2.24 Nothing to hide

Adachi’s private office in the back was even more cramped. A steel bookshelf had been rigged up against the wall and stuffed with volumes of law books and journals. A conference table that took up most of what little room there was in the office was covered from edge to edge with piles of legal documents, heavy stacks of books, newspapers, magazines, and cardboard boxes filled higgledy-piggledy with papers. From a distance the table could have passed for a container ship inching its way through a lock in the Panama Canal.

Adachi lifted a box off of a seat and invited me to sit down.

“I’m sorry for coming without an appointment like this,” I said, taking the seat, “but this morning my apartment was raided by the police.”

“Did they tell you why they were there?”

“No, they wouldn’t say. Here.”

I handed the lawyer the papers I had with me: copies of the warrants and an itemized list of things confiscated from my apartment that morning.

“What’s this?” Adachi asked, pointing to the Modafinil on the list.

“That has nothing to do with the case . . . “

Before I could explain, Adachi picked up the phone and started dialing the phone number of the overweight Customs agent with the pencil mustache.

“Is this Nakata? Oh good. My name’s Adachi, I’m a lawyer and I’ve got a Mr. Bon . . . “

“Boncoeur,” I prompted. I couldn’t tell if the lawyer before me had ball of brass or was just a reckless fool.

“I’ve got a Mr. Boncoeur here. He’s quite upset about what happened this . . . I see . . . “

After speaking briefly with the Customs agent, Adachi hung up the phone said definitively, "This is a case of attempted smuggling."

"Yes, yes, I realize that. That's what I was going to tell you," I replied, somewhat exasperated.

Adachi apologized that he had mistakenly assumed the case revolved around the confiscated Modafinil.

Starting over from the beginning, I explained what had happened, the phone call to my cousin, and so on.

"Well, attempted smuggling isn't nearly as bad as actual smuggling. If the drugs had, for instance, made it to your home and you had used them, well, then it would be an entirely different story. Hmm, this is very interesting."

Adachi pushed his glasses to the top of his head and took a second look at the papers again.

“Very interesting, indeed,” he mumbled to himself. “I worked on a similar case a few years ago . . . An American teaching at a junior high school here in town . . . When he was coming through Customs at the airport, he was found to have drugs hidden in the lens of his camera . . . He claimed it had been planted on him . . . Hmm, very interesting.“

Ugh, of all the names on the list, why did I have to choose this boob?

I wanted to back-peddle out of Adachi’s cluttered law office and find another lawyer, Koga, perhaps. Trouble was I had even less time than before.

"I wouldn't worry," Adachi concluded after muttering incoherently for a while. "If the police thought you were guilty, they would have arrested you this morning."

"You know, I'd, uh, like to believe that, but I'm afraid I don't trust the police. I mean, what if they're just postponing my arrest?"

"I don't think they'd do that."

"They want me to come in for questioning on Sunday and again on Monday."

"Make sure you go, then."

"Do I have to? Am I legally obligated to go?"

C'mon man throw me a fucking bone here!

"No, but it will only make you look more suspicious if you don't. And then they'll definitely arrest you."

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

"I’m afraid not,” he said flatly. “Just tell them what you've told me and you should be alright. You haven’t got anything to hide, right?"

"No, nothing," I said. "I didn't ask or want my cousin to send her medicine. I didn't even know there was something illegal in the package until this morning when my place was raided."

"Well, tell them that and I'm sure everything will be settled before long."

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.