Tokyo Jazz And Other Stories - Sean O'Leary

Tokyo Jazz And Other Stories by Sean O'Leary

Book excerpt

Tokyo Jazz

She worked as a hostess in a club in Tokyo until she went missing three weeks ago. She had only been in the country for three months, was twenty-one years old. The Japanese cops had told her parents they had few leads. Moments before my Japan Airlines flight lands, I take the photo of her from the inside of my black suit jacket and stare at it: the blonde hair like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, dark brown, almond-shaped eyes, a shy little smile on her still young, cherubic face. Those Japanese guys in the club would have died for her. Her name is Lily Henderson, she is from Terrigal, a small town on the central coast of NSW.

I get through customs quickly, buy a Suica card, find the express train from Narita Airport to Shibuya. It’s my first time in Japan. I’m doing what all the Tokyo guides told me to do. Takes a stranger to find a stranger. It is 9.30am. I slept roughly on the flight. I am thirty years old. My name is Lee Janson. I’m a private investigator. I will do everything possible to find Lily, to try and bring some peace to the parents.

I look out at the city from the train; lots of lights and billboards, a river crossing, old-style Japanese homes, too. Industrial-type buildings that fade quickly. She had told her parents she was staying in an Airbnb. They gave me the address. I booked an apartment in the same building only a few hours ago. She didn’t send any photos to her parents. No Facebook account. No Instagram. No Tick Tock. This is so weirdly unusual in the age of social media.

She didn’t have any close friends in Terrigal. She had moved to Sydney a year ago, worked as a waitress in a café on Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, rented a room near Five Ways in Paddington, called her parents twice or three times every week, told them she liked going to the MCA and the Art Gallery of NSW, that she was happy. Then, out of the blue, she went to Tokyo.

I get out at Shibuya station suddenly surrounded by people. My mobile tells me that I need to find exit eight or the Hachiko exit for Shibuya Crossing. I look at the signs, everything is organized. I walk slowly behind a wall of people, hear other trains arriving, traffic noise from the world outside the station, people talking, laughing. I shuffle on down a narrow platform following the signs, the crowds. They are all dressed immaculately, except for most of the western tourists; that’s what I notice about the people around me. I’m dying for a cigarette. I’m walking faster now, going down some escalators, doing a sharp right as I look at my phone, platform signs, people. I’m at the exit. I walk through the gate, tapping my new Suica card as I go through the turnstile.

It’s like a postcard, like the final few moments from Lost in Translation. It is buzzing, people all around. I look up at the neon billboards, look in every direction following where the crossings lead, the different streets intersecting, people talking but waiting politely for the lights to change. On my mobile I change the location I’m heading for to the Airbnb apartment. The lights change. People arrive from every direction, seamlessly. I put on my wireless headphones for the directions. Cross over the lights, walk past Starbucks, a book shop, turn left up the hill, continue walking for seven hundred metres up Koen Dori towards Yoyogi Park, Google tells me. I keep walking, avoiding hitting people, but it’s a very polite, civilized crush of people.

When the crowd thins out a bit as I walk up the hill, I stop, light a cigarette. Take a few drags on it, keep walking. I have my Zorali backpack on, my laptop bag strap across my chest, looking no doubt like a fuckin’ tourist. I see shopping malls on my left and right, straight ahead, all-around, electrical stores, sushi bars, ramen and noodle shops, American style diners, fashion boutiques, up-market and downscale shops everywhere. I walk on. Get directions through the headphones to turn left in two hundred metres. I turn past the 7-11 store, walk another fifty metres to find the building. I find the keypad, punch in my pre-arranged code, enter the small foyer, up in the lift to the third floor, another code to enter the apartment. I punch it in, open sesame.

I made it.

I take a long shower in the tiny, extremely well-organised bathroom. Clean my teeth. Change into a new black suit over a black t-shirt, put on my black Doc Marten kicking boots.

I’m going to the Club in Shinjuku where she worked, then to the police station there. The club is where the trail begins and ends. Airbnb confirmed that a girl stayed here under the name of Lily Henderson for the first three months she was supposed to have been here in Shibuya. They had no photo ID of the girl. I hustle out, down in the lift. Open the Uber app on my mobile.

Wait!

The Club is closed. I have a mobile number for it. I heard they call Shinjuku ‘the sleepless town’; well, even Kabuki-Cho is sleeping now. I call and am surprised when someone answers after the third or fourth ring.

“Moshi Moshi.”

“Hello. My name is Lee, I’m…”

“Ah, you’re the Australian, yes?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You want to know about the girl?”

I’m staggered. “Yes. You are Hiroto?”

“Yes, Mr Lee Jenson.”

“Are you at the club now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m outside.”

‘Give me a few minutes.’

I emailed this guy back and forth a few times, confirmed she worked here. The club is simply called the Shinjuku Club. I tap my pocket where the photo of Lily standing outside the club is and wait.

The metal door swings open and a tall man with jet black hair parted on the right side appears and says, “Lee?”

“Yes.”

“Come in.”

We walk down a short hallway into a large, open room with booths, small tables, longer tables for big groups. A bar stretches along one wall. It’s dark.

Hiroto guides me to a booth and says, “Please sit.”

I slide into the booth. No mirror balls here, it’s very low key, no garish lights but it’s daytime in the land of the city at night.

“Any idea where Lily is?”

“She only worked here for a week, maybe ten days.”

“What?”

“She only worked here for a short time. As I said, maybe a week, ten days.”

“Her parents, the police, they are under the impression she…”

“It’s the wrong impression. I found out she was having a sexual relationship with a guy, a regular, outside the club, on her own time. It doesn’t work like that here.”

“Where did you learn English?”

He gives a look that says, are you insane?

I smile.

He says, “I spent some time in America and the UK.”

“Right.”

I take the photo out of my pocket and say, “This is the girl I’m talking about.”

He takes the photo, looks at it. “I’m not sure. The Lily who worked here had black hair, the same colour as mine and short, not long like this. It looks like her, but in the club, she wore a traditional-style Japanese evening dress, she even looked a bit Asian with her narrow, dark-brown eyes.”

Shit.

I want to explode.

“Listen, mate, I have a police report saying she worked here for at least two or three months and…”

“I’m sorry, Lee but we can’t even agree it’s the same person.”

“But you had an Australian girl called Lily working here?”

“Yes, but I told you she…”

“Where the fuck did she go, mate? After you sacked her like that.”

“I’m going to give you some advice, Lee. If you behave like this, you won’t get anywhere. Nobody will help you. Most likely they’ll be amused by your lack of self-control. Even if you’re furious as you are now, it…”

“Thanks, thanks. I’ll take it on board. Where did she go after you sacked her?”

“I heard she began working for a brothel further down Kabuki-Cho. It happens to a lot of girls, but I don’t know which brothel.”

“Did she make with friends with any of the girls here?”

“I’m not sure. We open at seven tonight. The girls get here at six. You can come back then, speak to whoever you like.”

He shakes my hand at the door but neither of us says anything and he closes the door on me.