In the box (BoyXBoy)

The fragile swindler pt.3

Oe took the paper bag he had received from Kitagawa home to his own apartment. If it was found in the office by the chief or by Katori, he would not be able to account for it. He took a cheap dinner at a beef-bowl franchise for under 500 yen, and got home past ten o'clock. Only the light in the doorway was on, and it appeared his wife and daughter were already asleep.
Oe went to the kitchen and took out a beer from the fridge. He took a swig, then began to lay out the investigation reports from Kitagawa on the dining table. There were about twenty reports, and he sorted them out by year.
The oldest was from four years ago. In a year, Kitagawa had commissioned three to four detective agencies for two to three months each. He supposed price-friendly agencies would charge about 400,000 yen per case at the cheapest. Continue that for four years, and it added up to 6 million yen. Going by this calculation, it meant this man had already spent this ridiculous sum of money solely for the purpose of finding one man. Oe unwittingly sighed―out of exasperation.
Oe perused the reports in order from the oldest. He could sense from the writing the kind of difficulty each agency went through because of the lack of information.
Some agencies had searched for prisoners who lived in the same cell as Kitagawa and Douno. They had probably figured they could find out about Douno from other cellmates, but it was difficult to find cellmates based on just their names. They had found one man called Kakizaki, however―"Re-arrested and currently serving in prison. Unable to secure an interview," said the report, and that was the disappointing end of that thread.
As he read on, Oe learned that Douno had been imprisoned for indecent assault. Since it was a light offence, he had come into prison after Kitagawa but been released before him in less than a year. With Douno's criminal history as a reference point, some agencies had accessed sites for "train groping" enthusiasts to collect information, but none had reaped anything of use.
Some agencies conducted proper investigations by computer and footwork to base their reports on, while another chose the unbelievably inefficient method of calling every Douno in the phone book, adding a separate charge for the phone bill. Some reports were clearly from scam agencies. "We were unable to find the target of investigation," the report said, without even giving details on what kind of investigation was conducted.
It was one o'clock in the morning by the time Oe finished browsing through all of the reports. All of the other agencies had covered the methods he had thought about using himself, and some had approached the search from a standpoint he would never have thought of. If Douno had still not been found after all of this, he was never going to be found. It was impossible, no matter how you looked at it.
Oe put the materials back in the paper bag, and drained the rest of his beer. In his head, he drew up a scenario for the next time they would meet. In one of the reports from two years ago, the agency had called all of the city halls in the four prefectures of the Kanto region, asking if a man called Douno had ever worked there. Oe could take that and arrange it a little, saying he had broadened the search by calling the Chuubu region, but had yielded no results. Next came the Kansai region. This method was unlikely to draw suspicion, too, since it expanded on an investigation that a previous agency had done.
Oe fished out his wallet from his pocket. He peered inside. The bills amounted to exactly 100,000 yen. It was ten months' worth of his allowance. Tomorrow, he would deposit this into a bank account he had made without his wife's knowledge. If he continued this for two months, it would add up to 400,000 yen. If Kitagawa was still not suspicious of him, he would continue for another month. That would make 600,000 yen. It would amount to a small bonus.
Oe leaned against his chair-back and stretched backwards. The chair legs creaked dully. The man with the white shirt and black pants flitted across his mind.
He was terse, but not a bad man. Even with a criminal history, he still had the wits to restrain his emotions.
"Homosexual, huh," Oe muttered to himself. He was not well-versed in non-heterosexual society, but he at least sort of knew the difference between transvestites and gays. Kitagawa was probably the gay type, the kind of person who didn't have to change his body to love other men.
Sex with another man―just the thought of it made Oe feel sick. He knew had no say in others' preferences, and if some people were like that, he had no choice but to accept it. Nevertheless, it was not a good feeling.
When it came to romance, their feelings were probably no less different than those between a man and woman, but he could not help but think it futile. They couldn't marry, nor have children, obviously. On top of that, Japan was not an accepting place for gay people.
Futile, futile, Oe repeated in his head, until he reached one conclusion: perhaps Kitagawa was the type to feel romance in misfortune. A futile relationship, a futile love, a futile search. Oe was merely a chess piece to satisfy the man's romanticism for the futile.
If that was the case, he would investigate and use up the man's money, just as Kitagawa wished. It was his goal to be futile, so the content of his investigation and the money didn't matter. What was important was the miserable fact that he was spending so much money on the search.
Rattle, rattle. The kitchen window facing the passageway outside made a sound, startling Oe out of his seat. It was not very loud―perhaps it was just the wind. His palpitating heart, however, took a while to calm down afterwards.
No matter what kind of logical reason he attached to it, Oe was still tricking a misdirected homosexual ex-con while knowing the man was at a disadvantage.
But as the past investigation reports proved, Oe was not the only one to take advantage of this man.
"It's his own fault for getting tricked."
Oe wished he could have another beer.