As the clues turn up, slowly, and the net tightens around the suspect, a medical intern named Ginjirô Takeuchi (Tsutomu Yamazaki), we learn that his accomplices, who actually held the boy, are two heroin addicts Shinichi called Auntie and Uncle, who overdosed by taking pure heroin. This makes Takeuchi a de facto murderer. The police tail him, for they a) want to recover Gondo’s money and b) need more evidence linking Takeuchi to the murders, for kidnapping, especially of a non-relative to the ransom victim, is technically not extortion by then current Japanese laws, and Takeuchi would get off with an easy sentence.
So, they have the press plant a false story of some of Gondo’s money being spent, and make no mention of the two murders. Then they forge a note that has Takeuchi being extorted for more money by the accomplices, whom the criminal does not realize are dead. Thus, the cops hope to get him to come back to the hideout (a villa owned by the hunkies’ employer) and try to ‘kill’ them, again. But, while tailing them, he detours to slyly buy pure heroin at a rock club, while dancing with a female dealer, then makes off for 'Dope Alley' — which is near a military base, where he tests his pure heroin on a hooker who is a junkie. On a personal note, these scenes reminded me of a PG-rated version of the X-rated heroin galleries my friends and I used to play in, as children, in the Bushwick area of the borough of Brooklyn. When she dies, Takeuchi heads to the villa. He is quickly apprehended, and the scene shifts to many months later, where, as a last request, before execution, the kidnapper asks to see Gondo.
Although he lost his home and possessions (for the money was recovered too late to help him avoid bankruptcy), as well as his job at National Shoes (his office enemies gave him no quarter despite great public acclaim as a hero, and a boycott), Gondo accedes. The final scene is of Gondo and Takeuchi, face-to-face through steel bars and glass. Gondo’s reflected face often covers Takeuchi’s, and vice-versa — a sly comment on the fact that both men are master manipulators, despite an ethical chasm. It is one of many instances where Kurosawa uses reflection brilliantly. Others include reflections of the kidnapper walking by a filthy stream, streetlamp light in car windows, and reflections off the sunglasses Takeuchi wears while in Dope Alley — the yellow pinpoints make him seem almost cat-like and inhuman in the dark.
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