Durarara!!, Vol. 4 (novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

desire as the other shadow.

    At that moment, Jack-o’-Lantern Japan Talent Agency Office, Higashi-Nakano
    “Wowza! What? I mean,
what
? Holy hell in a handbasket!”
    The effect of the pristine, ultraclean room with the pure white polished floor was broken by a very uncouth voice.
    “I’ll be damned if that ain’t the most powerful image I ever seen! Now that’s good stuff! In movie terms, that’s got
Jurassic Park
impact! Or should it be
Godzilla
?”
    An odd man was jabbering excitedly to himself in front of a television screen, his speech an oddly accented foreign take on Japanese. He had white skin and slicked-back blond hair, dark sunglasses and facial stubble, a white suit and crocodile-skin bag, expensive rings and a thick cigar in his mouth—the Hollywood image of a fat-cat villain if there ever was one.
    The screen in front of him was too big for most people to consider a “television.” It was a good one hundred inches in measurement, the kind of screen most people could only dream of affording.
    The interior was a modern office building of the type one would expect to see in some American tech company, with each desk in its own fully screened cubicle that afforded the employee inside a small manner of personal office space.
    But the space that housed this noisy man and his giant TV was placed separately, with a wide-open floor plan and several couches and tables, a kind of pseudo–conference room set up for viewing the massive screen in the back.
    It was an odd office design that held many personal spaces and a lobby in the same large room. The man was excitedly fixed on the screen.
    “Wish I could just zip on over to Ikebukuro right now! Hot damn, I do! Yeah! Hey, what’s Mr. Yuuhei doin’ today? He knows Ikebukuro—he can show us around the town! We’ll get a real good look at that Sleepy Hollow business as we enjoy some traditional flower viewing!” he chattered, his eyes sparkling like a child’s. Meanwhile, the more rational men seated around the TV exchanged concerned murmurs with each other.
    “A stunt by Daioh?” “No, that’s not their demographic.” “Gotta call the producer…” “Anyone out on assignment in the area right now?” “I can call the manager in the studio…”
    While the Japanese men took the abnormal situation on the screen with tense consternation, the white man shook his head and held up his hands in complaint.
    “Hey! Hey, hey, hey! You ignoring
my
opinion?
The boss?
”
    “Boss, we can’t see the screen.”
    “Oh, whoops… Sorry about that. Wait, that ain’t the point! Why am I treated like the odd man out? Or is this a racist thing? You don’t wanna work for a foreigner! I thought Japan was a land that cherished harmony, huh? Are you givin’ your own country a bad name?”
    “Maybe you should stop giving your
own
country a bad name, boss… Also, you’re the one disrupting the harmony. Especially when Yuuhei’s film is doing such good business,” said one of his employees. The company president shrugged and looked away.
    The man’s name was Max Sandshelt.
    He was the president of the Japanese branch of the American-based talent agency Jack-o’-Lantern. The agency was a big-time player with connections to the McDonnell Company, a major movie distributor, but in Japan they were mid-tier at best. Compared to the big boys, they had an unbalanced stable of talent, with a few top-class actors and a majority of unremarkable youngsters.
    At a glance, he looked incompetent, but for whatever reason, his ability to produce talent, forge connections, and escape trouble at the last possible moment were nothing short of genius, which earned him enough regard to function as the company president.
    Of course, the reason he needed to get out of trouble at the last possible moment was almost always his own fault.
    “Dammit all, the only ones on my side are the sweet little things I helped turn into works of art. The only ones who will eternally understand my