“Shiroyama-san. Isn’t lying to the police the same thing as consenting to the criminals’ demand? It may not be necessary to cooperate fully with the police, but it solves nothing to tell them six hundred million when it’s two billion, or to conceal the hostage situation,” said one of the executives, offering his harsh opinion.
“People are saying Hinode has already paid the money or that some backroom deal has been made,” said another.
“That’s what the police suspect us of, anyway,” said another.
“The newspapers have already made up their minds,” said yet another.
To all this Shiroyama replied, “I’m very aware of all this.”
“Shiroyama-san. You say that you told the police what you did because the criminals said they were holding the beer hostage, but that’s not entirely logical. If the beer is being held hostage, we can’t possibly protect the company without support from the police,” said another executive.
“I understand your point exactly, but if I were to tell the police that the beer has been taken hostage and that fact leaks to the papers, that cannot be undone. There is no option but to protect our products ourselves. We’re already in the midst of the summer sales season, so it’s imperative that whatever measures we take will not startle our distributors and consumers.”
“Does that mean you think there is no chance the criminals will be captured—?”
“No, but the reason the police don’t have any leads has nothing to do with me not accurately conveying the ransom. And so long as there is no guarantee that the criminals will be captured anytime soon, I feel it’s best for us to take precautions against their threats and make the best decisions possible as we go. I don’t feel that I have consented to their demands.”
“Do you really believe the criminals will make contact?”
“I do believe they will—it’s the sense I got from what they said.”
The questioning broke off there, but murmured complaints—“I can’t believe this” or “Why did it have to be Hinode?”—bubbled up before silence bore down on the room again.
“Gentlemen. Please take this opportunity to share your thoughts and opinions here frankly,” Shirai prompted.
“Can we really go through with the shareholders meeting with these rumors of a backroom deal?”
“I don’t think there is any need to get into details at the shareholders meeting.”
“But what if they actually do poison our products? Perhaps we should consider paying the two billion—”
“No, at this stage it’s too soon to come to a decision.”
“If we are going to reject their demand, then we should have cooperated fully with the police from the start.”
“But if there’s no chance that the criminals will be arrested—”
“Whatever the case, we have to avoid allowing it to affect orders during the high-demand season,” said one of the executives from the Kurata faction.
For the time being, each executive held fast to his own argument, and the dearth of ideas—an utter failure to see the big picture and make a commanding decision—was nothing out of the ordinary. As Shiroyama took in the discussion, which spun in circles like a yacht that could not set its direction, his own mind shut down any attempt to reach a decision. He was in no position to opine about the disorderly scene before him in which the executives, rather than showing any sense of crisis, instead revealed glimmers of their ulterior motives, their eyes on the next regime. Shiroyama just sat amid the board of directors, bearing the lie he had told that would force the company to unrightfully pay out two billion, and even as he did so, he was losing sense of the reality surrounding him bit by bit, until he no longer knew how he had come to be there—how he had been kidnapped; how intently he had deliberated, then wavered, and finally made a decision; the fact that he was deceiving the public and his company; the fact that he was president; and the fact that he was sitting there now.
And even though I lied, what does it matter when the lie is so small that it’s nothing compared to three-and-a-half million kiloliters of beer? It may seem I did it to save my niece and her family, but what are Yoshiko and Tetsushi to me? Did I return here for the sake of my company, or for my family?
Shiroyama knew he could only answer the last question. He was not doing this for anyone’s sake—he simply had not had the courage to die.
“Everyone, no doubt the president is tired tonight, so let’s start wrapping things up,” Kurata broke in.
“I’ll conclude,” Shiroyama said in response. “Everyone, I’ll be brief. Right now, what is being asked of us is this: how will we get through this violent crisis, as a corporation; how will we minimize the damage; and how will we keep this incident from interfering with our operations. With these as a premise, for today I have refrained from disclosing everything to the police, to leave room to negotiate with the crime group, should worse come to worst. I ask you to accept this point. If you have any objections please raise your hand.”
No one did.
“Next, as to how we should respond to the crime group’s subsequent movements, I would like to monitor the progress of the investigation for about a week, then have another discussion and reach a decision. Any objections? No? Then I’ll assume it’s approved. Next, let’s discuss whether to take this opportunity to step up our crisis management and strengthen our company’s general security preparedness. I will ask Kotani and the security company as well as the point person for security from each sector to come up with proposals for the necessary measures and cost for each stage—production, distribution, and wholesale—as soon as possible. With those materials in hand, I would like us to reconvene early next week to analyze our plan. How does that sound?”
“Allow me to confirm one thing before we finish.” The man who spoke was Kenji Otani, managing director of the pharmaceutical business division, one of the five executives who had refused to make eye contact with Shiroyama at the beginning of the meeting. Otani was a man who had driven the pharmaceutical division by demonstrating outstanding leadership abilities in new drug development but, it must be said, his was the kind of intellect, having never experienced setbacks or failure, that did not have the same application outside his field of research.
Otani bluntly inquired about what the rest of the executives—save for Shirai before the meeting—had been too discreet to ask. “Shiroyama-san. Is the target of the crime group’s threat truly Hinode Beer?”
“Yes,” Shiroyama answered tersely. “If you have any other questions, please speak up. If not, that’s all from me. Once again, I’m grateful for your continued understanding and cooperation.”
Following Shiroyama’s concluding remarks, Shirai reiterated, “Well then, gentlemen, please keep what was discussed here tonight confidential.” By the time the group dispersed it was quarter past eight in the evening.
When Shiroyama returned to his office, the plate of leftover food and beer glass had been cleared away, and there was a note that Ms. Nozaki had left for him under the light of his desk lamp. I hope you will be able to get some rest today. Before you leave, please dial 2102 and, for caution’s sake, someone from the corporate secretariat will accompany you out.
Shiroyama sat down in his chair and stared at the light from the lamp that fell upon the documents and notes arranged on his desk. He felt out of sorts with himself, in a daze caused by his unsettled mood and an excess of futile thoughts that whirred through his mind and made his head feel like it would burst. The fact that he had been kidnapped, out of the blue, and the enormous sum of two billion demanded of him. The question of whether it was right or wrong to bend to such an unreasonable demand and hide the truth from his company and the public. The uncertainty of his own grasp of everything that had happened to lead up to this point.
He had nowhere for such thoughts to reside. Although the room he sat in was familiar, the air around
him seemed to percolate with energy, and as he was struck by a sense of impending doom, without realizing it Shiroyama had reached for the phone and began dialing numbers randomly. The first call he made was to the office of the general manager of the beer division on the twenty-ninth floor.
“Kurata-san? This is Shiroyama. I am so sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you these last three days. Please know that I deeply appreciate all of your efforts. I apologize for not being able to take the time to sit down and talk with you today.”
“No, I should be the one to apologize. I made such a careless remark when I was in your office today.”
“I hope we can continue to work together going forward. I urge you not to shoulder all these burdens on your own. If there’s anything going on make sure you talk to me. Please.”
“You needn’t worry so much about me, Shiroyama-san. I’m sure you’re exhausted so please get some rest tonight.”
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“I appreciate the call.”
This exchange of banal pleasantries took up barely a minute of their time before Shiroyama put down the receiver. Shiroyama felt a guarded sense of hesitation in Kurata’s response, just as he had sensed two hours earlier. Perhaps the man really could have had some kind of recalibration during the last three days.
Shiroyama wondered what he had been expecting anyway—from people. From society. From a corporation.
With these questions echoing in his head, Shiroyama turned to look at the nightscape outside his window and recalled that he had taken in a similar view the night he first spoke to his niece about her classmate Takayuki Hatano. The uncertainty of life that had plagued him then had now been transformed into a pitch-dark hollow that yawned at his feet. The black void was indicative of how, in the seventy-two hours spanning from Friday evening, when a large black shape surged in front of him as he approached his front door, until now, there was nothing concrete or tangible save for a single photo of a member of his family. The photograph had split his life cleanly in two, and it seemed to him that the version of himself who sat here now would have been unimaginable to him just three days ago—a gutless fool who had lost the coherence of his life. Suddenly it occurred to him that the dentist must have felt like this when he had learned of his son’s death in a car accident, but that event from the fall of 1990, having already drifted to the far side of the void, caused him no real pangs of regret.
This time, the call Shiroyama placed was to an outside number.
“Yamazaki-san? It’s Shiroyama.”
On the other end of the line, his driver, Tatsuo Yamazaki, was unable to put his emotions into words, only muttering, “I’m sorry . . . so sorry . . .”
“So much has happened, I know, but as you can tell I have returned safely, so don’t worry yourself too much. I will look forward to seeing you again, once we’re through with the police questioning,” Shiroyama said, taking care of one call he needed to make to someone who had been on his mind.
Next he called home. His son, Mitsuaki, answered, exclaiming, “Oh, Dad!” He then shouted, “Mom! It’s Dad!” and Shiroyama heard the pitter-patter of footsteps echo through the hall.
In a tiny voice, Reiko barely managed to utter the words, “Thank goodness you’re safe—to think of everything you’ve been through!” before she was overcome by tears and fell silent. That put Shiroyama at a loss for words himself, though finally he managed to say, “It must have been terrible for you, too. How are you? Everyone all right? I should be home around ten,” sounding more agitated than he would have liked.
“Yes, we’re all just fine here. I’ve prepared a bath for you. Shoko will arrive home tomorrow. Mitsuaki says he’ll stay the night here too. Oh, and Yoshiko and her husband called and said they just want to hear your voice, so they asked for you to call once you’re home.”
“All right. I’ll be there in a little while.”
The gentle voices of his son and wife soothed his ears, but while listening to them Shiroyama had contemplated the eventual ripple effects that the incident would have on his family, and the moment he replaced the receiver, he was rattled by the sudden desire to flee to a deserted island.
Then, giving in to a temptation that had lingered in a corner of his mind for the past two and a half hours, he made another call. The recipient was a bureaucrat working in a central government ministry who shared Shiroyama’s distaste for the convivial requirements of his job. Shiroyama knew from experience there was little chance he would be out drinking at this hour, and as expected he reached Kiyoshi Iwami in the commissioner-general’s office of the NPA.
“Iwami-san? It’s Shiroyama from Hinode.”
“Ah, Shiroyama-san! I’m so relieved to hear from you. Your safe return seems to have saved our necks around here. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Thank you, I’m perfectly fine. I understand you called as soon as you heard the news and I just wanted to thank you.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that. Fifty-six hours and the police barely managed to do anything effective—shame on us. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been for you. I haven’t left my post here since hearing about the incident, and have been getting updates on the progress of the investigation.”
Iwami’s way of speaking conveyed none of the typical bureaucrat’s cloaking of intimidation with flattery nor the stodginess of someone in power; and yet his distinctive straightforwardness, which seemed to betray no intention or emotion whatsoever, made the listener all the more aware of the power of the police force.
In his student days Iwami had been the quintessential geek, always trudging diligently to and from the library, and after joining the NPA, he played the sycophant at alumni reunions, graciously pouring drinks for their classmates who now worked for the finance or construction ministries—but not once during those times had Shiroyama ever seen joy in Iwami’s eyes. When someone said that Iwami was a rising star in Public Security and that before long he would be promoted to bureau chief, and Shiroyama had marveled how Iwami’s small, flat head could accommodate such distrust in humanity, faith in state power, and savvy to navigate the bureaucracy. Last year Shiroyama had attended a private celebration for Iwami’s promotion from deputy commissioner general to commissioner-general after years of service as the head of Security Bureau, and it seemed to Shiroyama, having not seen Iwami for a long time, as if the mundanity was now gone from his former bland tactfulness. “Being at the top of the police is like finishing a game of sugoroku first. Once you’re done you’re just waiting around collecting the paperwork submitted by others while they finish the game,” the man had joked with an easygoing detachment, yet Shiroyama had the strong impression of him as a well-designed robot. Their colleagues in other government or corporate sectors seemed only more world-weary with every passing year, sinking deeper into their own turmoil, whereas the police appeared to function with increasing order and ease the higher one climbed up the ranks.
“Oh no, I’m quite grateful for all of the police’s efforts. It would be selfish to ask for more,” Shiroyama responded. “By the way, Iwami-san. It’s my opinion that Hinode Beer is entirely the victim in this incident, but do the police see things differently?”
“Don’t be absurd. Why do you ask? Have our investigators been out of line?”
“This is my first encounter with the police, so I wouldn’t know what’s considered out of line, but there’s no point in making a statement if what I say is not accepted as is.”
“That’s a misunderstanding. What you tell us is recorded word for word as testimony and we ask you to take a look and ensure there are no errors before it gets an official seal. So please don’t worry about that. The police are never swayed by what’s reported in the media.”
“I see. I do hope that is the case. Otherwise, doubt may spread throughout the corporate sector that we can’t be sure how much trust to place in t
he police’s response when we get embroiled in incidents like this.”
“Shiroyama-san. If you notice anything going forward, please know that you can always come to me. I’ll see to it that we don’t inconvenience you any further.”
“I appreciate your consideration. Thank you.”
Shiroyama set down the phone and applied the last of his perseverance to come to this realization: the reason every voice he had heard in the last few minutes—including those of his family members—seemed impossibly distant was because, quite simply, this was what it meant to become the victim of a crime. In the distance between himself—the man who had been informed by the criminals that three-and-a-half million kiloliters of beer had been taken hostage—and the rest of the world, rifts were developing everywhere.
I see, so this is what it feels like to be a victim. Shiroyama went through a long and meandering thought process in order to settle upon such a trivial conclusion.
Finally, he took out a sheet of company letterhead and a fountain pen to draft the speech he would give to the assembly of executives early tomorrow morning.
Shiroyama hunched over his desk, and within about half an hour he had written a decidedly mediocre speech for the morning assembly. “We all should be aware that it is the individual employee who can protect our company, without succumbing to the violent act targeting us . . .” He reminded himself as always that the duty of a manager was not to lecture employees about a specific theory but rather to inspire them to come up with a specific theory of their own, and he put down his pen and put away the stationery. He stared at the clock that read half past nine and thought, I’m so tired, so dead tired.
He sat in a daze for ten or fifteen minutes, without the energy to even lift a finger, before he finally made a call to the corporate secretariat as Ms. Nozaki’s note had requested. Upon arriving downstairs at the underground parking lot, he found that more people than he had expected—a driver and three male employees—were waiting for him by his car. According to one of the employees, whose face betrayed his consternation, over a hundred reporters had been staked out in front of Shiroyama’s home in Sanno since early this morning. His family had not been able to step foot outside, he said, so it would be impossible for him to get out of the car without an escort.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 50
