Soldier 29 took the lead. He didn’t give a shit that they had corrected it. The school had published the home phone number of their boss, Saigo, of the Inagawa-kai Saigo-gumi. Soldier 29 put his business card on the table.

  The swim-school owner continued to apologize, but 29 said that wasn’t good enough. He claimed that the school owner had pissed off their boss, and because Saigo didn’t want to answer his phone, the school owner was interfering with their business. He was causing them great trouble.

  The cousin went to the window and looked at the students swimming. They were probably fifth-graders. He patted the owner on the shoulders and whispered in his ear that he, too, was a businessman, so he understood how bad it was to have trouble in a business — such as what would happen if one of his students were to drown. For instance, one night, if one of his students was swimming and got their leg caught in a drain and drowned, it would be horrible — and it would technically be the swim-school owner’s fault. He would have to pay damages to the family and close down the school.

  The cousin slapped him lightly, and the owner apologized again. But Soldier 29 and his cousin made it clear that words weren’t enough. The school owner agreed to pay them 1 million yen in damages. They made him go to the bank with them and take out the money immediately.

  Soldier 29 made the owner stamp his seal on a note saying that the money was a settlement for aggravation caused by the printing error. It was a smart move. It would make it hard for the police to treat it as more than a civil dispute.

  A few days later, after thinking it over, the school owner went to the Machida police and consulted with them. He was asked to file a criminal complaint, but, at the last minute, he balked. The police pressed him to file charges, but he said he needed time to think it over. They kept his statement, and the business card of Soldier 29, on file.

  One of the cops mentioned the incident to a member of the Saigo-gumi, who promptly reported it to his boss. Saigo was outraged. It wasn’t just that it was a low-down shakedown of a local business using the Saigo-gumi name, but they hadn’t even paid him a cut of their take. It was unethical and disrespectful.

  The Saigo-gumi survived in the area because they didn’t bother the locals. They didn’t pick fights over trivial and honest mistakes. That wasn’t how he operated.

  He told Mizoguchi to gather four other members and to bring 29 to his office immediately. He was going to have a talk with him. When Soldier 29 was brought into the office, Saigo didn’t even look at him. He ordered his crew to pin 29 to his desk so he could ask him some questions.

  Saigo fired away, and Soldier 29 denied everything. He said that he had no idea what was going on. Finally, growing impatient, Saigo told Mizoguchi to bring him his Japanese sword from upstairs. Unless he started talking, Saigo was going to cut 29’s limbs off until he looked like a daruma doll. Mizoguchi brought down the sword. Saigo unsheathed it himself, and held it in both hands. He nodded at Mizoguchi, and explained to him how to use the sword. He’d have to hold it in both hands to get a clean cut. Then he handed the sword to Mizoguchi.

  Soldier 29, who had his arms pinned to the table by two men, and his legs held in place by two others, was trying to scream, but one of the men had stuffed a handkerchief in his mouth. He was struggling.

  Mizoguchi lifted the sword, right over the left arm, and was getting ready to slice down when Saigo stopped him.

  Saigo chuckled to himself. He apologized to the assembled men. He realized that, if he cut off 29’s arm at his office, the whole place would be full of blood. So he ordered his men to drag his ass up to the mountains, so they could continue up there. If he still wouldn’t talk after he’d lost his first arm, he wanted them to cut off 29’s fingers one by one until he did. Then drop him at a hospital somewhere. Maybe he’d live.

  Soldier 29 was really screaming now, even though they were muffled screams. Saigo guessed he wanted to talk now.

  Soldier 29 told him everything. He told him about his cousin and about how much money they’d made. He apologized for not paying a portion back to Saigo, and Saigo slapped him in the face so hard that it broke the man’s nose.

  It wasn’t about the money. It was about bothering people who they shouldn’t have been bothering. Saigo then told 29 what was going to happen: 29 was going to leave his office, gather all the money that was left, and return it to the owner. He was going to apologize and explain that the Saigo-gumi had had nothing to do with the incident. He was going to return to the office to give Saigo his badge, and then he was going to be banished from the organization.

  If he didn’t come back to the office, they’d come looking for him. Saigo took back the sword from Mizoguchi and pointed it at the man. When Soldier 29 left, he had the sword put back.

  It was actually a model sword: a replica of a famous blade from the Tokugawa era. It would have been stupid to keep a real sword on the premises, but Soldier 29 didn’t know that, nor did he need to know that. Saigo just needed to make sure he was scared enough to talk.

  Unfortunately, Soldier 29 decided to to talk to the wrong people.

  Soldier 29 didn’t go get the money. He went to the police. He told the Machida police that Saigo had threatened to cut off his arm if he didn’t pay 1 million yen to him.

  As luck would have it, Detective Greenriver was on duty that day. He heard one of the junior detectives taking down the statement and getting ready to file a criminal complaint. Greenriver interrupted the proceedings, and asked the junior detective to wait about an hour.

  Soldier 29 was put in the interrogation room “for his own safety.” Then Greenriver called Saigo directly.

  Saigo had a feeling that he knew what the call was about. He was on his way to visit his wife in the hospital, but he said he’d wait. Greenriver was there within twenty minutes. He came into Saigo’s office and sat down. Greenriver told him that one of Saigo’s men had come to the police station and lodged a complaint about a shakedown. Greenriver wanted to know if the story was true.

  Saigo confirmed it. Soldier 29 had shaken down a local swimming school and had used Saigo’s name, but Greenriver hadn’t heard anything about the swimming school. All he had heard was that Saigo had threatened to cut off 29’s arm if he didn’t pay Saigo 1 million yen.

  Saigo brought Greenriver up to speed, even showing him a copy of the mistaken ad. The question now was whether Saigo had threatened 29, and he had. Saigo wasn’t going to lie about that. He also wasn’t going to lie about asking for the money, although he wanted the money so he could pay back the school. Still, Greenriver could technically arrest him for extortion, and if he did, Saigo wouldn’t be around to say goodbye to his wife. It would be stupid to throw away his life over something like this.

  Greenriver decided that they didn’t have a problem. This was how he was going to handle it: He was going to go back to the station and tell 29 he was ready to arrest Saigo for extortion; but, if he was going to do that, he was also going to arrest his cousin for the same crime. Then he’d offer to let it all slide if 29 paid back the money.

  Saigo had threatened 29, though. He tried to remind Greenriver of this, but the detective pretended not to hear him. He told Saigo that he suffered from severe hearing loss when he was tired, and he had just gotten off the night shift. Plus, Greenriver decided that Saigo was just upset because his wife was ill. He was distraught, and not expressing himself well. So Greenriver was going to go back to the station, have a chat with 29, and then go to sleep. He recommended that Saigo go see his wife.

  Saigo stood up and bowed deeply. Greenriver got up and bowed as well. He smiled, and let himself out.

  Greenriver went back to the police station. In the interrogation room, he had a long talk with Soldier 29. Their talk may or may not have been punctuated with a few punches. It was a closed room.

  Soldier 29 dropped the charges. He and his cousin paid back all the money to the school. The owner received his money, plus an apology, and an extra 40,000 yen for damages that he had suffered. He told the police he didn’t want to press charges. The police were not unhappy, because while they wanted to bust as many yakuza as possible, everything had been resolved amicably.

  And Saigo was able to be with his wife when she needed him the most. During the last few days, she had one beatific vision of a field of flowers. She told him about it. He told her that that must be what heaven was like. He didn’t believe this — figuring it was a drug-induced vision, but he told her that because he felt sometimes you lie to the people you love when they need you to the most. He held her hand as she passed. Saigo had a tomb built for her and her parents, under the Saigo family name. There was no obligation for him to do so, because they had never technically been married. Even now, the Saigo tomb is located in Machida city, but there are no Saigo family members in it yet. The only ones in the tomb are Hiroko, her father, and her mother.

  Coach mourned her as though she was a member of his own family. He insisted on throwing a lavish funeral in her honor. Over 2,000 people came. It was a huge affair. The money collected went to pay the huge hospital bill and the funeral costs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “We once were gamblers …”

  Times change. Bosses die. New bosses are crowned.

  Chihiro Inagawa became the third-generation leader of the Inagawa-kai on October 10, 1990, at an elaborate ceremony held at the family headquarters located in Atami. All the leaders of each yakuza group in the country attended, including Yoshinori Watanabe, the fifth-generation leader of the Yamaguchi-gumi. Watanabe was an imposing figure, very much living up to his nickname “the Gorilla” in his physical features and his almost brutal aura.

  At the ceremony, the Inagawa theme song, ‘Kanagawa Suikoden’, was played. The song’s closing lyrics noted that “If you kick down others to climb up the mountain, next it will be your turn to fall.” It was almost a prophecy of the ugly succession battle that would occur after Chihiro’s death years later.

  Seijo Inagawa had entrusted Ishii with raising Chihiro Inagawa to be a good yakuza, and Ishii had done well. He had created the perfect successor. Chihiro Inagawa was handsome, charming, and adept at running the group. Seijo Inagawa was still behind the scenes, living in their family headquarters in Atami, occasionally doing interviews with magazines.

  Chihiro Inagawa’s son was expected to be the fourth-generation Inagawa-kai leader when Chihiro Inagawa retired or died at a ripe old age. Few people imagined that the founder would outlive his son.

  By 2003, Chihiro Inagawa had liver cancer. He needed a liver transplant to survive, and Japan was way behind on transplant surgery. With the strict laws in place, it was unlikely that a yakuza would get to step to the head of the line.

  That year was tough — not just for Chihiro Inagawa, but for the whole Inagawa-kai. They were having a bonfire of troubles and bad publicity.

  The trouble stemmed from a killing in November 1998, when Inagawa-kai soldiers beat a Japanese enka singer to death. He had been playing gigs on their turf in the Saitama prefecture. When the singer stopped by a traditional Japanese pub in Yashio City, the local thugs corralled him. They wanted to know who had given him permission to sing in the area and where was their cut. The local yakuza were “offended” that they hadn’t been properly greeted, which was standard practice for the yakuza in that era.

  The fifty-six-year-old singer told them to buzz off, so they dragged him out of the pub to their local office, where they beat his head with a wooden chair, kicked him over and over, and killed him. It was the blows to the head that were fatal.

  When his widow came to confirm the identity of his body, the internal bleeding had caused the singer’s face to swell up and go purple, and his mouth was warped and misshapen. If he’d lived, he might never have been able to sing again. She had rushed to the police station with their four-year-old grandson, whom she often babysat. When the child managed to sneak into the room and saw his grandfather’s face, he looked and said, “It’s a monster.”

  The young yakuza responsible turned himself into the police directly after the crime, and was arrested on murder charges. The prosecution didn’t believe that there was an intent to kill, and only charged the yakuza with manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison.

  The widow, with the aid of the Saitama Police, sued the Inagawa-kai boss, his wakagashira, and the killer, for 160 million yen, asserting that the boss had employer liability for the death of her husband. She spoke to the press.

  They had been a happily married couple who together ran a fruit-and-vegetable stand until her husband finally made his debut as a singer. He wasn’t a star, but he had done well.

  A female police officer, aged thirty-two, who had come to know the widow during the initial investigation, visited her once a month for over a year until she finally convinced the widow to take a stand and sue. The Saitama Center for the Elimination of the Yakuza funded the lawsuit, and the local police patrolled her house every day after she filed.

  The Inagawa-kai had bankrolled the defense of the boss — asserting that since the boss had been in jail at the time of the killing, he couldn’t be held accountable.

  The courts disagreed. In March 2003, the Supreme Court rejected any further appeals, and the case was closed. The sued Inagawa-kai boss declared bankruptcy, and finally agreed to pay a fraction of the payment.

  The entire court case had been a huge PR disaster for the group. It certainly didn’t illustrate the principle of “not bothering ordinary persons.”

  On July 9, in Yokohama, which was Yokosuka-ikka territory, two Inagawa-kai members — aged twenty-three and nineteen — got in a fight with a sixty-one-year-old construction worker and his friends. They kicked and punched the older man, leaving him fatally injured. They were both arrested for manslaughter.

  The only saving grace for Saigo and Coach was that the two punks responsible were not members of their clan, the Yokosuka-ikka.

  But within weeks, the Inagawa-kai heard that the family of the deceased man was considering suing Seijo Inagawa himself for liability. The buck was going all the way to the top.

  Coach took it up at the monthly Yokosuka-ikka meeting.

  There was comfort and stability in the regular life of a yakuza boss that Saigo had grown to like. The monthly meetings of the Yokosuka-ikka were always introduced with someone reading aloud the okite (the rules of the game) in a booming voice. Coach would announce the latest personnel changes. He would often wear his sunglasses during the meeting as well, especially if he didn’t have much to say. Some suspected he kept them on to sleep through part of the meetings, which could go on for hours.

  Sometimes, a lawyer would come and brief them on how to skirt the most recent changes in the anti-organized crime laws. There would be announcements of who was in jail, who was due to get out of jail, and occasionally new instructions and prohibitions.

  Coach opened the meeting with the following bombshell: “No more naked sushi. From henceforth, nyotaimori is banned at all Inagawa-kai events. That’s from the top down.” Nyotaimori — sometimes translated as “female body arrangement” — is the practice of eating sushi off a woman’s naked body.

  In the spring of 2004, two members of the Inagawa-kai crime syndicate in the Gunma prefecture used a nyotaimori show to commemorate a release from prison, and were subsequently arrested for allowing minors to view the proceedings. During the 1990s, Hollywood movies such as Rising Sun and scandalous reporting on Japan made it seem like this deviant practice was part and parcel of Japanese culture, but it had never been mainstream — no more mainstream than shabu-shabu restaurants where the floors were mirrored and the waitresses wore skirts with no panties. However, it was something that could spice up yakuza parties, and was still done on occasion. The arrest of the idiots in Gunma did not cast the organization in a good light, and thus the practice was banned.

  There were groans or protests from the assembled members. Everyone was aware that it wasn’t smart to give the police a reason to crack down on the gang. Coach reminded them that in March, a twenty-six-year-old member of the Inagawa-kai had been arrested for violations of the anti-child prostitution laws after paying 30,000 yen for sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. That was unacceptable, and disgusting as well.

  Coach always saved the most important and grave announcements for last, which meant that the meetings usually ended on a somber note. There was something to that strategy. Most yakuza share one thing in common — a poor ability to see into the future and remember what is really important. The last thing they hear is what they remember the most.

  Now came the bad news. A few days before the meeting, two members of the Inagawa-kai had killed a regular citizen. There were even rumors that the family of the man was going to Seijo Inagawa and Chihiro Inagawa this time for damages; they would seek to lay responsibility at the top.

  As for the two yakuza arrested, they had been banished forever — zetsuen — and would never return to the organization. It didn’t matter if the civilians had started the fight — as yakuza, they should have known when to pull their punches.

  “When I started, we were gamblers, we were bakuto. And now look at us.”

  Coach had kept his sunglasses on for the entire meeting, but now he took them off, and rubbed his eyes. They were watery. He looked at Saigo, at Inoue, at each and every member there, one by one.

  “At the end of the day, ask yourself whether you’re one of the good guys or the bad guys, and if you don’t know, then you’d better figure it out. Behave yourselves. The world is watching us, and I’m watching you.”

  He put his glasses back on, and had Inoue read the rules out one more time. Inoue’s voice resonated like a temple bell:

  It is forbidden to use any form of drugs or deal in them.