Neon Identity (Tokyo Noir Book 1)

Book summary

In Neon Identity by Nick John, disgraced detective Pete Bond, now an English teacher in 1990s Tokyo, becomes entangled in the city's shadowy underworld. As his path crosses with Suzi Sloane, a dancer with a troubled past, and a German dealer named Dieter, secrets unravel in a gripping tale of crime, obsession, and danger.

Excerpt from Neon Identity (Tokyo Noir Book 1)

ONE

Friday, June 15, 1990

Gyotoku, Ichikawa City; Kasai, Tokyo

PETE BOND

The seasonal rain fell on Tokyo almost that entire weekend, the one when my life changed. I sat in the tiny kitchen listening to the noise as it hammered on prefabricated roofs. Rain and hot weather had always conjured up exotic images of palm trees, beaches and olive-skinned women, but this was different. When it rained in Tokyo, you were grounded.

The front door was open, and I walked to the end of the passage which ran along the front of the flats, the noise reaching an intensity as the rain bounced off the plastic cover overhead. I stood at the end of the path and looked up and down the street. The place looked bleak. Gyotoku needed sunshine.

It was early, but I grabbed some money and an umbrella and headed towards the station and an izakaya nestled in the shade of the overhead tracks.

Dontaku was quiet, but pretty soon the Friday night commuters would pour into the place. I settled into a seat in the far corner with my back to the door and knocked back my first glass of Asahi Super Dry. Before my food arrived, I had finished the whole bottle.

Halfway through my second, a couple of westerners settled into the seat behind me. We were sitting back to back, but I could hear their conversation. One of them was from London, his high-pitched cockney whine suggesting he was unhappy with something. His friend wasn't English, but his grasp of the language was first class. I could detect the slightest German accent.

'This is straightforward, Tommy. What's the problem? Nothing will go wrong.'

I started getting interested. Maybe it was my past life as a detective in London. Maybe I was just the suspicious type.

I tilted my head forward and pretended to concentrate on my food.

'Easy for you to say that, mate. It's me in the firing line,' the Englishman said.

'For fuck's sake, you're acting like a pussy.' The German banged the table and said something in his own language. I resisted the temptation to turn around and look at them. The German suggested they go out back.

I watched them disappear, waited twenty seconds and followed. They had gone through the door that opened on to the small yard. I went through the toilet one. I left the light off. I could see them through a gap between the window and the frame. The German took a couple of big drags on a cigarette and appeared to calm down.

I listened.

German: I tell you, there's nothing for you to worry about. You've done this before. Why are you so worried?

English: It's my head on the line, Dieter.

German: All you have to do is come round to my place now, pick it up and take it there tomorrow morning at ten. Take the money back to your place. We'll meet at my apartment after you've rung me from the station at eight that evening. What could be simpler?

English: You always make it sound so easy.

German: It is.

English: Okay. When are we going? I want to get back to Kasai.

German: Let's do it now.

I went back to my seat at the bar. When they came through the door, I was concentrating on my food. I didn't look up until they had paid their bill and were leaving. They went right towards Minami Gyotoku, not left towards the station. I paid my bill and followed.

As I walked beside the overhead railway line, I could see them in the distance. I kept sixty or seventy yards behind, closing the gap slowly. As they turned left just before Minami Gyotoku station, I broke into a sprint.

My timing was perfect. I could see them go into a similar apartment block to mine.

I waited twenty yards up the road from it. Five minutes later, Tommy appeared carrying a bag and headed in the direction of the station. I had my train pass with me, so I didn't have to buy a ticket, and when I reached the station, Tommy had bought his and was going up the steps to the southbound platform. I waited until I could hear the train approaching and ran up them, reaching the top as it stopped. I jumped on. I could see Tommy in the next carriage. Two stops down the line at Kasai, he got off.

I followed him out of the station. He crossed the main road and soon reached his apartment which was in an unusually narrow building. I waited until I could see a second-floor light go on. As convenient as it could be given the izakaya on the first floor.

I got the train back to Gyotoku and headed along the main street towards home. Within a couple of minutes, the automatic doors of a 7-Eleven were opening. Irasshaimase. Sebun Erebun. Ii-ki-bu-un. Automated politeness, gratitude in stereo. I was in and out in a minute.

Back at the apartment, I boiled a pan of water on the two-ring gas stove, poured it on to the Lipton tea bag and waited. Home consisted of a lino-floored kitchen with a small sink next to the stove. On the other side of the entrance was a toilet; next to that, a tiny bathroom. Behind the kitchen, and separated from it by a shoji screen, was my bedroom, a four-a-half-tatami mat affair, and next to my room was a six-mat with a proper door.

My flatmate was Emanuel from Ghana, and he was still at work at some sweatshop in Chiba. Emanuel and I enjoyed an unusual flatmate relationship. We rarely saw each other. By the time I got back from work, he was in bed. By the time I got up, he was at work. I occasionally saw him late on Friday nights as he didn't always work Saturdays, but sometimes the only time we had contact was around six thirty on a Sunday morning when I was on my way home from an all-nighter in Roppongi, and he was heading to the station in his Sunday best on his way to the Catholic church in central Tokyo for Mass. So the flatshare worked well.

The cup of tea finally looked strong enough to drink, although the low wattage strip light shed such a small amount of light it was difficult to tell. It was necessary all day as Maison Yu was hemmed in by two other buildings which were only yards away. As we were on the bottom floor, we received no natural light.

I grabbed my tea, switched the light off and went to the end of the passage. The rain had stopped earlier, and the top step was already dry. I sat down and contemplated the only bit of greenery in the area, the wasteland opposite.

Before I was able to run the earlier events through my head, I was joined by Charles, an American, who shared the end apartment with an English bloke. Of all the people in the apartment block, Charles was the one I seemed to chat to most.

'What's your week been like?' I said.

'Work's as dull as ever but otherwise no real problem.'

He worked for one of the cowboy outfit language schools which had sprung up in the 1980s to relieve the Japanese of some of their surplus income. I worked for one of its rivals.

'Money still tight, Pete? No chance of you working Fridays?'

'Right on both counts. I've never been as hard up. I can't stand the school, but there's no chance of Fridays, anyway. Why haven't you been at work?'

'I'm owed a day's holiday from last year. Thought I'd stay home and enjoy the weather.' He laughed.

'Turning out quite nice now. How long does the rainy season last?'

'Until sometime in July, then the heat and humidity crank up.'

'Going to be murder without air conditioning,' I said, pulling at the bottom of my T-shirt in an attempt to get some air to my body.

'That's what the fans are for.'

'Can't imagine them making much difference.'

'Be hell without them. You'll have to watch the tatami. It goes green if you leave your futon on it. Hey look, Pete. I'm going to have a shower and turn in. I want to be up early tomorrow.'

'You don't fancy a beer? I was thinking of going to Mama-san's for a couple, and I'm hungry.'

'No, but thanks for the offer.'

As I wandered along the side street, it hit me that the quietly spoken, thoughtful Charles destroyed the image I seemed to have of Americans. Maybe I had seen too many American films.

TWO

Friday, June 15, 1990

Takadanobaba, Tokyo

SUZI SLOANE

She closes the door to her room in the gaijin house, locks it and walks down the stairs to the shared kitchen. She decides on a glass of water and fills a mug from the cold tap. When she turns away from the sink, he's looking at her. She feels sorry for him. She can almost taste the desire, the yearning for something he can never have. Perhaps she shouldn't tease him, lead him on, but it amuses her. She can feel his eyes on her body. She turns her head to the left away from him, and allows him a long, lingering look. She picks her gym bag up and leaves the building without talking to him.

This little game has been going on for some time now, but it's building in intensity. Maybe leaving her bedroom door ajar the other day when she was changing was taking things too far, but she stood with her back to him. She could sense he was there, though. She could feel his eyes burning into her. As she walks the short distance to the gym, she reflects she has always been like this. And she knows why.

She heads for the changing room. It is the first time she has been here as she has only lived at the gaijin house for three weeks. The women's changing room is divided from the men's section by a curtain. It is made of a stiff plastic material so it can't blow open. Where she's changing in the end cubicle, the curtain fails to close. She peeps through, aware she has changed from exhibitionist to voyeur. A muscular Japanese man is standing almost naked with his back to her, a parody of herself the other day in the gaijin house. He pulls his vest on. She changes into her gym clothes, a T-shirt replacing her blouse, shorts instead of jeans, and hurries into the gym.

It is big with a karate mat at one end. Further over are a number of machines and free weights. She does a few stretching exercises on the mat and a couple of sets on a lats machine: light weights, high reps.

At the end of her fourth set, the muscular Japanese appears. It is as if she is invisible. She isn't used to this. She labours through some different exercises, beads of sweat forming at the top of her chest. By the time she has done four sets, the Japanese has moved away to a different part of the gym. She decides to wear herself out with free weights. She loads the bar up lightly and lays on the bench with her hands gripping it about eighteen inches apart. A voice behind her.