“Not really.” Ayako gave a pensive sigh. “I once shared an apartment with another girl. If I came home and saw the bowling pin in the window I would know she was… busy with a client. It is all I have left to remind me of her.”
Quinn decided not to ask more about the girl. Instead, he took the time to study Ayako.
The short skirt, white blouse, and kneesocks were meant to replicate the look of a Japanese schoolgirl — a popular fantasy for Japanese men who hired prostitutes. Quinn couldn’t help noticing that the socks were a little too large for her tiny feet and the baggy heels hung out of the back of her slippers. She was still able to carry off the costume, but Quinn could make out the tiniest of lines around her smallish mouth. Wide, chocolate eyes, though attractive in their own way, held a weary look that liner and makeup could not hide.
“I am sure you are tired, Quinn-san,” she said in English. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Some water would be nice.”
She opened the fridge to give a look at what she could offer. “How about orange juice and toast? I doubt you got breakfast on your way across from Korea.”
“I would not turn down something to eat,” Quinn said.
Ayako moved two graphic novels and a pile of mail off the table so he’d have a place to sit. She made him toast and a poached egg to go with his juice, bantering about the Japanese intricacies of sorting recyclable trash while bustling around the small kitchen. A dishtowel hung cavalierly over her shoulder, and she spoke easily, as if she’d known Quinn all her life.
The TAG Aquaracer on Quinn’s wrist said it had been nearly twenty hours since he’d eaten anything — a long time for someone with his gaunt frame and high metabolism. Ayako sat across from him with her hands in her lap, watching intently while he ate.
“Emiko-chan says you have great skill at violent things.” Ayako rolled pink lips as if she should not have let that slip out. “She says you are the best.”
“There is no best.” Quinn smiled over the glass of juice. “Some are better on one day, others are better on the next.”
“Still,” Ayako said, fingering a little photo charm that hung from her cell phone. “I can see from the way you move that you are the man for this job.”
Quinn frowned. “What job?”
Ayako raised a penciled brow, surprised at his reaction. “Emi-chan said you were coming to help me.”
“Interesting,” Quinn said. “I was under the impression that you were going to help me.”
“She only told me you had some questions that I could answer.” Ayako shrugged. “And that you could help me sort out a problem with your particular skills.”
“She didn’t mention Oda or the girl with the foo dog tattoo?”
Ayako recoiled as if she’d been slapped. Standing quickly, she turned to a stack of dishes in the metal sink, throwing more around for effect than she actually washed.
“I am sorry if I have upset you,” Quinn said. “But I need to find this man, Oda. I believe he put this girl up to shooting someone.”
Ayako spun to face him, a dripping dishcloth in her hand. One dark kneesock puddled around a tiny ankle. Her chest heaved under the translucent cotton blouse, unbuttoned far enough to expose a little black bow at the center of her bra. Had it not been for the stricken look in her eyes, Quinn would have thought she was flirting. “Oda is…” She swallowed hard, then turned to vomit in the sink.
Quinn jumped out of his chair to steady her, but she put up her hand, shrugging him off.
“Do not touch me!”
He backed away. Emiko’s description hadn’t prepared him for this.
Slowly, her breathing calmed. She took a paper towel from a roll by the sink and dabbed at her mouth.
“I am sorry. It is only that… Oda has this effect on people. Emiko probably told you as much.” She closed her eyes as she spoke, swallowing, working to focus her thoughts.
“So you know where to find him?”
Ayako said nothing for a long time, her hands trembling as she tried to dry a clay teacup. At length, she looked up, leaning against the edge of the kitchen counter, batting her eyes. “I was never allowed to know exactly where he stays. Perhaps if you help me with my problem, you will find the answers you are after.”
“Okay…” Quinn groaned. He took his seat back at the table, skeptical. He needed this woman’s cooperation and hoped his particular skills would not get him in trouble.
Ayako folded her arms across her chest. “There are several yakuza families operating here in Fukuoka, the weakest of which is the Taniguchi clan. They are also the most dangerous, always trying to claw their way up the ladder. The second in command is a lieutenant named Sato. Emiko may have mentioned him.”
“No.” Quinn shook his head.
“That is interesting.” Ayako wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips, as if discussing the man made her want to spit. “Sato is the yakuza soldier who forced Emiko’s mother to be his concubine when her father died. Of course he tossed her to the side like a piece of trash when he was tired of her — as he does with all his women. Frankly, I believe he was more interested in Emiko, as his tastes run toward younger girls. A longtime client of mine who works for Sato told me the Taniguchi clan had some kind of issue with Oda recently. Such ‘issues’ usually mean someone has been killed in a particularly bad way. Sato will know more.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Quinn leaned back in his chair, ready to listen. “What’s this problem that you need sorted out?”
Visibly calmer now that Quinn had agreed to help, Ayako padded across the small apartment and plopped down on a love seat along the block wall. Her unmade bed was just a few feet away. Well practiced at playing an innocent schoolgirl, she draped her legs over the arm of the love seat and hugged a pillow to her chest while she stared at the ceiling. It took Quinn a moment to notice there was a poster of some Korean boy-toy heartthrob tacked up there, staring back down.
Quinn waited for her to think through her scheme. One of her kneesocks had a hole on the bottom. In fact, on closer inspection, all her clothes were frayed or worn in some way or another — just like her.
“My niece is missing,” Ayako said after a thoughtful silence. “I need you to help me get her back.”
“Kidnapped?”
“Without a doubt she is being held against her will, and I know by who,” Ayako said, still gazing up at the poster of the Korean singer who was no more than half her age.
“Sounds like a problem you should take to the police.”
“That would not turn out well.” Ayako gave a strained laugh. “The police are fully aware of what I do for a living. They would never believe any niece of mine is only an innocent university student. She would be judged by association.” Still on her back, Ayako turned her head to look at Quinn under heavy eyelids. “Do you know what they call prostitutes in Japan?”
“I know the Japanese word, if that’s what you mean.”
“There are lots of names for us,” Ayako said, giving a resigned shrug. She let her gaze return to the Korean teenager on the ceiling. “Iero kiyabu, for instance…”
Quinn shook his head, not recognizing the term. It sounded Japanese, but he’d never heard it.
“I-e-ro ki-ya-bu… yellow cab,” she said, sighing. “I supposed it is because we give rides to strangers… Miyu-chan is no iero kiyabu, no matter what they think, but since she came to visit me, the police would assume.”
“How long has she been missing and who has her?” Quinn cut to the chase, preferring not to dwell on the plight of girls in the yellow cab profession. Prostitutes made for perfect informants, and he’d dealt with many over the years in his own line of work. No two were exactly the same but most shared the common qualities of desperation and a sort of penned-up sadness that made Quinn want to beat to death the men who used them.