“Don’t fucking move, Nabeta.”
The cold metal pressed against me sent a shiver down my spine. Her voice was equally icy. As I considered my options, Samo’s rules echoed in my head: Don’t underestimate anyone. She had caught me off guard. I’d been watching the snowfall outside the window, instead of the door. I’d gotten to our arranged meeting spot first—a crappy love hotel near Higashidori—breaking another of Samo’s rules: Never get to a meeting first. Unable to find the light switch, I’d opened the window, staining the cheaply furnished hotel room with the vibrant hue of evening. Street light poured in, diffused by thousands of falling snowflakes. She’d snuck up behind me while I was busy admiring the view.
“Hitomi, I—” I stopped as the safety clicked off. There was no vibration, no shudder—simply the barrel of the gun held firm to my skull.
“You fucking lied to me,” she said.
“Look, Hitomi, I was—” A push of the barrel silenced me.
“Don’t fucking speak. Just listen.” Her voice was monotone, uncluttered by emotion—unexpected from someone who’d always been so full of energy. Aside from not dying, my primary concern became finding out where I’d screwed up. Thus, it was time for my rarely used backup plan: Shut the hell up and wait for an opportunity. I let out a deep breath, which fogged the cold window in front of me, showing that I was ready to 'just listen.’
“First, you don’t get to call me Hitomi anymore. Second, how stupid do you think I am? It must be my fault. I slept with you. I actually opened up to you. And you turn out to be a police informant? Why are men such assholes?” I considered the last question to be valid but maintained my silence. “Well?” she asked, her voice escalating a few octaves.
“Hitomi, look . . .”
She pressed the gun harder. “Don’t call me by my given name, Nabeta!”
“Okay, okay, fine, Ms. Sakata.” Thick disdain poured from my mouth, accompanied by a slow eye roll. It was an extravagant spectacle, unfortunately missed by all. “Can I turn around now?”
“No.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I’m not a police informant. I left the force six years ago. Sure, I occasionally take a job for the OPP, but I have nothing to do with them at the moment.”
“Oh really? So who was that cop you were just talking to outside?”
“What’re you talking about? I haven’t spoken to anyone except the front desk staff downstairs. What do the police have to do with any of this?”
“I told you about my past, so you know I’d have no problem blasting your head into pieces all over this room.” She took a deep breath, as if trying to regain her composure. “I saw you outside of this hotel chatting with a cop in uniform. I was standing right down the block and you didn’t notice me. How could I be such an idiot? I couldn’t wait to see you tonight. You have no idea what was waiting for you underneath this coat. Instead, I catch you setting me up. To think I was letting myself feel something for you. Give me one reason not to pull this trigger.”
“Hitomi . . .” That was a mistake, and she swiftly rebuked me with a blow to the head. Pain-induced flashes of light filled my eyes, and I caught my breath. “Ms. Sakata, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“When are they coming to grab me? Were you planning to fuck me first and then hand me over?”
I hadn’t planned to sleep with her again, but I needed to maintain my cover when the Osaka Prefectural Police busted in and arrested her. The OPP had hired me to help them catch the elusive Hitomi Sakata. She was not the shy, corgi-loving travel agent with zero social life that everyone else saw, though that cover suited her well. In reality, she was an extremely experienced jewel thief, educated in metallurgical engineering and with no arrest record, despite being a person of interest in multiple cases. The OPP’s Major Crimes Division had quite the file on her, though she somehow never managed to be around those times they’d tried to pay her a friendly visit. Later, when they decided to officially bring her in for questioning, they found shy Hitomi had taken a month-long leave of absence at work. They asked for my advice. I told them it was too perfect to be a coincidence, but they didn’t believe me. Instead, they told me to find her. It was exactly the kind of job the department loved to farm out to people like me. And exactly the kind of job at which I excelled.
Hitomi had a strange knack for staying under the radar. I finally located her on the dance floor one weekend evening at Tolerant, the latest nightclub in Shinsaibashi. It took me four dinner dates and a movie to work us into bed, where she slowly confirmed everything the police had claimed. I usually maintained a strict policy of abstinence with clients, targets, or anyone associated with my cash flow; however, Hitomi was interesting and attractive, and it had been a while for me. The OPP needed more information, so I worked her. There were times my job made me do things I didn’t like.
For our fifth date, she invited me to her apartment—a location the OPP had no record of. After an enormous meal and two bottles of sake, we found ourselves on her sofa without clothing. Her smooth skin pressed against mine as a cold front settled on the city, goosebumps covering us both. That evening, she opened up to me, her big brown eyes welling with tears as we held each other. She talked about her failed marriage to a con artist with a knack for making things vanish. He’d introduced her to the thieving business, where her abilities quickly surpassed his. The thrill she experienced from thieving quickly became an addiction and then a new line of work. Hitomi held little back; it had been a long time since she’d had someone to talk to. My guilt went into overdrive, as did our sex life. I’d used to be such a good guy.
My information tipped the scales, giving the OPP enough evidence for an arrest warrant. But in another mysterious coincidence, Hitomi decided to leave the country right as they issued said order. Hitomi then texted me to say she was leaving and wanted to say goodbye in person. I suggested this love hotel as the perfect spot. The plan was for me to distract her while the cops came in and executed her arrest, maintaining my cover. Sex was not on my agenda; I wasn’t that much of an asshole. I’d never intended to play with her feelings like this, yet here I was. But before the cops could execute the plan, someone must have tipped her off, because clearly she’d caught me chatting with my main OPP contact. Three coincidences in a row are a strikeout, as Samo often said.
“Listen.” I lowered my hands halfway. “Put the gun down and let’s talk. I don’t know what’s happening here. I was excited to see you, too. We can figure this out.”
“I know,” she said confidently.
“Is something wrong? You can trust me. I can protect you.” The metal of her gun disconnected from my skin. I glanced around to see her backing up, the gun still trained on me.
“I can’t trust you, Jon.” She took a deep breath. “Not you or anyone else.” There was a distinct sorrow in her voice, as if she truly felt all alone. I turned, keeping my hands where they were. A tear streaked down her face. The muscles in her neck tensed as she gripped the gun—now pointed at my chest. Then, she closed her eyes. I needed no other sign. I dropped and ducked behind the nearby sofa, hearing the bullet fire and the door being kicked in.
“Freeze! Put your weapon down!” The room filled with light as the cops barged in, making me wonder where the light switch had been all this time. I heard more shots, followed by a heavy thump. I peeked under the sofa at the dark navy blue of a cop uniform. Then came more grunts, yelps, gunshots, and the sounds of people leaving. Quiet again filled the room, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, a single set of footsteps grew louder.
“There is one more person in this room,” I said. “I’m going to raise my hands and stand up slowly. I am not armed. Please do not shoot me. Are we good?” The other individual in the room grunted lightly—which in Japanese meant agreement. My knees creaked as I stood, betraying past martial arts injuries. When I cleared the sofa, a familiar face grinned stupidly at me. I should have stayed behind the sofa. “Chief, what the hell are you doing here?”
Chief Inspector Hideo Nakamura was the spitting image of a TV drama police detective. No matter the season, no matter the weather, he always wore his thick, dark-beige trench coat, slightly worn around the edges. His hair looked as though he had just woken up, a style he completed with a full, unkempt beard. Unlike most men his age—which I guessed to be his late fifties—Chief had no beer belly, decent posture, and very few wrinkles. Most people who met Hideo Nakamura thought him ill-suited to run a large organization, yet after he’d spent many years as one of the best detectives in the prefecture, the OPP brass put him in charge of the Major Crimes Division. I liked to call him “Chief” in the most American accent I could muster. The nickname seemed to be one of the few things that actually irritated him. Chief scoffed at me before bending over the fallen officer’s body. He pressed his fingers to his man’s neck, looking for a pulse, and then checked his torso.
“No bullet wound I can see, and his pulse seems normal. I wonder if the fall knocked him out, possibly after throwing himself out of the way. Absolutely lovely.” Chief sighed and stood. “He’ll be fine, save for a headache. I hope he gets the most out of his injury leave.”
“Where do you find these people?”
He focused his eyes on me. “I thought this was supposed to be an open-and-shut operation.”
“It was supposed to be. What the hell are you doing here, Chief?”
“I had a hunch that this wasn’t going to work out as expected. I’m not surprised. What the hell happened, Nabeta?”
“She knew I was working with you. She got here early and saw me conferring outside with Suida. Next thing I knew, she was about to put a bullet in my brain.”
“Well, you do have that effect on women.” Chief scanned the room, focusing on the bullet holes in the floor and window. I’m a brilliant detective, but I heard that back in the day, Chief was a regular Sherlock Holmes. Even now, he had this uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. Like, fucking always. “At least the firearms charge will stick once we grab her. I never thought you were this sloppy.”
“I’m not. You have a leak.”
Chief smirked. “In Major Crimes? Jon, you’re dreaming. We expunged all corruption years ago, right after we purged Ando and his cronies.”
“Too many coincidences, Chief. Someone tipped her off.”
Chief sighed. “Just when things were calming down. Put it in your report. I’ll see if I can throw in a life and limb bonus for the shoot-out here.”
“Where did she get the firearm? You never told me she was armed.”
“Informant down near Tennōji called it in earlier today. She bought it from some lower-level yakuza thugs.”
“Speaking of sloppy, don’t the bosses usually enforce control over their firearms using fear of dismemberment?” The yakuza had a nuclear deterrence theory attitude toward guns. They all had them but rarely used them for fear of retaliation and, to a lesser extent, police attention.
“The younger generation is slowly taking over. They don’t have the same respect as their elders, nor do they care much for the old ways. There’s more violence on the street. Hell, I even let you still carry.” I’d been hoping he wouldn’t mention that. “I assume that line you just fed me about being unarmed was bullshit.”
As an official contractor for the OPP, I was permitted to carry when working for them. The paperwork was legit, and I followed all the legally required guidelines. Meaning that before I could leave the scene, Suida and I would do a full check of my gun to confirm it hadn’t been fired. “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to be standing there. I almost lost my head with the car thief gang you had me after last month. I’ll need some time to come down from that before I’m comfortable in the field without my piece. More so now since that shipment of police firearms went missing in Kyōbashi a few months ago.” Chief’s arrogant expression now melted away, replaced by sheer annoyance.
“How do you know about that? That shipment was highly confidential.”
“You can’t expect me to give away my secrets. Then, anyone could do my job. But relax, that’s a topic I’d rather keep to myself. Consider it a professional courtesy.”
His nostrils flared as he exhaled. “I have to remember to stop cutting you so much slack. Just make sure no one else finds out about it. Understand?” I nodded. “What’re the chances they actually catch her?”
I shook my head. “You’re asking me if Officer Sakaguchi, a man who can barely walk to the convenience store for a midday snack, can chase down a woman in her late twenties in excellent condition? No.” I couldn’t help but betray a chuckle. “I would guess his partners are in worse shape. I expect the lot of them back here any minute, huffing and puffing, complaining about how fast she was. Your men dislike strenuous activity. As for this fine gentleman,” I pointed to the officer on the ground. “He knocked himself out falling down.” Recent experience had given me a cynical view of the MCD—though I still respected most of the force.
As predicted, three uniformed officers reappeared at the door, all clearly running on fumes. The noise jolted their floor-bound colleague to consciousness. Two of the returned officers bent over, holding their knees for support. The third one stood straight but was breathing like a space alien from an old horror movie. Chief just sighed.
“You okay, son?” he asked the floor-bound officer, who miraculously picked himself up. The man nodded, clutching his side. There wasn’t a bullet mark anywhere on his body. Chief turned to the others. “So, I take it the perp got away?”
The slimmest of the three spoke between gasps, “Chief Inspector, sir . . .”
Chief silenced him with a wave of his hand. He looked his men over and dismissed them with another wave. After a moment of contemplation, he followed them out the door, stepping over a sex toy that had found its way into the middle of the floor. I watched as his silhouette cast an elongated shadow on the hallway walls. His black leather boots echoed loudly on the old ceramic floor.
Before he disappeared down the stairwell, he said without turning, “Keep yourself out of trouble, Jon.”
I looked back out the window at the city. An icy wind whistled through the bullet hole Hitomi had left in the window. The sounds of the city—compressed through a hole only millimeters wide—filled my ears. I washed my face in the bathroom before grabbing my coat to leave. Something stuck out from under the bed. I bent down to find a bunch of ten-thousand-yen bills wrapped together with a blue label: 2001 series, Okayama branch, National Printing Bureau. Flipping through the stack, I counted fifty bills—plenty of cash to allow Hitomi to disappear for a while. With neither evidence bags nor cops around, I put the bills in my coat pocket. I’d have words with Chief about them later.
Outside, the bright lights of Higashidori’s signage fought with the snow for visual dominance. Not a soul was on the street—odd for such a busy nightlife area, but it was rare that Osaka received snow like this. I headed for the subway and home.
