He felt uneasy about entering the director’s office, but Chief Sugawara himself didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, when they sat facing each other on the sofa set in the reception area, Sugawara was quite polite with him despite the considerable age difference.
“To be honest, I’m glad you contacted me, Mr. Matsunaga. It’s better to disclose things like this early on. We can’t impose a gag order on our crew, either; that’d just lead to more rumors.”
“Thank you, Chief. I didn’t expect you to welcome me in like this.”
“If I could ask, Mr. Matsunaga—during the meeting, was there anyone standing next to me?”
Sugawara looked serious. Mitsuhiro blinked and stared back at him. He understood that Sugawara was referring to his father, but he didn’t understand why he was bringing this up. Did his father’s presence bother Sugawara? He hadn’t interrupted the meeting; he was just standing near the Chief.
Mitsuhiro ventured a timid nod.
“Um… Yes…”
Sugawara let out a deep sigh, took his glasses out of his breast pocket, and held them in one hand. Still no sign he’d ever put them on.
“You always have those glasses with you, sir,” Mitsuhiro remarked, not knowing what else to say.
“They’re a memento from my younger brother. They’re not mine.”
Sugawara looked around the room, as if he was expecting someone else. Mitsuhiro was flummoxed, unsure what to say next.
“Mr. Matsunaga, you went into the ritual hall in the East Wing basement, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I was investigating, and, um, I didn’t know anything about it…”
“I stumbled into one of those once myself, at a different site. Since then, I’ve been following the advice of the director of Tamai Construction and keep at least one belonging from a late family member on me at all times.”
“I see,” was all Mitsuhiro could manage.
“Did he tell you to do that, too?”
The question seemed very sudden. But Araki had said exactly that to him.
“Yes, sir. A member of Tamai Construction did say that. I thought it was pretty farfetched at the time, so I forgot about it…”
“It is farfetched, these ritual halls sitting deep underneath all sorts of buildings…”
“Yes…”
“But if Tamai Construction advised you to do that, I think you should make sure to follow through. I was very skeptical about it at first, but it led to some delays, you could say.”
“Right,” Mitsuhiro said.
But Sugawara dropped the topic. “Well, that aside, we’ll be conducting a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire. Please tell Mr. Takenaka not to worry about it.”
So Mitsuhiro left the office, and Sugawara saw him off with what could be described as a convivial attitude. Once he was back at his car, Mitsuhiro breathed a sigh of relief.
He hopped in and looked in the rearview mirror at his father, smiling in the back seat. The Chief’s really siding with you, isn’t he? Your boss can’t act so tough around you anymore. Maybe you’ll get to keep this car awhile longer.
“I sure hope so.”
His father’s outlook seemed overly optimistic. Takenaka was sure to get jealous over this.
Hey, don’t worry. His father leaned over, smiling right behind Mitsuhiro. You won’t have to worry about that guy at all pretty soon. Let’s get some work done before we meet Mr. Araki.
“All right,” Mitsuhiro replied as he drove away.
The work at hand was, of course, to find Yoshikazu Hara.
At this point, he hadn’t heard any news either way from Okuyama of Helping Hands. What he dreaded the most was a call saying that Yoshikazu Hara had been found dead. Okuyama had already reported him missing to the police, so if his body was found, the police would let them know…and if he was wandering the streets in this heat, the worst-case scenario could soon be reality.
It was up to Mitsuhiro to find Yoshikazu Hara before that call arrived. To that end, he decided to visit all the places where support organizations were active, following the list Okuyama had given him.
By “active,” he meant distributing meals. Some groups served things like pork miso soup or curry at parks and government grounds, while others gave out small portions of bread and soup to those who lived on the streets. The people working for these groups often served as counselors, too, referring people who were escaping domestic violence to shelters and attorneys.
These groups ran the gamut from nonprofits to religious organizations, corporations, corporate-sponsored volunteer groups, and university clubs. Some among them were more of a racket than a charity, aiming to fleece people of their welfare benefits. Public institutions were also engaged with the homeless, of course, but Mitsuhiro’s impression was that they had their hands full with providing temporary housing. These institutions were just not large enough, and since every person using these services had their own unique circumstances that had brought them there, it seemed all but impossible to handle and care for everyone. And that was without taking into account altercations among the homeless themselves, or between them and volunteers, and wherever young people with nowhere to go gathered, so did criminal groups ready to prey upon them.
But regardless of the circumstances, no one could survive without food, so these soup kitchens had become part of the unique daily routine of the unhoused. They usually tried to live within walking distance of food sites, and if they were fortunate enough to find a place to sleep, they tried to keep themselves there as much as possible. For them, changing their sleep site meant carrying all their stuff with them and building a new knowledge base from scratch—food-drop locations, dates, and so on. Without a phone, it’d be a total nightmare.
If Yoshikazu Hara was lucky enough to find a place to sleep, he would’ve stayed there all day except when he had to get up to receive food. With his dementia, though, he might’ve lost track of his sleeping spot and wandered off somewhere. If so, Okuyama said that Hara would probably remain in the same ward of Tokyo, as walking any farther would be too much for him. Taking a train or bus was also unlikely—he couldn’t afford the fare, and the stations would get swept clear, so you saw far fewer homeless riding the rails all day to shelter from the sun, wind, or snow.
A lot of them were instead using places like internet cafés and love hotels—that was the big new trend, and unfortunately, their proprietors weren’t as upfront about who they sheltered. It was impossible to keep track of every single one of those. But even if Yoshikazu Hara was living in a twenty-four-hour internet café or something, he’d still need to venture out in search of free food. Thus, the most efficient way to find him was to visit soup kitchens and case the surrounding areas.
Following the route he’d worked out in advance, Mitsuhiro went down the office buildings between Mitake-dori and Aoyama-dori Streets, parked his car in a lot, and walked with his bag under his arm. There were several parks in the area where free meals were available.
When you find Yoshikazu Hara, his father suddenly said behind him as he headed toward one site, you better take a gift with you. If you have something he wants, that’ll make it a lot easier to get him on your side.