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

with a surefire plan to get the money. You will have my full cooperation. In exchange, if it’s Hinode Beer you’re going after, the surefire plan we take will have an impact on their stock price. How does that sound as a condition?”

“I’m not sure I understand . . .”

“I’d like to help an acquaintance of mine profit from his Hinode stock. In exchange, I will ensure that your plan will succeed. Of course, the stock will be sold through a securities company.”

“Are you talking about the underworld?”

“It has to do with speculation. To make a long story short, I have a plan that will protect my parents’ company from my relatives.”

Despite what Koh said, it was apparent to Monoi that if there was no shady underworld connection at all, Koh would have no need to confirm anything with him in the first place. Monoi would be obliged to consider the pros and cons of adding an extra layer to his initial plan, but for the time being he responded, “All right, I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t repeat what I just said,” Koh added tersely, and for a brief moment Monoi thought that he saw a flash in Koh’s eyes that did not belong to an ordinary salaryman. Before he could dwell on it Koh was back to his usual self, calling out, “Hey, Yo-chan, let’s go to Makuhari next week,” to which Yo-chan responded, “Sure,” without even raising his eyes from the work desk.

“What’s in Makuhari?” Monoi asked.

“An expo of the newest video game software.”

Koh wrapped a rubber band around the opening of his rice cracker bag and put it back in the drawer of the work desk. Then, turning toward Monoi again, he said, “You know, in a situation like this, Handa would be useful.”

“But he’s a cop.”

“Precisely. You can’t pass up the chance to use a cop when committing a crime. Besides, I know for sure he’ll come in on it.”

“Why do you think so?”

“A sixth sense. Last week I saw him at WINS, the off-track betting parlor, and he looked like a fresh mackerel that was already rotting from the inside. Like he was itching to do something—I’m sure of it.”

As Koh rose from his seat, his jacket and briefcase in his hands, Monoi said, “When it comes to doing anything with this old man, you’ll have to go without your underground ties.”

After a second, Koh burst out laughing, but as he turned to leave, he resumed the stoop of an exhausted businessman.

Once Koh was gone, Yo-chan actually lifted his head to speak, from his corner of the work desk. “You can say that, Monoi-san, but Koh is a man of the underworld.”

“I know that,” Monoi responded.

“Trust Koh, or give up on Hinode Beer. It’s up to you, Monoi-san. If you do this, I will too. If I go on living like this, I’ll die of boredom.”

Yo-chan promptly delivered his simple and definitive conclusion, then he pulled a newspaper specializing in horseracing out from under whatever was on the desk, and bent his head low over it.

The next day, Shuhei Handa was the one who called Monoi to say he would stop by after work. Handa appeared at the pharmacy a little before 9 in the evening, and as soon as he opened the glass door he started talking. “That guy Nunokawa. This morning, he called the department saying his wife had set her futon on fire, and what should he do . . .”

“What?” Monoi couldn’t help but gasp in response.

“I called his local precinct in Tsukiji, and they said a small fire did break out at Nippo Transport’s employee dormitory in Kachidoki, but they said it was from smoking in bed. I told Nunokawa to keep his mouth shut. Told him to take her to a hospital instead.”

Handa spoke practically nonstop. Pushing aside the display shelf of detergent and toilet paper that had been brought in from outside for the night, he made his way into the store.

“Come on in,” Monoi called to him anyhow.

Nunokawa had seemed pretty desperate since around springtime, but given his complicated situation as the parent of a disabled child, there was nothing that Monoi and the others—fellow horseracing fans and nothing more—could do for him. Monoi wondered briefly who would look after Lady if her mother spent time in the hospital, but it was a pointless concern.

“If the firefighters hosed down the house, there must be an awful mess to clean up.” Monoi finally found a few words to say.

“I went to help him this afternoon,” Handa replied. “Not just the futon—everything from the tatami floors to the furniture is a total loss.”

“Well, it was good of you to go to the trouble.”

“I was off-duty this afternoon anyway.”

As he passed through the store and stepped up into the living room, Handa glanced at the plain wooden memorial tablets and urns arranged on the Buddhist altar, and he lit a stick of incense and joined his hands together. Then, after hearing about how Seiji Okamura had died, he said, “The day before yesterday, I was at a funeral too. You remember Takahashi from the Shinagawa Police Department, right? That detective . . .”

“Oh, that guy . . .”

When Hiroyuki Hatano committed suicide, Monoi had visited the local police department in Seijo where a detective had brought him into a separate room and questioned him insistently about Seiji Okamura’s letter. The detective, who came from the Shinagawa Police Department, had asked him at length about Hatano’s last phone call to Monoi and his relation to Seiji, and he also asked in detail about Monoi’s family, where he had worked after moving from Hachinohe to Tokyo, and his own family circumstances—that had been Takahashi. Monoi remembered him as a man in his fifties with a thoroughly unremarkable appearance, save for the strangely haunting light in his eyes.

According to Handa, in 1992 Takahashi had been transferred from Shinagawa to the Koiwa Department’s Police Affairs, and then this spring he had been hospitalized with