“Yes?”
“I’ll tell you what kind of company Hinode is. If you were on the reporting team you might have heard this already. In 1990, when Chunichi Mutual Bank was busy trying to buy back the shares that had fallen into the hands of a third party, the Chunichi president Akita went to Hinode asking for a large deposit. That was January tenth, 1990. But Hinode didn’t agree to it. Remember, the date of the S. Memo was February seventeenth. After Akita secured the memo, in late February he sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance saying that Chunichi Bank could be rehabilitated. By the way, on February sixteenth—the day before the S. Memo—Terata, the president of Toei; Suzuki, the chairman of Hinode; and ‘S.’ from the Liberal Democratic Party met up at the Hotel Okura. The special investigation section must also know about this meeting on the sixteenth.”
“I see.”
Negoro had instinctively grabbed a ballpoint pen and was dashing all this down, running back through his memory to confirm to himself that there was no mention in his reporter’s notebook of the meeting at the Hotel Okura back on February 16, 1990.
The gloomy voice on the phone droned on. “And here’s the important part. At that meeting on the sixteenth, it was agreed that Hinode would absorb Ogura Transport and that it would guarantee part of Ogura’s bad debt, which Chunichi Mutual Bank had been carrying. Point is, this was a sham negotiation, based on the prereqs that came out in the S. memo.”
“Was Hinode confident about Chunichi’s recovery when it joined the negotiations?”
“I’ve got no idea if Hinode was in on it all along. In order to save face for S. and make Chunichi’s fraudulent loan to Ogura Transport look plausible, Hinode had to, as they agreed, at least appear to make an effort to bail out Ogura Transport. But in the end Hinode reneged and the ultranationalist who acted as mediator, Zenzo Tamura, ended up losing face. I’m not saying that’s the reason Hinode’s president was kidnapped, but that’s the kind of company Hinode is. The men who threw dirt on S. by refusing to take a stake in Ogura, and those who severed ties with the Okada Association—they’re all current executives at Hinode. And their boss is Kyosuke Shiroyama.”
“Excuse me, but do you mind telling me how you know all this about Ogura, Chunichi, and Hinode?”
“What I’ll tell you is that it all starts with Hinode. Not counting extortionists, there’re at least a hundred men in this country who, hearing that Hinode’s president had been kidnapped, thought it was just deserts—including me. But there’s not a single national paper with the balls to rip Hinode’s mask off because they’re all scared of offending one of their advertisers. I called to say as much.”
At which point, he hung up.
Negoro had unconsciously reached for the drawer to pull out his old reporter’s notebook, but his hand stopped short and instead he picked up the notes he had jotted down. Having just risen out of his chair, he now took his seat again and looked more closely.
A single point drew his particular interest. Whenever something happened, a correlation diagram of political and business circles always surfaced, but none had ever included the name of an individual with ties to Hinode. Whether or not it was true, here was a leak connected to Hinode. However, this current incident of the president’s abduction did not appear to be linked to the hard-liners and extortionists. Even if it were true that Hinode was involved with the Ogura and Chunichi scandal and that they had in fact thrown dirt on the Okada Association, it didn’t seem likely that this had triggered the abduction.
If, as this Toda or whoever he was had implied, there were various facets of Hinode that were not publicly known, who were these legions of men who bore ill will toward Hinode? Despite all the efforts of the reporting team, not a single Hinode backstory had emerged that would explain the existence of some kind of grudge.
Still wondering if the whole thing could be a prank, Negoro had already reached for the outside phone line.
“Sorry to trouble you—this is Negoro from Tokyo.” He announced himself when the Osaka Metro desk picked up.
“O-ho! Things must be topsy-turvy over there, with the whole Hinode thing!” Negoro recognized the boisterous voice of a slot editor he had known for years. It was the voice he had heard on the phone every day for the month following the Great Hanshin earthquake that had struck at the beginning of the year. “Hearing from you reminds me about that salted kelp from Yodoya—I never did send any to you, did I? Anyway, how can I help you?”
“Is Takeshi Kikuchi-san there?”
“What would you want with that ol’ jobber? He quit a long time ago.”
“Oh, did he now?”
“That guy was practically a yakuza stockbroker. He made hundreds of millions in speculative dealings during the bubble years and set up his own investment management company. What do you want Kikuchi for?”
“A call came in from someone trying to get in touch with him. Do you have his contact information?”
Apparently Kikuchi had left a business card when he resigned from the paper, and Negoro waited a few minutes before being given a number that was obviously a cell phone and the name of Kikuchi’s company, GSC, Ltd. Negoro thanked the slot editor and hung up. Then, still unable to clearly recall the face of the man in question, he dialed the number he had just tracked down.
“Kikuchi-san? This is Negoro from Toho News. It’s been a while.”
“From Toho . . . Well, well, it has been a long time.” The man’s tactful reply did not stimulate Negoro’s memory, either. In the current economic downturn the stock game must have been in shambles; Negoro could not even be sure that the number he was calling belonged to an actual company. The man’s voice was calm but somber, and his tone did carry a certain hint of the underworld.
“You must have your hands full. Poison gas, the elections, and now Hinode Beer. Something I can help you with?”
“I may as well get right to it. Do you know a man by the name of Toda? Speaks in a Kansai dialect, an elderly man . . .”
“Oh, old Toda,” Kikuchi replied immediately.
“So you do know him. He just called here asking for you. If it’s all right, would you mind telling me what kind of character he is?”
“Is this an interview?”
“You could say that, yes.”
Negoro heard a clicking sound on the other end of the line; Kikuchi must have been slowly tapping his desk with a pen or some other object. “The man is a has-been left-wing Osaka journalist, first of all. He published a small independent newsletter until about twenty years ago, but when that went bust he went freelance. He made ends meet as a day laborer in Kamagasaki, Osaka. I met Toda back in ’86, when I was reporting on that corruption case in Airin district, you know, the one where an Osaka city employee was skimming off medical aid. Back at the time, an old man tried to engage me in a debate at the labor welfare center. That was Toda.”
“Have you kept in touch with him since then?”
“No. Did he have anything to tell you?”
“Well, yes. Something about how there are at least a hundred men who harbor ill will toward Hinode.”
“The guy’s pushing eighty, there’s no need to take him seriously. Whenever anything happens, he blames it on the establishment—always has. To put it bluntly, he’s got ties to segregated buraku communities. Come to think of it, he used to work for Hinode before the war. That’s right, now I remember—I’ve heard him talk about it.”
Segregated buraku communities. Negoro’s ballpoint pen, which had been doodling circles on his notepad, now drew a single question mark as if of its own accord. Immediately, his thoughts returned to the call he received three hours ago from a reporter working out of the Hachioji branch. The reporter had mentioned a prewar lawsuit involving the purchase of land intended for a factory. He drew another question mark.
“This Toda, where did he work for Hinode before the war?”
; “Hmm . . . in Fushimi, probably. That’s Hinode’s Kyoto factory. Right, right—remember the general strike that took place soon after the war ended, the February first strike? Toda said that he marched for the union before and after the strike and was let go because of it. I never looked it up or anything, so I don’t know if there’s any truth to it.”
1947. General strike of February 1st. Hinode’s Kyoto factory. Labor dispute. Employee layoffs. Segregated buraku community. Negoro wrote it all down in his notes.
“Does Toda belong to any organization or group?”
“You mean like the Buraku Liberation League? I don’t know about that.”
“What’s his full name?”
“I can find out for you. Why don’t I give you a call tonight?”
“I’d appreciate that. Sorry to phone you out of the blue.”
“Not at all.”
Kikuchi hung up, as if loath to waste any more time. Negoro thought that, for a man who had just received an unexpected call from a former colleague, Kikuchi had been pretty brusque, displaying neither a sense of nostalgia nor awkwardness.
Negoro could only vaguely recall the face of Kikuchi, who had once roamed this same news room floor; and yet somehow he could imagine the mien of the man whose voice he had just heard on the phone. He could picture an office in one of countless buildings found all over the city, a shingle bearing an inscrutable company name outside, furnished with a desk and a telephone. Beside a messy stack of market newspapers and stock chart books, a man wearing a Rolex watch talks on the phone, sums of money in the tens and hundreds of million rolling smoothly off his tongue, his eyes dull and empty. At night, the same man lazily throws up his feet in the corner of an upscale club and tosses back whisky and water, then takes a taxi home, casually handing a ten-thousand-yen note to the driver and saying, “Keep the change.” Of the various financial strata that existed in the world, the one into which Kikuchi had submerged himself might have been the most chilling. Kikuchi had rid himself of any scent of being a former newsman.
After replacing the receiver, Negoro again reflected on the strange phone call from the man named Toda. When Toda met Kikuchi nine years ago in Osaka, Kikuchi would no doubt have said he was a reporter with the Metro section of the Osaka bureau of Toho News—so why had Toda called the Tokyo office? If he had thought to call here because the Hinode incident had occurred in Tokyo, it was still strange for him to mention the name of a reporter from the Osaka Metro section. It made no sense to Negoro.
It also puzzled him why a day laborer from Kamagasaki knew so much about the series of events that had transpired while Chunichi Mutual Bank was busy managing its cash-flow problems. But it was not Toda, the former would-be labor activist who once worked for Hinode, who left a woolly and sour aftertaste in Negoro’s mouth—it was Takeshi Kikuchi. His former colleague’s transformation notwithstanding, so many things about the call that just ended disturbed Negoro. Kikuchi’s voice had not brightened at the unexpected call from his former workplace nor had he shown much interest in the conversation. The way he talked about a day laborer he only met once while covering a story nine years ago was, however, oddly vivid.
Without much thought, Negoro jotted down Takeshi Kikuchi. Some kind of corporate raider? in his reporter’s notebook. There was no way he could have dabbled in speculation on a journalist’s salary, so he must have borrowed capital or been tasked with managing funds, or else he had been assisting a group of corporate raiders. Whatever the case, if one were to trace the source of his funds, one would bump up against a financial institution or shadowy connections. During the Ogura-Chunichi scandal, Negoro had spent more time than he would have liked delving around in such realms, and he knew the obvious places to look for immediate information, in addition to having a few hunches of his own.
And speaking of hunches, Negoro wondered if Kikuchi could somehow be tied to Kimihiro Arai, the representative of Takemitsu, the group of corporate raiders that had bought up shares of Ogura Transport. The parties that circulated money underground had various links with one another, so as a matter of simple probability, a potential connection was better than zero. Were such a point of contact to surface, it was also likely not Toda but Kikuchi himself who knew the backstory about what had transpired with Ogura and Chunichi Mutual Savings. It was even possible that Kikuchi had given the information to Toda for some reason.
Realizing his bad habit had taken over, Negoro put away his notebook. Since he became a reporter, he had a tendency for negative thinking, which only worsened his distrust of others. His wife, from whom he had separated ten years ago, had often wondered cynically whether his inability to believe in people meant he wasn’t capable of trusting her, either, and she had been right. These days, he tried to be more receptive to what others might have to say, but now that he was willing to listen, no one was talking.
Figuring it must be time for the meeting, Negoro glanced up at the wall clock and saw the looming figure of Haruhisa Kubo, a reporter who worked out of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department kisha club. Kubo was always dressed in a business suit that was much too tight for his body, a backpack stuffed with a laptop, camera, and other equipment slung over his shoulder. His unsophisticated appearance made it impossible to imagine him as anything but a newsman. He would show up unexpectedly at the main office wearing an earnest expression that betrayed his obvious intention to pick up a story and would make the rounds, striking up conversations here and there before disappearing again.
“Negoro-san, how’s your back feeling?” Kubo asked him with a somewhat weary smile.
Negoro beckoned him and slid him the notes he had just taken during his call with Kikuchi. “Tell me, Kubo. If such a man were to call a newspaper office saying there are at least a hundred men who bear ill will toward Hinode, what would you think?”
“Is this a tip-off?” Kubo asked, leaning forward. The look on his face said that he was thirsty for any story just then.
“It’s hard to say. It seemed like there was more to the story than just that call,” Negoro replied.
“Given his background, he could be connected to the BLL.”
“No. What the man wanted to talk about was the Ogura-Chunichi scandal. As you know, Hinode was involved with the rehabilitation of Ogura Transport, so I wouldn’t say there’s no connection.”
“If it’s tied up in the Ogura-Chunichi scandal, then maybe he’s with the Okada Association . . .”
Kubo was a sober, hard-boiled reporter, but at the same time he always seemed tormented, never at ease. Especially when he was stretched thin by a major incident, his eyes grew even more distracted. Whereas a sharp professionalism pervaded the hundred-member-strong Metro section at Toho News, the look in Kubo’s eyes here and now revealed the neurosis typical of reporters on the police beat, who strained under their own particular yoke.
“Will you let Chief Sugano know? I’ll talk to the slot editor.”
“I hope something comes out of this, doesn’t matter what,” Kubo mumbled, admitting his true feelings. He then quickly copied Negoro’s notes into his own notebook and left.
Negoro watched Kubo go, musing that the man’s bulk seemed to house a rather complex mind, then he roamed over to the meeting in the reception area by the window that overlooked the Chidori-ga-fuchi moat. The cast of characters seated randomly on the sofas included Tabe, the slot editor in charge of the incident; Murai, the slot editor for the evening edition; Negoro, who was supervising the feature articles; and finally Toru Maeda, the Metro chief. Before Maeda could say a word, Negoro handed Tabe his notes about Toda. Looking them over, Tabe simply furrowed his brow before he passed the notes over to Maeda. After scanning the notes for about two seconds, Maeda passed them on to Murai in turn. None of their expressions changed much. Negoro did not disclose Hinode’s entanglement with the Ogura-Chunichi scandal, deciding to keep it to himself for the time being.
“
Negoro, check this out under the radar and see what you come up with. We don’t need the young cubs sniffing around randomly.” That was the only directive from Maeda, and no one else offered anything further. The Metro chief’s reaction was reasonable, given Toda’s background and the stories about discrimination that surfaced if one were to poke around anywhere in Japan.
“I wonder what the president will say when he starts talking,” the chief said, turning his attention to the construction of the Metro page. Maeda was steadfast, not the kind of man to be discouraged just because his hunch about the involvement of extortionists proved to be off the mark. “My guess is we shouldn’t expect anything major, but what do you think, Tabe?”
“If a victim who has returned safely is not willing to offer a statement, then that itself is a story worth writing about.”
“Whatever happens, the readers of today and tomorrow want to know about the Hinode Beer incident. Even if the press conferences run dry, keep on writing about it. I don’t care what. I’ll make adjustments to the other pages.”
The readers of today and tomorrow. This was Maeda’s catch phrase, but Negoro wondered if there was any point to digging into the details of what happened today, or to dragging out yesterday’s affair with repeated follow-up stories. At the very least, it was all too clear that the news type currently filling their pages—orange juice, fruit-flavored milk, and so on—failed to describe even a shadow of the crime that embroiled the trillion-yen corporation and its titan.
城山恭介 Kyosuke Shiroyama
Shiroyama sat in an artificial leather armchair presumably reserved for guests. In front of him was a table, and two investigators sat on a sofa across from him. Another investigator sat in a different armchair. At a desk a slight distance away, yet another investigator was taking notes. The shades on the windows were drawn, and in the stark light of the fluorescent bulbs, it was hard to tell if it was day or night. Clearly, inside the police department, time flowed differently than in the regular world. Not only was the language spoken here not the same, but Shiroyama also repeatedly found himself thinking how the place completely cut him off from the outside, trapping him with a sense of hopelessness. The police department was designed to torment criminals, of course, but victims of crimes and even ordinary citizens were not spared from a feeling of irreparable isolation. By this time Shiroyama’s joints were beginning to ache, and he crossed his legs lightly and leaned back in the chair to ease his discomfort, but the more he tried to assume a relaxed position, the more pronounced his awkwardness seemed.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 44