Tokyo Underworld (23 page)

The Copacabana remained the favorite hangout of the American executives from Grumman, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglas, and Northrop, and because Zappetti remained a Copa regular and over the years had developed special relationships with some of the Copa hostesses, he kept up to date on the goings-on in the air industry. He had made an arrangement with them to bring their well-heeled patrons to his restaurant on their after-hours dates, and he padded the bill with a ‘service charge’ that he made certain found its way into the hostess’s purse. Many a grateful hostess bedded him free of charge by way of thanks for the extra income, filling his ear with the latest Copa gossip in the process.

There was an old saying in Japan to the effect that the ideal woman is one who is dumb on the outside and clever underneath. And that description certainly fit the Copa girls, especially those in the secret employ of the trading houses. There were girls who could charm a man with mindless flattery in one moment, providing the sort of ‘adult nursery service’ that such places demanded, and in the next launch into a discussion about turbine surges, maintenance hours per flight hours, and the three axes of stabilization required in the F-104 – pitch axis, roll axis and directional axis. Talking to them, Zappetti thought, was sometimes like talking to an aircraft sales rep; half the time he couldn’t figure out what they were saying.

Zappetti toyed with the idea of setting himself up as an aircraft consultant, in partnership with one of the Copa girls, selling what she learned to the highest bidder. He gave the idea up when he realized how much trouble it would be to learn all the jargon.

As it turned out, there were some Americans who played the aircraft sales game better than anyone ever suspected. One was Copa regular Harry Kern, a former
Newsweek
foreign affairs editor and lobbyist with the postwar ACJ. The Washington-based Kern was a close associate (and English tutor) of ex-Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, whose career Kern had helped resuscitate while with the ACJ and whose blood brother Eisaku Sato was prime
minister of Japan from 1964 to 1972. The Sato faction of the LDP also supplied most of the subsequent PMs. Kern became a highly paid consultant to Grumman – which hoped to take advantage of his connections in high places in the LDP – while simultaneously working for the Nissho Iwai trading company in a second secret deal. It was in this capacity that Kern arranged for the Japanese government to purchase Grumman’s E-2C early warning patrol plane through Nissho Iwai in exchange for a substantial secret kickback – 40 percent of Nissho Iwai’s commission from Grumman (a portion of which was paid to former defense chief Raizo Matsuno and other Japanese officials as a ‘reward’). Kern eventually lost his job with Grumman when executives there discovered what he was doing and reported him to the SEC. However, an astonished Japanese press memorialized Kern in a series of feature magazine articles, nicknaming him ‘The Blue Eyed Fixer’ and ‘The White Wirepuller’. After all, it wasn’t often that a Japanese firm hired an American to gain access to the halls of power in Tokyo.

The Japanese had a well-known philosophy of life that related to such goings-ons. They called it
tatemae
and
honne
(principle and reality), which, to give one interpretation, meant: Say what is necessary to maintain face before society, and then do what you want on the sly. The duality of human nature was, of course, universal, but the contradictory aspects of man’s behavior were more recognized and seemingly more marked in Japan, where there is such a surface premium on
wa
. Japanese professional baseball stars would sign for modest salaries each year, declaring to the press how important self-sacrifice and the concept of ‘the team’ were, all the while taking huge secret bonuses under the table – an arrangement which helped ownership keep the rest of the payroll down. Nowhere was this dichotomy between words and deeds more astonishing than in a striking new building up the street from
Nicola’s where Zappetti’s old gangster friend Ginza Machii had set up his headquarters.

From his perch in Roppongi, Zappetti watched in awe as the one-time street fighter climbed to heights of power and legitimacy most underworld figures only dreamt about. The leisure industry magnate had unveiled his crowning glory in July 1973, on a sidestreet corner less than a minute’s walk from Roppongi Crossing, a new billion-dollar membership club called the TSK.CCC Terminal; the first three initials stood for
Toa Sogo Kigyo
(Eastern Mutual Enterprise) – Machii’s post-Olympic corporate name, carefully chosen to match the initials of the gang’s old acronym itself, while the second set represented Celebrities Choice Club. Housed in a six-story edifice of polished Italian marble and stone, it was by common agreement the most elegant building in all of Tokyo and, observers said, the ultimate symbol of Japan’s postwar recovery – more impressive even than the cluster of new earthquake-proof high-rise office buildings and hotels in western Shinjuku, which was by now beginning to resemble L.A.’s Century City.

Contained in the building’s 19,000 square meters was an array of Dionysian delights – a cabaret, a disco, restaurants specializing in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Continental cuisine, banquet halls with authentic rococo, Spanish, German and Roman motifs, wedding salons, private lounges with deep leather armchairs, tatamied mah-jongg parlors, and a sauna imported from Finland. The lobby and various sitting areas were outfitted with expensive furnishings imported from Europe and the Middle East, while priceless ancient Korean vases, porcelains, stoneware and calligraphy were showcased in alcoves along the building’s many lushly carpeted corridors and caverns. On display in the main vestibule, lit by an enormous chandelier, was a giant Picasso.

Machii, now in his fifties, had personally overseen every aspect of the design, which, with its incongruous blend of Eastern subtlety and Western garishness, was an appropriate metaphor for what was
happening in Japan in general. The popular weekly magazine,
Shincho
, summed up the public verdict: ‘The most glorious, splendidly appointed undertaking in all of Asia. It sings to the spring of our world.’ Added the English periodical
The Tokyo Weekender
, which did a large spread on the opening, ‘Truly one of the most exciting enterprises anywhere.’

The opening ceremony, attended by a Who’s Who’s of Tokyo celebrities and politicians, was an exercise in unintended hyperbole. The chairman of the Tokyo Bar Association gave the keynote address, describing the oft-arrested host with the missing fingertip as a ‘decent and successful businessman’. This paean was followed by similar bromides from the presidents of the great Mitsukoshi and Seibu department stores, the president of Tokyu Railways, and the political editor (and future president) of the Yomiuri Shimbun, who were all incidentally members of the TSK.CCC operations committee. Even the Greek ambassador stopped by to lead a toast and drop an encomium or two.

Machii’s climactic welcome speech could have been borrowed from Dale Carnegie. He talked of benefiting his fellowman and declared he had built the TSK.CCC not to make a profit but rather to create an ‘oasis for human communication in the desert of modern society’.

‘A free society is liable to cause the loss of intimate human relationships as it progresses,’ he had said, ‘which is why the world needs a place like the TSK.CCC – a place where people can relax and communicate and understand each other’s responsibilities and sense of values.’ Nick, sipping a glass of beer in the back of the room, wondered what Maurice would have thought.

The office of the gangster-turned-philanthropist was a further testament to how far he had risen in the so-called straight world. On one wall was a certificate of honorary citizenship in the city of Los Angeles, along with a photograph of Machii and a former California state assemblyman named Kenneth Ross, his partner in a US oil venture that would grow to thirty-four wells in Texas,
New Mexico, and other states. On another was a plaque from ROK President Park Chung Hee for ‘meritorious service in promoting friendship between South Korea and Japan’ – referring perhaps to the casinos and cabarets that Machii had built in the Republic of Korea and his new Kampu Ferry Line connecting western Japan with the South Korean port of Pusan. Also displayed were letters of commendation from dignitaries around the globe, including members of the US House of Representatives, who swelled the chorus of praise for his role in normalizing relations between Japan and the ROK.

Machii had even delivered an impromptu lecture to reporters on the lofty theme of Pan-Asianism. Noting that even he had suffered decades of hardship because he was a ‘third national’, and that Japanese society was still far from being open and free (‘If Rikidozan were alive today,’ he wondered aloud, ‘would he proclaim his Koreanhood? I doubt it.’), Machii urged that Japanese start honoring their joint Asian heritage with Koreans and Chinese.

‘Get over this complex toward the West and especially toward America,’ said the honorary citizen of L.A. ‘By copying America in music and dress so much, you are aspiring to a false lifestyle. Love Asia first and be yourself.’

Over the next couple of years, the TSK.CCC became one of the busiest social spots in the city, limousines arriving every evening with VIPs of all types – government leaders, business executives, entertainers, diplomats and US Army officers. It outdrew the American franchised Playboy Club, which had recently opened up in a tony new ten-story edifice facing Roppongi Nicola’s from across the strip. Underneath it all, however, were indications something else was also going on. The soft, deep leather armchairs of the TSK.CCC lounge were frequently occupied by crew cut-wearing, hard-bitten men in sunglasses, eyeing the lobby for signs of trouble, while in the rear office, the aging captains of the old guard sat idly scrutinizing visitors from behind gunmetal gray desks – as they performed
mundane tasks like ordering chopsticks. The boss himself lived in the fortress-like penthouse, accessible only through a tightly guarded security gate and a locked private elevator.

Whenever Zappetti went to pay his respects, a pair of tight-lipped strongmen with fireplug necks would check him for hidden weapons before unlocking the elevator and taking him upstairs. Two more gangsters would greet him at the landing, then escort him down the hall – an elegant passageway of inlaid stepping-stones and Japanese lanterns – to a heavy metal door bearing the shape of a lion’s head in perforated brass. There, yet another set of hoods would open the door from inside, lay out slippers, and usher him to a rooftop terrace adjoining a tennis court where the Master of the House, clad usually in kimono, would serve coffee. More henchmen scanned the Roppongi skyline, on the lookout, perhaps, for snipers.

The juxtaposition of cosmopolitan business veneer and underworld menace could be jarring, as an American businessman and Zappetti associate named Richard Roa would readily attest. Roa was a quality control systems engineer who had come to Japan in 1968 to work for the US military and then stayed on in Tokyo to go into the PR business. He had been hired by the TSK.CCC to put together a multilanguage brochure that would introduce potential overseas investors to a new leisure center the company was developing in Nasu, where the Imperial Family kept its summer vacation home. The project required Roa to meet several times a week with the vice-director of overseas projects, a diminutive, dark-suited man in his fifties named Junji Tanaka.

Tanaka was Machii’s interpreter and one-time chauffeur. He had learned his English as a young man working in the motor pool of a US military base, and he had learned it well enough to help put together the Machii–Ross oil deals in the United States, as well as to arrange the purchase of a beautiful home in Beverly Hills for his boss. He could also type 100 words a minute.

One night, after a conference at TSK.CCC, Roa had gone out
drinking by himself in Roppongi, barhopping along narrow back streets. He wandered into a closet-sized place named Cupid that had a bare concrete floor and nude photos on the wall, sat down on a vinyl-covered stool, and ordered a beer. An anorectic, middle-aged woman with a heavily painted face slid alongside him and plied him for a drink. Roa, in a tipsy, generous mood, bought her a
mizuwari
(highball), then another, plus a second round for himself. Then he got up to leave and was presented with a bill for 60,000 yen, enough to pay for 100 drinks at most other bars. When Roa protested, a very unpleasant-looking man with scars on his face appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed Roa’s shirt, demanded the money, and called to someone in a rear room for help. The woman seized one of Roa’s arms and held tightly.

Roa was a physically big man in his early forties who hailed from a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, but he decided he was not sober enough to put up a fight. He paid the 60,000 yen, which was all the money he had on him, and walked home.

At the TSK.CCC the next day, he related the unpleasant experience to Tanaka.

‘Where’s the place?’ asked Tanaka. ‘Show me.’

Roa took him outside, around the corner, down a side street, and pointed to the Cupid, now tightly shuttered in the noontime sunlight. Tanaka sighed and wagged his finger.

‘Roa-san,’ he said. ‘You have got to be more careful.’

Two days later, Roa was at home when a call came from the TSK.CCC. Could he please come at once? There was an urgent matter to discuss. When Roa arrived by cab half an hour later, Tanaka was waiting in the lobby and took him to an upstairs mah-jongg room. He sat Roa down on the tatami in front of a low-slung table, picked up a phone, and grunted into the receiver.

A few minutes later, a sallow-faced middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie was shoved into the room and the door closed behind him. Roa watched, mouth agape, as the man dropped on his hands
and knees and began crawling across the floor to where Tanaka stood glowering, hands on hips.

‘Not me,’ Tanaka growled, pointing to Roa. ‘That’s the guy over there.’

The man shifted direction, crawled over to where Roa sat, and fumbling inside his coat, produced a brown envelope. He held it out to Roa in both hands, palms facing upward, bowing his head so deeply at the same time that his forehead touched the floor.