CHAPTER VII

…

That Friday, everyone at the bar was apprehensive. A couple of days have passed since we took that job of stealing a package for one million yen, and after finding out that it was not computer parts that were inside the crates at all, but instead a consignment of deadly firearms, most of us lost heart. But not me. Hanzo confirmed that we have indeed taken the wrong package at the pier, much to my dismay. How sad is that? And then I found out that Miura Yumiko happens to be a close relative of Chiba city's District Attorney, Dr. Sanada. I was fooling around with someone who has connections with law enforcement, which is a big no-no especially if you yourself are involved in illicit activities. I knew Miura was from a wealthy and prestigious family, but I don't know much about them. Her father was a physician and a former politician, so I heard. Back in High school when I used to walk the same way as her, I even met her grandmother several times. I always thought that Miura was half-American, so I assumed her mother was a foreigner, though I had never seen Mrs. Miura before.

The Ichihara-kai were not interested in the guns at all, and that said something about the Yakuza: even they were not bold or stupid enough to lay their hands on illegal firearms, because in Japan nobody gets away with that kind of shit. You can traffic drugs like amphetamines, marijuana or heroin, you can distribute pornography and even monopolize the gambling industry to satisfy your self-centered greed, but you cannot mess around with guns. If the authorities so much as find an unregistered pistol in your car, you have a good chance of spending ten years to life in prison, if the judge is out to break your balls. We took the wrong package, and ended up in big trouble. The three argued whether to just turn the stolen guns over to the police, which was arguably the only reasonable course of action at the moment.

I on the other hand, by some mysterious stroke of ambition or insanity, decided that we will keep the guns until I came up with a plan to dispose of it while taking advantage of the opportunity. Have I lost my mind? Possibly, but genius lives only a step above insanity, and I know that I will succeed in this scheme. Hanzo had it his way, now it was up to me to get us the promised gold. Unfortunately for Tobe, he now suddenly found himself caught in this imbroglio, and being the weak-willed young man he is, he was distressed. I didn't have to worry about the three idiots, but Tobe is the weak link among the five of us. After we found out the grim truth that Sunday, we had to quickly find a place to hide the guns, and somehow we ended up driving over to Tobe's place. To ensure that he kept his mouth shut, I thought about offering him the 300 thousand yen I was talking about with him the other day, but he's not that stupid. If you try to bribe a man with 300 thousand, he'll call bluff because that's too large an amount of money. It is for that very reason why he won't believe it - it's too good to be true. You have to offer something realistic and comprehensible, and allow him to haggle and name his price.

I offered Tobe fifty-five thousand, and in the end we settled for ninety thousand as his cut. Although there was currently no way to spare that amount of money to share with some imbecile, if I play my cards right, I may just get us all the money we promised ourselves. There were 32 rifles and 40 handguns in our possession, along with eight thousand rounds of ammunition. We were safe for now, and the police wouldn't suspect an arsenal hidden inside the garage of some broke college student's mansion, though sooner or later we'll have to relocate it to a more secure place.

"Are you fucking insane?" Fukushi yelled at me after I revealed to them my plans. "If the police so much as catch one of us with a single bullet in our pocket, they'll throw us into custody!"

"Calm down! Nothing's happening yet!"

Everyone was on their nerves, and I told them to calm down. We were going to deal with this situation in a methodical and professional manner. Jen Matsudo apparently had spent the week on his computer, reading up articles about laws and regulations, online news, and details about the local administration and police department in the city. To call him a nerd would be insensitive; resourceful is what best describes him. A member of the Arithmetics club, numbers aren't the only thing he could calculate - and in this scheme, he is second to me when it comes to strategy and tactics. But he doesn't have the guts to call out decisions and make sacrifices, which is what separates him from me.

The illegal sale of firearms is a violation that is punishable by a prison sentence of up to five years here in Japan, coupled with a fine of up to 30 million yen. The illegal possession of firearms is also tantamount to a prison sentence and a heavy fine. To top it all off, the fact that we, by definition of the law, robbed those guns at the pier meant that we had committed a serious crime. That was what Matsudo told us, and it made our blood run cold.

I would say that robbery is too strong a word; we didn't hurt or threaten anybody, we just took the package. It would be a grand theft if you ask me, but the prosecutor won't give a damn if we get caught. It is better to assume the worst and prepare for it, and though the chances of us actually serving long jail sentences are exaggerated, I wouldn't test it. The worst is not imprisonment, but dishonor. I'm talking about humiliation. I can deal with people shitting on my dignity, but if I were to be caught and labeled as a felon… my family name would be tarnished. The Hikigaya family will suffer the consequences. I was always told that it's not about myself, it's about everyone else, and I do think that's true.

"It was my fault, I messed up. But this is just way too serious now, Hikio," says Hanzo, "We basically stole weapons from the police. At this point, we're not taking a job from the Yakuza anymore. We've become robbers."

"We became robbers the moment you wanted to get a million yen," I say to him in a serious tone, and faced the other two. "Like it or not, we're criminals now. I'm asking you to give me a few days to figure out our next move, and I assure you that we'll get out of this unharmed."

"Do you hear what you're saying? Last time, you were reluctant to join us, and now you're acting like a mob boss. What's this, eh Hikigaya? Are you trying to prove that you have the biggest balls among us?"

"Have you got a better plan, Fukushi?" I snarled at him. "Shut the hell up and watch your mouth. I decided to join you all in order to see this operation succeed flawlessly, and I'm going to finish what you all have started. Now, you can run away like the little kids you are, or stick around until we finish this job."

Matsudo finally spoke up, and with a solemn voice stated, "Hikigaya-san has a point. At the moment, I suggest we all take a breather and plan our next move carefully. If we do not reach a solid course of action by next week, I have a plan to safely dispose of the stolen guns."

"Look, we're all in together with this. We'll probably not get a million yen out of this racket, but the least we can do is conclude it in a way that would not leave a bad taste in our mouth. We don't want to think back in forty years and say, 'I should have done that differently' and such, do we? Just leave it to me and you'll all be fine," I say.

"We can't sell those guns, that I'm telling you," Matsudo says, "Hikigaya-san, if we- no, if you sell those guns to the Yakuza or to anyone who could commit a crime with it, you will go to jail. You're not an idiot, and I trust that you'll find a solution in the following days."

Mutsuhiro Fukushi grumbled about the sudden change of motives, but eventually conceded. Among the four of us, he's the most uncouth. It wasn't that he couldn't be relied upon, but I knew that his willingness to cooperate will soon waver. The same was with all of them. I made a call and assured Tobe that if things went south, he would be in the least trouble as long as he kept his mouth shut and cooperated with the gang. We're bookmakers, loan-sharks and hustlers, not robbers. Remember that we are just young men - arrogant, foolhardy, and spontaneous. I am only several steps ahead of them, but I know I will succeed. There is no other option. All my life, I've had next to nobody to rely on, and the only person I truly trust is myself. I've done this before, so what difference does it make now? Failure is not an option, because it will affect my family. And I'd hate for people to associate Komachi with a criminal, who happened to be her older brother.

That is why failure is not an option.

I am not sure on how I'm going to succeed… I just know that I'm not going to fail.

When I first started to work at The Grandeur, Manuel Ieyori needed a new guy who was good not only with his hands, but with his head. He needed a guy who could run errands for him. Someone he could send over to the tiny, four-stool izakaya across the street to clean out the register and bring in the money back to the nightclub, and who could drive him down to the bayside during the daily smuggling operations in Chuoko. Someone who could be trusted. A guy who really wanted to hustle. Was I made out of gangster material? Not exactly. But for Manny, a potter couldn't ask for finer clay. All the other guys were either too impetuous and had their heads stuck in a fog, or were already busy with their own business. He made a wiseguy out of me. I was only working at the nightclub for five months when I started helping out with the card and dice games Mama Imoguiri organizes in the nightclub on Friday nights. I helped in assembling the crap games tables, which were just like the ones they have in Roppongi. I went down to the pickup spots like the commercial avenue in front of Chiba station, or our cabstand on Sakaemachiazuma street to steer high-rollers to our games.

Those games were fabulous. There were always thirty, forty guys playing. It was easy to just go to Tokyo where there were legit casinos but for the lazy, and those who wanted to avoid getting tripped on by hustlers, the neighbourhood games were just as good, if not better. We had boxmen and stickmen just like in regular casinos. I wasn't a fan of gambling, so I played the lookout. I'd sit down on a folding chair in front of The Grandeur, reading my textbook while keeping an eye out for cops. We didn't have to worry about the local cops, because Manny had them bribed. It got so that I could recognize plainclothesmen. They had a way of walking that says, "don't fuck with me, I'm a cop!" They wore their polo shirts outside their pants to hide their pistol and handcuffs underneath. But even a kid could tell if a car was a police vehicle. They had those little antennas on the rear window, which shouldn't be there. You'd know when you see it if it's legit or a stick-on radio component.

Then there was the infamous "counter fourteen" that I helped devise. That was one of the first big schemes I took part in. A guy in our crew who worked at the supermarket in the next district was involved. We were talking about other ways we could make money, and that's when we came up with the bizarre idea of setting up a false counter in JUNNU supermarket. So next week, we squeezed inside the schedule for a renovation. I called the construction company and told them to delay the work by a week. Meanwhile Hanzo and several of our crew posed as workmen who were there for the job. They raised an identical counter at the very end of the line, numbered "14". There were originally only thirteen counters. I couldn't believe it worked. Our guy was checking in purchased goods just like a regular counter, but all of the money went into our pockets. Nobody noticed. Manny said he hadn't seen anything like it. I still couldn't believe my idea worked - I was half joking when I said, "well, just put up a fake register or something."

We kept that scheme running for nearly a month, but by that time we had made a huge fortune out of it. The workmen came back and said counter 14 wasn't supposed to be there. Our guy was arrested, but he kept his mouth shut during the whole ordeal. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. They had no proof. The police went nuts. He went free, but of course he was fired. That month, he made more money than he ever could in a year.

Point is, there's opportunity everywhere. You just had to know where to look, and how to take advantage of it. I've started another scheme once again, and there is no going back. I'm going to finish what we have started. I needed money because I wanted to see my family again, to finish my education, and to leave the country. It wasn't like I was dirt-poor, but it's better to have too much than too little money.

My father hadn't been the nicest to me for most of my life, but I cannot deny that he was the figure of motivation for me to move on. My resentment towards him gradually turned into respect and admiration, because he was part of what made me who I am today. I was motivated to not become the same kind of guy he was. He was typical. He stood in the pay line waiting for his turn. He followed the rules, was stuck in a low-paying job, worried about our bills, put away tiny amounts for rainy days, kept his place, and crossed off dates on his kitchen calendar like a prisoner awaiting his release - it was foolish. I decided my old man's life wasn't going to be mine. I refuse to accept the fate of becoming a corporate slave. I'd rather be in the city hustling 24/7 than slaving away in an office from 9 to 5.

My father only gave me so many useful life lessons that I could count them by the fingers, but when he did, it was to prove priceless. I knew I was a weak, humble kid for most of my life, and never really strove to become the best version of myself. I was happy with mediocrity. But deep inside, a sliver of ambition whispered that I was destined for greater things. By all means, I'm not going to become a giant of history like Alexander or Caesar, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to aim a little higher than a house-husband with an office job.

My father pulled me aside one day, seeing that I was the only one in fifth grade who chose "office boy" as their dream job, while my classmates ambitiously dreamed of becoming astronauts, presidents, artists and rock stars. I didn't know he was disappointed that I wanted to become just like him, an office boy. He said to me in a stern voice, "you want to become an office boy? What kind of shit is that? Listen son, we both know not everybody can be astronauts, but the only thing stopping you from achieving your goals is that bullshit story you tell yourself everyday as to why you can't achieve it."

Sure, he was a bit crude but he has his own points. I was just a worthless, irrelevant pawn in the grand scheme of things, and it wouldn't matter if I ceased to exist. That was the bullshit story I fondly told myself every day since I was labeled the outcast of the class. It was true, but does it have to be? Well, enough of that self deprecating conviction.

Now, everyone can agree on a principal goal that is always relevant: get rich. Simple, reasonable and achievable. They say money can't buy happiness. I beg to differ. Anyone who tells you that probably didn't have any. Money doesn't just buy you a better life, better food, better cars, better women… it also makes you a better person. Hey, you can donate to the church or any political party of your choosing (though that's probably the stupidest way to spend it.) The truth is it's easier to be a good person when you're rich.

Say what you will, but there is no such thing as clean money. Protection rackets, extortion, controlling the businesses on the street and gambling are just one of the countless ways to earn bread. Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class. We've got worse criminals in the National Diet than on the city streets. A politician with his briefcase can steal more money than a hundred men with guns.

Anyway, at the moment there's no point in informing the rest of the crew at the nightclub of this development. Manny doesn't have anything to do with this, and everyone else doesn't know what to do next. Nobody was touching the stuff. My plan was to turn over the guns to the police, but for a price. Selling it was out of the question, but I'm not about to give up this opportunity that easily. In this world, everything has a price. If the police want these guns back so badly, they'll have to pay, just like everyone else. If everything goes south, then Matsudo's last resort plan would be to dump the guns into a river, where the police would have a hard time looking for it. Honestly, I wouldn't want to get into very serious crime. But there's no use playing the saint. Right now, this is all words and until I begin my first opening move, there really is no telling how it could all play out.

Is it just me, or am I starting to sound like a criminal mastermind megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and ramblings of a wannabe gangster? Well… nobody knows what I'm thinking. And that's the beauty of it all. Anyway, after all this is done I'll fly over to the States and spend Christmas with my family. As usual, it's just good business.