“Good to know,” Han said. “Now let me take a wild guess and say the way Joko Daishi liberates our souls is to get us all high.”
Hamaya admitted the smallest of smirks. “That would be illegal, Detective.”
“Now, what if the thing he was using to do the liberating was MDA?” Mariko said, making Hamaya shift his attention to her. She and Han made a habit of speaking in turns. They had a good rapport that way, each anticipating where the other was going, riffing off each other, always redirecting a suspect’s focus, never letting him feel settled. It worked on suspects’ lawyers too. “A nice high with some gentle hallucinations—good spiritual stuff, that. Pass enough of that around and you could probably start a cult.”
“Maybe so,” said Han. “Of course, he’d need a steady supply to make enough MDA for a whole cult to take part.”
“But wait,” said Mariko, “hasn’t your client been making deals with the Kamaguchi-gumi for whole barrels of hexamine?”
“That’s right,” said Han. “He’s been doing that for months, hasn’t he? Do you know what you can make with hexamine, Hamaya-san?”
“I’m sure I have no idea.”
“Well, your client does,” said Mariko. “I mean, he’d have to. He knows how to cook speed, after all. Lots of it. Enough to make himself very rich—rich enough to purchase expensive antiques, for instance. Masks, swords, that kind of thing. If he didn’t feel like stealing them, of course.”
Han poked Hamaya on the shoulder and whispered, “This is the part where you say, ‘Allegedly.’”
“Now, why would a guy who likes to cook amphetamines give a whole bunch of his product away?” said Mariko, laying claim to Hamaya’s most obvious legal riposte. She figured they might as well get a good look at it now, before the case went to court. Urano Soseki, the capo that oversaw the Kamaguchi-gumi’s shipping and packing plant, had claimed the same defense right from the outset, just minutes after Mariko had blasted him through that door: there was never any dope deal. No money had changed hands. In court Hamaya could make a mirroring claim on Akahata’s behalf: since the speed was in the Kamaguchi-gumi’s possession, it clearly belonged to them. A buy wasn’t a buy until someone paid for something.
That wouldn’t wash for Urano’s crew. Just having the speed on the premises was more than enough to convict them. But Akahata was innocent until proven guilty. Unless Mariko and Han could prove he’d been involved in the deal—and holding a big wad of dope money was the usual proof in these cases—Akahata’s only criminal activity that night had been as the victim of aggravated battery. She and Han always had the option of getting Urano to dime out Akahata, but Urano’s credibility as a witness wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny. Mariko could take her turn on the stand, but she’d have a hard time convincing a jury why Akahata would use fifty or sixty kilos of speed to buy an old rusty mask, and an even harder time explaining how she’d discovered that information while hanging out in Kamaguchi Hanzo’s kitchen. Unless Akahata admitted to felony possession, Hamaya would see him walk.
But Hamaya ignored that line of defense completely. “No one gives contraband away for free, Officer.”
“Oh?” said Han. If Mariko read him right, he, like her, was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Hamaya gave them a thin smile. “Please. This little back-and-forth game of yours might work on some poor, hapless purse snatcher you drag into your interrogation room, but we’re all professionals here. There’s no need to insult my intelligence.”
Han was at a loss, literally dumbstruck. His mouth worked, but he couldn’t make it say anything.
Mariko jumped in: “Just what are you suggesting, Hamaya-san? Are you admitting your client’s guilty of felony possession? Trafficking? Conspiracy? What?”
“I don’t wish to be presumptuous, Officers, but allow me to hazard a guess as to your intentions. You expected me to claim my client is innocent. Had no part in the drug transaction, or something like this, at any rate. Since you’re utterly lacking in evidence, you’ve considered trying to get one of your other suspects to testify against him. Being good at your jobs, in all likelihood you’d succeed, and then my client would be sentenced to a very long prison term. Was that your plan, more or less?”
Mariko had never been belittled so politely in all her life. “Uh,” she said.
“I guess you think you’re pretty smart,” said Han, whose tone suggested he didn’t take kindly to having his mind read. “Well, two can play this game. You’re not really Akahata’s lawyer, are you? You’re here for his boss, this Joko Daishi, whatever the hell that means—”
“Great Teacher of the Purging Fire,” said Hamaya.
“—who, by the way, we’ve already got by the balls. We know he’s been buying the hexamine, we know he’s been cooking, and we know there’s a new amphetamine on the street called Daishi that’s selling like pointy ears at a Star Trek convention. We also know it’s the Kamaguchi-gumi that’s slinging the Daishi, and it’s only a matter of time before we confirm that your client is their delivery boy. Now we’ve got your boy and you’ve got a jabber-mouth tweaker spouting gibberish all day long. The boss-man starts worrying that his disciple might spout something incriminating, so he sends you down here for damage control. How am I doing so far? Is that the plan, more or less?”
Hamaya’s laugh chilled Mariko to the bone. An “okay, you got me” laugh would have suited her just fine. She’d even have taken a derisive “you cops are so goddamn stupid” laugh or a haughty “I’m far too big for you to touch me” laugh—something to make it clear that Han had him dead to rights. A humorless grin. A little swallow. The tiniest flicker of guilt. Anything. But Hamaya’s laugh conveyed an entirely different subtext: Not only are you not in the ballpark, but you’re not even in the right sport. We have even less to fear from you than we thought. You haven’t got the slightest clue of what you’re dealing with here.
Han had missed something. Something big. And Mariko couldn’t spot it either.
She did what she always did in such circumstances: she started collecting details. She couldn’t help it; it was just a habit of mind. And the first datum she caught was a cold light in Han’s eyes. He wasn’t responding with a detached curiosity like Mariko’s. He was furious.
Immediately her detective’s mind started seeking connections. She’d seen Han angry before. Losing what should have been a win in court on a trivial technicality. This wasn’t like that. Losing what should have been a win because the perp’s lawyer was just too damn good at his job. This wasn’t like that kind of anger either. Losing big at Lieutenant Sakakibara’s Thursday night poker table, getting conned on a hand that should have been a sure thing. That’s what this was. Han didn’t like it when people got into his head. Or rather, he didn’t like it when they got in uninvited. Mariko could read his mind all she liked. They were partners. But when Hamaya did it, he’d violated the most sacred kind of privacy. He’d intruded the sanctum sanctorum. And Han was ready to throw down with him for that.
“Han,” Mariko said, interposing herself between her partner and Hamaya, “why don’t you step outside for a second?”
“This prick knows his client’s guilty.”
“I know.”
Han’s face was getting red. Staring Hamaya right in the eye, he said, “He’s going to tell his client to run. He’s going to aid and abet a known criminal. I’m not going to stand here and let him do it.”