The Imperial Hunter - Episode 43: The Hungry Port (5)
“Perucho. I know all about Mexico and the cartels, but if they’d planned to kidnap me, they would’ve done it ages ago.”
“Presidente!”
“Think about it. This port isn’t ideal for exporting drugs, so the plaza boss’s main revenue has to come down to tourism in the end. Drugs sold to foreigners, taxes from shops catering to tourists, casinos, prostitution rings—that sort of thing.”
“……”
“Would a man like that kidnap a businessman trying to bring hordes of tourists to Puerto Vallarta? No, he wouldn’t. Not unless the plaza boss was planning a quick score and a runner. Am I wrong?”
“W-Well, that’s true, but……”
This was exactly why I hadn’t rated the odds of an armed plaza raid very highly, even as I’d been throwing money around. A plaza boss—a jefe in charge of an entire district—couldn’t rise without a businessman’s eye. Even if they’d come charging in en masse, my security team would’ve handled them anyway.
“Every business has its risks. You know that, right?”
Perucho’s gaze dropped at my words, which I’d used even at our first meeting. His head got it, but his heart couldn’t shake the fear. I smirked inwardly while keeping a calm face outwardly.
“I, Hwang, am safe. But you, Perucho—you’re not. So you wait here for me.”
“N-No, I can’t do that!”
“You can.”
I couldn’t have this potbellied fool overhearing the conversation inside. The recording of it was set for some devilish editing. No matter how the participants protested any misunderstandings, it’d just sound like the pathetic excuses of criminals. But this potbelly’s testimony could upend the whole board.
What Perucho saw and heard ended here. Up to the part where I’d been invited by the mayor to meet the plaza boss.
So I struck at Perucho’s weak spot.
“What happens to little Maria if something happens to you?”
Perucho flinched.
“And if something happens to you, how am I supposed to face her? You think she’d accept a job I found for her? Goodwill from someone indirectly tied to her father’s death?”
In the end, Perucho bowed his head and accepted my will. Watching this supporting character move as I wished brought a faint sense of satisfaction. I walked toward the mayor waiting for me.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Your talk seemed to drag on.”
“Just some trivial personal matters. Nothing for you to worry about, Chelino.”
“Oh dear, oh dear. Even if there’s some connection, to engage so earnestly with a lowly civil servant like that. People have their proper stations, after all. Don Hwang, you’re far too much the good Samaritan, no matter how I look at it.”
“You overpraise me. Anyway, shall we go in? Your guests must be waiting.”
“Yes, yes. This way!”
Mayor Chelino walked beside me through the wrought-iron gate of the private property. Inside the gate, the walkway was an exclusive access road shared by nine luxury mansions. Armed guards patrolled it back and forth, glancing at the mayor and me as they passed.
The back door of the mansion “Dream of the Sea” was at the left end of that access road. Even with a servant waiting, the mayor opened the door himself.
“Welcome to my home, Hwang.”
“Dream of the Sea” was structured around a central courtyard with palm trees, split into front and rear buildings. The side facing the access road was the annex, the ocean-facing side the main house. The door connecting the courtyard to the main house was tall, spanning two stories vertically, its roof held up by four white columns. The walls were painted a light cream color, topped with Mediterranean-style red clay tiles. Green lawns carpeted the garden, with white paths contrasting sharply against the blue-tiled pool. It was aesthetically pleasing even from visual data alone. The walls blocking all sides ensured privacy, too—a nice perk.
The mayor seemed embarrassed by his own mansion.
“This is embarrassing—trying to host so many guests in such a modest home.”
Yeah. With only five bedrooms, it was small for a mansion. Though each bedroom was the size of a whole slum house. But such disparities weren’t unique to Mexico.
I gave the mayor suitable flattery.
“Chelino, you’re a public servant. It’s natural you haven’t had chances to handle big money. And size isn’t everything in a mansion. The breeze and sea view here are beauties you couldn’t buy in Korea for any price. Honestly, I’m jealous—feel confident.”
“Haha, really? Hahaha! I know it’s flattery, but it still makes me proud!”
Before entering the main house, men—whether the mayor’s people or cartel sicarios—scanned me and my escorts with detectors. Of course, the detectors didn’t work properly. I’d briefly cut the current to their sensors.
The mayor, grinning, led us into the main house and introduced those already seated and waiting.
“Make your introductions, Hwang. This is El Fuego and El Tiro of the Sinaloa Cartel. I can’t give their real names, sorry.”
Play and Gun, huh. El Fuego was a portly man with a classic bowl cut and translucent sunglasses. El Tiro was shorter, with a slightly oversized head and a body packed solid with muscle—like a “cursed one.”
I stood and shook hands calmly with them as they rose.
“I’m Hwang. Pleased to meet you.”
“El Fuego. Boss of this port.”
“El Tiro.”
El Tiro squinted as he gripped my offered hand.
Did this guy sense something?
When two mana fields overlapped, ability users with mana circuits could indirectly detect another user—or an awakened creature—through the sensation of their own power shrinking.
But El Tiro didn’t seem convinced about me. I’d suppressed my field to the max. A feat only true mages, who handled circuits freely, could pull off.
In the end, El Tiro whispered something to El Fuego with wary eyes more on Suyeon and Kyung-tae.
While under that scrutiny, Suyeon spoke to Kyung-tae in Korean.
“I’ll take left and front. You cover right and rear.”
Dividing roles for any emergency, they positioned themselves away from me. Preparing for a situation where I’d exert maximum control over the mana essence—or so it looked like caution not to provoke the mayor and cartel brass, standing off by the door.
The mayor eyed me with a glint of interest.
“Don Hwang. You’re not surprised, even after hearing who they are?”
I answered nonchalantly.
“I understand Mexico’s peculiarities well enough. Doing business here, I always figured I’d end up meeting cartel folks eventually.”
My attitude must’ve been utterly unexpected; the mayor sat with a strange expression—not quite a smile, not quite shock.
“Heh heh… Let’s sit, then. Sit and talk.”
Four people took seats on four sofas around a seamless solid-wood table. From my spot, back slightly to the courtyard, I had a good view of the room.
El Fuego, arms crossed on the table, spoke in a thin voice with an amused look.
“You’re an odd one. A normal businessman who doesn’t fear us, a devout believer who doesn’t scorn us either.”
Mayor Chelino chimed in.
“Tell me about it. He took it so casually, I was bracing myself internally and now I’m the one flustered.”
“Bracing? For what?”
The mayor shrugged at my question.
“It wouldn’t be odd if Don Hwang were disappointed in Chelino Baquiano.”
I loaded a sophistry and shook my head.
“Disappointed? Nonsense. I already told you—I fully grasp Mexico’s peculiarities.”
El Fuego spoke up again.
“What do you think those ‘peculiarities’ are? Let’s hear it.”
“Simple. The cartels aren’t evil.”
“Ha. Why?”
“I believe saving lives is good, taking them is evil.”
“Hold on. So you’re saying our cartel saves lives?”
“We kill and save, but comparing the two, more lives are saved. If the net is positive, it’s good. That’s enough. No perfect good exists in a world of humans. I focus on results.”
“I hate liars.”
“Me too.”
El Fuego chuckled.
“If you mean that sincerely, your businessman’s insight and analysis leave much to be desired. You’re not basing this on the aid we hand out everywhere, are you? That obvious ploy everyone knows about except starving paupers and our dumb underlings?”
“Intent aside, it helps in reality, doesn’t it?”
“Feels like I came to chat with an idiot. You can’t even do basic math. Do you know how many Americans die from the drugs we sell?”
“I do.”
“And?”
“If you stop selling, Americans won’t get drugs anymore?”
My slow counter held a ton of truth, bullshit though it was.
Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle, especially fentanyl from Wa State Army-linked Wa rebels tied to China, was blowing up in the US as “China White.” It took 1/500th—or minimally 1/2000th—the dose of cocaine, easy to smuggle, high profit, and crushed coke in effects, addiction, and side effects. Chinese triads smuggled enough yearly to kill the entire US population multiple times over.
Ridiculous, but realistically, the massive cocaine flow from Central to North America was shielding tons of Americans from China White.
Mexican cartels’ mainstay product was thus a necessary evil replacing the worst.
“I do business in the US too, and I know how it runs. You have to know to do deals, and the deeper you know, the more profit. If cocaine vanished, other drugs would fill the gap. Right?”
El Fuego urged me on with an arrogant chin tilt at my calm words.
“Go on.”
“Demand calls forth supply in the end. As long as Americans crave drugs, someone will supply them. And that’ll be the Chinese, naturally.”
“Fair enough. You said you knew—you really do. No idea how it ties to your business, though.”
“Tried insurance once, failed. But even there, I often helped the poor and sick. Can’t not know their plight.”
Drugs were the poor’s solace. Even ragged North Koreans craved ice (meth), saying it dulled hunger.
El Fuego’s lip curled savagely at my fluent lies.
“Goddamn chinks. Fucking China White! Think we’re too dumb to make fentanyl? They’re so shortsighted, killing off all their customers for quick cash—what then?”
He clenched a fist, shaking it Italian-style for emphasis.
“Kill slow like us, so new ones fill the spots! Our idiots wanna deal fentanyl because of those myopic bastards!”
It evoked China’s illegal fishing fleets ravaging global seas. Red Continent fishermen, having stripped their own waters bare, now trawled foreign ones with dense nets. No future in their ways—just today’s profit. Locust hordes worshiping gold.