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

Ide and Kayama, quickly left the room. Once the door was sealed off for a third time, only the fifteen board members remained in the conference room.

Shiroyama sat at the head of the oval table, flanked by Shirai and Kurata. The rest of the seating had not been arranged in any particular order, but split naturally into those who aligned with Shirai on one side and those who aligned with Kurata on the other, representing the two opposing factions, as they were. Normally before a meeting Shiroyama would survey those to his left and right, meeting each man’s gaze and ascertaining his expression, but now five of the executives on Kurata’s side—including Takeo Sugihara beside him—avoided looking at Shiroyama, while the rest of them were bleary and red-eyed from lack of sleep or appeared in a state of utter bafflement. He had expected this, but clearly any sense of relief about the safe return of the president of the company had already dissipated within the span of half a day.

“I have caused so much worry to you all. It is shameful to have been kidnapped from the front door of my own home, and I’d like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to you all,” Shiroyama said, opening his address to the group with a few simple words of regret. Next came the task of dispelling any suspicions. “I’m concerned that speculations may be rife, both inside and outside the company. However, I say this to you as the victim of the crime itself, the identity of the criminals remains a complete mystery. And as I told the police, for the duration of the time when I was under confinement they barely said a word to me, nor did they voice any grievances toward our company or mention specific troubles. The only thing they spoke of was their demand for money.”

Taking up from Shiroyama’s statement, as previously arranged, Shirai began posing questions, acting as a representative of the executives on the board.

“Does that mean the criminals didn’t say anything about extortionists?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“In 1990, during employee entrance exams, the company received slanderous letters and a recorded tape from the father of a student who claimed his son had been discriminated against—nothing of that nature was mentioned either?”

“Nothing at all.”

As a buzz arose from the executives, now it was Kurata’s turn to quickly add his part. “I’ll give some context for those of you who may not know what transpired. The father of the student came from a segregated buraku community, and it’s true that he sent letters and a tape as described to our human resources department. The human resources manager at the time consulted and reviewed the matter with Shirai-san and myself, and we determined that the defamation was extreme enough to be reported to the police. But the student in question died in a car accident, and then his father suffered a nervous breakdown and committed suicide, so the investigation ended there. There was never any fault with our company, but I’d like all of you to be aware that such an incident did occur.”

With one among their doubts and fears having thus been swiftly contained by Kurata and Shirai, for the time being no objections were raised by the members gathered around the oval table.

“Now, I’ll proceed to the main issue. After careful consideration, I decided not to give an exact account to the police. The amount that the crime group has demanded is two billion.”

All eyes except for those of Shirai and Kurata were riveted upon him. It was hard to tell if they were reacting to the sum itself or to the vast difference between it and the six hundred million that had been reported in the evening papers, but there was more despair than surprise conveyed in everyone’s gaze.

“I told the police six hundred million. That was the sum the criminals instructed me to tell the police was their demand. They also told me they would make contact before Golden Week. It remains unclear why they wanted me to tell the police six hundred million while demanding two billion, but after much thought I decided to do as I was told. I based this decision upon the fact that I didn’t feel as though the criminals were joking around, and because they said they were holding the beer hostage. I did not mention this to the police.”

The second shockwave rippled around the oval table exactly as Shiroyama had expected. This time, the sounds didn’t quite form words but rather groans and grumbles that rose to quite a cacophony.

“Does that mean if we don’t bend to their demand, they’ll poison our beer or something?” asked one of the executives.

“All the criminals said was that the beer is the hostage, but personally I feel it would be wise to assume a variety of possible scenarios.”

“Pardon me, but is that seriously what you’re saying? Has the beer really been taken hostage? Did you agree to their demand? Did you negotiate with them—?”

“I have not consented to their demand nor made any negotiations with them. My mouth was taped shut so I was unable to make any kind of response to them.” Shiroyama spoke these words with a sense of disillusionment as he regarded each look of mistrust, consternation, and anxiety that was directed toward him, calmly distinguishing among them which eyes were constrained by personal feelings, which by a lack of patience, and which by the nascent urge for self-preservation. Many men, many minds—the temperaments of the board members were as varied as their number, and they each had their own timetable for negotiating tactics.

“Shiroyama-san. Isn’t lying to the police the same thing as consenting to the criminals’ demand? It may not be necessary to cooperate fully with the police, but it solves nothing to tell them six hundred million when it’s two billion, or to conceal the hostage situation,” said one of the executives, offering his harsh opinion.

“People are saying Hinode has already paid the money