Chairman Do It All by Himself, Chapter 36
"Jeong Taeyang...."
At the mere sound of the Taeyang Faction boss's name, or even the thought of him, Kang Inmuk, the security chief, felt a pressure tight in his chest, the way a lunch he had eaten yesterday still sat half-digested and heavy in his stomach.
Jeong Taeyang would never know.
He would never know that Do Jaehyun was here right now with Director Cheon Subeom.
And Jeong Taeyang would never know this either.
I know you better than anyone, and you don't know me at all.
"Chief Kang."
"Yes."
"Would you like something else? The coffee's a little bitter."
"I'm fine."
"It's already brewed. Drink it."
Director Cheon Subeom tore open a packet of Ssanghwatang that had been heated in the microwave and poured it into a cup.
"About Jeong Taeyang."
Kang Inmuk's hand froze around the cup.
"What I've been curious about for a while, Chief Kang, is this: aside from matters involving the chairman, you don't so much as change your expression. But for some reason, whenever Jeong Taeyang comes up, you look a little uncomfortable."
"...Did I seem that way?"
He made it sound like nothing, but Cheon Subeom could hear the irritation buried in Kang Inmuk's words.
"I guess I read too much into it. That was careless of me. Sorry."
"It's guilt."
"Guilt?"
A glint entered Cheon Subeom's eyes. He hadn't really expected an answer, but he hadn't thought he would pull a reaction out of Kang Inmuk, who usually went through each day like a machine repeating the same motions.
"About Young Master Han Suyeong."
Kang Inmuk swallowed the still-steaming Ssanghwatang in one gulp.
"The chairman told me there was no need to worry, but I shouldn't have let it go that way. If the security team had paid even a little more attention, none of this would have happened in the first place."
"You think so?"
"Yes. We weren't short on security personnel, and I failed to read the chairman's mind properly. It's shameful. It's regrettable. If we'd paid just a little more attention, if we'd understood the chairman's intentions just a little earlier, none of this would have happened now."
Mind-guarding.
The phrase surfaced in Cheon Subeom's head. Taken literally, it meant guarding and protecting the mind and one's thoughts. In other words, to watch over the stirrings of the heart and keep them from showing outside. But that was not what Kang Inmuk meant by it.
He meant the chairman of Johwa Group, Han Gangho, at the summit of the company.
He meant that Kang Inmuk had failed to watch over his moods carefully enough, to guard them so that even the slightest discomfort would never touch him.
A loyal servant.
Literally, a faithful retainer.
Kang Inmuk was the one person to whom Chairman Han Gangho could reveal the words buried in his chest.
"...Don't blame yourself too much."
Cheon Subeom's eyes narrowed slightly.
"The chairman probably didn't care that much to begin with. Chief Kang, you're here now. Does that really mean he wants you to find Young Master Han Suyeong? Or is it more about handling the fallout for the company?"
"...."
A mind-servant.
If Kang Inmuk was the loyal retainer Chairman Han Gangho trusted most, then Cheon Subeom was the man who read the chairman's moods best.
"Director Kang Inmuk."
Not by title, but by rank.
The look in his eyes changed. He was speaking to Kang Inmuk not as Cheon Subeom the planning director, but as Kang Inmuk of Johwa Group, not as a security chief but as an executive.
"This will be handled well. With Director Kang Inmuk here, what is there to worry about?"
"It will be."
"Not just me, either. Even the other executives in the president's office don't get many chances to meet you one-on-one like this. Apart from the chairman, it's only Vice Chairman Han Jaeyeong, isn't it? The person you meet privately."
Vice Chairman Han Jaeyeong.
The only vice chairman in Johwa Group, and the chairman's eldest son.
"Do you have something you want to say?"
"A favor."
"What favor could the planning director possibly ask of me?"
"I'm worried because of Young Master Han Suyeong."
"And what is that worry?"
Without another word, Cheon Subeom stood, placed a packet of Ssanghwatang in the microwave, and turned it on.
Beep!
The two Johwa Group executives glared at one another in silence until the microwave finished heating the Ssanghwatang.
"Ah, hot."
Cheon Subeom turned back to Director Kang after pouring the packet into his own cup.
"It smells good and it's good for you, but it's a little hot."
He held the cup, blowing on it lightly, and got to the point.
"There's also Representative Han Junyeong over at Johwa Investment Securities."
Han Junyeong.
The second son of Chairman Han Gangho, and a man forever eyeing the vice chairman's seat his older brother Han Jaeyeong held.
"Please keep an eye on Representative Han Junyeong as well. He's been worrying a lot because of Young Master Han Suyeong. He also has a newborn son, so I thought it might be good if the security team paid a little more attention to him."
Cheon Subeom took a sip of the scalding drink.
"The security team has already been assigned. The chairman has not said anything to me separately."
"Pfft."
Cheon Subeom spat the Ssanghwatang he had just taken into his mouth back into the cup.
"Bitter. And way too hot. It'll peel the roof of my mouth clean off."
"Medicine that's good for the body is supposed to be hot and bitter."
"Does Vice Chairman Han Jaeyeong like Ssanghwatang too?"
"No. The vice chairman and I don't particularly care for it."
"Then I'll need to prepare something else next time."
Cheon Subeom poured the Ssanghwatang down the sink.
"No need for that."
"As if that were up to me. Both you and I are just company men, doing our jobs the way we're told and getting our salaries for it, aren't we?"
Kang Inmuk turned his head slightly.
"He's here. Jeong Taeyang."
* * *
"Didn't we say we'd meet alone?"
"What's the problem with bringing one younger brother who can drive?"
"Looks like you drove."
"Jaehyun. There's one belief I have that even Taeseong doesn't fully understand yet."
"A belief? A bastard who starts talking about belief is exhausting enough to make me want to die."
"Fuck... I'll bet my life that I'm not the bastard here."
Jeong Taeyang's face twisted hard.
"As expected from a Korea University law school graduate, you've got a sharp brain. I didn't think you'd internalize my advice this quickly."
"I don't know whether it's nature or not, whether a person can really change that much, but in this life I'll just live however I feel like."
"This life? Hear you talk, and you'd think Buddha himself had been reborn."
"I may not be Buddha, but I think I could manage a rakshasa."
"Jesus... your mouth is all polished silk and water. Come on."
They had only gone one block into Gangnam's busy commercial district, yet the area had already gone quiet. A street of a few ordinary-looking villas and one or two larger multi-family houses.
We got out in front of a newly built villa, slightly larger than the others, where Jeong Taeyang had parked in an alley.
"Stay sharp from here on."
Jeong Taeyang warned me, then pressed the bell.
"It's Jeong Taeyang."
As soon as Jeong Taeyang showed his face to the camera and gave his name, the villa's entrance opened without a word.
"Just act like my younger brother for now. I don't care what I say, but I have no idea what kind of nonsense you'll get up to."
Younger brother. Younger sibling.
Same meaning, yet somehow different. Why did gangsters always use the word younger sibling?
Once in a while, gangsters with longer academic backgrounds, or those who liked to sound educated, claimed that the word ahwu was a respectful way to say younger brother.
But that was wrong.
The respectful form of younger brother was dongsaengbun, and ahwu or ahwubun was actually linguistically incorrect. Maybe that was why people who called themselves gangsters, people who kept getting these small things wrong one by one, came off to ordinary people as uneducated thugs and punks rather than anything else.
"You really know me well, don't you, my thug brother. Is that what a real gangster is?"
"You little punk, if you can't even keep your mouth shut..."
Even as he grumbled at me, Jeong Taeyang had the faintest smile at the corner of his mouth.
"Let's go."
"Hold on a second."
Do Jaehyun motioned for Jeong Taeyang to go in first, then quickly scanned the outside of the villa. It was a habit, a kind of occupational reflex.
Whether apartment or villa, a surprising amount could be learned from the information visible before entering a building. It was mostly a method used by loan sharks or by debt collectors and private investigators hired by financial firms, but still.
The first was the mailbox.
A great deal could be inferred from the mailbox outside a villa. Even just looking at mail such as tax notices, traffic fines, or administrative penalty notices could tell him whether the address belonged to a real resident, or whether it was a fake address or a place of temporary residence.
In addition, debtors who had borrowed money from banks or loan companies and failed to repay it usually had piles of collection notices stacked up.
The second was the various meters.
In apartment buildings, the meters were usually installed in the hallway on each floor or on the wall beside each unit's door, but the key thing was this.
Whether it was an apartment, a villa, or a typical multi-family building, the meters were always installed somewhere easy to check.
And those meters told him a great deal.
For example, by looking only at the gas or water meters and comparing several households, if the meter reading for the household he was looking for was far lower than the others, that meant the person he was looking for rarely came home or lived alone.
There were many kinds of meters, but the most important one was the electric meter.
Every household in South Korea always consumed electricity. Even if no one was home, the refrigerator was running twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
So the electric meter gave him the most information, and the most important facts.
Like the gas or water meter, it showed total usage, how many people lived there, how long they stayed home, and so on. But more than that, it was the single best way to tell whether anyone was currently inside.
Why?
Because in the heat of summer, if someone was home, they'd surely be using a fan or air conditioner, and a house like that would show far more activity, consuming electricity much more aggressively than an empty one.
Around thirty seconds.
For Do Jaehyun, that was enough time to gather useful information.
"What are you doing? Aren't you coming in?"
"Yeah, I'm coming."
From the outside it looked like an ordinary new villa, but the interior was anything but ordinary. From the front, the entrance gave the impression of a typical villa, but after walking about five meters in, the structure bent to the right into a single narrow corridor.
And right there were a luxurious elevator and a staircase.
It was suspicious enough to have an elevator in a villa barely four stories high, but this place actually had two basement floors as well, making it a six-level building in total.
"You've never been here before, have you?"
"I came once last year. Cheon Subeom told me I should drop by if I was tired and wanted to unwind sometimes."
"So the two of you were meeting here today?"
"He said someone was coming with Cheon Subeom. I said I'd bring a younger brother too."
"Which floor?"
"Fourth."
The elevator arrived on the first floor.
"Let's take the stairs."
"What are you talking about? Why walk when there's an elevator?"
"Send a message, then. Tell the guys under me that if they don't hear from me within an hour, they should come here and break the entrance down if they have to."
"Fuck...."
Jeong Taeyang's face hardened.
"No wonder I suddenly felt like saying things I don't usually say today."