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

Ogura and Chunichi scandal and that they had in fact thrown dirt on the Okada Association, it didn’t seem likely that this had triggered the abduction.

If, as this Toda or whoever he was had implied, there were various facets of Hinode that were not publicly known, who were these legions of men who bore ill will toward Hinode? Despite all the efforts of the reporting team, not a single Hinode backstory had emerged that would explain the existence of some kind of grudge.

Still wondering if the whole thing could be a prank, Negoro had already reached for the outside phone line.

“Sorry to trouble you—this is Negoro from Tokyo.” He announced himself when the Osaka Metro desk picked up.

“O-ho! Things must be topsy-turvy over there, with the whole Hinode thing!” Negoro recognized the boisterous voice of a slot editor he had known for years. It was the voice he had heard on the phone every day for the month following the Great Hanshin earthquake that had struck at the beginning of the year. “Hearing from you reminds me about that salted kelp from Yodoya—I never did send any to you, did I? Anyway, how can I help you?”

“Is Takeshi Kikuchi-san there?”

“What would you want with that ol’ jobber? He quit a long time ago.”

“Oh, did he now?”

“That guy was practically a yakuza stockbroker. He made hundreds of millions in speculative dealings during the bubble years and set up his own investment management company. What do you want Kikuchi for?”

“A call came in from someone trying to get in touch with him. Do you have his contact information?”

Apparently Kikuchi had left a business card when he resigned from the paper, and Negoro waited a few minutes before being given a number that was obviously a cell phone and the name of Kikuchi’s company, GSC, Ltd. Negoro thanked the slot editor and hung up. Then, still unable to clearly recall the face of the man in question, he dialed the number he had just tracked down.

“Kikuchi-san? This is Negoro from Toho News. It’s been a while.”

“From Toho . . . Well, well, it has been a long time.” The man’s tactful reply did not stimulate Negoro’s memory, either. In the current economic downturn the stock game must have been in shambles; Negoro could not even be sure that the number he was calling belonged to an actual company. The man’s voice was calm but somber, and his tone did carry a certain hint of the underworld.

“You must have your hands full. Poison gas, the elections, and now Hinode Beer. Something I can help you with?”

“I may as well get right to it. Do you know a man by the name of Toda? Speaks in a Kansai dialect, an elderly man . . .”

“Oh, old Toda,” Kikuchi replied immediately.

“So you do know him. He just called here asking for you. If it’s all right, would you mind telling me what kind of character he is?”

“Is this an interview?”

“You could say that, yes.”

Negoro heard a clicking sound on the other end of the line; Kikuchi must have been slowly tapping his desk with a pen or some other object. “The man is a has-been left-wing Osaka journalist, first of all. He published a small independent newsletter until about twenty years ago, but when that went bust he went freelance. He made ends meet as a day laborer in Kamagasaki, Osaka. I met Toda back in ’86, when I was reporting on that corruption case in Airin district, you know, the one where an Osaka city employee was skimming off medical aid. Back at the time, an old man tried to engage me in a debate at the labor welfare center. That was Toda.”

“Have you kept in touch with him since then?”

“No. Did he have anything to tell you?”

“Well, yes. Something about how there are at least a hundred men who harbor ill will toward Hinode.”

“The guy’s pushing eighty, there’s no need to take him seriously. Whenever anything happens, he blames it on the establishment—always has. To put it bluntly, he’s got ties to segregated buraku communities. Come to think of it, he used to work for Hinode before the war. That’s right, now I remember—I’ve heard him talk about it.”

Segregated buraku communities. Negoro’s ballpoint pen, which had been doodling circles on his notepad, now drew a single question mark as if of its own accord. Immediately, his thoughts returned to the call he received three hours ago from a reporter working out of the Hachioji branch. The reporter had mentioned a prewar lawsuit involving the purchase of land intended for a factory. He drew another question mark.

“This Toda, where did he work for Hinode before the war?”

“Hmm . . . in Fushimi, probably. That’s Hinode’s Kyoto factory. Right, right—remember the general strike that took place soon after the war ended, the February first strike? Toda said that he marched for the union before and after the strike and was let go because of it. I never looked it up or anything, so I don’t know if there’s any truth to it.”

1947. General strike of February 1st. Hinode’s Kyoto factory. Labor dispute. Employee layoffs. Segregated buraku community. Negoro wrote it all down in his notes.

“Does Toda belong to any organization or group?”

“You mean like the Buraku Liberation League? I don’t know about that.”

“What’s his full name?”

“I can find out for you. Why don’t I give you a call tonight?”

“I’d appreciate that. Sorry to phone you out of the blue.”

“Not at all.”

Kikuchi hung up, as if loath to waste any more time. Negoro thought that, for a man who had just received an unexpected call from a former colleague, Kikuchi had been pretty brusque, displaying neither a sense of nostalgia nor awkwardness.

Negoro could only vaguely recall the face of Kikuchi, who had once roamed this same news room floor; and yet somehow he could imagine the mien of the man whose voice he had just heard on the phone. He could picture an office in one of