“If it’s a question of responsibility, then the borrower or the lender should file a lawsuit first themselves.”
“It’s a waste of time to file lawsuits if there is no consensus to entrust everything to market mechanisms when dealing with bad loans. Those are your words.”
“Under the current circumstances, this country’s financial system won’t be able to go on. Neither the politicians nor the parties concerned have the ability to reform anything. That means it will go the way of natural selection, so we can just sit back and wait a while.”
Kano had sidestepped Negoro again, not once referring to the focus of the special investigative department of the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office, which was no doubt engaged in a clandestine investigation with a criminal prosecution in mind.
The conversation jumped haphazardly from the resurrection of the former political faction led by Sakata within the ruling party, with an eye toward the dissolution of the Lower House; then onto the future of the securities market, where light trading continued without any prospect of economic recovery; then back to whether there was any way to use financial records to expose how the bad loans were hidden through broker loans and debt shuffling tricks. Goda did not contribute, merely listened intently, his demeanor conveying a reasonable interest in each topic.
Kano was clearly a little concerned about Negoro’s motives for suggesting, a month earlier, that they get together, and he did not miss the chance to redirect the conversation. “What are you investigating right now, Negoro-san?”
“I wouldn’t call it an investigation yet, but there are signs that large sums of money are again moving around the brokerage houses in Kabuto-cho,” Negoro answered.
“Does this have to do with Hinode Beer?”
“It includes them.”
“Is that true, Yuichiro?” Kano asked Goda, who paused as he was gulping down wine to respond succinctly, “I doubt the police investigation would not be paying any attention to Kabuto-cho.”
What anyone would have imagined at the mention of money moving around Hinode stock, more than simply the presence of corporate raiders, were networks connected to the Okada Association. Kano knew just what kind of history Hinode had and, sensing how sensitive the issue was, he put a close to the subject with the vague comment, “This is where you come in, Negoro-san.”
“I guess you could say that,” Negoro answered in kind.
Then, Goda asked discreetly, “If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about what goes on in Kabuto-cho,” and so they gossiped a bit more. Goda talked about how last autumn, in a case where a securities guy killed himself with a pistol in a business hotel in Omori, the young detective who had been doing legwork in the financial district collected more offers for get-rich-quick schemes than evidence. Goda let it be known that he thought undercover police work in Kabuto-cho was a tricky business. Judging by his manner of speaking, Goda did not seem to have any ulterior motives other than the desire to hear about a world that was unfamiliar to him. Though never to the point of being rude, it appeared that his mind was off somewhere else the whole time—that nuanced gaze drifted absently from Negoro’s face to his former brother-in-law’s, and to the grassy landscape before them.
After a while, though, Negoro noticed that Goda’s stare had at some point fixed upon a lizard, around fifteen centimeters long, that had crawled up onto his sneaker. In that moment, the shadows vanished from Goda’s eyes, which shone like glass beads. He snatched the lizard by its tail and tossed it lightly into a field of grass, where it disappeared. It was a simple gesture, but as Negoro watched the rigid concentration in Goda’s eyes as he had watched the lizard, the only word that came to mind was cop.
Negoro turned back and tried to rejoin the interrupted conversation, but this time it was Kano who had an intensity at the corner of his eyes, as for a moment he gazed, as though transfixed, at the face of his former brother-in-law.
城山恭介 Kyosuke Shiroyama
Monday morning, May 8th. Shortly after six, Shiroyama received a call from the deputy manager of general affairs, who informed him that a new letter from the criminals had been thrown inside the gate of the Kyoto factory. They were demanding six hundred million in cash. Shiroyama responded that he would come into to work at the usual time so as not to arouse the media’s suspicion.
After finishing a simple breakfast with his wife, Shiroyama moved into the living room to be alone, and just as he was about to open the morning paper, he happened to notice a strange object in his front yard, on the grass just outside the window. Since the object was no more than ten meters away, he immediately saw that it was a business envelope.
Shiroyama slipped on his geta sandals and went out the front door into the yard, where he picked up the envelope, slick with morning dew. The standard-issue manila envelope, both front and back left blank, was not even sealed, and he could feel its thinness as the paper flopped in his hand. He opened the envelope where he stood and took out a single sheet of stationery that had been folded into thirds, and when he opened it the rows of characters written in the same style as in the letter delivered to the Kanagawa factory on April 28th leapt before his eyes.
The characters were in katakana, drawn with a ruler, and consisted of four lines.
we’ve delivered a letter to the kyoto factory. alert the police and follow our instructions. prepare the six hundred million, but store it on site at the company for a while. if you don’t want the hostage to die, don’t let the police know about this letter.
—lady joker
This letter delivered a blow to Shiroyama that he had not experienced when he saw the previous letter. The severe, chilling indifference of “Lady Joker,” who was holding the 3.5 million kiloliters of beer hostage, seemed to penetrate the ground under his feet.
For a few seconds Shiroyama stood in the middle of the lawn holding the open letter, completely unaware of his surroundings, and it was only when he began to tuck the letter back in the envelope that he suddenly noticed the man—tall and wearing a dark navy suit—standing outside the gate about ten meters away. He saw me, Shiroyama thought instantly, followed by, Who is that? As Shiroyama stood paralyzed, the man bent his body at a precise forty-five-degree angle in a deep bow.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Goda.”
“I see . . . It’s still early.”
“I arrived a little early. I thought I should take a look around your neighborhood. I’m sorry to disturb you.”
With that, the officer on guard bowed his head robotically for a second time, then disappeared without a sound.
End of Volume I
about the author
Kaoru Takamura was born in Osaka in 1953 and is the author of thirteen novels. Her debut, Grab the Money and Run, won the 1990 Japan Mystery and Suspense Grand Prize, and since then her work has been recognized with many of Japan’s most prestigious awards for literary fiction as well as for crime fiction: the Naoki Prize, the Noma Literary Award, the Yomiuri Prize, the Shinran Prize, the Jiro Osagari Prize, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award, and the Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize. Lady Joker, her first novel to be translated into English, received the Mainichi Arts Award and had been adapted into both a film and a television series.
about the translators
Marie Iida has served as an interpreter for the New York Times bestselling author Marie Kondo’s Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Her non-fiction translations have appeared in Nang, MoMA Post, Eureka and over half a dozen monographs on contemporary Japanese artists and architects, including Yayoi Kusama, Toyo Ito, and Kenya Hara for Rizzoli New York. Marie currently writes a monthly column for Gentosha Plus about communicating in English as a native Japanese speaker.
Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has been awarded grants fr
om English PEN and the NEA, and the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. She has translated fiction by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Fuminori Nakamura. She was the guest editor for the first Japan issue of Words Without Borders, and she maintains the database Japanese Literature in English.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 62