The Ongoing Diary of Casey Neal

This is What He Gets for His Service?

(April 2020)

I introduce the two of them over a breakfast of coffee and eggs over biscuits.  I have them fry my egg, and Don-o does his scrambled.  Ichihara is a poached egg kind of guy.

The papers are full of news about baseball.

Runs are down! one headline reads.  The story displays a graph of runs scored in the LRS per team per year.  The trend has been rising slowly over the past five or six seasons from the mid-fours to 4.7 in 2018, then jumping astronomically to 5.3 runs/game last season.  This year, things are strangely split with teams in the Silver Sword Group averaging a paltry 3.8, and the Bright Blade Group scoring a relatively strong 4.9–which, the article notes, is still down from last season despite the fact that the BBG is using the DH for the first time in their history.

It asks the baseball world about whether this could be collusion.

It does more than suggest that the PEBA board is fixing the ball this year.

“Someone needs to explain sample size to them,” Don-o says.

“I need to stop trying to read the sports pages for awhile,” I reply.  I’m finishing my eggs, which taste particularly good this morning.  “The translations are hard, and I’ve got better things to do.”

“They beat the other pages,” Ichihara says.

“Wasn’t going to bring that up,” Don-o says.

I look at them both, realizing that Don-o can read Japanese.  Of course, he can.  He lived here for six years, for cryin’ out loud.  “What is it?” I ask.

“Nothing,” Ichihara says with a wave of the back of his hand.

“The Chief Inspector is being ripped a new one in the papers today,” Don-o said.  “Apparently someone doesn’t think he’s doing his job.”

Ichihara blanches. He doesn’t want Don-o to go on, but rather than object he diverts his eyes and drinks from his coffee.

“But they don’t know the truth, do they, Mr. Ichihara?”

“No.  They do not.  Nor do they care.”

The three of us settle into a moment where the only sound is the clatter of spoons and knives on ceramic plates, and the voices of customers ordering their food.

Ichihara turns to me,

“Would you mind taking short walk about the blocks. I need to speak to Mr. Don-o.”

“What?” I say.  “You can’t push me out of this, Yuni.  Not now.  Full access for the well-placed story. That’s the deal, right?”

“This for your safety, Casey san.”

And I feel his stare painting pinpricks of discomfort against the back of my retinas.  For some reason I smell the wild odors of the dark alley room of the spirit woman from night before, and I think of the feeling of dried flower petals falling from her hair.

I sigh, and drink the last of my coffee.

“All right,” I say.

“Thank you.”

I get up and take a step.  “Text me when you’re done.”

#

I pick up a copy of the morning edition of Yomiuri Shimbun, still one of the biggest papers in the world.  I cannot read it, but I use my translation ap and turn on both cameras.  It eats battery, but screw it.

As I scan over the page, I see the story Don-o referenced.

“Being ripped a new one” didn’t go far enough.

The editorial calls him incompetent and an embarrassment to Japanese law enforcement.  It calls for his removal from the office “before the reptilian perpetrators of this atrocity can cover even more of their slimy path.”  And it calls for his demotion “as a call to all other countries involved in baseball, as a statement that we in Japan will always play the game fairly.”

I crumple the pages and throw them into the trash compactor alongside the street.  It makes me mad.  the whole thing makes me mad.  It shouldn’t be this hard.

Yuni Ichihara is an honorable man, and he’s doing everything he can to get to the bottom of this case.  This is what he gets for his service?

I walk the streets, increasing my pace.

I don’t think of anything for a long time, just let the schools of people who walk in my stream part ahead of me.  It’s turning into a warmish day in April, but I’m wearing my jacket.  I leave it on and pretty soon my pace brings a sweat.  I feel like running. I like the rhythmic cadence to the walk, and I want to break into a faster run, to feel my arms driving my legs and my feet flowing over the concrete.  But I’m not dressed for it, and the truth is that even this pace is making me breath like a steam locomotive.

I finally slow down, and I walk more slowly, taking a left at a corner, and then another left, and eventually another left that gets me close to the breakfast shop where Don-o and ichihara are having their clandestine conversation so that I can avoid getting hurt any further.

I didn’t like that feeling.

Not one bit.

Then my phone buzzes.

It is not a text.

It is a call from Ichihara.

“Call the Russians,” he says.  “Tell them we meet.  Wednesday.”

“What?”

“You hear me.”

“Yes, I got it. Call the Russians.  Wednesday.  When?  Where?”

He tells me a time, midnight, and a place.

I am about to ring off when he says one more thing.

“And, Casey,” he says.  “Tell them to bring guns.”