久保晴久 Haruhisa Kubo
At half past seven Takeuchi, the cop from Marunouchi Police Department who was Haruhisa Kubo’s source, and Kitagawa, an assistant police inspector from Fukagawa Police Department who came along with him, showed up at the small Japanese restaurant in Funabashi, ascending to a tatami room on the second floor.
“Hello.” Takeuchi appeared first, sliding open the fusuma door and popping his head in, then bowing slightly with a sheepish grin. He called to the inspector behind him to follow. Kitagawa, taking his cue from Takeuchi, bowed his head and said hello in the same way. Kubo, who had been waiting for the two men, sat formally with his legs tucked beneath him and returned the greeting, thanking them for coming. “Pleasure’s all mine,” Takeuchi, who was used to these encounters, affably waved off Kubo’s formality. He then urged the inspector to sit down while he himself promptly took a cross-legged seat at the head of the table. Two or three seconds of awkward silence followed as Kubo sat facing the two detectives while they wiped their hands with hot towels.
“Please, have some beer.” The silence was broken by a female server who came in and filled each of their glasses. “I’ll be right back with the meal.” The men waited until she was gone before launching into casual pleasantries. It’s sure been cold lately. Where are you going to see the cherry blossoms this year?
Within Kubo’s realm of experience, for whatever reason, secret meetings with a source invariably started off in such a manner. And for him, this marked the beginning of a long few hours in which the thought that settled into the pit of his stomach was that he would be done for if he couldn’t get ahold of a story tonight.
“A lot of things being printed, huh? Six hundred million yen. They’ll contact Hinode later. And so on and so forth.”
Takeuchi, whom Kubo had known for going on three years, had quickly relaxed after a glass of beer. He broached the topic in a show of thoughtful consideration.
“Well, it’s the official word from the police so we have no choice but to print it accordingly. Ah, allow me,” Kubo said and topped up Kitagawa’s glass. Though unplanned, the beer they were drinking was Hinode Supreme. The inspector, who appeared to have never been in a situation like this, awkwardly followed Takeuchi’s lead, holding out his own glass and bowing his head as he thanked Kubo.
“I’m sure people will say whatever they want, but what we released came from the victim’s deposition so it’s difficult to say . . .” Just as Takeuchi carefully began to muddy the waters, the server returned with their meal.
“I hear the cherry blossoms will be late this year.” Kubo changed the topic.
“You, going cherry-blossom-viewing, Kubo-san?” Takeuchi laughed. “No way you have time for that.”
Once the server had set out the appetizers and disappeared, Kubo urged the two men to start eating. “Go ahead, please.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Takeuchi said, splitting his chopsticks, and the inspector did the same. After they had picked at the sea bream sashimi for a while, Takeuchi, who knew well enough how to return the favor of the dinner, pivoted the conversation to the main topic. “So, Kubo-san, this fellow here . . .”
“Name’s Kitagawa,” mumbled the inspector, since he hadn’t actually introduced himself to Kubo yet. The inspector had worked in records for CID at Shinagawa Police Department. He seemed about forty years of age, with reserved, contemplative eyes and a fair complexion that reddened at the cheeks. Kubo got the impression from the man’s rusticity that he must have been from Sendai or one of the prefectures farther north.
“Like I told you on the phone, Kitagawa says he remembers every case that was handled by the Shinagawa Department. It seems there was an incident from the nineties involving Hinode after all. Right?”
Urged on by Takeuchi, Kitagawa responded tentatively: “It was November 1990. A case of defamation and obstruction of business. Hinode had received letters and a tape from an unknown source, and they decided to file a complaint.”
“The letters and tape slandered Hinode?” Kubo asked.
“I didn’t see them in person, but I heard that the sender of the letter assumed the name of the Buraku Liberation League and it went on about employment discrimination at Hinode. The tape, on the other hand, was an audio recording of a letter in its entirety that had been sent to Hinode just after the war . . . That letter also mentioned the Buraku Liberation League.”
“Kubo-san, I told you on the phone, right?” Takeuchi cut in. “There’s a guy I know who worked out of Shinagawa Police Department back then. While the rest of us are up to our necks with work these days, he keeps yammering on about discrimination. Turns out this is what he was talking about.”
“Are you talking about Inspector Takahashi?” Kitagawa asked Takeuchi.
“No, Yamashita,” responded Takeuchi.
Kitagawa began muttering to himself. “Yamashita? I thought it was Handa who was working with Takahashi back then. Oh, that’s right. Yamashita took over after Handa.”
Takahashi, Handa, Yamashita—after committing the names of the three detectives from Shinagawa Police Department to memory, Kubo dug a little deeper. “Kitagawa-san, how did the investigation turn out after that?”
“We figured out who the sender of the letter was, so the chief ordered us to hear what the guy had to say, just in case. I think that was around the middle of November. An inspector named Takahashi from White Collar Crime and a detective named Handa who had been transferred over from Violent Crime went out first thing in the morning. They returned that evening, and they had arranged for the sender of the letter to come to the police station the next day so they could take down his statement. But that night the sender killed himself.”
“What was the name and occupation of the sender?”
“He was a dentist in Seijo. I’m sure you’ll find him if you look up Hatano Dental Clinic in a Setagaya phone directory from 1990. He had lost his son in a car accident a month prior, and I heard he had a nervous breakdown, convincing himself that his son had been the victim of employment discrimination during the hiring process at Hinode. I believe Hinode eventually retracted their complaint.”
“This tape you mentioned—the audio recording of a letter that was sent to Hinode after the war—whose letter was it?”
“Well, that much, I don’t . . .” Kitagawa responded vaguely. Kubo saw him hesitate and pressed on, “I’m sure it appeared in the official record.”
“Since the accused passed away, there was never an official record but—” Here Kitagawa paused and glanced over at Takeuchi. “Can I share this bit?”
“I told you, you can trust Kubo-san.” Takeuchi reached for some amaebi with his chopsticks.
Kitagawa lowered his voice a little and continued: “After the complaint was retracted, that inspector I told you about—Takahashi—made a written record of the conversation he had with the dentist—the sender of the letter—during the one and only time they met. I filed it in the register. There’s no mistake about that, since I did it with my own hands. I remembered the case when I heard about this abduction incident, so I called the Shinagawa Police Department and asked them to take a look at the book. But they told me the MPD had already come and taken it.”
“Meaning Investigation Headquarters already have the 1990 case in mind?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Kitagawa-san, do you remember what was in Takahashi’s written record?”
“I do but, sorry, I’d rather not say.”
“Yamashita said it was something to do with discrimination,” Takeuchi said, helping out.
“Yes, that’s true, but what’s more important is how on earth the dentist got hold of the letter sent to Hinode right after the war . . .”
“You mean there’s an issue with where it came from?”
“You could say that.”
“Does it have to do w
ith burakumin?” Takeuchi probed lightly.
Kitagawa smiled wryly in return and shook his head. “It’s more your métier, sir.”
“Oh, really? Kubo-san, it’s the corporate extortionists.”
“I see . . . That would explain why Investigation Headquarters hauled off the record book so quickly.” Kubo nodded, but his mind was a tangle, as if he had unwrapped a furoshiki cloth and could not figure out how to tie it back up again. Hadn’t his superior Negoro also told him, just that afternoon, that an anonymous tip they received over the phone had to do with discrimination involving Hinode and a labor dispute after the war? Could this anonymous letter that had been recorded on the tape in 1990 be connected somehow?
In any case, if the dentist had received the letter from corporate extortionists and members of the BLL had nothing to do with the 1990 case, it became certain that Hinode had been under some kind of threat, that maybe extortionists had attempted to blackmail the company at the time. It was also obvious that the extortionists were underlings with ties to the Okada Association.
However, a general notion had started to take shape over the last three days that the abduction of Hinode Beer’s president was not entangled with the shady underworld. If that were true, talk of the complaint case from 1990 could turn out to be a swing and a miss, but in any case, it nagged at Kubo that the shadow of discrimination seemed to flutter over a blue-chip corporation like Hinode.
Kubo pondered such things as he refilled the glasses of his two cohorts with Hinode Supreme. His own glass, on the other hand, was only half drained.
“Come to think of it, sir, since even I know about the 1990 case, there must be plenty of officers who are aware of it, too. Takahashi passed away last year, but I’m sure anyone who worked in Shingawa’s CID back then knows about it . . .” Kitagawa began again.
“I bet only a handful know what really happened,” Takeuchi responded, ever the superior. “Yamashita, at least—he had no idea.”
“I guess you could be right. The ones who knew were Takahashi and me and . . .”
“What about that Handa you mentioned? I’ve never met him.”
“Oh, him . . . I don’t think he’d get it either, now that you mention it. He was transferred over from Violent Crime and handled the case with Takahashi in the beginning, but he was completely useless when it came to the law. Takahashi begged the chief inspector to give him another partner and that’s when Yamashita took over . . .”
“You can’t expect a guy from Violent Crime to know commercial law, right?”
“True, true.” Kitagawa laughed.
At a lull in this exchange between colleagues, Kitagawa took the beer bottle and refilled Kubo’s glass. “As we were saying, other newspapers might already be onto the 1990 story,” he said dutifully. “If so, I do apologize.”
“No, no—there’s no need to worry about that. It’s a complicated story and I’ll need to back it up, so I probably wouldn’t be able to write about it any time soon. That’s something I ought to tell you up front,” Kubo said, making excuses for himself as well.
“That’s no problem. It’s not my story to break, so it’s up to you whether to write it or not. Aside from that, this sashimi is amazing!” Kitagawa said in the daft, cheerful way characteristic of precinct policemen, and eagerly wolfed down the locally caught sea bream. Kubo snuck a glimpse at his wristwatch, calculating the time left before his deadline for the morning edition and how long it would take to get back to the kisha club. “Well then, Takeuchi-san, Kitagawa-san. Shall we move on to the hot pot?” he said.
“Great idea. It’s still the season for hot pot when it’s this cold out,” Kitagawa replied.
Kubo called for the server, and soon a large plate of marbled Kobe beef and a pot brimming with hot water were set up on the low table. Kubo also ordered warmed saké for Takeuchi, and another beer per Kitagawa’s request. As for himself, Kubo finally emptied his glass of beer, washing down two slices of sashimi as a way to warm up his stomach for the hot pot ahead.
Now that the preparations had been made, it was time for round two. Kubo expertly slipped the ingredients into the pot, which he then offered to his guests as each item was cooked, all the while pouring more saké and beer, taking bites himself, and engaging in random, innocuous conversation. He knew the topic most likely to entice his companions was gossip inside the police force. Second most popular were tidbits and anecdotes that his sources wouldn’t know about the latest incidents emblazoning the front pages. Next up, the families of present company. Kubo wove all of these together, churning the conversation, making sure to lean in and listen whenever his associates were inspired to share.
That evening, Takeuchi grumbled about the case he was working on, leaking that it was about to be taken over by the District Prosecutor due to its involvement with the investigation of two bankrupt credit unions. Kitagawa, for his part, was more reserved since this was his first time meeting Kubo, but he was relaxed enough to laugh at himself when he explained that, since being transferred from CID to Crime Prevention, he was now creating slogans for an anti-sexual harassment campaign—“Look right, look left—be aware on the streets after dark” and “Threats to women are right before your eyes.”
The secret meeting ended before ten in the evening, and after putting the two men in their respective taxis with prepaid vouchers, Kubo climbed into his own hired car, which had been waiting for him. His belly was pleasantly full after two glasses of beer, hot pot, and the zosui porridge that followed, but his mind felt foggy, and he was uncertain whether it was from calm or confusion. Should he take the bait and go after the insinuations of discrimination that seemed to have trailed Hinode Beer since right after the war? Was it worthwhile to investigate the apparent fact that corporate extortionists had pressured Hinode back in 1990? And should he reconsider the assumption that the current abduction case had no ties to such underworld dealings? He remembered what Kitagawa had said: Other newspapers might already be onto the story.
“Oh, the cherry blossoms have started to bloom. See over there?”
Kubo heard the driver’s voice, and he glanced out the car window, but the blossoms on the trees failed to catch his attention. For now, he wanted to get a better handle on Hinode’s troubles from 1990. He took out his cell phone and, without a second to waste, started calling his sources.
根来史彰 Fumiaki Negoro
When Takeshi Kikuchi called back as promised, the sun was just beginning to set and Fumiaki Negoro was waking up from a nap. Even though his mind was still cloudy with sleep, Negoro immediately recognized Kikuchi’s distinctively gruff manner of speaking. I’d know that voice anywhere, he thought.
“Negoro-san? The case you mentioned,” Kikuchi said. “I looked up Toda’s full name. Are you ready? It’s Yoshinori Toda. Born 1916 in Saitama prefecture. He’s seventy-nine now.” Negoro thanked him, and Kikuchi retorted, “I don’t see the payoff in looking into an old geezer like him.” With that nebulous and enigmatic comment, he hung up.
A newspaper reporter never used words like “payoff” when it came to leads—it seemed to Negoro that a journalist who had been active until a few years ago wouldn’t utter them so casually. Even setting aside Kikuchi’s intentions for the moment, Negoro’s internal alarm kept flashing. His newspaperman’s curiosity had been piqued.
The notes he had just taken read, Born 1916, Saitama prefecture. First Negoro called the Hachioji bureau and left a message to page a reporter named Yabe and have him call Negoro. Yabe had called the main office that very morning about a lawsuit that had occurred in Saitama prefecture in 1940.
Then, while he waited for Yabe to call back, Negoro went to the archives and cracked open the bound compact editions of the newspaper from the years 1946 and 1947. He flipped through the pages, written with the old Japanese characters, from the period in which there was hardly a day when the word “dispute” did not appear in th
e headlines. He was looking for any mention of Hinode. At the same time, he also pulled out from the stacks any books on the history of the labor movement and materials about the National Federation of Beer Industry Workers Union. There was no record—either before or after the General Strike on February 1, 1947—of any large-scale labor-management conflicts at any of the beer companies that would have been worth reporting on in the pages of the national papers. The reality was that in those days beer companies had no time for labor disputes. Under the direction of GHQ, the Act for the Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power—or the Deconcentration Law, as it was called—was being deliberated in the Diet, and every beer company was facing an existential crisis: the establishment of said law meant that all major corporations, starting with Hinode, were poised to be split up and reorganized. Even when he finally found a mention of Hinode Beer, it was a minor, below-the-fold article from November 1947 about the unsworn witness questioning in the Lower House, during which Hinode Beer’s president had stated his opinion opposing the law.
Negoro took a closer look at this tiny article. The Deconcentration Law had personal relevance to him. Negoro was born in 1950 and, as early as he could remember, his father had worked in the personnel department at Fuji Iron & Steel. In fact, his father had barely managed to transfer to Fuji Iron & Steel from Japan Iron & Steel, which had been split up into four entities three years after the Deconcentration Law was approved in December 1947. Twenty years later his father would transfer again, this time to Nippon Steel Corporation, the result of a merger between Fuji Iron & Steel and Yawata Iron & Steel, where he remained until retirement. His father was now seventy-eight and fading into dementia, but memories from the turbulent years right after the war—a bewildered clerical worker with no discernable resources and a pregnant wife, wondering if every day would be his last on the job—were indelibly etched in his mind. The baby in his wife’s womb at the time was Negoro himself.
Lady Joker, Volume 1 Page 51
