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Sorry about that?
Ushikawa’s misshapen head pondered this. Then it came to him.
“Are you the one who planned Leader’s murder?” he asked.
The man didn’t respond. But Ushikawa took his silence as not necessarily a denial.
“What are you going to do with me?” Ushikawa asked.
“What indeed. Truth be told, I haven’t decided yet. I’m going to take my time and
think about it. It all depends on how you play this,” Tamaru said. “I still have a few
questions I want to ask you.”
Ushikawa nodded.
“I would like you to tell me the phone number of your contact at Sakigake. You
must report to someone there.”
Ushikawa hesitated a moment, but then told him the number. With his life hanging
in the balance, he wasn’t about to hide it. Tamaru wrote it down.
“His name?”
“I don’t know his name,” Ushikawa lied. Tamaru didn’t seem to mind.
“Pretty tough characters?”
“I’d say so.”
“But not real pros.”
“They’re skilled, and they follow orders from the top, no questions asked. But
they’re not pros.”
“How much do they know about Aomame?” Tamaru asked. “Do they know where
she’s hiding?”
Ushikawa shook his head. “They don’t know yet, which is why I stayed here doing
surveillance on Tengo Kawana. If I knew where Aomame is, I would have moved
operations over there a long time ago.”
“Makes sense,” Tamaru said. “Speaking of which, how did you figure out the
connection between Aomame and Tengo Kawana?”
“Legwork.”
“How so?”
“I reviewed her background, from A to Z. I went back to her childhood, when she
was attending the public elementary school in Ichikawa. Tengo Kawana is also from
Ichikawa, so I wondered if there could have been a connection. I went to the
elementary school to look into it, and sure enough, they were in the same class for
two years.”
Tamaru made a low, catlike growl deep in his throat. “I see. A very tenacious
investigation, Ushikawa, I must say. It must have taken a lot of time and energy.
Impressive.”
Ushikawa said nothing. There wasn’t a question pending.
“To repeat my question,” Tamaru said, “at the present time you are the only one
who knows about the connection between Aomame and Tengo Kawana?”
“
You
know about it.”
“Not counting me. Those you associate with.”
Ushikawa nodded. “I am the only one involved who knows, yes.”
755
“You’re telling the truth?”
“I am.”
“By the way, did you know that Aomame is pregnant?”
“Pregnant?” Ushikawa said. His voice revealed his surprise. “Whose child is it?”
Tamaru didn’t answer his question. “You really didn’t know?”
“No, I didn’t. Believe me.”
Tamaru silently considered his response for a moment, and then spoke.
“All right. It does appear that you didn’t know this. I’ll believe you. On another
topic: you were sniffing around the Willow House in Azabu for a while. Correct?”
Ushikawa nodded.
“Why?”
“The lady who owns it went to a local sports club and Aomame was her personal
trainer. It seems they had a close personal relationship. That lady also set up a safe
house for battered women on the grounds of her estate. The security there was
extremely tight. In my opinion, a little too tight. So I assumed Aomame might be
hiding in that safe house.”
“And then what happened?”
“I decided that wasn’t the case. The lady has plenty of money and power. If she
wanted to hide Aomame, she wouldn’t do it so close at hand. She would put her
somewhere far away. So I gave up checking out the Azabu mansion and turned my
attention to Tengo Kawana.”
Tamaru gave a low growl again. “You have excellent intuition. You’re very
logical, not to mention patient. Kind of a waste to have you be an errand boy. Have
you always been in this line of work?”
“I used to be a lawyer,” Ushikawa said.
“I see. You must have been very good. But I imagine you got carried away,
botched up things, and took a fall. These are hard times now, and you’re working for
next to nothing as an errand boy for this new religious group. Do I have this right?”
Ushikawa nodded. “Yes, that about sums it up.”
“Nothing you can do about it,” Tamaru said. “For mavericks like us it’s not easy to
live a normal, everyday life. It might look like we’re doing okay for a while, but then
we definitely trip up. That’s the way the world operates.” Tamaru cracked his
knuckles, a sharp, ominous sound. “So does Sakigake know about the Willow
House?”
“I haven’t told anyone,” Ushikawa replied truthfully. “When I said that something
about the mansion smells fishy, that was my own conjecture, nothing more. The
security was too tight for me to confirm anything.”
“Good,” Tamaru said.
“You were the one who made sure of that, weren’t you?”
Tamaru didn’t answer.
“Up till now you’ve answered truthfully,” Tamaru said. “In general, at least. Once
you sink to the bottom of the sea, you lose the power to lie. If you tried to lie now, it
would show in your voice. That’s what fear will do to you.”
“I’m not lying,” Ushikawa said.
“Glad to hear it,” Tamaru said. “No one wants to feel any more pain than they have
to. By the way, have you heard of Carl Jung?”
756
Under the blindfold Ushikawa instinctively frowned.
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