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

After Yoshiya went off to play golf, Monoi was finally able to have his breakfast of miso soup and fish simmered in sweet soy sauce. He then did a bit of tidying out in front of the pharmacy, which was closed for the day, and left the house before nine, slightly earlier than usual.

That day—April 24th—marked the second day since the horseracing venue had moved from Nakayama to Fuchu. For the first time in a while, a number of Monoi’s friends turned out, and before it was even noon, the usual faces had gathered in a corner on the second-floor of the grandstand facing the track. The crowd was bigger than usual, since the Spring Tenno Sho was taking place at the Hanshin Racecourse, but most of the people were looking at the horseracing newspapers in their hands rather than at the early races happening before their eyes, and the cheers rising from the grandstand after each race that morning were still muted.

Upon arrival, Handa, true to his word, grabbed Katsumi Koh—“the dude from the credit union”—who was already there and, thrusting the morning paper at him, said, “Explain this to me, will ya?”

Koh glanced sidelong at the front page and replied derisively, “It means the investigation has finally hit a wall. Who would be stupid enough to leave any trace of a bribe to a politician?”

“I want you to tell me about the ‘alchemy’ behind all that, the tricks those guys use to make the big money.”

When Handa pressed him, Koh offered only a teaser, “First thing you need is capital,” and refused to divulge anything further. Meanwhile, Nunokawa’s Lady exclaimed, “Uuu, eer!”

Nunokawa’s daughter was as energetic as ever, twisting her upper body, swiveling her head round and round, and issuing cries from her throat. Reaching over from her right, Nunokawa shoved a hunk of cream bun into her mouth, but the girl spat it out, along with plenty of drool, and it fell onto her lap. Breadcrumbs were littered around her feet.

“There, she doesn’t want any more.” From the girl’s left side, Monoi grabbed the package of pastry and a towel from Nunokawa. As Monoi wiped the girl’s mouth with the towel, she shrieked, “Uuu, eer” again and happily bounced atop the bench, kicking his shin. Now sixteen, the girl had put on some weight, and despite her short stature she was too heavy for her mother to deal with during her weekend visits home from the special care facility, so the job of tending to all her personal needs now fell to her father. Thanks to this, Nunokawa—sturdy as he was—seemed to be having trouble sleeping due to back pain. Not that he complained much about it, but his virile stature did appear slightly diminished. Taking the opportunity to foist his daughter on someone else for a few minutes, Nunokawa yawned over the newspaper spread open in front of him.

“Uuu, eer!” The girl cheered at the top of her lungs again.

“Hurdle? Yes, that’s right. The steeplechase is next. Who do you think will win?” When Monoi asked the girl this, she contorted her neck and jutted her forehead toward the racecourse, indicating a horse. The horse warming up before the finish line wore a saddlecloth with the number six, and when he checked the newspaper he saw that it was High Beam, the most popular horse. Amused, Monoi turned to face his three friends in the seats behind him.

“Hey. Lady says number six will win next. Someone bet on it.”

“Quinella on six-eleven. I’m feeling pretty good today.” This from Yo-chan, but alas, he was talking about the Tenno Sho.

From beside Yo-chan, with his head buried in the newspaper and gripping a red pencil, Koh spoke up, “Monoi-san, quinella bet on six-eleven, bracket quinella on six-eight. You can bet all your money today, you can’t lose.”

“The capital will come from Koh’s credit union. A loan without collateral, no less,” Handa cut in from beside him.

Koh curled his lip a little and snickered. There was something peculiar about his snicker.

Katsumi Koh had joined their group in early spring three years ago, shortly after the soaring stock and land prices finally began to correct. Everything was immediately colored by the economic recession, and as if even financial institutions—and their employees—were suddenly at leisure, Koh began to show up at the races every Sunday, sitting with Yo-chan at the foot of the pillar by the first-floor betting windows. The reason Koh got along with Yo-chan was simple—“The guy doesn’t talk about money,” he said.

According to what Koh had told them, he had graduated from Keio University in accordance with his parents’ wishes; then a friend of the family had invited him to work at the credit union, where he devoted himself entirely to the loan business—for ten years he never returned home before midnight. At the beginning of 1990, when he had had the highest sales performance in his branch, he had coughed up blood from a gastric ulcer and was hospitalized. After two months of convalescence, he had returned to work, only to learn he had lost his spot. Apparently that’s the way it goes in finance. He was reassigned to deposit affairs, and now that his days consisted of collecting small monthly deposits of ten or twenty thousand yen from general, non-member customers, Koh said, his life had gotten easier. In truth, he had the face of an exceptionally ordinary company employee.

On the other hand, Koh’s attire—which Handa liked to describe as “host club or hot-spring-spa after-dinner show”—was anything but ordinary. Today he was wearing a double-breasted Italian suit and an eye-popping lime-green necktie. This façade seemed, in part, an effort not to be made fun of as “too straight” by the employees of his family’s business, which operated a wide array of pachinko parlors and amusement arcades, or by the various organized crime underlings he came in contact with, but even so, Monoi still detected a shadow of that particular vein about