Chapter 1
It was one of these usual shitty days in Tokyo.
The weather forecast predicted rain in the morning (correctly), earthquake at noon and Godzilla in the evening. My office was as shabby as the female student that just walked in was stunning. No, I didn't have the urge to rip off her clothes off immediately - don't believe every shit Hentai tells you. That would have been very unprofessional, and anyway, "stunning" only referred to members of her own species. I'm a private detective, but I'm not a pervert. Inju Han'you, giant octopus, pleased to meet you, 100 yen per day, plus expenses. On bad days I also do it for a portion of sushi.
The blonde slouched on a stool in a way that her mammary glands almost fell out of clothes and began: "You are a snoop and take any case?" "It says so on the sign if it did not fell off in the last earthquake." I growled. "But currently I smell just that you applied too much Magical Girl No.5." I I may not have a nose, but my tentacles are damn sensitive.
"All right then, let's get straight to it, Squidward. The 'Maltese Tamagotchi' tells you what?"
I should have thrown her out immediately, Oni knows why didn't listen to my instinct...
Chapter 2
After that show-off birdie fluttered away, I sorted out my tentacles and went to see Joe the Eel, Owner of the "Ascalon Black Whale". Joe may be as ugly as a boil on my arse (assuming I had a boil, let alone an arse), but he makes the best Garum on this side of Shinjuku. "A double Garum!" I bawled. Joe grinned at me. "Fluctuat?" Yes, know bartenders too know their Asterix. "And whence fluctuat! Tsunami-like fluctuat! You've probably already heard about the Maltese Tamagotchi?"
The chatterbag suddenly became very, very monosyllabic. "Yeah, uh, sure, that's the dingbat..." "Bat your own ding and spit it out!" Joe the Eel squirmed like an eel. "The Yakuza will fillet me if If I reveal even one word...I don't know a thing!" "You know everything that's going on in this shithole, and besides, your last two sentences contradicted each other! A single address is enough!" I didn't want to spoil things with Joe and decided not to resort to physical violence. "OK, OK, just go to the Docks, Dark Alley 1! There is no entry pass, they don't let anyone in anyway!" "Thanks, I owe you one!" "You still owe me payment for 239 Garums!" From my new found wealth, I banged him a 100,000 yen bill on the counter. "The rest is a tip!" I whistled. Then grinded my way to the harbors edge.
Chapter 3
So I stood in front of Dark Alley 1 and made big eyes (even bigger than they already are). I had barely started investigating and already grabbed into a piranhas nest. Since Dark Alley 1 turned out to be an abandoned department store.
Very abandoned, as only rubble lied around and a lone demolition excavator sneered at me with his shovel. "Dagonballs!" I cursed. I better had had my eyes focussed on the (dark) surroundings, because a cudgel came down on my head from behind.
Henchmen Protip: It's good old Hard-Boiled tradition that the snoop gets a sneaky cudgel on his brain. It's only that I have a bit on extra brains in my tentacles. The result is that if someone clobbers me, the result is by no means an unconscious giant octopus.
But a very pissed off giant octopus.
Two of my tentacles wrapped around the neck of the would-be assassin and gently choked him. "So, to whom do I owe this invitation? Nice of you wanted to take me there, but I'm still quite agile my own tentacles." "Wrldbrmpft!" "Sorry, you
speak a little unclearly." "Wrldbrmpft!!!" After further unsuccessful wrldbrmpftisms it finally turned out that his client was the "Eisenhans". Well, the guy sooo earned a heap of rust protection in his own face. But first I had to rethink my next steps. I threw the ninja wannabe into the nearest harbor basin, where he made a very satisfying splash. After that he would need a chemical full body cleansing...
Chapter 4
I went to my client to give a summary of the results so far (first approximation: epsilon). "Come in, it's open!" What a stupid idea in this city! Any lout could have walked in and...I already said that she was probably every human male's dream? So I closed the front door as a precaution. "Here, darling!"
The relationship between private detective and client should always be characterized by respectful distance ("Snoop's Golden Words Handbook"), but with this payment, I don't complain. "Here" turned out to be a bathroom, where she lounged completely naked in the tub. (Sure, that's common in habit in a tub, now it occurs to me. The only counter example would the Barschel case, and I never solved that one.)
I gave a short report. "Sounds good. Hang in there, Inju! I'll also add a bonus on it." And she pulled out a delicacy shrimp and hid her in her, er, cave. "Catch the shrimp!" And before I knew it, our body parts became entangled and she fainted after 239 orgasms.
OK, fellow octopuses, that sounded a bit perverse, but consensual sex between two beings shouldn't be condemned just because they belong to two different species.
(Yes, this means especially you, Peter Hacks, old Commie!)
And besides, I'll die for deli shrimps. I pulled her out of the tub so she wouldn't drown, layed her in her luxus bed to recover and went on my way to Eisenhans.
Chapter 5
Eisenhans was the don of the Japanese steel industry. (Wikipedia exists.) What didn't exist was a photo or even just his real name. Anusnymous scum, surprise surprise.
So there. Follow the money.
After about 2 days of digging through the Japanese business register I finally had a lead. It led to a pretentious loft apartment in Ginza-5-Chome. Luxus malls paved my way left and right, for the price of a single shrimp here I probably could have pumped off 10 barrels of garum. I strolled around as inconspicuously as a giant octopus can do. (This almost became embarrassing when I tried to disguise myself as a hentai manga stand. Bad idea.)
There were so many godzillas, eh, gorillas hanging around in front of the relevant entrance that I eliminated this path straight away. I did the following very reluctantly.
I took a little detour through the sewers and worked my way up through the pipes. Life had already dealt out a lot of shit to me, so I bravely endured more of the material. In a luxury toilet with computer-monitored arse-data I came out. This was obviously the right address. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed someone opened the door. "YOU!!" squealed a voice that seemed strangely familiar to me. Then the figure made a bend and hit the road. I followed closely. Unfortunately, legs are quite fast on land. Then I heard a drawer was opened. Seconds later it rained hot lead. Fortunately, the shots were poorly aimed. One or two holes in my coat did hurt like hell, but, see chapter 3, I am a die-hard. The figure ran up a flight of stairs, which led to a heliport, me tentacling in hot pursuit.
Friend, you won't escape me, and be it at the cost of a few more holes!
Protip: You shouldn't try to run on a roof and shoot at a pursuer at the same time. Multitasking never gives reasonable results.
The item being in the way (as later filed in the Police report) was a box with coke. And I don't mean the blast furnace variety. Such poetic justice.
The figure stumbled, fell over the edge of the roof and let out a death scream.
Damn, from where did I know...
Chapter 6
I shrugged my nonexistent shoulders, climbed into the helicopter and landed it directly the middle of the street (conveniently the body of Eisenhans spread out on a large square) around which already gawkers were gathering. As Roski formulated it aptly: "Diese Maßnahme erweist sich als sehr gescheit, der Menschenauflauf hat sich im Nu zerstreut."
Then I looked at Arseface more closely (giant octopuses are pretty shitty in recognizing human faces). Damn, where did I see him almost every day...And finally the bells of Maria Daiseido rang for me: "Joe the barkeep! Hans - Joe!" That explained everything.
No wait, it didn't explain anything for 10 yen.
At that moment my client walked by and looked at Joe's remains making the same face like when I found the shrimp. "So you couldn't hide forever, Hans Maltese!" Then she took out a PCR kit and helped herself to plenty of dripping body fluids.
My face was a giant question mark, as far as giant octopuses are capable of this. "Maltese? He owned the Tamagotchi?" "Owning is rather the wrong word. The pig knocked me up, abandoned me and never paid a yen in alimonies, probably needing everything for his criminal business! So he disguised himself as a bartender? No wonder I never found him."
"But the Tama..." "Well here she is, my little Tamagotchi! Isn't she cute?" She pulled out a baby photo. "We've talked a lot about you, here is her phone number, she would also like to hide some shrimps."
I almost threw up selfsame shrimp. "Now don't make a face like Pedobear! She is now 20 and studying robotics at the University of Tokyo! 'Invasion of the Tentacle Sex Robots', now that would be one B-movie with commercial opportunities! You surely have much to talk! So, I needed proof of paternity to get a fat inheritance!" "If the cops don't confiscate everything...", I just said to contribute something halfway intelligent to the conversation. "Well, there will be definitely a few yen left in numbered accounts in Switzerland. Sayonara!"
And then the cops came and arrested me again. They became significantly friendlier when they discovered the box with coke on the roof, as well as the Meth lab inside the cellar, the ganja plantation in the back garden and the duty-unpaid cigarette in the bedside cabinet. The police chief yelled at me about my "unorthodox investigative approaches", threatened to withdraw my license next time and threw me out. They slapped a big fine on me for trespassing and parking a helicopter in an absolute no-parking zone, which ate up three quarters of my fee. Luckily, they couldn't bring more against me, as the house was plastered with surveillance cameras from the roof to toilet, completely confirming my version of the dire events.
And now I sit again in my moldy office, being in the doldrums. Where do I get a good Garum now? Well, maybe I phone little Tamagotchi just out of boredom. Until then, as the Japanese says, Endut Hoch Hech.
The End