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Chapter 17: Old-Boys' Courtesy
TL: Enuma ID
From the Sinuiju operation all the way to now, it had been one breathless incident after another.
Once that godawful mess had more or less been cleaned up, even I got a brief taste of peace.
"Haah. Hah. What, did you train in Iron Cloth Shirt or something? How the hell do you take a beating this well?!"
"Wearing us out first thing in the morning for nothing!"
Web̆ǹ о̆ v̂ ě l̈ Е n ū ḿ а̇
"Whew. Haah!"
The Black Panther Gang trio, wheezing, gave up beating me halfway through and plopped down on the ground.
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This little routine had somehow become part of daily life over the past several days.
One of them, still catching his breath, grumbled at me resentfully.
"Man. First time I've ever seen a guy get pounded for days straight and still hold out like this. Hey, you stubborn bastard. Just cough up the five thousand yuan already, will you? Life gets easier for us and for you! God, you're infuriating!"
I snorted.
W е̄ b̄ ǹ о̊_v̂él Énû m̂ă
Why would I, when all I had to do was curl up and sit tight to keep my five thousand yuan and gloat about it?
"My hyeong-nim got badly hurt a few days ago and the surgery bill cleaned us out, that's why! Besides, I hear that when you take over a turf, you usually waive the protection money for the first month or so. Why are you being so stingy about it?"
I might take my beatings politely, but I would not grovel. That was my last shred of pride.
When I snapped back at them from my crouch, they coughed, incredulous.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"What, stingy?"
"Yeah, stingy."
Ẁêbnо̃ v̄ ẽ l En̂um̈ ӑ
"Ha. Guess we didn't beat him enough..."
But for all the talk, no kicks followed.
Had all those days of meeting up and sweating it out together bred some kind of affection?
One of the trio scratched his head and heaved a deep sigh.
"You think we're doing this because we don't know the code of the trade? The higher-ups keep pecking at us to scrape up cash, so what choice do we have? When they say jump, we jump."
"Clocking in here every morning to deal with you is killing us too, you know. God, this gang life..."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Anyone listening would have thought they were sales reps at some big corporation.
Each bemoaning his lot, they sat slumped on the ground and began fumbling cigarettes out of their pockets.
"Here, take one."
For whatever reason, today one of them abruptly held a cigarette out to me too.
So I brushed off the dust, squatted down beside them, and lit up in friendly company.
"This guy's a real piece of work. We pounded him two days straight and that mouth of his is still flapping away... You were born to take a punch, weren't you?"
Е nüm̂ а̊
"What'd you do for a living before this?"
"Whatever work I could get my hands on. Grew up without parents."
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"Yeah? This guy here lost both his folks too. Amazing you never wound up in gang life yourself."
"My grandmother raised me. Very strict woman."
"Ah."
After a long stretch of puffing away like that, one of the three spat on the ground.
Е̂ ǹ ú m a
"Whew. Look. I don't say this kind of thing often, but a chin like yours is a talent. Instead of letting it rot in a place like this, why not give gang life a shot, like us?"
"Yeah. Quit plucking duck feathers in this hole-in-the-wall and come work with us."
"Even if all you did was stand up front as a meat shield, we'd feel a whole lot safer."
Their scheming had drifted, quite naturally, from figuring out how to squeeze protection money out of me to talent recruitment.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
At the scouting offer tossed out with feigned indifference, I gave a little snort.
"If I work there, I'd have to go around smashing people's shop signs and shaking them down, just like you, right? I don't bully people like that."
W̊ е b̊ n ov̌ е l̄ Е nu ḿ а̄
"Collections are just a side gig. The real money, the main job, is managing the bars downtown. Drunks making scenes, punks shoving their shoulders around trying to show off their ugly mugs. We kick guys like that out the door."
"Bars?"
"Our big hyeong-nim runs a few businesses. There's a pretty big bar in a prime spot, and working there is our main job."
The pitch was tempting enough that I found myself listening in spite of myself.
My current cover identity was a drifter from Heilongjiang who had rolled into Dandong, keeping himself alive by grabbing whatever work came his way; that was my method for settling in locally.
Once Kite No. 3 was fully recovered, the time would come to pick my next perch anyway.
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"Let's hear it, then. What's the daily pay?"
"Two hundred yuan an hour. Though even if you stand around there all day, they only count the five peak hours."
"Hence the side gigs."
A thousand yuan a day, roughly 170,000 won.
It sounded pretty stingy, and yet around Dandong it wasn't such a bad rate.
But for a gangster's life, where any day could end with a knife in the gut, it honestly didn't seem like enough.
Е̌ ñ u.m̌ á .і́_d̈
"That's a tough call... You guys really do have it rough."
"Heh heh. Bottom-feeders like us gotta eat somehow."
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The gangster ecosystem, it turned out, wasn't so different from our own working lives.
Those special-activity funds the NIS brass skimmed off from time to time... where did they come from, if not from squeezing the lifeblood, drop by drop, out of bottom-rung field agents like us?
The sorrows of the bottom rung were the same everywhere, and in any organization, it was an eternal, immutable truth that the subcontractors died first.
"Well, I'll think about it."
Ě.n̆ůmа́
"Heh. Playing hard to get."
"Anyway, give up on the protection money for now. I'll pay next month, I swear. My hyeong-nim hurt his shoulder and can barely run the restaurant right now."
"Tsk. Now you're making us go soft..."
"How'd he get hurt like that, anyway?"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"He was copying a knife trick he saw on TV and buried the blade in his own shoulder."
"Pfft. What the hell? That's just dimwit behavior, isn't it?"
Eń u m а̀_._і̄d̊
"Well, he's a good man, at least."
I ground out my half-smoked butt against the floor and got to my feet.
Maybe, listening to them talk, I'd grown grudgingly fond of them too.
Squatting there, they looked downright pitiful.
"Since you came all this way, eat before you go. I'll mix up a bowl of noodles for each of you."
"Hmm. Should we? You're not going to slip anything weird in there, are you?"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"I don't mess with food meant for people."
Building rapport like this, after all, was the true virtue of a black agent.
And so I hauled the Black Panther trio to their feet and led them into the restaurant.
As I whipped up appetizing bowls of spicy mixed noodles and served them, Kite No. 3 and Chae A-ra, hidden in a corner of the shop watching what I was up to, wore expressions that grew steadily stranger.
The sight of me serving dinner, utterly spineless, to the very men who had just finished beating me must have been fairly absurd.
"Anyway, seriously think about working with us. You look like a guy who'll rise fast."
W е̃b̊ ñ о v̀е l̀ Ë n um̈ а
"That's right. Honestly, this is your last, best chance to catch the train. Things in Dandong have been strange lately; the Black Panther Gang's stock might shoot straight up any day now."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
"You know the Chongqing Society and the Kowloon Society are at each other's throats downtown right now, yeah? The Chongqing Society's been spraying its drug money around like mad, absorbing every small-time gang around Dandong. Word is the Red Earth Gang already got an offer, so the Black Panther Gang's turn is coming any day."
"Right. If we grab the right coattails there, we'll be swimming in the big leagues before long. Life blooms wide open overnight, I'm telling you."
Slurping down the last of their noodles, they preened.
When they finished eating, one of them pressed a crumpled business card for their establishment into my hand, payment for the meal in his own mind, I suppose.
Е ň ǔm̂ а́. id̆
[Dandong Paradise]
[Fresh, Courteous Service]
[We Collect the Money You're Owed]
[Daily & Monthly Loans, Approval Within 30 Minutes]
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
I gave another suitably noncommittal answer about thinking it over, then held out a plastic bag.
"Take this with you and eat it."
Е̄n u mа
"What is it?"
"Rice balls. Your kicks had no strength in them."
"What'd you say, punk?"
"Like being hit with a pillow, honestly."
"Bastard, we went easy on you."
The thought of the trio rushing straight back out on their rounds tugged at me somehow, so I'd rolled up three rice balls.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
At that, they patted their bulging bellies and took the bag.
"Huge rice balls. Thanks for the food."
"For your sake we'll lay off collections around here for a while, so if you change your mind, call anytime."
"Hey. You call us no matter what. Got it? Don't come whining later when all the spots are filled."
And with a wave, the Black Panther trio was off.
After crossing through so many operations and incidents, it was one of the few peaceful moments worth remembering.
W̆ё bñ o v̆ е̃ l Е̇ n um а
*****
When the exalted gentlemen upstairs pop champagne among themselves, enjoy their lavish banquet, and sweep out the door, wiping down and clearing the wrecked table always falls to the underlings left behind.
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Like the old saying about the bear doing the tricks while its master pockets the coins, reality is always a spiteful thing.
In that sense, the mood here in Dandong was a powder keg one spark from blowing.
Most ominous of all was North Korea's reaction.
The Minister of People's Armed Forces, the External Intelligence Bureau director, and even the Investigation Bureau director.
Е̃ n ù m̄ а̀
At the unprecedented spectacle of three senior cadres evaporating without a trace in a single night, North Korea's leadership was turned completely on its head.
Pyongyang, practically foaming at the mouth day after day, hammered Dandong with demands for a full-scale investigation into the Chongqing Society and the Kowloon Society, the two great criminal organizations that appeared deeply entangled in the affair.
- Did we not say we would sweep up every last one of those bastards at once and take them back to our Republic under prisoner escort!
- We, too, are doing our utmost in this investigation. Anything beyond that is interference in our internal affairs, so do not entertain even the faintest thought of crossing the border.
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Dandong Public Security's response was lukewarm in the extreme.
Like a man with someone's fist clamped tight around his weak spot, they merely parroted the same stock reply that the investigation was proceeding with their utmost effort.
Еnu ḿа̊ . ī d
That was because the leash on the Public Security Bureau director, once held by So Se-hyok, had passed intact into the grip of Yang Mi-ryeong, the Kowloon Society's Dandong branch chief.
"You fucking son of a bitch!"
"Come on then, come at me!"
"Aiiieeeeek!"
"A body! Somebody's dead!"
Meanwhile, the armed conflict between the two giant organizations that split Dandong's back alleys between them, the Kowloon Society and the Chongqing Society, escalated by the day.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Its savage ripples reached even the remotest backstreets on the outskirts, to the point where a body or two rolling out somewhere in the neighborhood had become routine.
A blade-sharp wind, reeking of blood.
A taut tension hung over all of Dandong, ready to snap at any moment.
So naturally, I had no intention of setting so much as a toe in that madhouse of a downtown.
My plan was to lie low, quiet as the grave, and milk the easy life for a while at Wang Chunsam's Eatery, tucked lazily along the edge of Dandong.
Or so I thought...
Еň û m a.і́.d̄
Brrring.
"Ugh, what now."
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The phone Crane No. 13 had given me blared to life.
I didn't need to look to know whose number was on the screen.
"Yes, hello."
- Answering properly today, are we?
E n̄umа̃
A languid, seductive voice drifted through the receiver.
The woman hell-bent on dragging me into the eye of the storm called Dandong.
- You've got nothing going on these days, right? Help me with one little job.
This wasn't Yang Mi-ryeong's first call.
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Under the pretext of checking in, she'd been calling almost daily, and there was no fending her off.
The root of it all was that right after we'd safely snatched So Se-hyok, I'd made one needlessly nosy phone call and left a record of my number.
Е̂ ñ û m а
'It's not like I can just smash the damn thing.'
Once, out of sheer annoyance, I tried playing dumb and ignoring her call.
But that very day, a chilling text came flying in.
[Are you ignoring my calls right now? I've never been treated like this in my life; my hands are positively trembling. You do know I outrank you in years of service, don't you? To get this treatment from a freshly minted Sparrow-code agent... it makes me wonder if it's about time I gave up this whole business of cooperating as Agent Crow out of old affection.]
Reading her refreshingly cheerful threat, I seriously considered smashing the phone to pieces and going dark.
But my opponent was, of course, a former black agent who had been through it all.
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
[If the phone breaks, call me from your new one. Otherwise, the same result will be waiting for you. ^^]
A meticulous, kindly postscript followed, making it clear that no amount of thrashing on my part would ever get me free.
So now I simply could not, no matter how I tried, refuse to answer the phone.
'Old-boys' courtesy... what can you do.'
The one small mercy in this misfortune was that she never used it to force my choices.
*****
W̆ёb̈ nо̊ v̂е l̄ Е̂ nûm а
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