13: July, 2020

 I’m working in my office when there is a knock at the door. The door isn’t usually closed during the day. I leave it half open. My attempt to create a more inviting work atmosphere. I see the door swinging in slowly. A man is standing on the threshold of my office.

 “Konoye Kusonoki?” he asks, smiling.

 “That’s right,” I reply, swiveling in my chair to face the office entrance. It takes me a moment to focus on the other side of the room. The man looks like a character from some early sixties crime drama. The hard-boiled investigator would be his part. He looks neither young nor old. His dark hair is cut short and neat with a sheen from some tonic reflecting the office lights. He wears a gray suit with a white shirt and a narrow, dark tie. He carries a thin, black briefcase.

 He enters the office. “Ohayō gozaimasu. My name is Ishio Takagi,” he says, extending his hand, “I’m with Seigyoki internal security.” He points to the ID badge clipped to his jacket.

 I rise and shake his hand. “Pleased to meet you. What brings you by, Takagi-san?” I ask, in what I hope is a casual, conversational tone.

 “May I sit down?” he asks, motioning to the two chairs in front of my desk.

 “Oh, of course, of course,” I say, taking a seat myself.

 He sets his brief case down in the seat to his left, and lowers himself into the other chair. “As you know, Kusonoki-san, your organization recently lost many valuable records in a warehouse fire. We are making some changes to the ball club’s document storage and retrieval policies. Nothing drastic, just centralizing the management of these documents, making them more secure. Needless to say, we are going to be relocating to another off-site storage facility. I’ve been going around the building today collecting the old keys to the warehouse. These are the black fobs with the digital display that show you the security code to the entrance.” He turns to his left and pulls a folder out of his briefcase. “According to our records, you should have one of these keys.”

“Ah, yes,” I say, relieved. “I have it right here in the drawer.” I produce the fob, which sits near the front, next to some paperclips and a half-consumed pack of breath mints.

 He takes the little device from my hand, turning it over to check the number etched into the back, comparing it with some document in the open folder in his lap. “That’s the one,” he says, smiling. “You have no idea how much time this saves me, Kusonoki-san. You’d be surprised how many of your coworkers have been less careful with where they leave these things.”

 “But why bother collecting keys for a set of doors destroyed in a fire?”

 Takagi places his folder and my key in his briefcase. He closes it and regards me with a level gaze. He is no longer smiling. “Our own investigation of this incident is ongoing,” he says. “Accounting for the keys is a part of it.”

“I see,” I say, but I don’t see, not really. It is clear, however, that this is not a line of inquiry I wish to pursue further.

 “Well,” says Takagi, rising from his chair, his manner friendly again. “Thanks, again. I won’t waste any more of your time.” He rises and we shake hands once more.

 Takagi heads for the door. “Be seeing you,” he says, as he departs, pulling my door half closed, just as he found it.

I take a seat and turn my attention back to my spreadsheets. I spend another couple of hours regarding player development reports for prospects in another team’s farm system. Sometimes this really seems like a pointless exercise. It can certainly be dull. The truth is that the majority of professional baseball players don’t develop all that much. Certainly not enough to make a big league club. These players eventually retire, or are simply discarded, sometime in their late twenties, and then they try to become regular adults in a world far less interesting than a baseball park, and a good deal more joyless. I can only imagine what that transition must be like.

 I get up to go to the bathroom.

 As I do so, I notice something in the seat of the chair where Takagi’s briefcase had been. It is the June issue of Chance, a shipping label on its cover has my name and address on it. I pick up the magazine and shake out a small amount of sand from between its pages.