The Sakamoto Secret
"Agent Torieno?"
The young man beamed - "That's right, I'm from the Riverside Field Office. Detective Mulgrew?"
Only the suggestion of a smile flit through the bespectacled face of the African-American man. Some wounds do take time to heal.
"It's been hard, isn't it?"
The tall African-American male shook his head with slow, pronounced jerks, his grey stubs giving him a distinguished look in the semidarkness of the diner.
"My condolences, Detective."
Mulgrew shrugged - "Shall we get down to business?"
"Please. Do you have them here?"
"Have what here?"
"Come on, Detective, you're supposed to hand over the possessions of Kevin Delroy to me, now that the BII is formally taking over the investigation."
"The possessions of Kevin Delroy . . ." - the detective let the statement hang in the air, apparently struck by a pang of sadness for his dead partner - "pardon me Agent, the wound is still a bit raw I guess. No, I don't have them here. I just set this place up as a rendezvous. Our office is just across the golf course."
"Ah, so, we're looking at a short trek?"
"Not necessarily, we may get lucky and find ourselves a golf cart."
The African-American was raising his huge frame off the corner seat as he spoke. And within five minutes the two men silently left the diner and was in an open field. The man named Mulgrew walked confidently to a shade that housed four golf carts. At the booth at the entrance he thumped the panel below the glass pane with his open palm. The pane slid open and a face peered out.
"I'm taking one of the kids for a ride, Joe." - he said to the face.
"I beg your . . ." - the brows on the face began to get furrowed.
"I said I'm taking one of the carts." - he raised his voice just a tad bit.
"Ah! One of the carts . . . one of the carts indeed. It's all right - uh - I keep forgetting your name Mr. Sakamoto . . ."
"Christ's sake, Joe! I'm Trev Mulgrew, Look at me!" - The tall African-American man was on the point of breaking down - "Mr. Sakamoto's dead, man! He ain't comin' back, no matter how bad we all feel about it. . . . His body was . . ."
The tall man violently shook his head and lowered his head, thumping the booth with his open palm all the while.
Inside the booth, Joe cried loudly.
Torieno gently placed a hand on the shoulder of the African-American man - "Come on Detective. Pull yourself together. We gotta put away whoever is responsible for Sakamoto's death."
Mulgrew gave him his trademark quick shake of the head and deposited himself at the driver's seat of the motorized golf cart.
The two men rode in silence for about three minutes. Golf isn't a sport one pursues after sundown. So the two men were surrounded by their respective thoughts and a stillness that was occasionally punctured by the cicadas. Visibility was clear, but the last chill of the receding winter hung over the vast open field like a mist.
It was the man who called himself Torieno that broke the silence.
- "Did you guys come up with anything, I mean, did Delroy open his mouth?"
The tall African-American man sighed - "We are trying. Smart guy, that one. Lawyered up at the first instance. We haven't given up hope though."
- "And what does his 'possessions' consist of?"
- "Not much really" - Mulgrew pursed his lips - "Sakamoto deposited a laptop and several flashdrives as evidence but he had a hunch that Delroy may have stashed something elsewhere."
- "So, you guys got anything from the laptop?" - Torieno sounded impatient
- "Nope. The damned thing is completely encrypted. There's this kid in our precinct called Dyce. Knows a thing or two about stuff like these. He says one of the flash drives is the key and the wrong key would completely erase the hard disk, if someone tried to boot it that way."
- "What do they look like?"
- "I beg your pardon?" - the African-American man half turned as he continued to keep his focus on the road ahead.
- "I mean the flash drives, what do they look like?"
- "The ones I inherited from my dead partner are your standard vanila flavored Trascend flash drives. But . . ."
- "But?"
- "But one of them is quite an item. Looks like lip-gloss tube. And then another . . ."
- "But you said only one of the flash drives were out of ordinary . . ." - Torieno broke in impatiently.
At this interruption, the tall African-American turned his gaze at the BII agent. It was such a piercing gaze that Torieno felt as if something tangible touched his skin. When his eyes made contact with Mulgrew's black eyes he felt the man had peeled his skin with his eyes and was now staring at his bare bones.
When he spoke his words were slow and measured.
- "What's the hurry Agent? You'd see them for yourself soon enough."
Despite all his jumpiness, Torieno pressed on.
"There's no harm in asking, is there?"
"No, I guess not." - Mulgrew smiled - "actually there's this thing that looks like a bullet, only its not a bullet but a flash drive."
Torieno's relief was palpable. The tall African American smiled again and looked ahead. Not too far away now, the lights of the precinct building glowed, penetrating the darkness of the deserted golf course. One could read the sign SACRAMENTO POLICE DEPARTMENT, from where they stand. How far the building would be from this point? he wondered.
"We leave the cart here." - The tall man killed the engine.
The younger man turned to him warily - "And?"
- "And we walk. And while we walk, let me tell you a story . . . just to kill the time, you know."
Torieno nodded absently. It appeared he was satisfied over something and very little else mattered now.
"Almost fifty years ago, there lived a young Japanese couple in Chicago, who lost their only son to leukemia . . ." - The tall African American man began like he is telling a fairy tale. Torieno tried to look interested.
"To fill the void, they adopted a kid. Only that this kid was white and not Japanese, not even Asian."
- "You don't say!"
"The Japanese guy ran a very successful sushi place. Quite a hit with the locals. His wife helped him in his business and money wasn't really a problem."
"mm hm"
". . . so they adopted another kid, a little baby this time. This baby was a Hispanic"
"Quite a multi-racial family." - responded Torieno half-heartedly.
". . . and they went on like that, you know, adopting babies, little kids of different races and colors."
The narrator felt that his audience is trying really hard to hide his boredom.
"That's the precinct building, isn't it?"
The African American man pretended as if that was the least important thing to worry about now.
"Oh yeah, that's the building. We'd be soon there. As I was saying" - he continued - "It so turned out that as the kids grew up they began to look after the younger ones, as they arrived, as well as help in the business. Oh, and there's one more thing . . ."
"All those kids - some Latin, some white, some Native American, and quite a few black kids too, had that Japanese surname."
It is at this point that the young man calling himself Torieno looked up with a flicker of interest - "Really?"
"Yeah. And one of them, a blond kid, got mixed up in something rotten and thought his siblings would be better off without him. He loved them so much that he quit everything - his school, his home, his buddies, his big bro whom he loved so much and went West, literally, where we heard he changed his name to Bellringer."
"Bellringer? Tim Bellringer?"
"Yup. That's his name - Tim Sakamoto aka Tim Bellringer, sandy blond hair, gray eyes, five feet ten - the guy you contracted to plant the bomb in Ted Sakamoto's car."
The two men had already stopped walking during this conversation. At the mention of Bellringer's name the man calling himself Torieno looked up at the tall African American man with a start. What he saw was a certainty tempered with humor - this was no wild guess, this guy knew what he was talking about. The realization sparked within him for a second and he was spurred into action and he pulled out a snub-nosed revolver from his jacket pocket. But before he could raise his hand above his waist line a powerful shot struck his weapon, throwing it out of his hand and twisting it out of shape in the process.
All along the tall African American man stood motionless in the semi darkness of the golf course, hands stuffed in his pocket. Even though his lips weren't curled at the edges, aura of a smile sparkled in his face.
- "I wouldn't try any more tricks if I were you, Redley. That's your name, isn't it?
The man who had been identifying himself as Torieno all along stood flustered and red faced.
"What was that? - he managed to mumble.
"That, my friend, is an retired army sniper reliving the days of Desert Storm. And as a gestuer of goodwill, he has chosen to spare your head or chest. I guess your hand is unharmed as well?"
"The bastard missed my hand by a couple of millimeters!"
"Manners Walter, the guy is old enough to be your father."
Redley didn't reply.
"I knew the items Delroy were carrying are something to do with money trail of Blanco's dope empire." the tall African-American man went on "I knew if our tech could break the encryption they will eventually implicate Allan Redley, which in turn would lead us to Blanco and his drug network in entire California. But it so turned out, one of the USB drives in Delroy's possession contained a key which needed to be connected to the USB drive of the laptop at the time of booting, the rest contain accounting data. If the wrong key is inserted into the USB drive of the laptop, the hard disk will erase itself."
"Then Tim Bellringer happened." - the man calling himself Mulgrew went on - "You see Redley, without knowing, you went to him with a contract on his brother and you dropped Blanco's name. Bellringer, poor kid, didn't know what to do. So he went straight to his big bro and thing that he dreaded for months finally happened. He had to face his brother, whom he thought he had failed. The reunion was, I must say, quite a Broadway stuff.
"But the bombing?" - the young man now identified as Walter Redley blurted out - "I saw the news on TV. They extracted a body from the wreckage . . ."
This time the African-American man chortled - "Ah, that. I'd say Channel Sac has been quite helpful in this regard. Timmie knew your hotel and the room number. That cable feed was specially produced for your benefit. No shooting, just a bit of editing of some old footage and you have the perfect breaking news of a Police Officer of Asian heritage killed in car bombing. You see, no one really knew what Ted Sakamoto looked like, so that helped a lot."
Walter Redley was now sitting on the grass, exhausted and perhaps even relieved. He said with a sigh - "You went to this length to achieve . . . what?"
The detective shrugged - "I just needed to know which flash drive was the key to boot the laptop. I knew if I could nail Felipe Blanco and his drug empire for good if I could lay my hands on his accounts. I knew Allan Redley is more of a victim here than we were earlier ready to acknowledge, even though he is Blanco's accountant. So, if we could crack the laptop even when he is large, he would be in less danger from Blanco's wrath. I was also in a bit of rush because the DEA was hovering over Allan Redley too. I also guessed Redley's son from MIT would come rushing when he hears his father is in danger. What I didn't predict was that he would try to stage a Michael Corleone here."
Walter Redley sat on the grass in silence for a couple of moments, then said - "So what happens now?"
Meanwhile, before the detective could answer a young atheletic man emerged from the entrance of the Precinct House in the far end of the field.
“Hey Ted.This the Redley boy?”
“Yeah Sam. In the flesh.”
“We got the right USB drive yet?”
"Yup, we got it and the kid is worried sick about what happens to him and his old man. Now we got to get his father’s location from him and go fetch Redley Senior with a team before the DEA does. To the best of my knowledge that organization has at least one of Blanco’s moles in them."
"Oh yeah" - the man called Sam said - "Old Redley might as well pick up the phone and tell blanco where to find him, so that his hit team could get him."
Moving ahead a few paces, the tall African-American man paused and turned to Walter Redley - "And hey Walter, meet my partner, Detective Sam Mulgrew."
Walter's jaw dropped - "What's YOUR REAL name then?"
At this, both the detectives began to chuckle heartily as they headed towards the precinct building.
"Agent Torieno?"
The young man beamed - "That's right, I'm from the Riverside Field Office. Detective Mulgrew?"
Only the suggestion of a smile flit through the bespectacled face of the African-American man. Some wounds do take time to heal.
"It's been hard, isn't it?"
The tall African-American male shook his head with slow, pronounced jerks, his grey stubs giving him a distinguished look in the semidarkness of the diner.
"My condolences, Detective."
Mulgrew shrugged - "Shall we get down to business?"
"Please. Do you have them here?"
"Have what here?"
"Come on, Detective, you're supposed to hand over the possessions of Kevin Delroy to me, now that the BII is formally taking over the investigation."
"The possessions of Kevin Delroy . . ." - the detective let the statement hang in the air, apparently struck by a pang of sadness for his dead partner - "pardon me Agent, the wound is still a bit raw I guess. No, I don't have them here. I just set this place up as a rendezvous. Our office is just across the golf course."
"Ah, so, we're looking at a short trek?"
"Not necessarily, we may get lucky and find ourselves a golf cart."
The African-American was raising his huge frame off the corner seat as he spoke. And within five minutes the two men silently left the diner and was in an open field. The man named Mulgrew walked confidently to a shade that housed four golf carts. At the booth at the entrance he thumped the panel below the glass pane with his open palm. The pane slid open and a face peered out.
"I'm taking one of the kids for a ride, Joe." - he said to the face.
"I beg your . . ." - the brows on the face began to get furrowed.
"I said I'm taking one of the carts." - he raised his voice just a tad bit.
"Ah! One of the carts . . . one of the carts indeed. It's all right - uh - I keep forgetting your name Mr. Sakamoto . . ."
"Christ's sake, Joe! I'm Trev Mulgrew, Look at me!" - The tall African-American man was on the point of breaking down - "Mr. Sakamoto's dead, man! He ain't comin' back, no matter how bad we all feel about it. . . . His body was . . ."
The tall man violently shook his head and lowered his head, thumping the booth with his open palm all the while.
Inside the booth, Joe cried loudly.
Torieno gently placed a hand on the shoulder of the African-American man - "Come on Detective. Pull yourself together. We gotta put away whoever is responsible for Sakamoto's death."
Mulgrew gave him his trademark quick shake of the head and deposited himself at the driver's seat of the motorized golf cart.
The two men rode in silence for about three minutes. Golf isn't a sport one pursues after sundown. So the two men were surrounded by their respective thoughts and a stillness that was occasionally punctured by the cicadas. Visibility was clear, but the last chill of the receding winter hung over the vast open field like a mist.
It was the man who called himself Torieno that broke the silence.
- "Did you guys come up with anything, I mean, did Delroy open his mouth?"
The tall African-American man sighed - "We are trying. Smart guy, that one. Lawyered up at the first instance. We haven't given up hope though."
- "And what does his 'possessions' consist of?"
- "Not much really" - Mulgrew pursed his lips - "Sakamoto deposited a laptop and several flashdrives as evidence but he had a hunch that Delroy may have stashed something elsewhere."
- "So, you guys got anything from the laptop?" - Torieno sounded impatient
- "Nope. The damned thing is completely encrypted. There's this kid in our precinct called Dyce. Knows a thing or two about stuff like these. He says one of the flash drives is the key and the wrong key would completely erase the hard disk, if someone tried to boot it that way."
- "What do they look like?"
- "I beg your pardon?" - the African-American man half turned as he continued to keep his focus on the road ahead.
- "I mean the flash drives, what do they look like?"
- "The ones I inherited from my dead partner are your standard vanila flavored Trascend flash drives. But . . ."
- "But?"
- "But one of them is quite an item. Looks like lip-gloss tube. And then another . . ."
- "But you said only one of the flash drives were out of ordinary . . ." - Torieno broke in impatiently.
At this interruption, the tall African-American turned his gaze at the BII agent. It was such a piercing gaze that Torieno felt as if something tangible touched his skin. When his eyes made contact with Mulgrew's black eyes he felt the man had peeled his skin with his eyes and was now staring at his bare bones.
When he spoke his words were slow and measured.
- "What's the hurry Agent? You'd see them for yourself soon enough."
Despite all his jumpiness, Torieno pressed on.
"There's no harm in asking, is there?"
"No, I guess not." - Mulgrew smiled - "actually there's this thing that looks like a bullet, only its not a bullet but a flash drive."
Torieno's relief was palpable. The tall African American smiled again and looked ahead. Not too far away now, the lights of the precinct building glowed, penetrating the darkness of the deserted golf course. One could read the sign SACRAMENTO POLICE DEPARTMENT, from where they stand. How far the building would be from this point? he wondered.
"We leave the cart here." - The tall man killed the engine.
The younger man turned to him warily - "And?"
- "And we walk. And while we walk, let me tell you a story . . . just to kill the time, you know."
Torieno nodded absently. It appeared he was satisfied over something and very little else mattered now.
"Almost fifty years ago, there lived a young Japanese couple in Chicago, who lost their only son to leukemia . . ." - The tall African American man began like he is telling a fairy tale. Torieno tried to look interested.
"To fill the void, they adopted a kid. Only that this kid was white and not Japanese, not even Asian."
- "You don't say!"
"The Japanese guy ran a very successful sushi place. Quite a hit with the locals. His wife helped him in his business and money wasn't really a problem."
"mm hm"
". . . so they adopted another kid, a little baby this time. This baby was a Hispanic"
"Quite a multi-racial family." - responded Torieno half-heartedly.
". . . and they went on like that, you know, adopting babies, little kids of different races and colors."
The narrator felt that his audience is trying really hard to hide his boredom.
"That's the precinct building, isn't it?"
The African American man pretended as if that was the least important thing to worry about now.
"Oh yeah, that's the building. We'd be soon there. As I was saying" - he continued - "It so turned out that as the kids grew up they began to look after the younger ones, as they arrived, as well as help in the business. Oh, and there's one more thing . . ."
"All those kids - some Latin, some white, some Native American, and quite a few black kids too, had that Japanese surname."
It is at this point that the young man calling himself Torieno looked up with a flicker of interest - "Really?"
"Yeah. And one of them, a blond kid, got mixed up in something rotten and thought his siblings would be better off without him. He loved them so much that he quit everything - his school, his home, his buddies, his big bro whom he loved so much and went West, literally, where we heard he changed his name to Bellringer."
"Bellringer? Tim Bellringer?"
"Yup. That's his name - Tim Sakamoto aka Tim Bellringer, sandy blond hair, gray eyes, five feet ten - the guy you contracted to plant the bomb in Ted Sakamoto's car."
The two men had already stopped walking during this conversation. At the mention of Bellringer's name the man calling himself Torieno looked up at the tall African American man with a start. What he saw was a certainty tempered with humor - this was no wild guess, this guy knew what he was talking about. The realization sparked within him for a second and he was spurred into action and he pulled out a snub-nosed revolver from his jacket pocket. But before he could raise his hand above his waist line a powerful shot struck his weapon, throwing it out of his hand and twisting it out of shape in the process.
All along the tall African American man stood motionless in the semi darkness of the golf course, hands stuffed in his pocket. Even though his lips weren't curled at the edges, aura of a smile sparkled in his face.
- "I wouldn't try any more tricks if I were you, Redley. That's your name, isn't it?
The man who had been identifying himself as Torieno all along stood flustered and red faced.
"What was that? - he managed to mumble.
"That, my friend, is an retired army sniper reliving the days of Desert Storm. And as a gestuer of goodwill, he has chosen to spare your head or chest. I guess your hand is unharmed as well?"
"The bastard missed my hand by a couple of millimeters!"
"Manners Walter, the guy is old enough to be your father."
Redley didn't reply.
"I knew the items Delroy were carrying are something to do with money trail of Blanco's dope empire." the tall African-American man went on "I knew if our tech could break the encryption they will eventually implicate Allan Redley, which in turn would lead us to Blanco and his drug network in entire California. But it so turned out, one of the USB drives in Delroy's possession contained a key which needed to be connected to the USB drive of the laptop at the time of booting, the rest contain accounting data. If the wrong key is inserted into the USB drive of the laptop, the hard disk will erase itself."
"Then Tim Bellringer happened." - the man calling himself Mulgrew went on - "You see Redley, without knowing, you went to him with a contract on his brother and you dropped Blanco's name. Bellringer, poor kid, didn't know what to do. So he went straight to his big bro and thing that he dreaded for months finally happened. He had to face his brother, whom he thought he had failed. The reunion was, I must say, quite a Broadway stuff.
"But the bombing?" - the young man now identified as Walter Redley blurted out - "I saw the news on TV. They extracted a body from the wreckage . . ."
This time the African-American man chortled - "Ah, that. I'd say Channel Sac has been quite helpful in this regard. Timmie knew your hotel and the room number. That cable feed was specially produced for your benefit. No shooting, just a bit of editing of some old footage and you have the perfect breaking news of a Police Officer of Asian heritage killed in car bombing. You see, no one really knew what Ted Sakamoto looked like, so that helped a lot."
Walter Redley was now sitting on the grass, exhausted and perhaps even relieved. He said with a sigh - "You went to this length to achieve . . . what?"
The detective shrugged - "I just needed to know which flash drive was the key to boot the laptop. I knew if I could nail Felipe Blanco and his drug empire for good if I could lay my hands on his accounts. I knew Allan Redley is more of a victim here than we were earlier ready to acknowledge, even though he is Blanco's accountant. So, if we could crack the laptop even when he is large, he would be in less danger from Blanco's wrath. I was also in a bit of rush because the DEA was hovering over Allan Redley too. I also guessed Redley's son from MIT would come rushing when he hears his father is in danger. What I didn't predict was that he would try to stage a Michael Corleone here."
Walter Redley sat on the grass in silence for a couple of moments, then said - "So what happens now?"
Meanwhile, before the detective could answer a young atheletic man emerged from the entrance of the Precinct House in the far end of the field.
“Hey Ted.This the Redley boy?”
“Yeah Sam. In the flesh.”
“We got the right USB drive yet?”
"Yup, we got it and the kid is worried sick about what happens to him and his old man. Now we got to get his father’s location from him and go fetch Redley Senior with a team before the DEA does. To the best of my knowledge that organization has at least one of Blanco’s moles in them."
"Oh yeah" - the man called Sam said - "Old Redley might as well pick up the phone and tell blanco where to find him, so that his hit team could get him."
Moving ahead a few paces, the tall African-American man paused and turned to Walter Redley - "And hey Walter, meet my partner, Detective Sam Mulgrew."
Walter's jaw dropped - "What's YOUR REAL name then?"
At this, both the detectives began to chuckle heartily as they headed towards the precinct building.
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