"Some lone guy in all-black, walking really briskly into the building. My boys didn't think much of it at first, but the same dude came back out only ten minutes later. They got suspicious, so they went back to Takiyama's room just in case, to see if anything was out of place. Now get this – when they got there, the new doorknob they just installed was busted and the door was open, just a little bit.”

“So this guy busted into Takiyama's apartment?”

Bessho shrugs. “Fuckin' looks like it. I told them to go into the building and recheck the apartment every four hours, and they did that, then this guy shows up, leaves, and they check again, and the knob's busted. Pretty straightforward.”

Atreus leans forward, becoming increasingly intrigued. “Was anything missing in the apartment? Did he ransack the place or steal anything?”

“No. My guys said everything was the way it should be, at least at first glance. They didn't get too thorough because they wanted to notify me quickly, but they said nothing was taken or disorganized.”

“Do they give you a description of the guy?”

“Well, they were able to think fast and try to snap a photo of the guy as he was walking back out,” Bessho explains while reaching into his pant pocket and pulls out his phone. “Unfortunately, they were somewhat far away and had to keep the flash off so he wouldn't see them.” His thumb hits a few buttons and swipes across the screen a few times before he turns the device to show his colleague the picture.

As Bessho mentioned, it's a grainy, hastily-taken photo that's not only dark due to the lack of flash at four in the morning, but also clearly zoomed in by a significant amount, thus losing quality and finer details of the man in an all-black outfit made of a long-sleeve shirt, pants, and shoes. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get more precise than that. The only other thing that's noticeable is the man's face, which has indistinguishable features thanks to the poor quality, but his skin is obviously fair. He also has short, dark hair.

“Does this building have cameras? Is there any video feed of him?” Atreus asks, hoping for another way to possibly identify the man.

“I had my boys check, and they do. Three cameras, specifically: one outside, pointed towards the sidewalk, and two inside the lobby: one over the front door, pointed towards the elevator, and the other over the elevator, pointed towards the front door. But the guy had his hand up, covering his face like he was pretending to rub his eye or something. It's not much better than the picture, but I have a copy of those feeds too.”

“Is this guy Japanese?”

“No idea. My boys didn't get out of the car and talk to him or anything, so it's hard to say. They said he's definitely Asian, though.”

“Well, that doesn't narrow things down by much.”

Atreus furrows his brow and begins to silently process this new information. An unknown man attempted to break into Takiyama's apartment? Why? Is it related to the murder? If not, it'd be an impressive coincidence. If nothing was stolen, then did he go there hoping to see Takiyama himself? Since entering Shohei's and talking to Bessho, there's more questions now, but the same paltry amount of answers. However, this strange event retroactively makes cracking open Takiyama's phone more of a certainty in its relation to Will Camlin's death; perhaps still not a guarantee, but grazing it.

“You said you had Takiyama's phone, right?” Bessho asks. “Did you find anything on it?”

“Can't really find anything when it's locked tighter than a bank vault. Takiyama has such insane security on his phone, that we needed a career hacker to pry it open. Apparently it has a custom operating system installed that's designed to brick the phone when some tries to force their way in.”

“What the fuck?” the Hoshino lieutenant reels back a bit. “What the hell could he possibly have to hide in order to put that kind of security on his damn phone?”

“That's what we're trying to find out. Our hacker is still working to crack the phone open, but it might not be done until tomorrow. Depending on how difficult it is, it might not even be complete then, either.”

“That's weird, man. Takiyama never really brought up stuff like that,” Bessho remarks with a bemused expression.

“So, what kind of guy is he, anyway?” Atreus asks, realizing he never really questioned the personality or life of the man he's been searching for.

“Well, when he first joined up, he was a little older than the usual new kids. He had just gotten laid off from some landscaping place; said he was sick of being a wage slave, so he came to us. Since then he's usually been a quiet guy – didn't really go out of his way to be friends with the others, but he reliably got the jobs given to him done. I was actually planning on having him swear his oath soon and turn him into a proper Sanada-gumi member instead of keeping him as some plainclothes chinpira.”

“Has he ever expressed any interest in technology around you? Did he ever come off a guy who was particularly computer or cybernetics-savvy?”

Bessho shakes his head. “Not really. If anything, he seemed a bit lacking in book smarts. I remember him mentioning offhandedly that he was a C-student throughout middle and high school, so he always stuck to manual labor for jobs. Never went to college.”

“So him being able to jailbreak a phone and installing a unique operating system would be pretty far-fetched for him?”

“From my perspective, yeah. I never saw the guy use his phone for anything other than calling, texting, browsing the internet, and a few games. Granted, it's not like I'm around him twenty-four-seven, but he never broke out into some lecture about programming before. If he was into that stuff, he almost certainly should've mentioned it, because skills like that can be pretty valuable to us.”

“Did he ever talk about Atmos Dynamics in passing?”

“Not that I can recall,” Bessho admits with a shrug.

Atreus pauses to think further. The situation revolving around the missing Edward Takiyama continues to grow more and more complex as this discussion goes on. A shady character breaks into his apartment, yet doesn't take anything, and apparently Takiyama himself isn't tech-savvy enough to install such strong security measures onto his own phone. In addition to that, he potentially has no direct ties to Atmos Dynamics. Who installed Minerva onto his phone, and why? Who was the unknown visitor last night, and why was he there?

Bessho suddenly heaves a sigh and hangs his head, staring at the surface of the table. “This shit is starting to become too much, man. It's bad enough one of my guys disappeared without a trace, but now I have cops breathing down our neck and possibly tapping our phones, and now this guy is snooping around doing God-knows-what,” he gestures to his phone, which is still resting with the blurry photo of the trespasser on its screen.

“Can you send me this picture?” Atreus asks, pointing at the grainy photo.

“Yeah, sure,” Bessho answers with exasperation under his voice. “I don't think it'd hurt to send a single, blurry photo of a random dude. Do you want the security feed footage too? There's six in total: three while he's entering, and three while he's leaving. They're only a few seconds each, though,” he picks his phone up again and after a short moment, Atreus's phone vibrates with an incoming message.

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“Sure, I'll take them all. Thanks,” Atreus says as he verifies the sent picture. “Now, one more thing I want to ask about Takiyama: do you think he would have the capacity or motive to commit that murder a few nights ago?”

“I'd be pretty fuckin' surprised,” Bessho bluntly answers. “He was quiet, sure, but I've never seen him show any eagerness to be violent. If anything, he's always reluctant to throw hands with someone. He does it if it can't be avoided – he's roughed up a few aggressive guys on money collection – but he's never happy about it. And, not to insult the guy, but even if he did commit any sort of murder, I honestly don't think he'd be smart enough to go this long without being caught.”

“So you don't think he had any part in it? Direct or otherwise?”

“Nah. If he did, he had help – lots of it. But in general, I don't think he did it. The Hoshino family's a mess right now, man. We can't do a damn thing while the cops are watching us. Drones are passing by our building a hell of a lot more often. The surveillance hasn't been this bad in years.”

“Think you can keep your men staking out Takiyama's building? I don't know if this mysterious guy will come back, but it's probably best to be there if he does.”

Bessho nods somberly. “I think we can at least do that much – maybe. But what do you think we should do if he does show up again?”

“Don't confront him directly,” Atreus answers quickly and firmly. “He might be dangerous. Obviously, I don't know that for sure, but it can't be a good idea to mess with a guy who's confidently breaking into the apartment of a missing clan member. If he shows up again, try to take more pictures – clearer ones.”

“Right. We can do that.”

“I should probably head back to the Asano office and let Ryuji know about this. This is something that could potentially affect other families. Is there anything else you need to tell me before I go?”

Bessho shakes his head. “No, that's all – just that suspicious guy. I'll keep my boys staked out in front of the building. I can't personally guarantee the guy will ever come back, of course, but it's the most we can do with the cops hovering over us. I'll let you know if he shows up again, though.”

“Thanks,” Atreus, eager to relay the information back to Devin Ryuji, stands up. “I'll talk to you later.” He turns to leave after Bessho gives a quiet nod of dismissal.

With the impromptu meeting with the Hoshino lieutenant over, Atreus orders another ride to quickly return to the Asano family office. On the way there, he keeps reflecting on the new trove of information given to him in the relatively short discussion: some insight into Takiyama's past and personality – specifically his lack of book smarts and alleged distaste for violence – and the sudden appearance of this unknown man. While these revelations may help with the investigation down the line, they currently leave the reluctant detective with more questions to ponder.

He takes the opportunity to also watch the security feed footage of the man entering and leaving the apartment complex. Unfortunately, as Bessho stated, despite the image being clearer than the photo, the unidentified person obscures his face almost completely with his gloved hands as he casually walks through the lobby in a way that makes him appear to be rubbing his eyes and forehead. It's a lot more inconspicuous than simply showing up in a ski mask.

When he finally arrives back at the building, he makes his way to the top floor and into Ryuji's office with a brisk pace. As usual, Devin is in there too, still watching television quite listlessly, though his attention is immediately grabbed by Atreus's return.

“Back already?” the hostess enthusiast asks, leaning forward with eager expectation. “So what did Bessho want to talk about? Is it related to Takiyama?”

“It was, actually,” Atreus answers as he sits at the black leather chair again. “Apparently some random guy broke into his apartment early this morning, at about 4 AM.”

“What? Who?” Devin becomes even more attentive, and the new even draws the curiosity of Ryuji, who is still at his desk.

“Don't know. Bessho has guys staking out the building in case Takiyama returns though, and they snapped this picture of the dude,” Atreus retrieves his phone and shows the grainy photo to Devin. Ryuji stands approaches from behind to see it, as well.

“Damn, this is kinda grainy. You can barely see any detail on his face. Is he Japanese?”

“They didn't know. He's definitely Asian though.”

“Well, that doesn't really narrow it down,” Devin, squinting his eyes and holding the screen mere inches from face in a futile attempt to notice more detail, echoes the same comment Atreus had in Shohei's. He passes the phone to Ryuji when he's done.

“I also took the opportunity to ask about Takiyama himself – his personality – since we didn't really have time to do that before.”

“And what did Bessho say?”

“Apparently Takiyama's not a very learned guy; he was supposedly a C-student through school and never went to college. He also never expressed any interest in programming or Atmos Dynamics before, plus he was generally averse to violence.”

“Damn, that's... pretty much the opposite of what we assumed him to be like up until this point,” Devin responds with blank stare, unsure of what to extrapolate from this new info. “So, what's all this suggest?”

“Well, one, that he likely didn't install the Minerva operating system into his own phone, and two, that it's unlikely he had the capacity to murder anyone, let alone an Atmos Dynamics employee, and escape capture for this long.”

“If he didn't install it on his own phone, then who the hell did?”

“That's one of the things we'll need to find out, isn't it?”

“Hey,” Ryuji suddenly interjects to get the attention of his two subordinates while still gazing at the grainy photo. “This might not be a huge deal, but this guy doesn't have a pin on him.”

“How's that significant?” Devin asks. “If he's not part of the Sanada-gumi, then he wouldn't have one, right?”

“No, he wouldn't,” the patriarch extends his arm to return the phone to its owner. “But if he is a member of the clan, then removing his pin is likely indicative of him planning to do something that requires inconspicuousness. As you said, it's no guarantee he's a member, but the lack of a pin in this picture doesn't confirm he isn't.”

“Wait,” Atreus holds his finger up to take a moment to consider an important detail. “We've been so concerned with finding Takiyama, we haven't really considered the likelihood that he might be dead too, if he's actually involved with the murder somehow.”

“Shit, you're right,” Devin agrees with a reflective stroke of his chin. “But if the guy went to the apartment to look for him, then wouldn't that suggest he's still alive somewhere?”

“Possibly,” Atreus ponders for a moment before shaking his head dismissively. “But let's not get too sidetracked. We'll just proceed like we always have, and see what comes up. If Takiyama is indeed still alive, then he probably missed an opportunity to get killed last night. Once Tetsuya cracks his phone open, maybe we can get some insight into what he was doing before he disappeared.”

“So is Bessho going to have his boys continue to stake out Takiyama's apartment building in case this mystery man comes back?” Ryuji asks.

“I recommended that he do that, yes. He said he would. Unfortunately, he's become really paranoid about cops breathing down the Hoshino family's neck – it's why he invited me to go to Shohei's through you to begin with.”

“Well, I don't really blame him. The police can spy on you in pretty much every way imaginable in this day and age and they don't even need to tell you about it. All they need is a warrant. If they think the Hoshino family had something to do with the murder, then they could find out how often Bessho pisses in a day and how much.”

“Do you think meeting with him was a bad idea?”

Ryuji shakes his head. “I think you're fine. You met him in a public place, and the text he sent me only mentioned lunch. It's not enough for a cop to make a move on us, or even you, individually. But if you ever need to communicate with him in any way, keep a similarly low profile.”

“Right,” Atreus nods and heaves a sigh while leaning back in the chair to totally relax himself. “I hope Tetsuya opens that phone soon. Things revolving around Takiyama have gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.”

After their discussion on the unknown man, they resume lounging around and waiting for their responsibilities to require them. Ryuji returns to his desk to communicate with various associates online, and Atreus and Devin resolve to simply put up a movie while listlessly fiddling with their phones to browse the internet and play games.

By the end of the hour, however, a loud beep is played from the portable intercom device on Ryuji's desk – a single touchscreen tablet propped up on a stand that can be detached and moved from room to room with ease. The patriarch accepts the incoming call with a single push of a button, and the face of Ethan Hasemi, a junior of the family currently on shift as a receptionist in the lobby, appears.

“Yes?” Ryuji asks in his usual low, commanding voice.

“Uh, sir, I have a pair of LAPD detectives here who'd like to see you. What should I say to them?” the nervous young man asks, his eyes darting between the intercom and whoever is standing before him in person. Ethan's voice is heard over the device's speakers by Atreus and Devin, who immediately swing their heads around in surprise.