Seizo Monoi
Sunday morning, Monoi retrieved the newspaper and saw the headline on the front page, criminal investigation of ogura group imminent. He scanned the article and set down the paper, and just as he had found the scallions and deep-fried tofu in the refrigerator and started the miso soup, a call came in from Shuhei Handa, who asked, “Did you read the article about Ogura?”
This was the third investigation into Ogura. This time, the investigation centered on Kimihiro Arai, a representative of Takemitsu, a group of corporate raiders that had bought up shares of Ogura Transport between 1986 and 1989. Arai was suspected of extortion for demanding that Ogura buy back his shares shortly after he had become a board member at Ogura Transport in early 1990. Arai had already been arrested and charged two years earlier in a separate suspected extortion case against Ogura.
According to the article, the decision by the District Public Prosecutor’s Office to move forward with a third investigation was prompted by the fact that, when the situation first came to light in 1991, charges had not been filed against Ogura’s management, who were suspected of aggravated breach of trust for agreeing to the buyback of Takemitsu’s shares, and now that the statute of limitations on said case had expired, an inquiry into defendant Arai had been deemed essential for identifying the flow of money behind Ogura’s series of suspicious activities. The article further stated that this latest investigation into Ogura would be carried out amid the stalled investigation of the so-called “S. Memo” scandal, which dated back to 1990, when Ogura’s main bank, the former Chunichi Mutual Savings Bank (absorbed and merged into Toei Bank in 1991), had fallen into financial difficulties and an influential politician from the Liberal Democratic Party had apparently promised to support its plan for rehabilitation. Three billion of a twelve-billion-yen loan that the former Chunichi Mutual Savings group had made to Ogura Development in 1990, in the guise of a land purchase and development of a golf course, was suspected of being in violation of the investment law, and the latest investigation would inevitably have an impact on the outcome of the trial of two suspects arrested and indicted in this case—the former Executive Managing Director Koichi Yasuda and former Company Auditor Tatsuo Sakagami, both of Chunichi Mutual.
“I glanced at it, but—” Monoi said.
“What an useless article,” Handa finished for him.
Ordinarily the Ogura-Chunichi Mutual Savings scandal would have had nothing to do with either Monoi or Handa, but the reason they were forced to pay attention to it had to do with Hiroyuki Hatano.
When Hiroyuki Hatano committed suicide back in November 1990, Monoi had been called in by the police, and was suddenly questioned about his relation to Seiji Okamura—what kind of person Okamura was, when was the last time Monoi had seen him, whether he knew about the letter Okamura had written to Hinode Beer back in 1947, and so on—leaving him utterly bewildered. That was when Monoi learned that Hiroyuki Hatano had somehow acquired this old letter of Seiji Okamura’s, recorded the letter onto a tape, and sent it to Hinode. At his age, Monoi had assumed he would never again experience such a change of heart, but this document written by his elder brother Seiji Okamura, whose face at that point he could not even remember, caused a small waver in his chest, and since then, having tucked away his memory of the transcript of the letter that the police had shown him in a corner of his mind, he had often found himself sitting before the family altar in his home, at a loss for what to do.
Then, at the Buddhist memorial service held forty-nine days after Hatano’s death, Monoi found out that Handa was handling the investigation into the letters and the tape that Hatano had sent to Hinode Beer. Handa told him that Seiji Okamura’s letter had been given to Hatano by a corporate extortionist, but when it came to the crucial points such as the circumstances of how the extortionist came to be in possession of the letter sent to Hinode Beer over forty years ago, and why he had given it to Hatano, these were not yet clear to him.
Furthermore, Handa explained that when the extortionist had given the letter in question to Hatano—a dentist whom he had never met before—he had apparently referred to the financial difficulties of Chunichi Mutual Savings Bank and Ogura Transport. This was the point from which Monoi’s interest in the sequence of the Ogura-Chunichi Mutual Savings scandal originated.
At the same time, it seemed that Handa had been chewed out pretty well by his superiors after Hatano had killed himself the same day they had questioned him about Hinode Beer’s complaint letter. Handa might have been driven more by his own dissatisfaction about the case rather than a particular interest in the substance of the scandal. This was probably also why he had spoken to Monoi in such detail about the investigation, which he normally would have kept entirely confidential.
These being the circumstances, the two of them had kept an especially close eye on articles that appeared in the newspaper, but the mysterious connections between the Ogura-Chunichi Mutual Savings scandal, the dentist, the extortionist who had made contact with the dentist, Seiji Okamura, and finally Hinode Beer remained as indistinct as ever, and frankly Monoi was starting to lose interest.
Handa was a different story, though. As he himself would say, he had always had a tenacious personality, and despite having dismissed the article as useless, now he asked, “I bet that dude from the credit union knows all about this kind of money circulating underground. Do you think he’ll be at Fuchu today?”
“It’s the Tenno Sho. Of course he’ll be there.”
“I’ll be there today too. The Emperor’s Cup will go to either Biwa Hayahide or to Narita Taishin, right?”
Since Hatano’s suicide, Handa had seemed somewhat lackluster about his work. Last year, he had transferred to the Kamata Police Department, and even though he said things had picked up a little again, if he was sneaking out of work to go to Fuchu, then he must not be so busy after all.
Then, as if he had just remembered, Handa changed the subject. “By the way, what did the private detective say?”
“They found an old man who fits the description at a nursing home in Akigawa, but I’m sure it’s the wrong person again,” Monoi replied.
Last year during the Obon holiday—the festival of the dead—when he went to visit his family graves in Hachinohe, Monoi had decided to seek out Seiji Okamura’s grave as well. When he’d inquired with Okamura Merchants about its location, they told him that the last contact they’d had with Seiji was a postcard sent from Tokyo around 1953. Since his long-lost brother’s family register was still listed in Hachinohe, Monoi decided he would spend some time looking for Seiji. This was how, after New Year’s, he came to hire a private detective agency, but after three months there had been no solid leads, and he no longer expected much.
“I hope they find him,” Handa said.
“Thanks.”
“Well, see you at Fuchu.” With that, Handa hung up the phone.
Just then, the bell in the pharmacy rang, and when Monoi stepped outside he found Yoshiya Kanemoto, in golf attire, standing by his parked Mercedes.
“Big brother, have some of this ginseng. It’ll perk you right up,” he said and thrust a paper bag at Monoi. It was obvious he had been gambling in South Korea again.
“I’m well enough, but thanks anyway,” Monoi said, taking the bag. Inside the Mercedes was another man going to play golf with him, and he nodded perfunctorily at Monoi. He knew the faces of a few of the yakuza whom Yoshiya ran around with; today it was the always-somber man with the mole.
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 him, and his first impression that he belonged to that dark underworld remained unchanged.
Nevertheless, this did not take into account Koh’s undoubtedly complex psychology. He felt an emotional distance toward all Japanese people, yet at the same time, he himself said that when it came to other Zainichi he was “at odds with everything from their values to their speech.” Handa, the detective, and Nunokawa, the ex-army man, treated Koh as different simply because he was a Zainichi.
“If you say so, Handa-san, I’ll loan you a million if you promise to give me back thirty percent of your winnings, ” Koh said from behind Monoi.
“You better look for another victim,” Handa spat out. Koh snickered again. Yo-chan was still glaring at his newspaper, the headphones from a portable radio in his ears. Nunokawa, stifling one of his many yawns of the day, stole a glance at the group of young women occupying the space about three seats away from them, a single furrow appearing between his brows. In the last two or three years, it seemed that horseracing had even become wholesome entertainment for young people, as the number of teenage girls and student-types had increased considerably. Lady had been attending the races for ten years already, and she now watched gaily, rocking the bench beneath her.
Below them, the 3,100-meter steeplechase had started on the dirt track. Each man—Monoi and his friends—raised his head slightly, watching the horses as they ran on the dirt track beneath the overcast sky. Seen from afar, the movements of the horse and jockey that leaped to the front looked awkwardly mechanical, like a crankshaft going round and round. When one of the jockeys took a spill halfway through the far turn of the first lap, Nunokawa’s daughter, who hated to see anyone falling from a horse, let out a full-throated scream.
After sweeping past the grandstand, the pack of horses slowed the pace for the backstretch of the second lap. The horse wearing the number six, High Beam, started to inch forward about midway through the straightaway. “There he goes,” Monoi said and patted the girl’s back, and the girl whirled her neck in broad circles and tried to say something. At the final obstacle before the fourth turn, a couple more jockeys fell in succession, and with two more horses out of the race, the final surge of ten horses in the homestretch ended with High Beam breaking out to the finish line.
“Look at that, number six won,” Monoi said to Lady, but the girl, having seen the falls right before her eyes, was lolling her head downward as she began to sob, which made Nunokawa growl, “Cut it out!”
Behind them, persistent as ever, Handa continued to pester Koh. “How can tens of billions of yen be moved around so easily in the first place? Explain this to me.”
Monoi strained his ears a little to listen in on them now.
“You can’t make money without circulating it. Every time money moves, someone benefits. That’s why it goes around,” Koh said.
“Then in the case of Chunichi Mutual Savings, who circulated the money and how, and who benefited from it?”
“They all circulated it together, and each of them benefited. Listen. Those guys, first they looked for a flash point to take advantage of. Chunichi Mutual Savings was a triple whammy: management in trouble; an accounting fraud; infighting between management and the founding clan who were their top shareholders. Next, they created a fixed-race scenario. Then they recruited those who wanted in on it. They had their plan. All they had to do was execute it.”
“You mean how one day out of the blue the founding clan sold their stock holdings to a third party?”
Right, that’s what had happened. Monoi himself briefly contemplated the course of events that had been reported in the media. Using Zenzo Tamaru, a businessman with political ties, as their middleman, the founding clan of Chunichi Mutual Savings had sold off their stock holdings to a third party, and it was speculated that the management of Chunichi Mutual Savings, finding themselves cornered into this third-party takeover, had been promised support by the influential politician from the Liberal Democratic Party known only as “S.”
In addition, there was talk that “S.” had received money in return for his aid, and that the murky twelve-billion-yen loan Chunichi Mutual Savings had made to Ogura Development for the land purchase and development costs for a golf course was used as a slush fund. The charges against the two executives of Chunichi Mutual Savings who had already been arrested were related to this loan. Incidentally, according to the newspapers, the three billion from the twelve-billion-yen loan that was suspected of being in violation of investment law had been loaned to Ogura Development through a keiretsu-affiliated nonbank. This matter had been exposed due to a lack of registered documentation when the broker loan and the revolving mortgage were established. The land Ogura had originally purchased for the golf course was a mountain forest worth only about one billion yen, and of course no golf course was ever constructed. And S. had not given any support to Chunichi Mutual Savings either.
Ultimately, the current of money did flow to its predetermined destination. After a while Kihachi Takemura, the third party to whom the stock holdings were transferred from the founding clan, sold off the shares to Toei Bank, and eventually in 1991, Chunichi Mutual Savings was absorbed into Toei Bank. As Koh had said, it was clear that things had unfolded according to a plotline someone had planned out, meaning that the founding clan of Chunichi Mutual Savings; Kihachi Takemura, who received the stock transfer; Toei Bank; the businessman with political influence, Zenzo Tamaru; and the unknown politician had all worked together to circulate the money.
“If that’s true, where did the loan to Kihachi Takemura for the funds to buy the founders’ stock holdings come from in the first place?” Handa pressed on.
“Takemura? He’s an old ally of Zenzo Tamaru, so with one call to action from the Okada Association, a loan is no big deal. I’m sure they gave it to him without even any collateral.”
“So the connection between the founders, Takemura, Toei, and the politicos is Zenzo Tamaru? He’s the one who plotted the scenario?”
“A detective shouldn’t even mention the name Tamaru,” Koh retorted, but Handa was unfazed, and continued to pepper him with amateurish questions.
“Then the corporate raiders, Takemitsu, buying out Ogura Transport’s stocks was also part of the scenario?”
“I’m sure that was different from the main narrative, but in any case, they’re all connected somehow and they’re all floating each other at the right time. Buying out thirty-four-million yen worth of Ogura Transport stocks is no small thing, you know. If the average share price from ’88 to ’89 was twelve hundred yen, that comes out to over forty billion yen. And Toshin Finance, who loaned Takemitsu’s Kimihiro Arai this amount of money, was a subsidiary of Toei Bank.”
“Forty billion . . .”
“That’s the capital. First, Arai drove up the stock to its highest value of nearly nineteen hundred yen through speculation. Then, in exchange for selling the stocks he had bought up, he demanded that Ogura Transport and its main bank Chunichi Mutual Savings buy back the stocks at a relatively cheaper price. The newspapers reported it as sixty-one point two billion, so working backward, that comes out to about eighteen hundred yen per share. A return of twenty billion on forty billion capital—that’s the work of the likes of Takemitsu.”
“It sounds like Takemitsu’s Arai railroaded them into giving in to his demand, but I guess neither Ogura nor Chunichi could do anything because he had the dirt on them.”
“What dirt? Whether it’s Ogura or Chunichi Mutual Savings, they tried their hand in the underworld, and when the time was right, they sucked out as much honey as they could. Same for Tamaru. And Takemitsu, too. Talk about dirt—they all had something on each other. It was a give-and-take so that no one would have to suffer a huge loss, they saved face for one another. At the same time, those guys are playing a serious game of who traps whom first.”
“In their world, extortion is considered a serious game, huh?”
“If you’re talking about Arai, all it shows is that he failed to do enough behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Right about now, I’m sure Tamaru—through a lawyer—is getting hold of Arai in jail and demanding that he take care of the mess he’s made.”
After a short pause, Handa grumbled, “Well, you sure know a lot about this.”
Without letting on how he took this summation, Koh replied in a drawl, “I grew up breathing that kind of air.”
Perhaps Handa couldn’t find the right words to respond, or maybe he had lost interest, but instead of a reply, he slapped the back of the bench with his newspaper and their conversation ended there.
Down on the racecourse, the horses in the sixth race had finished their presentation in the paddock, and could already be seen warming up. It was now past noon, and though just a little while ago the girl had not wanted any more to eat now she said she was hungry again, so Monoi delivered a piece of the cream bun to her mouth. Nunokawa, still staring out at the tracks with sleepy eyes, did not even look at his daughter. Instead it was Yo-chan who, as usual, had gone to buy some milk for the girl. Inexplicably, Yo-chan took surprisingly good care of her.
As Monoi’s gaze alternated between the four-year-old horses with their carefree limbs moving beneath the tranquil, overcast spring sky and the drooling mouth of the girl, his mind wandered back to Ogura and the former Chunichi Mutual Savings, and he pondered just who, if any, of those involved had taken a loss. Even though they had basically been swallowed up, it wasn’t as if the individual employees at either the former Chunichi or Ogura had incurred any debt, nor had they lost their jobs. Even for the two former Chunichi executives—it was more like they had drawn the short end of the stick—neither they nor their families were going to end up on the street. When money circulated, it meant that debt had to circulate somewhere as well, but still, the amount they were dealing with was so large, it seemed unthinkable that just one person would have to pay the price in the end. When Monoi finally realized that not one of them had ended up losing his shirt, he felt dispirited.
In that moment, as he suddenly remembered the image of the mare Komako that had been sold off half a century ago, a certain thought went through his mind. It was as Koh had said, one couldn’t make money without circulating it, but the money circulated by those who had already made their fortunes—where did it come from in the first place? From the hands of Monoi’s father and mother as they carried sacks of charcoal in his village, from his own hands that kept the cupola burning, from the hands of his older sister who worked as a factory girl, from the hands of Seiji Okamura as he made the beer—wasn’t the money born of these hands? And yet, into these hands came only barely enough money to eat, while the rest became someone else’s wealth. Not only that, but just as Komako, the last resource of an impoverished family, had been taken away by the landowner, and just as the bucket of casting scraps left behind in the vacant Kanemoto Foundry had been carried off by the debt collector, there was no doubt that a fortune had been amassed from every last drop wrung from the have-nots and the guileless. Indeed, Monoi knew it was too late to realize this now, but as it revived the dormant sense of stagnation that had saturated his entire life, he felt all the more dispirited.
Half a century after the war, he compared the sense of entrapment of this one little ant that had failed to escape to how he had felt just after the war ended, that sense of shivering in total darkness. The very space and time in which he existed were contracting with each moment, as if that time and space were running out, a feeling akin to impatience. The mild yet puzzling bouts of frustration he experienced daily, the way he became lost in thought like this, and the abstraction he unconsciously fell into as he pondered these many things—all of it made him feel jittery, a sort of relentless torment.
Monoi wiped Lady’s mouth with the towel—she was drooling and smacking her lips as she ate the cream bun. His hand reached out to her automatically, but to be honest, at the same time he could not help feeling repulsed by the sight of her shirt collar covered in drool and breadcrumbs. Next to her, Nunokawa, silent and still, kept his eyes on the racecourse, while behind him Koh took the conversation in a completely different direction.
“Can’t you move some money into fixed deposits this month? A hundred thousand yen would do,” he said to Handa, trying to get a modest deal out of him.
Beside them, Yo-chan held out a carton of fruit-flavored milk he had just come back with, saying, “Here you go.”
Monoi helped the girl drink the milk through a straw, which she clenched with her teeth as she squealed with delight. At home, she was never given anything sweet since fixing cavities was such an ordeal, so the only-on-Sunday cream bun and fruit-flavored milk were her favorite treats.
Nunokawa, finally looking more like himself again, lifted his head. Just as he seemed to cast a glance at his daughter, his gaze passed over her head and settled on the three men sitting behind them.
“Hey, Koh-san. Where would you say the real money is in this country?” Nunokawa suddenly asked.
“City banks, major securities companies, life insurance companies, a sector of the large corporations, religious organizations. Why do you ask?”
“As I drive all day along the Tomei Expressway between Tokyo and Nagoya, I like to kill time wondering which one I’d take down, if I could. Like you said, all you need to look for is a flash point, right?” Nunokawa had turned to face forward again, and he muttered as if he was talking to himself.
“If that’s the case, then it’s manufacturers you want,” Koh responded without missing a beat.
“Why manufacturers?” It was Handa who asked this.
“Companies that make things understand the value of money. Manufacturing begins with calculating the cost of a single rivet or screw. Once the product has been created, they have to sell them one by one for a specific price. With a gross profit of two or three percent—it’s backbreaking work.”
“So?”
“Because they understand the importance of money, they suffer the most when it is milked out of them.”
“That would be heartless,” Handa said, laughing.
As he listened to the idle chatter, it occurred to Monoi that he himself held various deep-seated grudges against manufacturers in general. The foundry in Hachinohe where he had become an apprentice at the age of twelve; Hinode Beer, where Seiji Okamura had worked half a century ago, the same company his grandson had recently tried to join; and the factory in Nishi-Kojiya that was once his workplace for a quarter-century. The reason these grudges still smoldered deep within his gut was unclear to him—it wasn’t as if he had particularly strong feelings about each company, yet certainly the hue of his own life spent observing these various entities in their respective heydays had been somber, devoid of color.
Behind him, Yo-chan mumbled, “What would you do if you got their money?” and then fell silent again.
“Manufacturers, huh?” Handa said to himself, and he too fell silent. The fanfare as the horses entered the starting gate sounded, and Lady let out a joyous scream from atop the bench.
The four-year-old colts and fillies started off the 1,400-meter race on the backstretch of the turf track. For the fewer than ninety seconds he observed the race, wondering which one would pull out ahead, Monoi’s mind was blank.
The horses’ legs stood out in bright relief as they ran on the spring turf. As the front line of the pack’s progression shifted forward and backward freely, the eleven horses rounded the far turn, advancing and retreating by a nose. Two front runners had slipped ahead. Another horse closed in on them from the outside. And in that flash of a moment, when Monoi narrowed his eyes and wondered if this horse would overtake them, he thought he saw the horse’s legs stumble, then the jockey was suspended in the air before careening sideways. The streak of the jockey’s green helmet. The number seven on the saddlecloth of the horse that had lost its rider.
A cry issued from the girl’s throat, and her head and arms began to whirl violently. The movement of the spectators’ rising from their seats in the grandstand formed a tsunami. The crowd roared as the pack of horses crossed the finish line, then stirred and shook with excitement as the stretcher was rushed out.
Monoi checked the racing column in his newspaper and confirmed the name of number seven’s jockey—Shibata. He was from Aomori, the same prefecture as Monoi’s hometown, and he had been riding horses for as long as Monoi had been attending the races, more than twenty years. He was not a flamboyant rider, but Monoi was rather fond of the way he drove his horse, a style that conveyed his grit and passion. The jockey was always careful at the start of the race, but he had misjudged it today and Monoi felt regret as he watched Shibata being carried away on the stretcher.
The buzz in the grandstand refused to settle down, and Koh said, as if just now thinking of it, “If we’re talking about a manufacturer, go for something big. Toyota, Nippon Steel, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries . . .” He continued to list names.
“I’d pick Sony or Hinode,” said Handa. “Back when I was at the Shinagawa Police Department, I would always stare out at their buildings from Shimbamba Station. At night, they looked like fortresses of light.”
Now that Handa mentioned it, Monoi recalled having seen the nightscape of those two companies’ headquarters. He gave the rest of the fruit-flavored milk to the girl, who was still fretting beside him. The milk was already turning lukewarm, and the girl had crumpled down the end of the straw with her teeth. In spite of this, one sip of the sweet milk calmed her down a little, and she spat out a word that meant “yum.”
Not long after this, Nunokawa thrust out a ten-thousand-yen bill. “Mind if I go take a quick nap? Watch Lady for me. I’ll be back by two.” Without waiting for an answer, he stood up and walked away—he practically fled. Monoi and the three men behind him watched Nunokawa go. None of them uttered a word, they just looked at one another.
In that moment, as Monoi watched the retreating figure of Nunokawa, who must have felt a spasmodic need to get away from his daughter even for a little while, he sensed in him a bottomless gloom, but as an outsider Monoi had no right to say anything about it. Shifting his thoughts, he turned to Yo-chan behind him and asked, “Isn’t there a wheelchair-accessible bathroom here?”
“I’ll go look for one,” Yo-chan replied and nimbly got up from his seat.
Yo-chan returned after about five minutes to announce that he had found a bathroom, and he added, “I just heard on the radio. The managing director of Toei Bank, Yamashita or something, apparently he was shot and killed in front of his home.”
This time, it was Handa’s turn to rise immediately from the bench. Saying there might be an emergency deployment, Handa too disappeared.