Кэйго Хигасино - The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping

“No, there was an instruction in the document from your side that Sakuma should attend.”

“Hmm.” Katsuragi tilted his head. “I wonder why. I have no idea. The point person might have looked at an old list and automatically sent it. Well, it doesn’t matter. Let’s get to work,” he said, then started walking ahead.

Kozuka spoke close to my ear. “What do you want to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems that Mr. Katsuragi doesn’t really have any business with you. Attending might just be unpleasant for you. You can just go back if you want.”

I did feel like splitting, but I didn’t say that out loud. “I came anyway, so I’ll at least listen. Anyway, even if I went back to the office, I don’t have any big project.”

No doubt hearing the poison in my voice, Kozuka nodded with a slightly irritated look.

I pretended to go to the bathroom and left Kozuka. I found a place with no prying eyes and took out my cellphone. I called Juri.

“Hello, what is it?” It might have been because she hadn’t thought that she would be contacted this soon, but she sounded puzzled.

“Change of plans. We’ll go through with it thirty minutes from now.”

“In thirty minutes? Wait a second, don’t tell me that suddenly.”

“Whether we do it in thirty minutes or five hours, what you’re doing won’t change.”

“I’m saying I need to prepare myself for it mentally.”

“That’s why I’m saying in thirty minutes. Finish preparing yourself mentally by then.”

“Wait. What should I do about the last part? Should I do it like how we were saying? If they don’t trust me, then what?”

“They’ll trust you. There’s no reason not to.”

When I said so confidently, Juri relented. I heard a big sigh. “It’s definitely going to be okay, right?”

“Don’t worry. I haven’t fumbled at this kind of game before.”

“Okay. If you’re that sure, I’m going to get ready. In thirty minutes.”

“Yup.”

“What are you going to do? You’re at the office, aren’t you?”

“I’m at your papa’s company. I have a meeting coming up with him.”

“Wha—”

“I’m leaving it all to you. All of this is hanging on your acting skills.”

Haah — a huge sigh. “I got it. I’ll try. But if it doesn’t seem like it’ll go well, I’ll stop immediately.”

“It’s okay. It’ll go well.”

I hung up and headed to the room where, in thirty minutes, the man I would confront with a different game was waiting.

The meeting was about a project using an internet camera. They would equip one to the announced new car and drive it around town. Customers thinking of buying the car could use the internet to see that video. The video wouldn’t merely show what lay beyond the windshield, but also the car’s interior, the dashboard, each mirror, and so on — everything the driver could see would be captured. If they clicked with a mouse, they could freely change the camera. They would be able to take a test drive without leaving home, so to speak. It wasn’t a bad idea, but it wasn’t fundamentally different from what informational programs on new cars did. True, it was significantly cheaper than my automobile park project.

“There are limits to the transmission rate, so conveying velocity will be a challenge, I think. What will be very relevant is what street to drive on, and making the scene overseas will certainly increase the appeal, we think.” It was just the staff from our company nodding at Sugimoto’s explanation. Of course, I didn’t nod.

Katsutoshi Katsuragi raised his hand. The tension rose instantly. “We’re not trying to introduce our car on a late-night program.”

I was slightly surprised by his remark. It seemed Katsuragi shared my impression.

“We don’t want to just show a cool video. That’s unnecessary. The information we want to communicate to buying customers is the new car’s excellent cost performance. We don’t want to make a buzz of it, we want to convey an accurate feeling of driving it. So it’s meaningless if it’s not a street that the general public needs to drive on. If you show them images of it driving through Australia or California, that’s not helpful to the customers at all.”

It was annoying, but I agreed with his opinion. When I peeked a look at Sugimoto and Kozuka, they were exchanging troubled looks. Perhaps they were going to make the location Australia.

I glanced at the clock. Since calling Juri, twenty-seven minutes had passed.

Then the seconds hand made three laps around the face of the clock. I examined Katsutoshi Katsuragi’s expression. There was no apparent change in it. It looked as though he were focusing his concentration on this boring meeting.

Finally, that straight face clouded over in an instant. Katsuragi put his hand in the inner pocket of his suit. It was as I thought. The guy hadn’t turned off his cellphone.

“Excuse me for a second,” he said and exited the room.

The meeting was on hold. The EVP leaving his seat to take a call is so unusual , the guys from Nissei Auto were murmuring.

Soon, Katsuragi returned and whispered something into the ear of one of his subordinates. When the latter nodded, Katsuragi left the room again without saying a word to us.

“Um, Katsuragi has left on urgent business. However, he asked that we continue this meeting.”

“But without Mr. Katsuragi, is there any point in going on?”

“We’re familiar with his general position.”

“Is that right.” Kozuka put on a sour face, which was unusual. You couldn’t blame him when the person who’d called the meeting had up and left.

I brought my face towards Kozuka. “President, I’m going back to the office. It seems that me being here for any longer is meaningless.”

Kozuka nodded yes. He probably didn’t have the time to be concerned about me.

When I left the room, I was seized by a desire to go to the parking lot. There was no mistaking that around now, Katsutoshi Katsuragi was hurriedly turning on his Mercedes’ engine in the executive parking space. But then, having someone witness me watching him was too big of a risk. I decided to be patient and headed to the front entrance.

I hailed a taxi outside Nissei Automobile’s headquarters and decided to return to Aoyama for the time being. However, near the office, I got off and immediately hailed a different taxi. I told the driver to head toward Asakusa. I looked at the clock.

Juri would first have called home. There, Katsuragi’s wife had been on standby. What kinds of things had she said to Juri, who wasn’t really her daughter? There were detectives next to her, so Mrs. Katsuragi might have at least spoken with a tone of worry. In her heart, she was surely cursing a development that was costing them three hundred million yen.

Juri would have instructed her to immediately load the money and depart. No details as to the destination — we’d decided that the instructions would be to ‘head west on road X’ and so on.

Juri had also called Katsutoshi Katsuragi. I was there. Her instructions to him were succinct: fetch a cardboard box and tape and be ready to leave in his Mercedes on a moment’s notice.

I called Juri.

“Hello, it’s me.” Juri’s voice sounded bubbly to me.

“How was it?”

“I did everything just like you said. Mama will get to Shinjuku soon.”

“Good, next step then. I’m already heading there.”

“Got it.” She hung up.

Putting away my cellphone, I imagined Katsuragi’s wife’s BMW pulling up to City Hall. Juri would be calling Katsutoshi Katsuragi and giving him directions to head there too.

There would probably be a police tail on the BMW. And almost certainly, there was a transmitter or bug on the car or wife. What we had to do first was to remove those devices. In order to do that, we had to trade the driver and car.