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sweepers—devices that were designed to ascertain whether my own environment and telephone were secure from listeners—were harder to operate than even the most confusing TV remote.
    But computer hacking was the hardest task of all. Because I’d gotten my first laptop eight years after the rest of the world, I found it very difficult to install spyware, let alone cover my tracks. I had no idea what I was doing on the computer even if all the commands and codes were available to me in English—so I could imagine how impenetrable things would seem in Japanese.
    â€œThere’s a story about Supermart in today’s Journal that I want you to read,” Michael said, interrupting me from my attempts to hack into a dummy account one of the agency trainers had set up on my computer. It was late morning, and I’d finished with my newspapers, so I figured I should try to accomplish by myself what I had been able to do with intense guidance the previous afternoon.
    â€œSupermart? But that’s an American store.”
    â€œAmerican as Wal-Mart and Target, but there are rumors that its founder, Jimmy DeLone, wants to buy a Japanese department store. His acquisitions manager is said to be considering Mitsukoshi, Wako, and Mitsutan.”
    â€œNo kidding!” I swung myself out of the chair and came over to the couch, Michael’s preferred reading spot. I settled in cozily next to him and took the paper. Jimmy DeLone, a sixty-six-year-old discount tycoon who’d transformed Supermart from a small chain in Oklahoma into 310 discount warehouses, had “gone ahunting” in my favorite city. DeLone credited high anime video sales at Supermart outlets with bringing his attention to the potentially profitable interface between Japanese and American retail.
    I shook my head after reading all this. “Department stores aren’t where kids go to buy anime. Something’s off in this commentary.”
    â€œSmoke and mirrors,” Michael said, taking the paper from me over to his desk, where he picked up scissors and began cutting it out. This was a serious sign, I thought—anything that Michael cut out he photocopied for each of us, and the facts were generally supposed to be committed to memory.
    â€œWell, let’s say the comment about anime is meaningless, and he just wants, for some reason, to buy up Japanese stores. I can understand his wanting to buy Tokyu or Seiyu—he knows about that kind of middle-class mass-market selling—but I can’t imagine how Supermart could handle a classy Ginza department store. And what could they take from Japan to sell at a profit here? They certainly couldn’t carry Mitsutan clothing in their stores—nobody would be small enough to wear it! And as for other consumer goods, anything they’d bring over to sell in the United States would be five times more expensive than if it was manufactured in China.”
    Michael shrugged. “Mitsutan certainly would add glamour to their holdings. Supermart owns a lot more than just its own stores.”
    â€œYes, the article was talking about DeLone’s owning the Seaways motel chain, Ryan Beer, and…what was the last thing?”
    â€œPower companies in six states. He’s nicely diversified,” Michael said, dropping the newspaper scraps into the office’s paper shredder.
    â€œWell, if he’s smart, he’d want to buy a distressed store that could be turned around, not one with such high stock values that it would cost him a lot,” I said, turning over the situation in my mind.
    â€œEcon 101.” Michael started up the photocopier. One of the things I liked about Michael was that he never asked me to do his photocopying—something that, as my employer, in an office with no secretary, he probably had the right to do.
    â€œWhen we take into account the Treasury Department’s interest in Mitsutan—you know I think it’s