Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1) by Niall Teasdale (e reader TXT) 📕

The recent hits had, it seemed, really thrown the Funabashi gang off their game. Vasilev was trying to hold things together, but he lacked Zima’s charisma and organisational talent. Without Nikolaev, the mafia group had lost too many of its most talented leaders and it was starting to tell. Semen Naoumov, leader of the gang’s drug-dealing operational group, was running between locations in the docks, fighting fires. He was not exactly pleased to see Tatsu striding toward him in one of his warehouses.

‘Fuck! What are you doing here, cop?’ Of course, he spoke Russian. A lot of the mafia refused to speak anything else to the police because it annoyed the ones who only spoke Japanese.

‘I’m looking for whoever is supplying the new rapture recipe so I can tell them to stop,’ Tatsu replied.

‘Well, it isn’t us. Shouldn’t you be out looking for the people who killed Zima?’

‘Probably, but here I am, hunting drug distributors and, oh look, I wonder what’s in these crates.’

‘Got a warrant?’

‘I can get one in two minutes. Do you know who is selling the new stuff?’

Naoumov’s eyes narrowed, then he sagged a little and went for glowering. ‘Someone new. We’ve been looking for them too, or we would be if our intelligence people could get their act together without Nikolaev. I told them it was cutting into business. Vasilev just tells me we need to make up the losses.’

‘New management, new management style: incompetent. I never thought Vasilev could handle being the boss. Maybe that’s why Zima was killed.’

‘You think whoever killed Zima wants the entire organisation gone?’

Tatsu raised an eyebrow. ‘Tell me the thought hasn’t crossed your mind. I’m going to ignore these crates for now because I have got other things to take care of. I’ll be back, though…’

‘Shit.’

Tatsu turned on her heel and started back the way she had come. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

13th August.

There was smoke rising above various tables in The Hole. It was not tobacco being smoked, largely because there was no tobacco to be smoked. It was not grown in Japan and while there were probably wild plantations of the stuff still growing, no one was harvesting it for export. The tobacco trade had died along with a lot of other trades in the wake of the Cyberwar.

Technically, it was not smoke; this was vapour from electronic cigarettes. The vapour likely consisted of a base carrying one of a number of legal drugs available over the counter at most pharmacies. Society had decided that life was too stressful to do without a little chemical enhancement. There was high, a euphoric, and low, a mild sedative. Mellow was the same as low but with a lemon aftertaste many people preferred. Bright was a stimulant favoured by people with office jobs to keep them going through the boredom. Glow was a sex enhancer and prolong had exactly the effect on a man as you would expect. There were others. Anyone could shift their mood on a whim so long as they had the money, but none of them took you to the extremes that the illegals did.

The Hole had a strict policy regarding drugs: legals only. Anyone caught dealing on the premises was handed straight to the police. Anyone using was expelled for good. Of course, that did not stop it happening.

Tatsu watched Lorelle Bancroft exchanging a small packet of something for money in a shadowy corner of the club and started forward. It was enough to make a search. The disappointing thing about what Bancroft was doing was that she was a member of the Denshitoakuma. There was now little to distinguish the group from any other street-level gang, but they had started out as a self-protection organisation among the Japanese sex workers in Chiba. As they grew in number, taking on people of any nationality, they had diversified for the worst. Now they dealt drugs and extorted money from non-members. They had a bad habit of hooking new girls on rapture, and the new rapture had a better hook…

‘You’ve got nothing on me, Yamada,’ Bancroft said as Tatsu approached her table.

‘I have video of you exchanging money for product,’ Tatsu replied. ‘That’s probable cause.’

‘There’s no way you could see–’

‘Cybernetic eyes. I can see in anything short of total darkness, and anything I see is recorded. On your feet.’ Scowling, Bancroft got up and raised her arms for a pat-down. ‘If I find any of the new rapture on you, I’ll personally see to it that they throw the key away.’

‘That stuff! Hell, no! That stuff’s bad news. No way we’d peddle it to any of our people.’

‘You just hook them on the normal stuff to keep them in line.’ Tatsu extracted several packets of something powdery and blue from an inner pocket and sighed. ‘The Denshitoakuma started out as something I could get behind.’

‘Rapture takes the edge off life and you can give it up any time.’

‘Sure you can. If it’s so easy to shake, I’m sure you use it. You can give it up so easily.’ There was silence. ‘That’s what I thought. Any idea who is selling the new stuff?’

‘I don’t think anyone does. From what we heard, it looks no different. Anyone could be selling it if they happen to have got a supply from someone new. I haven’t.’

‘Yeah, well, you won’t be getting any new supplies from anyone for a while. Move.’

14th August.

It was the labs which finally cracked the case. When they did, Tatsu stormed into an interview room in the Chiba HQ to see Walt Bonham cowering behind the table. Good. Cowering was good. On the other hand…

‘W-what?’ Walt said. ‘What’ve I done?’

Tatsu pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. She