The First Bargain
I bit down on a cigarette and flicked open a Zippo lighter. Without snapping the lid shut, I held the flame to the bundle of banknotes.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you kidding righ—augh!”
“Ghk!”
Bang. Crack.
The Red Dog and the Bear shouted at the same time. I tossed the burning wad of bills at the Bear to throw him off for a split second, and in that opening I thrust out my legs from where I sat and shoved the glass-topped marble table between the sofa and me as hard as I could.
“Ugh... You little punk...”
Even though his shinbone must have been broken, or at the very least badly cracked, Red Dog clenched his teeth and got to his feet. It seemed embarrassment had overridden the pain, especially with his underlings watching.
“Boss Red Dog!”
“Boss!”
The members of the Red Dog Faction, who had been watching the situation with sidelong interest, suddenly flared up and rushed toward him, each grabbing whatever weapon was close at hand.
“What are you idiots doing? Kill that bastard!”
Now.
The reason I had forced Kim Museong, Red Dog, to rise from the sofa by any means necessary was exactly this.
I dodged the Bear’s fist, which came swinging at me in a frenzy, by arching my back and sliding away like a baseball player stealing into a base. Then, using that momentum, I kicked the other shin of the still-reeling Red Dog with the heel of my shoe and knocked him down completely, if only for a moment.
And then...
I quickly opened the seat cushion of the sofa Red Dog had been sitting on.
Just as I remembered, inside the hollow space was roughly five kilos of drugs and a Daewoo Precision K-5 automatic pistol loaded with live rounds. I took the gun without hesitation and pointed it at Kim Museong’s head.
“All right, enough. Keep it up and your boss’s head goes flying. Let’s see... one, two, three, four... eight of you in all, huh?”
The Red Dog Faction’s men froze on the spot like windup dolls whose springs had been cut.
“You’ve got some nerve. Not some old Colt either, but a 9mm Parabellum, thirteen-round K-5 automatic pistol. How did you get your hands on that? If half those thirteen bullets hit, every one of you except Kim Museong is going to meet hell.”
“...Boss Red Dog.”
“Boss...”
“You. Bring that over here.”
“What?”
“I don’t repeat myself. Since it’s your first time, I’ll let it pass as a warning. Bring over what’s on your hand, you bastard.”
“...”
The Bear, wearing brass knuckles, stood there awkwardly, unable to move, and I showed him the price of that hesitation by acting on the words I had just spoken.
“Urgh...”
I slammed the pistol grip into Kim Museong’s forehead with full force. Blood smeared across Red Dog’s brow. Hitting the forehead would almost never kill a person, not unless you struck the back of the skull, and especially not in a situation like this, when the body was already tense with violence.
“That damn bastard... Kill him!”
Bang! Bang!
At last, the Bear, having lost all reason over the injury to the big boss he served, charged at me, and I pulled the trigger twice without hesitation.
One shot went to Red Dog’s temple.
The second to the Bear’s solar plexus.
“Agh! Y-you really shot?”
“Aaaagh, you crazy bastard...”
The gangsters, startled by the gunfire, flailed around like rabbits with their tails on fire, and Red Dog, stunned by the shock and terror of the trigger being pulled, pissed himself on the spot.
And the Bear...
Thunk.
He collapsed backward, fainting while still on his feet.
“The first two shots were blanks. I guess you thugs never went to the army, so you wouldn’t know, or maybe you’re just cowards.”
“...You. I’ll make sure...”
“What, you were going to say something like, ‘Even if I die, make sure you kill this bastard first’?”
“...”
“Think carefully. From here on out, they’re live rounds. You and your little brothers will all end up in the same cemetery.”
“Ghk!”
I tapped Red Dog’s forehead again with the pistol. This time it was light, but because I struck the exact same spot I’d just hit, the shock he took was far from trivial.
“Get these brats out of here. Let’s have a quiet talk, just the two of us.”
“...And why the hell should I trust you?”
“I’m the one trusting you, you idiot. It’s easier to settle this right here. If you kick the kids out, do you think they won’t call in their lackeys if they’re not idiots? What should I do, set up an ancestral offering table here and be on my way?”
“...Get out.”
“Boss!”
“Boss Red Dog!”
“Get the hell out and quit embarrassing me, you bastards!”
Crash.
In the end, Red Dog could not take it anymore. He shouted and slammed his fist down hard on the table, shattering the glass and leaving his hand badly cut in the process.
Red Dog’s bloodied hand and the destroyed table.
Me in a salaryman’s suit, aiming a pistol at Red Dog, and a gang of thugs armed with all kinds of weapons.
It was a grim sort of combination, and an absurd one too.
“Yes, boss. We’ll do as you said. Move, and make sure the guys downstairs keep their mouths shut. Block the entrance so no one gets in. Bballari, go fetch Officer Kim.”
A man who looked to be somewhere below the Bear in rank still had enough wits about him to bow to Red Dog, smooth over the situation as best he could, and head outside.
“Who sent you, Boss Baekho? Or are you some intelligence agency operative? Or maybe a narcotics cop? How the hell did you know there was powder here? And I’m sure even the Bear didn’t know I smuggled in a pistol.”
“Red Dog, Kim Museong.”
I cut him off.
“Listen carefully from here on out. And choose wisely.”
“Choose?”
“It might be a choice that becomes the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“Bullshit.”
Red Dog dragged his injured leg and sat back down on the sofa.
As expected of a gangster who cared about his image even when his head was about to come off, he took out a cigarette and lit it.
“I don’t know whether it’s an opportunity or whatever, but I can promise you one thing.”
“What.”
“Whatever kind of crap you’re about to spout, you’re going to have to convince me. You’ll have to give me a reason too, and if you can’t, then you’re...”
“Going to die?”
I took a deep drag from the cigarette in my mouth and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.
“You got humiliated in front of your little brothers, so if you back down now, life in this line of work is going to get rough. But if you try to do something to me, you’ll start wondering what kind of backing I’ve got. So you want a good excuse to step back, and it’d be even better if I hand you some profit that matches it. That’s what this is, right?”
“...”
“No need to dance around it. Am I right or wrong?”
“...Right.”
As expected, Red Dog eventually lowered his head.
“Good. Now we can actually talk.”
The first means of gathering the funds I needed to protect my son had been secured. Now it was time to begin.
“First, let me ask one thing.”
“Say it.”
“How much do you have?”
“What?”
Red Dog’s eyes widened like those of a startled rabbit.
“How much do you have?”
Then the thick Motorola-style flip phone in Kim Museong’s hand vibrated twice in quick succession with a harsh mechanical buzz. He flipped it open and glanced at the text message.
“Is this for real?”
A moment later, Kim Museong looked at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
“What is?”
“Orphaned at birth, adopted at twelve, entered Korea University’s law department through the College Scholastic Ability Test at twenty. Finished thirty-six credits in law subjects in just one year, then immediately sat for the bar exam. Passed the bar at twenty-one, completed the Judicial Research and Training Institute, and now...”
A crooked smile formed at the corner of Kim Museong’s mouth.
“You’re living with the single mother who adopted you? How’s that? Want to check whether it’s true yourself?”
Kim Museong snorted and handed the thick flip phone to me.
“Heh. Looks like my guys did a proper job of investigating. Am I wrong?”
“You definitely have some talent, but I wouldn’t say you’re especially bright.”
“...”
“It’s worth praising that, in this short amount of time, you used the police, a private detective agency, and whatever else you could to dig up some information on me. But listen...”
I grabbed Kim Museong by the hair, yanked his head toward me, and whispered into his ear, his eyes still full of bitter hostility.
“As you said, if I passed the bar at twenty-one and completed the training institute too, why would I suddenly go into the army and disappear from the record? And why am I here now, doing this with you?”
“T-that...”
Kim Museong’s face went paper-white.
“Boss of the new Red Dog Faction, Kim Museong. You were originally the action leader from Mokpo’s Baekho Faction, but with Kim Baekho’s full backing, it’s been about a year since you broke away from the Baekho Faction, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Choose. Do you want to die alongside Baekho, or are you going to cut ties with all this and come out into the light with me?”
I smiled faintly at Kim Museong, who still hadn’t managed to control his expression.
“I once worked as an intern at the prosecution office near the end of my Judicial Research and Training Institute course. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office’s investigation planning division singled me out and told me to come straight over once I graduated, so they could assign me immediately.”
“D-don’t tell me... the Jilldrey Kim clothing-rent bribery case...”
“That’s right. The place where Senior Prosecutor Yoon Jeongwang got stripped of his robe after blowing that one wide open. I was supposed to be assigned under him if he’d stayed on as chief prosecutor. But the position I actually got was public security. So here’s the question. In just two months at the prosecution office, how many communist bastards do you think I caught? And how many of them do you think were real communists?”
“...”
“You know the answer, don’t you?”
I snapped the flip phone shut and handed it back to Kim Museong.
“...What do I have to do?”
“Starting to use your head now?”
“If I don’t, then fuck. Even if I keep pushing back, you’ll just go to Boss Baekho and do the same thing, and Boss Baekho will use me as a daepo-dama for him. Damn it...”
Kim Museong grabbed the ashtray and hurled it to the floor.
“Do you think I don’t know Boss Baekho? If I’m lucky, I’ll end up as a daepo-dama. If I don’t get covered in cement and dumped in the sea off Incheon, I should count myself blessed. What kind of choice is that? That’s a threat.”
“Whether it’s a choice or a threat depends on who’s listening.”
“Do Jaehyun, I’m not going to try to outsmart you. I’ll be honest.”
The cigarette smoke exhaled from Kim Museong’s mouth drifted apart into the air.
“I know what kind of bastard you are, and I know what you want too. Cash with no strings attached, and the money parked in Baekho Faction shell accounts that no one can touch without keeping their mouths shut.”
“Go on.”
“But why me? If you want loan shark money, Myeongdong would be a better choice, wouldn’t it?”
Kim Museong wasn’t wrong.
If I was going to team up with a loan shark, there was no real reason to come all the way to Yeongdeungpo and use Yeonhui Credit Union, run by Kim Museong of the Red Dog Faction, a branch that treated the Baekho Faction like a parent company, especially when they were already involved in drug dealing.
But I had a vivid picture of Kim Museong as he would one day stand, still unfinished for now, as one of the invisible heavyweights of underground capital.
“I told you. This is the chance to come out into the light.”
“...No matter how I look at it, this isn’t right.”
“I figured you’d say that. If it were me, I wouldn’t go along with it either after getting beaten like a dog in front of my little brothers by some kid I’d never even met, having every last cent shaken out of me, and being told to join in tearing apart the boss I serve.”
“If you know that, then why...”
“Well... if I knew that, you wouldn’t be in this position now, would you?”
As I stood up from the sofa without the least bit of hesitation, Kim Museong rose too, looking flustered.
“Whether you tell the Baekho Faction about me or not is up to you. It won’t change anything.”
“...”
“Ah, right.”
I opened the door to Yeonhui Credit Union and said to Kim Museong,
“I’m going to the Baekho Faction now.”