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

the trees and, just as he had begun to contemplate the aim of his impending shot, the president of Sato Transport said casually, “About this morning’s paper . . .”

Shiroyama, detecting the gloom in his voice, nodded lightly and replied, “I know.”

Within Hinode, this morning’s article on the criminal investigation of the Ogura Group was generally received without much surprise, but Shiroyama imagined that it must have been a source of recurring concern for their affiliated transportation companies. The management situation of every one of those companies was more or less the same as Ogura, and during the bubble years many of them, in order to offset the low profitability of their land transportation division, had dabbled in speculative assets and invested in real estate for diversification. Sato Transport was one such company. Since the year before last, Hinode had been sending their executives to Sato Transport and, as part of Hinode’s efforts to restructure their distribution division, they had leased a section of the truck terminals and service routes that Sato Transport held in Saitama and Chiba, with an eye toward strengthening the company’s management base. With Ogura, three years ago, before their scandal became public, Hinode had shelved plans to join their management, and because of this people said they had played it well.

In reality, although the plan to join their management had been shelved, Hinode’s business partnership with Ogura had progressed steadily, and plans to improve their distribution network were still on track. The criminal investigation of Ogura alone would not destroy the company, and there were no other factors that would cast doubt upon Ogura, whose management team had already been fully overhauled and renewed. In that sense, Hinode had reaped well indeed.

“I do feel bad for Ogura. They had to send out apology letters to every single client, and even their drivers had to go around paying courtesy visits,” the president of Sato Transport mumbled. Shiroyama responded simply, “You’re right,” and avoided any further conversation.

A stir arose from the back of the line, which then turned into sighs and murmurs. Shiroyama turned around to see everyone peering at the seventh-hole green across from the grove of cedar trees. Cries of “So close!” and “He almost made it!” rang out.

“Whose shot was that?” Shiroyama called out toward the back.

“Kurata-san. Ten centimeters away from a hole-in-one,” someone shouted back.

“Ah, Kurata-san . . . No wonder,” another voice mumbled. Indeed, it was not surprising for Kurata to almost make a hole-in-one on a par-three hole. Ever since he was young Kurata had been an avid golfer, and in his days as a salesman, whenever he had any spare time he would head to the links to practice alone. Of course, now that he was an executive vice president he no longer had the time and his score had suffered, but back when he was in his forties he had always been a single-digit player—he was even a zero handicap for a while. Perhaps natural ability and focus were not things that deteriorated with age, and since on his good days he could still easily drive 270 or 280 and certainly sink a three-or four-meter putt, at every competition someone would complain that playing without a handicap was not enough for Kurata.

Shiroyama tried craning his neck a bit to see between the rows of cedars, but he could not catch sight of Kurata. When Shiroyama bumped into him at the club house that morning, Kurata had whispered to him that there was no sign of the Okada Association making any new moves following Ogura’s criminal investigation, nor was there a possibility that it would reach S. from the Liberal Democratic Party, yet there had been no sense of relief in his tone. Hearing this report, Shiroyama felt much the same—this was the natural reaction of a person involved who, every time the District Public Prosecutor’s Office made a move, had to fear the repercussions of the investigation reaching Hinode and being exposed for violation of the Commercial Code.

Last year, Hinode had finally begun the process of ending their relationship with the Okada Association and, under the guise of purchasing a painting from them, had paid them a billion-yen settlement, and the two parties had signed a document. Even so, Kurata, who had singlehandedly orchestrated the difficult negotiations and brought it to an amicable conclusion, and Shiroyama, who as president had made the final decision, shared a common destiny with Okada should the situation take a turn for the worst. In the first place, the whole process was executed after they had carefully determined that such a possibility was as close to zero as possible, so that Shiroyama did not feel too pressured, but Kurata, having been directly involved in the negotiation, may have reacted to the situation differently. In private, Kurata may very well have been disquieted by the article in this morning’s paper reporting the criminal investigation of Ogura, but even then, the fact that he still managed to come close to a hole-in-one was reassuring to Shiroyama, for the time being at least.

“I’ll see you a little later,” the second player from the preceding eighth team said as he set out from the tee, leaving just two players ahead of Shiroyama. Now, for this tee shot, I’ll aim for the middle of the curve in the dogleg, about 170 yards. On this eighth hole, he always got caught in the trees flanking the course, so he wanted to make it today. Shiroyama donned his gloves again and, as he was warming up his wrists, he happened to look up across from the tee.

He saw someone running toward him, taking the long way around the tee. By the time Shiroyama had squinted to realize it was Fujii, the Tokyo branch president, Fujii had walked through the cedar grove and approached the back of the queue for the eighth-hole tee. As Shiroyama wondered whom he needed to talk to, Fujii whispered something to an executive named Shibasaki, who in