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

“Please allow me to consider this,” Shiroyama responded at last. “I’ll issue my final decision through the control center.”

“For our part, we intend to do our due diligence when selecting the right person for the job, so as not to interfere with your routine or that of those close to you.”

“If possible, I’d like to request a detective from the local precinct rather than the MPD.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“I have a family. Any danger that involves me involves my family. I’d be grateful to work with someone who appreciates the wellbeing of the local community.”

久保晴久　Haruhisa Kubo

At the eye signal of the guard—Here he comes—Kubo, with Furukawa and Yamane the beat reporter in tow, ran down the slope from the entrance to the underground parking lot. Waving their arms frantically, the three of them jumped in front of the official vehicle making its way up from below ground with the head of First Investigation inside. The car stopped midway up the slope and the rear window opened. Kubo called out, “Sorry to bother you! We just happened to see you.”

“It’s been nothing but stakeouts for you guys lately, huh, Kubo-san?” Chief Kanzaki peered out from the car window, his eyes passing over Kubo’s face without making eye contact.

That’s it, that’s the look. Kubo pressed for more. “What brings you to Hinode?”

“I’m paying a visit on the fortieth day since the incident occurred. A situation report, if you will,” Kanzaki replied.

“Who requested the meeting?”

“I did.”

“Would it be worthwhile for us to follow Mr. Shiroyama?”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“Chief. The perps made a move, didn’t they?”

“They did not. I was simply treated to lunch today on the fortieth floor.”

“It’s rare for you to take a lunch meeting, isn’t it?”

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I must be going now.”

Clearly, Kanzaki had no intention of dropping any hints today. Kubo thanked him and withdrew, but as he watched the vehicle drive out of the lot, he felt the heat of a hunch surge throughout his body for the first time in a long while. His mind filled with ideas about where to start sleuthing. Kanzaki’s Investigation Headquarters operated in strict privacy with regard to all corporate matters. The officers assigned to Search and Inquiry and to Evidence Investigation had been whittled down and each had been thoroughly vetted, leaving only the most tight-lipped detectives, so that it had been quite difficult to gain any access. But if the perpetrators were to make a move, so would the SIT and the Mobile CI Unit. He might finally be able to make a breakthrough this time.

Kubo put in a call to the kisha club. Hearing that the fourth edition didn’t require any replacements either, he treated Yamane and Furukawa to lunch and returned by himself to Sakuradamon shortly before two. As he got out of a taxi by the front entrance of the MPD, he saw Negoro tottering along on the pedestrian path beside Uchibori Dori, and even before Kubo had a chance to nod to him, Negoro was beckoning him over from thirty meters away.

Kubo crossed the intersection. Negoro had stopped in the middle of the trail and was leaning against the railing, smiling self-consciously. Some days, even the one-and-a-half-kilometer walk from Toho News’ main office in Chidori-ga-fuchi to MPD here in Sakuradamon, meant as physical therapy, was too much for his legs.

“It’s a nice day out today, so I thought I’d make my way over, but . . .”

“You should have called. I would have come to you.”

“Weren’t you already out somewhere?”

“Yes. Kanzaki, the head of First Investigation, showed up at Hinode, so I chased him down, but came up dry.”

“Oh, wow . . . It’s about time the perps made their move.”

Negoro had always appeared nondescript, a reporter whose presence barely cast a shadow whenever he surveyed the Metro section, but every so often Kubo had noted, deep within Negoro’s tapered lids, a still, lizard-like gaze of quiet observation. Those were the eyes he saw flicker just then.

“I was on my way to see Chief Sugano, but give him a message for me, Kubo-kun. First, one of the tabloids confirmed the death of that guy Yoshinori Toda. We got a call just now from the editor in chief.”

“I knew it . . .”

When Investigation Headquarters released a transcript of the tape from 1990 after the incident, the Metro section wasted no time deciphering the names of every individual referenced in the letter that was said to have been written back in 1947. As of early April, aside from the author’s family relations the only person still alive had been Yoshinori Toda—born in Saitama prefecture in 1916 and fired from Hinode’s Kyoto factory shortly after the war. Toho Weekly had then followed up on Toda’s whereabouts, but last week they had heard that a person who seemed to be Toda was on a list of unidentified decedents in Nishinari district of Osaka. And just today, they had confirmed that this was in fact the Toda they were looking for.

It was highly likely that this Toda and the Toda who had made the tip-off call to the Metro section after the incident were one and the same, but now there was no way of knowing for sure. When it came to those involved in what had happened in 1947, “And then there were none” seemed to apply.

“Apparently he left behind no personal effects. And would you give this to the chief?” Negoro casually handed Kubo a thick manila envelope. “I got this from a guy I know. These are Hinode stock deals from April third to the twenty-eighth, from every brokerage house. They all list purchases almost every day. There seems to be a rumor going around that Hinode is going to acquire some convenience store chain. Tell the chief.”

“I’ve seen on the Nikkei that their margin buying has been intensifying lately . . .”

“So has their margin selling since around April twentieth. As of yesterday it’s been neck and neck. The