The Red Dog and the Loan Shark Office
The next day.
The place I was looking for was hidden like a poisonous mushroom in an alley packed with brothels, but if I wanted to change my future, it was the first place I had to take in hand.
Yeonhui Credit Union.
It was dressed up with a respectable name, a credit union in all but appearance, but in truth it was nothing more than a loan shark operation.
In 1972, when President Park Chung-hee issued the 8.3 private loan freeze and locked private-loan interest rates in place, the loan sharks who had lived in the shadows stepped into the open under the banner of credit unions and began running what was, by their standards, a legitimate lending business.
And the place I was walking into now was another gangster-run loan office, the kind of filthy outfit that still clung to the trashy habits of the old days all the way into the end of the twentieth century.
“Nothing’s changed.”
I climbed the narrow stairs of the shabby two-story building in the alley beside Yeongdeungpo Station’s red-light district, where a sign had been slapped up without much care over the loan office.
Creaaak!
The screech of metal grinding against metal rang out like it was trying to split my eardrums, and inside, I could see a bunch of men with their shirts off, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, playing cards.
“Huh? What’s this?”
“A loan...”
“Ah? Ahh! A customer.”
Kim Museong, the representative of Yeonhui Credit Union.
He was a man people called the Blood-stained Bundle of Cash.
“You bastards, a customer’s here. Why aren’t you dressed? What the hell are you smoking in the office for, you dogs? Fold the table. Clear this shit away. Bastards.”
Kim Museong kicked over the hwatu game he’d been playing with his lackeys just a moment ago and started barking at them.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that. We ate lunch a little late, so you had to see something ugly. So, you need money?”
“Yes.”
“Right. But how did you find this place? We mostly work through introductions from women in the professional district around here, so regular people usually don’t know about us. We’ve never gone around plastering our business cards all over the neighborhood like lowlifes...”
Even while trying to sound friendly, Kim Museong watched me with sharp eyes and kept talking.
“You look like an office worker at a glance... and you’re young too. Looking to get hired, maybe? An applicant or something?”
“I didn’t want a credit check on my record, and the money’s needed fairly urgently, but my severance comes out in a week, so I came to borrow a little and pay it back. You ask customers a lot of questions here.”
“Ahhh, severance? You should have said so sooner. Hey, go get him a coffee. No, call the teahouse. He’s our first customer today, so we should treat him well.”
“Yes, boss. Should I have Mi-suk bring it over?”
“No, no, she’s too obviously a hostess. Tell Ye-ji to do it. Two sweet iced coffees.”
“Ye-ji? Which Ye-ji?”
“You asshole. Do I have to remember her last name too? The one with the good figure, you know.”
“Ah, Kim Yeji. Yes, boss, I’ll call right away.”
Kim Yeji.
As expected. A woman Yeonhui Credit Union used as a honey trap.
“Now then, customer. Shall we sit and talk?”
With a business smile stretched across his rough face, Kim Museong offered me a seat. A black sofa, worn to the bone. And on the glass covering the little table, there were even traces of blood.
“So. How much do you need?”
“Originally I was only going to use about 260,000 won, but since I came all this way, I thought I might as well enjoy myself a bit, so maybe one to two million won?”
“Oh? What’s this? You’re in the same trade? Who’s your people?”
“I’m not.”
“Then?”
“A deputy at AK Credit Union. I just quit a little while ago.”
“Your name is...?”
“Do Jaehyun.”
“Huh? That sounds familiar...”
Kim Museong tilted his head and scratched his cheek with a finger.
“Jaehyun, Do Jaehyun...”
For a long moment, he searched his memory, and then he suddenly slapped the table and sprang to his feet.
“The mad dog of AK Capital, Do Jaehyun! So it was you, you bastard.”
“You know me?”
“You son of a bitch, you got money from Brother Pig not long ago, didn’t you? Went all the way to Geoje Island yourself.”
“I did go to Geoje Island, but who’s Pig?”
“You bastard, you don’t know Brother Kim Doji? The brother you stripped clean down to the spoon, the one with one hand missing, asshole!”
“Ahhh, now I remember. That guy borrowed money, blew it all gambling, then went into hiding. We had a hell of a time tracking him down all the way out on Geoje. When we finally found him, what did he say again? He begged us to wait one day because he’d win it back and repay us.”
“You remember? He begged? You fucker, you’re suddenly talking down to me?”
“Why? Does it bother you? You’ve been talking down to me the whole time too. Want to switch to half-formal speech again?”
“Hah. Look at you, you little shit, not even dry behind the ears, and the way you run your mouth...”
Young, huh.
I have more than ten nephews and grandnephews around your age, kid.
“Hoo.”
Kim Museong lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.
“I oughta brand your face. Pretty face like that, you must’ve made a lot of women cry. Want me to give you a little dot on that cheek?”
“Still pretending to be a gangster, you lowlifes.”
I took a cigarette from the pack in Kim Museong’s shirt pocket and put it in my mouth.
“Light it.”
“Ha. Son of a bitch, I’m so dumbfounded I can’t even get angry.”
“Boss, I’m sorry. No matter how many batons you want to take out on me later, I’ll take whatever you give me.”
At that moment, one of Kim Museong’s subordinates, a thick-necked brute with a stubborn face, stormed over and grabbed me by the collar.
“You little bastard. I’ve never interrupted Boss while he was speaking before, but I’m going to rip your tongue out, you goddamn bastard.”
“I said you could put a dot on my face.”
“What?”
“I’ll do it for you. Nice and pretty.”
I rubbed the cigarette I’d been holding against the brute’s cheek and crushed it out.
Hissss.
The smell of cigarette smoke and burning flesh mixed together, and a strange sound rose in the air.
“Aaaagh!”
“And here I thought you tough guys didn’t cry like babies. No wonder people call you lowlifes.”
“Brother Black Bear?!”
“Water, bring water, you bastard!”
The brute who had been so fiercely gripping my collar a second ago rolled across the floor screaming, while the men who claimed to be his younger brothers fussed around in a panic.
“You... you damn bastards!”
“Boss.”
“Brother Red Dog...”
At Kim Museong’s shout, the room went silent in an instant.
“That little bastard’s right, you lowlife trash. A gangster gets a little fire on his cheek and you all make a fuss over it? Jesus, I’m embarrassed just watching you.”
“Sit down.”
“...What?”
“Sit down. I still haven’t taken the loan yet. Or are you just going to let me leave?”
“Ha, hahahahaha. You asshole, trying to act cool and then walking out here as a total idiot?”
“Enough with the dialect.”
“What?”
“You were born and raised in Seoul, so why the hell are you mixing in some half-baked dialect that sounds like neither Gyeongsang nor Jeolla? Stop trying to look tough and finish your work.”
“...You’re a funny bastard. You’ve got guts. Fine. Go on, then. How much do you need?”
Gangsters always worked like this.
If someone looked weaker than them, they strutted around like kings. If someone looked stronger, or seemed to have something unpleasant backing them, they changed course just like this.
If it were truly a situation with no way back, or some no-tomorrow bastard acting without a plan, they’d have pulled out the sashimi knife already.
Of course, this bastard Kim Museong had too much to lose now to pull a stunt like that.
“Too bad.”
“What?”
“If you’d thrown the first punch, you’d have had a cause, and legally it would’ve been self-defense. That would’ve been nice.”
Without realizing it, a cool smirk had formed at the corner of my mouth.
“You...”
And Kim Museong’s expression hardened.
“What the hell are you?”
Red Dog, Kim Museong.
When he first started in the underworld, Kim Museong’s nickname was Blood-stained Bastard. Once he started a fight, he was guaranteed to draw blood. It didn’t matter whether it was the other side’s blood or his own.
In particular, Kim Museong was at his best in gang brawls that used Dagu-bbal, weapons like steel pipes and baseball bats.
In the summer of 1995, there had been a war between the Baekho Faction that Kim Museong belonged to and the Reorganization Faction, which had held Yeongdeungpo’s nightlife district in one hand. At the time, Kim Museong had led the organization’s fighters as Baekho Faction’s action leader and had shown outstanding performance.
As a result, the Baekho Faction’s boss, Kim Baekho, handed Kim Museong the loan business targeting the women and pimps in Yeongdeungpo’s red-light and entertainment districts.
And that was how Kim Museong became the representative of a company called Yeonhui Credit Union. He was no longer the Blood-stained Bastard, but a man called Red Dog because he bit into enemies like a mad dog the moment he saw them.
“Customer. A customer who wants to spend money and pay high interest.”
“Crazy bastard. Hey, get this guy out of here.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Everyone move. I’m going to burn that bastard’s skin off today.”
Then the brute I’d just stubbed out a cigarette on shoved his way past the others and stepped forward.
“Boss, can I just ruin one of this bastard’s legs?”
Rrrrriiip.
The brute dragged a steel pipe across the floor from the corner of the office and slowly approached me, trying to build up the fear.
Kim Museong cut him off sharply.
“Tsk. Tone it down. You’re a gangster now, not some idiot pulling weapons on a civilian. Even after all these years, how are you still the same childish punk?”
“I’m sorry, Boss. I’ll do as you say.”
As if reluctantly obeying Red Dog’s order, the brute set the steel pipe down and took a special-alloy knuckle from inside his clothes, sliding it onto his hand.
“As expected of the Red Dog Faction. Take away the weapons and they’re nothing but a corpse.”
At my words, the faces of Red Dog Kim Museong and his men turned grim, and Kim Museong gave a small nod toward the brute.
It was a silent signal that it would be fine to cripple at least one of my arms or legs.
“...Forget about walking out of here in one piece, you son of a bitch.”
“Ah, wait.”
I took a black leather glove from my inner jacket pocket and slipped it on. I had no intention of leaving my fingerprints anywhere, under any circumstances.
“Too late, asshole.”
But in a space this cramped, taking down nearly ten gangsters who were ready for Dagu-bbal without a scratch was impossible in the current situation.
In truth, the reason I’d gone out of my way to come to Yeonhui Credit Union instead of some place like Myeongdong, among the many illegal loan outfits out there, was that I knew Kim Museong’s weakness and this office’s secrets inside and out. In other words, there was no need to sweat blood and tears over it.
“Let’s see if you can still grin after one leg’s ruined, you bastard.”
Already furious enough to burst, the brute ignored my words and raised his knuckle-clad hand high.
The moment he was about to smash down on me while I sat on the sofa, I said, “Take this and cool off. And go see a dermatologist too.”
From inside my suit jacket, I pulled out a bundle of one-hundred 10,000-won bills tied together with a rubber band.
“Wha-what?”
The brute’s hand, raised to bring the knuckles down at any second, stopped as if by magic. So much for loyalty and all that. Gangsters were always weak to money.
However much swagger they wore, once you stripped away the money for meals and shoe polish, there was nothing left. That was the nature of the beast.
“You’re an interesting one. What, are you some rich young master from a wealthy family? Did you come here to offer sponsorship?”
Unlike the flustered brute, Red Dog Kim Museong changed his posture in an instant. In 1998, one million won was more money than a large-company employee’s monthly salary at the time.
“Want to see something even more interesting?”