Chapter 135 The Kidnapper's Request

"Kudo, isn't Mr. Fujimori a little too calm?"

Hattori suddenly leaned down and whispered to Conan: "Do you think he was the one who caused Maruta's disappearance?"

"It's possible." Conan also whispered back: "But it's not ruled out that he is just a calm person on the surface... let's observe!"

Mr. Fujimori bowed slightly and said, "Mr. Officer, please tell us what you need us to do. We will fully cooperate!"

He said sincerely: "Please, you must save my child!"

"Don't worry!" Yamashita solemnly assured: "We will do our best!"

Mr. Fujimori opened his mouth and wanted to say something else, but the phone on the table suddenly rang!

Yamashita quickly made a gesture to silence everyone and signaled Mrs. Fujimori to answer the phone.

"...This, I, what should I say?" Mrs. Fujimori picked up the phone, at a loss.

Yamashita took out his notebook and wrote on it: "Don't worry, I will remind you."

After hesitating for a moment, Mrs. Fujimori gritted her teeth and pressed the answer button.

"Why so long?"

A hoarse voice that was difficult to tell whether it was male or female came from the device that was turned on on the table.

[Voice changer? ]

Conan, who is proficient in this, was the first to react.

Mrs. Fujimori was quick-witted at the critical moment: "My phone is out of battery. I was just charging it!"

"is it?"

The kidnapper muttered, "Forget it, these are not important!"

Yamashita suddenly thrust the notebook in his hand in front of Mrs. Fujimori.

Looking at the words above, she immediately asked: "Maruta... How is Maruta now?!"

"Don't worry about that. I just want some money, not to be a murderer."

The kidnapper said vaguely, and immediately asked alertly: "By the way, you didn't call the police?"

"Of course not!"

"So much the better."

Mrs. Fujimori continued to look at the notebook and stuttered, "What...what do you want?"

Officer Yamashita's face twitched when he heard this, and he shouted loudly in his heart.

[Please, ma'am! I want money now, you can't just read whatever I wrote! Just modify it a little bit!]

Fortunately, the kidnapper didn't notice anything unusual. He snorted coldly and said directly: "One hundred million! Just give me one hundred million yen and I will let this kid go."

"One hundred million yen?!" Mrs. Fujimori exclaimed.

"Don't tell me you don't have money!"

The kidnapper's smile was somewhat distorted by the voice changer: "The villa you live in is worth hundreds of millions, right?! If it doesn't work, sell it and raise money for me!"

Officer Yamashita quickly turned the page and pointed to a line of words to remind Mrs. Fujimori.

"Where should I send it?"

"There is a cafe three blocks away. Next to the cafe is a very conspicuous red mailbox... Remember, ma'am, you can only come alone. Besides, I only give you five hours!"

"Five hours?!" The lady was very embarrassed: "Wait...wait a minute! This amount of time is not enough to raise money! Hello...hello?"

Mrs. Fujimori looked up palely: "He's dead..."

Yamashita fiddled with the device on the table and shook his head after a moment: "No, the time is too short. I can't track the specific location... and judging from the signal type, it seems to be made from a public telephone booth. In this case, it is even more difficult to find the person."

He raised his head and looked at Mr. Fujimori, hesitated, and said in a roundabout way: "Under the current circumstances, we can only do what he says first!"

"no problem!"

Mr. Fujimori agreed immediately: "I'll take care of the money issue. As long as you can guarantee Maruta's safety, it's only 100 million, just give it to him!"

Yamashita breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this.

What he fears most is encountering the kind of family members who hold on to the money and refuse to let go.

As long as they are willing to raise the ransom, the police's tolerance rate will be greatly increased, and the safety of the hostages will be better guaranteed.

Mr. Fujimori said goodbye to everyone and went to find a way to raise money.

Time passes little by little...

Seeing that no one was paying attention, Hattori leaned down again and said, "Kudo, Mr. Fujimori is very quick in taking the money! One hundred million yen, and he gave it so decisively!"

Hattori now sees suspicious points everywhere about him: "Could it be that he wants to launder money?"

"...You are too arbitrary."

Conan rolled his eyes: "What if it really isn't him? We have to be prepared for both scenarios."

"That makes sense!" Hattori nodded.

He glanced at Mrs. Fujimori, who looked better, and analyzed, "If she wasn't lying and was able to escape with the child within five minutes, the kidnapper must be a strong young man."

"And he's an amateur."

Conan added: "Generally speaking, it is more beneficial for kidnappers to let the family members hear the hostage's voice in order to ask for ransom."

"But he didn't do that. This shows that he is just a novice. It might even be his first kidnapping."

A voice continued, "In addition, based on the two surveillance cameras that happened to be malfunctioning, we can guess that the kidnapper must be someone who lives nearby or is an acquaintance who often comes here."

"Whether he was responsible for the destruction of the surveillance or he just happened to know about it, he must have sufficient knowledge of the Fujimori family."

Conan was about to agree, but suddenly realized that this was not what Hattori said!
Several people turned their heads in surprise, only to find a stranger they had never seen before leaning against the door.

He looked young, a high school student. He was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt with a white background and black stripes, and a loose crimson jacket. He looked very ostentatious.

Hattori looked at this showy peer and felt inexplicably unhappy: "Where are you from?"

"Introduce yourself."

He stood up and said, "My name is Saotsu Chisei, and I'm an ordinary high school detective from Hokkaido."

"Hokkaido?!" Conan narrowed his eyes.

"Detective?!" Hattori asked with a questioning look on his face.

Although the two men grasped different points, judging from their expressions, they were not very welcome to this sudden guy.

Yamashita asked first: "Excuse me, why are you here..."

"Ah!" Saotsu Chisei was about to answer.

But suddenly he heard some movement behind him, so he turned sideways to let Mr. Fujimori in.

"I invited him here."

Mr. Fujimori put the two large bags on the ground with great effort, wiped the sweat off his face and explained, "I met Saotsu when I was on a business trip to Hokkaido. He is very famous in the local area."

"Just now I suddenly remembered that he is also in Osaka now, so I asked him to come over and help."

"I say uncle!"

Hattori's eyebrows jumped when he heard this, and he pointed at himself and said, "I, the famous detective in Osaka, am right here. It would be redundant for you to invite someone else!"

"Besides..."

He pointed at Saotsu with a dark face and said, "How can a guy dressed like this look like a detective... Have you been tricked?!"

"Huh?" Mr. Fujimori was a little surprised: "Sir, aren't you a police officer? I thought you just looked younger."

Hattori choked and then remembered that he seemed to have not introduced himself.

He wanted to say something else but was interrupted by a voice next to him.

"Excuse me, I can't pretend I didn't hear that!" Saotsu shrugged, walked up and said sarcastically, "No matter how you think about it, someone who comments on other people's clothes and judges people by their appearance is not like a detective."

"What did you say?!" Veins on Hattori's forehead throbbed.

Seeing that the atmosphere at the scene was getting more tense, Yamashita quickly tried to smooth things over: "Okay, okay, stop arguing. The case is the most important thing now!"

Hattori snorted and sat back.

Shan Xia walked forward, opened the two large bags on the ground, looked at the large banknotes inside, and said, "Then, I'll ask you, Madam, to deliver the ransom to the place requested by the kidnappers."

Mrs. Fujimori was obviously very flustered: "I... I am alone, but..."

"It's okay, we'll follow!"

Mr. Fujimori then asked, "Can't I come with you?"

"It's better not to." Yamashita shook his head: "The kidnapper said on the phone that he only wants your wife. For the safety of the hostage, it's better to listen to him on the surface."

Mrs. Fujimori gritted her teeth and her eyes became more determined, apparently because she was thinking of her son.

"I see!"

She walked forward and picked up the two large bags on the ground with great effort.

A Japanese yen note with a face value of 1.15 yuan weighs about 11500 grams, and 23 million yuan is grams, or kilograms.

This is indeed not easy for a wealthy lady who has lived a life of luxury.

"Let me help you put them in the car." Mr. Fujimori stepped forward and tried to take over.

But Mrs. Fujimori stubbornly refused: "It doesn't matter, I'll have to do it later anyway, just let me get familiar with it first!"

Yamashita waited for her to put her big bag in the back seat of the car, then put a miniature camera that looked like a necklace around her neck.

"If possible, please try to take a picture of the kidnapper's face."

Mrs. Fujimori nodded, closed the door and started the car.

While waiting for the funds to be raised, Officer Yamashita has already transferred more personnel and some non-police vehicles from headquarters for support.

He was now following behind in a red car. Mr. Fujimori sat in the passenger seat, while Hattori, Conan, and Saotsu were squeezed in the back seat.

"You are so shameless that you followed me!" Hattori looked at the Hokkaido detective unhappily and couldn't help but retorted.

At this time, he and Saotsu were sitting on the left and right sides, with Conan sitting in the middle to separate them.

Saotsu rested his arm on the edge of the car window, supported his chin and looked at the scenery receding outside the car, looking nonchalant.

"I can't help it. I can't rest assured to hand the case over to an unreliable guy like you."

Hattori was obviously irritated again and yelled a few words, but Saotomi no longer paid any attention to him.

He just blinked his eyes to ease the discomfort after wearing the contact lenses.

"Shh! Mrs. Fujimori is here!"

Officer Yamashita suddenly said.

He parked his car far away, picked up a small display screen, and looked at the images captured by the miniature camera.

Hattori quickly leaned his head forward, and Conan and Saotsu did the same.

……

“The mailbox next to the cafe…”

Mrs. Fujimori muttered to herself, looked around and locked onto her target. She immediately stopped the car, opened the back door and took out two large bags filled with money.

Feeling a little guilty, she looked around quickly, and when she got to the mailbox, she found a piece of paper stuck on it.

——【Waiting for rental! 】

Mrs. Fujimori reached out and took it off, then waved it unnaturally across her chest so that the monitor could see it clearly.

After a while.

A taxi slowly stopped.

"Ma'am, is this the car you called?" The middle-aged man stuck his head out of the car window.

Mrs. Fujimori subconsciously wanted to deny it, but fortunately she reacted quickly enough to stop and nodded stiffly.

"Then come up."

The driver waved at her, then retracted his head and said, "You are going to Buqi in Xicheng District, right?"

Mrs. Fujimori didn't know how to answer and could only say yes.

After she carried the big bag into the car, the driver stepped on the accelerator and started the car.

He glanced at the woman in the rearview mirror, thought for a moment, and threw the cigarette in his mouth out of the window.

The atmosphere was eerily quiet along the way.

The driver started talking: "Ma'am, don't think I'm being nosy, but if you ask me, Buqi is not a good place to go!"

"You don't know, the last time a colleague of mine went there at night, he was hit from behind with a club, and even his car was stolen."

He shook his head and said, "If it wasn't broad daylight, I wouldn't go no matter how much money you offered me."

Mrs. Fujimori smiled awkwardly.

……

Falling far behind the red car.

"Officer Yamashita, why can't I hear any sound from your surveillance camera?" Hattori complained, scratching his head.

"Oh, so even a self-proclaimed famous detective is only this good."

Without waiting for Yamashita to answer, Saotsugu, who was standing next to him, sneered and said, "With the means available to the public, it is ten times easier to find a wiretap than a camera."

"Such a thoughtless question only shows that you don't care about the safety of the hostages at all!"

When Conan saw Hattori's flushed face, he quickly changed the subject: "Officer Yamashita, please find someone to keep an eye on that taxi. The driver may have had contact with the kidnappers!"

Speaking of business, Hattori snorted, "Also, we can't rule out the possibility that the driver is the kidnapper - the taxi could very well be a cover for him to collect the ransom!"

But as soon as he finished speaking, Saotsu objected coldly: "It shouldn't be possible!"

He looked at the surveillance screen and explained: "Since the kidnapper asked Mrs. Fujimori to move, it means that he has made preparations for someone to follow her in secret."

"In that case, if the big bag in Mrs. Fujimori's hand disappears after she gets off the car, wouldn't it be a clear signal to the people in the dark that the driver is the kidnapper? I don't think he would do such a stupid thing."

Conan looked at him in surprise and found that this colleague from Hokkaido was really capable!
Hattori wanted to refute.

But he also felt that what the other party said made sense, so he refused to admit defeat and secretly swore that he must beat him in the next reasoning duel!
I do not know how long it has been.

The taxi slowly stopped.

Yamashita looked around and said gloomily, "It's Fuqi!"

Kamasi is a slum in Osaka.

There are graffiti everywhere and piles of garbage here. It is considered by the outside world to be the darkest neighborhood in Japan!
Within a radius of 300 meters, there are as many as sixty gangs, filled with ruffians, scoundrels, prostitutes and drug dealers of unknown origin, engaged in drug trafficking, gambling, extortion of relief funds and other activities.

As a native of Osaka, Mrs. Fujimori had of course heard similar rumors.

But now that things have come to this, she can only bite the bullet and go in.

However, what comforted her a little was that Kamaki was apparently quite safe during the day, and even many stores were doing business as usual.

hum~
Suddenly, the phone in her pocket rang.

The kidnapper said in a cold voice: "Very good! Very punctual! I like dealing with people who follow the rules."

Mrs. Fujimori swallowed her saliva: "Now what? What do you want me to do?"

"It's very simple! You should be able to find it. There is a tattoo shop called [Shang Jia Yi Ren] on your right. Just walk in!"

(End of this chapter)