rubber clothes were hanging everywhere. There were neat shelves lined with videos and magazines and sex toys of whose purpose she had no idea. Two men were standing close together over a leather corset, talking, but they stopped when Irene made her entrance. They weren’t relieved when Peter Moller appeared right behind her. Suspiciously, they observed the police officers’ progress to the store counter. Tom Tanaka was enthroned behind it.
Whatever Irene had expected, this man surprised her. He was almost two meters tall and probably weighed over two hundred kilos. He looked like a sumo wrestler, and wore his hair in the characteristic style with small hard knots of hair at his crown. To Irene’s relief, he was not wearing the diaperlike pants in which sumo wrestlers compete; instead his huge body was covered in black silk pajamas.
Irene’s undisguised surprise must have been obvious because Tom Tanaka made a hint of a bow and said in English with a strong American accent, “If you’re surprised to see me here, it’s nothing compared to how I feel about seeing you.”
His voice was very deep and his tone ironic. Irene couldn’t keep from smiling.
“Good day. My name is Irene Huss. I’m a police officer from Goteborg, Sweden, and I’m investigating. . a crime. May I ask a few questions?” she said in her broken English.
Tom Tanaka looked at her without expression through dark eyes embedded in the huge rolls of fat on his face. Irene didn’t believe that the man in front of her was an out-of-shape, harmless mountain of lard. Fighting with a sumo wrestler was like running right into an oncoming steam locomotive traveling at full speed.
The Japanese man nodded slightly. In a deep bass he rumbled, “Emil.”
The door behind Tanaka opened almost instantaneously, and a tall, ruddy young man stuck out his head and also answered in English, but with a heavy Danish accent, “I’m almost done eating-”
He stopped himself when he became aware of Irene and Peter. His gaze locked onto Peter but quickly shifted. Irene suspected there had been a hint of recognition. Emil swallowed hard several times, and his prominent Adam’s apple yo-yoed up and down his thin throat.
“Will you take over the store while I’m speaking with the police officers?”
Emil hurried to finish chewing. He slipped through the door and stood behind the counter as far away from the arm of the law as he could get, nervously pulling at his red goatee.
With a massive hand Tom Tanaka gestured toward the door. They passed through a small windowless employee lounge with soft lighting and two comfortable black leather recliners. Tom Tanaka went over to a heavy door and unlocked it.
Inside there was a huge, very modern kitchen done in white, black, and stainless steel. The floor was laid with wide polished boards of cherrywood. A strong smell of fried fish hung in the air. On the other side of the kitchen Irene glimpsed a sizeable room like a living room. She heard the sound and saw the color flickering from a TV. Between the kitchen and the living room there was a small hallway.
“I live here,” Tanaka said simply.
“So you don’t have far to go to work,” Irene tried to joke.
“True,” the Japanese man replied.
He led the way through the kitchen and then headed to the right. The floor beams creaked under his considerable weight. He opened a door and preceded them into the room. There was no other option since neither Irene nor Peter would have been able to squeeze past him.
“My office,” said Tanaka.
This room was also large. A pleasant smell of expensive cigar smoke encircled the visitors. The room was sparsely furnished in Japanese style. The desk was made of black shiny wood, and the black leather desk chair had obviously been specially constructed to hold Tom Tanaka’s colossal body.
Along the short side of the room there was a glass cabinet containing knickknacks and prize buckles. Irene observed, “You must be a good sumo wrestler.”
One of the corners of Tom’s mouth twitched and Irene took it to be an amused smile.
“
Irene looked at him, surprised. He couldn’t be older than she was.
“We retire at age forty.”
She didn’t know why she volunteered, “I’ve also worked with Japanese wrestling-jujitsu.”
Tanaka didn’t respond. He pointed at two cloth-covered chairs next to the desk.
“Please,” he said.
Irene and Peter Moller sat. Then Irene realized that Moller hadn’t said a word since they’d entered the store. She looked at him but he remained silent so she started talking about the dismembered male corpse they had found in Sweden. She emphasized that the only clue they had to the man’s identity was a dragon tattoo, and raised her gaze over Tanaka’s head to look at a silk painting that was evidently the original of both the sign and the tattoo.
There was one important difference: there was no sign for
“Colleagues here in Copenhagen contacted us when we sent out the picture of the tattoo via Interpol. That’s why I’m here. Do you know who the man might be?”
“No. No idea.”
“You don’t know of anyone who has had a tattoo done based on your sign or this painting?”
He shook his head in denial.
“I’ve had the store for less than two years. I inherited it from my cousin. He was the one who started it, years ago. Maybe the tattoo was made during his time. The idea for the sign and for replacing Fuji were also his,” he said.
Irene thought a moment, then asked, “Do you know of any tattoo artist in the area who is especially skilled?”
“A master? No.”
They rose at the same time, and Tanaka led the way. At the kitchen door he stopped with his hand on the door handle and turned to Irene.
He warned her of enemies and asked if she had understood. She didn’t know the Japanese language but these words and expressions were used in martial arts. In a calm voice she answered,
Tanaka let them out through the shop, which now contained many more customers. With a neutral “good- bye,” he closed the door after them.
“What was it he said in Japanese?” Moller asked when the door shut behind them.
Irene concluded that he hadn’t understood Tanaka’s warning. She didn’t know anything about him, and he, too, might have been familiar with Japanese martial arts. But she was willing to take the risk.
“He asked if I remembered any terms from jujitsu,” she said indifferently.
They walked back to the Police Department in silence.
“ THIS IS Inspector Jens Metz.”
Peter Moller introduced Irene to the heavyset, reddish blond colleague in an office that smelled like stale smoke. Jens Metz looked so typically Danish that Irene had to hold back a giggle. Instead, she gave him a friendly smile and let her hand be encircled by his sausage-like fingers. He wasn’t in Tanaka’s class, but he was heading in that direction. Irene guessed his age to be somewhere around fifty-five.
“Welcome to Copenhagen. But the reason could have been more pleasant.” Metz smiled with nicotine-stained teeth.
He appeared to be friendly and efficient. Out of nowhere he magically made three steaming cups of coffee appear on the desk. This sort of thing always earned bonus points in Irene’s coffee-dependent existence. That the coffee tasted like it had been brewed from crushed pieces of vinyl was a completely different matter. One can get used to Danish coffee, Irene tried to tell herself.
Jens Metz tapped a pile of thick folders that was lying on the table.
“Here is the material from the case of the murder-mutilation of Carmen Ostergaard. You’ll get to meet the
