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

beat and those covering the District Public Prosecutor’s Office and the courts, the players he had left totaled about fifty reporters.

Across the top, he had written 1) Supervisor and 2) Deputy Supervisor, followed by 3) Hard News 4) Feature Articles 5) Victim, et al. 6) Hinode Main Office 7) Hinode Executives 8) Hinode Employees 9) Hinode Affiliated Companies 10) Distributors 11) Competitors & Labor Union 12) Liquor Shops 13) National Tax Agency 14) Omori Police Department Stakeout 15) Sanno Stakeout 16) Standbys, and so on.

He put the Metro chief under “Supervisor” and the deputy chief under “Deputy Supervisor.” For each team in charge of replacing stories for Hard News and Feature Articles, he would assign one slot editor from each section along with a supervising chief and three reporters. For each reporting crew and the two stakeout headquarters, he’d assign a chief and a few more reporters. The name of Yoshida, the overnight reporter who had covered the joint venture between Hinode and Limelight last year, was listed under 10) and 13), while Tabe wrote his own name under Hard News, and Negoro put himself down for Feature Articles as a supervising chief.

The overnight photographers had already raced off in the direction of the victim’s residence and Hinode’s main office in Shinagawa. The news room floor had become a vortex of noise—calls being made, phones ringing, footsteps coming and going, and voices flying across the room. As his Magic Marker darted around the assignment chart, Tabe was unable to contain the excitement in his voice. “Looks like we’ll be spending nights here for a while,” he muttered.

Once the managers and section editors gathered, they would be entrenched in meeting after meeting. Negoro would pull together the articles that would flood in during the intervals and, with one eye always on the clock, just when he thought he had a final draft, things would get switched around and he’d be rewriting articles down to the last second. While every staff member embedded at the main office—including Negoro—was transformed into human word processors, the reporters were working in the field, hunting down interviews as they launched into their dog race. Negoro was concerned about his own engine, which seemed to be taking a little longer than usual to rev up, and as he blinked his sleep-deprived eyes, the thought of the rose show floated into his mind again. He realized that he would miss the opportunity—again and for the foreseeable future—that he had secretly hoped would bring about a small change in his life.

久保晴久　Haruhisa Kubo

Earlier that evening, the check-in for the regular interview session at the official residence of the chief inspector of the First Investigation Division hadn’t started until 11 p.m. since the MPD was hosting a party for incoming and outgoing officials at the Hanzomon Kaikan. That night, Haruhisa Kubo, on his second year as the beat reporter for the MPD, arrived in front of the chief inspector’s official residence in Himonya in Meguro district a little more than ten minutes past eleven, and was ninth on the list after reporters from various commercial broadcasting companies, NHK, Asahi, and Kyodo. Other media companies followed, arriving in groups of twos and threes, and the line of reporters quickly materialized in the alley, standing silently with their shoulders hunched, wearing headphones from their portable radios.

For the majority of those present, the night’s topics of interest related to First Investigation included the whereabouts of the cult leader, who had an arrest warrant out on him on suspicion of a murder plot to unleash poisonous gas, and developments in the interrogation of senior members of the cult who had already been arrested. Since there had only been a handful of official announcements from the MPD, each organization had spent these last few days feeling out the leader of First Investigation. Kubo, curious to know what leads his competitors might have up their sleeves, approached this evening’s session by gulping down his requisite nightly antacid and energy drink. In spite of this practice he never lost any weight. Even in his student days, he had had a large build, but since becoming a Metro reporter, thanks to the irregular lifestyle, he had put on another ten kilograms, and during his company medical checkup the doctor had told him that he was on the verge of fatty liver disease.

The night was terribly cold for the beginning of spring, with rain drizzling off and on. At 11:25 p.m., a complaint rose from the scrum of reporters from the commercial broadcasting companies. “He’s late.” It was past the expected arrival time of the official vehicle for the chief inspector, but since he was sometimes even a full half hour late, Kubo wasn’t particularly concerned. No doubt the other reporters had come to the same conclusion, for no one joined in the grumbling.

But the second time someone murmured, “He’s late,” it was contagious, and the words were repeated over and over. It was now three minutes past midnight. Along with the mumblings of “Did something happen?” and “Something’s up,” another voice quipped, “His neighbor hasn’t returned yet either.” The official residence of the chief inspector of First Investigation stood next to that of the chief inspector of the Crime Scene Unit, and since the latter didn’t drink, there was no way he would have stayed out late for an after party or some other social gathering. This fact, and that it was now past midnight and the chief inspector of First Investigation had still not returned home either, did not take more than a few seconds to sound an alarm in the minds of the dozen or so reporters huddling in the alley.

Had they located the cult members wanted by the police? Or was it another incident? The reporters exchanged dubious looks of suspicion, and after another moment, the impatient ones began disappearing from the alley without a sound. Kubo told himself that if something had happened he would hear from the kisha club and so he did not