He slammed the receiver down.
A crime scene should be covered by a crime scene specialist. He understood what Sayama was telling him. He knew that already, but he couldn’t understand the reasons behind Sayama being so openly hostile to the idea. He’d completely shut Yuuki out. That had to be it.
Hearing a sound, he looked up.
The editor in chief’s door was open, and managing director Iikura and Ito were just coming out. His eyes met Ito’s and locked on to them as the Circulation chief approached. Yuuki got to his feet.
“You’ve changed a lot.”
It was Iikura who spoke. He had the smooth skin of a man much younger than his sixty years. He also had the sharpest eyes of anyone at the company, but right now those eyes were glittering with amusement.
“How could the man who pulled off the feat of balancing the coverage of Fukuda and Nakasone with a single photo pull such a foolish stunt as you did last night? Do you possess two separate brains?”
Yuuki had heard around the office that Iikura enjoyed toying with people by throwing impossible questions at them.
“I’m sorry for the trouble I caused last night,” said Yuuki, neglecting to bow.
“That’s not the face of someone who’s truly contrite. Do you also have two tongues?”
Yuuki didn’t respond.
“Or is it that you had two—or even three—fathers, and somehow failed to learn any manners from any of them?”
Yuuki threw Ito a look of total contempt. He’d discussed Yuuki’s past with Iikura.
“Well, anyway, none of that’s worth worrying about,” Iikura continued, taking a half step toward Yuuki and patting his upper arm. “Don’t try to overreach yourself. Stick to the level of work that suits you. Use Kyodo articles wherever possible. We’re paying them enough money.”
Yuuki felt more discouraged than angry. If this man were to overthrow Chairman Shirakawa to run the North Kanto Times, nothing would change at all.
“Sir, have you been to visit Anzai in the hospital?” he called out to Iikura’s retreating back.
Iikura turned his head.
“Anzai…? Oh, that guy. No, not yet.”
“Please pay him a visit. It’s because of you that he collapsed.”
“Hey!” snapped Ito.
Iikura signaled him to be quiet.
The gaze he turned on Yuuki was one of breathtaking ferocity.
“Words are fearsome weapons. The spoken word is surprisingly powerful. It has a stronger tendency to stick in the mind than the printed word.”
Having allowed Yuuki a glimpse of his true nature, the Clever Yakuza strolled calmly out of the newsroom.
38
Kasuya was languishing on the sofa, a flannel over his forehead.
“I give up. Iikura is like a snake. And he’s persistent. He got me to put it in writing.”
“Put what in writing?” Yuuki asked, confused.
“Well, I’d have to tell you sooner or later anyway. I had to promise that for the next month the deadline would be midnight, and no later.”
Yuuki was horrified.
“You didn’t agree to that?”
“I had to. Even had to write it down.”
“Midnight? Even if there’s a major incident?”
“Even if there’s a major incident.”
“But we’ve still got the JAL crash to cover.”
“The JAL crash is finished. There’s nothing we can do.”
They both sighed. Neither Oimura nor Todoroki said a word. They simply sat there, grim-faced. If their opposition had been the Circulation chief alone, they might have had a chance of success, but now that he had the backing of the managing director, it was a hopeless cause.
“So, what shall we put in today?” Kasuya asked Yuuki, without much enthusiasm.
Yuuki checked his notes. Since Sayama had poured cold water on his idea of climbing Mount Osutaka, his mind had been unable to focus properly on his job.
“The front page needs to follow up on the bulkhead thing. And then there’s Koshien. Nodai Niko is playing in the third round, so let’s put them on the front page, whether they win or lose. For the local pages, I thought I’d go with a feature on the letters written by some of the crash victims.”
“What’s that?”
“It seems they’ve discovered several letters and notes that passengers wrote to their families just before the plane went down. I haven’t had the chance to read any of them but, even if it’s just a few scribbled words, I believe it’s newsworthy.”
“Okay. Go with that,” said Kasuya, sounding a little offhand.
“And I have all kinds of connected articles to put in on the other pages.”
Yuuki prepared himself to hear Oimura’s objections, but the managing editor wasn’t even looking in his direction. What kind of sorcery had Iikura managed to work on him?
“But it really is a pity,” said Kasuya, stretching.
Yuuki stared at him, willing him to shut up, but the editor in chief continued.
“That thing last night, if we’d pulled it off, we’d all be celebrating now. Even Iikura wouldn’t have been able to complain.”
When an ex-reporter starts thinking about things from that perspective, it’s over. What was worse, Kasuya was editor in chief. No matter how much Yuuki might have objected, if Kasuya had wanted to print it, he could have.
“So, are we done?”
Kasuya looked from Oimura to Todoroki and then, lastly, to Yuuki.
“Don’t give your letter of apology to General Affairs. I’ll take care of it, so any rough bit of old paper’s fine.”
Yuuki bowed his head in silence and got up to leave. Just as he was heading for the door, Oimura spoke up.
“Kasuya-san, don’t you think you’re being too soft?”
Yuuki stopped and looked over his shoulder at Oimura. He seemed perfectly calm.
“I think making Yuuki desk chief was a mistake.”
“Oimura!”
Kasuya’s intention had been to get Oimura to lay off Yuuki, but it had the opposite effect. Oimura just turned the volume up.
“This incident just made it clear to me. He’s a total coward. Every time he has to make a big decision, he just runs away. That sums up his capability for the job right there.”
Now Yuuki turned his whole body to face Oimura.
“I’m not going to defend my ability, but when did I ever lose my nerve? Go ahead, give me a specific example.”
“Who are you to talk to me like that?”
The fuse had been lit and the Firecracker was starting to burn.
“Ever since you were a rookie reporter. Whenever you were ordered to write something, it was all, Oh, dear, I haven’t got enough evidence. I need another day to research it. How many scoops have you missed out on with all that nonsense?”
“Really? And how many stories have you written without proper research and ended up printing a bunch of misinformation?”
“You insolent shit. I don’t have to hear this from you.”
Kasuya raised his voice.
“Drop it, both of you!”
Todoroki was also on his feet, ready to pull the two men apart in case they came to blows. Oimura just bellowed all the more.
“Thanks to you, we’ve all been shamed. Sneered at by Iikura, criticized by Ito. All because of your cowardice. You weak-willed, spineless—”
Yuuki exploded.
“So why didn’t you just speak up last night? Tell them to run it? What’s a managing editor there for? To quibble over trivialities and get paid for doing nothing?”
“You stupid little—!”
The blood had drained from Oimura’s face. Kasuya and Todoroki grabbed him by the shoulder and arm to hold him back.
“You’ve gone too far, Yuuki,” Todoroki warned him.
But Yuuki continued to stare Oimura down.
“You’re only making this much fuss because it’s Iikura. If you’re going to kick up a stink, then wh
y didn’t you do it when we lost the scoop? You’re a former police beat reporter. Do you have no pride?”
Having said what he wanted to say, Yuuki turned and walked away.
The argument must have been overheard. Every single face in the newsroom was turned in his direction. Yuuki came stomping through the center aisle back to his desk. Kishi was standing there, transfixed. It looked as if he had only just arrived at work. His bag was still over his shoulder.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Ah, the Mainichi thing.”
“If that was all, it’d be okay.”
Yuuki dropped into his chair with a thud. His chest and stomach felt as if they were about to explode.
“Hey, Yuuki—”
“Wait.”
He’d just spotted Oimura. Instead of returning to his desk by the wall, the managing editor had marched straight out of the newsroom. Possibly on his way to the office of the chairman to discuss Yuuki’s reassignment. Fine. Go ahead. He’d even supply his own letter of resignation if necessary.
Kishi approached a little timidly.
“Sorry about the timing, but there’s something I need you to hear.”
“Tell me later.”
Yuuki tried to cut Kishi off, but he blurted it out …
Did he say punched?
Yuuki looked up at Kishi for the first time and lowered his voice.
“Hanazawa punched someone? Who?”
Kishi leaned in very close to whisper in Yuuki’s ear.
“Kurasaka.”
Yuuki felt a sharp pain in his stomach. Kurasaka from the Advertising Department. That prick who’d lectured him when he’d cut the ad for the shopping mall opening the day after the crash.
“Why did he punch him?”
“No idea. What I do know is that it happened up at the crash site.”
Yuuki couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“You mean Kurasaka from Advertising was climbing Mount Osutaka?”
“Looks like it.”
“But why? Oh, my God, he wasn’t sightseeing, was he?”
“Dunno.”
“So where did you hear this?”
“They’re all talking about it in the Photography Department. Seems that one of the guys from there—his name’s Tono, I think—was climbing with Hanazawa today, and he saw the whole thing.”
“Did you ask Tono directly?”
“He’s in the darkroom right now.”
Yuuki let out a ragged breath and in the same moment noticed that his fists were clenched. He was sure they’d been that way since he’d been in the editor in chief’s office. He unclenched them to see that his nails had left red marks on the palms of his hands. He clenched them again, hard, until it hurt.
It was true there were plenty of people he wanted to punch. Every day it was a race against time to create fresh news. There were always disagreements and fighting.
But a newspaper company had the same structure as any other company. It didn’t matter what the provocation might have been, a junior employee couldn’t punch a senior colleague and get away with it. He’d lose his job. What was worse, Hanazawa had made a very poor choice in punching Kurasaka, of all people.
Kurasaka had worked on the political desk until last year. He’d been lured to the Advertising Department by the promise of being made manager. Yuuki didn’t like to jump to conclusions, but something Todoroki had let slip when he was drinking suggested that Kurasaka had been ostracized by Chairman Shirakawa and thrown out of the Editorial Department. Yuuki recalled how, right after Okubo/Red Army, when reporters were leaving left and right, Shirakawa was trying to persuade his employees to stay by giving them puppies from his own dog’s litter. Kurasaka was one of the recipients of a puppy, and yet he was still kicked out of the department. To this day, he still bore a grudge toward Shirakawa and the Editorial Department that was under his control. Yuuki had caught a glimpse of Kurasaka’s twisted psychology when, on the day after the JAL crash, Yuuki had discarded one of the paper’s ads. He’d been in the wrong, but Kurasaka had hurled all kinds of abuse at him, as if he were getting revenge on the whole department that had spurned him.
“You guys have no idea how hard we work. You all have it so easy … You don’t have to earn a single yen for the company. We’re the ones who earn your living for you.”
He could see that bright red square face. That was the man Hanazawa had punched.
Yuuki grabbed the phone and dialed Hanazawa’s pager. He waited five minutes but there was no call back. Next, he called the prefectural police press club, but nobody answered. He called back repeatedly until a young woman finally picked up. It was a reporter from another newspaper.
“There’s nobody here from the North Kanto Times,” she said, sounding a little annoyed.
He paged Sayama, and Hanazawa one more time. Still no answer. He reached for the list of extension numbers. He found the number for the Advertising Department and dialed.
“Hello. This is Advertising.”
“I’d like to speak to Miyata.”
“And who’s calling please?”
“Accounts.”
It took a while but eventually Miyata came to the phone. Yuuki could picture the confusion on his tanned, bespectacled face when he answered, believing it to be the Accounts Department, then discovering it was Yuuki.
“What’s going on?”
“I want to ask you something in confidence.”
As a fellow member of the hiking club, Yuuki felt he could talk to Miyata.
“It’s about Kurasaka-san.”
“He’s taken the day off.”
“I know. I heard he went to Mount Osutaka.”
“Er … no…”
Miyata faltered.
“Have you been told not to say anything?”
“Um … not to anyone in the Editorial Department.”
“Well, I already know. Keep your voice down. Tell me why Kurasaka-san went to Mount Osutaka.”
“I’m sorry, he never said why … But it was probably to get some material.”
“What do you mean, ‘material’?”
“Put simply, it’s stuff to talk about, conversation material. We always try to stock up on good topics of conversation for when we visit our advertisers.”
The blood rushed to Yuuki’s head. Kurasaka was trying to use a visit to the JAL crash site as a gimmick to attract advertisers.
“At our morning meetings, we’re all supposed to share our ideas for attracting new advertisers. We have to come up with a new one every day, so it’s quite a challenge.”
Miyata didn’t sound concerned. Apparently this was normal to him. Without any reporting experience, he wouldn’t have associated the manufactured pictures he’d seen on the television with corpses and the stench of death.
But Kurasaka should have. He’d spent a long time in the political section, but as a rookie he’d also spent time at accident and crime scenes. He’d even been a member of the support crew during the Okubo and Red Army cases.
This same Kurasaka was now using the JAL crash as a business opportunity. And Hanazawa had been so enraged by this that he’d punched him. That must have been what happened, but still it was hard to see how. Kurasaka was an intelligent man. It was very unlikely that he would have told a reporter that he was climbing the mountain to gather material for conversation.
“Does Kurasaka know Hanazawa? He’s one of our reporters.”
“Yes, the boss requested him specially. They’re from the same town, apparently—Yoshiokamachi.”
Yuuki could guess some of the story. Hanazawa, Kurasaka, and the young employee from Photography, Tono, had climbed Mount Osutaka together. But what had happened after that? Why had Hanazawa lost it…?
“This phone call never happened, okay?”
After hanging up, Yuuki reached over to Kishi’s desk.
“I’m just going to drop by the Photography Department. If Sayama or Hanazawa calls ba
ck, please forward the call.”
“No problem.”
Yuuki got up slowly. His legs felt stiff. He walked calmly as far as the door, but as soon as he reached the corridor, he broke into a jog and finally bounded up the stairs.
What had happened on Mount Osutaka? Yuuki couldn’t forget the sight of Hanazawa two days earlier, his self-control completely gone, sobbing his heart out.
39
The door to the Photography Department was closed.
Press photographers tended to be a bad-tempered bunch, so there were lots of young reporters who were afraid to enter this room.
Yuuki had to hop over a pile of muddy hiking boots in order to get in. Four or five photographers were sitting in a group, smoking.
“Is Tono here?” Yuuki asked the assistant manager, Suzumoto.
“He’s in the darkroom. He should be out … Ah, there he is.”
Yuuki spotted Tono’s sweat-stained T-shirt across the room. He ran up and tapped him on the shoulder, and led him back into the darkroom he’d just come from.
“Can we turn on the light?”
“No problem.”
Yuuki turned on the fluorescent light and sat down on a nearby stool. The smell of developing solution assaulted his nose.
“Please tell me what happened today between Kurasaka and Hanazawa.”
Clearly perplexed, Tono scratched his scalp, with its neat crew cut.
“Suzumoto-san told me I had to keep it to myself.”
“And I’m going to tell you the same thing. If this story gets out, it’ll mean the sack for Hanazawa. The other guy is Kurasaka. You know what that means, don’t you?”
Tono bowed his acknowledgment. He was in his fourth year at the company, and was all too familiar with Kurasaka’s character from their run-ins at the Editorial Department.
“Tono?”
Yuuki raised his voice to compete with the loud whirring from the ventilation fan on the old-fashioned air conditioner.
“I’m going to go and make sure that Kurasaka never breathes a word of this.”
Tono studied Yuuki’s face for several moments.
“I understand. Okay, I’ll tell you what happened.”
He sat on the stool directly in front of Yuuki and leaned toward him.
Seventeen Page 28