“So you only drank coffee because your ‘heroes’ did, and they don’t have to deal with caffeine addictions or jittery nerves or having to stop every half hour to let it out again.”
“You’re probably right. Can’t stand it.” Yohji shrugged. “Always been more of a tea person, truth be told, but who ever heard of a tea-drinking PI?”
“Sherlock Holmes?”
You laughed in submission. “Still, coffee was always one better than the bourbon.” He stared at the faintly green liquid in the thin cup. His fingers had turned red.
“Did you mean it when you said you’d stop drinking?” Crawford put down his paper mug and stared hard at Yohji.
“I think I have to,” Yohji said softly. “I’ve got too many reasons to hate myself as it is; I can’t afford to inflict another one on myself.”
“Last night didn’t go too badly,” Crawford said awkwardly. “You did get the bug placed, right?”
“Yep. They have a room downstairs with a large screen and a computer and various other things that suggested to me it might be their briefing room. Stuck it to the back of the television.” Yohji chewed his lip. “Expensive stuff.”
“So we achieved our objective,” Crawford said in a satisfied voice. The attempt at praise went right over Yohji’s head.
“They recognised you.” Yohji said it like he was commenting on particularly bad weather. After all, both were a reason to be a gloomy, and both were blatantly obvious to all participants in the conversation. On that note, it was raining, which was why they were sitting inside the café this time.
“Yes. They’ll refuse to believe it’s a coincidence, naturally,” Crawford observed with equally acknowledged obviousness.
“It could have been. But they know your face now, and you theirs. Someone’s going to die, aren’t they?” Yohji said bitterly.
“You don’t like being reminded of what I do for a living,” Crawford sighed. “I could make it worse, if you like.”
“I’d rather you didn’t. I keep remembering that you’re attached and I’m straight, and the sexual tension is confusing the hell out of me. I don’t want to have to hate you as well.” Yohji said dully.
“I was beginning to think I was the only one,” Crawford smiled.
“What, hating you?”
“Don’t play stupid,” Crawford told him. “You know, Hirofumi will have us both killed.” It seemed to be the day for stating the obvious.
“We haven’t given him that excuse yet,” Yohji said firmly. “What do you see in that prick?”
“Power.”
“Ah.” Yohji smiled, but it turned into a grimace as the increasingly heavy rain pounding on tin shutters reminded him that his hangover was still angry with him. “But you work for his father.”
“I’m trying to keep all bases covered,” Crawford said awkwardly.
“Reiji not inclined?” Yohji asked, grinning.
“I don’t intend to risk my life to find out,” Crawford said. “Besides, he looks like a koala.”
“How very shallow of you,” Yohji laughed. “Imagine how he must feel, being rejected for those silly sideburns alone, when you could reject him for so many other reasons.”
Crawford smiled and shook his head. A very different Kudoh Yohji sat in front of him today. He had tea instead of coffee, his coat was free of bottles (and fit much better for it) and his hat still had a plastic ribbon stuck to it. He was smiling and looking straight at Crawford, but whenever Crawford looked away he would too, and that smile would falter. But no nightmares last night; that seemed to have helped. He was hungover, and his back hurt, but he seemed more centred than previously.
“Why did you come?” Yohji asked softly.
“I knew you were going to end up in trouble,” Crawford told him truthfully.
“Oh, thank you. It’s so good to know I have your trust,” Yohji said caustically.
“No, I mean... I had a vision. I saw the future.”
“Does it contain buckled jackets and padded walls?”
“I can see the future, short term. It’s why I’m so invaluable to Takatori. All of my team have some psychic talent or another.” Crawford sighed. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Mind if I test your claim?” Yohji asked softly. Crawford blinked at him. He believed?
“When the waitress brings the bill it will have her phone number on it,” Crawford told him. He looked at Yohji for a moment, then closed his eyes and concentrated. Reaching for the napkin he wrote a string of digits on it and gave it to Yohji for safekeeping. Yohji smiled.
“Well, I guess we just have to wait now.” The smile faltered again. “You shouldn’t have come, last night, you know.”
“I know now,” Crawford said bitterly.
“Why didn’t you see that?”
“It’s not an exact science.”
“They’ll check, now. I might have been able to convince them I really was just a drunk guy buying flowers in the early hours of the morning. Now they’re going to check. I had to reset the alarm, which is a big clue I was down there and knew how to get in, and I messed about with the tape the CCTV camera was recording to. I knew they’d spot the alarm sooner or later, so I left my key in the lock, but they’re going to be thorough now.” Yohji stared at the sky through his sunglasses. Dismal day, but with a hangover like this even a night sky would be too bright.
“They might assume you never got in,” Crawford said hopelessly.
“Doubt it, not when they realise this is missing,” Yohji held up the video. Crawford’s eyes widened.
“Not bad, Kudoh,” he said in restrained admiration. “Stop waving it around, will you?”
Yohji grinned and stuck it back in his coat pocket. “They’ll find the bug,” he sighed, good mood evaporating again. “They’ll see what I did with the security footage and find the tape is missing - I hope it’s not just a football match or something or I’ve really screwed up - and assume the worst.”
“You don’t think they’d have been a bit suspicious that a drunk guy managed to pick the lock to their shop anyway?” Crawford raised an eyebrow. “And had a skeleton key on him, come to that.”
“I was trying to make it look like a failed burglary, but I woke them up. Drunk, you see, and not careful to keeping doors from slamming.” Yohji looked disgusted with himself. “I swear I’m never drinking again. No matter how bad it gets.”
“No matter how bad what gets?” Crawford frowned.
“Everything. Confidence, memories, nightmares... Everything. Once this is over I’m going out and getting a real job. Data-inputter or something. Anything.” Yohji stared at the paper cup of tea like it had personally offended him. “I’ve given up everything to keep a stupid dream alive. Money, relationships, morals. I’ve stolen and I’ve killed because otherwise I have to live in the real world were the police solve crimes and the rich go free and romance is dead.”
“
“Just as broke and lonely.”
Crawford sighed. “Well, look at it this way: you’re going to die before you get the chance anyway. Hirofumi will have you killed.”
“He promised he’d pay me and let me go if I did as he asked,” Yohji pointed out. “He doesn’t know what I’ve learnt.”
“Hirofumi kills people for fun,” Crawford said bluntly.
“Oh god,” the waitress stared at him. “Who are you people?”
“Film buffs,” Yohji laughed. “Come on, you didn’t think we were talking about a real person, did you?” He grinned at her. “Poor baby, that must have been quite a fright. Let me make it up to you.” He held out the last flower, salvaged from the previous night. “Flower for the lady?”
She giggled and clasped it to her chest as she placed their bill in front of them. Yohji watched her walk away, admiring the way her skirt rode up as she walked. Crawford looked away. He wasn’t upset that his last flower had just been given to the waitress, not at all. He smacked Yohji’s hand in mock disapproval and held up the bill.
“Fuck,” Yohji said. “You really can see the future.”
“Let’s go watch that video.”
“What’s going to be on it?”
“Don’t make me hate you again.”
* * *
“White hunters of the night, hunt the futures of the dark beasts!”
“You what?!”
“Well, it explains a lot,” Crawford sat back. “They’re all thick as pig shit.”
Yohji laughed. “You mean they’re all as idealistic as I was.”
“Was?”
“I said I was going to quit this job, didn’t I?” Yohji still didn’t look happy, but the line of his mouth was firm. His decision was breaking his heart. He’d spent his whole life trying to live a dying dream. To abandon it... He’d wasted his life. He’d put everything in and was coming out with absolutely nothing.
“You could leave the country as well,” Crawford said casually. Yohji glowered at him through suspiciously watery eyes. Bastard. Asuka was gone, his money was gone, his dream was gone. Kudoh Yohji was gone.
“So they’re getting orders from a silhouette,” Yohji said firmly. “I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think that voice has been altered, except basic mike distortion. I’m going to see if I can find a recording of Shuichi Takatori.” They were sitting in his office watching the video on a flickering television screen ‘borrowed’ from the office downstairs and a VCR that had previously been locked in one of the bottom drawers in Yohji’s desk. They were both sitting on the desk, since Yohji’s chair was still a heap of kindling on the floor. “Do some comparisons.”
“Ah yes. All voices are unique,” Crawford nodded approvingly.
“Just before you get carried away, I want to remind you I don’t have any of that fancy voice recognition software. I plan to do this by ear.”
“Wouldn’t stand up in court,” Crawford sighed, “but it will have to do. I suppose it’s not vital to know whether it really is Shuichi or not.”
“How are we picking up broadcasts from that bug of yours?” Yohji asked suddenly. “I hope you remembered to organise that part as well,” he added, still stung by Crawford’s earlier attitude to all of his recent epiphanies.
Crawford shot him a scathing look. “You’re not the only professional here,” he said coldly. “I’ve been doing this since before you were born.”
Yohji frowned. “What, when you were under five?” he asked, eyebrow cocked in amusement.
Crawford thought back to the mail order toys and ratty comic books and tried not to look nostalgic. The way Yohji’s face softened suggested he hadn’t been entirely successful. He sighed.
“We’ve got about a day’s worth of tape. I’d originally assumed we’d have a chance to change it a few times, but that’s unlikely now. While you were laying the transmitter I hid the receiver behind the building. They shouldn’t find it. I doubt they’ll look.”
Yohji looked sceptical, but didn’t comment. “They’ll probably start clearing out anyway,” he sighed. “Someone working with their enemy infiltrated not just their base but their secret room. This is exactly what we wanted to avoid, remember?”
“Yes, perfectly well. Hirofumi isn’t going to pleased.” Crawford grimaced. Maybe it had only been a few days, but he no longer relished the idea of executing the scatty blond. He knew it was in part due to the fact he’d probably be killed as well, but still, most of that initial irritation had long since won off and the grudging respect he had for the man was growing into a genuine fondness. Oh, and there was that desire to throw him down on the desk and fuck him into unconsciousness, but Brad Crawford didn’t respond to such base instincts. Usually.
“We either nab the boy soon, tonight, preferably, or we book plane tickets,” Yohji said calmly.
Crawford blinked. “Just like that?”
“Hasn’t all this been just like that?” Yohji asked. “The pace has been ludicrous. We’re collecting evidence like nobody’s business, but we already know who the boy is and what he does. Everything else is just to fill the gap while we work out what to do with the confirmation we received the first day.”
“Which was only the day before yesterday,” Crawford pointed out with a tired sigh. “We rushed this. No wonder we screwed up.”
“We screwed up?” Yohji laughed. “I was hired by the son of a leading politician to find a boy who is legally dead, but happens to be not only alive and well but also working undercover in a flowershop as a second identity to hide the fact he works as a vigilante assassin for his uncle, fighting another group of assassins working for his father, one of whom was assigned to me so I could be shot when things went wrong. How much more screwed up could we make this situation?”
Crawford laughed. “Well, when you put it like that...” He smiled and shook his head. If Yohji could find humour in their situation, so could he. What was the saying? ‘Worse things happen at sea’. Now that was a thought. “Why don’t you go and get those photos you took the other day while fid some archive recordings of Shuichi Takatori?” he suggested lightly. “Tonight we’ll go and pick up the tape under cover of darkness.”
“What’ll we do with all this stuff?” Yohji asked. “What’s the point?”
“Well, Reiji would be grateful,” Crawford mused. “He might intercede on our behalf if we withhold the information. We’ve got a lot on Kritiker, and even though some is obsolete already it still ought to be of some use to him.”
“Fair enough,” Yohji sighed. “We could always sell it to a tabloid.”
“That too.”
They stared at each other for a second. Crawford stepped in slowly, chest tight, but suddenly Yohji had moved, sweeping up his coat and breezing through the door with a waved goodbye. He huffed in frustration and retrieved his own coat from the desk. Putting the VCR back in its drawer and frowned at the screen in indecision. The office was closed, he decided, they wouldn’t notice.
He had Pacific Cruise tickets to book.