Kyosuke Shiroyama
From the regular tee of the 184-yard par-three seventh hole, his shot barely missed the pond in front of the green, and he tensed up for a moment. Right after seeing the ball fly off, he realized to his dismay that he had sliced it, but he put off dissecting why he had done so and, telling the string of players behind him with a sheepish grin, “I’ll see you up there,” Kyosuke Shiroyama quickly moved on, chasing after his ball.
Hinode’s Kantō regional competition took place every spring and fall at the Matsuo Golf Club in Chiba and was renowned for its huge turnout. Each time, fifty representatives from among all the distributors in the Kantō area were selected fairly, in a rotating order, from the main offices, branch offices, and sales offices, regardless of their size. From Hinode, in addition to the chairman, the president, two vice-presidents, four board members, and the sales manager and deputy manager of the beer division’s main office, sales managers and representatives from their five regional offices and two branch offices in the Kantō area were also invited, totaling twenty-four members. From Hinode’s subsidiaries and affiliated companies, another ten representatives were selected, again in fair turn. It was a successful event with eighty-four in attendance, all told.
Similar regional golf competitions occurred in conjunction throughout Japan in Hokkaido, Tohoku, Hokuriku, Chubu, Kinki, Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu, and for the past twenty years, this traditional event had been a proud display both within and outside the company of the solidity of Hinode’s unique network of production, distribution, and sales. However, now that same network also seemed to symbolize a lumbering Gulliver, and Shiroyama knew that he would like to put an end to the event within the next few years, but in the same way that sundry unresolved items accumulated into a mountain, overturning tradition was always a Herculean task.
The members were divided into In and Out groups, and that day Shiroyama was on the ninth “In” team—his teammates included the president of Tomioka, a major distributor; the president of another major distributor, Iida Shokai; and the president of Sato Transport, an affiliated company.
The competition had started at nine in the morning, and by the time Shiroyama—the fourth player on team nine—had landed his ball on the seventh-hole green, it was past noon. He had nailed his approach shot from the edge of the pond, and the ball had landed two meters in front of the pin, so he thought he could make par. The cup was on a gently rising slope. The president of Sato Transport, who had holed out before him, called out, “Take your time.”
Although Shiroyama’s golf game spanned thirty years, he did not put in much effort, sometimes managing to break a hundred—sometimes not—and he did not have much enthusiasm for it, either. He set his aim squarely on the putting line and putted the ball as usual, and when the ball luckily reached the cup, light applause rose from across the green.
Shiroyama hurried off the green and, swapping his club for a 3-wood for the next hole, began walking with the other three members on his team. “I hope it doesn’t rain,” the president of Sato Transport said, looking up at the overcast sky.
“It should hold up,” Shiroayama replied.
The two distributors were engaged in their own conversation: “Instead of a price hike, there’s a better chance for a price slump,” to which the other replied, “We’ll see what kind of prices the major supermarkets will set.”
They were discussing the outcome of retail prices of alcoholic beverages, which were set for a simultaneous increase on May 1st. The manufacturer’s current suggested retail price of 220 yen for a 350-milliliter can would be raised to 225 yen, but the major supermarkets were strategizing instead to engage in a price war by extending their discount rate even further. There were reports that, depending on the supermarket, the price would be set from as low as 193 yen. Several years ago, the nationwide price of beer had started to collapse in discount liquor stores, but until now supermarkets had held their discounts to a few yen per can. But this time, it appeared certain that a large-scale price reduction of a minimum of ten yen ranging up to twenty yen was about to happen. Although he could hear the two men’s conversation, there was no way for Shiroyama to respond to it offhandedly, so he chose to ignore it and instead turned his gaze to the beautiful undulating green before him.
Shiroyama was fond of the Matsuo golf course, with its thick groves of Japanese cedars and the fairways that seemed to ripple out from beneath them, each of which were always serenely quiet. No matter where he was on the course, he could look upward and see only the cedar trees rising to the sky above. As he made his way around each of the eighteen holes, he drove the ball into the air from this deep green expanse devoid of anything superfluous. The ball then dropped back down onto the green carpet, and he launched it up again. Prizing the tranquility of these hours, Shiroyama still came here to chase the ball around, but in his four years at the top of a company that sold a trillion and three hundred billion yen worth of beer, the truth was that there had barely been a moment to take a deep breath amidst this sea of green.
During Shiroyama’s thirty-five years of service to the beer industry, things had never been as severe on so many different fronts as they were now. Due in part to last year’s cool summer, the year-over-year aggregate demand for beer had fallen into the negative for the first time in nine years, and last year’s decrease in demand was further confirmation of a declining trend in average spending per customer in the midst of three years of stagnation resulting from the collapse of the bubble economy, as well as of signs that alcohol consumption itself was leveling off.
Meanwhile, if he considered the arena of production, distribution, and sales of alcoholic beverages, first of all, the diversification of sales channels of alcoholic beverages had accelerated considerably as a result of partial revisions in 1989 and 1993 of the guidelines for obtaining a liquor license, and deregulation under the Large-Scale Retail Store Act. The market expansion of discount liquor stores gained even more traction, and now that conditions were increasingly favorable for convenience stores and major supermarkets to venture further into the alcoholic beverage business, the competition within various channels to drive prices down had turned fierce—this was directly connected with the all-around decrease in sales at liquor stores in general—and the entire keiretsu-based conglomerate structure of primary wholesalers, secondary wholesalers, and chain liquor stores that the beer industry had established over its hundred-year history was at this moment in time shaking from its very foundation.
There was a sector of liquor stores that had adopted the strategy of franchising or converting into convenience stores in order to survive, but small-scale retail stops that couldn’t afford such options were no longer able to keep business going. The wholesalers, in turn, were also suffering from an undeniable drop in sales due to the undercutting on unit price and the slump in consumption. For liquor stores and wholesalers both, even if they were to streamline their businesses to counter the narrowing profit margin, the current keiretsu system was nothing but an impediment to cost-trimming strategies, such as bulk purchasing and refining the product line with strong sellers, and it only exacerbated the management inefficiency. On the other hand, within the wholesale industry where family-run businesses were common, measures to strengthen management infrastructure and improve their competitive edge, such as mergers among small to mid-size wholesalers or absorption by larger wholesalers, were not the kind of thing that could happen overnight.
Separately, instead of focusing on domestic beers, with their high liquor tax that never turned a profit no matter how many units they sold, convenience stores and large supermarkets were beginning to engage in direct sales by partnering with foreign beer manufacturers to develop their own in-house brands or forming exclusive distributor agreements. As of May 1st, a 350-milliliter can of domestic beer would cost 225 yen. Meanwhile, an imported brand sold directly by a certain convenience store cost 180 yen. Such direct transactions between major mass retailers and foreign manufacturers had resulted in beer price-busting and diversification of sales channels. Moreover, foreign products that benefited overwhelmingly from tax rates and raw material costs had been streaming into the country. What these situations suggested—as far as domestic beer manufacturers were concerned—was a future for the beer industry that promised to chip away at Japan’s hundred-year-old sales and distribution system and ensured a decline in sales for Hinode, the company that had dominated such a system.
Every manufacturer nowadays was being forced into reforming their business structurally, but complex problems—such as reassessing the distributor network, including the rebate system; restructuring wholesalers; restructuring and cutbacks with small-scale liquor stores; reevaluating the immense publicity and advertising costs shouldered by the manufacturers, as well as the labor costs of maintaining their regional sales network; and restructuring the land transportation industry in order to streamline distribution channels, for both manufacturers and for distribution and sales at every level—these could all only be realized five or even ten years from now.
Nevertheless, the fact was that, in just a week, when the shelves of liquor shops and vending machines were lined with 225-yen cans of beer, at the same time discount stores, convenience stores, and major supermarkets would be stocked with imported beers and their own label beers for less than two hundred yen. The price difference for a case of twenty-four beers could amount to nearly a thousand yen. For Hinode this meant that, a week from now, the brunt of this impact would be felt by the six hundred dealerships and the 130,000 general liquor stores around the nation. Over the last half year, Shiroyama himself had taken the lead, wearing out his shoes visiting clients—to the point that, even now just standing on the grass, his feet hurt a little.
“The long-range forecast predicted that this summer will be extremely hot,” the president of Sato Transport called out to the two men from the distributors.
“Yes. Things being what they are, all we can do is pray for good weather,” the president of Iida Shokai replied.
“I don’t know what we’ll do if there’s no hot weather to drive up business,” the president of Tomioka followed up.
Since the kickoff to the spring sales season had not gone so well for any of them, Shiroyama agreed that they must count on the weather. Their competitors doled out new products again this spring, but Hinode had not. While sales of the lager and Supreme were still steady, they had decided to prioritize a large-scale reform of their domestic product line and the reorganization of delivery terminals in order to simplify their distribution system, but current sales figures were still forefront in his mind.
As they emerged from the grove of cedar trees, team number three was waiting to tee off at the par-four eighth-hole. Shiroyama saw that the man gripping the long-iron was Sei’ichi Shirai, and he appeared to be having trouble addressing the ball. The eighth hole was a dogleg with a narrow fairway shaped like the hollow curve of a suribachi bowl, which made the tee shot crucial, but Shiroyama could see right away that Shirai was restless and taking far more time than usual.
Shirai’s golf game was similar to Shiroyama’s but the way he played could not have been more different. Shirai had always been the type to first envision a conquest that was a level above his own skill, and then seek out various methods for achieving it. While Shiroyama paid more attention to his overall score, Shirai would go after a difficult course and be happy as long as he parred just one hole, even if he triple-bogeyed the other seventeen. Shirai’s approach to golf seemed somehow to correlate with the way he worked and his management philosophy—though there was quite a gap between his ideal and reality—and at times his pursuit of a strange shot made it hard to tell if he were calm or just moody, so it was interesting to watch him.
Shirai finally pulled into his backswing and followed through relatively cleanly, sending the ball flying. Shiroyama couldn’t see where it landed, but since light applause rose immediately from the crowd, he presumed the ball was in a good position.
Shirai maintained a breezy countenance in front of all their distributors, but the truth was that he was incredibly busy, approaching the conclusion of four years of ongoing negotiations for Hinode’s joint venture with Limelight—an event that would determine the course of their entire industry. Playing golf today must have really pushed him to the limit physically, but in order to divert the attention of the newspaper reporters and industry insiders, who were paying close attention to how the terms of the negotiations would pan out, and to evade the doubts and suspicions of rival companies, it was absolutely crucial for him to attend the competition as usual, looking as if nothing was amiss.
Waiting for his turn to tee off, Shiroyama made small talk with those standing around him, as once again he pondered questions about the joint venture he would have to make a final decision upon in a few days’ time.
In the fall of 1990, when Limelight revealed their intention to dissolve Hinode’s exclusive distribution agreement and to establish a new joint corporation with them, Hinode had been genuinely dismayed to realize that Limelight’s objective was a full-scale entry into the Japanese market. The terms of the joint venture that Limelight presented would have limited Hinode’s investment to 10 percent, with Limelight controlling all agency and management rights, and with regard to sales routes—the most crucial issue—Limelight would be free to select them as they saw fit, without being restricted to Hinode’s network of keiretsu distributors. Moreover, the period of the joint venture was for ten years. In sum, the joint corporation that Limelight proposed would, rather than fitting into Hinode’s network of affiliated companies, operate as a completely independent competitor that would dominate a corner of the Japanese market, and it was merely a formality of borrowing the name of a domestic manufacturer to get around the restriction on obtaining a license to sell alcoholic beverages.
Shiroyama and all the other executives were appalled at this, and during the first year of negotiations, the option to dissolve their existing relationship with Limelight was also on the table. Now that the past ten years of Hinode’s business expansion efforts were finally bearing fruit, Limelight’s products had reached domestic sales of seven million cases per year with a market share of 1.3 percent, and while dropping those figures would be, for the time being, a considerable loss for Hinode, the long-term damage incurred, were they to accept the terms Limelight insisted upon to establish a joint corporation, would be incomparable. Opinion was divided among Hinode’s board members—either force Limelight to change the terms of the joint venture, or lose the 1.3-percent share by dissolving their relationship.
Nonetheless, last fall, after three years of negotiations, the tenacious bargaining led by board member Shirai had yielded results—Hinode’s investment ratio was now forty-nine percent, and while management rights had been ceded to Limelight, the condition was that their sales routes would be restricted to Hinode’s network of keiretsu distributors—and they had hammered out an agreement in mid-October. Afterward, both parties began drafting a prospectus to submit to the Japan Fair Trade Commission as soon as possible, but at the last minute, the JFTC had suddenly intervened. Limelight concluded that the winds were in their favor, what with the progress of the Japan-US Structural Impediments Initiative, the advent of a coalition government that had pledged deregulation and to open up markets at home and abroad, and the subsequent stricter enforcement of the Antitrust Act. Thus, they had cannily scrapped their agreement with Hinode and run to the JFTC.
The JFTC deemed the domination of Japan’s domestic beer industry by four major companies an oligopoly and saw the extensive licensing system of production, distribution, and sales in the interest of liquor-tax collection as an impediment to full and open competition and a breach of the Antitrust Act, and had always been looking for the right opportunity to strike. Now, Limelight tried to put the screws to the JFTC to form a joint venture with Hinode under their original terms, but upon receiving this proposal, the JFTC’s leadership proved to be more obstinate than ever before. According to the JFTC, the dissolution of the domestic oligopoly and the opening of proper free-market competition were not the only prospects if Hinode were to establish a new joint corporation in accordance with Limelight’s plan. The JFTC even made the veiled threat that if a domestic manufacturer did not agree to such a joint venture, then beer, along with automotive parts, flat glass, and telecommunications, could all potentially become the target of Japan-US trade negotiations.
The JFTC took such a strong stance because, to put it simply, if one of Japan’s manufacturers did not take on Limelight’s aggressive demands, they would find themselves in a situation where they were unable to respond to requests from home or abroad and that Hinode was the only manufacturer with enough basic and fundamental strength to do so. Meanwhile, the National Tax Agency, who ordinarily should have protected the domestic manufacturer in order to secure the liquor tax, proved itself to be consistently weak-kneed, in part due to the chaotic political situation, and failed to demonstrate any leadership. However, considering the current trends, this problem would have occurred sooner or later, so ultimately one could say that Limelight had shrewdly taken the pulse of the times and come out victorious, while Hinode had gone on the defensive and lost.
In any case, fearing the remote chance that Limelight would join forces with a convenience store that sold seventy billion yen worth of beer annually, Hinode had, since January this year, returned to the negotiating table and, hoping to extract even a small concession from Limelight, Shirai had been hard at work right up to the day before yesterday. Even if they were to accept their conditions as they were, it might not have a significant impact on the basis of Hinode’s management itself, but in the future it would wreak incalculable havoc on the entire beer industry, Hinode included. Once they set a precedent, other huge foreign manufacturers might launch similar successive offensives. If that were to happen, as of now the domestic industry had no countermeasures.
Over the last three months, many of those on the board of directors could not help but express resistance to an industry giant like Hinode willingly choosing a path that would ultimately lead to their network of distributors being devoured by a foreign manufacturer. And yet, no one would come out and say that there was any way they could refuse the joint venture. Shirai himself, from the start, had been of the opinion that if this road was indeed inevitable, it was in their best interest to prepare for it now, and Shiroyama too, after thinking it over countless times himself, was verging on the decision to accept their demands.
As for Hinode, they would be able to add Limelight’s share to their overall sales for the duration of their ten-year joint venture, but if by that time, when Limelight had been set up independently and the era of full-scale free competition would begin, they still did not have a structure in place at least to cover their loss in shares of the beer market, there would be no future for Hinode anyway. What was more, if Limelight’s raid into the market were to bestir the wholesalers and liquor stores themselves to finally accelerate the streamlining process that had languished for so long, then in the long run that could even be seen as a benefit.
The rest depended on how they would accede to Limelight’s demands. If they were to swallow them whole, they would lose face in front of their competitors and every one of their distributors. Late last night, Shiroyama had instructed Shirai to present one final condition to Limelight. Namely that, during the first three years of the joint venture, Limelight must maintain the same suggested retail price as domestic manufacturers. For now, they would push for this one concession, and wait to see what would be their move. On Monday—tomorrow—Shirai was expected to return to the negotiating table with Limelight.
Presumably, this would bring the four-year-long joint-venture issue with Limelight to a conclusion. On Wednesday the 27th, they would summon the board of directors to present their final decision, and on the 28th they would convey the terms of their resolution to the JFTC and Limelight, and once the various procedures had been squared away, they would announce the joint venture by mid-May. However, as far as their business was concerned, before that could happen, they needed to explain the situation and build a consensus first among their designated shareholders, as well as their major distributors and competitors. The joint venture with a behemoth like Limelight—a corporation that held a 10-percent share in the global beer market and whose scale of production was one-and-a-half times that of all four major Japanese companies put together—no matter what form it took, it was sure to send shock waves in all directions.
The consensus-building was scheduled for the week beginning Monday, May 9th, after the Golden Week holiday ended. As Shiroyama made these calculations in his head, the queue in front of him to tee off grew shorter by the minute, while a new line had formed behind him.
A bird’s call above his head reached his ears, and when he looked up the slightly overcast sky showed faint streaks of sunlight. Shiroyama breathed in the air, thick with the scent of new buds on 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 turn took off in a trot toward Kurata at the very end of the line and whispered to him.
Shiroyama’s and Kurata’s eyes met. Kurata excused himself to those near him and, once he had reached Shiroyama at the front of the line, he said, “Managing Director Yamashita from Toei Bank passed away just a while ago.”
He did not whisper the words, so the people around them heard as well, and a stir rose at once. Yamashita’s death being what it was, those who did business with Toei must have quickly considered sending telegrams and making condolence calls. Shiroayama, on the other hand, had perceived the flash of some sort of sign in Kurata’s grim stare.
He understood that something was amiss, and for the moment he excused himself from the presidents of the distributors and Sato Transport. Kurata and Fujii followed him. Once they reached the cedar grove, Kurata came up beside him and said quietly, “Apparently someone shot him in front of his home in Den-en-chofu.”
Shot him? Shiroyama wanted to ask, but he found himself speechless.
“I’ve had general affairs confirm with the police a number of times—there’s no mistake. I’ve got the director of general affairs going to the hospital right away.”
As Shiroyama listened to Kurata speak in a tone rigid with feigned calmness, he finally regained his own voice. “What about Terada-san?” he asked.
“He’s at the main office,” Kurata replied.
Terada was the president of Toei, and as the largest shareholder he was also a member of Hinode’s board of directors. Shiroyama tried to picture him at the Toei head office just then.
“Which of our executives are still in Tokyo? Call one of them up, and tell him to act as point person with Toei. If possible, tell him to go to the Toei head office first.”
“I’ll ask Sugihara,” Kurata said and immediately took out his personal cell phone.
Shirai, who must have just finished the eighth hole, came running through the grove carrying the wood he was about to use for the next hole. His brows were furrowed with irritation as he asked them, “How should we proceed?”
“How many teams are left of the Ins?” Shiroyama asked.
“Two or three, I think.”
“Let’s just finish the front nine. After that, let’s gather the board members together before lunch . . .”
“Right,” Shirai said to himself and walked back the way he came.
Kurata, who had finished his call, asked, “Should I reserve a separate room?”
“Yes, please.” Shiroyama turned to Kurata and Fujii and urged them, “Now, let’s all get back to the game.”
Just then, someone else called his name and stopped Shiroyama in his tracks. It was Chairman Keizo Suzuki, who should have finished the front nine by this time and been on his way back to the clubhouse, but was now walking briskly through the grove toward him. Sixty-five years of age, Suzuki was slightly out of breath as he whispered the words, “It’s the Seiwakai,” referring to the crime syndicate.
Shiroyama gave him a vague nod, unable to respond otherwise.
“Please consider security measures for all of our executives immediately. I’m counting on you,” Suzuki said.
“Yes,” Shiroyama said and nodded again.
“In a situation like this, we must spare no expense.”
“I agree.”
During his tenure as president, Suzuki himself had been the one with connections to various characters including Tomoharu Okada, head of the Okada Association; Zenzo Tamaru, their advisor; and Taiichi Sakata of the LDP, among other elected representatives. It was true that he had inherited many of these relationships from his predecessors, and he had left it to Kurata to do the actual dirty work, yet there were still a considerable number of murky issues that only Suzuki knew about. Shirai had questioned Suzuki about these, and had then scrupulously formed a majority opinion on the item at the board meeting so that, during the change in management four years ago, Suzuki was somewhat reluctantly relegated to the position of chairman, and held no representative rights.
Like Kurata, Suzuki did not dare divulge the specifics, but there was no doubt that in his dealings with the Okada Association, he had more than once been in contact with the Seiwakai, who controlled them. Shiroyama felt both frustrated and anxious when he saw the dismal and reticent look on Suzuki’s face. There was no way to feel at ease about the situation.
It was bound to happen in the end—after the collapse of their longstanding, codependent relationship with the hyenas that survived off the scraps of inter-corporate dealings, those hyenas would start attacking the corporations directly. Until just recently the financial institutions had continued to make loans to just about anyone, but three years ago, they had all at once changed course with the economic recession, and now there were a considerable number of corporations among their beleaguered customers who were entangled with crime syndicates. It was all well and good while the money was flowing, Shiroyama thought calmly, but today’s incident demonstrated what happened when the money ran out and fangs were bared—a bank had been forced to pay the price with someone’s life.
Hinode’s situation was no exception—in fact, one could even say it was more complicated. The money that Hinode funneled to Okada-affiliated extortionists and political organizations via management consultant companies used to amount to about ninety million a year. This was a large amount for one company to expend, but above all, it was a clear violation of the Commercial Code. The year before last, when they had made the decision to settle accounts with Okada, the National Police Agency had continued to press the four major economic organizations for their cooperation in eradicating corporate extortionists and was pursuing an aggressive policy of exposing each corporation that had violated the Commercial Code. Both Hinode and Okada had sensed a crisis, and both parties—having determined that the damage incurred from exposure would be great—tentatively moved forward with the dissolution of their relationship, but in reality what they had was a truce, with both parties refusing to let the other’s vulnerability out of their clutches. Okada knew the truth about Hinode’s Commercial Code violations, while Hinode possessed information on Okada and their affiliates’ expansive interrelations with various organizations and corporations.
Thanks to Kurata’s tactics, Hinode was able to break away, but around the same time, Mainichi Beer had been exposed for furnishing profits to a corporate extortionist, which not only coerced them into changing over their management, but also affected their stock price. As a result of these charges, the police were said to have seized a huge trove of documents that revealed the links between crime syndicates and corporations, and this must have been a serious blow to Okada as well. Because of Mainichi Beer’s exposure, the National Tax Agency had audited Hinode as well, but since there were no tracks in their account books and registries, Hinode managed—narrowly—to avoid any further trouble. Now that conditions surrounding the underground economy were becoming more punitive, who knew how long Okada would just sit idly by? Even though they had reached an agreement with Hinode, might they not still demand something else? There was no way to dispel that anxiety.
“The police are damn sloppy . . .” Suzuki’s tone, as he spat out these words, quavered a little.
It was true—ever since the law against organized crime took effect in 1991, the police had been pressuring corporations to eradicate the extortionists, but if these were the consequences, they were too much for the corporations to bear. The managing director of a major city bank’s being shot and killed in broad daylight—that was far too high a price to pay, and was absolutely unacceptable.
“Akio Yamashita and I were in the same class at law school,” Suzuki continued.
“I remember that.”
“He was an honest and courteous man. I feel as if I’ve been shot myself. Terrible—just terrible.”
As Shiroyama listened to Suzuki grow emotional, an image of his own wife of many years, Reiko, alone at home in Sanno Ni-chome, flashed through his mind, and he made a mental note to tell her to be extra vigilant about locking up the house from now on. It was rare for him to imagine the faces of his family while he was out working.
Back at the eighth hole, the president of Tomioka—the third player on Shiroyama’s ninth team—was already standing at the tee.
“Oh, excuse me. My turn is next,” he said to Suzuki and took off with his wood in hand.
Shiroyama returned to the game, but of course he was distracted and ended up with a double bogey for both the eighth and ninth holes. Even Kurata seemed to have bogeyed on the ninth, a par-three.
After they had finished the front nine, the Hinode staff gathered in a separate room, but the executives and employees alike were dumbstruck. Anything related to Okada had always been handled by Suzuki and Kurata behind the scenes, and even though they received summarized reports at board meetings, most of the members thought of it as someone else’s concern—even Shiroyama himself felt that way, to some extent. It was understandable then that at the level of branch offices and sales offices, they had an even more uncertain grasp of the situation.
Meanwhile Kurata, with the typically placid, torpedo-like façade he wore in public, offered nothing more than a brief explanation of the situation and instructions regarding their response to each of Toei’s clients. It was decided that President Suzuki and Shiroyama would make an appearance at the wake that would likely be held by the deceased’s family as soon as that evening.
Shiroyama himself simply announced that tomorrow morning’s board meeting would take place an hour earlier than usual, at eight o’clock. In addition to the existing meeting agenda, they would need to discuss new security precautions for executives.
“Well then, please go to lunch. Explain to your distributors as instructed. Thank you.”
They adjourned after less than five minutes, and Shiroyama and Suzuki, who had to return to Tokyo, hastily changed their clothes and set out for the ride home in a company car. Shiroyama, feeling the need to bolster his darkening spirits, tried to think about their new product for next spring, a second lager that was currently in the testing phase. He would like to think that sales of the new product would be at least fifty million cases within the first year, especially if they hoped to reinvigorate the sluggish beer business. He preferred to occupy his mind with such things, but with Suzuki there with him, he could hardly afford to do so.
“By the way, last week I saw S. at a party for the LDP,” Suzuki started to say, once they were in the car. “He said their coalition government will be crushed sooner or later, so he’s counting on me in the event of a general election. I’ve never heard him speak so bluntly.”
“Did he mean to say that a fundraising ticket is not enough?”
“It seemed that way. I have no idea what he must be thinking at a time like this, while rumors are swirling around after the Ogura scandal. If you happen to see him anytime soon, you’d better watch out, too. There’ll be trouble if the likes of Tamaru get involved.”
“I’ll decline anything other than a fundraising ticket.”
“If only it were so easy.”
“We need to at least make our intentions clear.”
Shiroyama felt hollowed out, forced to juxtapose the thought of the second lager—their single beacon of hope—with his feelings of self-reproach and loathing toward the less-than-idealistic corporate culture. But the brazenness that required him to deliberately set aside his true feelings—that was something he had mastered in the last four years.