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

were no common concerns under which people could hoist a flag, no universal idea or framework to unite all mankind. What did exist was nothing more than small groupings of people with their everyday lives, inconsequential systems, and automated motions of production and consumption. Even on the day when six thousand people perished in a single earthquake, or when five thousand people suffered injuries or death after poisonous gas was unleashed in the subway, this embankment of the Tama River had still been filled with people jogging or playing tennis. And yet if people were admonished not to allow themselves to sink into such serene insensibility, then each and every one of them would be forced to engage in a lonely mental battle against the self.

Negoro’s thoughts turned to his own self. The creeps who had squeezed money out of backroom deals in the Ogura-Chunichi scandal and now those who were trying to shake down Hinode Beer were strangers who meant nothing to him so long as he had enough to eat, but—he told himself—perhaps his ongoing pursuit of them was, in some small way, a means of preventing his own descent into insensibility.

Negoro had arranged to meet up with Yusuke Kano from the special investigative department at the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office and Kano’s former brother-in-law. They were waiting for him under a leafy cherry blossom tree along the embankment. Kano, unaware of Negoro’s life on the run, had considerately chosen a spot within easy walking distance from Negoro’s apartment. Negoro had to admit that the shady spot, warmed by the sunlight filtering through the trees and commanding a panoramic view of the verdant riverbed, was indeed inviting.

After Kano called to say that he’d be bringing his former brother-in-law, Negoro had called Kubo at the MPD kisha club, just in case, to ask if Investigation Headquarters was taking the day off on Sunday, to which Kubo had responded—his voice sounding strained over the phone—not as far as he knew. Kubo was so certain that the perpetrators were making their move, his entire body was poised like a seismometer, at the height of desperation to grasp onto anyone somehow related to the investigation. If what Kubo said was correct, the appearance of a detective who had supposedly been at Investigation Headquarters up until yesterday now enjoying a picnic along the Tama riverbank on a Sunday afternoon did raise a flag.

The two men had gotten to their feet. Both had on crisp casual wear perfect for a day off—cotton pants and sweaters with sneakers—and each of them held a half-finished bottle of red wine.

Kano’s former brother-in-law approached Negoro, speaking first. “Hello. I’m Goda. Great to see you again.” Negoro had only met Goda once, briefly, three years ago, but he looked rather different from the image Negoro retained in his memory. Even Goda’s polite manners and composure were like that of another person. I see. Demoted to the local precinct and handed a little life lesson, Negoro thought. Or did Goda’s expression belie that he had equipped himself with an even tougher shell than before? No, Negoro scrutinized him again. Rather than a tougher exterior, Goda was now fully contained within a larger shell. That’s one way for a man to get around in the world.

Despite this first impression, once Negoro’s eyes met Goda’s, he found that the nuances contained there were even more inscrutable than before, perhaps now with a bit of emptiness mixed in—a truly subtle feeling, like disillusionment or rawness. Right—in Negoro’s analysis, it was the imbalance between this innocuous outer shell of Goda’s and the volatile look in his eyes that created an irresistible magnetism. When that subtle gaze fixed on someone, they either felt a visceral urge to punch Goda in the face or else they were enchanted by him. It occurred to Negoro for the first time that Kano perhaps fell into this latter category.

Kano, for his part, seemed the type who maintained a certain complexity beneath his disinterested expression. He managed to reconcile the ideal attributes of a prosecutor—he was diligent when it came to interpreting and applying the law and aggressive in forging ahead without fear of losing a case—but did not seem to naïvely espouse social justice and order. Judging by the way he so coolly drew a line between himself and the factions within the special investigative department, he was possibly a genuine free spirit who had mistakenly put himself on the side of the establishment. In this sense, Kano’s reputation among the reporters at the courthouse kisha club—that he never revealed much about himself, a tough nut to crack—was right on the mark.

Negoro knew well enough that once Kano began to speak about books on a personal level, he had a tendency to lose himself in a poet’s reverie inconsistent with his occupation as a prosecutor, or to dish out skepticism with shades of empiricism. Though Kano worked late many nights at the government office and indeed had virtually no personal life, when glimpses of his intimate affection for his younger former brother-in-law appeared in Kano’s inconsequential conversations with Negoro, the façade of public prosecutor fell away. Was Kano unconsciously driven by a possessive male instinct to assume the position of patron? Or did he have a naturally obliging disposition? Was there a secret and accumulated history between Kano and Goda? Or, perhaps it was something more even, the L-word for another man.

Negoro had no idea which of these was the truth, but he did know that none of them had anything to do with him. He looked at the two men and a wry laugh escaped his lips, realizing this had somewhat stirred what little interest he had left in humanity.

“If you’ll pardon us, there’s nothing to do but drink on such a fine May holiday,” Kano said as he pulled the cork out of another bottle of wine and handed it to Negoro. “Here you go.”

Negoro joined the two of them on the grass, drinking straight from the