“Banjo, hey, Banjo!”
Even in his pleasant slumber, Banjo could hear someone calling his name. He shuddered into consciousness.
“Mmph?”
“Banjo, it’s morning.”
“Whoa, wait, really?”
Apparently they had all slept there on the bench together. There were women out training for marathons and elderly men walking dogs in the park. Banjo gave a great big yawn and watched them all go by happily for a moment.
“We were in the middle of trying to catch the culprit! No time for falling asleep!” Banjo said, remembering why they were there. He stood up from the bench and started to leave.
“Stop, stop! Are you looking for something?”
“Nah! I’ll just investigate this park for the time being. Maybe there’s some evidence.”
Banjo stopped and sniffed. Usu had taken care of the body, but with blood splashed everywhere, he might still be able to pick up a scent. But no matter how hard he sniffed, all he could smell was the sea.
“No good down here. I can’t smell anything.”
Sante rubbed his nose.
“Dammit. I wish we’d asked where he found the body …”
“Definitely,” Ichimi nodded in agreement.
“Not much else to do but wander around the park and try to find a trace.”
“Really?”
“If I say I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it!”
Even if you guys don’t wanna help me, I’ll find the evidence all by myself. The others, seeing that there was no point in complaining, had little choice but to help him. The sun had just begun to rise.
“I don’t get it …”
In the end, all they found in the park was a baseball, a snake’s discarded skin, a lot of porno mags, and a woman’s barrette. It was the item most likely to have belonged to the victim, but it had no smell of blood to it at all. All of it was useless.
“Nice work, Usu.”
His cleanup skills had been on point as usual, but Banjo was still disappointed.
“Banjo, why don’t we go back to our hideout and come up with a strategy? The four of us hanging around in this park looks pretty suspicious.”
Ichimi was right, but it was difficult to accept that they hadn’t produced any results. Banjo looked around reluctantly at the park.
“Huh?”
Just then, he saw a young girl holding a bag, heading straight for him. She was taking fliers out of the bag and handing them out to people in the park.
“Your cooperation is greatly appreciated. We are grateful for any information. Thank you!”
Banjo stared at her intently as she came over.
“Anything you know … Oh.”
She seemed frightened by his muscular physique, but she handed over a flier with a photo on it. “Anything you might know would be helpful,” she said, nervously.
“Let’s see … ‘Mari Hirano—have you seen this girl?’”
Banjo was not great at reading, so Jiro came over and read it out for him. Sante looked at the opposite side of the flier, where the picture was. “She’s really pretty!” he said.
“She’s my sister,” said the girl. “She was picked by a magazine as their reader model and everything.”
Now that she mentions it, they do look kind of alike. She might also grow up to be a pretty girl in a few years.
“But she came to the 11th Ward last week to see a friend and nobody’s heard from her since.”
So she’s handing out fliers trying to get some information. Banjo saw her twisting the hem of her shirt in her hands and couldn’t stand to see her unhappiness, so he handed the barrette that he’d found to the girl.
“What’s this?”
“Find her. Do your best and don’t give up.”
I guess I feel close to her because I’m also out here trying to gather information. For Rize.
“I will. I’ll do my best!”
The girl clasped the barrette tightly in her hand and nodded.
“Oh, miss, what’s your name?” he asked as she was leaving. She looked up at him.
“I’m Mai Hirano!”
Banjo looked straight at her. “Do your best!” he said again.
Once they’d left the girl and were on their way back to their hangout, Sante looked back at the park. “Why did you give that away? And to a human?”
“Don’t worry about it. I just wanted to give her something!”
“That’s just like you, Banjo. She was a pretty girl.”
He looked at the photo on the flier. They all stopped to look at it again.
“Wait,” Jiro said, as if he’d noticed something.
“What is it?”
“I feel like I’ve seen her before somewhere …”
“Wait, what? Where?”
With that information, the girl’s troubles could all be over.
“Just a second,” Jiro said and began to search his memory. But then Ichimi’s face began to cloud over.
“Ichimi, what’s wrong?”
Ichimi thought for a while before speaking.
“Banjo, I believe that the girl on the flier … is the one who was attacked by a Ghoul in that park.”
“What?!”
“The girl said she disappeared last week. And Usu found that body last week.”
Yes, humans are food to Ghouls. Banjo felt awful when he remembered how desperate that girl had been, but it wasn’t an unlikely story.
“Before we get carried away, let’s show Usu the flier.”
He didn’t know if Usu would still remember what the girl looked like, but it was worth a try. If nothing else, he wanted to gather more information about Rize to clear up the suspicion that surrounded her.
As they set off in search of Usu once more, Jiro yelled out in surprise.
“What, what happened?”
“I remembered! She was in that magazine!”
“What magazine?”
“The one I was looking at last night … the one with the feature on that detective movie.” Now Banjo remembered the magazine that Jiro had been reading as he told them about the meeting.
“It’s an old magazine, but I wanted to read it because it has a feature on a musician from overseas. There was a model similar to this girl in it. I’m not sure if she was a ‘reader model’ or not. Sorry, it’s not much of a lead,” he said apologetically.
“No, wait,” Banjo said, folding his arms. “The more information, the better. We’d better bring that magazine with us.”
They hurried off to their hideout.
“Here it is.” They were at their hideout in the abandoned building. Jiro picked up the women’s magazine. “Which page was it … I remember her because her parka was a lot like mine.”
The four of them looked down at the magazine, searching for her face.
“Must be around here somewhere …”
“Yeah …”
“Who’s this?”
Before they could find the girl they were looking for, their eyes latched on to another model.
“This girl …”
She was striking a pose and trying to look charming. And she looked a lot like Yuri, the Ghoul who had spoken up at the meeting.