Koji Suzuki - Edge

That was why Saeko had been deeply perplexed on the evening of August 22nd when her father never called despite being back in Japan. When she didn’t hear from him the next night or the night after that, she quickly went to the police and reported that something had happened to her father. Of course, the police weren’t about to make a move just because a traveler had failed to call home. They maintained that it was too soon to launch an investigation and suggested that Saeko sit tight and wait a bit longer.

With no help from the police, Saeko had no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

She had never met Hideaki Kitazawa before. He was a total stranger. She found him in the phone book under the listings for detective agencies. A tag line in his business-card-sized ad read “specializes in missing persons.” There were lots of other detective agencies listed, but they all seemed to specialize in background checks and adultery investigations. Saeko came to the conclusion that Detective Kitazawa of Man Search was the only person who could provide the help she needed, and she decided to visit the agency directly without even calling for an appointment.

But as she got closer to the address and found herself surrounded by grimy businesses staffed by thugs specializing in debt-collection services, Saeko’s knees began to wobble. Would the detective agency even take an unaccompanied teenage girl seriously? If not, at best they might turn her away, but what if she wound up getting taken advantage of in the process?

She found the building she was looking for, confirmed that its address matched the note she had jotted down, and rode the elevator up to the third floor. When she arrived, however, she couldn’t quite bring herself to open the door of the office.

As the elevator doors closed behind her, she began to sweat in rivulets, and her t-shirt felt clammy. During the short walk from the subway station she had been almost too nervous to sweat, but all of a sudden she found herself streaming with perspiration.

In the bag she clutched to her chest was a bankbook with her father’s account balance. She had no idea how much it would cost to hire a detective to find her father. Even if they overcharged her, Saeko was prepared to pay whatever it took. It had seemed like a good idea to bring her father’s bankbook. Now, however, she realized what a sitting duck she would make in the eyes of the wrong sort of person.

The door directly opposite the apprehensive young woman was marked “Man Search”—the office was just across from the elevator. The wooden door with its frosted glass window offered little basis for Saeko to decide whether to enter or to go home. She moved closer to the door, leaning in with one ear. Just the sound of a voice inside might give her some idea as to what sort of people might await her on the other side.

But when her cheek touched the door, it began to swing open.

“Oh!” Saeko barely had a chance to exclaim before she caught sight of a woman at a desk intensely absorbed in a book. The presence of a woman was an immediate relief.

“Hello,” Saeko managed to say in a perfectly normal voice.

The petite middle-aged woman looked up from her volume and grinned. Her smile was so warm, it almost seemed as if she’d been expecting Saeko’s arrival. Saeko felt her apprehension melt away.

The woman’s name was Chieko Kitazawa, and she was Hideaki Kitazawa’s wife and business partner. The couple ran the detective agency together.

The office had changed dramatically in eighteen years’ time. The room had been renovated with modern updates, with several computers stationed conveniently in the center of the room. A visitor who didn’t know any better would never suspect that it was a detective agency.

Before, the agency had existed in a single room on the building’s third floor, but it had grown to occupy the entire floor; apparently, business had been good in recent years. In addition to Kitazawa, there were six other detectives and three female clerks. The office was connected to a nationwide network of experts in various fields and also provided services such as a detective training program, corporate research services, and the sale of other types of information. From an agency specializing exclusively in missing persons cases, the business had evolved into a purveyor of information of all different sorts.

But Chieko Kitazawa was gone; four years earlier, she had died of an illness. She and her husband had both been tremendous benefactors to Saeko. That summer when she was seventeen, if Saeko had encountered not Chieko but Hideaki Kitazawa’s intimidating glower behind the desk, she probably would have beat a hasty retreat without stating her business. It was Chieko who had taken command that day and inquired into Saeko’s situation.

In the four years since they had last met, Hideaki Kitazawa had aged noticeably. He had reached the age of sixty, and decades of hard living had taken their toll. Yet, not surprisingly, his weight didn’t seem to have declined from the hundred-kilo mark.

Kitazawa approached Saeko, his looming form lilting from side to side. “Hello there, young lady. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Kitazawa grinned from ear to ear and motioned for Saeko to have a seat at the sofa.

“You look well,” Saeko stated, trying to dissemble her surprise at how he had aged. She had last seen Kitazawa at Chieko’s funeral. Then, he’d looked so lost, it was almost unbearable to look at him.

A surge of regret flooded Saeko. When she had been overcome with grief at the loss of her father, Kitazawa’s support had given her the strength to go on. But when Kitazawa had been devastated by the loss of his wife, Saeko had done nothing to comfort him. She wished now that she had come back to talk with Kitazawa.

Come to think of it, Saeko’s life had been in such a state of flux over the last few years, with her impending divorce, quitting her job, and foray into a new career, that she had been too preoccupied to give much thought to other people.

“I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch,” she told him.

Kitazawa seemed confused by Saeko’s apology. “You really think I look well?” he asked, backtracking.

“You really do,” Saeko maintained.

“Well, I’ve aged quite a bit.”

“You did turn sixty. What do you expect? You know, instead of leaving those last pathetic strands of hair up on top, why don’t you just shave it clean? I think it would go well with your gangster look.”

When Kitazawa walked down the street, passers-by either avoided his gaze or quickly moved out of the way. Virtually everything about him was thuggish — his build, his hair, and the vibe he gave off.

In fact, when he had first landed a job at a nonbank lender, its administration had leveraged his intimidating features by assigning him a job much like a gangster’s: locating derelict borrowers. Kitazawa had worked with a partner, tracking down debtors by word-of-mouth and mercilessly shaking them down for cash. The experience had served as a foundation for his current missing persons services.

Weary of chasing after the weak, Kitazawa had left the company for a job in real estate, but once again he found himself assigned to debt-collection duties. Eventually, after a debtor he had tracked down committed suicide in his presence, Kitazawa could take no more of preying upon such miserable souls and resolved to pursue a different career path. Given that the only professional skill he had acquired was that of locating people, he decided to apply that ability towards a more welcome service — private detective work.

Initially, Kitazawa had found a position at a large detective agency, but after marrying a fellow detective from the company, Chieko, the couple decided to open their own outfit specializing exclusively in locating missing persons.