuffed animals sleeping beside them. He could smell the warm scent of their bodies and hear the little snuffles of their breathing, soft as waves. Watching them sleep was the most beautiful experience in the world. Now, heâd have them every day, and theyâd be safe.Â
He sat down on the bed and jiggled Jennaâs leg, but Kiri opened her eyes first.
âDaddy? Is that you?â Kiri wrapped her arms around his neck.Â
Jenna rubbed her eyes, startled, and sat up before burrowing in beside Kiri, pulling on his shirt and hugging him and trying to wake up all at the same time. âIs this a dream?â
âThe best one ever.â Patrick held them against his chest, looked at Jennaâs mirror, and choked back tears. âCan you two get up and get dressed?â
âIs it morning?â Jenna asked. Her voice had become a little husky.
âWe have a plane to catch. To America. Weâre going to ride horses.â
âHorses?â Jennaâs face lit up with excitement.
âWhere the wild things are?â Kiri asked.
âNo, the wild things are here. Weâre going where they arenât.â Patrick hugged them tight for a minute and then set them loose to fill the fold-out vinyl bags he brought for them. They started snatching up their favorite clothes and dolls, and everything they loved so far in their short lives, everything they couldnât live without, and put it in the bags.
âIsnât Mom coming?â Jenna asked.
âOf course she is, but itâs a surprise.â
Jenna and Kiri looked at each other. âLike a surprise party?â Jenna asked.
âExactly.âÂ
Kiri set one of her dolls back. âIs Taiga coming too?â
âHeâs coming later with Mom, if he can get away.â
âAnd what about school?â Jenna put her clothes into her bag. She seemed very awake. Patrick wasnât sure if that was good.
âJust a short vacation. Mom will call the school. Youâll be back before you know it.â
âBefore I know what?â Kiri asked.
âBefore you know where the wild things are.â He checked his watch. They could still make it to the airport, get checked in, and be gone, if they hurried.
Kiri giggled. She was on the borderline of believing in impossible things. But then again, so was he, things like getting away safely.
AZABU GETAWAY by Michael Pronko
We first meet Patrick Walsh, a high-flying executive in a wealth management firm in Tokyo in the middle of a messy custody battle, breaking into his wifeâs home to abduct his two children. As he does so his boss at the firm is being murdered and when a second murder is discovered Patrick is firmly in the frame.
As Patrick tries to evade the law and get his children out of the country, he is followed and threatened by people unknown, little realising that a yakuza, a powerful Japanese criminal organisation, is tracking him. Detective Hiroshi, assigned to the case because of his forensic accounting ability, soon finds himself investigating the money laundering and tax avoidance schemes that the firm is using on behalf the yakuza and others, as well as trying to locate the missing children.
Patrick is being helped by a parent support group but weâre never quite sure if they are really on Patrickâs side or not, and after he and the children hide at the home of a friend, the friend is badly beaten.
Meanwhile Hiroshiâs homicide team, including a bright young female detective, Ishii, are tracking the money as well as Patrick and the children. The team is cleverly drawn as are Patrick and his wife, and the Tokyo environment is brilliantly evoked. The financial malpractice is well explained without the information holding up the story.  However, in the process of placing his protagonists in their accustomed way of life (e.g. always taking their shoes off at the door even in the villainâs stronghold) the author regularly uses Japanese words and phrases to create the atmosphere and as the words are not always translated or explained at some points I was completely lost. The homicide team met once in a yakatori - presumably some kind of restaurant providing yakatori, but I never discovered what they were.  Judge Yamanakaâs chin jutted like the ukiyo-e woodblock print of a wild aragoto character from Kabuki. Understand? No? Me neither.   And sometimes this concentration on atmosphere is done at the expense of tension and movement of the plot.
Having said that, the tale is excitingly told, you fear for the family and what is going to happen next, the financial malpractice is clearly explained and the book provides a fascinating window into the Japanese way of life. All in all a very good read.