Detective Yamamoto and the Beginning Part 3

 FRIDAY

The past few days had dragged on interminably, but they had passed regardless. Satoshi remained incredibly nervous for the meeting to come. He and the detective had worked out a plan that seemed about as sound as it could be, but Yamamoto had made of a lot of assumptions. If any one of them didn't pan out, Satoshi would look very foolish indeed, and he may even be blacklisted by the publisher. Nevertheless, if this publishing agent truly stole his manuscript, then he deserved to suffer the consequences. With a degree of resolution Satoshi hadn't felt in a long time, he made for the cafe where the meeting had been set up.

Satoshi arrived early, as would befit someone excited for the opportunity. For the plan to succeed, he would have to act as though nothing was out of the ordinary. When he entered the cafe, Satoshi noticed both the agent he intended to meet, to whom he waved politely, and Detective Yamamoto, cunningly disguised with a hat and sunglasses, to whom he made discrete eye contact.

"Good morning, Mr. Sakamoto," said Genji Watanabe.

"Good morning to you as well, Mr. Watanabe" said Satoshi, feigning as much courtesy as he could muster. Satoshi took a seat at the table, opposite the agent. This constituted the first stage of the plan, and all future stages hinged on its success. As surreptitiously as possible, Satoshi looked around. Genji Watanabe brought a briefcase with him, opening up the possibility that he had Satoshi's computer in his possession. He kept it on the floor beside his chair rather than setting it on the table, so Satoshi couldn't confirm it, but this boded well. Satoshi coughed twice and cleared his throat once afterwards, as he and the Detective had established earlier in the week.

"Excuse me," Satoshi said, trying to keep up an appearance of civility and good manners. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yamamoto at her own table flag down a waitress and order coffee. She had received his signal and was proceeding with her part of the plan. So far, everything proceeded according to the plan.

"Let's get down to business" said Genji while smiling and bridging his fingers on top of the table. "I believe you understand we are very interested in publishing your novel based on excerpts you submitted. May I have the full manuscript?"

Sure, just open your briefcase, thought Satoshi, trying to keep a derisive sneer from his face. He found that it taxed him more than he would have liked. He had plenty of time to stew and think before the meeting about exactly what Genji was supposedly trying to do, and it turned his stomach.

"Of course," he said, starting to rummage in the bag he brought with him. Naturally, he had no such manuscript, but the plan dictated keeping up appearances. According to the plan, Detective Yamamoto began to act. Carrying the cup of coffee she had ordered, she walked towards the door. When only a few paces away from Satoshi's table, she tripped deliberately. In doing so, she cast the cup of coffee all over Genji and in preventing herself from falling flat on her face, she kicked the briefcase.

As he watched it happen, Satoshi thought that the detective’s act wouldn’t have fooled a child, but the publishing agent’s back was turned. He only knew that coffee was spilled on him and that his briefcase was kicked across the room.

As it happened, everything worked out better than Satoshi had any right to expect. The briefcase sprung open as it skittered across the floor of the cafe. Papers billowed out of it, and perhaps tellingly, a laptop computer clattered to the ground.

"Oh my, I'm terribly sorry!" exclaimed the detective, as she rushed towards Genji. She lifted the hem of her shirt and dabbed at him in a feeble attempt to clean the spilled coffee. Even as he tried to push her away, she persisted, ensuring that he remained distracted.

This was Satoshi's golden opportunity. He stood and walked over to where the laptop had fallen. He picked it up with one hand and set it on the table.

"I'm sure you'll find that this computer has my manuscript." Satoshi said coldly, dropping any pretense of civility. "Or you could ask your associate Hiroshi Katsuda. I think he has a copy."

It was as though Satoshi had struck Genji with a hammer. Immediately he stopped struggling to fend off the detective and his facial expression resembled a small woodland creature suddenly finding itself in the path of a large truck.

Without warning Genji reached forward, snatched the laptop off the table, gave Yamamoto a decisive shove and set off running. It turned out that one of Yamamoto's assumptions was wrong. She, and admittedly Satoshi, had hoped that by shocking him with indisputable proof, he would be stunned into compliance. Unfortunately, this didn't play out and now the guilty party had elected to flee. Yamamoto got up off the floor and started chasing the thief with Satoshi merely a fraction of a second behind her.

"Keep chasing him!" shouted Yamamoto. "I've got an idea!"

Satoshi nodded without saying anything. He was by no means a star athlete, and if he was to overtake the publishing agent, he couldn't afford to speak now. Genji might have been old and past his prime, but fear had lent his feet wings, and Satoshi found he struggled to keep up, much less catch up. He had cunningly darted in and out of alleys and around the various obstacles a city provided to try and lose Satoshi. To Satoshi's credit, he kept Genji in his sights, even if he was no closer to catching him and recovering his laptop.

Genji looked back to see Satoshi trailing him to an increasing degree, with no sign of the girl who had bumped into him. He was just beginning to feel some small measure of relief when the girl from before had jumped out from his flank. She slid like a professional and kicked his legs out from under him. Totally unprepared for something like this, Genji toppled to the ground and rolled onto his back, dropping the laptop in the process. The computer hit the ground hard and skittered a few paces away.

Despite having slid across the rough ground, scraping up her legs and causing her skirt to ride up, Detective Yamamoto pounced on the publishing agent, rolling him to his side, wrenching one of his arms halfway up his back and pinning him in place with her weight. Genji groaned, but could do little to resist. Satoshi finally managed to catch up.

“Great job, Detective.” said Satoshi, huffing and panting as he finally caught up.

“All in a day's work,” said the detective to Satoshi. She turned to Genji, beneath her. “Now, I think you have something that doesn't belong to you?”

Genji merely groaned and Satoshi moved to retrieve his laptop. As he approached it, his heart sank. It seemed that in the aftermath of Detective Yamamoto's superlative tackle, the laptop did not survive. The casing was cracked and broken in many places and bits of plastic that were formerly keys surrounded it, scattered on the ground. Satoshi went through a veritable roller coaster of emotions. Triumph at having caught the thief and happiness at having run him down, fear for the state of his laptop, and despair as it may have been broken beyond repair.

SATURDAY

After the dust settled, Satoshi had ended up slinking back to his apartment. His laptop died an ignominious death, and after returning to the cafe, the papers, some of which turned out to be his stolen notes, were partially destroyed by the spilled coffee. Looking at it optimistically, Satoshi had recovered some of his stolen property, but this victory was spoiled somewhat by the fact that he could have recovered everything had he been a little more careful. All told, Satoshi's dreams of being a published author weren't dashed, but they had been set back significantly. He could always rewrite his novel given the partial notes he salvaged, but it would take time.

Regardless, Satoshi still had Detective Yamamoto to thank for everything she had done. He certainly wouldn't have found anything had it not been for her. Of course, there was also the matter of paying her for her services. She hadn't really talked about payment, and at the time Satoshi just chalked this up to eccentricity, but even after the conclusion of the case, she still hadn't said anything, nor had she contacted him. It wasn't like Satoshi had all sorts of extra money lying around, but it didn't sit well with him to skip out on paying.

As Satoshi entered the Yamamoto Detective Agency for the third time, he found Yamamoto as he had before; lounging behind her desk in skimpy clothing, nursing a beer. He noticed guiltily that the detective's legs were still scuffed up from her superlative slide tackle, and they were covered by an assortment of small bandages and light dressings.

“Good morning Detective,” Satoshi said, trying to put on a facade of cheeriness.

“Mornin',” responded the detective, taking another sip. “Did you get robbed again?”

“No, no, nothing like that. I actually came to talk about the original robbery. I believe I owe you for your services.” Detective Yamamoto looked somewhat nonplussed, but ultimately banished the thought with another sip.

“Don't worry about my fee. Come back when you're a best-selling author and you can gimme some of your royalties.”

This answer was not the one that Satoshi expected to hear. He had feared that Yamamoto's fee would be exorbitant and rightly so considering how much she had helped. Satoshi had hoped it would be something he could feasibly pay, even if expensive, but hearing that the detective only wanted to be paid when he himself was successful both relieved and heartened him. Mentally, Satoshi had been sorting and evaluating what parts of his budget he could trim and what small luxuries he could forgo. All of that worry evaporated, and what's more the detective's words had an inherent optimism in them. Without saying it in so many words, Detective Yamamoto had expressed confidence in his abilities, and in her mind, his success was merely an inevitability waiting to happen.

“Thank you, detective!” Satoshi said, bowing his head. He left the detective agency in a much better mood than he had any right to be in.

I am going to succeed, thought Satoshi. This is only the beginning.

Now newly invigorated, even in the last few remnants of the mess from the robbery, Satoshi sat at his desk in his office and began to write. At this point, his computer remained broken, and he wasn't likely to get it repaired for a while, but inspiration had struck like lightning.

With just pen and paper, Satoshi got down to business. He knew exactly what he wanted to write about and the words practically flowed from his pen to the page. Before he knew it, Satoshi was looking at a sizable draft for a short story. All that was left to do was, in his mind, the hardest part. He needed to give it a title. As before inspiration struck him. He smiled to himself as he wrote the title at the top of the first page.

The Eccentric Detective, thought Satoshi. That'll make a good title.