Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura (lightest ebook reader .txt) 📕

about why he had been kidnapped. The criminals had not chosen him—the president of Hinode—because he would make their demands known most effectively. No, they’d chosen him because of his liability. They knew it would be impossible for him not to comply. Finally beginning to feel like himself again, Shiroyama understood his position all the more vividly. Now that a crime group had gotten hold of his family’s scandal, taken the three and a half million kiloliters of beer—the lifeblood of his company—as hostage, and demanded two billion yen from him, how and where would he go back? After his imminent safe return, weren’t the only choices left for him either to damage his company by making it pay an unwarranted sum of money, or to endanger the lives of his niece and her son?

No. What if I were to never return . . .

Shiroyama looked up at the naked tree branches jutting above his head, and as his heart suddenly began to throb unbearably fast, he asked himself, You would die? A part of him answered back that he had no other choice if he considered the extent of the suffering he would have to bear in the days ahead and the ruin he would bring upon others in his life, but his heart raged against the raw, unbridled terror of hanging himself. After struggling with that terrible tension for a few minutes, Shiroyama came to the conclusion that he did not have such courage in him. At the same time, another question arose, as if to serve as an excuse. Are you willing to die for the company?

It would be one thing if this were to cause the demise of the company and its eight thousand employees would be out in the cold, but was he really willing to die for a company to which, in reality, two billion in bribery money meant nothing? Did he truly see himself as so inseparable from the company? And if he were to kill himself and save the company from suffering the loss of two billion, would the company be grateful?

The answer to all of these questions was a definitive No.

After dismissing the necessity of his suicide, Shiroyama had drawn the vague conclusion that somehow he would have to make the company come up with two billion. Nothing was more important than the lives of Yoshiko and Tetsushi, of course, and even if he had dedicated thirty-six years of his life to it, the company was nothing more than a company. Why should I end my life for them? he went on muttering to himself.

Shiroyama then returned to the road and resumed walking. Although he had been released, this was only the beginning. The Kyosuke Shiroyama trying to convince himself of this fact was not the same Kyosuke Shiroyama as before he had been kidnapped—this was someone who was desperate to make the company pay out two billion in bribery money. And yet, that same someone was even now thinking about how best to alleviate the anxiety and turmoil of his employees as soon as possible and return the company to normal operations—that, for the time being, his duties were to make Hinode Meister a success and to strengthen the corporate foundation for the various reforms to come. Underneath such concerns, this new Shiroyama also raved with false bravado, Why should I die for the company? Uncertain which of these was his true self, Shiroyama’s mind soon shifted to consider the mountain of actual problems he faced between now and the deadline he had been given, “before Golden Week,” which began on April 29th. First of all, how would he handle the police? How would he explain it to the board? And how would he convince them to agree to two billion in illicit expenses?

While his mind had been spinning about such things, Shiroyama had forgotten to check his wristwatch and, as it were, he had no idea how far he had walked. Before he knew it, the dense shadows of the tree canopy over the road had thinned, and he saw a lonesome light in the distance. As he approached, he realized that the road he had been walking on met up with another road in a T-intersection, and on the corner to his right stood a small, concrete building. The compact fire truck parked in the garage, lit by the faint glow of dawn, appeared red as if it were blushing.

久保晴久　Haruhisa Kubo

“Everyone, your attention, please!” The cries of a clerk from Public Information bounced along the hallway of the ninth floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Her footsteps and voice drew closer to the kisha nooks of the Nanashakai, then traveled up and down the aisles in front of each paper’s nook. “The CI director will hold a press conference! There will be a press conference!”

Haruhisa Kubo jumped off of his nook’s sofa, where he had been sleeping, as another announcement blared from the wall speaker above his head. “All media, please assemble in the press conference hall immediately! The CI director will hold a press conference starting at 7:05 a.m.!” The ones who had been asleep on the bunk bed as well as those with their heads buried in their arms on the desk also woke with a start. From a corner of the nook, Chief Sugano murmured, “If the CI director’s making an appearance, guess they found the president . . .” On the other side of the partition and in the aisles, brief speculations were exchanged. “Guess they found him,” followed by “Think they’ve caught the guys who did it?”

“Kubo, Kuriyama, get going! The rest of you get on the phone with the news room! Kondo, you page the beat reporters on stakeout!” Sugano shouted out orders.

Kubo grabbed his notebook and was about to rush off when he saw that the junior reporter Yuichi Kuriyama—who must have been sleeping somewhere else all this time—had beaten him to his feet. “Wonder if they’ll