The Toyotomi Blades

11

Inspector Ishii of the Tokyo police sat back at his cluttered metal desk. “You sure the two men were chasing you?” he asked. His accent was so thick you could pick it up with a chop-stick. I had to listen intently to understand him. They called him in especially to deal with me in English, and it took over an hour for him to arrive at the station. I wanted to take my best shot at getting aid from the Tokyo police. Asking him to repeat everything he said to me didn’t seem like a good tactic for accomplishing this.

“That’s right.” The metal chair I was sitting on was hard and uncomfortable.

“How do you know?”

“Inspector, those guys chased me for blocks. They weren’t just out for a late night jog. This is the second time they’ve followed me.”

“How did you get away?”

“Yesterday, I lost them on a train. I slipped out as the doors were closing. Tonight, I got the help of a sumo wrestler.”

Ishii showed a flicker of interest. Maybe he was a sumo fan. “Which rikishir

“That’s a word I don’t know.”

“A rikishi is a sumo wrestler.”

“Oh. His name was Gary Apia. He wrestles under the name of Torayama.”

“Oh, a Juryo rank rikishi.” Definitely a fan, but apparently it would have gotten me more help if I had jumped on the belly of a big-name sumo champ. In fact, Ishii seemed irritated by the whole situation. They had probably dragged him from home to take care of an excited English-speaking tourist.

“Could you identify these men?”

“I think so. I’ve seen them for the past two nights.”

Ishii made no comment. He went to a shelf and took down two large books. He put them in front of me and flipped them open. Mug books, with several rows of pictures on each page. “Please look at these pictures. If you see the men, tell me.”

I nodded and Ishii left to get himself a cup of tea. The room we were in had no private offices. Instead there was a small area with a couple of plastic-covered couches. The rest of the office was filled with small metal desks jammed together in rows, similar to the television station. Ishii’s desk sat at the end facing a row of desks, which probably meant he was a supervisor or section chief for investigators. His business card, which was in Japanese, wasn’t much help to me in figuring out the hierarchy. The room was incredibly cluttered, with white boards on the walls with various notes and charts. The floor was linoleum, and although it was old, it was spotless. Uniformed officers were coming in, making jokes, drinking tea, sitting down, and working on reports. They wore a gray military-style uniform.

I started the tedious task of flipping through the books, page by page, looking at the individual photos. After forty minutes I called Ishii back to me and pointed at a picture in the book.

“I’m sure this is one of the men who chased me.”

Ishii glanced down at the photo. I noted a look of surprise. “This one?”

“This one. I’m positive. There was another guy with him, quite a bit taller and thinner. I didn’t see his picture in these two books.”

Ishii went to another section of the squad room and returned with another mug book. “Please look at this book. See if you can identify the other man.” This time he stood over my shoulder as I flipped through the book. About a quarter of the way through I found the guy with the wolfish gait. I looked up at Ishii and said, “That’s him.”

Ishii sat down. “Could you explain exactly what you’re doing in Japan?”

That seemed a peculiar question, but I told him I was appearing on the News Pop television show.

“Are you some type of political activist in the United States?”

“No, I’m just here because I got involved in the murder of a Japanese businessman. That’s why they want me on News Pop.”

He looked at me and said, “It’s strange.”

“What’s strange?”

Ishii pointed to the picture of the thin man. “The first books were known thieves and muggers. The man you identified is a thug named Junichi Honda. He has ties to the Yakuza and a variety of radical political groups. This book has pictures of known members of radical groups.” He pointed to the second picture I identified. “This is a picture of Kim Chung Hee,” he said. “Does that name mean anything to you?”

I looked at him quizzically. I shrugged.

“Early in his career, Kim was a Yakuza, a Japanese Mafia member. Then he became interested in right-wing politics and he joined the Nippon Tokkotai.”

“Nippon …?”

“Nippon Tokkotai.”

“What’s that?”

“It means Japanese Special Attack Force.”

“Sounds like a military group.”

“It’s a radical political group. Tokkotai was what they called the Shimpu attack forces in the Pacific War. Americans called them Kamikaze. Nippon is an old-fashioned word for Japan. It’s a very conservative word. Now we usually use Nihon. The Nippon Tokkotai is a right-wing group that wants to restore what they consider Japanese virtues, or Yamato Damashii, the Japanese spirit. They don’t like the West and want to return to pure Japanese culture.”

“They’re a right-wing group?”

“Yes. Like in the United States, Japan has both right-wing and left-wing groups. But in Japan the groups on the far right are not just conservatives. They are interested in a militaristic and aggressive Japan, just like before the Pacific War. They don’t like Japan’s current role in the world, and think we should return to prewar thinking and attitudes. They sometimes use violence to make their point. Right now we have these people crashing cars into government buildings to show their protest over current government policies.”

“Isn’t Kim a Korean name?”

“Yes. It may seem strange, but many Koreans are involved in radical Japanese right-wing groups. It comes from their involvement with the Yakuza. You’re sure you’re not active in politics in the United States?”

“Not really. I vote and that’s about it. I’m just here in Japan to appear on a television show.”

“In your television interview you didn’t say anything about the Emperor, did you?”

“I haven’t been interviewed yet. That’s in a couple of days. I’ve just been in a promotional spot where I say goran kudasai. The subject of the Emperor hasn’t come up during my entire stay in Japan. What does the Emperor have to do with this?”

“Japanese right-wing groups, including the Nippon Tokkotai, have tried to assassinate politicians who have said negative things about the Emperor or Japan’s involvement in the war. If you’re not active in politics and you haven’t done anything to anger them while you’re in Japan, I don’t know why they would be after you. Maybe it’s a case of mistaken identity.”

“The way they’ve followed me for the past two nights doesn’t sound like a mistake to me. You said both men also have Yakuza connections?”

“Yes.”

“That could be the link. I recently put the son of the leader of the Sekiguchi-gummi in jail.”

“That’s one of the biggest crime families in Japan.”

“Could they want to take revenge on me for that? Or maybe try to intimidate me into not testifying at the trial back in the States?”

Ishii shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”

“Are you going to bring the two men in for questioning?”

“What for? They didn’t do anything yet. If we brought them in we couldn’t hold them. They’ll have friends who will swear they were with them at the time you were chased.”

“Then I should have let them catch me and beat the hell out of me, or maybe stick a knife in me?”

For the first time, I saw Ishii smile. “That would make a stronger case. If you had witnesses. And they would testify.” So much for Sugimoto’s stories about the Japanese police acting like that Chinese emperor willing to kill two innocent men to assure that a third guilty party was punished. Ishii wasn’t even willing to bring the two guys in for questioning. I guess he figured that in a few days I’d be out of the country and the problem would literally go away.

I took a cab back to the hotel. My walking days in Tokyo were over.