Chapter Two Part Four
“Last one.” Sakura parallel-parked the squad car outside of a small but clean-looking shop, right in the middle of East Tokyo, a small store called in calligraphic letters ‘The Treasure Box’. They had spent the whole day tracking down the stores, looking for that particular fabric, and when they found it sent it back to the lab for analysis, to see if the fabrics matched, but so far had been unlucky.
“And if this isn’t it?” Sasuke asked cryptically, earning a disproving look from his partner.
“Sasuke, don’t be so negative. We’ll catch this guy. We’d better,” she added grimly, and scaled the few concrete steps, opening the door. A bell tinkled above and Sasuke immediately entered, looking around, going through the racks as though looking for something hidden.
“Be right there,” a voice called and a young man, his black hair greasy, his face riddled with pimples, came out and leaned on the counter. “Can I help ya?”
“Yeah,” Sakura said as Sasuke continued to go through the racks, ignoring the teen. “I’m Detective Sakura, and that-” she sent a glare at her partner for good measure - “Is Detective Sasuke. We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“Detectives, huh?” the kid said, popping a bubble with a giant wad of gum in his mouth. Sakura stifled an annoyed sigh. “Is this about all those chicks gettin’ popped around here?”
“What do you know about that?” Sakura asked, returning her badge she’d shown to her pocket. The kid shrugged.
“Nothin’. Word just gets around, is all.” He glanced at Sasuke: “Yo, you gonna buy something there, man?”
Sasuke gave no answer, so Sakura did. “We’re looking for a certain type of fabric, we hear your store sells it?”
“Maybe we do, maybe we don’t,” the kid replied cautiously. “Depends on what you’re looking at.”
Sakura dangled the evidence bag with its contents in front of his nose, and his eyes followed it. “Huh,” he muttered, staring at the black cotton material, “I think we got something like that.” He walked down the counter, out a little service door, and began to ruffle, side by side of Sasuke, in the racks. “Um...” he continued to look, “I know, I sold something like this to a weirdo dude who came in here a while ago...” he froze, his scrawny body tensing and Sasuke thought he could beat the kid up easily. He looked up at Sasuke and he was surprised to see terror in his pimple-dotted face. “You don’t think that that coulda been the guy who...?” he whispered.
“Just get the shirt, kid,” Sasuke growled, speaking for the first time, and his look spurred the teen into action. He went through that rack, then the next one, with a frenzy. Sasuke raised his eyebrows and grinned at Sakura, who shrugged.
“Here! Here! Here it is!” The teen triumphantly waved a black shirt and Sasuke snatched it from him in midair, running his thumb over the material before exchanging glances with his partner, who in turn did the same, running her thumb over the shirt.
“Light enough,” Sasuke said. Sakura nodded. “Same color,” he said, comparing the material to the scrap in the evidence bag. Again his partner nodded. They looked up at the kid, who was obviously waiting for a scoop. “Thanks, dude,” Sasuke said, gesturing with the shirt, and walked out.
“H-hey!” the teen called. “Are you gonna buy that, or what?”
“Oh-” Sakura turned. “We’ll need a copy of your inventory, of everyone you sold this particular shirt to within the past four months, at least.”
“Uh, sure.” He returned to behind the counter and took out a binder, unclipping several pages and going through the list. He wrote down the names that bought that shirt and handed the paper to her with a, “Is your partner always like that?”
“You were lucky,” she replied, and left to follow Sasuke out.
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