The Ongoing Diary of Casey Neal

Connections

(January 2020)

I came “home” to discover two things.

First, DK is a freaking godsend.  Okay, I know the “big guy up there” and I haven’t always been on speaking terms. Half the time it seems like I don’t think he exists, and the other half I think he’s got it in for me.  In addition, given the region he was born, I think it’s a clear bet that DK, himself, does not believe in that particular power.  Regardless, when I get back to Tokyo I find that Diaki Matsui has taken it upon himself to get me the heck outta the hotel, and has decided that the two of us are going to be roommates.  His place is small, and it’s a bit of a dump, but it has the distinct advantage of not having been previously patroned by any visitors from Russia.

I discover all of this when I find him waiting at the arrival gate.

“How did you know when I was coming?” I asked, shocked to see him.

“You tell me other night,” he replied.

I don’t remember doing so, but the beer had flowed pretty heavily by the time we left. I’m probably happy to not know several things about that night.

The second thing I discovered when I returned was that Chief Inspector Yuni Ichihara was … uh … unhappy with me.

I could tell this because of how he stood up when I came to his office later that day. The movement was sharp and abrupt, a movement taken in mid-sentence with someone on the line.

He hesitated.

“I’m sorry, Janelle,” he said in his most pleasant voice. “We will have to continue this conversation at another time. Something has arisen.”

“No problem, Inspector. Four this afternoon?”

“Yes, that will be fine.”

The he rung off and looked up from the datapad with a face that was set in absolute stone.

“You get visited by the Russian mob, and you don’t tell me?”

Several thoughts raced through my head at this moment, including the idea that I should wonder how he knew about this little adventure of min.  But what came out was a simple, bleating: “The Russian mob?”

“Who did you think they were? Peter Pan and Twinkles?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You mean, Peter Pan and Tinkerbell?”

He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. His face was growing red.

“You were lucky you weren’t shot.”

I sat down in a hard chair and pulled one knee up.

“I was going to tell you,” I said.

He followed suit and took a seat also.

“When?”

“This is the first time we’ve been together since the incident.”

“You can use the cell phone, can you not?”

“Okay. I’m wrong, you’re right. I’ll do better next time.  Can we move along and actually talk about the situation? I mean, it’s not often someone tells me the I’ve got a tail associated with the Russian mob.”

He nodded, then glanced around.  Noise from the pool area outside his door filtered in. Sunlight came through the window.

“It’s too nice of a day to be inside now, perhaps we can go for a walk.”

So that’s what we did.

We walked. He smoked. And along the way I learned that Yuni Ichihara had several baseball acquaintances that he would attend games with from time to time. One of those men was named Diaki Matsui, and occasionally Ichihara would ask his friends to do him favors in areas that were tangentially related to his work. He had asked Diaki to watch over the hotel while I was there, which explained for me why DK just happened to be there with his bike to get “run over,” and it also explained how Yuni Ichihara was up to date on events of the hotel.

“So, DK is a cop?”

Ichihara shook his head and smiled. “DK is a metalworker who loves his Edo baseball with a passion and likes to help me out wherever he can because he knows that often results in tickets to big games.”

“Well, I think asking him to put me up is a bit too much.”

“Put you up?” Ichihara asked, shading his face from the sun with his hand.

“You know, let me stay with him. I don’t think it’s fair to ask him to do that.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t even know he had offered.”

I stood there, feeling the strangeness of how the world works again. “Huh.”

“It sounds smart, though. Perhaps you can help him get through the loss of his team as the season wears on.” Ichihara grinned into the sun and blew smoke. “It is something we will both have to bear.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Ichihara took a last drag on his cigarette, then used the bottom of his shoe to put it out. Then he held onto the butt until we came to a nearby trash bin. He threw it away with a grimace on his face.

“I apologize if smoking near you is uncomfortable,” he said. “It is an unfortunate habit.”

“Tried to quit?”

“Many times. Succeeded a few years ago. But this case … too much stress. I started back a month ago.”

“Speaking of stress,” I finally said. “The Russians?”

“Yes, the Russians.  Obviously, your story made a dent. We received approval for our data this morning, and have teams working to fill in details.”

“That’s all good and well, but it doesn’t sound like a replacement for a bulletproof vest.”

“They would not have harmed you this time,” Ichihara said. “That is not how they play.  We do have laws, after all. But I think they wanted to, how you say, rattle your cage.”

“Consider it rattled.”

“I am, however, worried about the speed of their interception. It confirms that there is something very big happening here. And it means they are trying to discover how closely we are sharing information.”

“That makes sense. I guess.”

“So,” Ichihara said. “This is what we are going to do next …”