The basement of Yuhan Cathedral was the same as ever, even after so long. I looked around the damp underground space. In that pitch-black place where not a single sliver of light came in, only one bare incandescent bulb glowed. Even a footstep rang out with a heavy thud, but there was no chance the sound would leak up to the cathedral. How many damn stairs had we come down from the cathedral to get here? I touched the LP player shoved into the corner. Something had changed, at least. Maybe it was my younger uncle’s taste, but a few records were stacked beside the vinyl.
I chose Schubert’s “Erlking.” The LP player turned, and the dramatic prelude flowed out. I turned around and looked at the producer, whose limbs were tied tight to a chair. His arms were bound behind the chair, and both ankles were taped together with duct tape. What kind of face would he make when he woke up? As expected of a bastard who could not even pretend to be decent, the producer’s eyes twitched. Then he opened them. Once his dazed face finished grasping the situation, it filled with shock. The song began its story.
My child, what frightens you so that you hide your face?
Father, Father, can you not see the Erlking? The Erlking with his crown and long robe…
I gestured to the neat-looking gangster standing beside the producer. The bastard grabbed the producer by the hair with practiced ease and yanked his head back. I went closer and looked down at the producer’s face shoved into the water-filled tank. The producer bastard thrashed, bubbles bursting from the water. Then even his frantic struggling from lack of air must have become too much, because his movements slowed.
The gangster grabbed the producer by the hair and lifted his head just as his consciousness was about to go out. The producer coughed roughly and gulped in air. His face, soaked from all the water he had swallowed, was worth seeing. Confusion, fear, anger. The emotions all mixed together made him look like a stray cat that had been bitten on the scruff by a rat. I bent my knees and met the producer bastard’s eyes. I lightly patted his cheek. Then I smiled gently and spoke.
“Do you feel a little more like talking now?”
“Park Yuha, you…! You fucking son of a bitch, this is kidnapping and confinement! And attempted murder on top of that! Do you think I’ll let you get away with this?!”
Now this bastard was funny. How did he know whether it would end as attempted murder or murder? I smiled brightly and kicked the chair over backward. I watched indifferently as the producer bastard flailed. He spasmed with a body that could not even move, then gradually quieted down.
I signaled to the gangster, and he hauled the producer bastard upright again. The drenched producer sucked in ragged breaths. I grabbed his chin, forced it up, and made him meet my eyes.
“What are you going to do if you don’t let me get away with it?”
“Hah, cough, cough!”
“I’m going to kill you before that, though.”
“Hah, kill a person? Go on, kill me! Try killing me!”
With bloodshot eyes, the producer bastard spouted something strange.
“Why say it so harshly? When did I say I was going to kill a person?”
“I knew it! What killing, you fucking bastard!”
“Where is there a person here worth killing? There’s only garbage worth cleaning up.”
“…Garbage?”
“Yeah. You.”
I stepped on the producer’s foot and slowly ground it down. The bastard’s screaming was fucking loud. Why was this garbage son of a bitch shrieking and ruining a great masterpiece? I waved roughly at the gangster, and he shoved a rag into the producer’s mouth. Since the producer bastard kept making muffled noises and acting up, I pressed his face down with my palm and shoved it back into the tub. After repeating that about five times, the light in the producer bastard’s eyes began to die. Still, this was not enough.
I turned my gaze to the man sprawled near the producer. He was the bastard who had tailed me earlier. Covered in blood, he looked as if his breath might stop at any moment. I told the producer to watch carefully, then walked over to the blood-soaked bastard. People like that always existed. Idiots who could not grasp the situation unless you showed it to them directly. I took the jackknife from the pocket of my long padded coat and gripped it. Then I grabbed the fallen bastard’s wrist, pinned it down tight, and drove the jackknife into the back of his hand. The bastard screamed in a sharp, grating voice and came to.
“Aaagh! Ngh…! Hah, hah…….”
“Where are you from? And what’s your relationship with the TJ division director?”
“H-Hongjin…!”
“Hongjin? What the hell is that?”
The gangster who had been standing still cut in.
“It’s probably an organization that came up from Busan. Recently, they’ve been expanding their power around clubs.”
I nodded and told the bastard from “Hongjin” to explain his relationship with the rich conglomerate bastard. The bastard trembled as he stammered through it. According to him, they were business partners with TJ Group, but in reality, they were probably handling dirty work for them from behind the scenes. Still, the nuance was a little odd. I could not tell whether they came to Seoul and got involved with TJ Group, or whether they came to Seoul because they were already involved with TJ Group.
There was one piece of information I could get from this son of a bitch for certain. The person who ordered it was Park Yuhyeon, and the organization he belonged to was Hongjin. I tightened my grip on the jackknife and pulled it upward. With the sound of bone grinding and twisting, the bastard’s tearing scream burst out. It had gone in nice and deep. I turned the jackknife caught in his knuckle joints 180 degrees. Then I put strength into my hand and yanked the jackknife out in one go. As the bone shattered, the bastard’s eyes rolled back. I slapped the bastard’s cheek a couple of times when he could not get his senses together.
“Is it Hongjin, or Park Yuhyeon personally?”
“Hah, ha, hngh…….”
“Answer me. Want me to wreck your other hand too?”
“No, that, hngh, I don’t know what you mean…….”
The bastard’s work had been sloppy, and his head was just as slow. I kindly, slowly, and gently explained.
“I’m asking whether you’re doing this bullshit alone after being hired by Park Yuhyeon, or whether your organization is in on the bullshit too.”
“…Alone. I was hired alone.”
“So it has nothing to do with Hongjin?”
“Yes, yes, we’re close with the TJ division director, and that division director is close with that prosecutor bastard Park Yuhyeon…… So I just happened to get hired. It has nothing to do with our organization.”
Even as he shivered, the bastard spoke desperately and glanced sideways at the gangster behind me. I could tell what that dumbass was thinking. He must have realized he had fucked with the wrong person. Any bastard running his mouth about doing gangster work on the streets of Seoul knew my younger uncle’s organization, one way or another. Whether they had heard about it in passing or seen it from a distance.
The bastard was afraid this might spread into an organization war because of his dumb ass. For a bastard who had accepted a personal job and tried to kill a civilian, he was pretty damn funny. The safety of his organization mattered more than a human life.
I looked at the dumbass bastard. He stared back at me with desperate eyes, as if he had forgotten even the pain. If my younger uncle stepped in, Hongjin or whatever would collapse easily. But that would not be fun, and more importantly, we were not at that stage yet.
I looked once at the desperate bastard, looked once at the producer bastard whose face had gone white, then smiled pleasantly. Even if I asked the bastard more, he was only a low-ranking thug, so not much would come out. I grabbed the head of the bastard who was trying to babble something more and slammed it hard into the floor. There was a sound like his skull bursting, and silence fell.
After staring at him for a moment, I walked slowly to stand in front of the producer. The producer drew in a breath.
The way he was so terrified he could not even meet my eyes properly showed he had grasped the situation at least a little. Looks like it worked. Even so, I had never planned to kill him like the bastard sent by “Hongjin.” A gangster bastard had no one who would look for him by legal means if he disappeared, and if I simply let him go, the scale of the fucked-up things he did might get a hell of a lot bigger, so I killed him. But the producer bastard was technically a civilian whose face was somewhat known, so I could not touch him carelessly. More than anything, I had a use for him.
I spoke deliberately slowly.
“I usually clean up garbage neatly. If you leave it alone, who knows what kind of shit it’ll spew behind your back, right? But I’m softhearted, so I’m a little conflicted.”
“…….”
“Do you want to live, producer?”
“P-please… please spare me…….”
“You said you wouldn’t let me get away with this. If I spare you, you’ll pull some dogshit again.”
I looked at the producer with an expressionless face.
“I’ll stay quiet! I absolutely won’t do anything!”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
“Anything, I’ll do… anything you tell me to!”
“That goes without saying.”
The producer looked stupidly blank. I wanted something certain. I needed confidence that no matter what I did, he would not stab me in the back. That certainty would be made by holding his life in my hand. Bastards like this had especially many weaknesses. Sons of bitches who made dirty money doing filthy things were strangely terrified of falling all the way down. Almost to the point of fear.
Maybe they were even more scared because they had experience sending several people’s lives to hell so easily. Ruining one person’s life was fucking easy. In the case of celebrities, burying them was even easier. You just had to keep them off TV or intentionally flood the press with nothing but bad articles. In fact, this producer bastard had ruined the lives of several idols he disliked.
A civilian’s life was no different. Ruining anything was easy. I spoke lightly.
“People are funny. They think things like ‘tragedy’ or ‘misfortune’ won’t happen in their own lives, don’t they? But three days is enough to make the thirty-eight years you’ve built into a fucking mess, producer.”
“…….”
“Do you think it’ll be over if you get out of here alive? Gangsters will be watching you twenty-four hours a day, and if it looks like you’re trying anything funny, your sexual entertainment and bribery cases will be the first things we release.”
“…….”
“After that, we’ll have you thrown out of the broadcasting station, and we could kidnap you without a mouse or a bird knowing. Or we could create debts you don’t even know about and sell your organs. Cleaning up garbage like you without leaving a trace is nothing.”
I smiled innocently and continued.
“On the other hand, if you listen well, I’ll compensate you accordingly. Whether it’s money or anything else, I’ll give you far more than whoever’s backing you now.”
I placed a hand on the producer’s tightly hunched shoulder and met his eyes.
“If you have a brain, choose the right line to stand in. No matter who’s behind you, they won’t even be a match for me.”
The song reached its end. The Erlking whispered. If you will not come with me willingly, then I must use force. The child cried in a tearing voice. Father, Father, the Erlking has seized me now.
I told the producer what I wanted, and the producer nodded along like an obedient believer. Then he even vomited up everything I had not asked him.
The song ended. In his arms, the child’s breath had gone out, and he was dead. I turned back and switched off the LP player shoved into the corner. The gangster, carrying the half-out-of-his-mind producer on his shoulder, followed behind me.