abruptly closed out the call.

Peculiar. That wasn't how the Japanese road show usually did business. From what I'd seen, Tokyo invests very cautiously and deliberately, sometimes "researching" a deal half to death. I momentarily wondered if it wasn't just one of the jokers from my old partnership pulling my leg.

Peculiar. That wasn't how the Japanese road show usually did business. From what I'd seen, Tokyo invests very cautiously and deliberately, sometimes "researching" a deal half to death. I momentarily wondered if it wasn't just one of the jokers from my old partnership pulling my leg.

He was real enough. A brochure arrived by overnight air, bound in leather, with a flowery covering letter. Two problems: most of the thing was in his native tongue, and what I could read didn't tip his hand. From the looks of its public disclosures, Nippon, Inc. was merely some kind of money manager for Japanese investment banks; it had almost no assets of its own. All I could find listed were a few million dollars, lunch money for a Japanese outfit, mostly cash parked in some short-term Euroyen paper. That, and a head office in Kyoto, was the sum of it. What's more, Noda only worked with Japanese banks and firms. No foreign clients.

He was real enough. A brochure arrived by overnight air, bound in leather, with a flowery covering letter. Two problems: most of the thing was in his native tongue, and what I could read didn't tip his hand. From the looks of its public disclosures, Nippon, Inc. was merely some kind of money manager for Japanese investment banks; it had almost no assets of its own. All I could find listed were a few million dollars, lunch money for a Japanese outfit, mostly cash parked in some short-term Euroyen paper. That, and a head office in Kyoto, was the sum of it. What's more, Noda only worked with Japanese banks and firms. No foreign clients.

So why did this man suddenly require space in New York? An entire building. I honestly couldn't figure it. On the other hand, with any luck the whole deal probably could be put together with a few phone calls.

So why did this man suddenly require space in New York? An entire building. I honestly couldn't figure it. On the other hand, with any luck the whole deal probably could be put together with a few phone calls.

By way of introduction, let me say that I worked, technically, as a straightforward attorney-at-law. I say "technically" because I was, in fact, a freelance defensive back in the corporate takeover 

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