Shiroyama tried craning his neck a bit to see between the rows of cedars, but he could not catch sight of Kurata. When Shiroyama bumped into him at the club house that morning, Kurata had whispered to him that there was no sign of the Okada Association making any new moves following Ogura’s criminal investigation, nor was there a possibility that it would reach S. from the Liberal Democratic Party, yet there had been no sense of relief in his tone. Hearing this report, Shiroyama felt much the same—this was the natural reaction of a person involved who, every time the District Public Prosecutor’s Office made a move, had to fear the repercussions of the investigation reaching Hinode and being exposed for violation of the Commercial Code.
Last year, Hinode had finally begun the process of ending their relationship with the Okada Association and, under the guise of purchasing a painting from them, had paid them a billion-yen settlement, and the two parties had signed a document. Even so, Kurata, who had singlehandedly orchestrated the difficult negotiations and brought it to an amicable conclusion, and Shiroyama, who as president had made the final decision, shared a common destiny with Okada should the situation take a turn for the worst. In the first place, the whole process was executed after they had carefully determined that such a possibility was as close to zero as possible, so that Shiroyama did not feel too pressured, but Kurata, having been directly involved in the negotiation, may have reacted to the situation differently. In private, Kurata may very well have been disquieted by the article in this morning’s paper reporting the criminal investigation of Ogura, but even then, the fact that he still managed to come close to a hole-in-one was reassuring to Shiroyama, for the time being at least.
“I’ll see you a little later,” the second player from the preceding eighth team said as he set out from the tee, leaving just two players ahead of Shiroyama. Now, for this tee shot, I’ll aim for the middle of the curve in the dogleg, about 170 yards. On this eighth hole, he always got caught in the trees flanking the course, so he wanted to make it today. Shiroyama donned his gloves again and, as he was warming up his wrists, he happened to look up across from the tee.
He saw someone running toward him, taking the long way around the tee. By the time Shiroyama had squinted to realize it was Fujii, the Tokyo branch president, Fujii had walked through the cedar grove and approached the back of the queue for the eighth-hole tee. As Shiroyama wondered whom he needed to talk to, Fujii whispered something to an executive named Shibasaki, who in turn took off in a trot toward Kurata at the very end of the line and whispered to him.
Shiroyama’s and Kurata’s eyes met. Kurata excused himself to those near him and, once he had reached Shiroyama at the front of the line, he said, “Managing Director Yamashita from Toei Bank passed away just a while ago.”
He did not whisper the words, so the people around them heard as well, and a stir rose at once. Yamashita’s death being what it was, those who did business with Toei must have quickly considered sending telegrams and making condolence calls. Shiroayama, on the other hand, had perceived the flash of some sort of sign in Kurata’s grim stare.
He understood that something was amiss, and for the moment he excused himself from the presidents of the distributors and Sato Transport. Kurata and Fujii followed him. Once they reached the cedar grove, Kurata came up beside him and said quietly, “Apparently someone shot him in front of his home in Den-en-chofu.”
Shot him? Shiroyama wanted to ask, but he found himself speechless.
“I’ve had general affairs confirm with the police a number of times—there’s no mistake. I’ve got the director of general affairs going to the hospital right away.”
As Shiroyama listened to Kurata speak in a tone rigid with feigned calmness, he finally regained his own voice. “What about Terada-san?” he asked.
“He’s at the main office,” Kurata replied.
Terada was the president of Toei, and as the largest shareholder he was also a member of Hinode’s board of directors. Shiroyama tried to picture him at the Toei head office just then.
“Which of our executives are still in Tokyo? Call one of them up, and tell him to act as point person with Toei. If possible, tell him to go to the Toei head office first.”
“I’ll ask Sugihara,” Kurata said and immediately took out his personal cell phone.
Shirai, who must have just finished the eighth hole, came running through the grove carrying the wood he was about to use for the next hole. His brows were furrowed with irritation as he asked them, “How should we proceed?”
“How many teams are left of the Ins?” Shiroyama asked.
“Two or three, I think.”
“Let’s just finish the front nine. After that, let’s gather the board members together before lunch . . .”
“Right,” Shirai said to himself and walked back the way he came.
Kurata, who had finished his call, asked, “Should I reserve a separate room?”
“Yes, please.” Shiroyama turned to Kurata and Fujii and urged them, “Now, let’s all get back to the game.”
Just then, someone else called his name and stopped Shiroyama in his tracks. It was Chairman Keizo Suzuki, who should have finished the front nine by this time and been on his way back to the clubhouse, but was now walking briskly through the grove toward him. Sixty-five years of age, Suzuki was slightly out of breath as he whispered the words, “It’s the Seiwakai,” referring to the crime syndicate.
Shiroyama gave him a vague nod, unable to respond otherwise.
“Please consider security measures for all of our executives immediately. I’m counting on you,” Suzuki said.
“Yes,” Shiroyama said and nodded again.
“In a situation like this, we must spare no expense.”
“I agree.”
During his tenure as president, Suzuki himself had been the one with connections to various characters including Tomoharu Okada, head of the Okada Association; Zenzo Tamaru, their advisor; and Taiichi Sakata of the LDP, among other elected representatives. It was true that he had inherited many of these relationships from his predecessors, and he had left it to Kurata to do the actual dirty work, yet there were still a considerable number of murky issues that only Suzuki knew about. Shirai had questioned Suzuki about these, and had then scrupulously formed a majority opinion on the item at the board meeting so that, during the change in management four years ago, Suzuki was somewhat reluctantly relegated to the position of chairman, and held no representative rights.
Like Kurata, Suzuki did not dare divulge the specifics, but there was no doubt that in his dealings with the Okada Association, he had more than once been in contact with the Seiwakai, who controlled them. Shiroyama felt both frustrated and anxious when he saw the dismal and reticent look on Suzuki’s face. There was no way to feel at ease about the situation.
It was bound to happen in the end—after the collapse of their longstanding, codependent relationship with the hyenas that survived off the scraps of inter-corporate dealings, those hyenas would start attacking the corporations directly. Until just recently the financial institutions had continued to make loans to just about anyone, but three years ago, they had all at once changed course with the economic recession, and now there were a considerable number of corporations among their beleaguered customers who were entangled with crime syndicates. It was all well and good while the money was flowing, Shiroyama thought calmly, but today’s incident demonstrated what happened when the money ran out and fangs were bared—a bank had been forced to pay the price with someone’s life.
Hinode’s situation was no exception—in fact, one could even say it was more complicated. The money that Hinode funneled to Okada-affiliated extortionists and political organizations via management consultant companies used to amount to about ninety million a year. This was a large amount for one company to expend, but above all, it was a clear violation of the Commercial Code. The year before last
, when they had made the decision to settle accounts with Okada, the National Police Agency had continued to press the four major economic organizations for their cooperation in eradicating corporate extortionists and was pursuing an aggressive policy of exposing each corporation that had violated the Commercial Code. Both Hinode and Okada had sensed a crisis, and both parties—having determined that the damage incurred from exposure would be great—tentatively moved forward with the dissolution of their relationship, but in reality what they had was a truce, with both parties refusing to let the other’s vulnerability out of their clutches. Okada knew the truth about Hinode’s Commercial Code violations, while Hinode possessed information on Okada and their affiliates’ expansive interrelations with various organizations and corporations.
Thanks to Kurata’s tactics, Hinode was able to break away, but around the same time, Mainichi Beer had been exposed for furnishing profits to a corporate extortionist, which not only coerced them into changing over their management, but also affected their stock price. As a result of these charges, the police were said to have seized a huge trove of documents that revealed the links between crime syndicates and corporations, and this must have been a serious blow to Okada as well. Because of Mainichi Beer’s exposure, the National Tax Agency had audited Hinode as well, but since there were no tracks in their account books and registries, Hinode managed—narrowly—to avoid any further trouble. Now that conditions surrounding the underground economy were becoming more punitive, who knew how long Okada would just sit idly by? Even though they had reached an agreement with Hinode, might they not still demand something else? There was no way to dispel that anxiety.
“The police are damn sloppy . . .” Suzuki’s tone, as he spat out these words, quavered a little.
It was true—ever since the law against organized crime took effect in 1991, the police had been pressuring corporations to eradicate the extortionists, but if these were the consequences, they were too much for the corporations to bear. The managing director of a major city bank’s being shot and killed in broad daylight—that was far too high a price to pay, and was absolutely unacceptable.
“Akio Yamashita and I were in the same class at law school,” Suzuki continued.
“I remember that.”
“He was an honest and courteous man. I feel as if I’ve been shot myself. Terrible—just terrible.”
As Shiroyama listened to Suzuki grow emotional, an image of his own wife of many years, Reiko, alone at home in Sanno Ni-chome, flashed through his mind, and he made a mental note to tell her to be extra vigilant about locking up the house from now on. It was rare for him to imagine the faces of his family while he was out working.
Back at the eighth hole, the president of Tomioka—the third player on Shiroyama’s ninth team—was already standing at the tee.
“Oh, excuse me. My turn is next,” he said to Suzuki and took off with his wood in hand.
Shiroyama returned to the game, but of course he was distracted and ended up with a double bogey for both the eighth and ninth holes. Even Kurata seemed to have bogeyed on the ninth, a par-three.
After they had finished the front nine, the Hinode staff gathered in a separate room, but the executives and employees alike were dumbstruck. Anything related to Okada had always been handled by Suzuki and Kurata behind the scenes, and even though they received summarized reports at board meetings, most of the members thought of it as someone else’s concern—even Shiroyama himself felt that way, to some extent. It was understandable then that at the level of branch offices and sales offices, they had an even more uncertain grasp of the situation.
Meanwhile Kurata, with the typically placid, torpedo-like façade he wore in public, offered nothing more than a brief explanation of the situation and instructions regarding their response to each of Toei’s clients. It was decided that President Suzuki and Shiroyama would make an appearance at the wake that would likely be held by the deceased’s family as soon as that evening.
Shiroyama himself simply announced that tomorrow morning’s board meeting would take place an hour earlier than usual, at eight o’clock. In addition to the existing meeting agenda, they would need to discuss new security precautions for executives.
“Well then, please go to lunch. Explain to your distributors as instructed. Thank you.”
They adjourned after less than five minutes, and Shiroyama and Suzuki, who had to return to Tokyo, hastily changed their clothes and set out for the ride home in a company car. Shiroyama, feeling the need to bolster his darkening spirits, tried to think about their new product for next spring, a second lager that was currently in the testing phase. He would like to think that sales of the new product would be at least fifty million cases within the first year, especially if they hoped to reinvigorate the sluggish beer business. He preferred to occupy his mind with such things, but with Suzuki there with him, he could hardly afford to do so.
“By the way, last week I saw S. at a party for the LDP,” Suzuki started to say, once they were in the car. “He said their coalition government will be crushed sooner or later, so he’s counting on me in the event of a general election. I’ve never heard him speak so bluntly.”
“Did he mean to say that a fundraising ticket is not enough?”
“It seemed that way. I have no idea what he must be thinking at a time like this, while rumors are swirling around after the Ogura scandal. If you happen to see him anytime soon, you’d better watch out, too. There’ll be trouble if the likes of Tamaru get involved.”
“I’ll decline anything other than a fundraising ticket.”
“If only it were so easy.”
“We need to at least make our intentions clear.”
Shiroyama felt hollowed out, forced to juxtapose the thought of the second lager—their single beacon of hope—with his feelings of self-reproach and loathing toward the less-than-idealistic corporate culture. But the brazenness that required him to deliberately set aside his true feelings—that was something he had mastered in the last four years.
3
Seizo Monoi
“Monoi-san, shaved ice!” From inside the store, the lady pharmacist called out to him. “Strawberry or melon syrup—which do you want?”
Her loud voice flew past Monoi’s head and evaporated in the scorching sunlight as he watered down the sidewalk.
“None for me. You go on ahead,” Monoi called back after a moment, then looked down at the morning glories beneath the woven reed shade. In the intense heat of the summer they were having, the flowers were only about three centimeters wide, and though they bloomed early each morning, by the time he opened the store at nine, they were already wilted and drooping. Whenever he saw the morning glories bearing up under the blazing sunshine, their vines creeping limply outward, Monoi could not help but wonder if the plant, not long for this world, was satisfied with its life, and before he knew it he would be muttering to himself before the morning glories.
The lady pharmacist, picking at her hundred-yen shaved ice, popped her head out from the store and remarked, “If you keep staring at those wilty flowers, the bluesbug will get you.”
Reasoning that it was best to avoid the heat of the day, she always visited the shopping district before ten in the morning and brought back things like shaved ice and kudzu mochi. She would consume these sweets and then still manage to polish off two servings of somen noodles for lunch.
“Now, you’ll get heatstroke if you stand out in the sun like that. Come inside and have some barley tea. I’m going to cook somen noodles for lunch soon.”
“I don’t need any lunch today. I’ll have a little ochazuke before I head over to Akigawa.”
“But you just went there yesterday. And in this heat—you sure are odd.”
“You’ll understand when you get to be my age.”
“I’ll be sixty soon myself, but who wants to think about what’s ahead?” The lady
pharmacist spoke with a mouthful of shaved ice, then went back inside. He could hear the television in the living room at the back of the store; a broadcast of the high school baseball tournament was playing. Monoi tipped his bucket over to pour the remaining water onto the asphalt and realized that it was in fact only yesterday when he last went to Akigawa.
Monoi did not have the blues—he just had a lot on his mind. Several matters had presented themselves each of which needed to be addressed, and lacking specific feelings about any of them, he simply divided his day at random, based on his physical strength, so that he could tackle them one by one. Watering the sidewalk repeatedly, tending to the morning glories, lunching on somen noodles, visiting Seiji Okamura at the special care nursing home in Akigawa every other day—all of these followed the same rhythm.
Monoi returned to the living room and sat down before the family Buddhist altar. He rang the small bell, joined his hands in prayer, and then put away the bowl of white rice he had offered that morning. There were so many departed souls—his wife, Yoshie; his grandson, Takayuki; his son-in-law, Hatano; the grandparents and parents from his ancestral village—all of whom had to make do with sharing a single bowl as an offering. But when he thought about it, it was strange that his older brother Seiji Okamura was not among them. A man whom he heard had died forty years ago was still alive, while the ones who should still be alive had passed away.
Pouring barley tea over the same bowl of cold rice he had removed from the altar, he took out some pickled gourd and eggplant and ate a simple lunch while ruminating on the reason he meant to visit the nursing home in Akigawa two days in a row.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 21
