The Istanbul Mafia, Part 1
I wrapped up my business in the United States and came straight back to Korea. I sat down with Mom and laid out what I meant to do next.
"You want me to buy that villa?"
"Right now, the best move is for someone to pick it up at around the level of the deposits. We pay Uncle's deposit back, switch the units over to monthly rent, and you manage the place yourself—live there and collect the rent."
"Oh, come on. What money do I have? This isn't a coin or two we're talking about."
"The money, I figure I can raise with this house as collateral."
"Even so, you think that'll actually work? We won't lose on it?"
Looked at straight, of course it was a loss. The deposits had already climbed past the value of the building—a tin-can property, underwater before you started. If it were my own money, I would never have made an investment that absurd. But the cash going into it wasn't mine, so what of it? I wasn't doing this to turn a profit anyway. Strictly speaking, I was using someone else's money to pay back someone else's money, and somewhere in the middle of that a whole villa building would land in my hands for free. I couldn't tell her the truth, so I talked around it.
"You won't lose a thing. The top floor will be empty, so it'd be good if you lived there and looked after the place. And you won't have to come by here every day—once or twice a week to clean and air it out ought to do."
Mom had worked her whole life and didn't have a hobby to her name. I gave her a generous allowance, and still she went looking for something to do. It wasn't the money. She simply couldn't bear to sit still and let the hours pass. Sweeping the villa stairs and sorting the utility bills would be far easier than any other work.
I left the rest of the cleanup to my maternal uncle and his eldest daughter, Jayoung. Nearly losing the deposit for good, then getting it back, had both of them thanking me over and over.
"Thank you, Choong-sik. This is all thanks to you."
"Thank you, Oppa."
"My sister must be thrilled, you turning out this sharp."
I walked my cousin through what still had to be done, and we only parted after the family had gathered for a meal together.
The next morning Mom left early to meet a realtor about buying the villas. Once she was gone, I got in the car alone and drove quietly out toward the west coast.
The west coast. After coming back to Korea, I hadn't gone straight home. I'd rented a pension off by itself in a lonely spot. The place stood alone above the shore, and all day the boom of waves striking the cliff directly beneath the house rolled through everything around it.
I opened the door, stepped inside, and checked first for any sign that someone else had been in. Once I was satisfied, I went up to the second floor.
The rooftop room. Because of the waves outside, the pension's windows were double-glazed and well soundproofed. Noise from outside would have a hard time getting in—which meant noise from inside would have just as hard a time getting out.
I opened the door, and eyes turned toward me. Fear and resentment tangled together in every look.
"You're all awake. Getting along without a fight?"
On the floor lay the family behind the jeonse fraud—that Korean lump-sum lease scam—along with the real estate agent who had brokered my uncle's original contract, wrists and ankles bound.
I had shaken the con-artist couple down to nothing. The jeonse scam hadn't been their first. They already had a history of loan fraud and lease fraud before it, and every time they had hidden the money they skimmed with care. Cash, gold, and valuables together came to about three billion won.
Going through their phones, I also learned that the broker had known it was a scam and arranged the deal anyway. The messages even showed him asking them to raise his commission, since the property was an awkward one to broker. So once I was back in Korea, I took him too.
"All I did was broker it—why did you bring me here? They're the ones who ran the scam. Why me as well?! Agh—! Ghk— ghk—! Stop! Spare me!"
That was how he'd carried on when I first dragged him in. Nonsense. A few solid beatings, and he turned docile.
Using the broker's phone and his accredited digital certificate, I drew a loan against the house. He had stabbed so many people in the back that the mortgage came out to more than seven hundred million won. I wired that money to the accounts of the tenants who had already called to say they were leaving. Then I sent a text.
The con-artist husband saw me and asked.
"What are you going to do with us? We've... we've given you everything now. There's really nothing left. Please, just let my family go. All right?"
"Please let me go. I truly didn't know they would go this far. I'm begging you."
I looked down at the pleading men, a pathetic sight.
"And you think, in a situation like this, I'm going to let you go?"
"Then... then what are you planning to do with us? You... don't tell me you're going to kill us."
"Why would I kill you? Waste of goods. I haven't even finished collecting yet."
"What?"
"I ran the numbers. Twenty-two units in that villa, deposits and loans together, somewhere around 4.3 billion won. I turned the two of you inside out and only came up with 3.7. The rest, you'll pay with your bodies."
"What?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What are you saying? You don't... you don't mean you're going to sell us somewhere."
"That's right."
The broker went white.
"Sell us?! How do you sell people?! Our families will go to the police! You think you won't get caught for this?"
"Relax. There's absolutely no way I get caught."
Bringing the con-artist family over from America, and kidnapping the broker—both had been done by borrowing the power of magic. It was an ability that stood outside ordinary reality, so the Korean police, stuck with an ordinary sense of the real, would never pin me as a suspect. Even if they tried, they would never find evidence.
At that confident answer, the husband shouted.
"Why are you going this far with us?! Beating us, taking the money—and now you say you'll sell us! Why us?!"
I stepped in front of the shouting man and crouched down. Looking into his face, flushed with rage, I spoke.
"Then why did people like you do what you did?"
"Wh... what..."
"Why did you feed off the backs of ordinary people?"
The husband's face twisted hard. That was when his daughter screamed.
"Why me?! I didn't do anything! Mom and Dad did all of it! Why are you taking me too?! Why!"
"Funny thing to say."
"What? What's funny about it?! What!"
"When you were stuffing your face, dressing yourself up, and blowing money in comfort, you weren't living off your parents? If you enjoyed the easy life on their dime, then you take it when their mess sends your life straight into the ground."
"Th-that's... where is there a thing like that! A thing like that! Let me go! Please! Waaaaah— please—"
"Where? Living fat off the money your parents made, without a shred of guilt—that's your crime. Got it?"
With that, I shut the second-floor door and went back down.
My cousin Jayoung agreed to see the rest through on her own. The owners had defaulted on the interest, and the auction had opened. We would take the winning bid at roughly the combined total of the loans and the deposits, and Jayoung would handle the work. Once the villa was ours, the existing tenants would be paid out their deposits and sent on their way, and the units converted to monthly rent. Mom would move into the single unit on the top floor.
Even a brand-new apartment in a new city hadn't suited her, and she liked the villa better. Villa or not, it hadn't been built long ago, so the place was clean, and the neighborhood was a school district, which kept it quiet.
All she had to do was clean the stairs and the grounds around the building now and then, sort the utility bills, and make sure the rent came in. In return she would take three million won a month out of the rent as her pay, and put the rest into my account. Once I saw the whole thing turning over as it should, I flew out again for Istanbul.
A villa on the outskirts of Istanbul. The first thing I did after arriving was unload what I had brought into the warehouse I'd made underground. I went down and drew out the new high-capacity magic pouch I'd bought.
"Take out every Biological Containment Bag."
A moment later, four black sealed pouches slid free.
A magic pouch can't hold a living creature. The thing made to deal with that limit—or rather, to slip around it—was the Mage Tower's Biological Containment Bag. Seal a living thing inside one and even the air is cut off from the outside, and then you can store it in a magic pouch like any other piece of cargo.
When I bought the high-capacity pouch, I'd also bought ten of the bags, ten gold apiece. Even as I paid, I was only half convinced I'd ever need that many. Already they were earning their keep.
I set the long, person-sized bundles down on the floor.
"Open them up and take them out."
The slaves crowded in, opened the bags, and hauled out the jeonse-fraud family and the real estate agent.
"Keep them stored properly until we head back. And don't forget to put ointment on those two's faces. They have to heal if they're going to sell."
After giving the order, I took Istanbul One's report.
"They made contact. The time is midnight, three days from now. An abandoned factory in the east of Istanbul."
Four million euros was no small sum. So the bastards had actually managed to get the money together.
The drugs I had on hand came to a hundred and twenty kilograms in all. I had no intention of making an honest deal.
I took out the hundred and twenty kilograms of packaged product and handed it to Istanbul One.
"Lay these on top and pack the lot so it passes for about three hundred kilos."
"Yes, Master."
I couldn't take the Lincoln SUV I was using now to a drug deal. From the magic pouch I brought out a Mercedes G-Wagen—the car the con-artist husband had driven, carried along inside the high-capacity pouch. For plates, I had Istanbul One get forgeries made on the black market. While those preparations were underway, the day of the deal finally came.