Chapter 29. Saturday, 30 June, 21:10. Below ground auditorium, The Red Dragon Torture Dungeon Place, Kabukichō District, Tokyo.
Stan didn’t mind the dyed blond hair, even if it resembled the styles sported by some members of various K-Pop bands. He’d sort of vaguely wondered at times what he would look like with blond hair and he decided it wasn’t bad. The beard and mustache, in matching blond tones weren’t bad either, a bit itchy, perhaps, but not bad looking, though he figured he would continue to shave each morning as he always had throughout his adult life, once this assignment was over.
And the Botox injection had really done a nice job of smoothing out the wrinkles that time and the stress of his police career and life with Detective Barbara Moore (retired) had etched onto his face.
The process itself had been pleasant overall. The makeup artist was a good-humored woman of around fifty, short and a bit plump. Although she was Japanese, she spoke excellent English from her time working in the US. She had been ably guided by two experts from the disguise group at Langley who had conferenced in via Zoom.
Bill had gotten a similar, though somewhat different treatment. Being younger than Stan, the artist had chosen to age him with artificial wrinkles, grey tones in his hair and thick, though non-prescription glasses. The disguise team had deemed that he should slather himself him with artificial tan gel, which they had him apply from head to toe, given that some of the activities that might transpire at the Red Dragon could involve the customers having sex with the ‘hostesses’.
The embassy had kindly supplied them both with completely genuine US passports, should they be asked to prove their identities, both with issue dates a few years in the past, suitably scuffed as one might imagine for world travelers such as themselves.
Stan was Joseph Palmer, a commodity trader from New York, aged 43-‘in your dreams, Goldman’, he had thought. Bill was Ronald Santelli of Miami, 60, retired from the import/export trade-‘importing cocaine and exporting cash,’ Bill had quipped, not unrealistically. There was a nice irony in the old ethnic guy becoming the younger WASP and the younger WASP becoming an older ethnic type. But, in a way, in the world of undercover work, where up was down and down was up, it made a certain sense.
A good look in the mirror confirmed Carolyn’s promise that their own mothers wouldn’t recognize them, though in Stan’s case, his mother had been dead for over a decade, so there was no good way to test that proposition.
No, Stan was quite happy with his disguise, except for one thing, insisted on by the experts at Langley-the dental palette inserted into his mouth to change the shape of his jaw. The thing was damned uncomfortable. Thankfully, he doubted that much in the way of food would be served at the spectacle in the Red Dragon basement and the device wouldn’t impede his ability to drink.
After presenting themselves at the door of the club and asking for ‘Marco’, as directed, the two men had been escorted down two flights of stairs to a basement chamber where they had found seats at the end of the third row, next to a couple of Chinese businessmen, who were already fairly well-lubricated despite the early hour.
Stan, feeling that he needed his full wits about him for the evening ahead, opted for a sparkling water with a twist of lime from the bar at the rear of the auditorium, staffed by a rather beefy looking bartender. Bill did likewise, asking for a diet soda.
As they regained their seats, there was short recorded fanfare and the heavy red velvet curtains parted to reveal a courtroom, much like the ones that Stan had spent long hours in testifying against one or another malefactor whom he had busted.
The judge, an Asian man in a suitably realistic black robe, called out, first in unaccented English and then in Japanese, “Bring out the prisoners!”
In response, the first prisoner was led out by an Asian woman. Unlike in the courtrooms of the Bronx, where the bailiffs wore police-style uniforms, courtesy of the taxpayers, here the escort wore a see-through black kimono embroidered with red dragons, with her nether regions covered, though just barely, with a g-string.
And unlike the courtroom Stan had attended, where the accused malefactors typically wore an orange jumpsuit, this prisoner was as naked as the day she was born, except for the chains around her ankles and wrists and the black leather hood covering her face.
The prisoner was escorted to a cage towards the front of the stage, where, with a dramatic flourish, the hood was removed, revealing Professor Barbara Moore. Stan discretely nudged Bill, who nodded. Moore was charged, according to the judge, with shoplifting from a posh Tokyo boutique, something Stan suspected she was as unlikely to do as he was to win the gold medal in the 100 meter dash at the next Olympics.
Following Moore, Gun Thorell and Annika Sjöberg were paraded out and the charges against them, equally ridiculous, were read out. In a sense, Stan and Bill’s job was now done. They had irrefutable eyewitness identification that the three women of interest were indeed being held in the basement of the Red Dragon.
They could leave now and report to Carolyn at the Embassy and let the powers-that-be handle things. Of course, to leave now, would likely be impossible and would immediately draw suspicion on the two former detectives, likely getting them badly beaten up or worse. No, they were here, prisoners, in a sense, like the women on stage. In for a dollar (or 150,000 dollars, in this case), in for a dime, as the old saying goes.
Besides, there was a further wrinkle in store for our two heroes. A fourth prisoner was led out and placed in the cage. And when the hood was removed, it was Tamiko! That was why they hadn’t heard from her since earlier that morning. And she was in this predicament, not from being snatched, as the others had been, but at his and Bill’s behest.
The “trials” proceeded quickly. There were no attorneys, no conferences in the judge’s chambers, no evidence and no appeals. If only Stan could have had his cases dispatched with such efficiency during his police career! The defendants were all found guilty and sentence was pronounced-caning for the three abductees, forty strokes each on their bare bottoms and forty lashes with the whip, half on the back and half on the front for poor Tamiko. Surprisingly, none of the defendants complained about the obvious miscarriage of justice.
The curtain closed for a brief intermission so the stage could be prepared for their court-ordered punishment. The two Chinese gentlemen next to Stan were babbling excitedly as they awaited the next part of the spectacle. They didn’t have long to wait.
The curtain opened to reveal a stark setting, more like a prison than a courtroom. Three heavy wooden benches were placed towards the front of the stage, as well as one X-shaped cross. All had heavy straps to secure the unfortunate offender in place for the punishment which the judge had ordered. One by one, crawling on all fours, leashed like dogs, each woman was led on stage by one of the kimono-clad staffers.
Their shackles were removed and Barb, Gun and Annika were each escorted to one of the benches and forced to kneel, their backsides presented to the leering audience. Their ankles and wrists were strapped to the benches and thick waist straps secured their torsos to the horizontal section of the bench, their weight pressing their breasts against the hard, rough wood.
Tamiko was secured standing against the cross, her back to the audience. In front of all four of the miscreants were cameras which projected their faces onto a giant screen above the stage so that the audience could observe their suffering in detail.
The four escorts shed their kimonos, and, clad only in g-strings, selected their instruments of punishment from a table near the rear of the stage. Three of them brandished very serious looking rattan canes, a meter or so in length and about as thick as a man’s little finger. From the sounds they made as they were swished through the air, they appeared quite flexible. They took their places behind Barb, Gun and Annika.
The fourth woman carried a heavy cat o’ nine tails, something much closer to what was used on sailors in the British Navy than the soft leather flogger that Stan had used in his play session with Tamiko. She took her place behind the former hotel clerk.
The punishers tapped their targets with their punishment instrument to test their positioning and each nodded when they were ready.
“Forty lashes for each of these criminals!” the man who had played the judge announced. “Begin!”
The woman assigned to Barb reared back and struck. It was immediately clear to Stan that unlike the fake show for the general public upstairs, this was real. Presumably, the staffers had been ordered not to spare the victims, likely on pain of being punished themselves.
A bright red line sprung up on Barb’s ass. She wiggled her posterior quite erotically as the pain rose to its crescendo. On the screen, one could see her face screwed up in agony, her head shaking in disbelief at the cruel fate she was suffering and the unbearable prospect of 39 more such blows.
Gun and Annika suffered in turn, followed by Tamiko, who took her first lash across her shoulder blades. Her upper back reddened almost immediately. The microphone amplified her gasp of shock at the pain over the raucous commentary of the audience.
Five more times, the staffers struck each woman in turn. Each lash elicited a piteous moan, a stifled curse, a labored breath. The faces on the screen left no doubt that they were all suffering mightily. This was no act.
After the first six lashes had been delivered, the judge announced that members of the audience would be invited on stage to take turns administering the judicially-mandated sentences. He called out four numbers that were supposed to match the slips of paper that each of the guests had been given as they had entered the auditorium.
Neither Stan nor Bill’s numbers matched, but one of their Chinese seatmates did, jumping up and almost running to the stairs leading to the stage when he saw his number. An Arab gentleman in a long robe and a couple of men who looked like high-level Japanese executives or civil servants completed the foursome.
They mounted the stage and each took an instrument of punishment from one of the female staffers. They proceeded to deliver the next six strokes, holding nothing back, their superior strength more than compensating for their lack of practice.
The three pairs of buttocks were all crisscrossed with welts. Tamiko’s back was deep red with a few small rivulets of scarlet running down. Their faces were masks of agony, tears running down their cheeks, snot dripping from their noses, hair plastered to their foreheads.
Once the first crew of audience members had returned to their seats, the judge called four more numbers. Stan checked the slip of paper in his pocket; the first one was his!
As the first called, he was offered a choice. He considered the options-Gun had rejected his help, which was partially responsible for her being in this predicament. Annika was young and her ass looked very attractive. He thought of choosing Tamiko in the hope of sparing her too much pain, but he considered that going easy on her might arouse suspicion.
Finally, he selected Barb, feeling that this was fated to be, an accident of her name. He took his position behind her as the other men took their position behind the other three. He imagined that it wasn’t Professor Barbara Moore, but, rather, HIS Barbara Moore, who had lost their precious nest egg. He wound up and lashed the cane hard against her wealed buttocks.