Lady Joker, Volume 1 Kaoru Takamura (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

falling one, then two steps behind his competitors. Or rather, like he was in a permanent and unmanageable state of excitement. Even during the ten or so seconds it took him to walk to the press conference hall, Kubo realized that still, after all this time, he felt buoyed with excitement, and he wallowed for a while in this mild discomfort. When he had no story, he became excited even as he felt anxious, and chasing leads was so stimulating that in the end he lost track of what he was even doing. The truth was that, night and day, his mind was consumed with chasing stories.

News of the victim’s safe return would ordinarily have resulted in the disclosure of information related to the investigation that had yet to be made public, but that seemed unlikely this time. The fact that the hostage had suddenly been released after fifty-six hours of captivity led him to assume that either a ransom had been secretly paid out or there had been some kind of backroom deal, but it was next to impossible to back up such speculations. While the investigation would inevitably drag on, the beer company and the police were likely to become only more tight-lipped.

Under such circumstances, Kubo grew even more anxious that if he did not find a story—no matter how small—one of the other papers would beat him to the punch, and in his mind he ran through the interviews he had planned for the day, after filing his draft for the final edition. For now, he would wait to decide on whom to chase down, depending on the contents of the imminent press conference, and he would call a few of his sources. There would also be the call from his guy at Marunouchi Police Department after 2 p.m. If he had time after that, he would stop by the Metro desk at Toho’s main office—only a five-minute walk from MPD—where he might pick up a few details while making small talk, and his night entailed wining and dining his sources while fishing for leads. Then there’d be the evening interview session.

As these last thoughts occurred to him, Kubo drew to one side of the hallway, furtively taking out his wallet to check that there was about a hundred thousand yen in it. Some of his sources liked to drink at bars that did not accept credit cards. Putting his wallet back in his pocket, Kubo dashed into the press conference hall.

根来史彰　Fumiaki Negoro

“Six hundred million! Six hundred million!” shouted the slot editor Kei’ichi Tabe, the phone receiver in one hand. “The perps demanded six hundred million!”

The news room floor stirred for a moment, then someone from the layout desk cried out, “Six hundred million? You sure? Then we’ll go with six hundred million demanded as the front-page headline!”

“Have they paid that yet, or not?” asked another.

“The perps told Hinode’s president they’d be in touch, then they let him go—” Tabe shouted back.

Fumiaki Negoro looked up at the wall clock, which showed 1:15 p.m. His hand paused on the corrections he was making to the draft of an article and he promptly began rifling through the heap of articles for the Metro page before him. The nuance of many of these articles would change now that a monetary demand had become clear. Notwithstanding suspicions about backroom deals, any mention along the lines of the “perpetrators’ motives remain unknown” had to be either deleted or replaced.

First, on the chronological list of incidents of corporate terrorism, “Abduction and Unlawful Confinement of Hinode Beer President” would have to be changed to “Kidnapping for Ransom.” Next, he needed to check or swap out comments from experts and sources in the financial and liquor industries and Hinode’s rival companies. Some statements were difficult to give the axe to, and for those he’d hand the article to one of the reserve reporters hanging around and have them call the source to reconfirm. Now, the chronology of the incident in relation to Hinode should be okay as it was; the profile on the company president as well. Also fine was the testimony from the staff member of the fire department at the foot of Mt. Fuji who told the press corps, “When he told me he was the president of Hinode Beer and asked me to alert the police, his words and expression were so clear and resolute—I could scarcely believe it. I never would have imagined that this person had been held against his will in the mountains for dozens of hours.”

Even as Negoro continued revising, putting in calls to the respective reporters and making the corrections himself, follow-up items from the kisha club were zinging past his desk and the phone was ringing off the hook with calls from reporters out in the field dictating their stories. Time was running out—reporters in the Reserve and slot editor’s section typed furiously as they improvised articles on their computers, phone receivers tucked between their shoulders and ears—calling to mind the scene in the Kabuki drama Kanjincho, when Benkei contrives to recite from what is, in fact, a blank scroll. The time was now 1:25 p.m.

“There were six adhesive body warm patches, not five. Fix it.”

“His mouth was taped with duct tape. His blindfold was a handkerchief, the president’s own!”

Amid the whirl of such cries, someone handed Negoro an item that had come in from the deputy chief reporter to check. Negoro’s eyes flitted over the draft, which read: Food supplied to the victim at the hideout included six rice balls, four pastry buns, two bananas, three mandarin oranges, two blocks of processed cheese, and two cans of pork and beans. In addition, they gave him paper cartons of oolong tea, orange juice, and fruit-flavored milk . . .

“We have the address of the hideout!” someone shouted.

“Fuji Village, number twelve. A vacation home, single story, a bit more than five hundred thirty square feet. Owner’s name is Takeji Sasamoto. The place is in shambles, hasn’t been