“A molar, a doujin manga, a fortune-teller, and black magic, huh... Kichijoji’s turning into a fantasy world that would surprise even Conan these days.”
I’d been following Yuta Gamon for about fifteen minutes.
He was wearing a yellow and grey duffel coat that made him easy to spot, and he’d been glancing left and right the entire time he walked. Even if he was scared, he was still moving fast. He’d hurried all the way here.
But it didn’t seem like he’d noticed me.
“Well, even with these fantasy mysteries going around, my first card I should draw for this stage... is Kirikiri Basara.”
Yuta Gamon went into Kichijoji Park.
It was an unobtrusive park in the middle of a residential area. It barely got any visitors to begin with. Only the locals knew there was a park there at all.
But today, there was someone waiting for him.
A young girl with big boobs. She was... cute, but looked stupid. Maybe there weren’t any girls in the real world who had that combination of brains and voluptuousness Fujiko had.
Once he met up with the girl, they left the park and started walking to Kichijoji Theater.
There were love hotels down there...
“...But I guess he wouldn’t be up for that right now, huh?”
Sleeping with a girl was probably the last thing on the mind of the person I was tailing.
He was a suspect in Isayuki Hashigami’s murder, after all. He was probably terrified that the police might come knocking on his door at any minute.
And in fact, I was sure of it.
If I took his fingerprints and compared them with the ones that were left all over Dr. Hashigami’s seminar room, they’d match.
If that happened, the cops would arrest him, and announce his capture at a press conference.
And then the case would, at least on the surface, be closed.
On the surface.
“It would be easy to arrest him, but... I want an opponent I can chase constantly, one where an invisible bond of trust develops even though we’re detective and thief, you know?”
If nothing else, the boy I was chasing wasn’t the sort. He wasn’t the type I wanted to chase.
“I’d run after him, waving a pair of handcuffs and screaming, ‘Stop!’ and he’d say, ‘No way!’ That’s the kind of guy I’m looking for.”
Well, even if I wasn’t going to find anybody like that, tailing someone was still fun.
The two people I was following went inside a shady-looking café on the second floor of a multi-use building.
I could see the name of the café at the bottom of the stairs.
Café☆Blue Moon.
Seemed it sold alcohol at night.
“Hmm... That’s a pretty grown-up date for a modern, teenage couple. I thought kids with no money and lots of time either went to McDonalds, or played with their phones like idiots in freezing cold at Inokashira Park.”
Or maybe... there was some reason they had to come here?
“No way. Hahaha.”
I decided to go in, too.
It didn’t look like a place that would get a lot of customers, so there was a chance I’d run into my target.
But if that happened, I’d figure something out.
Just as I put my foot on the stairs, my phone rang. I wasn’t sure if that was good timing or bad.
“Yes. This is Agent Moritsuka.”
“Why aren’t you following the 256 incident?” the person on the phone asked.
“That’s a stupid question. Do you want me to dance with the ghost of Nikola Tesla? Either way, the ‘list’ will connect to the 256.”
“So you’re telling me the key is Isayuki Hashigami, after all?”
“It’s the only way to catch the ghost by the tail. There’s a meaning to the number 256. And Isayuki Hashigami knew what that meaning was,” I said as I walked up the stairs to Blue Moon.