Fishing for Stars (52 page)

‘No, no, you don’t understand, Nicholas,’ Anna protested. ‘The Japanese
must
have a majority – fifty-one per cent, or at the very least fifty per cent. In return they’ll finance the whole deal, down to the last nail in the processing plant, the cost of building the private harbours, slips, cranes, winches, refrigeration, the lot. The local government gets the other forty-nine per cent or, if I can’t swing it, fifty per cent.’

‘Hey, wait on. I’m not that shickered! And our share is what? Zilch?’

‘Nothing of the sort. As I said, you get to supply all the raw material for the factory, all the transport contracts, build the roads and have an agreement to supply local labour. This alone should show you a decent ongoing profit. In addition you also get an overall management contract.’

‘I thought you said they would staff and manage it themselves.’

‘Nicholas, I thought you understood,’ she said a trifle impatiently. ‘O
nly
the interior of the processing plant, you get the rest.’

‘I should think the local politicians would want a share of that too,’ I remarked.

Anna nodded. ‘Maybe. That’s your territory, nothing new for you there, Nicholas. But the big money for them is in the renewable tuna and shark-fin licences and their share of the overall profits from the processing and packing plants. Compared to these, anything they could rake off from the factory and infrastructure would be peanuts.’

I grinned. ‘In my experience there are plenty of political monkeys scurrying around looking for peanuts. Or, tell me, Anna, is it us – Kevin, Joe and me – who are getting the peanuts?’ The sake that kept being poured was turning me decidedly nasty.

‘That’s not fair!’ Anna cried, patently hurt. ‘I don’t like it when you’re drunk, Nicholas. The fish-processing plants are going to make you a damn sight more money than you’ve ever made lugging people and coconuts from island to island!’

I pulled my addled wits together. ‘If the Japanese run the fish factory with their own personnel, who keeps the books?’ I asked, glancing at
Konoe-san
who, to my surprise, appeared to have quite inexplicably fallen asleep. Then again, he’d just come out of hospital where they’d probably filled him with all sorts of drugs for which alcohol was contraindicated. I glanced at Anna. ‘Should we call someone?’ But at that moment he began to snore softly and his breathing seemed normal. Falling asleep in a meeting wasn’t considered bad manners in Japan. I knew that older Japanese senior executives frequently nodded off, an accepted and not uncommon practice.

With my concern for Konoe Akira I had forgotten my question, but Anna now answered it in a somewhat trenchant manner. ‘Why the hell would the bookkeeping concern you, Nicholas? Kevin will send in your bill and if I know him it will be plumped up nicely. I won’t question it unless he’s dreaming fairies when it’s raining frogs. It will be paid promptly. Your management contract would be fee-driven.
Konoe-san
’s
zaibatsu
isn’t going to go broke . . . or hasn’t for the last five hundred years. Any profits from the joint venture between them and any of the island governments won’t ever be your concern.’

‘C’mon, Anna, you know better than that. Joe and I have to live in the islands. If the local governments get ripped off they won’t be catching the next plane to Japan, they’ll come looking for us. After all, as you say, it’s me who has to open the doors.’

Anna looked at me scornfully. ‘Nicholas, I’m trying to make a deal that includes you, one that isn’t going to cost you a penny and will make you all very wealthy. All you are required to do is facilitate. What are you trying to say?’

Pissed as I was, I knew this to be true. Anna wasn’t asking me to do anything I didn’t already do, or hadn’t done practically every month our company had been in the islands. It was money for jam, but I felt out of control, unprincipled, caught in a web of possibilities, and so I wanted to be difficult. ‘Yeah, but we’ve been in charge of the situation and kept our noses clean for twenty years,’ I protested.

Anna sighed. ‘Work it out for yourself. Nicholas. Why would the Japanese want to alienate a local government and stand to lose their fishing licences when they come up for review? Anyway, I’ll set up an independent audit as part of my negotiations. The Japanese are not going to —’

‘Piss on their own doorstep?’ I finished for her.

‘Oh, charming, but yes, that’s about it.’ Anna seemed to realise that I was perhaps a little more pie-eyed than I appeared and was spoiling for a fight. She was handing us a business on a plate and I was being recalcitrant. But she sensed she’d pretty well won the day. Glancing across to see that
Konoe-san
was still asleep she abruptly changed the subject. ‘By the way, I have good news. I know you’ve been worried, but I’ve squared things with the
yakuza
. We’re quits, we owe them nothing.’

I was taken by surprise. ‘How? What?’ I guess one of the reasons why Anna was so successful is that she was astute enough to know when to leave off. I was grateful. I’d been heading towards being stupidly obstinate, the Japanese firewater doing the talking.

‘
Konoe-san
needs some heavy muscle at several large city fish markets. So I introduced him to the
oyabun
.’ Anna knew of my concern that at some future time
Fuchida-san
might call in a favour that would compromise one or both of us.

‘
Fuchida-san
will be pleased; that’s right up his alley.’

‘Well, actually, it was Miss Sparkle’s doing. It seems the
yakuza
are responsible for negotiating the bribes for the local Russian authorities. Very little money changes hands. Payment is with Japanese prostitutes, electronic consumer goods, processed food and all the myriad luxury items the Russians can’t obtain. There is a flourishing underground economy run by the island’s Russian bigwigs. In return they allow the Japanese fishing boats to use their harbours and fish the local waters.

‘But, of course, there is the usual
quid pro quo
. The Japanese government turns a blind eye to all the mischief going on, because the fishing-boat crews spy for them. In fact, the boats are known as
rupo-sen
[report boats]
.
Miss Sparkle said that the
yakuza
used their considerable influence with the Russians to set up their own fishing fleet in the Kuril Islands but have a great deal of catching up to do as they are comparatively small players compared to the big
zaibatsu
, and simply lack the clout they need in the big local fish markets to achieve the best prices for their own catch. Miss Sparkle was delighted when I suggested she meet
Konoe-san
.’

‘Yeah, but why Miss Sparkle? I would have thought this was an important enough issue for
Fuchida-san
himself to be involved, or at least one of his important
oyabun,
rather than delegate it to his
mama-san.
’

Anna looked at me wide-eyed, unbelieving. ‘Nicholas! You mean you haven’t twigged yet?’

‘Twigged?’ I shrugged. ‘What’s to twig?’

‘Miss Sparkle is the boss of the Tokyo
yakuza
.
She
is the top
oyabun
!’

‘Christ no!’ I gaped. ‘I always had a suspicion she wasn’t quite the humble
mama-san
she claimed to be, but head honcho! Are you sure?’

‘Of course. I thought you knew the set-up, how it works with
Fuchida-san
being homosexual, or gay as they say now.’

‘No! C’mon, you’re pulling my leg. Gay? Jesus! Fair dinkum?’

Anna laughed. ‘Don’t worry, he hasn’t got his eye on you.’

‘Bugger!’ I said, trying to regain the initiative.

‘It’s what prevents him being the top dog. The
yakuza
simply won’t accept a homosexual at the helm. It would completely overturn the Samurai tradition.’

‘Well what about a woman?’

‘As long as she doesn’t appear to be making the decisions, nobody minds.’

‘But that’s crazy! That means
Fuchida-san
appears
to be making the decisions, which is unacceptable because he’s gay, and a woman is
really
making the decisions, which again is unacceptable because she’s a woman?’

Anna shrugged. ‘That’s Japan, I guess. As long as the public don’t know and the
yakuza
do, but nobody admits they know, it’s okay.’

With
Konoe-san
asleep I stopped drinking. The sake competition
had caused me to consume far too much alcohol. The
fugu
variations on a theme kept coming and, as I’d been led to expect, I had a distinct tingling sensation in my tongue which hadn’t yet reached my fingers, apparently the next destination for the poison. This tingling of the tongue and the fingers was meant to reassure the diner that the poison still exists in the fish but is no longer present in lethal quantities – a bit like giving yourself a hard backhand then feeling good that while your hand and mouth hurt you haven’t broken any teeth. The sensation was supposed to be similar to mild intoxication, but give me alcohol any day.

Anna went on to explain the relationship between
Fuchida-san
and Miss Sparkle. ‘She is the strength and makes the hard decisions. He is an organisational genius, obsessed with detail. Between them they’re a combination that is hard to match, even though there are always challengers. The loyalty of
Saito-san
is yet another factor – none of the contenders want him to come looking for them, and whoever tried to kill a national icon would create a public scandal throughout Japan and almost certainly lose any chance of becoming the top
oyabun
.’

‘And Miss Sparkle told you all this?’

‘Women talk to each other, Nicholas! Besides I’ve known and trusted her for a long time, twenty-five years in fact, and she feels the same. It never does any harm to have the same skeletons in the closet and share part of a common history. She is quite remarkable, in fact exceptional. In Japan, for a woman, let alone a geisha, to achieve the status of top
oyabun
is almost beyond comprehension. In fact it can’t happen, but it has.’

‘She’d have to be pretty ruthless to survive on the way to the top,’ I observed.

‘More than simply ruthless, that would be the minimum requirement. It must have taken enormous intellect, courage and determination.’ Anna laughed. ‘She credits me with starting it all for her,’ then she quickly added, ‘which is nonsense, of course.’

‘Oh? What did she say?’

Anna looked up at me, her expression serious. ‘It’s not stuff I care to remember, but according to
Korin-san
, it was the thing that happened at the Nest of the Swallows.’

‘The
kempeitai
colonel?’ I refrained from adding the words – 
Takahashi, the one you murdered
.

‘Yes, him.’ Anna then began to relate the conversation between Miss Sparkle and herself at their reunion luncheon. Miss Sparkle had picked her up at the hotel and taken her to a small inn, part of a traditional marketplace, for lunch. It was obvious that Miss Sparkle was a regular patron and an important guest as they were immediately ushered to a small private room. The meal was ordered and when it came the waiter was instructed that they were not under any circumstances to be disturbed.

It was here that between them they hatched Konoe Akira’s comeuppance and also where the following conversation took place. Miss Sparkle, after sampling several dishes and sending one back, put down her chopsticks and looked directly at Anna. ‘
Anna-san
, when the odious
kempeitai
Lieutenant Ito brought you to the Nest of the Swallows covered with scrapes, cuts and bruises we were amazed to hear how you had fought, on your own, the six
kempeitai
soldier thugs sent to bring you to Colonel Takahashi. “How can a single woman do this?” all the
okami-san
asked. It was beyond the possibility of our imagination.’

‘
Korin-san
, they had murdered my beautiful friend, Til the trishaw driver, and placed his head on the front gatepost. I was beyond fury, beyond shock. If I had had a machine gun I would have killed them all.’

‘But you fought them with your bare hands and we heard later that their cuts and bruises were worse than yours.’

‘No, I don’t think so, but they were caught by surprise.’

‘Ah, surprise. That was the first lesson you taught me,’ Miss Sparkle said. ‘Then came patience and then sudden and swift punishment. I have used these three in combination many times in the
yakuza
.’

‘No, no!’ Anna protested. ‘It was you who made it all possible, your instruction; you must take the credit,
Korin-san
, not me!’