Cure (2010)

disappearance of Susumu and Yoshiaki.

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Hideki said, “You’ve mentioned tomorrow and the day after, but what about today? And what about this deteriorating situation you’re referring to?”

“Thank you for asking,” Louie said without sarcasm. “I’ve talked about the Machita family issue, but I haven’t mentioned Satoshi. As you may remember, Hideki, last night we briefly discussed Dr. Laurie Montgomery- Stapleton.”

“Ah, yes,” Hideki said. “I mentioned what you said to the oyabun.”

“That is true,” Hisayuki said, suddenly breaking his silence. “This is something we are very concerned about. Has she responded appropriately to your warning?”

“Apparently not,” Louie admitted, glad to be talking directly to the oyabun. Louie leaned back with one arm over the rail of his chair and called out to Carlo. Carlo stood immediately with a questioning look on his face. Louie beckoned him over. As he approached, the oyabun’s men slipped from their barstools and stood at tense attention until the oyabun gave them a wave to stand down.

“Try Vinnie again!” Louie said to Carlo. “If he answers, find out what the situation is at the moment!”

Carlo tried. He waited until voicemail came on, then hung up. He shook his head for Louie’s benefit. Louie waved him away and turned to the others.

“We are having some difficulties with our contact,” Louie explained. “But here’s what we have learned. It seemed to our contact that our warning was not just ignored but might have acted as a catalyst toward greater effort on her part.”

“But the death was considered natural?” Hisayuki questioned with particular interest.

“That’s what we understand.”

“Why would this woman then change her mind?” Hisayuki demanded.

“I don’t know,” Louie said. “Maybe it was the warning letter. The fact is, this woman is a very strong person, very determined.”

“And she’s just back from a yearlong maternity leave,” Carlo added. He’d not moved despite Louie having waved him away. Carlo called over to Brennan. “Isn’t that what he said?”

“Year and a half maternity leave,” Brennan called back. He walked over to stand by Carlo. “And Satoshi was her first case, and only case, for that matter, so she was trying to prove something. At least that’s what our contact said. It’s kind of a worst-case scenario.”

Louie turned back to Hisayuki and Hideki. “I had a conversation with my boss about this woman. When he talks about her, it is in almost mythical terms. He actually tried to kill her, as did another capo, without success. And adding to her mystique is that she’s got connections with the New York City Police Department, which is not a good thing, as you can well imagine.

“Now with all this background,” Louie continued, “we’re also up against a specific time constraint. According to our contact, this doctor claims to have made some progress with the case that she will reveal later this afternoon, and it involves proving that the case is a homicide.”

“How is she going to do that?” Hisayuki said with an air of disbelief.

“I think that’s for you to tell us.”

There was a silence.

“I think you owe us an explanation,” Louie added.

“It involves a special toxin,” Hisayuki said. “It is not something I am supposed to discuss.”

“Fair enough,” Louie said. “Do you think our Dr. Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton will figure it out?”

“It will be the first time, if she is able to do it. And we’ve used it before.”

“Well, I don’t think we should allow her to do that,” Louie said. “We have to think of a way to discourage her.”

“Perhaps we should kill her,” Hisayuki said.

“That’s not an option,” Louie said. “When I spoke with my boss, he said killing her would unleash from the police a decade of harassment ten times worse than what we are trying to prevent. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“But if it were the same toxin, her death would be considered natural,” Hisayuki proposed. “We have more of the toxin available.”

Louie thought for a moment. Such an idea had not occurred to him. It was a possibility, and somehow satisfying. But the more he considered it, the less promising it seemed. It was taking a chance it wouldn’t be discovered, yet Laurie seemed to be making progress. Louie didn’t like taking chances. Besides, how could it be done so quickly? He wanted to do something that very morning. Unless he could be sure Laurie would leave OCME for lunch on her own, which was not something he could count on. Given how dogged she was, she probably didn’t even eat lunch. The only other possibility was to get someone inside OCME and get the toxin to her that way. The only problem with that idea was that Louie’s estimation of the possibility of it working was near zero, and that was being generous.

“I have an idea,” Brennan said suddenly. “What about the kid? I mean, we threatened both her and her family with consequences.”

“What kid?” Louie demanded, irritated that Brennan had the nerve to talk without being specifically addressed. It was embarrassing to have one’s underlings thinking they could just speak out whenever they wanted. It gave the impression no one was in charge.

“The kid that caused the maternity leave,” Brennan said. “Why not snatch the child? I’m certain the doctor will drop whatever she is doing. If her child’s gone, she’s not going to care about whether some unknown person died naturally or unnaturally.”

Louie’s ire faded in a flash. A kidnapping! he thought. It was brilliant! It could be done right away. No one needed to die. And the police would have no reason to think organized crime was involved.

Louie turned to Hisayuki. “What do you think of kidnapping?”

“I think it is a very good idea,” Hisayuki said. “We ask for a ransom so there will be no association with Satoshi. Satoshi’s case will fade from significance.”

“Exactly,” Louie agreed.

“Will it be easy?” Hisayuki asked.

“I would think so. The hardest part will be taking care of the kid.” Louie laughed. “Actually, snatching the kid will be easy if he is staying in his house with a nanny. It will be more difficult if he’s in a childcare center. But with both parents being doctors, my guess is that it will be an in-house nanny situation.”

“Can we help?” Hisayuki questioned. “It is very important for us that Satoshi’s death continues to be considered natural and not a murder.”

“And why exactly is that?” Louie questioned. “I mean, we’ve told you why we prefer Satoshi’s death to be considered natural, but exactly why do you? If we are going to be working together, we have to be up-front with each other, as I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation.”

“It was the Yamaguchi-gumi who brought Satoshi to America. If they find out he was murdered, there is a chance they might blame us. We want to avoid that.”

Louie knew there were many more questions he could ask, but he was satisfied with the answer he got because it made sense to him, and he didn’t care particularly about the relationship between the Aizukotetsu-kai and the Yamaguchi-gumi. As far as he was concerned, that was their business.

“Okay,” Louie said suddenly. He looked up at Brennan. “Brennan, my boy,” he said. “Since it was your idea, you are going to be in charge. Do you know much about kidnapping?”

“I’m in charge?” Brennan questioned with happy surprise. He briefly glanced over at Carlo, unsure of what that meant or how he should feel, but then quickly returned his attention to Louie. He liked the idea of being in charge. He liked it a lot. “The first thing I need to do is get my computer and learn as much about Laurie Montgomery-Stapleton as I can, starting with where she lives.”

“We did a kidnapping over in Jersey a long time ago,” Louie said for Hisayuki’s benefit. “It went well, but it takes planning. There’s two particularly dangerous times: the snatch and the pickup of the ransom. The rest can mostly be improvised. The snatch is first, but it should be easy in this situation, because it’s an infant. There shouldn’t be a struggle, depending on the nanny’s reaction.”