Lady Joker: Volume 2

by Kaoru Takamura, Allison Markin Powell, Marie Iida

Genres: International Crime & Mystery; Thrillers

Synopsis

This second half of Lady Joker, by Kaoru Takamura, the Grand Dame of Japanese crime fiction, concludes a breathtaking saga of subterfuge, betrayal, and revenge gone wrong.
Inspired by the real-life Glico-Morinaga kidnapping, an unsolved case that terrorized Japan for two years, Lady Joker reimagines the circumstances of this watershed episode in modern Japanese history and brings into riveting focus the lives and motivations of the victims, the perpetrators, the heroes, and the villains.
As the shady networks linking corporations to syndicates are brought to light, the stakes rise, and some of the investigators, journalists, and other professionals fighting to manage this crisis will lose everything. Some even their lives. Will the culprits ever be brought to justice? More importantly—what is justice in a
capitalist society, where a price can be placed on a human life?

Release date: October 18, 2022

Publisher: Soho Crime

Print pages: 600

Sample

 

It was before 12:02 A.M. on May 8th, shortly after Kubo had returned from his check-in for the evening session, when he got a heads-up from the First Mobile Investigation Unit. His source, the assistant police inspector, said in a quick whisper, “Lady Joker’s on the move. They’ve demanded six hundred million in cash.”

“Lady—what?” Kubo grabbed a notepad that was nearby.

The assistant inspector repeated the English words. “Lady as in first lady. Then joker as in the trump card. Lady Joker. That’s what the crime group is calling themselves.”

Kubo passed around the notepad on which he had scribbled Hinode suspects = Lady Joker to his colleagues in the press nook, then resumed firing questions into the receiver. “Was the demand made with a letter or over the phone?”

“A sealed letter. In a business envelope. It was thrown inside the front gate of their Kyoto factory this morning.”

“What time was it discovered?”

“Five-thirty A.M. A guard found it.”

“What did it say? Please!”

“They want six hundred million in used bills. The handoff will take place at eleven P.M. on the ninth. A white station wagon will be used to transport the money. Only one person in the car. Location will be somewhere in Koto district. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Where will the car leave from? The main office? A branch office? A factory? We can tail it.”

“That’s the best I can do, sorry.” His source cut off there, but Kubo could guess that the white station wagon with the payload would leave from either Hinode’s main office, its Tokyo branch, Yokohama branch, or the Kanagawa factory, and they’d know which if they staked out all the possible locations. So long as it took place within the city limits of Tokyo’s twenty-three districts, the driver would only be able to go so fast on local streets or the highway, making it possible for them to tail the vehicle if they knew which one it was.

“Yes, yes!” Kuriyama shouted. Chief Sugano was barking orders, without missing a beat. “I’ll contact the Metro chief. Kubo, you work on the advance articles. Kuriyama and Kondo, you guys assemble the beat reporters, and Kagawa-kun, have a car ready so we can tail them!”

Thus, in the moments before the deadline for the final morning edition, the MPD press nook was suddenly galvanized. Even as they spread the road map of Koto district and began to determine stakeout positions near Hinode’s main office and branch offices, they fixated on the peculiarity of that name, Lady Joker.

“Sounds like what they’d call one of those local race horses.”

“Nah, a video game.”

“No, no, a female pro wrestler.”

Despite these quips, the name boggled their imaginations. A female joker, of all things.

The following morning, the 9th, at the regular press conference, the chief inspector of First Investigation spoke only about developments in their interrogation of leaders of the religious cult and their involvement in the subway poison-gas terror attack, and there was no sign from the rival papers that they had gotten hold of any leads related to Hinode.

Before noon, taking stock of information gathered from their reporters staked out at the various locations, the news crew determined that the highest number of unmarked police cars were deployed in the area around Hinode’s Tokyo branch office in Nishi-Shinjuku, and deduced that it must be the starting point. Working backward from the designated hour of 11 P.M., the time of departure would be shortly after ten, at the earliest. There being no hostage, it was unlikely that Hinode would use real bills, and given that this was the first money exchange, it was possible that the perpetrators themselves would be testing the waters, but it was certain that the police had surrounded the place with a substantial net. After sundown, a number of backup reserve and beat reporters began patrolling the major roads within Koto district on motorcycles or in private cars, searching for unmarked police investigation vehicles or two-wheelers that might be positioned for pursuit of the perpetrators.

Their hunt for police investigation vehicles did not produce any hits, but at 10:25 P.M., as predicted, a reporter on stakeout confirmed that a white station wagon drove out of the parking lot of the Tokyo branch office. Kubo received this call while in a hired vehicle en route to the official residence of the chief inspector of First Investigation in Himonya. The driver was alone. A man. Wearing a sleeveless undershirt. The reporter said there was no way to know whether the man was a detective or not. If the unseasonal sleeveless undershirt had been a directive of the perpetrators, then they must have been on guard against the wireless radio that cops wore beneath their jackets.

Inside the car tailing the white station wagon was Kubo’s colleague Kuriyama, wearing glasses that he normally did not wear. They needed someone with at least a passing knowledge of the police investigation, who would be able to distinguish the vehicles and motorcycles of the recently deployed SIT teams, as well as recognize the faces of members of the Mobile Investigation Unit deployed to the first and second lines.

At 10:48 P.M., Kubo received word that the station wagon had been steadily making its way toward, then had crossed, the Shin-Ohashi Bridge over the Sumida River. Once across that bridge, the landscape shifted. They were now in Koto district—a jumble of cheap wooden apartments, decrepit buildings, ryokans barely discernible from residential houses, small steel factories, warehouses, stores, and the like intersected by layers of industrial roads running north, south, east, and west. During the day, rows of desolate grey homes seemingly frozen in time could be seen along the industrial roads clogged with trucks and commercial traffic headed toward Chiba, but in the depths of night, aside from the scant roadside illumination from convenience stores, family restaurants, and vending machines, the entire area would be steeped in darkness, as if awash with ink. Kubo was able to imagine the scene there now, and the parade of headlights, by reeling in his memories of the locales he had scrounged around in his ten years as a reporter. He knew just what kind of place the station wagon carrying the payload was moving through now.

Twelve minutes left until the time specified by the perpetrators. At this time of night, it would take less than ten minutes to drive straight through Koto district. Where was the station wagon headed? Kubo’s hired car had just turned into a sidestreet off Meguro-Dori Avenue, but before making his way toward the official residence, Kubo at least wanted to figure out the station wagon’s destination, so he remained inside the car, awaiting word.

At 11:02 P.M., Chief Sugano called from the press nook. “The station wagon has entered the parking lot of the Skylark Restaurant just in front of Nishi-Ojima Station. What appear to be two unmarked MPD motorcycles are nearby . . .” It only took four, five minutes to go straight from Shin-Ohashi Bridge to Nishi-Ojima. The station wagon had apparently adjusted for time along the way, and had then pulled into the Skylark parking lot.

As family restaurants in industrial areas far from nightlife centers always tended to be, the Skylark Restaurant would no doubt be crowded with young local couples, and inside, SIT detectives posing as some of those couples must now have their eyes trained on the parking lot. Where would the SIT and Mobile Unit’s riders—specially trained in pursuit—be waiting astride their 400cc bikes? The parking lot? The shoulder of the road? Or in a nearby alley? There was no way that the perpetrators would suddenly appear, so undoubtedly they’d have the station wagon move on to yet another spot. Where will the next destination be?

Feeling his blood pressure creeping up, Kubo told the chief, “I’ve got to see Kanzaki now, so I’ll leave you to it,” and dashed out of his hired car.

These last four days of the Golden Week holiday, the chief of First Investigation had received reporters for the regular evening interview sessions seemingly out of stubbornness, and again tonight he had returned to his official residence, feigning nonchalance to deflect the media’s attention. Yet by the time Kubo rushed up to join the reporters, the line that normally assembled by company along the alley in front of the official residence after 10 P.M.had already dispersed, save for the reporters from two commercial broadcasting companies.

“You’re awful late tonight,” the network reporter at the end of the line said, throwing a skeptical look at Kubo.

“My car got into a fender bender,” Kubo replied with forced sulkiness as he stood in the alley darkness. He had to keep his head down to hide the excitement that was no doubt evident on his face.

Ten minutes later, Kubo was the last person to enter the drawing room of the official residence, where he came face to face with the chief inspector of First Investigation. Kanzaki appeared without his suit jacket on, and was not even seated in his usual armchair.

He came right out with it. “The accident with your hired car is a lie, isn’t it?”

“Well, sure.” Kubo let the question go and instead got quickly to the point. “More importantly, about the Lady Joker case.”

Kanzaki cast a withering glance as he sat down in his chair. “You have five minutes.”

“Chief Inspector. The crime group after Hinode is calling themselves Lady Joker, are they not?”

“We haven’t confirmed whether that is their name.”

“I heard that a letter demanding six hundred million was delivered to the Kyoto factory yesterday morning.”

“I neither deny nor confirm that.”

“About forty minutes ago, a white station wagon left Hinode’s Tokyo branch office in Shinjuku. And just now, the station wagon arrived at a certain place in the middle of Koto district.”

“As far as the police force is concerned, to print such things in a newspaper would amount to a malicious obstruction of our investigation. Besides, no matter how you were to write about it, there would be no way to avoid its having a negative impact on Hinode’s business activities. Freedom of the press only reaches so far.”

“If a cash demand has been made, it would dispel rumors of any backroom deals, and so writing about it might not seem like negative press for Hinode.”

“Backroom deals and whatnot are concerns of the investigation and the media. The fact that the case has not come to an end is what causes an overreaction by the consumers and in the share price.”

“You mean the case will not end with tonight’s money exchange?”

“I’m not saying that at all. Hinode is fully cooperating with the police investigation now, and supposing that a cash demand were to be made, apprehending the crime group would be our highest priority. I do not condone any act that would interfere with such efforts.”

“There would be no obstruction if I wrote about it after the money exchange took place. Both consumers and investors have a right to know the facts as soon as possible. I’m putting it in the morning edition.”

“Reporting it in the paper could trigger an unexpected reaction from the suspects. Knowing that, would you still write about it?” Kanzaki asked and glanced at the clock, confirming that it was 11:19 P.M. “In any case, in order to provide for any contingencies, I would like for you to wait until after midnight,” he murmured. In that moment, Kubo became utterly convinced that the money exchange was still in progress, that the transport vehicle was headed elsewhere from Skylark, and that the perpetrators had not yet appeared.

“By ‘unexpected reaction,’ do you mean a development that could affect more human lives is anticipated?”

“It means I cannot speak about a situation that hasn’t produced an outcome. How about we call your press nook after midnight and say whether or not it’s O.K.? That’ll be all for tonight.”

As Kanzaki broke off the conversation and rose from his chair, he looked distracted, without even the presence to look Kubo in the face. Kubo surmised that now Kanzaki would either head back to Sakuradamon or pay a visit to Special Investigation headquarters.

At 11:24 P.M., Kubo called the MPD press nook as soon as he jumped back into his hired car. He was told that, on the scene in Koto district, the cash transport vehicle was on the move. After arriving at Skylark at precisely 11 P.M., the station wagon had not moved at all until 11:15 P.M. when it left the parking lot, getting back on Shin-Ohashi-Dori Avenue and traveling six hundred meters east. The vehicle appeared to stop in front of the Ojima Roku-chome intersection, then the driver got out of the car and went into a telephone booth on the sidewalk.

Apparently it was impossible to see the driver’s detailed movements from a distance, but he came out of the booth within less than a minute, got back in the station wagon, and then turned right at the intersection. The vehicle continued south for 1.2 kilometers, this time turning left onto Kiyosu-Bashi-Dori Avenue. After going about 200 meters, the station wagon stopped again in front of the Kitasuna Nana-chome overpass. Turned left into a blind alley. The unmarked MPD motorcycle that had been tailing the station wagon came to a stop in front of the overpass without turning left. This kept Kuriyama and those with him from getting any closer—a plainclothes detective ordered them to stop just as they pulled onto the shoulder of the road. This was at 11:21 P.M.

Next, there had been another call, saying that at 11:22 P.M., just as Kuriyama and his men were about to leave the scene following the detective’s orders, they saw the man in the sleeveless undershirt driving a navy van that pulled out from the alley in front of the overpass. It seemed the perpetrators had made them load the cash into a different vehicle. If the perpetrators were checking whether the police were tailing them by successively switching up the transport vehicle, then Kubo sensed that there was a fifty-fifty chance they would actually show up for the cash-grab, but the end result no longer mattered to him. There was not much they would be able to write about for the final morning edition anyway, but the name alone—Lady Joker—was sufficiently newsworthy to be splashed in a banner headline across the top of the front page. It was sensational enough and the article would build anticipation for further developments. As he pondered this, the excitement Kubo had felt over the last twenty-four hours built to an almost visceral pleasure, and his body continued to shake as the hired car carried him along.

The call from Chief Inspector Kanzaki came at five after midnight, once Kubo was already back at the press nook.

“Kubo-san? The suspects were a no-show,” came the chief’s glum voice.

“What was the station wagon’s final destination, and when did it arrive there?”

“Komatsugawa Yon-chome. They stopped along the embankment, beneath the Komatsugawa Bridge. They arrived at eleven thirty-one. By the way, I hope you’re prepared to be punished accordingly for your attempt to track us. That’s all.”

Five minutes after the phone call, Chief Sugano, finishing a different call, laughed and said, “We got quite the chewing out from the head of Criminal Investigation. Forget about it, just keep going!” It was a rare sight to see Sugano smile.

城山恭介Kyosuke Shiroyama

AT 6 A.M. ON MAY 10th, Shiroyama retrieved the three morning newspapers from the letterbox outside his home and discovered the unpostmarked business envelope that was also slipped inside. The envelope looked the same as the one he had found on his lawn two days earlier. This time, he waited until he was back inside and opened it in the front hall.

ARE YOU KEEPING THE SIX HUNDRED MILLION SAFE? A SECOND DEMAND WILL BE MADE SOON. HAVE THE PRESIDENT CALL 3751-921X BETWEEN 9 P.M. AND 9:05 P.M. ON THE TENTH. IF YOU DON’T WANT THE HOSTAGE TO DIE, DON’T LET THE POLICE KNOW ABOUT THIS LETTER. –LADY JOKER

Without giving too much thought to the contents of the letter, Shiroyama put the envelope in his pocket for the time being.

Later, in the living room, he opened the morning paper and saw the banner headline on the front page: SUSPECTS CLAIM ALIAS LADY JOKER, DEMAND SIX HUNDRED MILLION / HINODE BEER PRESIDENT’S KIDNAPPERS MAKE A MOVE. The article consisted of a lead of no more than two hundred characters followed by a concise main paragraph of about fifty lines, summarizing the full version of events—beginning with the discovery of the letter the day before yesterday up to the money exchange last night—and concluding with the following: “The police investigation is forced to consider a new response given the movements of the crime group improbably attempting a cash-grab without a hostage.”

In an effort to remain as mentally and physically stable as possible, Shiroyama had entrusted the control room with handling all matters related to the incident; nevertheless, the protective barrier around his mind was far from impenetrable. Upon seeing the front page of a national paper plastered with the story about last night’s money exchange, which he had hoped would be carried out without rousing any sensation, what he felt at first was shock, followed by an indiscriminate rage, and once he realized there was no place to direct his fury, he was flummoxed. The logic and resolve he had taken for granted began to waver again, and an incoherent anxiety swelled inside him.

Shiroyama then probed—with relentless precision—the reasons for his unsettled mind and was again forced to acknowledge that many of them stemmed from Hinode and himself. Besides the letter that Hinode had reported to the police, he had shown the other letter that had been thrown onto his lawn on the morning of the eighth to the two vice presidents, as well as the head of general affairs and the financial manager, before storing it inside the safe in his office. Once Hinode had followed the criminals’ instructions—IF YOU DON’T WANT THE HOSTAGE TO DIE, DON’T LET THE POLICE KNOW ABOUT THIS LETTER—the company itself was preventing any progress in the situation, thwarting the chance of arresting the criminals. This was the road they had chosen, to sit there as last night’s events unfolded—it had been a cheap trick from the start—waiting helplessly for the criminals’ next move, all the while fearing for the safety of the hostage.

Shiroyama himself would not be able to escape the fate of endlessly brooding over whether he had been right or wrong in his decision not to alert the police about the letter tossed onto his lawn. And then this morning, here was another letter. He knew he would end up complying with the criminals’ demand to make whatever that call was tonight.

Despite his absorption with these thoughts, Shiroyama was not so confused as to lose sight of the practical steps necessary to arrange. As long as his attention to day-to-day affairs kept him occupied down to the minute, the fact of the matter was that he had no time for confusion, and the actions Shiroyama took that morning were as swift and businesslike as ever, the result of his seemingly programmed capacity to manage at all times, under any circumstances.

As soon as he arrived at the office at 8:30 A.M., without even looking at the documents prepared on his desk, Shiroyama called in the finance director to instruct him to monitor any fluctuations in their stock price and to notify him at once should market conditions shift. Next Shiroyama called in Kurata to discuss the immediate measures they would take, making sure that the beer division’s special promotions department had implemented their market research and that the sales department worked to strengthen their distribution network. He then met with the public relations director and came to the conclusion that, in response to the media, it would suffice to send a fax to each company conveying the following: in light of Hinode’s full cooperation with the police investigation, they would refrain from making any comments.

In addition, Shiroyama directed the manager of general affairs assigned to the control room to demand an explanation from the chief inspector of First Investigation why the criminals had not shown up last night even though Hinode had followed their instructions. The criminals’ failure to appear was not a problem in and of itself; what Shiroyama wanted to know was how the police viewed last night’s money exchange and whether or not they had considered it a charade all along.

And finally, Shiroyama called Iwami at the commissioner-general’s office of the NPA and registered a token complaint, demanding to know what had gone wrong with the police force’s management of information. Iwami expressed perfunctory regret while responding that it was impossible to muzzle the press unless a person’s life was at stake, as in a kidnapping.

Once he had dispatched these items, Shiroyama looked over the daily reports submitted from each division, booted up his desktop computer, and checked his personal electronic mail. He had received one from Shirai, one from Kotani at their risk management company, another from the president of Limelight Japan, and one each from the presidents of Hinode’s London and New York subsidiaries. Shiroyama composed and sent short replies to them all, then and there. There was no time to peruse the file of industry news article clippings. By the time he slipped the documents that his secretary Ms. Nozaki had prepared into his briefcase and stood to leave, it was 9:20 A.M. His first destination that morning was the Japan Business Federation.

As Shiroyama stepped out of his office, Goda—though the name on his employee badge read Tanaka—rose from a chair near Ms. Nozaki’s desk. Goda was expected to remain in that spot while Shiroyama was at his desk. According to Ms. Nozaki, Goda was always reading a paperback, though perhaps he was listening for Shiroyama’s footsteps on the rug in the next room, since Goda always put the book away before Shiroyama opened the door, and Goda would already be standing by the time Shiroyama emerged.

“The car is waiting by the front entrance,” Ms. Nozaki reminded them.

“Thank you,” Goda responded. Then he opened the door for Shiroyama, stepping aside to let him through. Goda always spoke in a soft, low voice. His behavior was well trained: the way he opened and closed doors and got in and out of vehicles; the way he followed three paces behind Shiroyama; the way he kept his gaze downcast and bowed to other executives and people outside the company. He had so far managed to keep track of the schedule provided by Ms. Nozaki. Goda was always at attention, never letting down his guard, from the time he picked Shiroyama up in the morning to when they parted at night. By the third day, Shiroyama had begun to acclimate to his presence, but still, it was like having a handsome and meticulous Imperial Guard of his own.

As far as Shiroyama could tell, however, under his apparent neutrality Goda’s eyes displayed subtle shades of darkness—wondering what that prudent gaze saw, three steps behind him, made Shiroyama feel, if not uncomfortable, then at least unsettled. From Goda’s outward appearance or manner, Shiroyama had no inkling whether he had seen Shiroyama pick up the envelope on his lawn the day before yesterday, that morning when they first met. Just this very morning, in the car on the way to the office, Shiroyama had tried to trick him into talking about it by musing why the criminals had not appeared, but Goda, with a momentary pause, merely replied, “I’ve been instructed only to act as your guard, sir.”

Shiroyama handed Goda his briefcase and walked through the lobby and out the front entrance to the covered driveway. Goda’s arm moved swiftly to open the car door, and Shiroyama climbed in. The door closed. Goda walked around to the opposite side and got in next to him.

“Shall I head directly to the Japan Business Federation?” the driver asked.

“Yes, please,” Goda responded.

Goda was now the one who conducted these exchanges with Yamazaki, the driver. Yesterday morning, when Yamazaki had confirmed the destination, Shiroyama had been lost in thought and forgot to reply, so Goda had answered in his stead, thereby establishing a new precedent, one that was fine by Shiroyama.

Shiroyama took no notice of Goda and Yamazaki’s brief exchange as he shifted his eyes toward the new green leaves tinting the promenade in front of their main office building and focused on calming his nerves, roiled as they were by the article in the morning edition. He only wished his eyes and his mind could be rinsed clean by the verdant freshness before him.

根来史彰Fumiaki Negoro

FOLLOWING THE REGULAR PRESS CONFERENCE at 11 A.M., during which the MPD unexpectedly divulged a great number of details related to last night’s attempted cash seizure, the third and subsequent editions of May 10th’s evening paper included multiple articles that needed to be overhauled for both page one and the Metro pages, and Negoro’s desk all but exploded with the onslaught of new drafts. Toho’s scoop, which the morning edition had made plain with the name Lady Joker, was an undeniable coup.

First of all, the police released a copy of the actual letter contained in a business envelope that was said to have been found and retrieved by a security guard inside the front gate of Hinode’s Kyoto factory at 5:30 A.M. on May 8th. Both the stationery and the handwriting were said to be the same as that of the letter retrieved from Mr. Shiroyama’s front yard when he was abducted on March 24th. The contents of the letter, which was to be the lead article for the evening edition—“Make sure this goes on the front page!” Tabe, the slot editor, had ordered—read as follows:

PREPARE SIX HUNDRED MILLION, IN USED BILLS, IN TWO CARDBOARD BOXES, AND LOAD THEM INTO A WHITE STATION WAGON.

DESIGNATE A SINGLE MALE DRIVER, ONE WITH EXPERTISE OF THE ROADS. MUST BE DRESSED IN A SLEEVELESS UNDERSHIRT AND JEANS, NO JACKET OR HAT. HAVE HIM CARRY A CELLULAR PHONE.

ON MAY 9TH, 11 P.M., DRIVE THE STATION WAGON ALONG SHIN-OHASHI-DORI AVENUE TO THE PARKING LOT OF SKYLARK RESTAURANT, ACROSS FROM THE KOTO DISTRICT RESIDENTS’ CENTER, AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

INSTRUCTIONS WILL BE SENT TO CSHND. –LADY JOKER.

Quite matter-of-fact in its tone, the text did not make any specific threats whatsoever. The majority opinion within the Metro section was that a threat must have been made elsewhere, separately, that XYZ would happen if orders were not followed, but the truth was still unknown.

The evening edition, which included the contents of the letter, ran with this front-page headline: MYSTERY OF LADY JOKER DEEPENS / PUZZLING RANSOM DEMAND WITHOUT HOSTAGE.

Nevertheless, a clearer portrait had emerged of the perpetrators as well-versed in police investigations—from their specification that the driver wear clothes that would make it difficult to conceal communication equipment such as a wireless police radio, to their use of the expression “expertise of the roads,” and their method of moving the station wagon to deter police deployment—and the detailed account of the late-night money exchange that transpired on the 9th corroborated such a portrayal.

The Metro headline in the fourth edition read: PERPS SHOW DEEP KNOWLEDGE OF INVESTIGATION METHODS / FOIL POLICE WITH MINUTE-BY-MINUTE INSTRUCTIONS.

The Metro page also displayed photos of the four sites that were the setting for the money exchange drama. A panoramic view of the run-of-the-mill family restaurant along Sangyo Road. And the telephone booth with its old-fashioned red roof, located not far away, just before the intersection. The blind alley before the overpass that looked like a garbage dump. The deserted three-way junction beneath the elevated bridge along the Arakawa River embankment, and finally, the triangle mark drawn on the asphalt in white chalk.

And a map extract of Koto district, with each site marked with an X.

At 11 P.M. on the ninth, the station wagon carrying two cardboard boxes with the six hundred million entered the parking lot of Skylark Restaurant as instructed and waited. At 11:14 P.M., an email came in to CSHND, the computer communication system used by Hinode Beer’s customer service center: “Inside the telephone booth in front of the Ojima Roku-chome intersection, there is a letter under the telephone. Read it and follow the instructions.” The police had contacted Hinode’s network provider and the telephone company NTT ahead of time and set up a program that automatically traced the phone number of every sender who accessed the system at any time during the course of the day on the ninth.

The Hinode main office immediately contacted the station wagon’s driver on a cellular phone and relayed the message. The station wagon left Skylark at 11:15 P.M., and a minute later had parked on the shoulder of the road by the designated phone booth. The letter, retrieved by the driver from under the telephone inside the booth, was in the same handwriting and on the same stationery as the one from the morning of the eighth.

A VEHICLE WITH THE LICENSE PLATE RA318X IS PARKED IN THE ALLEY NEXT TO NIPPON RENT-A-CAR ON KIYOSU-BASHI-DORI AVENUE, BEFORE THE KITASUNA NANA-CHOME OVERPASS. THE DRIVER SHOULD TRANSFER THE CARDBOARD BOXES AND SWITCH VEHICLES, FOLLOWING KIYOSU-BASHI-DORI ALL THE WAY TO THE END, THEN TURN LEFT. DRIVE ALONG THE EMBANKMENT, PULLING UP JUST BEFORE THE ONAGI RIVER FLOODGATES, AND WAIT FOR THE MAIN OFFICE TO CALL. MUST ARRIVE BY 11:25 P.M.

The station wagon arrived at the designated alley at 11:20 P.M. The vehicle with the license plate RA318X was a navy van, a Toyota HiAce. The van came with a duplicated key and was later determined to be stolen. The driver transferred the cardboard boxes to the van and started driving again at 11:22 P.M.. The van arrived in front of the floodgates at 11:26 P.M., one minute later than instructed.

One minute earlier, at 11:25 P.M., CSHND had received a second message. “After passing under the Komatsugawa Bridge, there will be a white triangle mark on the road. The driver should stop the car there and walk under the overpass in the direction of the shopping district. Abandon the van by 11:30 P.M.”

When the main office called the driver’s cell phone to relay these instructions, there was a delay caused by poor reception, so the van didn’t arrive at the designated location beneath the Komatsugawa Bridge until 11:31 P.M. The driver confirmed that there was a triangle on the road, drawn in white chalk with each side about fifty centimeters long, then he left the car and started walking in the direction of the shopping district. The investigation team kept watch over the area for about thirty minutes and, with still no sign of the suspects, they recovered the van and the cash just past midnight on the tenth.

At the morning press conference on the tenth, Chief Inspector Kanzaki of First Investigation stated: “Late at night, there were no other cars on Route 449, a one-way road that runs high along the Arakawa River embankment, so it was difficult to tail the cash transport vehicle without being noticed by the suspects, who were likely surveilling from nearby.”

The site in question beneath the Komatsugawa bridge, off of Route 449, was a desolate three-way junction surrounded by one-way alleys, and for a tail vehicle to reach it from the direction of Higashisuna while avoiding the van’s route on 449 would have required a major detour.

As for why the suspects never appeared, possibilities considered by Special Investigation Headquarters include that the perpetrators intended it to be a trial run from the beginning or that they aborted the plan once the van did not arrive at the specified time. But it cannot be denied that the suspects led the police on a wild-goose chase with their cleverly devised, down-to the-minute instructions.

It was determined that the two messages sent to CSHND originated from different sources. Special Investigation Headquarters deem it highly probable that both sources had their passwords stolen and were subsequently used by the perpetrators.”

This was followed by a comment from Hinode Beer’s main office; President Shiroyama did not respond to a personal request for comment. “On the morning of the tenth, the public relations department of Hinode Beer sent the following message via fax to all news outlets: ‘Hinode has fully entrusted the investigation to the police, and will refrain from making any comments at this time.’”

Followed by quotes from various pundits:

A social criminologist: “Reflecting the lingering economic downturn and pervasive dark mood of the times, corporate extortion methods have grown increasingly sinister and extreme. The time has come for corporations to seriously consider installing Westernized risk-management systems, and police must also implement new investigative techniques as soon as possible to counter this new crime strain.”

A criminal psychologist: “The meticulousness of their method and the unlikelihood of success—both are consistent with criminals who have a tendency to take pleasure in the crime itself. It is plausible that a crime group attempting a ransom without a hostage derives a perverse enjoyment from challenging their victim, the corporation, as well as the police.”

A social critic: “The cash demand that followed the president’s abduction seems more significant than a crime merely aimed at a corporation. It’s improbable that Hinode alone would be the target of such relentless harassment, and the sum of six hundred million is haphazard as well. Perhaps the police have yet to grasp the full truth of the incident.”

Amid these expert opinions, a certain critic had also remarked, “I’d like to lay eyes on a company that would comply with a cash demand without a hostage. No doubt there’s a different backstory between Hinode and the crime group than what’s been made public.” The slot editor, however, declined to print this comment.

A filler article, “Temporary Sell-Off in Hinode Shares,” reported:

Following the news this morning that suspects have attempted to extort six hundred million in cash from Hinode Beer, the Tokyo Stock Exchange saw a wave of stock-selling before the afternoon, mainly by private investors averse to risks from the company’s activity. Meanwhile, there were buy orders as well, and Hinode’s turnover for the morning amounted to two hundred thousand shares. Morning trading ended with a minor decrease of twenty yen from yesterday’s closing price. But Hinode’s business is robust, and experts predict that their overall performance will remain steady going forward.

And a related sidebar, “MPD Sets Up Dedicated Hotline”:

After the attempted extortion of six hundred million yen from Hinode Beer, on the 10th the Metropolitan Police Department established a 24-hour phone line to gather information from the public. MPD is seeking information from anyone who witnessed suspicious individuals or vehicles near the telephone booth at the intersection in front of Ojima Station, Koto district; by the Kitasuna Nana-chome overpass; along Route 449; or near Komatsugawa bridge, Komatsugawa Yon-chome. Contact the Hinode Beer Case Clerk, at MPD, Omori Police Department, at this toll-free number: 0120-468-12X.

At half past one in the afternoon, Negoro took a break to gather up the mountain of rejected and swapped-out drafts littering his desk. He sipped the bancha green tea he could not remember brewing as he chewed on a piece of dried sour kelp, and was just sorting through the drafts when someone called out, “Negoro-san, call for you.”

He picked up the phone and heard the voice of Tomohiko Okabe, the securities man. Ever since their reunion in Shimbashi right after Shiroyama’s abduction, Okabe had frequently passed along detailed reports on the exchange’s blotter and the sources of speculative stock deals. Just last month—not exactly in return but to keep up the relationship—Negoro had purchased about two thousand shares, choosing more stable issues with a good dividend yield.

Negoro was wondering why Okabe was calling now, just as the afternoon trading session had begun, when Okabe said abruptly, “I’m sending over a fax right now, I want you to take a look,” and the hold music came on. Negoro also put the call on hold and rose from his seat, waiting for about a minute in front of the two fax machines that were nearby. He soon held a sheet of A4-size paper that one of the machines had spit out, but he couldn’t make any sense of it at first, the letters too small to read, so he brought it back to his seat.

He spread the page out in front of him to take another look, and saw that it was some sort of index of associates. Instead of names, the members were indicated by numbers, each listing the company and the department where they worked, for a total of thirty members. The first eighteen were all employees at securities companies of various size, including the major one where Okabe worked.

The remaining twelve entries were a strange list of company names written out in katakana and Western acronyms, and these Negoro had to look through twice. Member No. 24 belonged to GSC, Ltd.

Two weeks ago, when he had looked up GSC, Ltd., in the register at the Legal Affairs Bureau, he had learned that its official trade name was General Stock Chronicle, Limited. The company had been founded in October 1990. Its activities were listed as investments, management consulting services, and magazine publications. Takeshi Kikuchi was listed as a founder, along with four others named Kikuchi who seemed to be his relatives; there were four more names, all of whom were represented by Takeshi Kikuchi. The company’s capital was ten million yen. The registered location of the company was Iidabashi in Chiyoda district. Negoro had paid a visit to the address, a room on the third floor of a shabby office building, and though there was a sign on the door there was no indication that the mailbox was being used; peering through the keyhole, he saw that the room was empty. All along, Negoro had suspected GSC, Ltd., might be a shell company, but he would never have imagined that its name would turn up like this today.

Negoro’s hand shook a little as he picked up the receiver again. “Okabe-san. I saw the fax.”

“I was drinking in Shimbashi yesterday, and I met the broker who’s Number Ten on that list. He’s the one who gave me that index—do you know what it’s for?”

“No.”

“A kind of network, if you will. We’re talking about thugs. As a matter of fact, I was asked to join them. Apparently that’s how low I’ve sunk . . .”

Okabe spoke with a slight languid drawl, as if making an effort to sound as he usually did, but the substance of what he was saying blatantly reeked.

“Surely you’ve heard of it before, Negoro-san? An investor partners up with a friend at a brokerage and, say I had shares that I failed to sell before the price dropped, my broker friend has his own clients put in buy orders so that I can unload them . . .”

“I’ve heard stories about groups that try to manipulate deals in that way.”

“You could say they’re descendants of those groups. The guy who recruited me didn’t say what exactly this crew was doing, but if this number of brokers band together, they can move five, six million shares a day—I bet even more if there are investment trusts. They can manipulate deals as much as they want, even generate wealth for particular customers, while the members themselves make standard commissions plus a little extra on the side.”

Negoro tried to imagine this as the explanation for the sudden increase in Hinode stock transactions since April, but it still didn’t click for him. It wasn’t so rare for individual brokers, or for a single company or branch, to commit a one-off swindle, but if you could take your pick of contacts among myriad securities companies and then link up with any one of these finance companies and investment groups, all manner of crookery could easily be absorbed into routine day-to-day trading.

“So, how did this Number Ten recruit you?” Negoro asked.

“Well, he just asked if I could put in a buy order tomorrow morning for a certain stock at such-and-such a limit. I told him my clients can’t move such high numbers.”

“That couldn’t have been all you said, for him to hand over this index.”

“No, that was it. What you’re looking at now is what he gave me, telling me if I just made him look good this time around, it’d be worth my while.”

“Still, it seems absurd to have so many members. Do they have a recruiter?”

“From what I’ve heard they have someone who acts as liaison, but I don’t know the details. Apparently, they increase their numbers by splitting cells, and only communicate laterally—there’s no chain of command.”

“So, Member One might know Member Two, but not Member Three. By the way, did you believe him? When he showed you the index, I mean.”

“Truth is I was a bit tempted. If this works as well as he says, you’d be free to do anything, from divesting unwanted shares to insider trading to manipulating deals, and the loss you’d incur is zero. It’s like people with a guilty conscience all coming together and living like kings.”

“Then why not join them?”

Okabe’s weak laugh spilled from the receiver. “Ten years ago, I probably would have. Anyway, I thought that Number Twenty-Four’s company, GSC, Ltd., might be the one owned by your acquaintance, the one you asked about before.”

“It’s hard to tell without knowing the name of who’s on the list . . .” Negoro replied vaguely, knowing full well that Okabe would have looked up GSC, Ltd., and confirmed that the representative of the company’s founders was a former Toho News reporter before making this call. Negoro surmised that Okabe’s intention was to draw him in, so that he himself could find out a little more about this network.

“I’ll dig around a bit,” Negoro said. “And if I hit the jackpot, you’ll tell me the name of this Number Ten who tried to reel you in.”

After the call, Negoro’s eyes continued to drift over the sheet of paper, and before he knew it, he found himself back in the fog of the Ogura-Chunichi scandal. When, for example, the founding clan of the Chunichi Mutual Savings had transferred their stock holdings to a third party, it was a nonbank called Sun Finance that loaned out fifty billion as a purchasing fund for said third party. An enormous amount of money had poured into the nonbank from financial institutions—banks as well as loads of shell companies from the Okada Association and the G.S.C. group—and part of that money was used to fund the third party’s acquisition of the outstanding equity; it wasn’t so farfetched that the names of individuals with ties to Sun Finance as well as those connected to the various shell companies could be on this index. If Takeshi Kikuchi—the man who had planted old Toda to leak the Ogura-Chunichi scandal to the newspapers—was No. 24 on the list, odds were high that they were involved in this.

Negoro was not surprised by the attempted resurgence of formerly subterranean roots, but the name Takeshi Kikuchi, flitting about in the periphery, nagged at his mind. Now the name had morphed into a symbol—member No. 24—clamoring at him from this fax page, and the idea that the index itself had been prepared for him caused an irrepressible stirring in his gut.

Negoro carefully set aside the thought that one day soon he would have to face Kikuchi in person and, quickly jotting down the names of the companies that Nos. 19 through 30 worked for, he handed the memo to a student who worked in the archives and asked him to pull documents from Teikoku Databank.

Then, as if there were some urgency, he went to make a call from a public phone. His call was to a mid-level freelance journalist who, back when the Ogura-Chunichi scandal was in a frenzy, had sent reportage to Toho Weeklythat thoroughly exposed the troubles with the land transport industry. He was one of the few journalists on the outside with whom Negoro could trade information in the name of cooperative investigation.

Negoro knew he was unlikely to catch the journalist at this time, and sure enough, he heard the answering machine pick up, so he left a brief message: “This is Negoro from Toho. I’ve got a story over in Kabutocho. Give me a call when you can.”

城山恭介Kyosuke Shiroyama

AS HE STARED AT THE desk clock that read 8:58 P.M., Shiroyama closed the file of documents for tomorrow’s colloquium of Japanese and European business leaders. Fifteen minutes ago, he had opened the file to distract himself, but the whole time his eyes had merely skimmed the surface of the pages. Shiroyama took out a digital handheld cellular phone and a Walkman from the drawer and set them on his desk.

Kotani from the risk management company had connected to the Walkman a small specialized digital microphone that fit into his ear so that Shiroyama could record his conversation with the criminals. To prevent the police from being able to trace the call history, Kotani had lent Shiroyama one of his company’s cell phones.

The clock’s hand pressed on, and another minute went by. The time specified by the criminals in the letter delivered that morning was between 9:00 and 9:05 P.M. The moment Shiroyama had clandestinely awaited the entire day was within reach, yet he could not bring himself to take the last step—instead he stared at the clock’s minute hand as it slowly turned. There were all sorts of excuses for his pangs of conscience about going along with the criminals’ instructions, but he could not reason away the visceral fear that was resurrected by the thought of hearing those voices again. As he took a deep breath, letting his eyes wander over to the nightscape outside his window, he glanced again at the small cell phone and the Walkman on his desk and tried to reel in a sense of resignation—it’s too late now—the time was now one minute after nine.

You have no choice but to call. It will be over in a few minutes. Shiroyama compelled himself to take the criminals’ letter from that morning out of the drawer and spread it before him. Doing as Kotani had instructed, first he pressed the record button on the Walkman. Then he put in the earphone, picked up the cell phone, dialed the eight-digit number, and quickly pressed the speaker end of the phone over the microphone in his ear. The dial tone, a bit low and muffled, rang twice, then cut out.

“This is Shiroyama from Hinode.” He heard his own raspy voice.

“There are two items.” The voice did not belong to any of the men Shiroyama had heard during his confinement; it was much heavier, deeper, and rougher. Yet his manner of speaking, as if he were reading from a prepared script, was the same, as was the cruel, deadened tone lacking any sense of excitement or emotion.

“First, have you kept the six hundred million safe? Soon, we’ll demand a second batch. This time, it will be for seven hundred million. Take out another seven hundred million from the bank and keep it separate from the six hundred million that’s stored away. That means a total of one point three billion in your safe for the time being. For the second delivery, take the six hundred million that you’ve stored from the first transfer, plus one hundred million from the additional seven hundred million for this time, for a total of seven hundred million. Any questions so far?”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“The police have already taken down the serial numbers of the first six hundred million that’s stored. If the second transaction is for seven hundred million, they’ll take down the numbers of the additional one hundred million. The seven hundred million to be used for the second delivery will all have their serial numbers tracked, but not the six hundred million left in the vault. We want the bills whose numbers are not tracked. Now do you understand?”

As he listened to the criminal patiently explain the ploy, Shiroyama felt a dull torpor. Had he given the police this phone number, at this very moment, the man on the other end would no doubt have been apprehended somewhere. The anxiety he had borne for over a month now would have dissipated at once. What were the various circumstances that prevented him from doing so? Were any of them so hard to extract himself from?

“I understand,” Shiroyama replied.

“That’s not all. Put white wrappers around the seven hundred million for the second delivery. As for the six hundred million still left in the safe, put on light blue wrappers to tell them apart. Then, once we have finished the charade of the second delivery, do not return either the seven hundred million with the white wrappers or the six hundred million with the light blue wrappers to the bank; instead, store them again at your office with the wrappers intact. Got it?”

“I got it.”

“And here’s the second item. Listen carefully—from now on this method of communication should be considered Hinode Beer’s lifeline. Going forward, whenever we wish to make contact, we will give you a sign near your home in Sanno Ni-chome. Every morning, your car passes the Lutheran preschool that’s on the bus route, correct? As you pull onto the bus route, if you recall, there is a brown streetlamp on the corner to your left. To the right of the Sanno Ni-chome bus stop. In the morning, if there is white vinyl tape wrapped around the pole of the streetlamp, you are to call this number that evening between nine and nine-oh-five. This line will not be available at any other time. We will wrap the tape so it can be easily spotted from the inside the car. Any questions?”

White tape wrapped around the pole of a streetlamp to the right of the bus stop. Despite being told that it would be easy to see, in the moment Shiroyama could not imagine what kind of tape, or exactly where the pole it would be wrapped around was. “Please, isn’t there a simpler way?”

“No negotiations. Make sure to look carefully at the sidewalk on your left as your car pulls onto the bus route. That’s all for tonight.”

The call ended abruptly and all at once the sound of static was replaced by a steady busy signal. Shiroyama wondered if perhaps the number he had called was a public pay phone, but that spark of an idea vanished instantly, replaced instead by a strange mixture of excitement and defeat at having moved one step closer to the culprits. As the thought recurred to him that the case might have been resolved by now if he had only informed the police, suddenly he began to question his own conduct and that of the company, only exacerbating his sense of defeat.

All this time, Shiroyama had racked his brain, but no matter how he tried, the faces of the crime group eluded him. Aside from dangling the photo of his niece, the criminals had not made any concrete threats, and the same could be said about the intimidation that the 3.5 million kiloliters of beer were being held hostage. The germ of it was that by letting intangible anxieties get the better of him, he had managed to drive himself into a corner.

And yet, even if the man who answered the phone tonight were arrested, without a guarantee that the rest of the criminals would all be rounded up, no company would be able to ignore the threat to comply “if you don’t want the hostage to die.” Moreover, while the criminals were contacting Hinode in good faith like this, there was room to observe their moves and determine how to react. He still had options. These reassurances finally enabled Shiroyama to come to terms with his current feelings—he grabbed his briefcase and switched off the lamp.

When Shiroyama opened the door, Goda was standing by his chair in the anteroom. Right, this guy’s still here, Shiroyama thought to himself, as if suddenly realizing he had left something behind. “Thank you for waiting,” Shiroyama said to him. “Yes, sir,” Goda replied, then took the key from Ms. Nozaki’s desk, and swiftly opened the door for Shiroyama.

合田雄一郎Yuichiro Goda

RETURNING HOME TO YASHIO PARK Town residential complex at about half past ten, Goda took the evening paper from the newspaper holder on the first floor and, seeing the bolded headline—LADY JOKER’S CASH GRAB FAILS—he proceeded to read every word of the article detailing the progress of the attempted money exchange.

First, he reread three times the contents of the letter that was discovered at the Kyoto factory on the morning of the 8th, confirming that there was nothing to suggest what the criminals would do “if their demands were not met.” The substance of their threat must have been conveyed directly to the victim during the kidnapping or to Hinode via another channel.

Though on the one hand, the trick of moving around the cash transport vehicle from one place to the next was predictable, what drew Goda’s attention was the detail with which the crime group had specified the exact times of arrival—“Not later than twenty-five after,” or “Get there by 11:30 P.M.”—for each instruction as to where the transport vehicle should go next. Judging the distance to each destination, and the consideration that there would not be enough time for a detailed exchange with the police, in addition to the selection of a final destination that was inevitably difficult for the police to stakeout—to a detective’s eye, these particulars of the crime made the shadow of one of their own all the more conspicuous. Not just any of their own, someone who would know that an unmarked motorcycle would be used to tail suspects on the city streets and, since he had chosen a one-way road like Route 449 that would make a motorcycle chase difficult, that meant a detective who had been part of a Mobile Unit or who had experience working Violent Crime out of Investigation Headquarters . . .

Goda figured that by now the mood at Investigation Headquarters would be as heightened as ever, but wasn’t sure whether not being there himself was lucky or unlucky. Once he had folded the newspaper and put it in the basket of his bicycle, the matter was out of sight, out of mind. He went up to his place on the fifth floor, took off his suit, and put the bananas and milk he had bought at the convenience store in the refrigerator. There was no time to draw a bath, so he took a shower while running the washing machine, brought in the previous day’s laundry that was now dry, ironed the items, and skipped polishing his shoes.

It was past 11:30 P.M. when he sat down at his writing desk with a can of beer and his notebook. He entered the date—May 10th (Wed), 1995—at the top of the form and began writing his daily report.

7:45	Arrive in front of residence. Nothing abnormal in neighborhood.
7:47	Driver Yamazaki arrives as per usual. Exchange greetings only.
7:50	S. boards vehicle. Clothes, expression—no appreciable changes. Exchange greetings. ...