Lady Joker, Volume 1, Kaoru Takamura [best affordable ebook reader TXT] 📗

First published in Japanese under the title Redi jōkā (レディ・ジョーカー)

Copyright © 1997 by Kaoru Takamura

English translation copyright © 2021 by Marie Iida and Allison Markin Powell

This English language edition is published in arrangement with

Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,

or locales is entirely coincidental.

First English translation published in 2021 by

Soho Press, Inc.

227 W 17th Street

New York, NY 10011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Takamura, Kaoru, author.

Powell, Allison Markin, translator. | Iida, Marie, translator.

Title: Lady Joker / Kaoru Takamura ; translated from the Japanese by

Marie Iida and Allison Markin Powell. Other titles: Redi joka. English

Description: New York : Soho Crime, 2021.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020032998

ISBN 978-1-61695-701-8

eISBN 978-1-61695-702-5

Classification: LCC PL862.A42295 R4313 2021 | DDC 895.63/5—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032998

Interior design by Janine Agro, Soho Press, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dramatis Personae

岡村清二　Seiji Okamura

Former employee of Hinode Beer

 

物井清三　Seizo Monoi

Pharmacy owner; Seiji Okamura’s younger brother

 

半田修平　Shuhei Handa

Police Sergeant working in Criminal Investigation, Violent Crime Unit at Shinagawa and later Kamata Police Department; Monoi’s friend and fellow horseracing fan

 

高克己　Katsumi Koh

Credit union employee; Monoi’s friend and fellow horseracing fan

 

布川淳一　Jun’ichi Nunokawa

Truck driver; Monoi’s friend and fellow

horseracing fan

 

松戸陽吉　Yokichi Matsudo

AKA Yo-chan; lathe operator; Monoi’s friend and fellow horseracing fan

 

レディ　Lady

Jun’ichi Nunokawa’s daughter

 

城山恭介　Kyosuke Shiroyama

President and CEO of Hinode Beer

 

倉田誠吾　Seigo Kurata

General Manager of Beer Division and Vice President of Hinode Beer

 

白井誠一　Sei’ichi Shirai

General Manager of Business Development and

Vice President of Hinode Beer

 

杉原武郎　Takeo Sugihara

Deputy Manager of Beer Division and Director of Hinode Beer; Kyosuke Shiroyama’s brother-in-law

 

野崎孝子　Takako Nozaki

Kyosuke Shiroyama’s secretary

 

秦野浩之　Hiroyuki Hatano

Dentist

 

秦野美津子　Mitsuko Hatano

Hiroyuki’s wife; Seizo Monoi’s daughter

 

秦野孝之　Takayuki Hatano

Hiroyuki and Mitsuko’s son

 

杉原佳子　Yoshiko Sugihara

Takayuki Hatano’s girlfriend; Takeo Sugihara’s daughter

 

西村真一　Shin’ichi Nishimura

Corporate underling of the Seiwakai,

a large crime syndicate; extortionist

 

田丸善三　Zenzo Tamaru

Advisor to the Okada Association, a group of corporate extortionists

 

菊池武史　Takeshi Kikuchi

Representative of GSC, Ltd., an investment management company; former Metro desk reporter for Toho News’ Osaka bureau

 

久保晴久　Haruhisa Kubo

Metro desk reporter for Toho News, Tokyo bureau,

in charge of Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)’s First Investigation Division

 

根来史彰　Fumiaki Negoro

Metro desk reserve chief at large for Toho News, Tokyo bureau

 

菅野哲夫　Tetsuo Sugano

Metro desk chief for Toho News, Tokyo bureau,

in charge of MPD

 

神埼秀嗣　Hidetsugu Kanzaki

Head of MPD’s First Investigation Division

 

平瀬悟　Satoru Hirase

MPD, First Investigation Division. First Special Investigation Team, Second Unit. Assistant Police Inspector.

 

合田雄一郎　Yuichiro Goda

MPD, First Investigation Division. Third Violent Crime Investigation Team, Seventh Unit. Later joins Criminal Investigation Division, Violent Crime Unit at Omori Police Department. Assistant Police Inspector.

 

安西憲明　Noriaki Anzai

Omori Police Department, Criminal Investigation Division, White Collar Crime Unit.

Assistant Police Inspector.

 

加納祐介　Yusuke Kano

Public prosecutor in the special investigative department

of Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office;

Yuichiro Goda’s former brother-in-law

1947—Confidential Document

Meeting Minutes (addendum)

Regarding the item of this past June 10th, in which an employee from general affairs, who opened and read a letter addressed to our company at the Kanagawa factory determined that the letter, being incomprehensible in its argument and unclear in its purpose, contains baseless accounts that affect the honor of our company, and as such at the meeting of the board of directors it was considered how said letter should be handled, and a conclusion was reached that it required no special response.

Regarding the “Communist Party member” referenced in the letter, Director of General Affairs Kuwata reported that, after consulting with the Shinagawa Police Department as a precautionary measure, he received a response that no such individual had been found.

Kuwata will approve the disposal of the letter.

August 1, 1947

Recorded in meeting room of Shinagawa temporary office, Tokyo main office

(Recorded by Hamada)

Hinode Beer Company, Kanagawa Factory, To Whom It May Concern:

I, Seiji Okamura, am one of the forty employees who resigned from the Kanagawa factory of Hinode at the end of this past February. Today, as I am currently confined to my sickbed and can hardly sit up or stand, and with ever so many things on my mind, I have decided to write this letter.

First, what must be made clear is the true intention and the trajectory of how a person who has already left the company has come to address you in this manner.

Recently, I heard from a certain individual to the effect that the Kanagawa branch of the Hinode labor union encouraged my resignation on the grounds of my medical ailment and need for rest only as a pretense when in fact they had been instructed to do so by the police. The branch was apparently advised that, “Since on last December 15th Okamura was seen with a former colleague somewhere in the Shiba district of Tokyo, such a subversive element should be made to resign quickly.” The person who conveyed this information to me was a man who was hospitalized in the surgical ward for appendicitis, a self-proclaimed Communist Party member by the name of Eiji Kono, but I do not know whether this is true or not.

Seeing that I am indeed ill at the present moment, I realize that even if such an event did not take place, the day of my resignation would have come sooner or later. Thus, whereas the “issue of last December 15th” can no longer have any effect whatsoever on my life, on the other hand when I think about the identity of my aforementioned “former colleague,” I am overcome with deep confusion and trepidation. My “former colleague,” that is to say Katsuichi Noguchi, himself resigned from the Kanagawa factory in 1942, but in the case of Noguchi, I know that his resignation took place with an unspeakable amount of disappointment and indignation, and that various circumstances transpired before and after.

The reason I string together such abstract words is that, although I do not claim to wholly understand what is in Noguchi’s heart, today it occurred to me that in certain ways he and I share a great deal in common. First, we are both human beings; second, we are not political animals; and third, we are absolutely destitute. I