take such things phlegmatically. “No wonder he wants this one under
wraps. The front page isn’t big enough, is it?”
“That is the problem. It wouldn’t affect passage of the bill-well, proba-
bly not-but who needs the complications? TRA, the Moscow trip, too.
So-smart money, it’s announced when he gets back from Russia.”
“He’s hanging Realty out.”
“Roger never has liked him. He brought Ed on board for his legislative
savvy, remember? The President needed somebody who knew the system.
Well, what good will he be now, even if he’s cleared? Also, a major liability
for the campaign. It makes good political sense,” Greening pointed out, “to
toss him overboard right now, doesn’t it? At least, as soon as the other stuff
is taken care of.”
That’s interesting, Newton thought, quiet for a few seconds. We can’t
stop TRA. On the other hand, what if we can curse Durlings presidency?
That could give us a new Administration in one big hurry, and with the right
sort of guidance, a new Administration . . .
“Okay, Ernie, that’s something.”
12
Formalities
There had to be speeches. Worse, there had to be a lot of speeches. For
something of this magnitude, each of the 435 members from each of the 435
districts had to have his or her time in front of the cameras.
A representative from North Carolina had brought in Will Snyder, his
hands still bandaged, and made sure he had a front-row seat in the gallery.
That gave her the ability to point to her constituent, praise his courage to the
heavens, laud organized labor for the nobility of its unionized members, and
introduce a resolution to give Snyder official congressional recognition for
his heroic act.
Next, a member from eastern Tennessee rendered a similar panegyric to
his state’s highway police and the scientific resources of Oak Ridge National
Laboratory-there would be many favors handed out as a result of this legis-
lation, and ORNL would get a few more million. The Congressional Budget
Office was already estimating the tax revenue to be realized from increased
American auto production, and members were salivating over that like Pav-
lov’s dogs for their bell.
A member from Kentucky went to great pains to make it clear that the
Cresta was largely an American-made automobile, would be even more so
with the additional U.S. parts to be included in the design (that had already
been settled in a desperate but necessarily unsuccessful accommodation ef-
fort by the corporate management), and that he hoped none would blame the
workers of his district for the tragedy caused, after all, by non-American
parts. The Kentucky Cresta plant, he reminded them, was the most efficient
car factory in the world, and a model, he rhapsodized, of the way America
and Japan could and should cooperate! And he would support this bill only
because it was a way to make that cooperation more likely. That straddled
the fence rather admirably, his fellow members thought.
And so it went. The people who edited Roll Call, the local journal that
covered the Hill, were wondering if anyone would dare to vote against TRA.
“Look,” Roy Newton told his main client. “You’re going to take a beating,
okay? Nobody can change that. Call it bad luck if you want, but shit hap-
pens.”
It was his tone that surprised the other man. Newton was almost being
insolent. He wasn’t apologizing at all for his gross failure to change things,
as he was paid to do, as he had promised that he could do when he’d first
been hired to lobby for Japan, Inc. It was unseemly for a hireling to speak in
this way to his benefactor, but there was no understanding Americans, you
gave them money to do a job, and they-
“But there are other things going on, and if you have the patience to take
a longer view-“long view had already been tried, and Newton was grateful
for the fact that his client had good-enough language skills to catch the dif-
ference-“there are other options to be considered.”
“And what might those be?” Binichi Murakami asked acidly. He was
upset enough to allow his anger to show for once. It was just too much. He’d
come to Washington in the hope that he could personally speak out against
this disastrous bill, but instead had found himself besieged with reporters
whose questions had only made clear the futility of his mission. And for that
reason he’d been away from home for weeks, despite all sorts of entreaties to
return to Japan for some urgent meetings with his friend Kozo Matsuda.
“Governments change,” Newton replied, explaining on for a minute
or so.
“Such a trivial thing as that?”
“You know, someday it’s going to happen in your country. You’re kid-
ding yourself if you think otherwise.” Newton didn’t understand how they
could fail to grasp something so obvious. Surely their marketing people told
them how many cars were bought in America by women. Not to mention the
best lady’s shaver in the world. Hell, one of Murakami’s subsidiaries made
it. So much of their marketing effort was aimed at attracting women custom-
ers, and yet they pretended that the same factors would never come to be in
their own country. It was, Newton thought, a particularly strange blind spot.
“It really could ruin Durling?” The President was clearly getting all sorts
of political capital from TRA.
“Sure, if it’s managed properly. He’s holding up a major criminal investi-
gation, isn’t he?”
“No, from what you said, he’s asked to delay it for-”
“For political reasons, Binichi.” Newton did not often first-name his cli-
ent. The guy didn’t like it. Stuffed shirt. But he paid very well, didn’t he?
“Binichi. you don’t want to get caught playing with a criminal mailer, espe-
cially for political reasons. Expeciallv where the abuse of women is in-
volved. It’s an eccentricity of the American political system,” he explained
patiently.
“We can’t meddle with that, can we?” It was an ill-considered question.
He’d never quite meddled at this level before, that was all.
“What do you think you pay me for?”
Murakami leaned back and lit up a cigarette. He was the only person al-
lowed to smoke in this office. “How would we go about it?”
“Give me a few days to work on that? For the moment, take the next
flight home. You’re just hurting yourself by being here, okay?” Newton
paused. “You also need to understand, this is the most complicated project
I’ve ever done for you. Dangerous, too,” the lobbyist added.
Mercenary! Murakami raged behind eyes that were again impassive and
thoughtful. Well, at least he was effective at it.
“One of my colleagues is in New York. I plan to see him and then fly
home from New York.”
“Fine. Just keep a real low profile, okay?”
Murakami stood and walked to the outer office, where an aide and a body-
guard waited. He was a physically imposing man, tall for a Japanese at five-
ten, with jet-black hair and a youthful face that belied his fifty-seven years.
He also had a better-than-average track record for doing business in Amer-
ica, which made the current situation all the more offensive to him. He had
never purchased less than a hundred million dollars’ worth of American
products in any year for the past decade, and he had occasionally spoken out,
quietly, for allowing America greater access to his country’s food market.
The son and grandson of farmers, it appalled him that so many of his coun-
trymen would want to do that sort of work. It was so damnably inefficient,
after all, and the Americans, for all their laziness, were genuine artists at
growing things. What a pity they didn’t know how to plant a decent garden,
which was Murakami’s other passion in life.
The office building was on Sixteenth Street, only a few blocks from the
White House, and, stepping out on the sidewalk he could look down and see
the imposing building. Not Osaka Castle, but it radiated power.
‘ ‘You Jap cocksucker!”
Murakami turned to see the face, angry and white, a working-class man
by the look of him, and was so startled that he didn’t have time to take of-
fense. His bodyguard moved quickly to interpose himself between his boss
and the American.
“You’re gonna get yours, asshole!” the American said. He started to
walk away.
“Wait. What have I done to harm you?” Murakami asked, still too sur-
prised to be angry.
Had he known America better, the industrialist might have recognized
thai the man was one of Washington’s homeless, and like most of them, a
man with a problem. In this case, he was an alcoholic who had lost both his
job and his family to drink, and his only contact with reality came from dis-
jointed conversations with people similarly afflicted. Because of that, what-
ever outrages he held were artificially magnified. His plastic cup was full of