Re-Negotiation

It was a good thing that Junichi Kanamaru was the type of person who wasn’t easily spooked. It must have gone hand-in-hand with his appetite to take risks in the pursuit of profit; Scared people are easy marks. Kanamaru ‘s latest scheme was the oldest trick in the book- buying up preserved food and snacks from out of the city where they weren’t quite as scarce and reselling them to students in the fourth-year homeroom on the top floor of the school’s annex. It had at least kept Hosoya and Ootake busy and focused on something other than extracting favors from me. Not that they had any leverage on me, now- Ayasa couldn’t be blackmailed by proxy anymore.

The fourth year classroom was normally deserted- not even used by most of the actual fourth years, who preferred to stay with the third year classes so as not to stand out. Today, however, it was livelier than usual. Kanamaru and his goons had set up a small bazaar out of the desks, stocked with a surprising quantity of hard-to-get foods and sanitary products. The markups were just low enough to not be completely absurd- Kanamaru really did have a sense for this. A few students were milling about, probably caught in a difficult dilemma of comparing their thin wallets to the price-gouging merchandise.

“When you said ‘I know a guy,’ you could have just told me it was Kanamaru. This isn’t really raising my confidence in our little adventure.”

Hiroki knew just as well as anyone that Kanamaru was renowned for his sleaze. Thankfully, he hadn’t heard all the details of my “working relationship.” That would have really shaken his confidence.

“It’s fine. Kanamaru doesn’t look the part, but he has some serious skills when the situation calls for it.”

“Oh?”

“Well, he got me in and out once. That’s a hundred percent success so far.”

“That’s a small sample.”

“He’s done it before, too.”

Ootake was guarding some of the personal hygiene products laid out on the rear table. He spotted me before any of the others.

“Hey Jun! The freshman’s back!”

Kanamaru had been sitting behind a small divider in the back of the classroom- stolen from the nurse’s office, maybe? It wasn’t clear what he had been doing back there- Hosoya was counting money in open view, so perhaps it was just so that he could enter with dramatic flair. Kanamaru must have sensed that I wasn’t alone, as he entered with his usual greasy charm- and more importantly, without any implicit threats.

“FreshieeeEEE! Come to sample my fine wares, have you?”

“No.”

Kanamaru frowned, but didn’t drop the facade. It seemed he was keeping up appearances in front of the other students.

“Oh-ho-ho. Well, now, since you’re here, I’m sure you’ll want to. I have all sorts of rare delicacies, such as-”

He leafed around the table, searching for anything that could be described with words other than mundane. Finally, he settled on some chocolate snacks. I could feel a heavy sigh wanting to escape him as he returned to his TV-salesman routine.

“These fine sticks of cinnamon and rich, creamy-”

“Cut the crap. I need your help.”

“Oh.”

Hosoya had by now come over to see what the fuss was about.

“You want Jun’s help, huh? The boss isn’t handing out favors today, freshman. Come back later.”

“No. It has to be now.”

Hiroki was wisely standing back from this scene. Hosoya’s typical brutishness was starting to show.

“When did you start making demands, freshman?”

“Quit playing tough. I came here to talk to Kanamaru, not you.”

Kanamaru had also backed off from this one, smirking slightly. He seemed to enjoy playing the part of the mob boss letting his enforcers do the talking.

“Jun’s not interested. If you’re not here to buy, leave.”

“This is more important than-”

“Leave, freshman. We’re trying to run a business here.”

Hosoya shoved me back. Kanamaru disappeared behind the screen again- to do what? It was unclear what he could do back there. It was too small even to hide a single desk. He was just sitting there, pretending to be important.

Business, business. It was just a pathetically transparent price-gouging scheme no doubt made possible by Hosoya and Ootake’s willingness to haul boxes full of stuff from out of town.

“We need to rethink this.”

Hiroki had been snickering to himself, quietly. The whole situation seemed to greatly amuse him.

“Any thoughts?”

“Kanamaru really loves this whole ‘mafia boss’ farce. I thought you said he was a more serious person?”

“I said he had serious skills, not that he was a serious person. He loves theatrics.”

“Play into it, then.”

Hiroki winked. It was a little obnoxious.

Business. That was it. He wanted to play the part of a businessman. I needed to play that part, too. I walked back to Hosoya, making sure to strut about like I was some kind of C-suite exec trying to close a contract. I could hear Hiroki chuckling under his breath again.

“I have a business proposition for Kanamaru.”

“I told you to leave, freshie.”

Hosoya wouldn’t budge.

“I’m sure he’d be interested. It’s a good way of paying him back.”

This caught Kanamaru’s attention. He left his stupid little curtain enclosure again.

“Oooh, thinking about paying me back, finally?”

“Finally? Hosoya’s been collecting ‘Interest’ from me for the past few weeks!”

Hosoya’s tough guy act started to crack. Kanamaru wheeled his head about in partly-exaggerated but partly-real shock.

“You’ve been collecting on my debt?”

Hosoya was caught.

“Uh…”

Kanamaru dropped the mob boss act for a second to castigate Hosoya.

“Hosoya! We AGREED that I would collect the payments and compensate YOU for the starting investment. YOU don’t get to just keep that money!”

Evidently there had been some arrangement among the fourth years as to when and how I could be extorted. Hosoya had been taking liberties with his requests. The other students in the room were starting to notice the commotion. Kanamaru took a look around.

“Last Call, everyone! Pay or leave! Ootake, handle the customers!”

Ootake nodded and began to cajole the customers to buy something or get out. Kanamaru glared back at Hosoya.

“Guard the door. I don’t want any of these kids thinking they can steal from me.”

Hosoya protested, but Kanamaru was clearly done with him. He dismissed him with a wave. Hosoya complied with his orders, bitterly.

“Freshman. Let’s talk business.”

Kanamaru invited me over to the little enclosure he had made. There was nothing in it but a few chairs. He swung the screen out to block the view of the rest of class.

“Who’s this?”

Kanamaru nodded to Hiroki, who had joined us.

“Hiroki Shinji, a colleague of mine.”

Kanamaru clicked his tongue.

“Drop the bullshit, freshman. Just say he’s your classmate.”

Hiroki laughed at that, but Kanamaru’s ticked-off face told me he didn’t mean it as a joke.

“Ok. He’s my classmate.”

“And?”

“And…”

“What do you want, freshman? I know you didn’t come here with a business plan.”

Kanamaru’s frankness caught me off guard. Just a few seconds ago, he had been reveling in his pretend gang operation, and now he had dropped all such pretense. Was it just a show for his goons?

“I want to go to the North.”

“Buy a compass, then.”

“You know what I mean, Kanamaru. I think you have another way in.”

“Now, what on Earth could you mean?”

Kanamaru raised his eyebrows, as if to signal something to me.

“The rat tunnel. You must have another-”

Kanamaru aggressively nodded his head. Oh, he was nodding towards Hiroki.”

“It’s okay. He knows about the TV tuner scheme.”

Kanamaru exhaled in frustration.

“Should have said something sooner, freshman. I thought I told you to keep it between us- me and you. Not your friend, here. I’m pretty sure I was VERY explicit about-”

“It’s fine. Hiroki’s trustworthy.”

“I’ll decide that myself. Why would you think I have another rat tunnel? And if I did, why would I share it with you? You ruined my last one with that stunt.”

“That wasn’t my fault, and you know it.”

Kanamaru grunted, but didn’t dispute the point.

“We need to get to the North.”

“Right now? You’re suicidal, freshie. Shinji, was it? Whatever he’s selling you on, it isn’t worth it.”

Hiroki spoke to defend me.

“I know, but I’ve gotta look out for him.”

That wasn’t really a great defense.

“Well, I don’t have another rat tunnel, so forget it.”

“I think you have another way in.”

Kanamaru raised his eyebrow.

“Oh? What makes you think that?”

It was something about the route we had taken that night. Something didn’t make sense- it was so close to his “Droog” and his place of business that it hardly seemed coincidental- and there was the mysterious hole in the drainage pipe that led to the flooded basement. Who would think to just start chipping away at a concrete wall hoping that it would lead somewhere else? It didn’t make any sense for Kanamaru to have found that route himself.

“Well. You have a sense for this thing, freshman. All right, I didn’t find the rat tunnel myself. I learned about it from Toshi. He was using it to smuggle stuff out. I guess he got got, though. Still, that’s the only rat tunnel I’ve ever known about.”

“You had to meet this Toshi person in the North somehow. There’s another way in.”

Hiroki had picked up on it, too. Now he was poking holes in Kanamaru’s story.

“Well, yes. There is another way in. Are you trying to ruin that for me, too?”

“I need to go there.”

“Now? Why? You’d get shot. Place is crawling with more commies than usual. I don’t want my debtors getting themselves executed. Even life insurance won’t cover you for that.”

“It’s to help a friend.”

Kanamaru blinked a few times, then sighed.

“It’s that girl, isn’t it? The Northern chick you dragged? What, does she want you to get her little brother out?”

“She’s…back there.”

Kanamaru slumped back in his chair and took a deep breath. He affixed his gaze on the fluorescent bulb overhead.

“Listen, freshie. I don’t want to break your heart, but she’s probably dead or in a camp somewhere if the reds got to her.”

“She’s alive. I saw her.”

“No shit? Well, she’s the luckiest escapee I’ve ever heard of. You sure you’re not confused?”

“Positive.”

Kanamaru sat up.

“Alright. Well, if you’re so sure, I gotta respect that. Yeah, there is another way in. But right now, it’s a one way trip.”

I nodded. Hiroki was also listening intently.

“So, about half a year ago, I was out running my usual trade. The Soviet soldiers who come down to party in Ginza absolutely looove to buy old western electronics - old MP3 players, CD players, clock radios- that sort of cheap crap that nobody cares about. You can pick it out of landfills and sell it for at least what people paid for it back when it was new.”

“How does this have to do-”

“Shush. I’m getting there. So anyway, I’m plying my trade when I meet this guy. A little different, older than the others. Speaks Japanese pretty well. His name is Major Alexey Casimirovich, or something like that. It’s not important. He wants to buy a TV from me. Now, I don’t sell TVs- they’re a little too expensive and too big, and most of the commies don’t have that kind of change. So he tells me-”

“Is this really relevant?”

Hiroki was getting exasperated with this shaggy dog story too.

“Oh, just- fine. I’ll cut to the chase. He says he can’t pay me with cash, but he can trade me something useful. I ask what he means by that, and he says ‘Let me show you.’ So I ask him what he means and- Bam! He’s pulling up a jeep. He says ‘get in,’ so I get in. Takes me to the border. Now, at this point I’m getting pretty freaked out- am I getting kidnapped? But he says, ‘Hide in the backseat’ and drops a winter coat on me. They stop him at the border and say they gotta check the vehicle, but he starts chewing out the Northerners they got running the checkpoint. They let him go without looking in the backseat.”

I was getting drawn into the story. Kanamaru had a good backup career as a rakugo artist if the mafia boss thing didn’t work out.

“Anyway, turns out what he means by ‘useful’ is a bunch of old Makarovs and Tokarevs he wants to pawn off. Now, I don’t do illegal stuff like guns. Too much risk of running into a sting operation, and you gotta know some sketchy people to make a real sale. So I tell him ‘deal’s off’ and he dumps me there outside the armory and threatens to report me to the CitPols. So I run off, and run into Toshi coming back from one of his runs. He says he can get me back if I do him a favor and- well, you know the rest.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. The first TV tuners I brought over were just repayment for saving my ass. Then I did it a few more times for cash. I wasn’t expecting he’d screw us over after working together for so long.”

Hiroki cleared his throat. Kanamaru snapped back into focus.

“Oh, right, the way in. So the point is - find a Russian convoy in Ginza. They run them frequently on the weekends. Look for one of those big Ural trucks, the kind that all the soldiers ride in the back of. Hide somewhere the Russkies won’t care to look. Don’t pick the first one of the convoy - the border police get confrontational with the soldiers and they’ll just let you back in without searching too much. Don’t try to go back that way, though- they’re much more thorough searching the trucks that leave the North than the ones that are going back in. I guess they’re not really concerned that anyone might want to sneak into utopia.”