Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn

Chapter One Aoki's brain registered the muzzle flash as the bullet wentbzzzzpast his head. His pistol was thrust forward two-handed as he fired a fast bracket at where he'd seen the flash. Ten yards into the alley a figure detached itself from the darkness and Aoki fired again. The figure toppled backward and thumped on concrete. Aoki, breathing hard, sweat drenching his armpits, edged forward. Saburi, weapon extended, moved past him and the prone figure, going deeper into the alley. Nothing more. No one else. Only the muffled sound of traffic, the rattling of air conditioners, and water spitting down. In Aoki's flashlight the wide open eyes of the dead yakuza shone like glass buttons. Today, gazing down into the street from his window at the incoming tide of salarymen and women, the flashback from two years ago had come as a momentary distraction to Aoki. In the here and now his stomach was queasy, as if he'd had a meal of bad food. He sucked softly at his lower lip. The terse brevity of Superintendent Watanabe, when he'd reported to him on the interoffice phone five minutes ago, had been a wake-up call, but more than that, it was the general atmosphere he was taking in. After twenty years in the Tokyo police, the beeping of the excrement detector in his brain was a definite warning that shit was coming down the freeway. Turning away from the window he told himself, "Overnight, something's changed." At 10:00 p.m. everything seemed on schedule. Aoki was a man of medium height, broad-shouldered, with a wide, dark-complexioned face that had a prominent mole on its left cheek. He stood in his glass cubicle and, eyes narrowed, watched the seven detectives of his team emerge from the elevator. Initially there'd been ten, but three had cracked under the strain and departed. Assistant Inspectors Nishi and Sagamoto, who were to accompany him and the superintendent to the director general's office at 8:15 a.m., led the way, each with an armful of files. It was just after 8:00 a.m. on a Thursday in August. In the modern air-conditioned building that housed several divisions of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's Criminal Investigation Bureau, computer screens were flashing on, and phones beginning to ring. Aoki lit a cigarette and stared through the glass at his men assembling outside his door. He looked solid, seasoned, and tough, and all of that was true. Just possibly, his imagination was acting up, though he wasn't strong on imagination. He muttered, "We'll just go in and do it." He butted the cigarette in an ashtray, turned, put on his suit coat, and stepped outside. The waiting detectives bowed as one, and he gave a perfunctory response. Their eyes were on his face. Two years before, he'd broken a big insurance fraud case that had hit the headlines, and three big-time businessmen, despite the intervention of local politicians, had gone to prison. Relentlessly, Aoki had flushed them out from behind a complex corporate structure, together with the crooked appraiser who inflated the building's valuation before they set it alight. The same year, Aoki had taken over a stalled double-murder investigation in Shinjuku, unearthing a new set of witnesses and solving the case. His team members might sometimes curse him behind his back, but they respected his record, as did his superiors. Now, possibly, this major case was about to break, bringing them all promotion. "Okay, let's go," he said to Nishi and Sagamoto. "Good luck, Aoki-san," Sergeant Saburi said, with a thumbs-up. They took the elevator to the top floor. Superintendent Watanabe was waiting in the director general's anteroom, hiBrowne, Marshall is the author of 'Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn ' with ISBN 9780312311582 and ISBN 0312311583.