Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

Just as I thought, they started walking. They turned at a corner. Juri didn’t look around at me. Way to go.

The guy with the goods would be waiting in a car. It was so they could beat a hasty retreat if it looked like a bust.

After about fifteen minutes, Juri came back. I felt relieved.

“Mission complete,” she said. She held up a small paper bag. “I even got a souvenir.”

“A souvenir?”

“A telephone card. They said it’s infinite. It has fifty points right now, but once it gets to zero, apparently it resets.”

I chuckled. “Like you’d ever use a public phone.”

“Well, I don’t have a cellphone right now.” Juri fluttered the card in the air.

Juiced telephone cards must have been the Iranian gentlemen’s main product line until recently. But with the spread of cellphones, the cards stopped selling, so they’d settled on burner phones as a replacement.

“Those guys’ Japanese is good,” Juri marveled. “I wonder how they learn it.”

“People get serious when they need to survive. The same goes for whoever juiced that telephone card. Desperation. The NTT corporation isn’t so desperate, so it’ll be had every time.”

“So to bust them, the police will have to get serious and learn their language.”

“That’s how it is.”

I abruptly stopped walking. Juri, who had been clinging to my arm, pitched forward.

“What? Don’t stop suddenly.”

“I thought of a good way.” I grinned. “Our game begins.”

We went back to the condo by taxi, and I resumed our preparations. When I finally put my laptop in my bag, I was ready.

“I’ll be calling you. I might sound like a broken record, but don’t ever enter the hotel through the front.”

“Enough, I know.”

I was being persistent because I had my doubts, but I refrained from saying so and left. My wristwatch was pointing to three in the afternoon.

I took a cab and arrived at Hotel Gardens in just a few minutes. I got out at the front entrance and headed to the front desk. I was wearing a shirt and necktie under a dark gray suit. I was pretending to be a businessman who’d given up his weekend to come to Tokyo. In fact, the fake number I’d given had a Nagoya area code.

I wrote my fake name and fake address along with it on the lodging card, deposited fifty thousand yen, and finished the check-in formalities. The person at the front desk was looking down at the counter the whole time, but I did my best not to raise my face just in case.

My key card was for room number 1526. I declined having the bellboy guide me and went into the elevator.

When I got into the room, I immediately opened the window-curtains. Diagonally to the lower left, I could see the Hakozaki Metropolitan Expressway Junction. I took the binoculars out from the bag and quickly focused them. A dark blue domestic car coming from the Ginza district went by within my field of vision.

First test cleared. I breathed out in relief. I’d stayed at this hotel once in the past and knew that I could see the junction. Naturally, at that time, I hadn’t thought of any use for the view.

I took the phone and called home. It rang three times, and the answering machine message came on. I waited for the tone and opened my mouth.

“It’s room 1526. When you come in, knock.” Saying just that, I hung up. Juri would hear the message and immediately get going. I’d told her to use a taxi but to get off at Suitengu-mae on the Hanzomon subway line. From there, she could go underground and enter the hotel that way. Its B2 level was linked to the subway station. She could even use the elevator to go directly to the guest floors. In other words, she could completely bypass the front desk and lobby where people tended to be.

I took off my jacket, removed my tie, and started on the next part. I put the video camera on the tripod and set it at the window. Staring at the LCD screen, I adjusted the camera’s angle and zoom. Now it could capture all of the cars coming from the Ginza district.

Then I took out my laptop. Using a cord I’d brought, I connected it to the jack by the desk. To comply with the needs of businessmen, in addition to the internal phone, the hotel offered a normal line that could connect to the internet. That was also something I had found out on my previous visit.

I booted my laptop and tried to access the internet, and it worked right away. Just in case, I went to the CPT Owners Club. There was a new message from “Julie.”

Can’t wait (Julie)

Even though I’ve made my offer and prepared the money, I haven’t heard anything from them.

I wonder what they’re doing. Hurry up and give me what’s mine.

The golf caddy bag is crying at the door to be taken out.

Once again, I had to admire the incredibly well camouflaged writing. Anyone reading just this would surely think it was a girl who was bitching about not getting her car.

Anyway, that they were becoming impatient was evident. They couldn’t wait to find out what hand the kidnappers would play.

I took a bottle of mineral water out of the fridge and drank directly from it. I went over the plan again. I was certain that I’d omitted nothing and that there weren’t any holes in it.

I looked at the clock. Over thirty minutes had passed since I’d called. What was Juri doing?

Then, after another half-hour, there was finally a knock at the door.

“Who is it?” I asked just in case.

“Me,” was the reply I heard. I opened the door.

“What in the world were you doing? If you were just changing clothes—” After getting that far, I fell silent. Juri’s hair had turned brown, a brown that was almost blond. On top of that, it was shorter.

Heheh , she giggled. She quickly brushed up her hair.

“What the hell?”

“I dyed it. Not bad, right?” She looked around to appraise the room and approached the window. She looked into the video camera. “What are you filming?” she asked.

I wasn’t the one who ought to be answering questions. “What are you thinking?” I demanded.

“Huh?”

“That hair. You don’t think something as eye-catching as that is dangerous?”

“This? Eye-catching?”

“Look in the mirror.”

“You told me to disguise myself, so I tried my very best. I cut my hair on my own, dyed it myself. I also slipped into my new clothes, so look. Don’t I seem like a totally different person to you?” Her top was sleeveless and red, her bottoms were a black skirt. I was surprised that she had even changed her accessories and shoes. When had she bought them?

“I told you to wear a disguise that wouldn’t be eye-catching.”

Whether or not she’d heard me, she sat down on the bed and bounced her body up and down like a child playing on a trampoline. She was smiling.

“Hey, are you really a pro ad planner? Making a fuss over just this much is weird. Because right now there are fewer girls with black hair.”

“And why do they dye their hair? Is it so they wouldn’t stand out? That’s not it. It’s to be noticed.”

“Maybe at first, but now it’s different. Now black hair is just unfashionable. They don’t want to be that, so they dye their hair.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t the time to be discussing something so stupid. “Anyway, when you get home, change it back. You might have forgotten, but you’re a hostage. It’d be bizarre for a hostage’s hair color to change during the kidnapping.”

“Umm, the kidnappers are funky? They dyed the hostage’s hair for fun?”

“You’ll stop joking soon enough.” I took out the cellphone we had obtained at Akihabara and shoved it in front of her face. “There, the game begins. Call your Papa’s cell.”

“Me?” As might be expected, Juri’s face grew stern again.