The Clout of Gen Read Online Free PDF Page B

important electronic brands in Kyoto, and the cabbie was able to come up with a few. Takishi took him around to some of those places, but no one had ever heard of the company. John was delighted to find out that several men named Yaturo worked in some of those places, but none of them matched the profile because they were all far too young to be the same man from the tape.
     
    Evening approached, bring a spectacular sunset with it. All the companies closed down, and John realized he’d run out of time for searching; it seemed useless anyway. Takishi took him back to the hotel, and they agreed he would come back at nine a.m. the next morning to escort John wherever he wanted to go.
     
    After enjoying a soothing, warm bath, John went for a small walk to gather his thoughts and plan what steps he should take next. The only place left for him to do was to go to the offices of a local publication, where he would meet up with a journalist by the name of Nagatumo. Several years back, he had met a Japanese journalist from Tokyo at a writers’ convention in Los Angeles, and they had maintained some sporadic contact. Before he left London, John had given Nagatumo a call to let him know he would be visiting Kyoto and might need some contacts there. Nagatumo gave John his number and said he would help if he could. Now, John was praying for a miracle, hoping that maybe Nagatumo’s newspaper had interviewed Yaturo or his company, perhaps covered a story in which something was mentioned about this person. At that point, any information would have been a lifeline for John.
     
    Takishi arrived on time, and it was only nine thirty a.m. when John met up with Nagatumo. The reporter was in his early forties, a bit chubby, and medium height with short, dark hair. He had worked at the same paper for about fourteen years and was now the head editor for the sports section. 
     
    After talking about the industry in general over a cup of coffee, John informed him that he was visiting Kyoto to research for an article. He said he needed to find some information about a Japanese man who had helped establish an electronic company in one of the small towns in the States in the eighties, along with his American partner. Then, the two had some differences, and the man, Yaturo Kyoto, returned to Japan. John said Kyoto was given to him as a reference to where he came from, and his exact name wasn’t known. He told Nagatumo, a fellow reporter, that the reason they want to cover up the story was because the company the two partners had set up in the past was now worth more than a billion dollars, and he needed to write an article about its beginnings. John was pretty pleased with himself for coming up with such an elaborate fib; he’d only come up with it while having some sushi for dinner in one of the restaurants at Kyoto Station the night prior.
     
    Nagatumo sent for his assistant and requested that he help John go through the newspaper archives to search for any mention of a guy named Yaturo. They found nothing, and it seemed to be a hopeless case.
     
    While they were searching the archives, they did come across a lot of companies from the electronics sector. However, none of them held any relevance to what John was looking for. John thanked Nagatumo for all the help, but he was soon overwhelmed with agony and desperation.
     
    John left his friend at the paper and began wandering around, looking at everyone around him, searching for any person that might ring a bell in that crowded population of 1,500,000. This is no use, he decided. It would take years. After an hour of getting lost in the streets, John called Takishi to come pick him up.
     
    In the backseat of the cab, John began to talk furiously to himself in a rough, loud voice. “I should have left that damn box alone and never even picked it up. I should have just jumped! What now? I’ve traveled all the way to freaking Japan already, so what the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t go