Ichihara

(December 2019)

Chief Inspector Ichihara blew a plume of blue smoke from his cigarette and waited for me to sit down across from him. We were in his office, which is a small, cramped place with very little floor space, most of which is taken up by three hard-backed chairs and a coat rack that looks like it belongs back in a sitcom from the 1950s. The walls were painted a drab yellow, and were adorned with photos and certificates either tacked up, or sitting at various angles after having been hung out-of-balance. On his table was a datapad, a thick coffee cup, and his ash tray, all surrounded by a variable mound of curled pages. The only other item there was a bobble-head doll of a baseball player wearing what I knew to be a Kawaguchi uniform.

“You’ve heard the quotation,” the chief inspector said as both the smoke and I settled ourselves, “that power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?” His voice was clipped, but not hard to understand, his English infinitely better than my non-existent Japanese.

“Of course,” I replied.

“Of course,” he mimicked me with a smile that seemed sarcastic in its vehemence. Then he stamped out the cigarette in an ashtray that was overflowing. “Everyone has heard that saying. It’s generally attributed to a gentleman named Lord Acton, but others said something like it before he did. Still, he is the one everyone remembers–if they remember at all, anyway. And, yet, no one seems to recall there was another sentence to Lord Acton’s quote. A sentence that followed.”

Ichihara didn’t say anything else.

“Which was?” I finally asked.

He leaned over the table. “Acton said, Great men are almost always bad men.”

This is my introduction to the detective Japan sees as being in charge of pursuing the case of criminal fraud that sprung from the shenanigans of the man known throughout the investigation team as Mr. Slimeball. Unfortunately for Ichihara, it is quite obvious that nobody from any other country sees his position of leadership in quite the same fashion, folks who specifically include constables, chiefs of police, executive directors of security councils, bank managers, detectives, and pretty much any other being who might be able to help Ichihara pursue justice across governmental lines. Ichihara was, to my surprise, among the first to agree to meet with me when I began hunting interviews.

“Interesting,” I say, mostly because it is interesting, and partially because after all this travelling I’m still not actually sure where to begin.

“Isn’t it?”

“What can you tell me about the investigation?” I finally ask.

“What do you know?”

“I read the news,” I said. “I know this guy–”

“MS,” Ichihara interrupted me. “We all just call him MS. Or MSB.”

I gave a gnowing smirk. “For ‘Mister Slimeball.'”

“Actually,” Ichihara said with a smile, we consider it “Misutā Suraimu Bōru.”

I turned a nod into a quick bow, embarrassed for being such an ass. “I apologize for my American mindset. Not everything that happens in the world happens in English.”

“Not to worry. We all have the framework we were born with. But, in fact, we picked that name as an Americanism. A more direct translation would be Suraimubohru san.”

“I see. Thank you. Anyway, you asked what I know. I know, uh … MSB … took advantage of what seems like a historically tumultuous period for the League of the Rising Sun in the off-season before 2019, to take on at least five different identities. I know he used these identities to con his way into the general management roles of teams in five different cities.”

Ichihara said. “Kawaguchi, Seoul Kure, Kuwanna, and of course, Hyakuuju.”

“Yes. And I know that MSB then set about pushing a series of very aggressive trades and other transactions that pumped millions of dollars into accounts that no one can find today–and that he was, in the process, creating a super-team in Hyakuuju.”

Ichihara nodded, sat back in his chair, and motioned me to continue.

“I think that was his downfall, really. He probably could have kept siphoning off money for a lot longer if he didn’t try to win in the process.”

The detective’s smile grew positively angelic, but he merely motioned me onward.

“The money was quickly traced through a series of international banks, but now the trail has dried up and it seems like no one is getting anywhere.”

“And, what is your take on things?”

I hesitated, trying to decide how far to go. To be honest, I hadn’t expected Ichihara to be so interested in a discussion at all, so I was surprised when he was among the first to respond. And I expected he would be evasive with his answers, and yet I was sitting here feeling like he was the aggressor here, like this was his agenda, not mine. I didn’t want to screw myself before I had even started. Still, I saw an intelligence in the inspector’s eyes that had a warm distance to it, as if he were assessing something inside me.

“Reading between the lines,”I said. “I would say it sounds like everyone you’re working with is more interested in saving their own hind-ends or is really just wanting to get everything behind them rather than actually catching the bad guy.”

For several moments the only sound was the normal street commotion coming from the window. Then Ichihara pressed a finger to his datapad. “Yes, sir,” a male voice replied. “Coffee for Mister Neal, please. And more for me.” The voice replied in the affirmative, and Ichihara leaned forward, putting both elbows on the table.

“I like the way you think, Mister Neal. I am believing that, perhaps, we can have a relationship. An understanding.”

“What kind of understanding is that?”

“You want to know all there is to know about our investigations, and … well … I am running into barriers everywhere I turn. You are more correct in your guesses than you want to know. Some want bribes, others want credit. Some are just lazy. It is infuriating. We are turned down at every inquiry, yet my bosses are afraid to discuss these issues in the open. They do not want to be seen as bickering about our sibling law enforcement organizations in Russia or in France or … well, in many places. So I am, how do you say, gagged.”

“But I am the press,” I said, getting an idea of what he might be offering.

“Yes, you are. Even better, you are a brash American with ties. You have a voice others do not. You have the ability, sometimes, to say things in certain ways that I most certainly cannot.”

I smiled. “You want me to expose corruption that is getting in your way.”

“That could be useful.”

“And dangerous.”

“Yes,” Ichihara said. “And dangerous. But I know about you, Mr. Casey Neal. I’ve read your story. You have faced danger before.”

I thought about the last time, remembering the sight of a gun pointed at my chest and the image of Don-o standing in the moonlight ready (I thought) to take a bullet for the game itself.

The door opened and a young man came in carrying a plastic tray with two cups of coffee. I saw each carried the logo of a team from the LRS. I got the one with Kure’s emblem, Ichihara got the Transmitters. I sipped the hot liquid. The young man gave a brief nod of the head and left.

“So,” the chief inspector said, swirling sugar into the drink. “do we have an understanding?”