Chapter 3
Hiroshi and Takeshi flanked their guest of honor, Yamada, who sat at the head of a low table in the private room of a cabaret. The Nakamura client was a little older than Hiroshi’s father, and had the cunning look and shrewd eyes of a predator. He had brought with him two business associates, who were seated opposite each other, further down the table.
The group had finished eating and their dishes been removed when five kimono-clad hostesses in their twenties came in, discreetly sliding the shoji screens closed behind them. Each positioned herself near one of the guests, prepared to provide whatever services were required.
The presence of the beautiful young women stimulated the men. Sake cups were exchanged for shot glasses, which the women at once filled with whiskey from bottles on the table.
With serious drinking underway, the men’s voices grew louder, drowning out the piped-in Japanese music.
Hiroshi and Takeshi exchanged a quick glance across the table, wordlessly communicating their evaluations of how the evening was progressing: so far, not bad.
Yamada raised his glass and announced, “Last year, I added three supermarkets to my chain. This year, I opened two more. And next year, I plan to open another three!”
“Kanpai!” The other men shouted their congratulations in unison as they raised their glasses in a toast. Then each tossed off his drink and slammed the glass down on the table for a hostess to refill. Only Takeshi had noticed Hiroshi’s discreet instruction to his hostess to pour very small amounts of whiskey into his own glass.
“The finest supermarket chain in Japan, Yamada-san,” Hiroshi said to his client.
“And the biggest,” Takeshi added.
“Nakamura has the finest beef,” Yamada replied. “Too bad there is so little of it.”
“Other companies have gone outside Japan to raise their beef,” one of the associates noted.
“More land, more cattle,” the other associate added. “To meet increasing demands.”
“From companies expanding their markets, such as mine,” Yamada preened.
Hiroshi and Takeshi again touched bases with their eyes: this was not a good development.
“Buyers purchase beef from our company because of its quality, which is the finest to be had in Japan,” Hiroshi said, making a last attempt to avoid his father’s mandate.
“That’s not enough for me, anymore,” Yamada retorted. “My business success requires that I now have quantity, as well as quality, from the company that provides beef for my supermarket chain.”
Hiroshi’s eyes lowered in concentration as he formulated what he was going to say.
“Then you have no reason for concern about renewing your contract with us, Yamada-san,” Hiroshi said at last in a quiet voice. “Nakamura Meat Company has recently expanded its operation with the purchase of a cattle ranch. So you see, we can continue to serve our esteemed client.”
“Where is this ranch?” Yamada demanded.
“In America,” Hiroshi replied, meeting the older man’s probing gaze.
“How big? And how soon could you fill my new orders?”
“My esteemed father wishes to be the one to provide you with such details,” Hiroshi said in a respectful way. “When you meet with him tomorrow morning to sign the new contract, he also will present you with a new marketing plan I have drawn up for the sale of this American beef, which will be sold exclusively to you, available only in your supermarkets.”
“Ah!” Yamada breathed with avaricious satisfaction, eyes narrowing in speculation as he scrutinized Hiroshi’s face for any sign that he might be lying. Finally satisfied that Nakamura’s son was speaking the truth, Yamada cracked a smile of understanding.
“Naturally, my old friend is wanting to brag to me about his new ranch,” he said, nodding his head. “So, I will allow this postponement of details until I meet with him in the morning.”
The following morning, hiroshi entered his father’s office with a feeling of trepidation. How he hoped that he would not be guilty of having committed fraud with Yamada last night because the rancher’s signed contract would have arrived. But the moment he saw his father, Hiroshi knew that something was seriously wrong.
Shoichiro was sitting stiffly in his chair behind the desk, his face ashen colored, his deep-set eyes staring through his son as though not seeing him. He had the telephone receiver in both hands and was clutching it to his chest.
“Father?” Hiroshi said in a low voice, not wanting to startle Shoichiro, who appeared to be in a state of shock. Reaching his father’s side, Hiroshi attempted to remove the telephone receiver from Shoichiro’s hands, but discovered he had a death grip on the instrument. Carefully, he managed to pry his father’s fingers loose, heard the dial tone, and replaced the receiver in the telephone cradle.
Hiroshi hesitated because Shoichiro had taught his son that demonstrations of affection were unacceptable since such gestures were a sign of weakness. Stealing himself for rejection, he placed a light hand on Shoichiro’s shoulder.
“Are you ill, sir? Should I call a doctor?”
Aware of a mounting alarm at his father’s continued silence, Hiroshi tried a different approach.
“Has Yamada-san been by yet, to sign the new contract?”
His father slumped back into his chair and closed his eyes.
“He was by,” Shoichiro said at last, his voice rasping as though it took all of his strength to speak.
He opened his eyes and looked up at his son, who gave an involuntary start at the bleakness he saw there.
“Then I do not understand why … “
“And, yes, he signed the contract,” Shoichiro
Interrupted, spitting out the words like bitter seeds. Then he shifted his gaze from is son, as though he could not bear to look at Hiroshi when he confessed what had happened.
“Yamada was barely out the door when I received a phone call from our broker. Seems the ranch owner has backed out of our deal.”
“How can that be? The owner agreed to sell. Even without a signed contract, he gave his word.”
“Apparently, this is of no significance to him.”
There was now a heaviness to Shoichiro’s voice, as though he were carrying a burden too great to bear.
Hiroshi yearned to remove this burden from his father and carry it himself.
“Then we will find another ranch to buy,” he said.
“That is not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because Yamada has already signed the contract with us in which the ranch is specified. And because your marketing plan, which he avidly embraced, requires that the beef comes from ‘deep in the heart of Texas.’”
Hiroshi watched as his father seemed to shrivel in size and age twenty years.
“We gave our word that this ranch was ours and that Yamada’s beef would come from there,” Shoichiro said through clenched teeth. “We gave our word knowing that the contract for the ranch had not yet been signed. Claiming ownership of something that was not ours to claim. And now, it will never be ours.”
He huddled deeper into his chair, then continued. But his voice had lost all of its vitality, all of its power. Leaving only the feeble sounds of a defeated old man.
“Our business will be ruined,” Shoichiro said. “That, perhaps, we could survive. But to be disgraced, to lose all honor —” His voice faltered and his eyes again closed, as though trying to shut out a world that had become unendurable for him.
Hiroshi looked down at his father with a black gaze of such intensity it seemed to be probing into Shoichiro’s very soul.
“I will meet with the ranch owner myself and make him reverse his decision,” he said. His voice was low, but rang like steel being forged beneath a blacksmith’s hammer.
Shoichiro slowly opened his eyes and looked up at his son.
“Surely,” Hiroshi plunged on, “when we are face-to-face, the ranch owner will be compelled to keep his word.”
As Shoichiro considered this proposal, the glazed expression in his eyes was replaced by a sharp focus on his son.
“It is 1991,” he said at last. “The 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. You would go to America at such a time?”
“For a matter of honor,” Hiroshi replied, “I would go to hell.”
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