Nocturne of Remembrance (2 page)

There were no other articles of particular interest. Mikoshiba closed the newspaper and turned his thoughts to another matter that he was taking on.

The current case wasn’t entirely in his hands. He had been discharged from the hospital in the middle of the month. Until then, he had instructed his clerk Yoko Kusakabe to investigate the case, so there were still some particulars that had to be filled in. However, there were no major missing pieces, and it did not seem that follow-up research was needed.

Were there any fallacies in the materials that she had obtained? Mikoshiba concluded that the information was sufficient to satisfy even the Bar Association, which was very severe towards the outside world and very tolerant of its members.

He took a hot shower and left the condo at 7:00 a.m, about two hours earlier than usual, but that was fine. On the way to the office, he stopped at a familiar coffee shop and had a cup of blend coffee with sugar and two slices of toast. Even for his convalescing body, this was probably an acceptable meal.

It was a little before 8:00 a.m. when he arrived at the office in the Toranomon area of central Tokyo. Yoko was not yet there. Mikoshiba began to line up the materials on his desk.

Shortly the office door opened and in came Yoko. And as soon as she saw Mikoshiba there she said, reproachfully, “
Sensei
, what are you doing here so early?”

“I’m only two hours early.”

“Yes, but I have to remind you that you just got discharged from the hospital the day before yesterday … And the doctor said, too, that you aren’t back to your normal strength and that you should rest for a week.”

“The doctor isn’t going to compensate the company while I’m resting.”

Annoyed, Mikoshiba waved off Yoko’s words. Although she was a competent employee, he didn’t appreciate any junk coming out of her mouth about his physical condition.

“Regarding the things I asked you to research, thanks. You did a good job.”

When he returned to the subject of work, Yoko was visibly nervous.

“However, it would have been perfect if you’d also confirmed the number of canceled cases. For a job like this, the essence sometimes lies in the canceled cases.”

“Excuse me, but … just what do you intend to do with the results of this research?”

“Huh?”

“Are you going to use it to make a disciplinary request to the Bar Association? Or are you considering criminal charges?”

Yoko’s tone was usually not so cross-examining, and he glanced over at the expression on her face. A slight note of criticism tinged her eyes. Was she paying him back for being routinely chastised, or was it a manifestation of a whimsical sense of justice? She had that kind of look in her eyes.

“I’m not thinking of a disciplinary request or criminal charges at the moment. Neither will result in any money. For now, it’s just a bargaining chip.”

“A bargaining chip?”

“When someone doesn’t want people to know or mention something that’s actually no big deal for others, it can be good material to bargain with. Depending on how it’s used, even a single nail has enough power to become a lethal weapon.”

“So you intend to use this as a weapon?”

Yoko’s natural restraint probably kept her from asking if he intended to engage in blackmail.

“It was just a figure of speech. Anyway, don’t worry about it.”

But just telling her not to worry about it wouldn’t do for this clerk,
as was evidenced by her deepening disapproval.

“Are you going to do something dangerous again? If so, please don’t. This is your personal law office, and you have neither a partner nor even an associate to take over. If something like that happens to you again, the firm will not survive.”

“But you managed to survive without me for three months, didn’t you?”

“I am not talking about how long you were away from the office.”

“If you come to the aid of someone in a quarrel, it’s only natural for you to be hated by the other side.”

Yoko seemed unconvinced. He’d never cared about what a clerk thought in the past. But he had left the office to her for three months and was in a weak position now.

“Being hated is an occupational hazard for lawyers. And the more profitable your practice, the more hated you are. And if we don’t make money I can’t pay your salary.”

Mikoshiba really thought that he’d explained it as sincerely and plainly as he could, but Yoko was still glaring at him. Maybe being hated enough to be stabbed was like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

When he had recovered enough to get up in bed in the hospital and read the newspapers, there was not one article mentioning anything more than the fact that a lawyer had been attacked by the family of the opposing side. The crafty old investigator in charge of the case must have suppressed it. And it seemed that there was no publicity about the incident that Mikoshiba, himself, had caused in the past, so Yoko would not have heard of that bit either. If it had been reported, only heaven knew what sort of face his clerk would make.

They were silent for a while, and finally Yoko gave a light sigh as if she’d given up.

“There was a call from Tanizaki-sensei the other day after you left.”

“A call from Tanizaki-sensei?”

“He left a message asking to meet you once you were discharged
from the hospital.”

Whether someone wanted to sell some favor or buy one, Mikoshiba usually didn’t consent. But with Tanizaki it was different. He had taken over the previous case for Mikoshiba after he was stabbed, but more than anything Tanizaki had brought to a close certain disciplinary claims and motions. Just what it was that Tanizaki liked about him eluded Mikoshiba, but now that he was discharged from the hospital he needed to go express his appreciation. To say the least, there was no good reason to antagonize the former chairman of the Tokyo Bar Association.

“Anything scheduled for today?”

“Nothing.”

In that case it was extra convenient. He could stop at Tanizaki’s office while out for the current matter.

“Perfect. I’ll head over now, so get me an appointment with him right away.”

Tanizaki’s office was in the neighboring Akasaka area of Minato Ward right near Mikoshiba’s practice. Tucked in among a line of elegant high-rise buildings, the man’s lair was on the second floor of the kind of low-rise you seldom saw these days.

The telltale dull color of the building’s outer walls hinted at the number of years since its construction. But it looked less aged and decrepit than subdued and stately. Once inside, that impression grew stronger—totally correctly venerable. It gave the illusion of wondering in the midst of Meiji-era architecture.

In recent years, the trend among prosperous lawyers was to relocate their offices. Stepping up, without exception, from offices that were in the middle of nowhere to glamorous locations; from old buildings to newly built ones; from one-room converted apartments to entire floors of high-rise buildings. And even though most of their work was not done in these offices, external appearance was seen by them as most important. Mikoshiba, himself, couldn’t be snide about that
trend because he, too, rode around in a Mercedes-Benz for the shine.

In that respect, from the start Tanizaki had always had his office here. Together with the building, he had aged, but in his case it fostered a sense of stability rather than frailty.

Mikoshiba explained the purpose of the visit, and the receptionist immediately led him to the meeting room. The furniture was very antique, but it was a calming color and there was a new sofa.

“Well, Mikoshiba-sensei. It’s been quite a while.”

Tanizaki, appearing as usual with his thick silver hair slicked back, welcomed Mikoshiba with a mildly warm expression on his face. His eyes were deeply set back, as if they could pull you in, always giving a bright feeling of wisdom.

But his demeanor was deceptive. Although he behaved like a perfect gentleman, the man had once made a name for himself as the vanguard of the reformist faction in the Tokyo Bar Association. According to what Mikoshiba had heard from other sources about past sagas, Tanizaki was never a gentleman nor was he ever mild-mannered. For those that he opposed, be they his elders or seniors from his alma mater, it was no use arguing with him. He crushed them all. That was how he got his fighting name “Onizaki”:
Demon-zaki
.

Kango Tanizaki, eighty years old. Former Tokyo Bar Association chairman, with a bar-registration number in the 10,000 series. He was the leader of the Tokyo Bar Association’s Liberty Conference faction, which boasted being the largest. And even after having retired as chairman, he still wielded the power to speak his mind behind the scenes.

Currently in bar associations everywhere, lawyers with bar-registration numbers in the 10,000’s were quite old and their numbers few. In other words, the senior posts were their cartel and they reigned at the apex of almost all of the regional bar associations. The legal profession was supposed to be made up of individuals without any senior-junior relationships because each practitioner’s status was independent, but wherever authority exists there also exist hierarchies. You could say Tanizaki was a living example of that.

“I presume your injury is all better.”

“Yes, thank you … By the way, I must apologize for the inconvenience that I caused you.”

“No apology is necessary. With all the pieces of that case in place as well as you had them, the result would have been the same with any lawyer. Even the prosecution and the judge were of the same opinion, which is almost embarrassing in the High Court and above. The defendant kept on complaining, but fifteen years imprisonment was a reasonable sentence. Oh, by the way, the presiding judge Manabe was my junior at school. And afterwards, for the first time in a long while, we enjoyed some delicious
sake
together. To the contrary, I should be grateful to you for that.”

That was news to Mikoshiba.

“Manabe had a lot of praise for you. He said that for an attorney today your logic has an unusual flair. No, he was not being sarcastic. The element of stagecraft can’t be ignored now that quasi-jury trials have become the norm. Apparently, he’d have loved to listen to you argue the derivative case, too.”

Mikoshiba was in the hospital when he learned that his client was given imprisonment. Another case that was associated with it was still pending, but because there was no smooth communication with the accused the lawyer on that one was struggling badly.

“I am further obligated to you, sensei. It sounds like you brought to a close the Bar Associations’ disciplinary claims against me, too.”

“Oh, that? It doesn’t require any thank-you, either. That shameless man was brandishing a sense of ethics that was paper-thin. He has a habit of going back and forth on the line of ethics, but when someone else oversteps it, he starts dancing madly like he’s slain some dragon. Even watching from the sidelines I couldn’t bear the sight of it, so I promptly crushed him.”

Tanizaki chuckled as he said this. Ruthlessly slamming those who didn’t agree with his sensibilities and fell afoul of his principles was reminiscent of the “Onizaki” of yesteryear.

“The head of the disciplinary committee swore that you were a criminal and said that you should be stripped of your qualifications as a lawyer for what you did. Certainly, common sense says that your action was not particularly praiseworthy. But from the standpoint of defending your client, it wasn’t entirely bad. If
that
was a kind of deception, probably others in our profession would sympathize with you, too.”

That
pointed to the corpse disposal that Mikoshiba had perpetrated, and he had no reply.

“Even though it is a big world, deception is not commonly tolerated. However, you’re allowed to lie if you’re the governor of the Bank of Japan, a writer, or a lawyer—if you hold one of those three jobs. If it’s to protect the interests of their clients, lawyers can say that they don’t know something even when they do. No, they
must
say that they don’t know. It is a lawyer’s mission to defend his client under any circumstance, even if he makes enemies by doing so. I cannot understand the shamelessness of lawyers who don’t get this.”

“Did you say something along those lines to the disciplinary committee, sir?”

“Yes. There seemed to have been some agreement with that lowlife when he made the claim against you. But it was just rubbish coming from someone who has always been low. And there was no one that would raise a hand to refute me.”

Mikoshiba broached a different subject. “Tanizaki-sensei, I heard that you also defended me vis-à-vis the police, too.”

He had heard from Yoko that the particulars of the previous case were not mentioned in the newspaper reports, and that Tanizaki had acted preemptively when the police got worked up about the crime committed by Mikoshiba.

“Oh, you are referring to me going to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. It was no big deal and I certainly didn’t have to exert myself. I just visited an old acquaintance and asked if there was sufficient material evidence to press criminal charges.”

So that was it. This shrewd lawyer had reminded the young prosecutor in charge of the case that even if he tried to press charges there was no physical evidence whatsoever that Mikoshiba had abandoned the corpse.

“That prosecutor understood reason, and it wasn’t necessary for me to explain how dangerous it would be to prosecute you based on disposing a corpse. It took only three minutes for us to settle the matter. After that, we had a pleasant time just discussing the latest gossip about mutual acquaintances.”

In a nutshell, the story went like this:

In the previous case, Mikoshiba had the corpse of the victim that the accused had murdered removed from the crime scene. Not knowing at the time that the accused was the criminal, he’d had the body moved simply to avoid getting his client involved in any trouble, of course.

But when the person became a possible suspect, the detective in charge of the case began to suspect Mikoshiba of corpse abandonment. That was because, given the suspect’s circumstances, no one else but Mikoshiba could have moved it. Because he already had a bad reputation among the police, the team investigating the crime wished to pursue the related charge of corpse abandonment.