"What? A ticket (arrest warrant) from Kyoto Prefecture Police? What's the hell does that mean?" Shrieking on the other end of the line was Otani Akihiro of the Department of Social Affairs of Yomiuri Newspaper Osaka Head Office. It was one hot day in the middle of summer in 1980 when there seemed to be no way left for me to raise money. Otani, active today as a liberal journalist, was known at that time as an able and efficient journalist. Osaka Yomiuri's Social Affairs Department, headed by Kuroda Kiyoshi, was better known as "Kuroda Troop" not only for its nearly daily exclusive coverage but also for its own publications such as the books "Abduction Reporting" and "Police Corruption". The troop was unrivalled and Otani was a star journalist leading the troop.
He is my age, and one year my senior at Waseda University. I saw his face in the struggles against Tuition Hike or Relocation of Auditorium. But his major was different from mine, and so was his political affiliation so our college days did not see us talking with each other. It wasn't until I met him as a journalist working for "Shukan Gendai" that I got involved with him. He helped me a lot with my coverage of affairs concerning Kansai area. His unique sense of smell about cases, quick wit, mobility made him an able newspaper journalist.
He was really interested in cases, or I should say, in humans. He was first assigned to Kamagasaki of Nishinai when he was first assigned to a post in Osaka. This district was the largest slum in Japan at that time. Native of Tokyo through and through, Otani probably got curious about this place, and spent a whole day wandering around the area and slept on a couch in the Yomiuri's Osaka office.
He was so into walking around the area that he didn't even take a bath. So when he was interviewing one homeless, the homeless guy said to him, "Hey, Yomiuri boy, You smell awful. Can you keep a little further away from me?" I once visited him in Kamagasaki, he didn't look any different from a homeless man. It was partly for this reason that he was popular with laborers and the homeless people, who tipped him off many times. He was an old-fashioned newspaper journalist who indulged himself in humans. Maybe because of the same chemistry, our relationship continued into the days I spent in Kyoto after I got back to Kyoto to take over may family's business.
"To tell the truth, Kyoto Prefecture Police are working their ass off trying to bust me on suspicion of fraud on general contractors."
"That's too bad. But, sounds interesting, doesn't it? Tell me more about it."
Said Otani, getting aggressively interested in the case while worrying about his friend's misfortune. It's may be this character of his that accounts for His journalistic competence. The arrest warrants were to be issued for my brother and me on suspicion of having swindled \12 million of a major general contractor in connection with certain construction work. I had clean hands in that case. But, it's now impossible not to be arrested now that the arrest warrants have been issued. So I made a call to Otani to tell not to worry unnecessarily if I got arrested.
"Do you want me tell more? Sure, as much as you like. So when are we gonna meet?"
"How about now? But I don't think a hotel lobby is an appropriate place for somebody waiting for a ticket."
"Ticket? You can't be a boss of any construction company if you worry about a ticket . Any place will do. How about Kyoto Hotel's lobby? Let's meet with a flourish"
It was my phone call that prompted Yomiuri newspaper to carry the serialized story based on my corporate extortion case. This extortion case coupled with the newspaper's serialized story was largely responsible for my mistaken identity as the celebrated "fox-eyed man" in connection with Glico-Morinaga case five years later. This made me realize how meaningless it is to attempt to a prediction about your future.
In April 1979, the Monopoly Corporation started the construction of a new factory in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto. It was its all three factories, Kyoto, Ibaragi, and Takatsuki factories put together. So it would be a gigantic factory as they boast it as "the largest factory in Orient", with the architecture as wide as 800m from east to west and as tall as 30m, which was to be built upon the premise as large as 20,000 square meters. The construction (of the architecture alone) cost was \10.8 billion. A consortium of major general contractors including Takenaka-komuten had received the order for this construction work. It was from those general contractors that the head of the 2nd Yaizukotetsu-affliated Teramura-gumi, Maruoka Tetsutaro, was suspected of having extorted \70 million. That was what started my case of corporate extortion.
Having made a thorough investigation of Teramura-gumi and its related organizations, Kyoto Prefecture Police took the first step by arresting 7 people including Maruoka Tesuaki, the head of Maruoka-gumi within Teramura-gumi, and Hirai Hiroyuki, the president of Marusho-sangyo on suspicion of extortion of total of \5 million from 8 major corporations in connection with the municipal public sewerage work. According to Yomiuri's "Tracking down corporate extortion", Maruoka or Hirai accompanied by their members burst into the construction site, or called the person responsible for the work to come to their office, and said "Who the hell permitted you to do the construction work? We are here from Marusho-sangyo representing the local people. The noise from your construction site is a bit of nuisance to your neighbors. We're gonna stop you from doing the construction work."
"You haven't made any agreement with local people about the construction work you are doing now. Pay us some money if you want to settle the dispute with the people who are against what you are doing."
"If you don't pay, we are ready to sit in at the construction site to oppose the construction. You've got to be responsible for any casualties, including those gone to heaven." Maruoka and others, in their confessions, admitted all the accusations except their involvement with Maruoka Tetsutaro-gumi.
Despite the confessions by Maruoka and others, the big corporations would not admit the damage done to them. They just repeated curtly "I've never heard a story to that effect." "I know nothing at all." Angered, the police demanded to see the person responsible for the construction site. Some general contractors replied that the people the police wanted to see were on a long business trip in Iran or Hong Kong. So they had tactfully ordered those directly involved in the case to disappear from the scene. Bullied and cajoled by the police, the persons responsible for construction site for major corporations were finally persuaded to admit the damage. But the companies flatly rejected this, saying, "No matter what the people at the construction site say, we were not involved as a company." In the end, the companies gave in at the persistent requests and bullying by the police. But the way they resigned themselves reflected their inherent arrogance. "I see. We will submit the damage report. But can you make it look like the person responsible for the construction site was bullied into paying the money out of his own pocket as a private individual rather than the company was bullied into paying it?" That was the reply from the companies.
The bigger a company is, the more arrogant it is. This is especially true of those top-notch general contractors from which we receive orders worth more than \200 million. The world of construction business is built upon the physical labor provided by people at the bottom of the society. It is for this reason that the world of construction business is wildly robust and lively while at the same time it is the world where people are dictated by hopelessly antiquated conventions, practices and consciousness.
Atop the hierarchy built upon the antiquated conventions and practices are a handful of general contractors. Subcontractors or sub-subcontractors identify themselves as fellows in the same trade. But they regard general contractors or contractors as somebody much too far above them. Their power is absolute. They are a lord, or an emperor. Or rather, we should say, the subcontract system is based on the same kind of relationship as existed between an ancient king and his slaves.
The profit margin general contractors take is outrageously huge, about 20%, often 40% of the construction cost. Suppose a general contractor wins a contract for \1 billion public work. The working budget will be appropriated immediately after that. But about 13% will be skimmed off first by the general contractor before the actual budget appropriation. In other words, it is a budget \870 million that will be appropriated. The general contractor skims off another \200 million as expenses. More is likely to be skimmed off if the work involves installation of facilities such as elevators and air-conditioners, sometimes amounting to 40% of the total budget. But don't be mistaken. This is only a pure profit, not including the cost of construction work, such as that of building materials. It's what they charge subcontractors for sharing the work. You can tell how outrageous it is to charge what they charge if you compare it to the 10% of what you win to pay to the gambling house. For all the money they walk off with, all they do at the construction site is just post a man there as a supervisor.
It is often the case that general contractors make a profit without getting themselves involved in the actual process of construction. Typical of this is what we call "marunage" practice they do as they delegate the entire workload to their subsidiaries. But even in such a case, they skim off some 20%. Although we have an expression in the Japanese language "bozu marumouke" meaning " A Buddhist priest takes it all", any Buddhist priest would find his greediness justifiable if he knew how greedy general contractors are.
And these general contractors' employees are as arrogant as anybody could possibly be to their subcontractors and sub-subcontractors. It's not uncommon that they, eating and drinking at a drinking bar or night club, call their subcontractor to come to and pay the bills for them, or tell them to provide a woman for them. They even go as far as to have their subcontractor pick up their children and drive them to school or from school. And it's not some executives having no discretion. It's the rank-and-files that do this.
They seem to do nearly everything they want to do. But, they have their own natural enemy, too. It's yakuza. They yield so easily to a yakuza's demand for money. This is in part because of what has long been characteristic of the world of construction work. It has long been customary to present the local boss with a gift and money before they start construction work. Or, to put it more precisely, it has been a world ruled by yakuza, as shown by the examples of big time Banzuiin Chobei and small time my old man. Quite a few of the major construction companies were founded by the bosses of yakuza gangs. If you look at top twenty construction companies of each prefecture, you'll find at least 5 - 6 of them are run by ex-yakuza bosses.
Until the 1970's, brasses of major yakuza gangs were openly on the payroll of major general contractors as consultants. It's after all a yakuza world. The state or the business establishment has long put this world under the trusteeship of yakuza to avoid getting involved in physically rough job, and running managerial risk. But the state and business establishment took control of this world when they became sure of its profitability and wrestled away all that was profitable. In 1964, the state authorities took away from all the concessions to harbor works in a campaign called "Summit Campaign". Now the police have confiscated concessions related to pachinko game and entertainment businesses from yakuza, under the guise of implementation of, first, "New Entertainment Establishment Control Law" in 1985, and "Anti-Gangsters Act" in 1992. While the presence of yakuza is no longer felt in most of sectors of the economy that they had long governed, the construction sector is an only exception in that it still has a lot that has been left over from the days of the trusteeship.
Another reason that the general contractors so easily yield to yakuza's demand for money is that it doesn't hurt them at all. Normally, it's one percent of the total construction cost that is extorted. Such money paid under threat is usually accounted for as "Compensation money for nuisance" or "Neighborhood PR money". In most cases, money paid to a local grass-roots movement is accounted for the same way. But, considering the exorbitant profits they make, it's not much at all. And in many cases, some money is earmarked as "Neighborhood PR money". One shouldn't be as na?ve as to believe that the money as set aside is for dealing with the local residents.
What is more, it's often the case they try to become exempt from such duty to the local residents. They try to get their subcontractors to pay what little money they have. In the case of Marusho-sangyo extortion, the president Hirai hounded the general contractor's construction site office and asked for a job, implying he wanted some money. Sensing that it was extortion, the person responsible at the office, tried to get around it by saying, "Why don't you try to work out the problem more specifically with any of our subcontractors?" The subcontractor he tried next did the similar response, saying to a sub-subcontractor, "There's one construction company looking for a job. We have to do something about it. Otherwise, you may be stepping down. Can you settle it?" The sub-subcontractor, coerced by the subcontractor into paying Hirai off, had no alternative but to bite the bullet.
Accustomed to seeing hundreds of millions of yen changing hands everyday, even rank-and-files are insensitive to the actual value of money. On top of this, along with various factors, is an ineradicable mindset that you shouldn't bother while money can take care of the problem. Racketeers and extortionists feed on this characteristic trait and mindset prevailing in this sector of the economy.
"Hi! Long time, no see. You look well. Yon don't look like somebody waiting for a "ticket. Excited to see your long lost friend, the police back on the scene?"
Otani Akihiro of Yomiuri newspaper, seeing me coming into the hotel lobby, cracked. He is a man of humor. After some gossiping about our common friends, we got down to the point, me explaining first how I had ended up as a wanted man without withholding anything from Otani, which is as follows:
The Kyoto Prefecture Police, conducting secret investigation into the extortion case surrounding the construction work of the Monopoly Corporation's Fushimi plant, were making thorough investigation about the Terramura-gumi's 2nd boss, Maruoka and all his affiliates. In June, it set up "Gangster Fund Containment Special Intensive Patrol Headquarters" headed by the Criminal Investigation Lieutenant of the Prefecture Police, staffed by all the cops of the Investigation Section 4 assigned to deal with yakuza, and some 50 yakuza specialists detectives mobilized from the police stations in the southern Kyoto. And all other detectives were standing by, ready to be mobilized if things went the way that would require their mobilization. So the full force of Kyoto Prefecture Police was mobilized to work on case of the Monopoly Corporation's Fushimi plant.
Kyoto Prefecture Police were determined to see this investigation through at any cost. While they were tenaciously searching for any connection between the extortion and the boss, Maruoka, they were going about it in a roundabout way, digging up all the past corporate extortion cases in which Teramura-gumi was involved, and trying to round up every one of them to get any information on the Fushimi plant case. It was at such a time that one yakuza man, arrested on suspicion of trifle extortion in connection with some public work, said inadvertently "I know one extortion case in which Miyazaki brothers, Tsuneo and Manabu, acted as mediators between the boss, Maruoka and a general contractor."
The police jumped for joy. Considering the fact that we were the sons of the Teramura-gumi's first boss, and running a construction work company in close connection to general contractors, the police had been keeping a tab on us, Miyazaki brothers, suspecting that we were mediators.
Maruoka was the 2nd boss who succeeded my old man, and we had been on a first name basis, calling each other "Tetsu-san" and "Bon" ("Bon" or "bon-bon" means a son of a noble family). We were on a friendly term just as much we had been before I took over my family business. We had very close business ties with each other because Maruoka himself was in the construction business. To the general public, Terramura-gumi, Teramura-kensan, and Teramura-doken were in one group "Teramura group", and it's was true that we were acting as mediators between Teramura-gumi and general contractors. We gave them advice if he asked for some. I gathered that the police regarded me as the brain of the group.
So this information they got was the exactly the kind of information they were looking for. The Investigation Section 4 in charge of organized crime went into uproar over the prospect that the information they obtained would lead to the arrest of Maruoka. They took the arrest of Miyazaki brothers as a great first step forward in their investigation into the alleged Fushimi plant extortion case.
It was in mid-July, when the Investigation Section 4, tipped off by those close to yakuza, was conducting secret investigation that they decided to arrest us, Miyazaki brothers on suspicion of fraud. A devil knows one ofits own. Hardly had they made that decision before I knew about it. Their allegation was as follows: In October of the previous year, Miyazaki brothers noticed that Sato-kogyo, a general contractor that was working on the public sewerage system in Yamashina-ku, Kyoto, as contract work, was in trouble, being harassed by local yakuza, approached the general contractor as a mediator saying, "They say they won't let you get away with it unless you pay them \12 million.", and cheated that much of money out of an executive of the general contractor." It's true that my brother and I acted as mediators but we didn't pocketed the money. We were approached by an executive of Sato-kogyo who asked us "We are being harassed by yakuza and don't know what to do about it. Can you do something about it for us?" "Can you do something about it?" means in the real world, "Settle the matter with money" I accepted this job because my business owed a lot to Sato-kogyo.
So I delivered the money to Maruoka, the head, and asked him to settle the matter. Sato-kogyo was happy, saying, "Thank you so much. We thought first more money would be needed." Actually, we got a person from Sato-kogyo to witness the delivery of money should anything go wrong. Apparently, the reason it was made into the fraud case was that under the police threat "You won't get any more public work unless you submit a damage report" Sato-kogyo reluctantly made a damage report to the effect that they were swindled by Miyazaki brothers. Because, fraud, like rape, is only subject to prosecution upon complaint.@
We were in trouble any way. The only way out of this would be to get Sato-kogyo to retract the damage report. So, I contacted Sato-kogyo right away for an appointment to see the one who had witnessed us delivering the cash. I met him and asked him, or bullied him, "Tell the police the truth. I won't forgive you unless you testify responsibly." But, considering an expected extraordinary pressure that the police and the general contractor would put on him, it was very much doubtful that he would be able to stick to the truth. And even if he told the truth, I was sure that the police would hush it up. Still, we pinned our hope on his honest and brave testimony. In the meantime I checked with lawyer Maebori Masayuki to find whether what we did would really constitute a crime. Maebori alias "Razor Maebori" was an astute lawyer who had worked on such cases as "Gobancho Incident" in which he had revealed the police had conducted investigation on erroneous assumption, or "Yakai Incident" in which the falsely accused was found not guilty on each of the two trials referred back from higher court. And I had known him well.
After explaining the reason for seeking to take counsel from him, I asked "Mr. Maebori, does it really make sense if what we have done is fraud? " He made his judgment then and there and told me, "If the money was actually delivered, establishing this as a criminal case may be not so easy. I am going to be your defense counsel if the case is taken to the court."
"In that case, I will put up strong resistance against the police and see it through. Then I will come out of it "clean." I said. But the lawyer, raking his gray hair up as he listened to me casually, reminded me, "There is still a way around it in this case because you are charged with fraud. If charged with extortion, there would have been no way out."
In the early morning of July 22nd, the Kyoto Prefecture investigators raided my brother's house and mine to find the both of us gone. So they hastily made an arrangement across the country for us to be designated as wanted by the police. Our mugs shots were everywhere in Japan, in newspapers and on TV. One reason we went missing was that we thought we would look stupid if we got arrested at home. But more importantly, both of us had to raise money by the payday, the 25th of the month. That's how financially moribund Teramura-kensan was. Indeed, the two men wanted by the police were running around to raise money.
It was 4 or 5 days before we became listed wanted that I met Otani Akihiro in a hotel lobby. After I explained the case in detail, he said, "I'm sure you are being falsely charged, Why shouldn't a newspaper journalist fight against it? It's not you to write about. It's the case in which somebody is falsely charged. But it's not me covering this case. My fellow journalists at Kyoto branch, paying a special attention to this case, have long since been gathering information on it. So, t's going to be an interesting story that Kyoto branch guys will write. Not only will it be interesting, but it will be serialized." I owed Otani a lot when I was with "Weekly Gendai" journal. He helped me a lot when I came down to Kansai to write about the region. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to return his favor. I said, "I don't want to look stupid enough to let our police get me so easily. That means I will be listed across the nation as wanted. So it would be a good idea if you interview me while I am on the run? That would make some exclusive scoop." To which Otani replied right away "Why not? And with a big picture of you. We will make you look like a strong man behind the scene in the world of construction work. Ya, a very good idea." After cracking the joke, he became seriously looking and said "But you've got to remember that we collect as much evidence as possible to corroborate what we write as a newspaper journalist. And who knows we may end up writing against you ? It's all up to the evidence how we write. You should be aware of this."
I said to Otani, "I know as well as you do. Collect evidence or garbage, or whatever. And you may write against me if the evidence tells you not to write in my favor. I will go and tease the police" Then, he replied with a grin, " Have a good time in there. I'll be waiting for you to come out so that we can dine out together." Then he continued, " It's the same everywhere in Japan. Blackmailing involving a general contractor. It's terrible in Osaka. So is in Kyushu. But there's still something lovable about it in Osaka or Kyushu in that it is still a crime or whatever with a human face. But blackmailing is systematized in Tokyo. There's nothing interesting about what they do over there."
I told my mother that I was going to turn myself in to the police on the day before.
I said to her, "There's nothing to worry about. I go first before my brother. I'll chuck away this case by the time he joins me."
Putting on her usual look she replied, "Don't worry about your family. I take care of them all right." Then she added, "Don't tell them unnecessary things."
This is what she used to say every time a Teramura-gumi's member was about to turn himself in to the police. But this time, she was as stouthearted as ever, but not as youthful as she had been before. Seeing the back of this senile figure, I said to myself, "I won't let anything to get better of me, for this mother of mine."
The moment my mother saw my back out the door, as my sister told me later, she fell to the ground enfeebled and burst uncontrollably burst into tears. She must have known another hidden picture of this incident that I hadn't yet known. But my mother as I know her was not a kind of person that would burst into tears at such a thing. Probably she was getting old, or that's what any mother would be to her child. I don't know which. Maybe both.
At around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I took some changes cloth in my sport bag with me and turned myself in to Fushimi Police Station. I was immediately sent over to the Kyoto Prefecture Police Department. But right before my surrender to the police, I was interviewed by the Kyoto Branch of Yomiuri newspaper. The Kyoto Branch, showing interest in the case, had decided to carry a serialized story in the paper by following the development of the case on a real-time basis. To get off to an explosive start, they came to me for an interview, an "Exclusive interview with the suspect on the run".
In the evening edition of Yomiuri that was to be home-delivered around the time I arrived in the Kyoto Prefecture Police, the interview appeared in the social affairs section, catching everyone's eye. Inserted in the middle of the article space was a big picture of me being interviewed. The interview began with the Yomiuri journalist asking me a question "Why did you run away?" to which I replied, "No, I am not running away or hiding or anything. Since the Kyoto Prefecture Police listed me as wanted, I've been in Kyoto all along going around visiting the construction sites and customers. The reason I did not get arrested is the investigative incompetence on the part of the Kyoto Prefecture Police..." My other comments were there too, pointing out in detail the relationship between the despicable nature of general contractors and the corporate extortion.
This evening edition delivered simultaneously with my surrender to the police threw the Kyoto Prefecture Police into a great confusion. "Investigative incompetence on the part of the Kyoto Prefecture Police! Shit! This cheeky bastard!" It was for this reason that their investigation began the moment I arrived. The Investigation Section 4 cops assigned to deal with "Gangsters" were all worked up by the newspaper article. I refused to obey their order to go into the investigative room. It's a little bit of embarrassing but it was because of my chronic lower backache and I couldn't get up. I had been suffering an acute pain on and off. I just happened to have such pain about to come. So I said to them, "Who is taking responsibility if you force me to sit on a chair to get my backache worse?" That was the excuse I made when I refused to be taken into the investigative room. So we ended up in a janitor's bedroom with the several cops sitting cross-legged, leaning over me while I was lying on the tatami-matted floor. In retrospect, it was a stupid picture but the actual atmosphere at that time was charged with tension because of the evening edition of the paper just released.
"What relationship do you have with Yomiuri newspaper?" "Yomiuri? I've got nothing to do with the enemy's paper. Don't you know I'm a Tigers supporter? How the hell should I read the Giants' paper? It's an enemy paper.
"But you are talking big in the paper. Are you provoking us?"
"What the hell you are talking about? I am just telling the truth. I'm not running away, hiding or anything. It's your problem being unable to catch such an easy one like me."
"All right, all right. Let's forget about it. But remember you are gonna be very much in trouble if you don't answer any of our questions we will ask you from tomorrow."
"No, I don't have to answer any of them. You will find all the answers if you read Yomiuri everyday. It will carry a serialized story about this case."
All the cops sitting cross-legged were apparently taken aback and looked at each other. Of course I had known that this series of articles, entitled "Tracking down a corporate extortion" but those "Anti-mobster" cops had had no idea at all. I have never seen anybody looking as at a loss as these cops did. What must have crossed their mind was the thought "Are we gonna just sitting back, letting this one say anything he likes tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and so on while we can't do anything about it." The headline "Tracking down a corporate extortion" is numbered with @ just below it, and in its lead was written "..... the seven-month-long extensive investigative reporting on this matter. "Tracking down a corporate extortion" is a record of this investigative research and the indictment of those involved in the case we have been tracking down." This lead did not indicate at all how long it would last, declaring that it would also report on the ins and outs of the on-going police investigation. The cops must have been scared hell out of their wits to see this. It did not, however make any difference to the predicament I was in. This would make the infuriated cops to go all out to break me. The Yomiuri's article was all I had going for me. So I had my mind made up to hold out as long as I could by asking for the impossible to gain whatever could be gained. I had no alternative left, but it was also true that one thing that kept me going on was my rivalry against the police, "I won't let the police get better of me."
In the morning I complained about my backache and demanded that I be taken to a hospital. In the afternoon, I said I would have a headache without taking a nap. And in the evening, I protested that interrogation at nighttime would be against the law, making it impossible for them to put me under interrogation. I persistently refused to any question, never touching upon anything related to the case, telling them to read Yomiuri if they wanted to know what I had done. "Right to silence, aye? We've had enough of it. We can't let you get away until we make any report on this. So far we have written not a line."
"Why not just write 'He remains silent and never talks'?" Or if you are so anxious to make a report. I'll tell you something. Cut out Yomiuri articles and paste them on your report. All you need is my signature verifying the contents of the article. I'll be glad to cooperate." "Cut it out. Are you making fun of us? By the way, the fraud you are charged with... that money was... " "You know as well as I do that there was one witness who was at the place of delivery. And you still want to call it a fraud. It's not a fraud anymore than it is flawed. The investigation went that way, interspersed with me saying "Oh, no. My backache. No, I can't go on anymore. I'm gonna back to the detention room. Please excuse me." So I withdrew to my room, leaving them with nothing to write about in their report.
But in the course of such investigation, I noticed that I was being sod to somebody involved in this case. Piecing together bits of what the interrogating cops were saying, this traitor seemed to be saying to the police in exchange for the release of his brother, "It's the work of Miyazaki brothers. I had no part in it." As I found out later, not only was my guess true but my incomplete statement made to the police was leaked to him. It didn't, however, offend me much when I noticed I was being sold. After all, it's nothing new at all in the world in which I live. It's a world of nepotism through and through where you put yourself before anybody or anything. Yourself and your family is all you care for. To protect somebody closer to you, you will do anything, becoming cold-blooded to, or betraying those less close. So, my being sold was a tit I was getting from somebody I might have given a tat. It might have been what my mother saw down the road that made her burst into tears when I left for the police station. This was a fact that had nothing to do with another fact that concerned both of us that there was nobody else to help us out of that predicament, except ourselves. At the same time, it was my duty to do everything I could to prevent the head of Teramura-gumi, Maruoka Tetsutaro from being arrested for blackmailing. He had been a member of "my family" since my childhood, my father's "son" and the successor to him. I thought I would be most humiliated as a man if he got arrested because of what I said.
"Extortion? Come on. Is that a case of extortion if somebody offers you some money? Do you know the lot of money a police station master receives from his neighborhood association when he is transferred to some other position? Is this also a case of extortion you are talking about? " I had to remove the possibility of Maruoka being charged with extortion. I was also interrogated by a prosecutor. I defied him in everything he was trying to do. He was my generation and really a dedicated prosecutor. I asked, "What college did you graduate from? Chuo's Law Department? Sorry, you just cannot deal with me. You are not qualified enough. Like most of the likes of you, you must have most of your college days just studying for bar examination to end up knowing nothing about the real world, much less the murky world of construction business inhabited by people like me.
No, you are just incapable of passing any judgment on us. You better give up.
Or you wanna work at my company to learn a bit about the real world." Meanwhile, I applied for a disclosure trial, which is a relief measure for those detained, allowing the detainee to call for a trial in which the prosecutor should present a justifiable reason for and the legitimacy of his detention while the detainee is allowed to state his own case or ask for the evidence. With any solid evidence in their hand, it's something the police or the prosecutor can easily dismiss as nothing. With not so much of evidence to go by and the optimistic thought like, "Put him in jail and tighten a screw on him, and he will confess sooner or later", however, this trial is likely to get them into trouble. In my case where they have no solid evidence of my involvement in the alleged extortion of money, the police and the prosecutor must have torn their hair out. The disgusted look this prosecutor showed when I abused him saying, "You don't wanna be embarrassed or humiliated, do you?" suggested that the idea of a possible disclosure trial" crossed his mind although it didn't occur to him at all that I had already applied for such a trial by that time. When I was back in the detention room after all this abusing, one detective came shooting into my room to say angrily, "Don't talk to a prosecutor so rude." Anyway this prosecutor was dismissed soon after this case was over. As a result, the Kyoto Prosecutors' Office was to harbor a grudge against me for a long time to come afterward.
"Is that Manabu-chan I know? You are Teramura's Manabu-chan, aren't you?"
A cop in his fifties, pointing to my face, asked me when I was one day into my detention, lying around in my cell.
"Who the hell do you think you are? You can't be on a first name basis with me so easily." I roared. The cop, pointing to himself, "It's me, Iizawa, the one that was lodging at Manabuchan's house in Keidai-cho." Staring up and down his face, I could recognize him as the Iizawa who was lodging with us when I was a primary school kid. It's something the today's media would have made a big scandal out of, but we had once some real cops staying with us in our home in Keidai-cho. With the Teramura-gumi's office now moved to some other location, the spacious house made a good lodging house with a good caretaker, which was my mother. Of course there's nothing those cops should conceal or feel guilty about what they were doing as we charged them the rent.
Behind this might be a little too crude and optimistic pragmatism typical of yakuza that the cops staying with us might keep other yakuza at bay. Those are the good old days anyway.
Iizawa was one such cop. He hailed from Amanohashidate up in northern Kyoto. On summer vacations, I used to visit his own house there. He was a nice man.
"Manabu-chan, come out here," he urged me to come out and took me to a washing room where there was nobody. Making sure we were alone, he said "I heard one fellow cop saying 'There was a new one yesterday who said "I can't eat food a kind of food you feed a fog with." and threw it away,' So I came rushing here to teach that guy a good lesson, never to make light of the police. But, to my astonishment, that bad guy has turned out to be Manabu-chan. I almost fainted."
Desponding, and crest-fallen, he suddenly looked as if to burst into crying, "Manabu-chan, what's the meaning of this? Why are you here, under police detention? Ending up in places like this. Was that what you went to a college in Tokyo for? I remember you telling me when you were a kid that you were going to be a lawyer. But look how you have ended up here. I am so shocked. " He said admonishingly, tears running down his cheeks. I replied flatly "I've done nothing wrong." But, inside I was very much disturbed.
After the reunion, Iizawa used to come to me and say, "Hey, Miyazaki, interrogation time" and take me out to another room. But, instead of questioning me, he offered me tobacco or coffee. It was only once on such an occasion that he whispered into my ear, "The cops in charge of organized crimes are determined to do anything to crack you (make you confess), and charge you." I replied, "Don't worry. I'm not a kind of person that succumbs to cops." Then Iizawa was staring at me with an apprehensive look on his face.
Police are a natural enemy I inherited from my parents' generation. They still are today as they have always been. I resent cops because they treat us human beings as things. Look at the way they give food. They do it as if to feed a dog or cat. I threw away the dishes every saying, "I can't eat food like this." and ate only the lunchbox somebody brought in everyday. But I often became resentful to see the way my cellmates were treated. Yes, there are decent, and honest guys like Iizawa in the police force. But these guys invariably end up as a loser in their race up the organizational ladder.
Three days after I turned myself in, my brother turned himself in and the police interrogation began. My brother unyieldingly denied the charge so the investigation flopped.
The Yomiuri's serialized article continued while I was going through all this. Yomiuri men were just about to get down to the root of the corporate extortion in the world of construction business, by seeing the problem as a structural problem rooted in the general contractors' inherent tendency to depend on money as the means of setting disputes and in the bureaucrats' tendency to connive corporate extortions. This serialized article, awarded later, was distinguished from many other newspapers' serialized articles whose contents more often than not belied their eye-catching titles.
What with the failed investigation, and newspaper articles digging up this and that about them, the police were driven to the wall. What started out like a lion now was very likely to end up as a sheep, or an embarrassing total failure. So, the police could no longer afford to be scrupulous about what they should refrain from doing, and started digging up my past misbehavior to shake me up. So I gave them tit for tat. I went as far as to say things like:
"Don't you forget that you're gonna retire sooner or later?"
"Retire? What the hell do you mean?"
"An retired cop cannot use useful excuse of "obstruction of police duty" you can use when making an arrest. No gun to carry around when walking in the dark. I've got a lot of young reckless ones working for me. You can't be too cautious."
"What? Are you intimidating me?"
"No. I've never heard of a cop being intimidated by the suspect he is interrogating. No intimidation or extortion within the police premise, is there?"
Such was an exchange that went on and on like between two comedians.
In the Yomiuri's serialized article, Maebori Masayuki, the defendant lawyer for my brother and me, predicted how the investigation would go as follows:
"This won't make a fraud case. "S" industry (referring to Sato-kogyo) blackmailed by yakuza, asked Miyazaki brothers to mediate between them. The \12 million Miyazaki received was taken to a man more powerful than the one who blackmailed. The Investigation Section 4 asserts that this is a fraud case because the money was not received by the one who blackmailed. This is wrong. No trouble has ever arisen since the \12 million was paid. This means the money paid was effective. How could it be a fraud when they've got the money's worth. I'm sure this is the way it will turn out to be. Just wait and see."
Sure enough, the investigation just went just as Maebori had predicted.
One reason it went the way he had predicted it would was that Sato-kogyo, having reluctantly submitted a damage report under the threat of the police that implied that Sato-kogyo would be suspended from a deal as a contractor, became in their interrogation no more positive at all about what they had previously said to the police. As it turned out, the Sato-kogyo man who was on the scene to see the delivery of the money had already testified at a very early stage of the prosecution's investigation; "I saw Miyazaki handing over all the money to the recipient. That's true because I was there on the scene." The police had just hushed it up. What the police wanted to do was to charge me only on my confession if I confessed to a fraud. Their failure to extricate confession from me compelled them to submit my testified statement to the prosecution. But I had no idea that the things were changing in my favor. After all, how could we expect detectives or prosecutors to tell anything about their trouble? I was just lying in the night watchman's room, or sitting with my feet doubled back to one side on a couch in the district prosecutors' office, taking no notice of their questions. The same comical exchange of words ensued between me and organized crime detectives or prosecutors.
In the evening of August 9th, or the eve of the disclosed trial, the prosecutor said in disgust, "You'll be released, with punishment right reserved," Just as I thought, they decided to avoid a disclosed trial where I would have caused them more trouble. But, I felt a strong urge to teach them a lesson before I left the place. "How dare you could expect to get away with what you have done to me? Busting me on a groundless suspicion, and saying "You'll be released. "Released ? Stop nonsense. You can't decide where to put me at your will. You can't get me out here until it's clear who is right or wrong. But, I don't think you are capable of that kind of decision. So bring over here the governor of Kyoto Prefecture and the director of Kyoto Prefecture Police. Remember I told you in the beginning, not to do it? You could have saved yourself such embarrassment. You've still got a lot from the real world, have ya?"
After causing them some such troubles, I was released. It was on the 16th day from the day I had turned myself in to the police. My brother got released, too, at the same time. "Tracking down a corporate extortion", serialized in Yomiuri, gave a full and detailed account of the story beginning with my self-surrender to the police and ending with my release. Looking at one point in the air, one brass of Investigation Section 4, instructed by the prosecution on the phone to release us, seemed unable to contain his mortified feelings.
The failure to obtain anything from the Miyazaki brothers' case left the police with nothing to go on in solving the Monopoly Corporation Fushimi plant extortion case as the investigation went on, unable to produce nothing substantial that would reveal the case in its entirety, only to give them some glimpse of something that was at the root of this problem. The investigation was extraordinary in that a special investigation headquarters was set up, and that the entire nation was watching it through its blow-by-blow report carried daily in the nation's major newspaper. So it was clear that their failed investigation put the police's reputation in jeopardy. And it all started with me. At least the police thought that way and came to harbor something akin to a grudge against me. This pent-up feeling was given a vent when the Glico-Morinaga case gripped the entire nation five years later, with an criminal investigation top brasses saying openly "Look at the defiant attitude toward police and crafty manipulation of media, he does things exactly the same as Manabu did". How it all ended, I will tell later on.
So far I have written about general contractors or yakuza. It's not just yakuza that extort money out of general contractors. There are more shrewd ones. It's politicians. Compared to politicians, yakuza here and there are nothing but innocent little kids. Especially, whenever a lot of money is involved as in big projects, there always come out politicians from nowhere to take rake-off from foolhardy construction companies or yakuza. In the case of Kansai area, big projects like construction of Kansai New Airport or Honshu-Shikoku Bridge, naturally lured many who would prey upon the projects. Normally, it would be somebody in the same trade or some yakuza coming out as a mediator. But, on a big project, it's usually politicians who take the place of such a mediator.
For example, one acquaintance of mine, in his bid for work in the construction of Honshu-Shikoku Bridge construction, drew up a plan himself, and went to the site to see those responsible for the construction. Although he is a bit foolhardy, but not at all an outlaw as we know it. He just wanted to strike rich by dint of his hard work. So he went to visit what was called something like supervisory bureau, full of ambitions and expectations. But what struck him strange about the meeting he had with people there was that no other construction companies were present nor were there any yakuza people in attendance. He left the meeting, and checked into a hotel, still left wondering why. While he was in his room at the hotel at that night, one phone call came through. It was from a secretary for a bureaucrat-turned big name LDP diet man. As soon as he identified himself, he started bulling," You're gonna get busted if you don't forget about this bridge thing. Come clean, man. We know you can't walk free." A man like him traveling all the way to a remote place looking for a job usually has one or two skeletons in his chest. He didn't protest at all, just saying "Sorry", and he was never to return.
With a big project, politicians come out to remove undesirable elements this way as yakuza normally does with a smaller project. There is nothing wrong with this practice itself. But, it's not something for general contractors to embrace with open arms, either. One general contractor exec got drunk and complained to me, "The protection money we pay them is exorbitant. And they are in most cases useless, unable to address any of the specific problems we actually encounter. Maybe this is not so far from the truth. Politicians were rampaging, ripping off everywhere in Kansai area, too.
For general contractors, it doesn't matter whether it is yakuza or politicians that they have to pay as long as their construction work goes on unhampered. And the less they have to pay, the better. That's all there is to the way they feel about the money they pay.
Since this corporate extortion case, the image that people have of me as an "enemy of citizens" had been amplified. But the world is not made of citizens alone. There are many in this real world who, rejected from the world of citizens, don't expect at all to be accepted as citizens. It's these people that gave me cheers and encouragement. They know better than to expect the police to protect them. They know instinctively that the police discriminate against them, and regard them as dangerous. That's why they are fond of anybody who defies the police. One of the most striking example of this breed is Mr. Uchida talked about earlier in this book, the boss of Uchida-gumi construction company, in Ritto, Shiga Prefecture.
"You are great. You beat the police. And they suffered that much. Absolutely fantastic, great. It feels so good. I'm very proud of you as one with a close relationship with you." said Mr. Uchida as he came romping out when I visited him about some work. "Beat them? No, I just kept telling them I'd nothing to do with it." I said. "Yes, you beat them. Holding on your own there is beating them," he applied his own definition. He read a bit much into the fact that I was not going to be charged. Mr. Uchida then said, "I show you this. The cutouts from the newspaper article "Tracking down a corporate extortion" about you. I keep all of them." He also showed me cutouts from other newspapers reporting on my brother and me listed as wanted across the nation with big headlines. And he made a unique comment typical of him. "How many times do you guess the names "Teramura-doken" and "Teramura-doken " and "Teramura-kensan" get mentioned in the series of articles? 30 times. And it's only in the short space of one month that they appeared over and over again. That must have made a good publicity. I had one advertisement company man I know calculate the publicity effect of this. He said it's worth \200-300 million. This reminds me again of the importance of doing something that strikes"
Mr. Uchida was nodding to himself many times, agreeing to what he said to himself. To him, getting infamous is just another way to get known. He had the slightest idea that getting written about and flared up in the newspaper would bring a disgrace to me. He reasoned "You asserted yourself all the way through the fight against the police. So you should deserve the honor." Mr. Uchida's own criteria is "the sensibility". He rejects whatever doesn't make any sense, whether it's what a general contractor does or what yakuza does. I've heard many times him saying to a yakuza man "I can't accept such argument that doesn't make any sense. Get lost!"
This tough attitude, did not, however, get him in trouble. It's because they knew that he wouldn't be afraid of killing anybody for the integrity of his principle, and yakuza had some respect for him. Indeed, he had been sent to prison 13 times to preserve his integrity. No one can deny his formidable adherence to his principle.
As explained earlier, a pre-modern value system still prevails in the world of construction work as the biggest factor that account for the general contractors' impudence, and their treating humans as sub-humans. But at the same time, this is also a factor that explains why some breeds of people almost extinct in the main stream of the civic society are still able to survive albeit, in small numbers.
Mr. Uchida may be one of the very few exceptions but there are still some found who take care of their own lives without relying on authorities or powers. It's really hard to live without relying on authorities and powers. Because it's always a struggle to get whatever you need for your survival. It's a world where you can still find those really tough people having their conduct guided by the "disciplines" they impose upon themselves.
And in this breed of people, we still find some qualities such as consistency, faithfulness, and chivalry. While pushing hard to accomplish what he wants to accomplish for his own sake, he often puts his life on the line for others without expecting any return for it. Their lack of intelligence is in most cases more than compensated for by the humane qualities they possess which so enchant us. This is true of the yakuza world, in which the following three phrases are all it takes to get along. "Have no fear at the decisive moment", "Deal a final blow to a vacillating heart" such as when persuading a hitman to do the job. I heard often somebody in my family saying, "Be a man. Sit straight up." And the third is "Accept the defeat" when there is no way out. or "Be a good loser", an attitude that is conducive to selflessness."
If you are fearless, determined to convince others, and willing to sacrifice yourself, you are sure to make it through the life of yakuza. But I don't think this is confined to the yakuza world. Rather, this may be a universal norm of conduct for all humans. But I have seen so many of those everywhere who get scared at the decisive moment, to become compromising and unable to get themselves selfless. This is all the more the reason that the way Mr. Uchida lives his life strikes the right chord in me. Far be it from me to say this to the people living in the civic world, "Have no fear", "Deal a final blow to others", and "Accept your defeat." Why not live your life that way? And you will know it's your own life you are in this world to live.