When Juri brought out a condom from somewhere, I was fairly flabbergasted. It seemed she had brought it from the love hotel, but that meant she’d been expecting this to happen. I had to wonder if having a physical relationship was a standard way of establishing solidarity for her.
Inside the cramped car, we brought our bodies together and stimulated each other’s membranes. To me, Juri seemed accustomed to sex. She also seemed to know how to enjoy it, too.
After the act, Juri said she was throwing out the trash and got out of the car. She didn’t come back right away, so I put on my pants, too, and opened the door.
She was lingering at a spot not too far away. I called out to her back, “What are you doing?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just looking at the scenery a little.”
I looked where she was facing. I could faintly see the ocean. When I moved my line of sight to the foreground, it entered my vision. I had to laugh.
“What is it?”
“Look. There’s a jizo right there.”
She turned around and recognized the small stone Buddhist statue and its miniature shed. “You’re right. I didn’t notice.”
“And you just said it feels like it’s not Japan.”
“Yeah.” Juri’s eyes were smiling, and she hugged my arm. “I feel a little cold. Let’s go home.”
“Sure,” I agreed and kissed her one more time.
Chapter 9
By the time we got back to the condo, it was nearly three a.m. In one night we had made a round trip to Yokosuka, had Juri make a phone call, and had car sex as a bonus. It was no wonder my body was tired, but oddly I didn’t feel sleepy. Fortunately tomorrow was Saturday. When my focus had been on the automobile park plans, holidays weren’t relevant, but now I didn’t have any work to go in to the office for.
I booted my computer and visited the CPT website. Sure enough, there was a new post on the bulletin board.
I confirmed the quality of the product (Julie)
Excuse me again, I’m the newbie Julie.
Maniac, thank you for your valuable advice. Just earlier, I checked it. It seems there’s no problem with the CPT’s quality.
The agreement is next, at last. But I haven’t been able to prepare the money and am in trouble. The banks are closed tomorrow so it might take some more time. Plus, I still don’t know exactly how I’ll be paying.
It seemed Maniac was the handle of some helpful person who didn’t know the true meaning of the posts and had given Julie advice. Whoever it was had to be wondering how Julie had checked the car’s quality in the middle of the night and scratching his head after seeing this message.
“Imagining Mr. Katsuragi’s face as he writes these is kind of hilarious.” Having said that, I thought it might actually be the detectives.
“So he’ll go through with the deal because he confirmed I was okay,” Juri observed, peeking at the screen from behind me.
“Well, I wonder about that.”
“Uh, but…”
“He’s saying that he needs some time to prepare the money. They’re still trying to buy time. That’s why they’re demanding to know the method of exchange. Anyway, those guys are trying to coax us into making a move. Through that, they think they can grab us by the tail.”
“Telling them the exchange method comes after they prepare the money, I guess?”
“Yeah, that’s my thinking.” I left the computer and sat down on the living room sofa. Juri followed me.
I turned over my thoughts. They were about what our opponents were up to. They couldn’t just be lying in wait for us to make our move.
“Hey.” Juri sat down next to me. “How are we getting the money? Do you have some neat idea?”
“Oh…yeah,” I said ambiguously. If I told her I had no idea, what sort of face would she make? I couldn’t afford to lose her trust at this point.
In fact, I was assuming that it would all work out. Outwitting the police wasn’t so hard. They say kidnappings never work, but my hunch was that it wasn’t true and that successful cases simply go unreported. The police were neatly hiding them to save face. Just the cases where the perp was caught were widely reported so that kidnappers always appeared to be dumb even from an amateur perspective. There had to be some in the world who were smart. The families, too, probably didn’t want to complicate things once their precious child had come home. Spilling to the press and earning the culprit’s grudge would do them no good.
“You’re not going to tell me? How the exchange will happen?”
“I’ll tell you in time.”
“Are you trying not to make me feel agitated? You think I’d be scared? I’m not that weak.”
“I don’t think that—” I said with a wry smile. At that moment, I came up with something. Agitated…It wasn’t a bad idea.
Nodding, I stood up. I went to the kitchen, took two cans of beer from the fridge, and came back to the sofa. I put one in front of Juri.
“What are you grinning about? It’s creepy,” she complained.
“I just thought of something fun. Those guys are going to get agitated.”
“Agitated?”
“I’m going to tell them how the exchange will happen.”
Juri was about to pop open her beer, but her hand froze at my words. “Are you sure about that?”
“You’ll see. I won’t just be showing my hand.”
I returned to the computer and connected to the internet again. I performed several operations and accessed the site with the free email service. In the daytime, I had acquired an account there. The name and address were of course fake.
I opened a new mail window. Next, I took out my notebook and punched an address into the to field. It was the one of the person posting as “Julie” on the bulletin board.
“Well then.” I put my hands on the keyboard and took a deep breath.
We are confirming that we received your message. We are extremely delighted that you’ve learned that Juri Katsuragi is safe. Now we just need to move along the business negotiations. Letting this stagnate because of things that don’t matter is just a drawback for both parties. We need to expedite this.
First, we would like you to prepare three hundred million yen as we told you. Please have it all in old ten-thousand-yen bills. Divide that in half and pack it in a caddy bag and in another bag.
Next, a cellphone. It can be the one you normally use.
When the above preparations are complete, notify us in the usual way. At that time, provide your cellphone number. You probably can’t just write it out so you may apply some camouflage.
We pray that you complete the preparations quickly. Juri Katsuragi’s prompt release will be tied to that.
We will tell you this just in case. There is no point in replying to this account. We will no longer use this address or look at emails sent to this address. It is only for this one-time occasion.
After reading it three times over, I sat up straight and carefully tapped the send button. In a few seconds, a notice that the email had gone out flashed on the screen. I immediately logged out.
“A caddy bag and a bag, huh. I see,” Juri, who was watching from behind me, admired. “Because carrying that around isn’t strange.”
“Our opponents would think so, too.”
I glanced sideways at Juri, who tilted her head quizzically, and drank my beer.
When would they notice the email? Soon, no doubt. They had to be checking regularly. Maybe the Katsuragi estate was in an uproar right around now.