East is East

by Emma Lathen

  The hostess was making it easy.

  “But, Carl,” she objected, “how can you hope to do business in that kind of environment when everything we hear suggests that it’s rotten with corruption and crime?”

  “Now come on, Helen, you don’t want to generalize from one incident.”

  “I’m not talking about one incident,” she said, falling into the trap. “They themselves admit that there’s bribery and worse involved in your application for Lackawanna. Then Shima has just confessed to payoffs in its export operation. And on top of that, we have the scandals about Recruit.”

  Kruger was at his most benevolent.

  “I’m not denying all that. But look at the other side of the coin. Sure, somebody tried to keep me out of Japan by bribery, but it was the Japanese who found out about it and moved to investigate. I grant you that they lost their heads at first,” he said magnanimously, “but they’re on the right track now.”

  “You’re saying that there are corrupt Japanese and honest Japanese in the business world over there,” she said, conscientiously boiling it down for her audience.

  If she had been listening more carefully, she would have realized that he was saying—not surprisingly—that the bad Japanese were his opponents and the good ones were his supporters.

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “In fact, it’s the same over there as it is here. In the past few years we’ve had plenty of our cabinet members called on their business dealings, and as for insider trading . . .” He spread his hands disarmingly. “I don’t have to tell you about that, Helen.”

  Helen was finding Carl Kruger the ideal guest. He accepted her knowledgeability without every putting it to any embarrassing test. It is, after all, the business of a talk show host to assume a stance midway between the expertise of the guest and the ignorance of the viewers. Helen gratefully nodded appreciation of Kruger’s tribute and pushed on.

  “Well, if people had practically accused me of murder and thrown me out of the country without a chance to say a word in my defense, I don’t think I’d be that forgiving.”

  Kruger shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I’m no saint. I was threatening a lot of things at the time. But I’ve cooled down, and so have they. I’m willing to bet they realize they did the wrong thing by now.”

  Involuntarily Bennet Alderman sucked in his breath, but he need not have worried. Carl Kruger did not explain why the Japanese were being forced to reconsider.

  “All right, we’ll be charitable and say it was a momentary lapse.” By now Helen sounded as if she were urging an admirer of all things Japanese to modify his position! “But Shima didn’t slip those microchips abroad during a fit of absence of mind. What do you say about that?”

  “Naturally I don’t like to see American technology stolen.” It is not only questions that are prepared prior to broadcast. we expected a dogfight, but that was no excuse to back off. Where would Lackawanna be today if we folded whenever the going got tough?”

  “You may have expected a fight, but did you expect bribery and murder?” the hostess pressed, bringing them down to earth.

  “Of course not. Who would? And we didn’t like being thrown out of the country on the grounds that we were the ones responsible. When you set off for a business negotiation, you don’t think you’re being set up for a murder rap.”

  Bennet Alderman, following one of the monitors offstage, nodded approvingly. Carl was not only getting his message across; he was making it look as if Helen had forced it out of him.

  The previous day, Alderman had spent over two hours on the phone with one of the program’s researchers, whose function was to prime Helen about Kruger’s background, personal style, and newsworthiness. This exchange was an opportunity to skew the program in a favorable direction. But Alderman knew perfectly well that the final result depended on Carl Kruger’s performance, and Carl was doing a brilliant job.

  The hostess was making it easy.

  “But, Carl,” she objected, “how can you hope to do business in that kind of environment when everything we hear suggests that it’s rotten with corruption and crime?”

  “Now come on, Helen, you don’t want to generalize from one incident.”

  “I’m not talking about one incident,” she said, falling into the trap. “They themselves admit that there’s bribery and worse involved in your application for Lackawanna. Then Shima has just confessed to payoffs in its export operation. And on top of that, we have the scandals about Recruit.”

  Kruger was at his most benevolent.

  “I’m not denying all that. But look at the other side of the coin. Sure, somebody tried to keep me out of Japan by bribery, but it was the Japanese who found out about it and moved to investigate. I grant you that they lost their heads at first,” he said magnanimously, “but they’re on the right track now.”

  “You’re saying that there are corrupt Japanese and honest Japanese in the business world over there,” she said, conscientiously boiling it down for her audience.

  If she had been listening more carefully, she would have realized that he was saying—not surprisingly—that the bad Japanese were his opponents and the good ones were his supporters.

  “That’s right,” he agreed. “In fact, it’s the same over there as it is here. In the past few years we’ve had plenty of our cabinet members called on their business dealings, and as for insider trading . . .” He spread his hands disarmingly. “I don’t have to tell you about that, Helen.”

  Helen was finding Carl Kruger the ideal guest. He accepted her knowledgeability without every putting it to any embarrassing test. It is, after all, the business of a talk show host to assume a stance midway between the expertise of the guest and the ignorance of the viewers. Helen gratefully nodded appreciation of Kruger’s tribute and pushed on.

  “Well, if people had practically accused me of murder and thrown me out of the country without a chance to say a word in my defense, I don’t think I’d be that forgiving.”

  Kruger shrugged his shoulders. “Look, I’m no saint. I was threatening a lot of things at the time. But I’ve cooled down, and so have they. I’m willing to bet they realize they did the wrong thing by now.”

  Involuntarily Bennet Alderman sucked in his breath, but he need not have worried. Carl Kruger did not explain why the Japanese were being forced to reconsider.

  “All right, we’ll be charitable and say it was a momentary lapse.” By now Helen sounded as if she were urging an admirer of all things Japanese to modify his position! “But Shima didn’t slip those microchips abroad during a fit of absence of mind. What do you say about that?”

  “Naturally I don’t like to see American technology stolen.” It is not only questions that are prepared prior to broadcast. Carl Kruger had a very important answer ready for delivery. But he was enough of a gambler to wait for a better cue.

  Fortunately Helen, like all good interrogators, had the instincts of a terrier. Faced with a brief, indifferent reply, she immediately began to dig.

  “Isn’t that just lip service? After all, you’re an advocate of free trade with all restrictions lifted.’’

  Now it was the program’s research team holding its breath, as Helen toppled on the brink of exposing ignorance. The grunt that came from Kruger, however, could equally have signaled earnest preparation for a more complete reply or sheer satisfaction at a risk paying off.

  “Look, I deal in technology myself. I’m saying that when you’ve developed technology, you have the right to decide on the conditions or the forms in which you’ll dispose of it. And if people won’t abide by your terms, then it’s only sense to look for customers who will.”

  Some people make their living by flicking red capes in front of fighting bulls. Kruger, who knew his words would be rebroadcast in Tokyo, was willing to dangle Korea before select members of that audience.

  Helen, of course, thought he was answering her question.

  “Then you think we shouldn’t sell export-control items
to Shima anymore?”

  “I say the United States government has got the right to do whatever it thinks is in its own best interest. I don’t know what they’ll decide that is. And let’s not forget there could be extenuating circumstances. Maybe it was just a case of some Shima employee trying to make his sales record look good. I certainly hope so.”

  “But the problem’s a lot bigger than Shima,” she said, pursuing her objective. “Your proposal to enter the Japanese market has to be approved by officials we know take payments under the table.”

  “Now hold your horses just one little minute. You’ve cleverly gotten around the fact that those handouts were not illegal in Japan.”

  Helen was glad to hear him accuse her of diabolical cunning. Because the little red light that had come on at her reference to free trade was once again blinking. Twice in one interview was below her normal standard. Happily Carl Kruger was busy towing her out of whatever depths she had floated into.

  “If you want to compete on the international scene, you can’t run around applying your own laws or even your own morality. Different cultures have different usages. Come on, Helen, you’ve read all that stuff about how the Japanese, when they come over here, bend over backward to accommodate themselves to local custom. I admire that, and I plan to act the same way when I start doing business in Japan. It’s the only way to go. That’s why I’m so pleased that Yonezawa Trading Company will be handling our warehousing and distribution over there, and I suppose that’s why Shima has taken an American partner to help with its plans for Alaska.”

  Helen glided gracefully away from the sudden intrusion of Alaska. She was taking no chances on a red-light score of three.

  “All right, I agree that technically it’s not illegal. So is it one of those local customs you’re prepared to adopt?” she challenged, giving her audience a glimpse of the feisty Helen they admired.

  Smiling, Kruger shook his head. “Unlike Recruit, we’re not issuing stock—I’m glad to say.”

  On a roll, she continued her counterattack. “And if issuing stock way below its value to politicians is so much in accord with local usage, why is the story the year’s biggest exposé over there?”

  With the end in sight, he could afford to abandon the expert-to-expert approach. Grinning broadly, Kruger became a man of the world, explaining the facts of life.

  “Oh, now that they’ve found out what was going on, they’re going to have to make it illegal.”

  Helen might be weak on Japan’s criminal code, but she knew exactly how to handle men of the world.

  With an infectious gurgle of laughter, she threw up her hand in the classic gesture of one duelist acknowledging a tricky touch by the other and immediately began thanking Kruger for his appearance.

  When the commercial break began and Carl Kruger surrendered his chair to the representative of the Harlem Glee Club School (currently sending over ninety-five percent of its graduates on to college), Bennet Alderman added up the tally on his clipboard. The results were not quite what he had hoped for. True, Carl had managed, on five separate occasions, to admit that his opponents had bribed a ministry representative. By now nobody in the audience was likely to remember that the identity was still very much an open question. He had also made it abundantly clear that he was ready to forgive and forget. So far Alderman was with him.

  “But why all the other stuff?” he protested as the two men were leaving the studio.

  “Just punching it home that the forgiveness is conditional on getting my way. Otherwise . . . all hell breaks loose.”

  Kruger was moving along so buoyantly that Alderman had to scurry to keep up.

  “But the idea was to paint yourself as a victim—a guy who went over there with good intentions and got burned by a bunch of crooks. Why drag Alaska into it? Why waste time on export control? It just dilutes the impact.”

  Tolerantly Kruger explained: “You’ve got to broaden your horizons, Bennet. I wasn’t just talking to Americans. The guys in Japan are sitting on a tinderbox. The minister is wondering whether he’ll keep his seat in the cabinet. The rest of the cabinet is wondering whether the Prime Minister will be bounced. They were all edgy about trade agreements even before we went over. Now they’re afraid it’ll all blow up in their faces. On top of that, Iwamoto has laid himself wide open just as he’s planning a new operation on American soil, and Arai should already have heard from his people in London. That’s a lot of heat going on, and I want to keep it boiling.”

  Alderman, still mutinous, could see one objection.

  “Does it ever occur to you, Carl, that it’s possible to think too big?”

  Carl Kruger only had to mount one response to the Shima scandal. John Thatcher, however, was wearing two hats. As a creditor of Lackawanna, he applauded Kruger’s opportunism and hoped to benefit from it. But many incoming telephone calls reminded him that the Sloan Guaranty Trust had other obligations.

  From Anchorage, Alaska, Len Ridgeway had been bellowing down the long-distance lines on a nonstop basis. What penalties were going to be assessed against Shima? Would they just ban sales, or would they hit capital investments too? And if the joint venture were allowed, could its offspring sell to Japan? The idiots in his legal department had been unable to come up with a definite answer.

  “Well, the idiots in our law department can’t say, either,” Thatcher replied soothingly. “The fact is, nobody knows. Every time this sort of thing happens, the pressure for major sanctions increases.”

  If the newspapers in Alaska were anything like those in the effete south, Thatcher reflected, there were editorials galore comparing Japanese industry, cosseted by its government at every turn, to the lonely, shivering American company, naked to the blast.

  Ridgeway was feeling the chill.

  “Look,” he said, “I like the deal with Shima, but I can live without it. All I want to know is where I stand. Is that too much to ask?”

  “You’ll know when they go to court.”

  “That’s the problem. Haven’t you heard?” Ridgeway yelped, outraged at Thatcher’s ignorance. “They’ve just announced the date, and it’s not for two weeks.”

  The other party to the Alaskan deal was even more unhappy, as Thatcher learned within fifteen minutes.

  Failing to recognize the voice, Thatcher at first thought that Miss Corsa had slipped up in her iron policy of demanding a principal on the line. The dead monotone did not sound like Rick Iwamoto in either of his previous incarnations—the scrappy underdog in Tokyo or the jubilant guest glad-handing the VIPs of Anchorage.

  “John, have you heard that they’ve set the court date?”

  Even under stress, Iwamoto silently conceded that the Sloan might have other concerns. This put him way ahead of Len Ridgeway.

  “Yes, Rick; it’s in two weeks.”

  “I want to know if this is a squeeze play,” Iwamoto said bluntly. “Yonezawa and the ministry people are leaving for England tomorrow. I get the feeling that you people over there are saying that if the MR deal falls through, Shima is going to pay through the nose.”

  A marriage broker has many duties. The Sloan had brought Shima and Ridgeway together. And normally its role would have ended when the two parties reached agreement. But when unforeseen problems arise before the happy couple has marched down the aisle, work begins anew. The more the matchmaker knows, the wiser his advice.

  “The sooner I know, the better.”

  Thatcher controlled the temptation to say that this went double for Len Ridgeway.

  Chapter 18

  Among those planning to fly to Heathrow because of the renewed Midland Research hearings, Fumitoshi Arai was the first to set forth. As word of his departure spread, it caused astonishment in many quarters. Although Arai was not as immobile as he led the world to believe, he rarely left Japan, and it had been many years since he had strayed as far as Europe. His reluctance to travel had less to do with his increasing years than with Yonezawa’s managerial structure. All impo
rtant decisions received the personal scrutiny of Mr. Arai. As the company’s activities multiplied, the need for his presence increased.

  “You’re kidding,” Stan Zaretski said upon hearing the news.

  “What’s more, he left a couple of days early,” the embassy aide continued.

  “Then who’s minding the store? He sure as hell isn’t letting his vice-presidents call the shots.”

  His crony was enjoying the role of informant.

  “Arai’s taken a whole office staff with him. I figure they keep in touch with home base while the old man rests up from the trip. That way he’ll be in fighting trim by the time MITI and Lackawanna show up. What puzzles me is why he’s going at all. Do you think it could be simple human curiosity?”

  Zaretski refused to believe there was anything simple about Arai. “No, that’s not it. But he knows we’ve already had two wild pitches thrown from these MR hearings. The first one landed on Lackawanna, and the second one hit Shima. Just on probability alone, he could be worried that Yonezawa will be beaned next.”

  “Or mathematics has nothing to do with it. Maybe,” the crony reasoned, “Arai knows exactly what’s coming.”

  “If he did, he could instruct a subordinate. It’s more likely he doesn’t have a clue.” Zaretski plucked his lower lip thoughtfully as he pondered Arai’s motivation. “When MITI found itself landed with a corpse, everybody was shook up. The Japanese knew nothing like it had ever happened over here. Now they’ve had time to discover it never happened in the States, either. That means there’s a real loony running around, and logic is out the window. Nobody can foresee the next act. Matsuda may bare his breast and tell the world who bribed him. Rick Iwamoto may decide to commit hara-kiri in front of the whole pack.”

  It made sense to the crony.

  “No wonder Arai wants to be on the spot.”

  Fumitoshi Arai was carrying out his program of rest and rehabilitation in the same hotel that housed Gene Fleming. But while the Yonezawa staff maintained a constant vigil over doings back in Tokyo, Gene had been immersed in different concerns.