How to Skin a Katagiri
Index/Timeline
As fun as helping traumatise Saji Crossroad for the first time in years was, it hasn't quite had the effect Ribbons was hoping for, and Regene is getting the worst of it. Although he must point out, he did say so from the start.
"Told you Haptism wouldn't take the bait," he informs Ribbons, feeling (despite the current location of certain gold-plated ben-wa balls) rather smug. "He's a violent psychopath, not stupid."
Electric shocks to the anus tickle, or at least Regene always tries to act as if they do. "You have a better plan, I suppose?"
"More than one way to skin a Katagiri~~" Regene says, and Ribbons doesn't shock him for it, which is a start. "Give up on Haptism, he's not going to buy the idea that Homer Katagiri is dumb enough to play those sort of games. Besides, why make up crimes when the filthy old pervert's done enough shit for real already?"
Ribbons sighs, that sort of oh Regene, when will you learn noise. "If I had proof and a cop I thought the bastard couldn't bribe, I wouldn't be trying to introduce him to Haptism's teeth. Pity Al-Saachez was so tight-fisted with his blackmail stash, but what would you have me do?"
How about asking me nicely? Regene sends, because really there's only so much smugness he can put into it when he speaks out loud.
Ribbons doesn't do nice; he rummages through Regene's mind instead and pulls out the information he needs. "Al-Saachez let you do his tech-support?"
Before Ribbons can go looking for the information on how Regene convinced Ali (those memories contain more choking on cock than Regene generally likes to dwell upon, and not in the fun way), he distracts him. "Now all you need is the cop."
Ribbons snorts. "I am not trusting the midget to get this done."
Regene smiles. "You don't have to. Slutty Crossroad is dating a cop, and he's infinitely stupider than Hallelujah Haptism. Itchy trigger finger when it comes to restraining orders, too." Wanker. Couldn't Klaus Grado take a joke?
"I won't even ask," Ribbons says. "Just put the appropriate proof together and I'll find an appropriate delivery boy."
A stream of names go straight into Regene's head. "What, no Katagiri the Lesser?"
"If the backlash takes him out, so be it, but he's not a threat. Just do as I say. For once."
Somebody is a grumpy boy today. Regene wins.
◊
The boy-- young man, really-- is all skin and bones. He darts out in front of Klaus when Klaus is on patrol and offers him an envelope.
Klaus is not that stupid. "What's inside?" He doesn't want to be cruel, but people do odd, unpredictable things often involving sharp objects when they're in need of a fix.
The boy opens the envelope and shows that there's only a couple dozen discs inside. "Evidence." he says, and dances back towards the nearest wall.
"Okay." Klaus tells him. "You want me to have a look at that? Let me take you some-place you can get a hot meal and a bed for the night, and then you can tell me all about it." He wonders what it is. Dirt on his pimp or his dealer, perhaps. At any rate the first thing is to get the poor kid somewhere safe.
The boy shakes his head, and jumps up on the wall, surprisingly spry given that he looks like doesn't have a shred of muscle left on him. Fluorescent lights shine off his pale stringy hair, and Klaus thinks of Gil for a moment.
The envelope is left on the ground. "Just watch. You'll see." the boy says, and before Klaus can grab him, he jumps.
On the other side of that wall is a sheer drop; no chance of survival. Klaus looks over anyway, just to be sure, and swears profusely before calling for backup. Somewhere in amongst all the chaos, he makes sure the envelope with all its little discs ends up safely back in the evidence locker.
The next morning, after some fruitless attempts to find anything at all out about the jumper, Klaus and Shirin sit with a couple of guys from the forensics division, video analysis specialists, or some such, and play one of the disks, chosen at random as there appear to be no labels on them.
The first scene flashes up without warning; Klaus feels suddenly sick and averts his eyes. "Fuck."
"Not bad camera-work." one of the forensics dickheads says, apparently immune to underage pornography. "Perp looks kind of familiar, you know. Nice clear shot of his face, we'll be able to pin it on him, easy."
The other hums in agreement. "Not so good of the kid-- we should be able to clean that up, though."
Finally Shirin takes control and hits pause, stopping the sickening sounds. "Could you make a list of all those involved in the videos and forward processed images of any possibles for yesterday's jumper to Klaus for identification? We need to continue looking for his identity and next of kin."
Forensics Dick #2 nods, waving a hand. "Sure, we don't need you here. Got a new recruit that needs breaking in, so if you hear retching sounds and it's not Grado, that'll be what that is."
Klaus doesn't even bother to make a rude gesture before taking that as a cue to flee the room.
◊
Their jumper isn't among the faces they get sent from Forensics; Shirin works on matching those to names while Klaus scans listlessly through missing persons' files until he finds him.
The file's four years cold but the address of the of the parents was updated just three months ago-- someone has added "adoptive" in brackets in the relationship field, which Klaus always finds a little presumptive since all the parents tend to react the same way to seeing a cop on their doorstep.
This time, it's the father who sobs; the mother who clenches her hands till the nails must be biting into her palm and asks sensible questions until the point where Klaus asks them, gently as he can, if they can think of anyone he might have come in contact with, any leads that haven't already been followed up and then she loses her temper.
Since Klaus has just turned up on her doorstep with nothing but bad news, he doesn't hold it against her. The link they're looking for may well be with someone the boy met well after he left home, and their grief is honest, desperate, hopeless. There's no point in pressing further; he leaves them with the appropriate contact details instead.
At least they'll be able to bury him. Not much of a consolation, but something.
As he's leaving his phone hums with the peculiar tone Shirin sets it to use when she calls or sends him a message, so he can't claim he didn't know it was her calling.
The message is Get back here. Now.
He sees Soran first, when he gets back; Klaus didn't know it was possible to be both expressionless and look very very determined at the same time, but somehow he manages it. The reason for Shirin's urgency is clear when he sees the list of names they've pulled up from the videos; not the kids, who will be harder to trace, Klaus has a feeling. The perps.
Holy shit. They must have gotten hold of somebody's blackmail stash, because the list reads like a Who's Who of local notable bastards who clearly should die in a fire. Homer fucking Katagiri plays golf with the Chief Constable, for fuck's sake.
Certain people who spend more time eating canapes than doing actual police work are going to be pretty pissed about what Klaus is about to do. That's not why he's going to do it, but it does add a layer of childish glee to the process of getting warrants for seven people of the type who probably think themselves above the law most of the time.
Donaldson is already on the phone to the hack he thinks nobody knows pays him for tidbits like these, and for once Klaus doesn't care, because if the rest of the videos were like the bit he had to see, getting raked over the coals by the media is the least of these fuckers' problems.
"Want to come put important rich people in handcuffs?" he asks Soran.
Of course he does. Klaus assumes that's why he's hanging around with that look on his face. Soran just nods, even though he looks like he's got that odd tension running through every one of his muscles still. Klaus knows the feeling; the one where you hope the asshole will resist arrest, just so there's an excuse.
Most of the assholes don't resist; they do make a big fuss about calling their pricey lawyers, though; probably thinking that whatever it is the cops have on them, they can wriggle out of it. One of them-- a fucking asshole lawyer in his own right-- gives Soran a sort of odd look, which Klaus can't quite work out but it's creepy in the extreme.
Katagiri is last; he had to know that they were coming, but he doesn't run. Klaus supposes someone like that knows better; someone like that thinks they hold all the cards. He has his secretary show them in, for fuck's sake, and listens to the standard pre-arrest spiel with a bored look on his face. "Do you really think your word will mean anything against mine, you vengeful little shit? Or his? I'll crucify you in court."
It's directed at Soran, and Klaus has a horrible feeling about this. Mostly about the word his, which doesn't seem to refer to Klaus at all. "If I only had words, I wouldn't have come." Soran says. "That would be dumb. If it was for revenge, I would have brought a knife. This is just my job."
There are reporters outside. Fucking Donaldson. When they are done, Soran turns to him and says "We should find Saji. Before he sees the news."
Klaus considers asking him for details, given that he's all talkative today, but there's a kind of urgency in Soran's eyes. As it turns out, judging by the abandoned half-made cookie dough and the pillow fort atop Saji's bed, Saji did see the news already. Klaus doesn't ask why; in the end, it doesn't matter. He doesn't ask for details Soran won't give.
He fetches some extra blankets from the top cupboard, instead, and doesn't complain if in the dark and the warm Saji might be clinging more to Soran than he is to Klaus.
◊
In the end, Katagiri doesn't mention anything about Soran or drop any more hints of anything that could even be close to being about Saji. None of them do. Their lawyers try their best to bring into disrepute the source of the footage, but by that point Shirin's tracked down two of the kids, one of whom even manages to get through her testimony (remotely, of course, Shirin wouldn't let those asshole lawyers near her witnesses) without bursting into tears.
That's the point at which the creepy lawyer asshole tries to plea-bargain and drops the rest of them completely in the shit in the process.
After he's sentenced, Katagiri makes some ranting claims about conspiracy and some guy called Almark (who apparently does stand to do quite well out of this, given that some of his main business rivals have just been sent to prison, but no other connection). He only spends two days in prison before they find him hanging from the ceiling; goes down as a suicide. Might even be true.
"Good result!" Donaldson says, cheerfully. He's referring to the guilty verdicts, not the suicide. Klaus is going to assume, at least. Benefit of the doubt, and all.
"Dumb." Soran mutters, from the seat behind. "What's good about catching them now?"
Klaus isn't stupid enough to make a comment like better late than never. Saji makes a cake, with ginger and nervously elaborate decorations, and doesn't say what it's for; they eat it on Soran's bed, which is the one with the most pillows, and then Saji goes to sleep in Klaus' lap and even though it's Soran's bed he stands up like he's going to leave. "Stay." Klaus says, if only because that's what Saji would probably want if he was awake.
Soran stares at him. Then he gets back on the bed. "Give me the big pillow."
Saji is happy to find Soran and Klaus both there, when he wakes up; just goes to show, Klaus isn't nearly as dumb as Soran and his favourite word would think.
As fun as helping traumatise Saji Crossroad for the first time in years was, it hasn't quite had the effect Ribbons was hoping for, and Regene is getting the worst of it. Although he must point out, he did say so from the start.
"Told you Haptism wouldn't take the bait," he informs Ribbons, feeling (despite the current location of certain gold-plated ben-wa balls) rather smug. "He's a violent psychopath, not stupid."
Electric shocks to the anus tickle, or at least Regene always tries to act as if they do. "You have a better plan, I suppose?"
"More than one way to skin a Katagiri~~" Regene says, and Ribbons doesn't shock him for it, which is a start. "Give up on Haptism, he's not going to buy the idea that Homer Katagiri is dumb enough to play those sort of games. Besides, why make up crimes when the filthy old pervert's done enough shit for real already?"
Ribbons sighs, that sort of oh Regene, when will you learn noise. "If I had proof and a cop I thought the bastard couldn't bribe, I wouldn't be trying to introduce him to Haptism's teeth. Pity Al-Saachez was so tight-fisted with his blackmail stash, but what would you have me do?"
How about asking me nicely? Regene sends, because really there's only so much smugness he can put into it when he speaks out loud.
Ribbons doesn't do nice; he rummages through Regene's mind instead and pulls out the information he needs. "Al-Saachez let you do his tech-support?"
Before Ribbons can go looking for the information on how Regene convinced Ali (those memories contain more choking on cock than Regene generally likes to dwell upon, and not in the fun way), he distracts him. "Now all you need is the cop."
Ribbons snorts. "I am not trusting the midget to get this done."
Regene smiles. "You don't have to. Slutty Crossroad is dating a cop, and he's infinitely stupider than Hallelujah Haptism. Itchy trigger finger when it comes to restraining orders, too." Wanker. Couldn't Klaus Grado take a joke?
"I won't even ask," Ribbons says. "Just put the appropriate proof together and I'll find an appropriate delivery boy."
A stream of names go straight into Regene's head. "What, no Katagiri the Lesser?"
"If the backlash takes him out, so be it, but he's not a threat. Just do as I say. For once."
Somebody is a grumpy boy today. Regene wins.
◊
The boy-- young man, really-- is all skin and bones. He darts out in front of Klaus when Klaus is on patrol and offers him an envelope.
Klaus is not that stupid. "What's inside?" He doesn't want to be cruel, but people do odd, unpredictable things often involving sharp objects when they're in need of a fix.
The boy opens the envelope and shows that there's only a couple dozen discs inside. "Evidence." he says, and dances back towards the nearest wall.
"Okay." Klaus tells him. "You want me to have a look at that? Let me take you some-place you can get a hot meal and a bed for the night, and then you can tell me all about it." He wonders what it is. Dirt on his pimp or his dealer, perhaps. At any rate the first thing is to get the poor kid somewhere safe.
The boy shakes his head, and jumps up on the wall, surprisingly spry given that he looks like doesn't have a shred of muscle left on him. Fluorescent lights shine off his pale stringy hair, and Klaus thinks of Gil for a moment.
The envelope is left on the ground. "Just watch. You'll see." the boy says, and before Klaus can grab him, he jumps.
On the other side of that wall is a sheer drop; no chance of survival. Klaus looks over anyway, just to be sure, and swears profusely before calling for backup. Somewhere in amongst all the chaos, he makes sure the envelope with all its little discs ends up safely back in the evidence locker.
The next morning, after some fruitless attempts to find anything at all out about the jumper, Klaus and Shirin sit with a couple of guys from the forensics division, video analysis specialists, or some such, and play one of the disks, chosen at random as there appear to be no labels on them.
The first scene flashes up without warning; Klaus feels suddenly sick and averts his eyes. "Fuck."
"Not bad camera-work." one of the forensics dickheads says, apparently immune to underage pornography. "Perp looks kind of familiar, you know. Nice clear shot of his face, we'll be able to pin it on him, easy."
The other hums in agreement. "Not so good of the kid-- we should be able to clean that up, though."
Finally Shirin takes control and hits pause, stopping the sickening sounds. "Could you make a list of all those involved in the videos and forward processed images of any possibles for yesterday's jumper to Klaus for identification? We need to continue looking for his identity and next of kin."
Forensics Dick #2 nods, waving a hand. "Sure, we don't need you here. Got a new recruit that needs breaking in, so if you hear retching sounds and it's not Grado, that'll be what that is."
Klaus doesn't even bother to make a rude gesture before taking that as a cue to flee the room.
◊
Their jumper isn't among the faces they get sent from Forensics; Shirin works on matching those to names while Klaus scans listlessly through missing persons' files until he finds him.
The file's four years cold but the address of the of the parents was updated just three months ago-- someone has added "adoptive" in brackets in the relationship field, which Klaus always finds a little presumptive since all the parents tend to react the same way to seeing a cop on their doorstep.
This time, it's the father who sobs; the mother who clenches her hands till the nails must be biting into her palm and asks sensible questions until the point where Klaus asks them, gently as he can, if they can think of anyone he might have come in contact with, any leads that haven't already been followed up and then she loses her temper.
Since Klaus has just turned up on her doorstep with nothing but bad news, he doesn't hold it against her. The link they're looking for may well be with someone the boy met well after he left home, and their grief is honest, desperate, hopeless. There's no point in pressing further; he leaves them with the appropriate contact details instead.
At least they'll be able to bury him. Not much of a consolation, but something.
As he's leaving his phone hums with the peculiar tone Shirin sets it to use when she calls or sends him a message, so he can't claim he didn't know it was her calling.
The message is Get back here. Now.
He sees Soran first, when he gets back; Klaus didn't know it was possible to be both expressionless and look very very determined at the same time, but somehow he manages it. The reason for Shirin's urgency is clear when he sees the list of names they've pulled up from the videos; not the kids, who will be harder to trace, Klaus has a feeling. The perps.
Holy shit. They must have gotten hold of somebody's blackmail stash, because the list reads like a Who's Who of local notable bastards who clearly should die in a fire. Homer fucking Katagiri plays golf with the Chief Constable, for fuck's sake.
Certain people who spend more time eating canapes than doing actual police work are going to be pretty pissed about what Klaus is about to do. That's not why he's going to do it, but it does add a layer of childish glee to the process of getting warrants for seven people of the type who probably think themselves above the law most of the time.
Donaldson is already on the phone to the hack he thinks nobody knows pays him for tidbits like these, and for once Klaus doesn't care, because if the rest of the videos were like the bit he had to see, getting raked over the coals by the media is the least of these fuckers' problems.
"Want to come put important rich people in handcuffs?" he asks Soran.
Of course he does. Klaus assumes that's why he's hanging around with that look on his face. Soran just nods, even though he looks like he's got that odd tension running through every one of his muscles still. Klaus knows the feeling; the one where you hope the asshole will resist arrest, just so there's an excuse.
Most of the assholes don't resist; they do make a big fuss about calling their pricey lawyers, though; probably thinking that whatever it is the cops have on them, they can wriggle out of it. One of them-- a fucking asshole lawyer in his own right-- gives Soran a sort of odd look, which Klaus can't quite work out but it's creepy in the extreme.
Katagiri is last; he had to know that they were coming, but he doesn't run. Klaus supposes someone like that knows better; someone like that thinks they hold all the cards. He has his secretary show them in, for fuck's sake, and listens to the standard pre-arrest spiel with a bored look on his face. "Do you really think your word will mean anything against mine, you vengeful little shit? Or his? I'll crucify you in court."
It's directed at Soran, and Klaus has a horrible feeling about this. Mostly about the word his, which doesn't seem to refer to Klaus at all. "If I only had words, I wouldn't have come." Soran says. "That would be dumb. If it was for revenge, I would have brought a knife. This is just my job."
There are reporters outside. Fucking Donaldson. When they are done, Soran turns to him and says "We should find Saji. Before he sees the news."
Klaus considers asking him for details, given that he's all talkative today, but there's a kind of urgency in Soran's eyes. As it turns out, judging by the abandoned half-made cookie dough and the pillow fort atop Saji's bed, Saji did see the news already. Klaus doesn't ask why; in the end, it doesn't matter. He doesn't ask for details Soran won't give.
He fetches some extra blankets from the top cupboard, instead, and doesn't complain if in the dark and the warm Saji might be clinging more to Soran than he is to Klaus.
◊
In the end, Katagiri doesn't mention anything about Soran or drop any more hints of anything that could even be close to being about Saji. None of them do. Their lawyers try their best to bring into disrepute the source of the footage, but by that point Shirin's tracked down two of the kids, one of whom even manages to get through her testimony (remotely, of course, Shirin wouldn't let those asshole lawyers near her witnesses) without bursting into tears.
That's the point at which the creepy lawyer asshole tries to plea-bargain and drops the rest of them completely in the shit in the process.
After he's sentenced, Katagiri makes some ranting claims about conspiracy and some guy called Almark (who apparently does stand to do quite well out of this, given that some of his main business rivals have just been sent to prison, but no other connection). He only spends two days in prison before they find him hanging from the ceiling; goes down as a suicide. Might even be true.
"Good result!" Donaldson says, cheerfully. He's referring to the guilty verdicts, not the suicide. Klaus is going to assume, at least. Benefit of the doubt, and all.
"Dumb." Soran mutters, from the seat behind. "What's good about catching them now?"
Klaus isn't stupid enough to make a comment like better late than never. Saji makes a cake, with ginger and nervously elaborate decorations, and doesn't say what it's for; they eat it on Soran's bed, which is the one with the most pillows, and then Saji goes to sleep in Klaus' lap and even though it's Soran's bed he stands up like he's going to leave. "Stay." Klaus says, if only because that's what Saji would probably want if he was awake.
Soran stares at him. Then he gets back on the bed. "Give me the big pillow."
Saji is happy to find Soran and Klaus both there, when he wakes up; just goes to show, Klaus isn't nearly as dumb as Soran and his favourite word would think.