Chairman on the Throne of Debt
“Is this mobile phone owner a Ms. Lee Jinhee?”
“Just a moment, please.”
The flustered voice of a female employee leaked through the phone speaker, and Department Manager Lee Jinhee lowered his head, covering his face with one hand.
“Hoo……”
Then a long, heavy sigh rose from somewhere deep in his chest.
“Fuck……”
Glug, glug.
Lee Jinhee muttered a low curse as if he’d given up on everything, then downed the lukewarm ginger tea in one gulp, as casually as if he were drinking water.
“The number I’m calling now isn’t 011-777-7777, is it?”
“I wouldn’t know that either. Wouldn’t it be better if you checked on your side?”
“Ah, just—one moment, please.”
I answered the employee calmly, and only then did the woman, apparently regaining her wits, set the phone down for a moment.
“That’s right. You’re the one who picked up the phone, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I just happened to find it while passing by, so I’ve been wondering whether I should bring it to the police station or wait until someone called. But so many different places kept calling that I got scared and couldn’t answer.”
“Huh? Scared? What do you mean?”
“Calls kept coming in from AK Capital Personal Credit Management Team 1, Personal Credit Management Team 3, all sorts of places like that. How was I supposed to know what it was about and pick up? At least now the screen says something like management support office? So I thought maybe it was a company phone and answered.”
“Oh, I see. Sorry. One of our employees is Department Manager Lee Jinhee, and this is her phone.”
“Yes.”
“Um, sorry, but could you bring the phone here?”
“Right now?”
“……Would that be impossible?”
“I don’t even know where that is……”
“I’ll text you the address right away.”
Buzz—
The phone vibrated lightly, and a text from the employee arrived, containing the address of AK Capital.
“I’ve sent the text. If it’s inconvenient for you to come here, then the phone owner could come pick it up instead. Where should I go?”
“Hmm…… It’s not that far. Could I bring it by later? Or I suppose I could leave it in the company mailbox.”
“Ah, would you do that? We’d really appreciate it.”
“Is there any sort of reward?”
“A reward?”
At the word, so unexpected that she hadn’t even considered it, the employee stumbled over her words.
“Th-that. It isn’t company property, it’s a personal mobile phone, so I can’t really authorize anything like that. I’m sorry.”
“Understood. Take care.”
“I…… um.”
“Yes?”
“You sound strangely familiar…… Could you maybe be connected to our company? Or maybe you’re a customer……?”
“I don’t even know who’s calling me right now.”
“I’m sorry. I must have mistaken you for someone else. My apologies. Have a nice day.”
The flustered employee fired off the kind of polished closing line a telemarketer would use and hung up on the spot.
“Hyung, you know something?”
“Know what.”
“I’m talking about voices on the phone.”
“What about them?”
“They don’t transmit a person’s real voice exactly as it is. There are something like thousands of computer-generated voice patterns, and when someone makes a call, the system transforms it into one of the closest-sounding voices, naturally. So even if you’ve met someone in person and know them well, the voice you hear over a mobile phone doesn’t sound quite the same as their real one.”
“It’s nice that you know so much, you brat. Do they teach that in school too?”
“Back when I was taking criminal trial practice, a sitting prosecutor came for a special lecture. He told us. Of course, it depends on the carrier and whether the system’s been applied, but still. Just saying.”
“Jaehyun.”
Lee Jinhee turned serious and met my eyes.
“I trust you.”
“You didn’t trust me until now?”
“I was half and half on it. But now I finally understand why everyone calls you a joker. The cops from a little while ago too—that was all your doing, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t even think as far as the police. Though it’s true I was trying to give Kim Donggeon a bit of a hard time. He’s still the same as ever. Looking at how he lives without even realizing he’s screwing other people over, it’s obvious he still hasn’t come to his senses.”
“I’m not going to ask what he did to you. You didn’t come here today just to see me, did you?”
“That’s right.”
“At this point, I think I know enough about what kind of bastard you are. And I also know you’re running a business as a representative director now, and that you’ve made an unimaginable amount of money exactly as you said. So……”
Lee Jinhee’s gaze sharpened.
“Let’s get to the point.”
“Sounds good.”
Buzz— buzz—
I handed back Lee Jinhee’s phone, which was still ringing noisily.
“Go on. What do you want from me? Like you said, a guy who’s made enough money doesn’t come all the way out here just to mess with Donggeon alone. So what the hell are you trying to do?”
Lee Jinhee opened the phone and held the end button down firmly, a silent signal that he was truly ready to talk.
“AK Capital is too small for someone like you, Hyung.”
“Small?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Jaehyun.”
“Yes.”
“Hoo……”
Lee Jinhee seemed about to say something, then got to his feet. He went to the counter, ordered more of the ginger tea and the chrysanthemum tea he’d just been drinking, and sat back down.
“I didn’t graduate from Korea’s top university like you, but I did still come out of a school in Seoul that anybody would recognize if I mentioned the name. Among my classmates, there are plenty who went into civil service, taught at schools, or work for major conglomerates. And yet, at my age, there isn’t a single one making as much money as I am.”
“That’s your capability, Hyung. Luck helped too.”
“Yeah. You’re right. The only jobs where you can look down on other people are prosecutors, loan sharks, and creditors. I didn’t want to grovel to anyone, and it suited me, so I got into this line of work. Now I’m treated like a founding contributor to the company, calling the shots with the boss and the brothers, living well, eating well. I’ll be promoted to executive before long, and when they set up a subsidiary specializing in real estate-collateral loans, I’m slated to be appointed as a concurrent executive there too.”
“See? I really did judge people well.”
Lee Jinhee continued speaking, calm and emotionless, without so much as a retort to my words.
“To you, this may look like a small company, but among South Korea’s lending firms, it’s one of the top five. Soon the government will announce the Savings Bank Act, and when that happens, the company’s signboard will change to a savings bank. You might not hear the word ‘major bank’ from the people at the top, but in ten years—no, in five—you’ll be able to live under the name of a savings bank and be called a bank executive like it’s perfectly respectable.”
“A savings bank sounds nice, sure. But how is that any different from a loan shark business?”
“…….”
Apparently irritated by my words, Lee Jinhee said nothing for a moment.
“Hyung. Since I came here today, I haven’t once called you Department Manager. Do you know why?”
“…….”
“I didn’t come here just to say, ‘I’ll pay you more, so work with me. I need you, Department Manager.’”
“Then why? Did a guy who claimed he was just stopping by to say hello really come all the way here to cause this mess?”
“Hyung. Can you honestly make a savings bank into a bank president?”
“Huh?”
“AK Capital turning into AK Savings Bank? Yes, that’s entirely possible. And I also know you’re preparing to receive investment funds raised through the Hand and Trust fund and then shoot straight up to first place in the industry.”
“Y-you…… How do you know that……?”
That was, in fact, highly classified information.
It was data that hadn’t circulated in the press, nor even as gossip in the securities market yet, but because I knew what would happen in the future, I naturally knew it already.
“I’m pretty close with a branch manager at a well-known securities firm. I also asked a talented fund manager to handle some capital for me, and that manager’s father happens to be a member of the National Assembly……”
But for now, I needed to talk around it. I didn’t need to hint, even a little, that I knew what the future held.
“Hmm……”
“But, Hyung.”
I stood up, carried over the steaming chrysanthemum tea and ginger tea prepared at the counter, and set them down on the table between us. Then I looked steadily at Lee Jinhee and said,
“You know it too.”
“Know what?”
“Even if AK Capital becomes AK Savings Bank and grows into South Korea’s best savings bank, you can’t be the one sitting in the president’s chair. Even if you’re the one holding the wheel at AK Savings Bank, that makes you the driver, not the owner.”
“…….”
It was the kind of thing that would have been enough to make anyone else angry, but Lee Jinhee said nothing. Just as I had, he fixed me with a steady gaze, silently urging me to continue.
“As you said, the new subsidiary AK Capital is setting up this time—one specializing in real estate-collateral loans—you could probably get some shares in it. You’re technically at the director level, so that much is possible. But you know as well as I do that AK Capital’s stock is set up through corporate registration as a paper company, with a holding company on top as the major shareholder, while the actual equity is fully owned—100 percent—by the boss here, his wife, and their four children.”
“……Jaehyun.”
Lee Jinhee cut me off.
“I’m not some guy with that much ambition. I’m not some wild bastard who can’t tell heaven from earth and runs around making a spectacle of himself.”
“I know.”
“Everything you’re saying is right. But is there anyone in this company who doesn’t know that? It was never mine to begin with. I’m a salaried man; I work for the pay I get, I get promoted by proving my ability, and if I keep at it, I can even receive subsidiary shares and make it to executive level. So why the hell would I need to follow you?”
“That’s fair too. But if you’re a salaried man anyway, wouldn’t it be better to become South Korea’s No. 1 while you’re at it?”
“That would be our company.”
“Probably not.”
“What are you talking about? You said it yourself—if AK Capital becomes AK Savings Bank, it could become the No. 1 savings bank in South Korea.”
“Sure, because it’s a savings bank that the truly rich conglomerates aren’t even interested in. If people with real power started moving, do you think that would still be possible?”
“……It hasn’t even been long since financial-real-name transactions began. You know how much the government hates big companies like Ilsung or Oji playing around with money, right? You know that even a powerhouse like Ilsung can set up securities firms or insurance companies, but it can’t even dream of opening a bank.”
“I know. That’s why we have to go with a savings bank.”
“You can’t possibly not know how much the image of a big company would tank if it touched a savings bank, especially one that has to borrow funds from state-run institutions like the Bank of Korea or the Korea Development Bank, or from first-tier banks. And you’re telling me some savings bank that gets treated like a loan shark business is what they’d reach for?”
“Yes.”
“Ha!”
Lee Jinhee snorted as if the whole thing was absurd, then asked me,
“Which crazy conglomerate? Which major company would do something like that?”
“……The third-largest chaebol in the nation.”
To heighten the tension—and to shift the mood—I took a slow sip of chrysanthemum tea before speaking again.
“Johwa Group.”